Rainstorms

Another photo of my first ever watermelon carving.
Definitely keeping that up. Watermelons are abundant.

The other day I survived my first tropical rainstorm outdoors. Paraguay being a subtropical country, the humidity builds up among with a really tense air until named air gets so heavy you can barely breathe.
The whole day before a storm, you know it's coming. Thick, humid, hot air surrounds and suffocates you and things are eerily silent. 

Monday was one of those days. Unfortunately I didn't recognize the symptoms of the upcoming shower in time. Happy about life in general I went with my Belgian fellows for Ice-cream.
Yes, of course we saw the lightning and the jet-black sky, but being a naive European, I didn't think it'd hit us that fast. 
Now let me get one thing clear: if you have more than 10 minutes ahead of you and start walking when it starts raining, you ARE going to get soaked.
With this in mind, I didn't even bother to run. Wouldn't have made ant significant difference. My precaution was putting my messed-up iPhone in a plastic bag before heading off (I'm coming back to my phone later, it's a mystery...).

So there I am, walking calmly among running people as the rain starts to increase. About 3 blocks from my destination (home) the nature of the rain changes.
 If you try imagine someone picking up all the water in a fairly-sized lake and putting it in a huge bucket, and subsequently turning this upsidedown over your head, you begin to get the idea. 
Trying to see something? Well, try you may. Ain't gonna happen...  
But hey, I am from one of the rainiest places in Sweden am I not? Admittedly we don't get that powerful rain, but rain I can handle alright. Lightning chasing each other over the sky and thunderclaps? I love that, bring it on.

What I was not altogether prepared to handle was the fact that the layout of San Lorenzo doesn't seem to include sufficient desviations (I don't actually know the word in english, but I assume it's similar to the spanish one..) for the HUGE amounts of rainwater . Within ten minutes, the streets are more like small rivers, with a significant current. Now, this could have been a really funny moment of jumping around in water with my already wet shoes. 
                                                       HOW ABOUT NO. 
Keep in mind that my house is basically located in a trashcan. It took me about 5 seconds to realize that the water flowing up to my ancles had with all certainty just flown over a couple of carcasses from various creatures, rotten food, human and animal excrements, vomits from the local alcoholics and god knows what else. The feeling that follows on this realization is rather hard to describe with words.... 

On a Happier note, this sunday was really nice. I invited various friends from my exchange program to come to my house for the afternoon, to do what we all do best: EAT!
And that we did. And talked... actually, my Belgian mates Charline and Simon (frequently mentioned here it seems) stayed until about 11 pm, and we talked about just about everything. So nice, I wonder why all good discussions seem to pop up at the latest of hours.

Then again, to balance the good and bad, my genious phone died. With NO REASON OR EXCUSE! Dead. Couldn't charge it, didn't react to being connected to the computer, didn't react when I tried to turn it on. Nothing.
 I mean, my phone is an iPhone 4 with two years of loyal service yet done, and it has been put though alot of climate change. BUT HEY. That's just not okay!

Upon this I also realized that I have a really hard time falling asleep without listening to an audiobook. Which is really stupid. But thinking about it, I've been listening to audiobooks before sleeping for 11 (ELEVEN!!) years now. Which could qualify me for the cathegory "mentally handicapped" or something...
But hey, having survived the night, and the morning aerobics (Which turned out to be a latino dance class, I love my instructor for that one  I headed off to Asuncion in order to go to the Apple-store located there. Funny note: the stores name is "Big Manzana". Manzana means Apple... ¿Dafuq?
So I walk in, and to my great joy fing that the guy at the desk has spent 4 years in the US and talks fluent english. Swiftly I explain my problem: Hey, my phone is dead and I don't know why.
just as swiftly, it seems, this guys turns on my phone again. 
                Wait what?? Don't tell me he did exactly what we have been doing the last 10 hours without result, and it just works for him? That fits my definition of awkward moment rather well. 

Phones -.-' (Also I notice some HTMLs are messed up in this post...)

We have some new orchids in our garden!!!

Yesteday I also recieved some bad news from Sweden. Our beautiful girl Nigra has passed on to worlds beyond after some time of illness. I'm sorry I couldn't say goodbye, but it is better this way, without the pain. You will rest in our hearts and minds, where you can forever chase deers and wooden sticks in the baltic sea...

