Update and *Special Request*

This past week my boss came to visit my site for her 1-year visit. I've actually been in site for a year and 3 months but there are a lot of health volunteers so it took a while for her to get out here.

We met with the director of my school and talked about future projects and how to best take advantage of the time I have left. It's hard to believe but I only have 8 months left! We talked about getting a project started with the government housing community (Conavi) near the school to organize garbage pits and a recycling program. Right now they all just throw their garbage in their yards or out in the fields and other members of the community are starting to complain. There is a guy in a truck that buys plastics and glass a few times every month so they next time he passes my house I'm going to talk to him about going out to Conavi too. There are 3 lines of houses in the community so each line will be responsible for building their garbage pit and they'll get 2 oil drums for plastics and glass. The director already had a meeting with the community members and they seem excited about the project.

I'm also trying to plan a wedding which is in 3 months (AH!). Our guest list started at 50, then doubled, then tripled as Elvio kept remembering that his family is enormous. Paraguayans don't plan anything until the last minute but I thought that maybe a wedding would be different. It's not. We've talked about it plenty but no concrete plans have been made, no one has been hired. The ring order only has to be done 8 days in advance and the judge only needs a week's notice. As someone who likes to plan things in detail, this is extremely stressful for me.

We do have our honeymoon planned though! Elvio has family in Mendoza, Argentina (wine country!) and they rent cabins on their ranch. Here is their website for anyone who's interested: http://www.fincalunadeplata.com.ar/. Elvio worked their for 3 years, he's even in a few of the photos on the website. Anyway, they told us that they are for sure coming to the wedding and they we can ride back to Mendoza with them afterwards for the honeymoon.

So that's the update part of the post, here is the part where I ask you for things! I heard that Borders is going out of business and my school library is really lacking in materials. The kids at my school love when I read to them and when they get to have books to read but I only have like 3 books and really, you can only read about the Adventures of Senor Toothbrush so many times. So, we would really appreciate it if you happen to find any children's books in Spanish if you could send them my way. I saw a few Curious George books in Spanish on their website among others. I know that shipping costs are high but a few softcover books shouldn't be too heavy and my kids would love them. Thank you so much!