A day in the life of...

So, I’m writing this blog Tuesday night I’m slowly making my way through my extensive rap collection (If you’re not sure, that was slight sarcasm). I just finished It’s Tricky by Run DMC and now 2Pac’s talking about Changes. You just get in those moods sometimes. Yeah…

My workdays have been good. These two weeks I go from school to school spreading the news about the program Sin Excusas by Decisiones (the place I work). In general terms it’s a program to teach teachers, its ultimate goal being to improve the character of kids, steering them away from alcohol, drugs and premarital sex, among other things. Let me break down my by taking you through how today (a typical day) went. Note: times are estimates.

6:54 a.m. I walk the two seemingly insurmountable blocks to work and press the doorbell. I wait a minute or two. Surprising cuz Sergio (secretary/anything else you need) is normally there to greet me. No Sergio today. Laura says hi (but in Spanish. don’t worry, I’ll translate when I can).

7:14 a.m. We prepare the fliers and invitations for the principals of all the different schools. Gabriel (fellow delivery, I won’t say boy, he’s very much a man, a former security guard/former/current (not sure which) boxer, but it’d probably take 3 me for it to be a fair fight) makes a comment how I’m like a maturing apple with my green polo. I’m confused. Things are slowly explained.

7:32 a.m. Fernando and I roll out in our sweet ’96 Toyota Camry. We say a prayer. He likes to make me pray in Spanish. I do, but poorly. I imagine God can fix my poor conjugation. (Yeah, praying in another language. That’s an interesting dynamic).

10:13 a.m. We visit our sixth school for the day. The directora is very excited to have us. She calls an emergency staff meeting so we can present directly to the teachers. Fernando tells me I can talk to them while he waits in the car. I politely decline.

11:29 a.m. We head to a local joint in Luque, a city just outside of Asuncion. I have my usual: ¼ chicken, yucca, salad and 350 mL of Coca-Cola. Delicious.

12:47 Fernando tells me that I’m going to present the program to the principal. I do, awkwardly stumbling through several of the key points before both the principal and I give a pleading looks to Fernando. He obliges.

1:19 We drink terere. This happens a lot. If you’re not familiar, you should get familiar. Link.

2:17 Some kid calls me rubio. This also happens a lot. It means blondie.

3:15 Fernando says, “let’s go, ho!” (in English, he likes to use a few words here and there) I laugh, and then ask him if he knows what he just said. He thinks ho is just a nonsense word or something that Santa Claus says (“you know,” he says, “like Santa Claus, Ho, Ho, Ho). I tell him otherwise. We head back to Decisiones.

3:35 We get back, and head home for the day. This is a bit earlier than normal but it we got to plenty of schools today, so it’s all good.

In other news, I’m pressing through my reading material, and I’m ready for more. I’ve read just about all that I’ve brought. Right now the only fresh meat on my bookshelf is the Politics of Jesus, and after slogging through the first chapter I remember I’m not a fan of John Howard Yoder’s sentence structure. Not good nighttime reading.

I’m having questions about my impact here too, I guess. What does me being here do for the people I come in contact with? Well, not lots. But that might change, and maybe I have made some sort of difference, I can’t answer with any sort of clear answer. I could meander more but this is so very public and I don’t think all of you are as quite as attentive as my mother would be. Good night.

dp

Dear reader,

It's been awhile. I hope you are all doing well wherever your are whether it be Indiana or Iowa, Kansas or Canberra. I've been doing well. I'm getting ready to hear to our last day of orientation, leaving the comfort of not really being expected to do much and entering the excitement of a new job.

So my little bro Marcos (2 1/2 yrs old) is pretty ridiculous. He likes breaking into my room and hiding in my closet, terrorizing the family turtles or blazing around the house pushing his cars trying to run into me. Last night after his bath he broke into the fridge (naked, of course), grabbed the Nutella (ok, its not really Nutella. but its chocolate you can spread), grabbed a spoon and looked for a spot to sit (still naked). After deciding none of the chairs in the house would suffice, he took his 2 1/2 year old naked self and awkwardly crawled to the top of the table. He proceeded to sit cross-legged and swallow three large spoonfuls of Nutellaish before being scolded by mother and being sat in a more appropriate place. I really think he's going to do great things with his life.

Fun things are happening and I'm meeting lots of cool people.

More coming soon...
Daniel

Another post.

Hello again. Things are relaxed. Work hasn’t been started, but we continue with our methodical 3 times a week lessons. Every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Monday we went to Laura’s house for lunch. Laura’s our teacher and I found out that day not only does she teach but she has an amazing family. And this cool old mauve Fiat that looks like it might be a Volkswagen Beetle but is really so much cooler. But her family’s great. I felt definitely and definitively welcomed walking past the curtains and into the kitchen where our feast was being prepared. A sister, mom and random neighbor girl (Moni, who enjoyed corrected my Spanish, dominated Naomi at whatever game they played, and practiced Kung Fu) greeted me and offered me something to drink, the bathroom, or a hammock (which is a verb in Spanish. to hammock. all right.). But their attitude with which they gave this genuine hospitality was memorable. They made me feel special and important.

After our morning lesson, terere and feast we watched Kung Fu Panda. Great Movie. Man, I don’t remember the last movie that made me giggle quite like that. It was good to sit back and watch a movie like that, because, well, the last movie I saw was Scarface and that’s no Kung Fu Panda. Yeah, Scarface isn’t the chuckle every other line kind of movie. At least it wasn’t for me and I hope it wasn’t for you.

It was hot too. 40 degrees celsius. I’ll let you do the math. Old Spice kind of failed me on my 20 minute walk home.

I’m enjoying it here. I haven’t settled into a definite role, because I’m not working at my job yet. I think this is where I’m supposed to be, but its hard to say, because so much of this first month has been structured to help us get comfortable, but right now it feels like its just delaying that process. My expectations weren’t the reality, which I was told was going to happen, but I somehow didn’t believe. Silly me. But I’m excited. Excited for this year. And ready to start working.