Good Morning, From San Pedro!

The kids are still sleeping so I'm going to take a few more minutes here while I have the chance before we head off again. The hotel here isn't as sound proof as the ones I'm used to in North America. The heavy, wooden doors are extremely squeaky, the halls are all made of beautiful tile, but they are just one long echo-tube. The air conditioners in the rooms hum very, very loudly and once again, sleep was not the best. Oh well.

So I forgot to tell you about last night's adventure. After we had dinner at Pastor Marciel's home, he took us in his "auto" to the home where all the young people were playing volleyball and all the older people were observing and drinking terere'. Marciel's "auto" is a single horse drawn carriage. We really enjoyed that! Fred and Christopher rode up front with Marciel and Stephen and Timothy and I were on our backs on a blanket in the back observing the sky. It was dark, so we could see tons of stars! We could even see the Milky Way so clearly! It was beautiful!

Once we got to the home where we were headed, the boys were immediately drawn to the toys ... Timothy had a tin pail and a stick that he was initially banging on and then eventually turned it into his cooking pot. The adults were humored by his offerings of fish, chicken noodle soup and tea. Stephen set up a little mini-golf game with another pail, a deflated volleyball and a stick. He was entertaining everyone with his game. Christopher spent the time pushing trucks around in the dirt all over the place and Edson got a thrill out of hearing everyone scream when he got too close to the volleyball game with his cars.

The animals roam freely here. We had to stop several times on the way here, on the highway, no less, to let a cow or two wander across the road. There were a few sheep that were brave enough to cross without looking as well. At a few of the homes, the chickens, geese, turkeys, ducks, dogs, and pigs also have free reign and are in and out of the houses as often as the children, it seems. The boys LOVED chasing after the chickens and pigs especially.

Everywhere we went, Karen would introduce us and I would catch a bit of people's comments. What I kept hearing was, "She looks just like you!" and then immediately followed by "she's so white!" Uh, well, yeah. That's always been the case. Here in Paraguay I stick out even more because everyone is so dark already and I'm so white. My rosacea on my face doesn't help things either, as that's the next comment I hear: "Why is her face red?" The delicious and plentiful citrus fruit here doesn't help that either! Yesterday Oscar finally convinced me to try one of the grapefruits that was almost as big as a volleyball. I don't like grapefruit, but WOW! This was amazing! It didn't even taste like a grapefruit! So when I have things like that, or the lemons from Karen's lemon tree, my face gets redder and more people comment.

The boys are up now and it's time to get packed up and go back to Oscar's sister's house to meet up with Brandon and Gaby. They wanted to stay there because they could play with their Playstation. See, San Pedro, with it's dirt roads, horse and buggies and free-range animals still has technology! A TV in almost every home and even some with Playstations!

Until we're in Asuncion...adios!