Back to school...
(Me and my german friend Niko drinking tereré.)
This past tuesday, my summer vacation in Paraguay officially ended, after four blissful months of sleeping in, hiding from the heat, hanging out with Zan in her garden, or with Emerson in el centro and travelling to the far reaches of this beautiful country I'm in. (By the way, as of March 1st I've been here for seven months. Time flies, definately.)
Most of the time though, I was exploring. I hopped on new busses in my hometown of Asunción, hoping it went to where I wanted to go. I hopped on fancy Greyhound-like busses that took me to the other side of the country, heading to lugares such as Ciudad del Este, Encarnación and Pedro Juan Caballero.
But now, I'm taking on a new adventure - Paraguayan school. Yes, I was enrolled in Colegio Del Sol for a few months, but that hardly counted. CdS is one of the most pristine private schools in all of Paraguay, so almost all of my classmates spoke English. I barely learned any Spanish. However, my spanish has rapidly improved in the three days that I've been in my new school, Colegio Expiremental Paraguay y Brasil (CEPB).
CEPB is a private schol too, but with less money, so it's more tranquilo. My host dad drove me in, walked me to the office, introduced me, then promptly left me without a word. So started my first day of school. I'm in 2do 'A' -- the grades are broken up into two classes - A and B -- but my AFS friends Emerson and Janneke are in 2do 'B'. The two opposing classes hate each other, and I happen to be Switerland. I'm friends with all of mis compañeros, but I'm also already friends with kids in the 'B' class. So basically, there's a war going on to see who I like more, A or B. I wish I was kidding, but no. It's a hard-core battle to win my love/attention. Almost everyday I have something to do after school, whether it be with 'A', 'B', or AFS students. I've gone from having nothing to do all day to having too much. It's nice, but really hard.
(Some of mis compañeras and I, at a friend's house.)
In class, I do rendir, (try, basically, but there really isn't a direct-translation for it into English) but only in some classes. Physics, for example, I wouldn't understand in English, let alone Spanish, so I just kind of sit there and doodle in my notes. In my math class, we're learning stuff I learned a few years ago, so no problem. I really fell back into the 'school' pattern quite nicely; honestly, I was seriously worried about how I'm going to go back to BHS after spending a year here. But I have been doing this for almost 12 years of my life, so it really wasn't that hard. The school atmosphere might be different between BHS and CEPB, but it's still basically the same thing - sitting there, taking notes, and getting tested on the material.
Overall, I'm in a good place. These last four months are going to fly by, for sure. I'm having problems with my new host family, but I'm sure I can hold up for four more months. Nothing too horrible going on that I can't deal with.
ps: AFS gave me my offical return date! I fly out of Asunción on July 7th at 18:00. So I should be back in America the 8th!
