Sunday, July 1 – Today was a day for us to relax and enjoy ourselves after a hard-working first week in Santa Rosalia, Paraguay. We returned to the hostel after five days with our host families, and the students were so excited to be back together again. We relaxed and did not have an early wake-up time this morning, so we were able to sleep in late, which felt amazing. Once everyone was ready, we walked around the city of Asunción. We ended up going to TGI Fridays; honestly, it was a shock to see a restaurant so familiar to us. We ate, talked, and noticed the differences between the Fridays here and the ones back home.
Later that afternoon, we went to the “chuchi” (“fancy” in Guarani) mall called Paseo de Galeria, which was also a huge shock. The mall was gigantic! There was a fountain, 
large trees, and an abundance of colorful Christmas lights in the front of the mall. Inside the mall were stores like Claire’s, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Puma, Converse, and Aeropostale – all stores that we know and have at home in Washington, DC. We also saw new, unfamiliar stores, such as CAT and Jennyfur. CAT sells apparel and footwear with the logo of Caterpillar, a company that manufactures construction and mining equipment. Jennyfur sells clothes for women and girls. When I saw Jennyfur I loved it, and I was so excited to see what other new things the Paraguayan mall had to offer.
After a bit of shopping, we went to the movies and saw Oceans 8. The movie theater was packed for a Sunday night. It was the same as going to the movies at home with my friends on a Saturday night. The movie theater did not look different from the ones at 
home, but I definitely knew I was in a different country when I heard people around me speaking Spanish, which I’ve gotten used to now. The movie, Oceans 8 was in English with Spanish subtitles, which is something that surprised me since we are in Paraguay and their language is Spanish (and Guarani). This made me wonder how I would feel to come to a movie in a country where I lived and had to read the whole thing. Once the movie was over and we were leaving the mall I couldn’t help but think about the similarities between Paraguay and the place I call home.
Drena S., Paul Public Charter School