Trip to Argentina

By the time I post this we will have been to Argentina and back. (we have to leave the country in order to renew our visas) I may even have more photos to post! --But really that's all I have been doing lately isn't it? Posting photos that is. I have the feeling it's about time for a real update - get ready - here it comes...

The Radical Journey group met for the first time with our leader Marta and after that meeting I decided to change my work. Let me explain. Until now Marta has been in Mexico with her daughter who was having her first child, she has now returned to Paraguay. When we got here things were a little confused and, at least as far as my job was concerned, they just put me in the church and I was led to believe that I was a volunteer IN the church and I was to work FOR the church. Nothing else. It was not what I expected. When Marta came back and heard that she informed me that working in an office as the assistant to a secretary is NOT what I am in Paraguay to do. She suggested a few places I could volunteer and said that it is at my discretion - where I am going to volunteer.

There is a day care down the street named Alto Refugio (in English "High Refuge"), the day care takes care of children whos parent(s) have HIV/AIDS, they also help the parents with health care and raise awareness about HIV/AIDS. There are around 400 children registered but only 10-15 are dropped off daily, 3-4 of which are regulars. I have talked with the directors at Alto Refugio and will probably be starting there the 18th of January.

There are a couple more painting projects that Emanuel (the church) wants done, so I will still be working there some of the time, but the majority of my time I will be at Alto Refugio.

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This is pretty long so if you dont want to read it all here's a table of contents of sorts (nice of me huh)

(Intro)

Paragraph 1: getting the tickets and first bus

P2: getting thru customs

P3: 2nd bus ride

P4: the hostil

P5: Walking to Brasil and monday night

P6 and pics: Iguazu falls

P7: Tuesday afternoon

P8: Stuck in Argentina

Back from Argentina! and it was an awesome trip! - even though a lot of things went wrong... (or maybe because of it...makes things more interesting right?)

We had a little trouble getting our tickets to begin with but finally Saturday afternoon Daniel was able to buy them..that seemed to set the pace for the rest of the trip. Sunday at 10:30pm we met at the bus terminal in Asuncion, Ruth arriving around 11. We got on our bus at midnight and headed south to the boarder city of Encarnacion. I slept most of the way there and the 5 1/2 hour ride went pretty quickly. Once in Encarnacion we found a bus that went to the Paraguay / Argentina boarder. It was standing room only in the bus but the ride wasn't long.

At the customs station on the PY side everything was going smoothly until the lady behind the counter noticed something about our passports. Three of them had already been stamped to admit us into Argentina, but she demanded them all back and when Daniel asked if there was a problem she responded curtly "Si hay una problema!" (Yes there is a problem!) We found out that according to the date on the passports we had been in PY 91 days instead of the 90 days allowed. We would have to pay a fine, she said, of Gs. 162,000 (about $36) per person. We argued with her for a while because to be fair, our plane had arrived on Sept. 21 at 10:30am. -it wouldnt be 91 days for another 4 1/2 hours, but we couldnt prove that. She finally told us that she would accept Gs. 200,000 (for her own pocket, a bribe) stamp our passports and let us through. After debating among ourselves we turned down the bribe, paid the fines in full and went through to Argentina.

We took a bus over the river seperating the countries and on the other side, at the Argentina customs station there was a mad rush from the bus and we ended up 3/4 of the way back in the "line" (more of a mob) after 45 minutes we got to the front and had our passports stamped with no problems.

We took another bus to the terminal in Posadas, Argentina. The terminal looked a little shady, housing only a few drunk guys and some others passing around mate (the hot form of terere). We were there for only half an hour at most before our next bus arrived. - it was at this terminal that we first encountered bathrooms that charged for toilet paper, 2 pesos for a pre-determined amount. We got on the bus that would take us to Puerto Iguazu, where we planned to stay the night and go visit the famous Iguazu Falls. The bus we got on was a double decker (we were pretty excited about that). Since this was a day time ride they showed movies during the ride, Tropic Thunder and then My Mummy. The second of which is probably the dumbest movie i have ever seen...and i've seen some dumb movies. These movies were in English with Spanish subtitles.

