200 years!

Signs of Paraguay's bicentennial.

Pray for Paraguay!

Yesterday's news...in FoxNews Latino. Lots of people are getting sick with Dengue. The eight year old that died on Saturday night lived 5 miles from us and her family was a friend to our relatives in Ñemby. She started getting flu like symptoms Saturday afternoon and just started getting worse and worse. When they took her to the hospital she had internal bleeding and soon after, died.

Pray for my family, the school kids and teachers. Lots of people are complaining about stomach aches and lots of kids are absent from school.

Some people are cancelling trips to Paraguay because of the dengue epidemic!

PRAY!

A Movie Scene???

Today I was coming home from town and this little white car came at me from behind flashing it's lights and closer to my window a guy leaned out and screamed..."pull over. We're the police". I thought they were drunk or joking so I kept going. They sped in front of me and stopped, making me have to stop, too. I had some Argentine visitors with me and Edson. They all started praying when we saw four guys with four guns jump out of the car at us. They surrounded the car and one policeman pointed a gun at my (driver's) window and said, "open all the windows". I did, and asked, "what is going on" in unbelief! He looked in at all of us...gun pointing at my head. (The ladies in the back were still praying.) Then, he said. "Excuse me, Ma'am, there has been an armed robbery and this is the exact same car the the thieves were in. My advice would be to drive with all your windows down or you'll probably be stopped every mile down the road."

Here is the link from the ABC newspaper. (in Spanish)

Edson's version is quite interesting!

It was just so weird and so fast...I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time...

Praise God for His daily protection!

More of our adventure...

This is where the warm and cold waters meet in "Paso Carreta". The other pictures are of the scenery around this area.

December 8th

December 8th is a Holiday. Many Paraguayans take Route 2 to Caacupe for religious purposes, but we decided to take the scenic Route 1 going a different direction for a family outing.

We discovered a cold creek in Escobar and a larger creek in San Roque Gonzalez at the bottom of the Cerro Acahay. The interesting feature was that two creeks, one warm water and one cold water meet.

It was a good get-a-way from the Hot city and a nice family day...

You can see Brandon, Matt and Gaby in the pictures.

Monday Falls, Ciudad del Este - Paraguay

The FAIR...From a TEEN'S point of view...

Brandon and Gaby with some friends at the Asunción Fair...La Expo.

The Birthday Girls

Another niece and I did all the decorations. Jazmin did their make-up and hair. I have little flowers all around the cake because, here, in Paraguay, all the single girls and friends have to pull one of the strings with flowers on it. Tradition says: if you get the string with the gold ring on it then you are the next to get married. Then, one by one, or family by family, goes and gets a picture with the birthday girls. Since I was the fotographer, we just got some close-ups of us...

Cold, Cousins, and Cakes

It's been so cold for the past month that I don't sit down and write often. It's too cold to sit still and my hands freeze while I write. I like to be in a warm spot, like the kitchen. Well, I am way backed up from the birthday party, but I still wanted to show you some of the pictures of my cakes. My icing didn't work as well as I wanted it to. It was kind of runny, but I tried to hide it well!

There were bunches of cousins at the "Quince" (the 15th year birthday party).

Friendship Day - July 30th

To all my friends...HAPPY DAY...Thanks for your encouragement and prayers! Read up about Friendship Day in Paraguay HERE.

Winter Weather

...A glimpse of the Paraguay River from our bedroom window...

Today: 85º F

Sunday: 44º F

CRAZY winter weather!!!!

Keeping Warm

These are some of the ways we are keeping warm here in Paraguay...wood burning stoves and máte!

Saturday...a little bit of everything

Well, Things are getting pretty tense here. The Paraguay - Spain game is about to start. They say it is going to be projected in one of the biggest Stadiums here in Asunción and everyone was invited to go to cheer on the Paraguayan Team. Martha sent me a cute link about the Paraguayan Team in South Africa. Sadly, our two neighbors (Argentina and Brazil) are out of the World Cup, but Uruguay is still pretty strong.
Getting ready for lunch, dinner and company tomorrow, I ransacked the house for a special recipe. Oscar in his efforts to "help me" clean up several days ago, put it up with old folders and notebooks in Edson's room. I would have NEVER looked there!
Anyway, I was looking for a recipe that mom made when we were kids. I loved it so much and made it many times since...Zucchini Pizza! (I thought I would stick it in my blog so it doesn't get lost anymore!)
3 C. shredded zucchini
1 small onion chopped fine
1 small garlic grated
2 tsp. parsley
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oil
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 cup bisquik (or self rising flour, like I used)
1 cup shredded cheese
4 eggs
Mix together in a 9x13 pan and bake until browned.
It was supposed to be for tomorrow...but we ate more than half of it before lunch...for our tereré break!
P.S. I let you know if we win a little bit later...

