Today, Tuesday, July 27, we traveled from Asunción to Tobati and met our host families. To say that it was interesting is an understatement. It was my understanding that we would be staying in pairs, two LearnServe students (one who was less fluent in Spanish and a Spanish-speaking buddy), at the homes of our host families…But I was wrong. Something was lost in translation and everyone ended up getting separated into different homes. When I heard that, I was absolutely terrified and automatically distraught. I was not confident in my ability to speak or understand Spanish and I thought that there was no way this could go well. This trip was going to go downhill from now. I have to admit, I was extremely close to crying and having a minor meltdown, but then Binni, our teacher chaperone, walked into my room. Somehow, we both were assigned the same family. I had some hope that, as a chaperone, she would have a better understanding of the Spanish language than I did, but that hope was firmly extinguished when she looked even more confused than me! Binni was also scared about not knowing the language and she wondered how she was going to successfully communicate with our hosts. We shared our thoughts about this uncomfortable situation, and I called a close friend to help calm me down because I was so scared.
Later in the afternoon, we went back to the school, and I spent time with my host sister and had fun. My Spanish is actually much better than I thought, and I have been able to have many conversations and people understood what I was saying. My host mother made a delicious dinner, and we had very pleasant and very funny conversations. All in all, it turned out to be a great day and I love it here. I can’t wait to see what else is in store for me here. Paraguay is a lot like Jamaica!