The End Is Nigh

for my PC service.

It has been about four months since I've written in the blog, and that is quite a long time I know. Lots has happened of course and now my service is winding down. Lets see...
August: was all about my idea to have an end of the year assembly for the parents, featuring each grade presenting an environmental theme that we did over the last two years. The vice principal liked the idea so I went home and put together something for each grade.

preschool, kindergarden and first grade: singing a song together called 'jaha jaguata' (let's go walk!) It's like the going on a bear hunt song where you stumble upon things in your journey that you can't possibly go around, so you must (climb, swim, trudge) through.

second grade's theme: Water. They will present where the water is found in our world and how much we can actually use.






third grade's theme: Trees. They will do 'The Giving Tree' as a play.


fourth grade's theme: They will present the mural I painted and explain what is extinction in the form of a tv nature show.


fifth grade's theme: Garbage. They will talk about recycling and the trash decomposition timeline.

sixth grade's theme: Migratory birds in Paraguay. They represent what we learned during our bird festivals.

So August was all about presenting the idea to the teachers and giving them the material for them to work on with the kids. I helped but had to leave them because ...
In September I was way busy!!
First I had my Close of Service conference. My entire G met up again for a three day training on what we need to do before we leave, what to expect when going home and everything in between.

At Iguazu falls

From there I went to Asuncion to collect my mother! Yes my mom came to visit me aaaaalllll the way down here in my little country. We spent some time in Asuncion meeting up with friends and going to the botanical garden, and when our lungs couldn't take it anymore we headed down to my town. My neighbors were so excited they came over to see my mom and bring over some samples of typical PY food and to tell me how old and ugly I was compared to my mom. We visited one of my schools so she could see my kindergarden class I worked with and she had her first taste of terere and liked it. All the kids cheered. We visited Lauren out in her site for my mom to get a taste of the countryside, which she loved. She got to see my blanket being made and make chipa and sopa paraguaya in the traditional brick oven (tatakua, was so good) and enjoy the family. Then we headed over to Argentiinaaa to go to Iguazu Falls. The journey there and back was not so premium and Ciudad del Este is just a dirty rip off but the falls, of course, are beautiful. We went on a tour of the Atlantic Forest with a guide and walked about the falls. Perfect day for it. Stayed in town for two nights and on the way back stopped in Villa Rica to visit another friend and see the carpinchos but 1. it was raining and 2. we had about half an hour. Back home she got to meet one of my Paraguayan friends and her family. They were so nice and generous to her, they gave her gifts and cooked us a great lunch. It was really nice. Then just like that it was time for her to go and time for me to get ready fooor....

A trip to Buenos Aires with a group of us girls. We had rented an apartment for the week for all of us, it was a lot of fun. We stayed in Palermo Soho and just toured around, shopped,saw Katy Perry, went on a gay pub crawl, ate alot and shopped some more. It was a great week. And that's pretty much all of Sept.

October: was general site stuff. Checking up with the school to see how it was going for our big day. Getting ready for a recycled art day with someone in Asuncion who turns tetra paks (the milk and juice boxes) into a material like wood. He was going to come to explain his project and do some crafts with the kids using garbage. Each year the school does a pedigogical fair for the parents to show off what the kids have worked on all year long. This year they decided to combine that with my assembly which was awesome news. It meant everyone would be really into it and people from the municipality would come and other schools and hopefully parents. I also met the trainees this month because I went in to do a training day about working in the schools.

November: Recycled art day, fair, more training activity, language exam. The recycled art day and fair were a huge success! Monday we made christmas trees out of plastic bottles and tetra paks, tues was practice for the fair and David's long field training (which I did last year, and David was one of my trainees..now look! full circle) passed through and I took them to see my school, we hung out at the firehouse and saw Rebecca's rabbits.
Wed was the fair! The director of PC came out and my director of the environmental sector as well. It went so well, I was so proud of what each grade did with their subject and how they presented it! The school was freshly painted for the event and the broken steps fixed too, so that was a plus. All the classrooms were decorated with the work they had done over the year and they looked great! After I went out with Lauren to David's site to meet back up with the trainees and help out. In David's site there is something very rare in Paraguay, a huge Taju tree. It's the national tree of PY and the one that was featured in my mural at the school. This tree must be over 450 years old. It's amazing to see a tree with that many years and even more amazing that it's in this country....with it's deforestation rates through the roof.
What else is happening this month... Black Eyed Peas concert! my medical and dentist exam (woohoo), thanksgiving and general preparing to leave.

and that's the update!