Paraguay - Japan

Paraguay 5- Japan 4!!!

The Pueblo Paraguayo is partying. Downtown is full of celebration. My sister-in-law cried! Paraguay...one of the eight BEST soccer teams in the World Cup!

Yes, we watched it at school! The kids went in their Paraguay Jerseys. Gaby filmed this. The game ended when bell rang. I don't think the students would have been ABLE to concentrate anymore.

People are still honking horns and blasting their radios with the Paraguay victory song.

Here's a clip of the reaction after the winning goal.

Paraguay - World Cup

By the way, if you are a soccer fan, Paraguay and Italy tied today... 1 - 1

I got the picture from this article.

Vamos Paraguay!

Today is the day!

Today is the opening day for the World Cup! This is almost like what the Olympics would be to people in the states. People are going totally crazy. My kids can think of NOTHING else!

Last night there was a Kick Off Concert and today, in just minutes...they are starting the opening ceremony.

Guess what, President Lugo says you can watch it in school! What a way to skip classes! Yes, we will project it on a huge screen for the whole school. If we wouldn't do it, the kids would skip school. Gaby was already figuring out ways to stay home and watch the first game South Africa vs. Mexico. Paraguay plays its first game on Monday, and once again, Lugo "gave orders" for the game to be watched at work, at school, on the street, or where ever.

So, Go Paraguay!

Vamos Albirrojo!

Stuck in the Sand

We were visiting our relatives in San Pedro. We had to get back to the city (50 km away) by 7pm. Oscar's brother told us to go a different route back to the main highway. He said it was a smoother dirt road than the one we usually use. Five minutes later, we were jam-packed in sandy dirt. Can you see how the car is lifted up? We tried everything...parts of logs, pushing, etc. we just kept getting deeper.

It was almost dark. We were so far in the country that our cellphones didn't work. I stayed in the car with Edson (to pray) while Oscar went out walking (and praying) to find help. We were both remembering a time about 10 years ago when we were stuck in the middle of the pitch-black countryside with no lights and no help so late at night with two little kids for hours...

In just minutes...a pick up showed up from no where and this rancher-guy pulled us out. Then, just as quick as he appeared, he disappeared.

God's Angles at work!

Public Transportation Strike

There's been some riots all around Asunción area since Wednesday because of the bus strike. More than 43 bus lines joined the strike...4000 bus drivers and 2000 buses are not running. You can see a short video from ABC to see how they are attacking buses that ARE running their routes. Several teachers didn't make it to school yesterday because there were no buses...and if there were, it was too dangerous to get on them. A lot of students were absent, also. One from Brandon's grade got to school in a trailer-cart on the back of a car. Many people are out making money with their trailers, carts and pick-ups...taking people here and there like a taxi service.
This morning I haven't heard of any more terrible violence on the streets/buses, but yesterday, the news says that there were 50 buses attacked because they were "working" instead of joining the strike. On the ABC link if you scroll down about 2 inches you will be able to see a series of photos from yesterday's riots and todays pictures of the strike.
Very Sad!

Paraguayan Cooking - Vori Vori

At first, I didn't like the smoky smell and flavor of Paraguayan Foods, but after a while (19 years), you realize that it is pretty good and most people's food across the Land will probably have this flavor. Teachers sometimes come in with a smoky hair smell. Sometimes it smells like cocido (burnt sugar and yerba máte mixed with red-hot coals) across the neighborhood. It's actually a very addictive smell and people will always say..."hummmm, I smell cocido!"

Since it's cold and rainy lately, the smoky smell of small fires and coal burning is all over.

One of Oscar's favorite foods is Vori-Vori...this is a chicken soup with little cornball dumplings in it. He especially likes it when I make it on my small coal burner and let it boil away all morning.

Here's my recipe:

Soup:

1 small chicken all cut up

1 onion, chopped

1 pepper, chopped

2 pieces of garlic

salt, pepper to taste

Carrots, potatoes, squash...if you like

Boil for an hour while you form your vori-vori.

Vori-vori:

1 cup corn flour

1/2 cup fresh cheese, crumbled

salt

2 tablespoons flour or self-rising flour

1 egg

hot chicken broth

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Add egg and hot soup, but just enough to make a moist dough. Mix with your hands. After you mix it well, form into small balls (vori) about the size of cherry tomatoes. Drop them all together into the boiling broth. Do not cover. Let boil 10 minutes until the vori is cooked. Add oregano.