 Rest In Peace

Living in a Macho-culture

I'm nursing a feeble little hope, kind of those dreams you have but know never going to come true. 

I'm wishing that, for the good of man kind, the male population of Paraguay will one day wake up, struck by the realization how extremely disgusting and off-turning the macho-culture is.

Let me reduce this cultural, human weakness to a level that will not occupy too much space and still express exactly what it is that bothers me.

On previous occasions I've expressed the awkwardness it implies being blond here. This is due to this thing in the culture. Walking on the street means 8 of 10 guys, dudes, men and men old enough to be my grandfather scans me top to bottom with their leering, reptile -like gaze. As I've passed, or am just passing, they turn on their immensely, stunningly sexy tone of voice (I hope that irony was perceived) and say things that range from "hello baby" through "barbie" and up to "hey my little whore".

Every.

Damn. 

Time.

I actually lack words to describe exactly how appalling I find this. It makes my skin itch, my inner self cringe and gives me the desire to grab the closest at hand and commit deeds that would have me in prison.

Honestly. Thousands of years of evolution lead to THIS?? 

I mean, most animals do this exactly, and that's not a weird thing. Most animals.

Which is, or should be, a difference between our 'supreme' race and other animals. 

But of course there's an explanation:

In the triple alliance war, the male Paraguayan population was decimated by ~85%, so the men that were left were extremely desired by the women.

They say. This is meant to excuse this repulsive, impolite behavior. It does not!

I do not mean to demean this culture in any sense... Oh wait I do. In this sense I do not respect the culture. Not this aspect. This war is fucking over. If it's something this country does not lack, it's men. 

To use the war as an excuse is just a way to let men keep acting as pigs and moreover, saying that they're right.

Also, there are some women who says that we Europeans overreact to this and that it's just a compliment. It. Is. Not. 

It's a disgusting way of trying to convey the male 'power', to get laid and try to show ownership over the women. And some of them even try to touch you.

 Now, on occasions I consider myself being a fairly self- controlled person, but it takes hell of an effort not to slap someone when they're trying to grab you... 

I don't mean to say that all Paraguayan guys are like this though, I have met really nice guys here as well. Unfortunately it is like compliments vs criticism.

 You'd need about 10 nice per 1 bad, not the reverse..

Completely unrelated, but I dedicated this sunday morning
on trying out watermelon carving. Little rough, but NOT BAD! :)

Luqueña :)

My shirt!! :D

My loyality is sealed and I've had the mindchange of a lifetime. I've made friends and enemies in one single decision...

I have been contaminated by this, that is more and more my, culture, the culture of Paraguay, and nowadays, I actually take an interest in football. And here, people take football seriously. It is a huge, huuge deal. 

As a second act of going upstream (the first was being the only one among my fellow swedes on exchange to go to Paraguay), my choice of loyalty is Sportivo Luqueño, the blue and golden team residing in my beloved Republic of Luque. 

I may or may not be totally ignorant when it comes to football (actually it's a fact, I'm totally lost.), however, this is something I intend to change. This is going to take some work on the part of other people explaining it to me, but luckily, most people here seems to be all to happy trying to explain things to me.

So Luque it is then. I'm not kidding when I'm saying that I'm one of ~10 people supporting this Swedish-colored team in San Lorenzo (actually, according to my fellow AFS-er and friend, Simon, who takes a big interest in football, that amount of people constitute the entire fanclub of Luque...) The majority of the shops selling football shirts don't even have the Luque-ones. 
On previous occasions, it has become apparent to me that I'm something of an oddity here, due to my hair, my eyes and my skin, something over which I've been cursing about twice a day for ten weeks, since it gives me very unpleasant, awkward attention on the streets. However, I've noticed that supporting blue and yellow seems to be even more befuddling to the SanLo population than being European...
While being out among fellow human being, I seem to sense a slight coolness from some people, yesterday, I encountered an old man who actually seemed to get really upset by my shirt, I think, however I'm not sure since I've stopped listening to what people say on the streets, but I think that he was screaming something at me, I picked up "Luque" and a pissed tone of voice. He might have thrown a piece of paper at me as well. (which sounds innocent enough but still annoys me a bit)

That kind of sentiment is the thing I'll never get about sports in general. Just saying, I'm not messing with you for your choice of teams.

