Turning one year older

I'm at my 10th month in Paraguay, the residing time is so short that I'm almost starting to panic about it. I can't believe the time while seeming excruciatingly outdrawn can have passed so fast.
I will be the first to admit that seven- eight months ago, all I wanted was for this time to come so I could finally end this weird and scary experience and come back to safe ground.
Now? I'm positively terrified of the 21st of July and my flight date. The thought of leaving my life here is devastating. Even so I am trying to do the best of the situation and just enjoy my Paraguayan life as much as I possibly can, practicing my "live here and now"-skills a full.
This Saturday was my nineteenth birthday, which means I am now and old and respectable lady with crackling bones (of which only the last is even slightly true..).
I celebrated this by going to a university in central Asunción and replacing one of my dearest friends as English teacher, seeing as she could not possibly make it to her morning class. It was quite a thrill teaching them, surprisingly enough. I have always suffered from a slight stage fright but at this occasion found myself surprisingly comfortable in front of 17 almost complete strangers, explaining the logic of my favorite language.

At night, a group of my favorite AFS-people came to my house to eat tacos and, I kid you not, THE BEST CHOCOLATE BROWNIES MAN KIND HAS EVER EXPERIENCED. I was so proud of them...
A majority of people left as the night rolled in, and we were about 8 people and a bottle of vodka left. This might sound like a disaster waiting to happen but it was actually rather tidy and orderly. We learned a lot about each other while playing some, to me completely new, drinking games.
We stayed up until 3 in the morning, and it was a very successful night.

Some other things that are going on in my life: I have started at a dance academy. It is possibly the best I've ever done, even though it's tough and I sometimes feel I am so close to death that I see the light or just frustrated because it doesn't work out, it is such an exhilarating feeling once you make even one step right. And more over, I've always wanted to dance and now that I've started I just can't understand why I never did it before. I have these classes every afternoon at least 2 hours, and study ballet, classic contemporary, Danza paraguaya, jazz, artistic and Arabic dance, every once in a while replaced with stretching so brutal it comes close to torture. But in a nice way.
Among the other things I really enjoy (yes actually) in Paraguay is my school. This is both because of the classes, that are sometimes actually interesting, and Andrés, a guy in my school who in an interesting turn of events I am going out with. This particular event has surprised pretty much everyone around me, and myself also, seeing as my idea when I came here was not to even come close to falling in love, a thought apparently made a lot easier by the fact that Paraguayan males in general are asses. Not this particular guy though.. His way of thinking and acting is so different from the majority of people here that I could have sworn he was European.
Even though we both are aware that I'm leaving all too soon, and against all rational judgement I possess, we decided to give it a try for now and later on see what will happen.

My new host family is the best family in history, I really really like them and feel so comfortable in the house. It's such an amazing difference from my first host family I almost can't believe it.

Although I am learning that problems never disappear but merely replace each other, I'm incredibly happy with my current life and have the mental strength to work through the issues as they appear.

Take care and stay safe

Hospitalized

I'm curious about Paraguay and want to try all it has to offer.
In this quest, I decided it was about time I experienced Paraguayan hospital from an inside perspective, and how uneasy it feels to get food poisoned.

I fell ill in school, with a mild fever and general pain and stiffness in my entire body (something I at the time viciously denied in an effort to convince myself I was fine or at least that I didn't have dengue..).
I then proceeded to sleep pretty much 20 hours straight and ingest a modest amount of water (which judging by my dehydration was too little..).

Now this should be known about Paraguayans in general: they think the best solution for everything is medicine. Just cover up the symptoms so that you don't feel them and you'll be great in no-time. Me? I think excessive medication is the most stupid thing in the modern society. According to me, a symptom should not be ignored and covered. And a moderate fever is a natural way to beat down intruders. Hence, I'm very prone to let it run its course, as long as it doesn't get over 40°C. This I tried to explain to four Paraguayans, all of which thought I was completely whacked in the head...

Anyhow, the fever didn't give in and during the night less pleasant symptoms started to appear (let's just say I had stomach issues and leave it at that..).

Mid-day Thursday I felt halfway dead and was brought to our "AFS-hospital", where everyone, including myself, was convinced I had gotten dengue.
Immediately blood samples were drawn to confirm the diagnosis, while I was put on IV- fluids and about 5 different kinds of medicine. It was here decided that I should be hospitalized.

The luckiest moment of my life might have been being told that I did not have dengue, but rather a pretty inconvenient food poisoning.
Making a long story short you could say that being in hospital is 2 % sort of interesting and 98% boring. Luckily for me, my friend/aunt/sister Jana stayed by my side, in an air conditioned, neat room with cable TV...

Among the things I discovered:
IV can hurt like a bitch when it has been stagnating a while, and that if you have the bag lower than your hand, blood may or may not start going in the opposite direction, which in spite of what one would be prone to think, actually does not hurt but can scare the living daylight out of you if you dislike blood.
Also, drawing blood hurts much less when it's done on you at 6 in the morning right after brutally waking you up...

I am now fine. Still a bit sensitive when it comes to eating and a bit weakened, but in general, I've never felt better.