So my travels have found me sitting in the office of my friend, Riki, in Asuncion, Paraguay.
The flights here were rather uneventful, aside from the usual excitement of having the people boarding the plane ahead of you attempt to cram unnecessarily large objects into the relatively tiny overhead compartments (like giant boxed tea kettles, for ten minutes, for example). Or holding out from using the loo until you feel ready to burst, and after finally gaining courage to ask the folks beside you to let you out (the ones beside me being all -american cowboy couple), being forced to wait outside the bathroom for another ten minutes while another person does goodness knows what in there. When the door finally does open, however, the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach as to what lies within is only barely overpowered by the pressure in your bladder.
Upon arriving in Paraguay, Riki and I took the tour from the airport to his parents' house, and proceeded to have a laid back evening going for burgers. Riki, being a bachelor, has quite a good relationship with all the burger men around, and the meal didn't disappoint. I learned it is standard to put both ham and a fried egg on the burgers here. Three animals on one bun. Unbelievable.
We arrived at the burger stand in perfect south-american style- on a 50-year-old BMW motorcycle that had once been driven by the Paraguayan police.
Yesterday I got the Tours: of the school where Riki works, his favorite place to eat lunch, his house, and Alto Refugio, a sort of drop-in centre for people living with HIV. It is run by some lovely folks, and after the tour we sat for ages and talked about everything under the sun as we drank tetere(?), or yerba. Hopefully I will be back to volunteer at this place.
I spent time meeting some awesome friends last night, and having my first "asado"(or something, i have no idea how to spell it) aka: Paraguayan barbeque. i could get used to that, it was amaaazing!
Soon I am off to some sort of healer that Riki swears by for some physio/massage/something for me bum which was the sorry recipient of my skateboarding attempts.
So everything here is going, and I'm trying to soak up every SINGLE moment: with six weeks, i can't afford to waste a second!
I have already learned the most important word in Paraguay, "tranquilo". It doesn't have a very good translation in english or german, but it is apparently the essence of Paraguayan life...
and with that in mind, how could I not love it here?