This morning (Wednesday) we got up early enough to be ten minutes away at 8am and look like our brains were on for an organization/prayer group of the Alliance missionaries in Asuncion. The meeting was wonderful and lasted about four hours. They called it my welcome breakfast, and we had fruit and coffee and french toast casserole and an egg casserole with bacon (YUM BACON) and it was all around quite lovely. It's funny how as soon as someone says, "tell us a little bit about yourself," you forget absolutely every fact you ever knew about yourself and can't remember even your own name. Also, you start thinking, "hmm, what interesting things can I tell these people about my interesting life and my awesome sense of humor?" And then you try to make a joke and forget all your english. It just evaporates out of your head. Then you really start thinking, and you realize your life isn't really all that interesting and everything that makes you sound distinguished in the Estados Unidos just makes you sound kind of silly when you say it here. So yes. I had a mild internal identity crisis this morning, over coffee and mangoes.
When the meeting was done, Sarah showed me the budget sheet and kind of where my money will go while I'm here. I pay my own rent and utilities and I buy my own groceries. I also ride the bus just about wherever I need to go, unless Lo is going there as well, in which case, Po and I ride with her.
When the money/business things were finished up, Lo, Sarah, Po and I went to a place called God's Pan, which means "God's Bread." I'm not sure why they used the English for God, but that's what it is. Lo wanted to go to check out prices for Paraguayan Stroganoff (a very different thing than american stroganoff) for a short term team coming in Sunday morning. God's Pan is a type of restaurant called comida por kilo, which means "food by the kilo," or "food by weight." Basically you see what they have and pay for how many kilos you want. I mean, unless it's for a party, people don't usually walk in and buy six kilos of alfredo, but the main point is that there's a unit price and you pay by the weight of the amount of food you want.
After that, Po and I went back to Sarah's house and ate our empanadas from God's Pan. I had one ham and cheese empanada and one chicken empanada. I think I liked the ham and cheese better, because their chicken (like in the tarte I had for lunch on monday and dinner today) was ground and mixed with some vegetables and spices. I like chicken, but the ground stuff is a strange texture.
So after lunch, Sarah and Po and I started talking about schedules for the next couple weeks. I didn't have a planner at that point, and we were discussing logistics for 3 or 4 appointments a day, for 14 different days. My mind almost exploded. I am a very visual person, and so I like to write things in a linear manner (like in a planner) [hey, manner, planner! haha] and sort them all ouot in my brain until I can remember them in their correct spots. But all of this information, you see, was bouncing around in my head like 27 children drinking Red Bull in a bouncy house. I hope you all enjoy that visual. (: So my mental state was very quickly going downhill, but I was making a pretty solid effort to stay focused and keep working. I guess my eyes were starting to do something weird, because Sarah looked up at me and said, "Let me know when we're reaching overload, okay? We're doing tons of information today, so we can totally take breaks." I then asked if I could just put my head down for a couple minutes, but Sarah promptly banished me from the dining room while she made a few organizational calls, and told me I would be retrieved from Kate's (one of the twins) bed when I was needed again.
I can't even tell you how grateful I was for Kate's bed. With its fluffy pink pillow and pink and yellow quilt (both matching Little Lauren's across the room), there was nothing more I could ask for in the napping arena. I don't think I even fell asleep, but I talked to Jesus a little bit and mentally pulled all of the poky information out of my brain so it could organize itself on the pillow while I closed my eyes and smiled.
When we finished with all the logistics and planning talk, about a half hour later, and Forest had drawn the most beautiful map of our area of Asuncion in the back of my journal, complete with highlighted bus routes and labeled streets and starred missionary houses, we decided to go to the store to get a new sim card for the Nokia brick that was to be my cell phone. It cost about $7.50 (30 mil guaranias) to get a new sim card and quite a few minutes, and then Sarah left Po and I in the mall to find the SuperSeis (another version of the HiperSeis, a grocery store/ supermarket) and ride the bus home.
Let me tell you about that bus. Every time I get on the bus, it's right before dinner, and we eat dinner very late here in Paraguay. Also my lunches have been pretty small, and so I'm generally pretty hungry. But on both days we've ridden buses, I've been particularly hungry, and the adrenaline rush of bus riding (not a joke) actually causes my blood sugar to drop. The first time we rode a bus, it was raining outside, which meant everyone was inside, and there was barely anyone on the bus. Today, however, was my second time on the bus, and there was no rain. I am telling you, if I had let go of that pipe that goes along the top of the bus that you're supposed to hold onto, I would not have fallen over. and everyone who gets on the bus permiso's their way to the back of the bus so they can be right there when it's time to get off. Well let me tell you what. When it was my turn to get to the back of that bus, they were stacked four thick on each side, plus the ones in the seats. It was kind of like popping a pimple. Sorry, bad analogy. Ummm. It was kind of like...nope. Pimple analogy is all I've got. I kept moving further and further back, and the further back I got in the bus, the more people there were, and the tighter the squeeze. There was a peak point where I seriously just had to shove through. Also may I note that Lauren shouted for the bus driver to wait because he was about to leave because Lauren had already safely and soundly gotten off, and he wasn't waiting any longer. However. We are both alive. In these kinds of situations, I am especially tempted to be ashamed of my US American-ness, as well as my body size and manly voice and whatever else I can think of. But when it comes down to it, everybody rides the bus and everybody gets squished. Let me tell you. It is very strange to have that many strangers' butts touch your butt (yes, accidentally, but still) in one afternoon and have to tell yourself that this is a culturally acceptable form of communication. You heard me. Bus people communicate through butts.
Also elbows.
It has been a long day. (:
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