One Month Report

It's hard to believe I've been in site a month now, both because it feels like a long time and because it's flown by. There have been tons of emotions at various times, I'll try to summarize:

Things That Have Been Great
-I've met lots of nice, friendly people in Tacuati. Several times women have called out to me from the street, saying "You're the new volunteer! We've been waiting to meet you!" I was invited to have dinner w/ one family already. The previous volunteer had a great relationship w/ so many people that now they're really welcoming towards me.
-I'm speaking Spanish all day long, which is fun, and slowly adding some Guarani.
-The family I'm staying with, Elisa and her son Ericko, are super nice. We eat lunch together and b/c she has high cholesterol we don't eat a lot of meat. I have my own room and lots of privacy, and I cook my own dinner w/ lots of veggies and have an awesome breakfast of yogurt w/ apple and banana and oatmeal and cafe con (skim) leche every morning which starts my day off right.
-Because the previous volunteer gave a lot of workshops, the teachers are already armed with a lot of ideas and techniques to improve their teaching. Now they just need help implementing, which is where I come in. I'm glad I won't have to do the workshops or make materials.
-We celebrated Independence Day and Mother's Day last weekend with parties at both the Elementary School in the afternoon and the town Cultural Center that night. I saw lots of Paraguayan dancing, heard kids read poetry, met new people and in general felt like it was a great cultural experience.
-While my town is isolated, we also are able to get things that are hard to find in other places, such as carrots, green peppers, yogurt, skim milk, apples, etc.
-There's a house that may be vacated soon, and hopefully I'll get to live there on my own and start a garden and have my own space at last!!
-I've been learning to ride a bike again, which sounds silly but it's really really hard to ride on these dirt roads that somehow have sand dunes that are impossible to ride through and rocks that throw you off balance. But I've been practicing and hope to become an expert :)
-I went to a meeting of all the volunteers in my area, and they're all super nice. Next month we'll meet and help give a workshop on AIDS, and it's nice to have little social events to look forward to.

Things That Have Been Hard
-Everyone speaks Guarani unless they're talking to me, which means I'm learning what it sounds like but also not understanding what's going on half the time. I haven't yet found someone to tutor me in Guarani, so while I"m studying on my own I"m not really talking that much yet. And my Spanish is far from perfect.
-The weather's weird. It's super cold at night and in the morning, but by mid day the sun will heat it up so that I'm hot and sweaty again. I'm constantly reevaluating what I"m wearing.
-My site presentation was supposed to be May 10, and my boss was going to visit to introduce me officially to the community and to bring the 3 bags I had left in the office, but that's been postponed til next week (and still may be postponed again). This means that I've been rotating through the same few outfits and without some books and other stuff I'd like to have, and also that I'm still not really ready to work b/c I haven't been "presented" to the community.
-I was going to have a meeting w/ all the school principals too, but now that got pushed back. So I haven't been doing much more than observations so far, which are boring. It's been a nice relaxing few weeks, and I like very much the change of pace, but I definitely feel like I should be DOING more.
-Sometimes I just don't want to be here. I wanted to take a nap the other day, but there was a mariachi band performing for mother's day literally right outside my window. Elisa's brother lives with us too and seems to prefer getting up at 3am every day and often wakes me up. My Ipod froze one night and I freaked out (it's fine now). Sometimes there's no hot water in the shower, and when there is the stream is so weak that only part of me can be under the warm water at a time. Stuff that's not a big deal but just grates on me sometimes.
-I haven't had a cell phone yet (hopefully that'll change in a few short hours!), and while all the other volunteers have been text-messaging each other like mad and getting phone calls from home, I've been totally out of the loop. Of course it's not necessary to have a cell phone when in the Peace Corps, but it helps.
-My grandmother (mom's mom in New York) has been in and out of the hospital for the past few months, and of course it's hard being so far away while my family is dealing with that.
-There are lots of things about Paraguay and Tacuati that I just don't get yet. Sometimes that's really exciting and sometimes it's frustrating too.

I hope these came out at least even, the good and the hard, because overall I'm really happy. I won't be back on the internet til mid-June probably, it's funny how my perspective on time is shifting as well. Tranquilo!