We arrived in Iguazu probably around 2pm. We walked a short distance and found the hostil we would be staying at. The place had a book exchange - to take a book it cost 2 pesos plus a book to replace the one you took. If i had had a book to exchange i would have done it, about half were in English, others in Spanish, a couple in German, and one in what may have been Russian tho i'm not sure. We went up to our rooms which had AC and very very comfortable beds, as well as a TV with a few English channels. After checking out our rooms and resting a little we went out on the town.

We explored the streets a little and looked around for an ATM, because up to this point we had no Argentine currency, only Paraguayan. On the third try we found a working ATM which took Daniels card and we pulled out some money. We then checked out the center of town - looking through the little shops and hunting for a place to eat dinner. We found a nice outdoor restraunt which didnt cost too much so we ate there. We ordered two salads to share, then four of us had pasta and Jono had a hamburger - all of it was delicious! After supper Daniel told us about a place where the boarders of Argentina, Brasil, and Uraguay meet where theres an oblisk (the same kind of thing as the Washington Monument...) and you can look over all 3 countries at once. ...So we decided to walk a little way then maybe catch a bus the rest of the way. Ruth tells the story here:

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i will upload this video a little later...it's not working at the moment

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We then walked back into town...the short way, and bought some ice cream for our efforts. Back at the hostil we went to bed, and i gotta say, i think i slept better than i have in 2 or 3 months.

The next day we got up early and went to the breakfast provided, the milk that was there had gone sour, but there were some amazing rolls so it was ok. Around 7:30 we headed signed out of our rooms and went to the terminal to catch our bus to the Iguazu Falls national park.

The falls were...amazing! The first thing we did was go see the part named the Devils Throat.

We talked about staying to see more of the park and taking the 3:30 bus back to Posadas, but decided to stick with our origional plan and catch the 1:00 bus. So since we wanted to be out of the park by noon to get back in time we could only go on one more tour - we chose the Lower Circut, going to the bottom of some falls to look up at them from very close and get showered by the spray.

Trying to find the exit after that took a good hour, but we finally made it out (in time too...) and got a bus back to the terminal. After collecting our bags where they had let us keep them in the hostil we went to find our bus. ...by the time it was 1:00 and the bus hadnt even showed up yet we knew something was wrong so Daniel talked to the agent from the company we were traveling with. The lady called the bus driver and informed us that all the passangers coming from Posadas toward Iguazu had gotten off and since no one on our end had a confirmed ticket for 1:00 so he had turned around and gone home. We were a little frustrated, but we took it all in stride and decided we could just take the 3:30 bus. We had already bought some cold subs to eat for lunch on the bus so we took them back to the hostil and asked if we could eat them there. They allowed us to so we ate then exchanged Christmas gifts.

Rose gave us each a mask for Christmas which she thought went along with our personalities.

We walked around a little more, stopping at one of the shops we had found earlier where i bought a hand woven bag. We returned to the terminal and asked about the status of our bus... just to make sure it hadnt turned around too. It hadn't turned around...but it had encountered a road block. They weren't letting anyone through, and none of the agencies had busses coming in from Posadas. They told us it would be at least 4:00 until they knew anything more. We periodically asked for updates and by 4:30 we were tired of sitting in the bus terminal and decided to confirm our tickets for the next definite bus at 1:00am. We left our bags in the locker in the terminal and went back out on the town. We looked through more shops and generally just wondered around for about an hour then tired, headed back to the terminal. Later i went out and found a book store that had a few books in English, but since all my money was still in Paraguay currency i didnt buy anything. Back at the terminal we sat and talked and played word games until 6:30 or so. We went back out and looked for a place to eat, we wanted pizza so when one of the restraunts advertisers on the street told us about their pizza and pasta for a reasonable price we decided to eat there. None of us were quite hungry enough by then tho so we found a plaza to sit in and talked and told stories until 8:30 when we went back to the restraunt.

