wow! i am sitting here in the shelter of riki's parents' house, grateful that i just barely avoided the pouring rain that is pelting down outside...
i left alto refugio a little early today because i saw the pending dark clouds, thought about my walk home, and did the math. it would be good to beat the storm. especially since storms make me want to find the nearest dark corner and assume the fetal position at the best of times.
i have been cutting head upon head of hair recently, it seems that everyone wants a piece of canadian hairdressing. it's awesome! i get to do what i love, it helps other people, and i get to learn spanish! ... although my entire vocabulary now consists of words like "cut? long, short? layers? pretty, beautiful...", and of course the epic conversations starters 'wow, the sun is hot', and 'do you have children?'
that and i know how to tell the cook her food is good. and i do. every day.
the cook's name is Fransisca, known to the resident canadians as Aunt Jemima, a name earned by her remarkable similarities to the syrup matriarch.
Fransisca is a large woman with coarse grey hair, and less teeth than the average 8-year-old. she'd be a formidable-looking woman if she weren't smiling all the time, and wearing a makeshift chef hat and a white plastic apron. she is beautiful, and friendly, and loves to teach me about cooking. her hot sauce is my favorite, so she takes it out every day, especially for me. i couldn't figure out why i had perpetually bad breath until she showed me how she made it today. hot peppers, an entire clove of garlic, and some milk. if that doesn't leave aftersmell i don't know what will.
yesterday i visited the hippie market and wandered downtown asuncion. we saw everything from palaces to slumhouses made of sheets of plastic, which were incidentally right next to one another. we ate the best chipa in paraguay (riki told me so, and i believed it when i tasted it!), and had fresh passionfruit juice. downtown asuncion is really something, many old beautiful buildings that hold a lot of history.
tonight i'm off to a paraguayan wedding, at a pub? we'll see what this brings!
hope you're staying warm in the white stuff,
much love