Our first week was spent with Clark getting the hang of his class, exploring the cuisine, and being sick. By Monday or Tuesday, I can't recall, but I lost my sense of smell and that's when I knew it was Covid. That's right. Then Clark and Rosabel started a head cold, among other symptoms, around Wednesday April 23. Clark had to call in sick on Thursday, during his first week of classes. There was no way around it. He said he felt similar to when Covid hit him the first time, back in 2021. By now, I had my results back confirming what my UTI infection was and had started a second round of antibiotics specifically for that. I continued to run low on energy but forced myself to keep the house clean with of us sickies roaming around. Thankfully, Rosabel never felt too bad, and Craig might have sneezed a few times but otherwise it didn't affect him.
I continued to teach my 2nd grade group while also ramping up my Spanish instruction through private online lessons and conversation clubs. Like our other accommodations, our home in Asuncion came with some quirks. One is the combination washer/dryer in our apartment. Our host chose to add it to the apartment rather than pay a monthly fee to access the laundry room in the building. It's understandable since its likely the majority of his guests are short term stays and don't need laundry services. The thing is the machine takes anywhere from 4 to 8 hours to wash and dry ONE SMALL load. And don't even think about getting a blanket into the machine. I was able to launder sheets though and figured out we could run a load all day if we started in the morning and put another load in before bed to be ready when we woke up.
Another quirk here is that the Asuncion apartment is making up for our lack of hot water since our journey started. There is an actual hot water tank in the apartment and it is set very high; some might say too high. The faucet is made of a HEAT CONDUCTING material. Some engineer failed to think this through. The water comes out at an almost boiling temperature and if we accidentally touch the faucet, one could end up with a blister. We have learned where to set the knob so the water is tolerable for hand washing and dish rinsing.
I tell you what? There are two activities I will have to get used to again when I return. First, is cooking. I don't cook alot because: 1. Food is super cheap here and EXCELLENT and 2. Using an automatic dishwasher. These two things go hand in hand. I do tend to avoid cooking because I'm flat out spoiled and TIRED of washing dishes the old fashioned way though there is a kind of sense of accomplishment from performing the mundane tasks involved with housekeeping. It is a FULL-time job keeping up with a house and I am so grateful the houses have been small. It is so nice!
When we weren't sick, teaching, or cleaning, we went out to discover the city. And it's AMAZING. Asuncion and Paraguay are generally, in my opinion, underrated. I am not the first one to settle on this. The city is fairly clean (did I mention that before?) and well-laid out; for the population density, the traffic is reasonable, there is beautiful old architecture everywhere, the museums are free though small (who cares right when you're getting bored you've seen it all), and the government seems to know when to clear away old buildings, not the historic kind, just old ones...to build newer, more modern ones. Also, there are some of the chicest shopping malls I've seen in my adult life. There is also a marked poverty gap between the well-to-do and rural people who wander in from the country.
Our first night out into Asuncion, we had a few people and children come up and beg for food. One guy was pretty insistent, and Clark took offense to that. Maybe its male pride or maybe its male defensiveness but here's the reflection I had in the temple. If we go into a store and buy someone a $1 loaf of bread, we can buy 20 loaves to feed 20 different people for 20 dollars. And what's 20$ compared to what we've spent living abroad or even what we make on a daily basis working and earning USA money? I'm not trying to brag here. We are BLESSED and we take it for it granted because we could be that guy on the street corner begging tomorrow after losing everything. Nothing we have is truly ours.
The bottom line is we will never look back and think, "Oh darn, I wish I hadn't spent that 20$ feeding those 20 people." God could judge us for withholding the wealth of HIS blessings from feeding the poor and downtrodden OR God could judge that poor man for throwing the bread in the trash behind our back. I kept having flashbacks of how determined that guy was to get Clark just to give him something, anything while flinging his arms around, speaking in language we couldn't comprehend while gesturing at his woman sitting in the dark, and I couldn't help wondering if that guy had kids somewhere with empty bellies while ours have never known what real hunger is.
The next time Clark had a guy ask him for food, he took the guy to Burger King. When Clark asked the guy where he was from and asked the guy to show him using the google maps, the guy couldn't use a map. Some kids were longingly looking at the guy's food and so he shared most of the meal Clark had bought with the kids.
No comments:
Post a Comment