Sitting in the plaza biding our time until supper

And this was a NICE restraunt! the water we ordered was mineral water and came in glass bottles. The bread they gave us before hand was definitely hommeade and some of the best i have had at a restraunt (tasted like it was baked over and open fire) We ordered two pizzas, one with ham, cheese, pineapple, and peaches and the other with chicken, tuna, olives, cheese, and some spices. both were good but the pineapple peach was increadible! Afterwards we went out for ice cream again at the same place and headed back to the terminal around 11:00pm. We had to call the attendant of the lockers where our luggage was because she had gone home. We then settled down on some benches. We all ended up falling asleep, but Ruth woke up just in time to notice that everyone else in the terminal was gone and our bus was there. We groggily got on the bus and fell back to sleep - each of us got 2 seats to ourselves becuase we were (almost) the only ones on board. We crossed the boarder without any trouble this time and got back to the terminal in Posadas around 6:30. We had until 11:30 until our bus back to Asuncion left so we ate breakfast at a little restraunt and checked out the local market. We ended up in another plaza and people-watched until 11 or so when we headed back to the terminal and took the bus back. This time they showed war movies in Spanish the whole ride, Black Hawk Down, Behind Enemy Lines, and the beginning of Marines. We got back into Asuncion around 5:30 and took busses back to our respective houses.

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I spent 20 hours out of 66 hours on a bus.

I slept 2 of 3 nights in a bus

I slept for 3 hours on a wooden bench in public

We seemed to be countered at every turn but it was still the most fun i have had in a long time

if you would like to see more pictures of the trip click [Here].

Two things.

1. I realized I've been spelling "tetere" wrong this whole time. I believe the correct spelling is "terere" (that could be wrong too tho).

2. I realized that I have pictures of (most of) my host family that I have not put up in a blog yet. Here they are.

bottom up: me, Lorena, Catalina. Catalina is my host mom, I work with Lorena.

My host siblings. Bottom up: Ruth, Sara, and Santiago. I share a room with Sara.

Hmm what to write. This has been an interesting week.

All last week it rained.

Last sunday we didn't go to church because it was raining and the car is in the shop.

On monday I played futbol (soccer) with my family. barefoot. It was lots of fun and my team lost.

On tuesday I went to a Hillsong United concert and heard Spanish spoken with an Austrailian accent.

On wednesday night i was eaten by mosquitoes.

On thursday i made Christmas cards for the congregation at my church.

On friday i ate some delicious chocolate.

On saturday i went to youth group and played volleyball

On sunday (today) i watched "Back to the Future" in Spanish.

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2 pictures this time around.

Me in the church parking lot playing with a puppy who lives near the church. His name is Fido-le and he is very cute and very energetic

This is what i saw when i walked into the kitchen on the morning of my birthday. the basket of fruit you see there i had gotten as a present a few days before, and the thermos was a gift from my parents. (for drinking "tetere" - see my last post if you dont remember what that is)

One of the two phrases I have heard over and over these past couple weeks is "And now you know why we drink tetere in Paraguay." (the other is "Wow, you're almost as dark as me now!") Another name for tetere is "Paraguay tea". This is tetere:

It is drank cold through a "bombilla". This sourt of straw:

The reason they drink tetere in Paraguay is because it gets so hot in the summer. These past two weeks have been a foretaste of what the December and January (and probably part of February) are going to be like. Hot and humid. The highs get up to 38 or 39 celcius (around 100F) and the heat index will be a constant of 45C with peaks possibly up to 50C (113-122F) and humidity around 60-70%. Tetere is one of the people's answers to the heat, everyone carries a thermos of ice water and most have a "guampa" for the tea along as well.

Another thing about summer here - another responce to the heat, is that everything slows down. The midday siesta gets longer, people relax, and no one cares so much if things get done "on time".

So even though I am not looking forward to feeling that I can't go out in the sun for 2-3 months, I am going to enjoy the slower pace of life that comes with it.

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Today's picture is a mango tree.

This is a mango tree that is out in our back yard. You may be able to see that the mangos on it right now are beginning to rippen. This is one of around 7 or 8 trees immediately around our house. This one is a cross between mango and peach which makes the mangos less stringy and easier to eat. Mango trees make great shade trees and we sit under this one a lot to talk and drink tetere.

Do You Wanna Dance?

"Do ya do ya do ya do ya, do ya wanna dance?"

All of life is dance is it not?

When I heard this line of the song the other day I thought

(yes of Tom, but then)

of God asking me to dance by bringing me to Paraguay, or more accurately,

Paraguay -is- the dance.

He said to me

"Let's dance"

with a sly smile and I

-happily-

accepted the invitation.

