So paraguay is getting better :) Ive lived here for almost two weeks now and i am more comfortable and used to everything. I feel more comfortable speaking spanish and i am learning more :) I am more comfortable with the idea that i dont speak well and it will take much time for me to understand everything. More people in the town know who i am and a lot of times someone says hi kayla to me and i have never meet them before. But i am glad that they know who i am. I walk to the school i work at every day and to gustavos house and people always ask me if i want i ride which is annoying but i always say no. I will never get on a motorcycle because it is too dangerous expecially in paraguay. In paraguay there are no stop signs or stop lights and no one obeys the trafic laws. And the policia doesnt doing anything about it. I realy dont know what the police do here. Thats what my sister told me, that there are a lot of accidents in the motorcycles.  Also a lot of my neighbors dont have enough money to eat so my host mom makes them lunch at the comedor and all the kids come in the afternoon. The food is donated by the goverment i think but recently it sstoped. My host sister explained it to me but i couldnt understand. Someone told me the president didnt want to give more money to the poor but then she was explainning to me something about a bad family that did something, im not sure. Also gustavo has an organization called nueva suerte to help the hospital here and also to help young pregnant women in here. There are a lot of young prenant women and his his wife teached about controception in the schools but it is still a problem. This saturday there will be a movie to raise money for the organization and we are talking about having contests in raise money. I really enjoy and get along with my family :)  My host mother always asks me how my day was, if i ate anything, and she enjoys explainning things to me. I also ask her many questions. She is very animated and i can understand her pretty well! She told me that if i get home late i wont be able to go out again for a while. She is very protective. She also said that is there is a boy that me or one of my sisters like we wont be able to leave the house :p but she was just joking around. We joke around a lot. They always say that in the summer we wear more clothes and in the winter we wear less, to confuse me :p And there is a worker that comes to our house to fix the wall of one of the rooms in the house after its fixed me and dianna and maybe adrianna will move into that room. They joke around that only i will sleep in that room because i said that i dont want to be alone. My little host brothers are also getting more comfortable with me. The younger one is very talkive and is always laughting and playing around. The other day i read them the little mermaid in spanish. The little brother likes to copy what i am doing and

I have been in Paraguay now for almost two weeks and i am getting more used to everything :) I am getting more used to speaking spanish and to the idea that i cant speak very well yet and that it will take time. If i dont understand something i ask for an explanation or what a word means but sometimes if theres much i dont understand i dont ask because it is too much. My host mom enjoys explainning much to me and she is very animated and i can understand her. My host brothers are also getting more used to me! I enjoy being with my two host brothers. The little one talks a lot and is always laughing and playing around. He copies what i am doing some times and yesterday i read them a story in spanish :) He is also loves to say my name. It is hard for people to say my name here. The older brother is a little more quite but he is very smart! And i enjoy looking at his homework My younger sister showed me today her english lyrics from english class and he sang a bit. I am teaching her a little bit of english. It is reallly cute when she says something in english. I like eating dinner with the family. We joke around a lot. They try to confuse me by saying that in paraguay in winter they wear not much clothes and in the summer they wear a lot. The mom also jokes that she will get colored contacts for the family so we look like we are all related. The people here including the family are very ammused with my things such as my jewelry and my camera. It is getting better at the school i work at because the kids know me better now but i still feel like there is not much for me to do. Every afternoon i take two buses with the afs students to another city where my spanish class is at. The first time was very fun and the spanish teacher is very nice :) And i like the town where our spanish class is at. It is very cute with a church and school. A lot of my neighboors dont have enough food to eat so my host mother cooks the kids luch and they all come to the comedor to have lunch but recently something happened and the goverment is not giving out money for the poorer people so it has stopped. Gustavo has an organazation called nueva suerte which helps to raise money for the hospital here in nueva Italia and for services for young pregnant women here. His wife talks about contraception in the schools but there is still a lot of young pregnant women. We are talking about fundraisers and this saturday there willl be a movie playing in the town to raise money. I will help to riase money and visit the women who need help.Gustavo has been a big help to me and to the afs students. He makes sure we know where to do and makes sure everything is going well at home and at work. Today there is a new president in paraguay so there is no school, which is very nice! His name is Horacio and every five years there is a new president. People vote for the president but there is still a lot of corruption and hopefully this president will give the money to the people who need it. The last one kept the money and had much because he owned a factory. There are many afs students who come to work in shelters where the homeless children can go. There are many homeless children here. Also the other day my host sister said that no one here respects the traffic laws. Here there are no stop lighs and stop signs and many people get into accidents. When im walking many people ask me for a ride but i wont ride a motorcycle. Also more people in the town know i am here which is nice :) Some people say hi kaya, people that i have not meet before. Many people talk in the town and last week my host mom said i needed to wash my feet because the people in the town said that i had dirty feet. Whichi thought was kind of weird! I did hear before i came that people are very cleansly here, which is true.

