Meet the In-Laws

I realize I haven't talked much about my in-laws, which is a big mistake because they are awesome. I'll just stick to immediate family in this post because I'm still learning all the intricacies of his extended family.

Elvio's parents, Julia and Francisco. They have 5 children. They are both very quiet but two of the most hard-working people I have ever met. The only time I ever see Julia sit down to rest is very late at night. She also always knows exactly what remedy to give me when I am sick, which happened a lot the first few times I visited them. Francisco is one of my favorite people in Paraguay. I can never really tell if he's sober or not but that's kind of how it is with all Paraguayan men who spend all day in the field. His family said they didn't even know he spoke Spanish until I came along but every time I come over he starts speaking in Spanish, even if he's not speaking directly to me, something no other Paraguayan does. I told him he shouldn't feel obligated to do that because I could have learned Guarani but he said he just wants to make sure I feel like part of the family.

Elvio has an older brother named Nestor who is 30. I can't find a picture of him right now. He lives with his common law wife, Miguela, and their 4-year-old son (I don't actually know his name) in a town about half an hour from here. I only recently found out that Nestor and Miguela aren't actually married but that's very common in rural Paraguay. Weddings are expensive and there's really no advantage to it. And many times kids come first so couples just move in together and start calling each other husband and wife and forget that they never actually made it official.

Elvio's younger brother and best friend, Jorge. He is 25. For some reason almost all the photos I have of Jorge are of him cutting meat with a saw. Weird. Anyway, he is extremely quiet and every his relatives make fun of him for it. But he is really nice. And, he is getting married in April to his girlfriend of 3 years!

This is Elvio's sister, Leticia (Lety). She is 17 years old. Since the day Elvio and I started dating she has called me her sister-in-law. I'm really proud of her. She is extremely hard-working both at school and at home. She has goals in life; she wants to graduate from high school and go on to college, something not a lot of girls her age think about. She is going to graduate in December and then she plans on going to Argentina to study Biochemistry :). She also really wants to visit the US.

This is Elvio's youngest brother Rodrigo (Rody).  He is 9 years old. He is really smart for his age and extremely curious. Whenever he comes over he immediately finds something new and asks what it is and how you use it. You can tell that he really looks up to his older brothers. He couldn't wait to show Elvio his first pair of cowboy boots that he just got. He helps out at home where ever he can and promised to take care of the cow that Elvio gave me when we got to the US.

So that's the family! I am so thankful for all of them. They have welcomed me into their home and their family since day one. When my parents came to visit they embraced them too even though they didn't share a common language. And they have supported Elvio and I in every step of our journey. I am very blessed to have them in my life.

Out of the blahhhh

I've been a real grump lately and rather than depress everyone with my "debbie downer" attitude I decided to take a small break from blog writing. But I'm back to normal now (it help that I've had heaps of good news lately), or as normal as a person can be in Peace Corps, and ready for some updates.

As I mentioned, lack of work is driving me nuts. This was an unexpected side effect of getting married. When I've gone to visit people, they've actually said to me, "why aren't you at home taking care of your house and your husband?" Well I don't think my house will explode in the hour that I'm gone and my husband is a grown man and doesn't need me to babysit him. I thought I would be this great example of a hard-working super wife/volunteer but that's not what my community wants. It's frustrating but since it's summer and I only have 3 months left I'm trying to be tranquilo and embrace it.

In case you don't stalk me on Facebook, the good news that I was referring to was that I got accepted to Emory University, my top choice grad school for the Master's program in Global Epidemiology. Also, Elvio's visa petition got approved in record time. We still have several more things to do and he'll have to have an interview, which will hopefully be scheduled in April or May but the process is going a lot quicker than I expected, which makes me happy.

I went to my Close of Service conference last week. It was the first time I had seen some of my fellow G-32 volunteers in almost 2 years, which was weird. At first it was awkward for me being in such a large group of Americans (yeah, 41 Americans together is a large group for me) but it was nice to see everyone and talk about readjusting to left in the US. I realized to need to be a lot better about taking pictures to document these last 3 months.

Speaking of pictures:

Our house!

G-32 at our Close of Service Conference, aka best group of volunteers ever :)

Our dog, Modelo. Elvio gave her a haircut so she doesn't look so much like a gremlin anymore.

Rainbow! This made me happy :)