Now I find myself out on the floor with the music playing and the dance begun - and I realize

that I don't know any of the steps.

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I feel like I'm supposed to say something profound here, or explain myself more fully - but I'm not going to. Take that little verse for what it is, make of it what you will.

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I love the storms here - the one which is in full force right now started out with a sporadic little drizzle three hours ago. An hour after it began i heard the first far away rumblings of thunder - not long after that the wind started - just as sporadically as the rain - blowing it sideways when they came together. Now there are great claps of thunder, and wind that sounds like it could blow down a full grown tree (tho I may be exaggerating a little for effect).

And then it's over.

Just like that.

It seems like everything here happens at the same lazy pace as this storm, taking 3 hours to reach it's screeching peak. The slow lifestyle affords me more time to think, which, admittedly, I don't quite like because my mind always wonders to one place. One which makes it real hard to remain content in South America.

(But after all, time goes at the same pace, no matter what i think of it)

At other times though, I'm glad for the time to reflect on what is going on, and have time to read "A Vuelta al Mundo en 80 días" ("Around the World in 80 Days" in Spanish) which takes quite a bit of concentration right now.

I am experiencing the laid back pace of life here - but like the storm, I wonder if Paraguay, for me, will ever reach that invigorating "screeching peak" before my 10 months (almost to 9 now) are over.

I wouldn't say that the beginning of the storm was boring. It was refreshing, it smelled like spring and cut the 90 degree heat for a few minutes at a time. But it definitely left something to be desired. The thunder told of bigger, more exciting things to come but held off on that promise for so long that I forgot about it until the wind interrupted my thoughts hours later.

So will the pace here seem to pick up to a feverish pitch before it just...stops...in mid July? Or will my life here remain this slow?

And if it does, will I learn to enjoy it?

American Pie?

I've heard people say that the Paraguayan culture is a lot different than the United States and it will take a lot of adjusting for me to get used to it. What they call "culture shock." I will admit that the culture is a little different, but if anything it seems a whole lot more friendly. I have been told multiple times by my host dad that I am family now and this is MY house. I am family. Everyone who I have been introduced to has been very accepting and overall friendly. My problem with all this is that i can only understand a very small percentage of what people say to me. I have yet to have what i would call an intelligent conversation with anyone in Castellano (the dialect of Spanish spoken here).

What all this means for me is that i don't think i have experienced culture shock so much as "language shock." I find myself hiding out in my room or anywhere away from people because it is so tiring constantly only hearing a language that i don't speak. (also somewhat frustrating not being able to understand what is going on in a conversation or on tv.)

I think the majority of the United States could dare to learn something from the people here. Instead of instantly rejecting those who don't speak English we should accept them and try to understand them whether or not they speak the language we hold in such high regard.

"And he said: 'I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.'"

- Matthew 18:2

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

- Matthew 6:21

not much to say right now. i am in Paraguay and i have a host family. I like them a lot, but i can't talk to them much because i don't know a whole lot of Spanish (or as they call it here "Castellano")

They say my name now is Naomi Cabrera - saying that i am now part of their family. My host father's name is Antonio, my host mother is Catalina. I have two host sisters, Sara and Ruth and one host brother, Santiago.

Like i said, they are all very nice, friendly people. I think it won't be too long until i really do feel like family with them.

Tomorrow we start Spanish classes. I'm looking forward to that.

"Jehova es mi pastor, nada me faltara"

Salmos 23:1

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want."

Psalms 23:1

Everything will turn out all right

So.

Three days until I leave Chicago. Three days until I leave the United States. Three days until there are only four people who will understand me when I speak English.

Really more like two days. Or two and a half. Paraguay team flies out at nine o'clock Sunday morning. Which means we are leaving this flat at five. In the morning.

It's exciting. And scary. There has been a nervous energy running through the entire group tonight.

I'm not even sure what to say about this ... this journey. The time has come for the teams to split and go in their own directions. Time for us to leave our families and loved ones for a year. Time for personal growth. Time for expanding world views.
Time for extreme excitement, and happiness as well as a penetrating loneliness.





"There is a time for everything
and a season for every activity under heaven"
(Ecclesiastes 3:1)


We are blessed.