A week ago i arrived in asuncion with 72 other afs students.I talked to many people in the couple of days and we also learned a lot about paraguay. We learned that they drink mate and tetete. They are types of tea. We learned different gestures that they do in paraguay, health and safty, that the families are very protective and restrictive of their daughters, about the sounds that men make at women. There is the dengue fever here in paraguay so we have to wear insect repellent in the summer and at night. Also paraguay is a third world country that has a lot of poverty. There is no hot water or heating in my town and not much internet. But there are a lot of gracious and caring paraguayos that help. Paraguay is relativley safe expecially where i am in a safe town. It is also a traditional society that values the family very much and the women clean and cook while the men work. The day that meet my host family i was very very nervous! I was so worried to meet my family because they would be the family that i would live with for a year. A lot of paragayan families came to pick of their new son and daughter. A lot of them had nice cars and clothes. A lot of them were wealtheir and live in asuncion where there is more wealth. But there were also poorer families. Gustavo, my representative in nueva Italia, came to pick me up along with two other student who live in my town, one from germany and one from belgium. I was nervous because i didnt know where we were going and i didnt understand why my family didnt want to come pick me up. But it wasnt because they didnt want to its just that they dont have a car. Not many people have cars but many people have motorcycles. i wont ride one because they are very dangerous, many people get into accidents expecially at night when they drink. So when i got to my family first was the first time i felt homesick because everything was so strange...And no one seemed excited to meet me. My host mom took me to the backyard because everyone was having dinner at the grandpas house. There was chickens and dogs running around under the table, lots of flys on the food, and a lot of arena everywhere. Arena is a type of sand that they have everywhere which is the color of red clay. At first no one talked to me and everyone talked in guarani. So i didnt know what to do...i couldnt understand anyone..and it was so different so i felt like crying. The daughter was cleaning the dishes and didnt talk to me. Later on they talked to me in spanish so i felt better. Speaking spanish all the time is difficult. There is a lot of feelings that go along with it. I feel embarrased because i cannot understand or speak well and i feel bad that they always have to repeat things for me and explain things to me. Sometimes i dont ask for an explanation and sometimes i do. But im learning that its okay if people need to speak slower to me and repeat things. I shouldnt feel bad about it but its hard not to feel frustrated. Later on i talked with my host sisters and i can have interesting conversations with my host sisters. We talked about many things and they have told me many things about paraguay. They told me that their parents dont like it if they leave the house often and that if they have a boyfriend they cannot let their parents know. Also they told me that there are a lot of disrespectful men in paraguay and that many young girls become pregnant because the men refuse to use a condom. There are people that come to their school and explain how to use one and about the diseases that you can get other wise but still not everyone uses protection. My sister is actually doing a proyect on stds which i find intereting. Many subjects are considered taboo here such as sex and gay people. They tend not to talk much about those subjects. Also politics. This past week i went to the pre school but i did not like it very much because i felt useless. I cannot understand younger people because they speak much guarani and there was not much that i could do other than hand out milk and cookies. One teacher asked me what i was doing here and when i asked her what i could do to help she did not know. So i felt very unwanted. I told my representative and he said that in a month we could find another type of work like teaching english. I want to be useful and be able to help the people in some way. Also one afs student told me to be patient because she felt the same way for three months. It is not easy being a foriegn exchange student. The people here stare at me but they dont smile. I really dont like that they dont smile or laugh much in public and it makes me feel bad. There are not a lot of men who make the chi chi noises but sometimes there are. I am very happy that there are other foreign exchange students here, so i can speak english and so i am not alone. I imagined my exchange year romantically, that everyone would want to talk to me and that i would make many friends and enjoy learning many things. I never thought about how it would be difficult.  Hopefully i will soon find my place here and make friends. I meet my sisters friends the other day and they were so nice to me! They asked me what i like to do, how liked paraguay which is a question thats hard to answer right now. They showed me how they dance and also how they draw. They often cook together and go to the church to sing and dance on saturday which i missed yesterday because i was traveling in paraguay. I hope i can make friends here and that my parents will let me go out a lot to spend tiime with friends. My host brothers are very very cute! I played games with them with marbles and cards. It is interesting because the people here in paraguay are very generous and they like to take care of you but they do not apear that way. They apear standoffish and distant. In paraguay we always share food and we always poor the water or soda for each other at dinner time. One person serves the rest. People are not very independent. Also winter just started here and it is very cold!! including the homes and i do nott want to take a shower or change my clothes because it is too cold. Although paraguayans are very clean people and they like to organize and clean each other things. The food is also very good and filling! We eat a lot of chicken and soup. Also this really hard bread we put in mate, hot tea with milk. Also everyone drinks tetete, this type of tea. They carry around thermos filled with water to fill their cup with the tetete leaves. I have learned a lot of spanish words here, there are so many to learn! They call the bus colectivo for example which is different. In the town there is a hopital that people are working on to raise money for a improve. There is a community center where you can take spanish, guarani leassons and also learn how to make clothing and how to fix motorcycles. There is also another center where people organize the money and where there  are therapists. Im not sure what else but i know that every saturday there is a fiesta for young people. But my host mom doesnt allow her daughters to go because there is many drunk people and accident with the motorcycles. I really want to go to the colegio which is their high school. To see what their schol is like. I think that the school is pretty good and they can learn quite a bit there. I saw my younger brothers homework and it was pretty difficut but he did everything right. I walk to school everyday butt i could also take the bus because it comes every fifteen minutes. No one in the town can speak english but there is an english class and some peop9le try speaking english to me. But they only can say hello, goodbye, see you tomorrow. Also i love how they say my name here. IT is hard for them to pronounce but once they get it it is funny because their voice goes up and them down, they pronounce the ka with more emphasis. Right now i am using the computer of gustavo. he said i could use it whever but i still feel bad taking from people. The other day i went on a trip with the other afs students all around paraguay. WE saw a lot of towns and places where there was just nature. And this previous day i went with the afs student in the town to buy things in asuncion. There are not many afs student who i feel like i really get along with but i hope to find paraguayan friends.Ive wondered how everyone elses experiences are in paraguay.....I think thats all i can think of for now bye!!