Food, Fun & Friendship

Okay, so the title of the post is cliche, but I really feel like that's what this past week has been about. We've found more delicious places at which to eat, we had our first Paraguayan date night, and have continued to build relationships with the staff at the school. Food, fun, and friendship . . . right?

This past week was the first full week of school and it went much better than we thought in terms of Bailey adjusting to life in the classroom. Last week I wrote about the crazy schedule with all the specials during the day - those have allowed me breaks to nurse, and Brandon time to take Bailey while I'm teaching. Most days we can even work out ways for Bailey to nap in the apartment and we trade off supervision. The third grade students, though, are very worried about the fact that we leave her at times in the apartment alone. Last Thursday as I picked the kids up from library, they noticed Brandon walking Bailey to the apartment. Then, about thirty minutes later as we were packing up for the day, they noticed Brandon walking back up towards school without Bailey (Miss B, they call her). They freaked out. "Where's Mr. T going?" "Where's Bailey?" "What if she wakes up?" "What if she cries?" I assured them that she would be okay for the five minutes between then and when I walked down to the apartment after dismissal. They weren't convinced, but what could they do?

Brandon is introducing the middle school and high school students to fitness Fridays which left both the students and Brandon rather tired on Friday afternoon. Despite all the running during the day, though, Brandon stayed up on the field after school and played soccer with some of the maintenance guys, other teachers and a few students. He had a good time, but wanted to crash once he finally got home.

But, alas, he couldn't. Friday night we had people over for pizza and games. We invited the folks in the apartments and some of the (younger) staff that we've begun to befriend. Thankfully there were some veteran teachers (and one native Paraguayan) in the bunch who easily navigated how to order Pizza Hut for all of us. It wasn't exactly like Pizza Hut back home, but it was pretty close. And the game night we were planning never transpired. We just sat around eating and talking until late in the evening. I tried to be a good hostess and provide homemade brownies for everyone, but I haven't yet mastered how my oven works. You see, there are no degree markers on the oven, just the numbers 1 through 5. I set the stove on 3 to let it heat up and realized that it was too hot. As I put in the brownies to bake I turned it down, or so I thought. Turns out I turned the heat up even more. Note to self: brownies burn quickly at 450*.

Saturday brought a day full of domesticated activity: laundry, cleaning and my first solo run to grocery store. The walk down to Stock (one of two local chains) seems to be getting shorter and shorter, though with four heavy grocery bags, the walk back is definitely longer than the walk there. I was actually planning on taking the bus home since the bags were quite heavy, but I wasn't quite sure which one. I knew there were three lines (the 18, 23, and 55) that would definitely go by the school, but I didn't see any for a while and figured it was going to take me longer to wait for the bus than to walk home.

That night, Brandon and I had our first Paraguayan date night. We left Bailey with our upstairs neighbors Cassie and Nate while our neighbors Kevin and Belinda (the apartments "parents") took us to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant, O Gaucho. It was like a flashback to junior high dating (or what I would imagine junior high dating would have been like had I dated any before I was 20). Brandon and I in the back seat, "mom and dad" up front. They dropped us off and told us to call when we were done and they'd pick us up! Walking up to the restaurant, though, we realized that we had no idea what we were doing and were nervous about our limited Spanish skills. Thankfully, the waiters were patient and the cuisine was an all-you-can-eat salad bar (which eliminated the need to read a menu and order food). While we ate the various side dishes, waiters brought by assorted meats for us to eat. There was a red and green sign on the table that you placed green-side up to signal that you wanted more meat, and red-side up to signal that you didn't want any more at that point. But, even with the red side up, they brought by more and more meat, much of which was delicious! I forgot my camera, but found this picture on-line that shows what the meat looked like:



Our date night ended with a bit of anxiety, though, when the cell phone we were to call with didn't work. There was a pre-recorded message (in Spanish) that we couldn't understand, and we were unable to place a call to either our ride, or to Cassie and Nate to check on Bailey. We'd already paid and walked outside, so I ventured back inside and tried my best to explain the situation to our waiter. He directed us back to the cashier and I again explained - in very broken Spanish - that we needed to call our friends for a ride so we could get home to our baby. Yes, I used Bailey to conjure up some sympathy. Thankfully they had a phone we could use and we made it home safely. And home greeted us with good news; Cassie said the night went perfectly and Bailey slept, ate, and played right on schedule! Yeah!

There is a church starting at our school on Sunday nights, so we attended services with the gang from the apartment in the evening. It was odd not going to church on Sunday morning, but it was nice to sing worship songs in English, pray in English and hear a message in English.

Since we had the morning and afternoon on Sunday "off", we ventured out into the neighborhood and tried out a juice bar that is just behind the DVD rental store. They have sandwiches and soups, too, but we stuck to the freshly squeezed juices (semi-smoothie-like) and were delighted by the taste. Delicious! We are definitely staying well fed while in Paraguay!