All Together Now

To those of you who are trying to follow my blog, I'd like to say sorry about not posting very consistantly. I did try to post a couple days ago and blogspot (or Tim's computer) was acting up so i couldn't.
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Yesterday we did an excersize on hospitality. Krista sent us into Chicago and told us to spend the whole day being hospitable to others. It was Labor Day, and in the park we were at a march was being organized (apparently there is always some sort of march on Labor Day in Chicago.) This march was a protest of unfair treatment and deportation of immigrants in America. There were signs being held saying "No human is illegal" and chants ringing out crying "Obama, escucha, estamos de la lucha!" (Obama, listen, we are for the fight!) The people were a mix of white and Latin American, there were labor unions, politicions, families, and college students. There were speaches given in Spanish and in English, people handing out flyers and pamphlets promoting various causes (one about how much we need a Communist revolution) and everyone was (or seemed to be) actively, even aggressively, passionate about justice and immigration laws.
The march finally began and I walked with them, listening to the chants rippling from Spanish to English and back again.

By walking in the march I was attempting to show hospitality to immigrants. As I thought about it though, I wondered if the march really had anything to do with the kind of hospitality and love we are to show to others as followers of Christ. I honestly do care about the cause as I see it. It is a fight for the justice and liberation of people, of my family (family as I have come to understand it in the larger, global sense.) But did it really matter in the long run, or to anyone personally, that I walked a few blocks with a crowd of people who were much more vocal and passionate and informed than I?

Summer in the City

As the end of the week approaches i take a deep breath and exhale slowly....a sigh of relief that the first of 46 weeks is finally coming to an end. It has not been a bad week, just a slow one. And exahausting. We have done everything from sitting for hours listening to Darrel talk about things few of us will remember the next day, to riding Chicago's mass transit system in round-about ways just to observe the city. I think all of us are ready for a break this weekend. As for me though, i am beginning to recognize that the way i think is changing.

Today on the train i had the random urge to stand up and let an older man sit in my seat. He declined the invitation. But the very urge to offer him my seat surprised me. I'm not saying that i am ordinarilly rude to the elderly, just that i normally wouldn't have thought to offer the seat, much less actually have had the nerve to stand up and do it. Later at the Green Energy place there were several people working in a garden. One young man pushed a wheelbarrow near to where we were sitting and began picking up weeds which were strewn on the ground. Without even thinking about it i stood up and began helping him. This may not sound like much but it did open my eyes to the people around me.

...Come Together...

I don't have a whole lot of time to update right now as I don't have my own computer or a library card (yet) so I have to use other's resources.

We all arrived in Chicago last sunday and are now in orientation for the 4th day. We are living with an intentional community here in Uptown called Jesus People USA (JPUSA). We have been instructed to get to know our hosts; to eat with them, talk to them, learn from them etc. At first I was a little hesitent to approach random strangers and just start talking to them, but after a couple days i have realized just how friendly and caring everyone here is!

I love the people that i am living with here and i am very excited about the coming month and the year in Paraguay, though admittadly i have had my doubts.

Things you can pray for:

-i need to get over my irrational fear of being away from everyone and everything i know for a whole year.

-my amazing teammates and i in our quest to learn Spanish

-all of the teams that need to get along in close quarters for a month. Transparency and grace in our dealings with each other.

-as far as i know i still need quite a bit of funds to even go on this trip

...I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane...

Well, I finally got a blog up. As of this Saturday, that is 4 days from now, I am officially Outside the (nappanee/hesston) Bubble. I will be headed to Paraguay for 10 months with Radical Journey which is a mission program through Mennonite Mission Network. I finally got my visa application sent out a few days ago and I know it will soon be on it's way into the Embassy in Washington DC. I have a suitcase on the floor in my room, overflowing with clothes that I still need to decide whether or not to pack. There are preparations still to be made for my last hurrah fund raiser meal. Friends need to be hugged and said goodbye to, but I don't like goodbyes so I'll say "see ya later" instead. "See ya later." hah. "See ya in what feels like an eternity."
Oh well. Life is life and I am super excited about this new opportunity that God has led me forward to. A chance to grow and learn, see new things and get out of the bubble.
And yes there is a reason i keep mentioning a bubble...Anita i hope you read this ;)

Thanks all for your prayers, encouragement and support. see you in ... 11 months.