Worst. Week. Ever.

Good lord we're bored.

Last week was Semana Santa. For those who don't know, Semana Santa is a week-long celebration to commemorate some guy the locals call Jesus (pronounced Hey, Zeus!) and his rise from the dead.

Here in Paraguay, they pay homage to this zombie Jesus by doing absolutely nothing all week and eating cheesy bread. Government offices and area businesses shut down. Fields go unattended. Schools are closed. Dogs are left unkicked. The entire country is encouraged to take a break from work and spend time with their families. Which is all well and good, unless you're a couple of Nortes in desperate search of work and whose closest family is on another continent.

Roughly 24 hours into Semana Santa the stir craziness started to kick in. Since everyone else in site was pretty much on vacation for a week, we elected to create work for ourselves just to get out of the house. For instance, one of the world maps we painted at a nearby school was essentially finished. But, since we literally had nothing else to do, we decided to "trick out" said map.

We added the school's logo in one corner. Next, we threw in a snazzy compass. The entire map got an extra coat of paint. Everything was labeled and, sometimes, re-labeled. Out of sheer boredom, we started to go a little overboard. You know what would really spruce up Africa? A racing stripe!









Unnecessary map work only got us through two days of the doldrums of Semana Santa. We survived the middle of the week by feasting on a steady diet of running, crossword puzzles, full-on philosophical discussions with the cat and watching It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia on our computer. And you were worried your tax dollars were going to waste here, America.



On Friday, things picked up a bit. It is Paraguayan custom to fast and only eat chipa on Good Friday. Chipa is basically dry, hard cheesy bread made in a brick oven. Starting at the crack of dawn (literally), we had neighbors lining up at our gate to give us some of their homemade chipa.

Carly and I decided to follow the local custom and eat nothing but chipa all day. This wasn't for religious reasons, we just had so much of it gifted to us and we forgot to buy groceries before all the stores closed earlier in the week. We gorged ourselves on the stuff. By the end of the day, we could hardly move. Chipa has a tendency to sit like a rock in one's belly. It became a struggle just to get up and answer the door when the next neighbor came a calling with another batch of chipa.

"More chipa? You shouldn't have. No seriously, you shouldn't have. I just took a dump the size of a football."

A crazy windstorm came from out of nowhere on Saturday and we lost power through the weekend. As if the week wasn't bad enough, now we were incredibly bored in the dark. It was pitch black everywhere and eerily quiet except for the gentle sound of Carly and I sobbing.

Time was moving so slow it actually felt like the clock was ticking backwards. And then on Saturday night, it actually did. Like some cruel joke, another hour was added to the longest week in history thanks to daylight saving time.

Easter Sunday was no better. We were still without food or power, but now it was cold and rainy. Add to that the random flying bug infestation that overtook our house and you have yourself the perfect ending to the worst week ever. The annoying-ass icing on a shit cupcake, if you will.

Thankfully, Semana Santa is now over. Paraguay is up and running again and Carly and I have some important work that is sure to keep us busy this week: we're headed to Uruguay for vacation.

Until next time, amigos.

One Year in Paraguay by the Numbers

Jesus Cristo, has it been a year already? It sure doesn't feel like it. It seems like only yesterday we were nervously stepping off the plane into the sauna that is Paraguay. Now, we're seasoned volunteers fully immersed in a culture that once seemed so foreign. These past twelve months have been a blur. Though I can't help but wonder, if it's really been a year, shouldn't I be able to speak Spanish by now?

Before getting started, I feel the need to emphatically emphasize this post is completely tongue-in-cheek. We honestly love our neighbors, Paraguay and the work we're doing here. Below you will find some of the observations we've made about life here over the past 365 days. We mean no disrespect. With that being said, here's a disrespectful breakdown of our first year in Paraguay by the numbers:

7: spoonfuls of mayonnaise in a single serving of salad
1,000,000: times in a row our neighbor listens to a song before getting tired of it
3: plastic bags given to carry one egg from our local dispensa
41: books read during service thus far (apiece)
2: sizes too small Paraguayan men buy their t-shirts
67: times I've been asked why I have a beard
102: degrees Fahrenheit on a typical summer day
24: severed cow legs discovered on the roadside one day near Salto Monday
4: toads accidentally killed every time I cut the grass
5: highest number of people seen riding on one moto (not counting the baby)
10: flies that will bathe/have sex on my sandwich if it's momentarily left unattended
3: guaranteed misspellings/grammar mistakes on any t-shirt printed in English
20: minutes a Paraguayan needs to take money out of the ATM
14: prostitutes hanging outside the Palace Hotel in Asuncion this very second
7: teacher strikes last year
71: average days between blog posts
3: sharts
9: hour at which we completely lose water every night in the summer
237: conversations in Guarani we pretended to understand
4.5: acceptable number of days between showers in the winter
19: minutes a local will stand breathing over a trash fire before walking away for a cigarette
2: liters of soda consumed daily by a typical infant
58: rhinestones on every pair of ladies jeans
8: zippers on every pair of mens jeans
15: months we have left in service
6: members of the Peace Corps Paraguay family that contracted Dengue (that we know of)
1: gallon of sweat Carly loses every night in her sleep
202: miles run
8: longest stretch of days without pooping
15: shortest stretch of seconds between poops
19: eggplants in the garden
404: tomatoes in the garden (who knew 20+ tomato plants would be overkill?)
17: European countries poorly free-handed on our giant world map
0: kids that noticed how poorly Europe was drawn
33: days of vacation left to travel throughout South America
250: empanadas consumed
578: combined hours on the bus
5.5: longest wait in hours from the start of a BBQ to when the food was actually served
2: feet it is considered appropriate to step away from someone before peeing
23: times I've been asked why Carly and I don't have kids
23: times I've been asked if I have kids with another woman
23: times I've been asked if I was sterile
48: headbutts taken to the crotch when my little neighbors go in for a hug (I'm tall here)
0: regrets

Just to reiterate, this was supposed to be funny. You know we're crazy about you, Paraguay. Don't get all sensitive on us now--not after all we've been through.

Also, for those interested in a blog post that is actually informative, Carly has agreed to write something this week. Stay tuned, amigos.