Just got back from Long Field Practice. For those of you unfamilliar with Peace Corps lingo, on long field we go in small groups to volunteers's sites for four days to do small projects and see what they're up to. During the four days, we live with a family at their site and do the whole “cultural integration” thing again.

For me, long field was an emotional roller coaster. Three other volunteers and I went to visit Aaron in Solano Escobar, Paraguai (department directly to the east, only about 2.5 hours from Guasu Cora) for our long field. Aaron is G29 which means hes about to finish up his service in April, and one of the people in our class is going to be his follow up. First of all his site is GORGEOUS (I'll try to upload a picture if I can), hes got mountains and a lake and its generally a really pretty community. Also Aaron has an AWESOME house. Its brick and is all nicely finished inside with concrete and tile. From what I've heard its the second-nicest PCV house in the health group (the nicest belongs to Jordan and other PCVs have nicknamed it Jordan's Palace...never seen it myself but I've heard stories). All and all he has a great setup.

The family I stayed with was much different than my family in Guasu Cora. By now my family and I here are so accustomed to one another that we get along great. I've almost forgotten how awkward it was in the beginning. Not so with the family in Solano Escobar. They were definitely nice people but we just didn't click as well. They didn't talk to me terribly much and tended to laugh at my attempts at Spanish and Guarani. Normally the “poke fun at you” Paraguayan sense of humor doesn't get me down at all and I usually am laughing just as hard, but when you are put in a totally strange place with not-so-friendly-seeming people it gets reallllyyyyyy discouraging. To top off those weird feelings, the food the first day was aweful. For lunch we had overcooked pasta with really fatty bony carne followed by plain fried tortillas for dinner with tons of mandioca (manioc is a traditional staple food in South America and Africa. Its a tuber with the nutritional value of cardboard and not much taste. Usually its served just plain boiled here and its on the table like bread...you eat it with everything).

So after the super awkward dinner and after dinner conversation, I had a little pity party in my room and wrote it all out in my journal and told myself that no matter how bad it was, I was learning from this experience, and in the end, its only four days and I can survive. I took some deep breaths and told myself that I was going to be more “tranquila” about the small stuff that was getting me down about this visit and just take it all as a learning experience.

And it totally worked. I rocked the positive vibes the rest of the time I was there and ended up having a pretty good time and getting a TON done. On Tuesday, we built almost an entire fogon in one day at a local school, and Wednesday we did charlas (short lessons) about dental health to elementary school kids. Personally I was terrified about doing the charla because I have no teaching experience and I am not the biggest fan of kids. But, when I actually went up there and did it, it felt great. Getting those kids to laugh at my Spanish jokes really made my day. Ive also got some good pictures of them brushing their teeth.