I'm here.

It’s been a week since I first landed on Paraguay soil, and it has been enjoyable. The people have been friendly and the schedule was kind enough to make so we arrived on the first day of spring (though yesterday was incredibly cold). I guess like anything incredibly new, it has come with a few surprises. The neatly-packaged two sentence description of what I’d be doing for the better part of a year was not in fact correct. I will not be working with MEDA Paraguay for the coming year.

I'm gonna be working with Desiciones a sex ed program. It took me a little bit to recover from this blow, as my mind was set on helping out with MEDA, I was very excited to work with economic development. Even for someone who adjusts to changes of plans well, this was a change that made me step back and say what? I reacted very negatively in my head, but I continued to listen. I needed to figure out what I was doing there. They told me that I’d be working with databases of high school students, maybe some photography and design work for their magazine as well as possibly updating the website. And this has helped me cope with the change. It’s not stuff I was trained to do, but I think I have enough of a base to learn as I go along. It’s work that will make me feel good and challenge me (I hope).

But yeah, the past week and a half has been overall enjoyable, meeting people, trying to communicate, sometimes succeeding, other times failing miserably, but I’m ready for this year here away from the comfort of my home and language.

Oh, and the other night I got lost. But its ok, because I only was lost for an hour and it wasn’t that dark when my host dad found me (curled up by the side of the road sucking my thumb). When you have general directions like go past the skinny park, turn right where there is a tall house, and you lose the telephone number of your destination and lack the address… It’s hard to get places. My family made me memorize our address and home phone number before I left the house the next morning.

Sometimes when I feel down I have one of those Dove Chocolates with the inspirational sort of quotes on them. They say cool things like, “Buy flowers for yourself today.” I did not do that, but the thought of maybe having flowers put a smile on my face.

So here’s the first post, I don’t know if I was very informative or descriptive, if you want more information e-mail me or comment saying “tell me more!” or something like that.

Daniel H. P.