Asuncion (with less rage)

Hola a todos,

I thought I'd just write quickly to say that the last few days have been much better than on Monday when I last wrote! I have decided to steer clear of all horrible children and have been helping with reading and supervising tests and practising conversation skills with year 2, 3 and 6 and I even got to observe a year 10 class and it was nice to do a higher level, though I'm getting used to colouring and reading and writing stories in primary. Maybe I should be a primary teacher?

I had a very exciting bus ride on the Spanish front yesterday. Whilst benefitting from the warmth of total strangers pressed up against me, and repeatedly sticking my bottom into some poor lady's face, I chatted to the year 3 Spanish teacher, Diego, who speaks more English than I speak Spanish, but not a lot more. We managed to have a very productive conversation about church (they love church), education, family, schools in England and travelling. Quite impressive, hey?

He also helped me get my bus ticket to a town called Encarnacion that I am visiting this weekend to see the nearby Jesuit ruins. I tried to get the tickets on Wednesday, but after my pigeon Spanish conversation with the nice ticket lady, we discovered that I hadn't brought my passport with me and I needed my passport for a long distance bus journey. Bother. But I got to go again on Thursday, which at least gave me something to do - sounds a bit pathetic, but hey, when you're travelling on your own, you've got to fill your time somehow and it's interesting to get out and see things. I got off the bus at the wrong place though, and had to walk quite far home (everything's on a grid system so it's quite difficult to get lost if you know the right direction to go) so I got a chocolate sundae (sho-ker-li-shin-dee) from Burger King to give me strength to continue and it only cost 45p! Life in Paraguay is quite cheap!

The weather has gone a bit crazy, though apparently this is normal. It's been 35º and today it was 11º in the morning and it feels freezing in comparison. Mummy - I've been wearing my lovely blue polyester trousers every day and they're doing very well! They don't keep me very warm though.

So I'm off on my adventure to the ruins on Saturday morning and should have some nice photos and stories to show you on Monday/Tuesday.

Hope everyone is keeping well x