Here I'd like to add an annoyed little rant about hooligans. So weekend before last, I ventured to the stadium of Luque, with my fellow Luqueño as well as friend and AFS volunteer Joël to witness the game Luque-Cerro.
I don't think I've ever seen so many policemen in one place before. Ever.
The stadiums have barbed wire, dividing the sections where the home team fans and the visiting fans reside.
They empty the stadium section by section, and direct the fans of different clubs on different routes so that no fights will uprise. There are fucking SWAT- teams waiting for the worse to happen.
Just. So. That. People. Won't. Fight. Over. A. Game. 
This seems totally stupid, I mean, your team isn't going tho play better because you beat up a fan of your opponents?? 
Where's the logic in that?

I have also noticed that there are people wondering why on earth I like the Republic of Luque so much. First and foremost. They have my swedish colours, everything is blue and yellow. Seconly, the name is just that beautiful, this is also something I can't quite explain, but saying 'Luque' just is that awesome.
Also, someone explained to me, that it is like a country, within a country. Like inception. You've got to love that.
More than that, not really sure... But honestly, I think I was born to live in this city :)

Coffee-art!!

A painting made of only coffee :) How fun is that!!

Awesome church of Luque
is alway awesome 

Random swiss alps

                            

Since my last blogpost it seems like YEARS have passed, so much seems to have happened...
So I suck at update my blog regularly, that's just a fact. Once every two weeks is an achievement for me.
Though in this case I have the excuse that in order to update my blog, I need to use the real computer and not my cellphone. That is, I need to use my sisters computer which have the annoying habit of all of a sudden shut down.
Here, I need to add that apparently the developer of Blogspot.com has the same issue, since my blogposts auto-save everytime I stop typing 10 seconds. (Whoever you are, I like you. But still, the fact remains that the positions of the pictures are really fucked up and you should feel bad about that...)

Horse!! :D

 It might be apparent, but I've fallen for what I think is named Coffe-art. If it isn't, that's my new name of it.  Basically it's just black ink drawings on coffee-stained paper, but the effect in so nice. This might just be my thing about loving aged-looking things.

Last night however, I, to the quite doubtful and astonished reactions of my family (Whom sometimes seem to consider me mildly weird, rightfully so) experimented with only painting with coffee. Really, really funny :)

          

Other interesting things this week: the temperature has been up to 43 degrees Celcius two days in a row, after which is dropped down to 10 degrees the day after. 

Only. Ever. In. Paraguay. 

And the sahara desert.

Being from a country that is cold about 9 months a year, I once promised myself never ever complaining about the heat agaim ever. Well, that promise has temporarily been retrieved and I'm fully free to complain about this. 

Actually, if it's one thing that could make me leave this country before my program is over, it's definitely the heat. 

I mean, the people in sweden might like under the impression that heat is amazing and everything, and when I'm in sweden I fully agree. But this is different. This is like being inside an oven without possibility to escape. The air is, as I've expressed on previous occations, really saturated with water. This doesn't help one bit, since it blocks every possibility your skin has to get rid of heat. 

There is an entire chemophysical explanation to this, which would make my chemistry teacher proud of me, but it's just too uninteresting.

The chance of survival increases with the houses that have aircondition. Unfortunately this description does not apply for our house. We have fans, but no cooling except from that.

My gym though, the place that gets alot of free marketing here it seems, only that I don't mention the name, is heaven of those days... Cool, windy, clean. Just gotta love it.

On the same subject though, as people that are friends with me on Facebook will know, I have slight issues with this particular place right now.

Long story short: My favourite aerobic instructor is fired.

The slightly more extended version is that, for various reasons I've been told (By the owner herself who on occations seems to take pitty on me and my poor understanding skills...) but do not fully believe in nor agree with. 

Now, I should point out that the aerobics in no way is bad (Usually, though one episode almost made me leave...), only that this other girl had an energy level that matched mine more of less perfectly and her level of aerobic really grew on me, the perfect combination of having to concentrate, and excersise.

Also, I liked the person in general, because she was really nice to me, and really tried to make me understand what she was saying. 

