Asuncion, Paraguay

Well... I have been here for about six days now and right now is probably not the best time to be writing as I've just walked out of a very stressful class with lots of very argumentative year 5 boys! I shall try not to vent too much.

My journey over was very nice, and I'm settling in nicely to my routine in Asuncion. I help out in the secondary school ocassionally with some English speaking exams and I observed a class this morning but mostly I'm in the primary school doing SEN stuff and assisting teachers in the classroom and listening to children read and helping them with their English. I'm working 1-1 with a boy called Tiago who is very sweet and potentially on the spectrum, but SEN doesn't really exist in Paraguay and although they are registered on some form of register, it doesn't entitle them to any help in the form of extra time or assistants or computers, which is sad.

St Andrew's is an interesting school. It caters for the highest echelon of Paraguayan society so the students are children of comparative millionaires. However, even though the school is lovely, it's similar to an ordinary state primary school and doesn't have nearly the same facilities as we'd expect from an average secondary (though there is a pool). So you'd think the children would be miles different from the boys at Archbishop Tenison's, but it turns out that at the extreme ends of the scale, children are all the same, just for different reasons. The primary school is lovely, but apparently there is a lot of apathy, arrogance and rudeness in the secondary.

Anyway. I'm staying with a girl called Raquel, who is lovely and has a beautiful little apartment near the school and all local amenities. Paraguay, although there is a lot of poverty (that I haven't seen yet) is not currently striking me as developing world-y, despite being the second poorest country in South America. They have colgate and l'oreal and other 'normal' things, though they only have full fat milk in the canteen, which is gross for tea. I did touristy things on Saturday in the centre of town with Babs and then went to her house in a different district called Mariana Roque Alonso, which is a less well-off part of town. We watched the football (Paraguay v. Bolivia, Paraguay won, hooray) and guns and fireworks were set off when Paraguay scored. Then we went to her church in the morning (there's a lot of church here because St Andrews is a missionary school) and came home for lunch with the family of a man called Alberto who is the head of maintenance at the school. They are lovely, lovely people and we had a few very poor conversations in Spanish.

I'm learning a bit of Spanish and understand a lot of what I hear, but it's very easy not to speak it in school as we have lessons in English to encourage the children to become near-fluent in English. I'm getting better though and will hopefully be able to at least get by when I leave to go to Argentina. I'm reading 'Le Petit Prince' in Spanish. Cute.

I've been to Raquel's church too and sampled some local delicacies including empanadas (like Cornish pasties, but I think deep fried) and MEAT. Meat is a big thing in Paraguay. They eat a lot of it and it's really good. I'm not even sure what meat it is, but I'm assuming it's beef. They give you whole chunks of it - I even saw one chunk with a foot on the end - animal, not human.

I hope I'm able to post some photos, but I'd just like to end by saying a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my granddad and to Meera if you're reading. I hope you had a lovely day.

Hasta lluego!