Friday, January 11, 2008

Coming to you from deep in the heart of Departmento Caazapa

For those of you playing along at home, the reading list is going as follows: Finished Atlas Shrugged about a month...and I only started back in fifth grade (and restarted back when I was living in California). I also have read Jane Hamilton´s Book of Ruth, decent, in Oprah´s book club if that means something to someone. Now I´m mostly through Garrison Keillor´s We are Still Married, enjoyable. I´m also listening to parts of the Ender´s Saga, it´s the 7 books by Orsen Scott Card. Finished Xenocide and have a few more hours left on Children of the Mind, which is really just the rest of Xenocide. So listening isn´t exactly reading but the ipod was lighter than any one book, and I put 6 on it, plus my music.

Okay, the phone is being finicky. So hopefully more will work out towards Feb. That said The holidays were interesting. I feel pretty certain that I wore out my welcome at my neighbors. Not with her son, but the Senora (Na in Guarani) is cranky and bitter and old and was unhappy with me staying there and eating at her house from the start. That said I managed to make it through the holidays and then she said I should start sleeping in my house (50 meters away), which I only wasn´t doing because of Peace Corps regs. But she said she had family coming, they didn´t. Doesn´t matter though I sleep heaps better in my own space, without chickens and dogs and cats walking around or the radio on till midnight or people banging around in the middle of the night. Of course this week I had a rat in the house, and then one night I saw a cat sitting outside and haven´t heard the rat since then or seen the cat back at my house. So all´s well that ends...well, now I am working with a different brother, but still hoeing cotton. That said, my blisters have healed and I now have awesome calluses, I know a hard half day of work (we don´t do much in the afternoon, too bloody hot. Have had no world news or otherwise for a few weeks, so if somebody knows something that I should, please share.

I wanted to write more, but I need to go buy groceries.

Jajohechata (See ya later),
Michael