Now, I don't think I'll ever see her again. Which is really, really sad...

Take care, stay safe :)

Tereré

My new termo!! I've not even had it a week, and it already follows me
everywhere. With a ton of ice in it.

I'm an addict. Not to alcohol. Nor drugs, although I've been told that they are abundant here. No, the subject of my obsession is, since about two weeks back, Tereré.

The. Best. Thing. There. Ever. Were.

Not kidding you, at this end of the world, tereré basically decides wether you live or die. At it's best, it's served so cold that you almost don't know what hit you, and rest assured that you do need that smack on the head really, really much when the temperature climbs to 35 degrees Celcius with air so humid that it sometimes feels as though you could drink it. And we're not even close to how bad it's going to get in the summer. It isn't even spring yet, we still have one week of winter.

Yesterday, a couple of us AFS-ers met to pursue a picnic in the park Ñu Guasu (Again).
 Times and again, I find myself being the leader of our little pack. Yesterday, I had a certain sensation it made me more or less a small source of annoyance for a couple of moments, that is, on the route to the park, including 2 busses in 38 degrees heat. Seems legit, actually, I'd be a bit bothered too if I didn't know we would go on two busses before arriving. We had a really nice time when we finally got there though, it was a quite huge picnic with more food than it was possible to eat. Although me made a really good effort.
Also, riding policemen- and women passed by us on the little island where we were comfortably seated. They continued to have sort of a conference 30-ish meters from us about an hour. Still on horses. That appears to be close to the best job you could  possibly have according to me...

Moreover, this tuesday, on the memorial of the twin towers, I went to the football game I was referring to in a previous post, where I witnessed Paraguay going down spectacularly to Venezuela (2-0) . So I know I have basically NO IDEA about ANYTHING concerning football whatsoever, which means I have no right to say anything. But even I thought Paraguay (In case someone's curoius, the people here pronounce it ´Par-a-oay´) sucked... 

Though I couldn't help liking the spirit at the stadium, at least before it became apparent we were heading down (Upon the most football-enthusiastic person I've met so far here seemed to consider either to hang himself or jump from the stadium. Too well he didn't because he's a nice person...).
If I can, I think I'll be going to another match before long.

Rounding this little update of, I'm wishing my eager followers (Thanks, mom) a really nice week, life and all heath and happiness in the world :)

I don't always participate in running competitions...

...but when I do, I end up as 5th among females.
Today, there was a charity marathon in my beloved Republic Of Luque (I don't know why I like that place so much, probably because of the park and the colors...). Calling it a marathon seems a bit exaggerated,  my leap was only 4 kilometers, and the other was 8, but still...!!



The last week has really been wonderful!

Yesterday, I made my own little excursion to Luque, apparently it's my destiny to spend time there... It's such a nice place though, and as a Swede (Not that I'm a hardcore swede.. not really. But still.) it's hard not to appreciate a city (Republic, whatever...) which is all tinted in yellow and blue. No shit: lampposts, busses, some houses, the flag (I think Luque has a blue/Yellow flag, correct me if I'm wrong), the football team...
I didn't really do much more than walking around and wathcing everything. Oh, yeah, someone told me "I couldn't get lost in Luque" so I decided to prove that wrong -.-' Only for a moment though...

It's a bit scary actually, since I came here, my sense of direction is totally off track. I find my way okay in San Lorenzo now, but I really can't point out north, to such a degree that I was wondering if north still is north on this half of the globe. (Which might have been my most stupid thought since arriving here. Oh no, north isn't north down here, it flips over when you cross the equatorial line. Facepalm)

