Teaching and a Giant Worm.

Last Saturday, the house parents' local church came to have a service on our property.  The kids from the children's home walked through the community to invite the neighbors.  We had a great turn-out, actually running out of space.  We hope to be able to have the church back to visit

 every month.  On Sunday, we had an asado (grill-out) with the kids.  Shaun was able to learn a little about the cuts of meat available and the way to prepare the meat.  

Service at our Facility

Mario (the House "Tio") preparing the meat

Getting Ready to Eat

On Tuesday, I had my first classes in the community school.  I taught Kindergarten through third grade.  The classes were so much fun.  Normally, I will also be teaching forth, fifth, sixth, and ninth grade on Tuesday afternoons as well, but they were having a staff meeting and school was cancelled in the afternoon.  I will be teaching those classes today as a make-up.  The morning classes went well.  I did discover, however, that I am not really the greatest Kindergarten teacher.  Between the girl crying for her mommy and the precious little girl in the front that stared at me like I just stepped off mars and smiled like I was the funniest looking thing on earth, it was hard to focus on the lesson.  All of the kids seem really excited about learning English, and I think they will do very well with it, since they are all already bilingual with Guarani and Spanish.  

On Wednesday we took a trip to the zoo in the capital with the Hagerman's.  It was a fun day, and Abi loved seeing the animals.  I think we will definitely visit again.  There was a natural history museum as well that included lots of deformed pickled animal fetuses.  That part was a little strange, but the bug collection there was amazing.  We were also able to eat at the recently opened TGI Friday's.  Believe it or not, our meals complete with unlimited refills and appetizer were about $3.75 a person.  I love this country!

Abi At the Zoo

We have also invested in a grill- an essential part of the Paraguayan lifestyle.  Yesterday we tried it out and have decided that we will need to test it again tomorrow just to make sure that it will work well again.  The beef here is delicious.  I love Paraguay's cows- we get fresh milk every couple of days as well.

Finally, we had a kitchen visitor.  There is a drain cap underneath our sink where the sludge from the sink collects.  When Shaun was washing dishes, a large (about 12-14 inches), hard worm slid past his foot after pushing its way out of the drain cover.  While our painter told us not to kill it because it wasn't poisonous, I brought Shaun the machete and we murdered our visitor.  To me, it looked like a creature from the Swamp Forest in the Princess Bride.  I hope that is the last giant worm I see for a while.  We have now placed the giant rock that was on top of the cover back on top.  We took it off not knowing why it was there.  Now we know.