Returning to the topic of football, that's a HUGE deal here. As a complete neutral in the question, I feel a bit misplaced at occasions. Honestly. Couldn't care less. So I'm working on that. I've decided Luque is my team (THE COLORS..!!) and also, I'm going to a game sometime.
I was thinking about going to Paraguay-Venezuela 11/9, but then my mother wisely pointed out that that was the WTC attack day and questioned the wiseness of attending an event that date. Now, I'm not all too supersticious or something, but she has a slight point. We'll see if I go or not :)
And, friday Paraguay lost spectacularly to Argentina, which is, as I've understood it, a bit of a touchy subject, since there's lots of rivality between the countries. The football game meant that my gym (Aka my favourite place here in san Lorenzo ) was almost completely empty. Which was nice in a different way. We were 4 people at the aerobic, including the leader. Reminds me a bit of Friskis&Svettis on some saturday mornings ;)
I also talked half an hour to the gym owner and aerobic instructor (This week they've been two separate persons, sometimesd they're not) over some terere afterwards. Now, people may or may not realize that keeping a conversation going for even five minutes in spanish only is a huge achievement for me... It's cool though, I understand most things now, like basically what people are talking about, without translate the words in my head. Reading and writing isn't much of a problem, but the talking is worse.
Most words you can guess what they mean and also understand, but they just aren't in my 'ready-to-use'- vocabulary. I'm sure we're getting there though, I mean, I've still only been here seven weeks. I have 37 left to learn ;)

Stay safe, take care

LUQUE- and everyday life

So the last week has really just swished past, and it has been really really nice. The cold spell is now gone and we're enjoying the 30-degrees-and-sun- weather. I really, really REALLY have to work on finding (Read: convince myself to go and buy...) sunscreen. I still havent burned myself though, not even while being in the sun the whole day. But it's not a very nice feeling, considering skin cancer and the risk of getting badly burned. The sun is supposedly very strong here.

MANGOOOS!!! These trees are
everywhere :)

 

 It seems like a lot has been going on this week.
Monday was really chilly, windy and rainy, and since my sister was ill, she didn't have to go to school, which in some way I don't quite understand meant that I didn't have to go either. Me and Charlene, another exchange student, had decided to go to the aerobics in the evening, and seeing as I all of a sudden could go to the earlier class I went to the gym to look exactly when it was, and more or less by accident ended up in a spinning class. For the first time in my life.
In Spanish. That was more or less 40 minutes of "I have no idea what I'm doing" and moreover I thought I would go under at one point (I had no idea it was that exhausting...) But damn it was fun! :) Also, the music was almost only music I recognize from my Swedish aerobic classes.
So this week I went to that a couple of times as well as aerobics and gym.
 It's really funny though, at the beginning I was really dubious about both the gym and step aerobic, but now, after two weeks,

it's one of the highlights of my 'everyday life'.
I had this one intreresting bordering on awkward evening there this friday though.
The teacher/Instructor was ill or hurt or something, and didn't really participate, but more just told us what to do.  Keep in mind that I have no real idea of what the name of all the different 'stepcombinations' and jumps and thingies and usually just rely on being able to follow. I'm not sure I've been that amused since I came here actually, for some reason I found it really, really funny. Everyone is very nice at the gym too, probably the reason why I like coming there so much...

 Had this kind of embarrassing moment afterwards though, when I, after been wondering for the last week, asked the teacher what her name was and subsequently found out that she's the Rossana Beltrán after who the gym got its name. That's one of the moments you just smile and really use the excuse '...No hablo Español...'

Grapefruit flowers on our tree in the garden :)

Just enjoying the sun. ask me again in two months...

School uniform!! With hat :)
Everything's funnier with a hat!

Random picture

Yesterday was a really, really nice day. And LONG. Some of us AFS participants and volunteers decided to go on a little daytrip to Luque, which is in theory a suburb or a part of Gran Asinción, but in practice is more like a country within a country (INCEPTION. Or the Vatican state in Rome..)

As a swede, it was interesting to comethere, because football is a HUGE deal in Luque, and the team colors are blue and yellow, subsequently the whole city is more or less blue and yellow. Like a swedish souvenir shop..

As always, it was very nice to meet some people, just walk around and relax... We bought a kilogram of icecream and ate that, not too bad :) 

Also, it was a real bustravel-day. I've completely fallen in love with 'el colectivo', which is probably a good thing... So first we took the bus to Asunción (about 40 minutes), to meet at the head office of AFS Paraguay, then we took the bus to Luque. Then, for some reason, I decided to go back to Asunción (probably because I didn't have much else to do and I like spending time with nice people...), then back to Luque with the AFS-volunteer and then to San Lorenzo. The day was more or less 10 hours of fun, we've got to do that again :) With a camera next time...

Finished a painting too. More or less... :)