AFS Adjustment Orientation

    On Friday, October 7th, all of the AFS exchange students who are in school went on a 3 day long Adaptation Orientation in Piribebuy. Since I didn't have school on Friday (my school had a week long vacation), I spent the day packing. Before we left for the National Office of AFS Paraguay, my mom bought me a new SIM card with a local number, so now I can use my phone even without WiFi. My family dropped me off at the office and I spent the next hour catching up with my friends. It was great to see them again after a month and a half. We later all got onto the bus and the 3 hour long bus ride began.

    When we arrived at the Quinta Turismo Rural camp site, we had merienda and started the orientation. The rest of the night and Saturday were mostly spent with the orientation, where we had talked, played games, had counseling, and did activities about settling in, the differences between our host country and families and our natural families, taking charge of our exchange, being overwhelmed, perspective, the differences in our schools, and accepting that it is normal to be struggling and that we are all in the same boat even though all of our experiences are unique. The discussions we had were good and I feel like we benefited a lot from them.

    We made posters, had discussion groups, and played some games. One activity on Saturday was that we all were divided into pairs. In each pair, one person had to be blind folded while the other was their guide. Each blind folded person had to walk through an obstacle course while their partner told them instructions in Spanish. I was the blind folded one in my pair.

    We separated into groups to discuss what some of the biggest differences were between our home countries and Paraguay. We then had to draw one and present it, and my group chose the traffic. In Paraguay, all traffic laws are ignored. There are potholes everywhere, motorcycles weave between heavy traffic, busses don´t fit on some streets, and there are vendors and pedestrians walking all over the road.

        

    We had an activity where we sat around a chair and each of us had to draw the chair how we saw it. This was to talk about perspective and how although we were all drawing the same chair, our perspective made it so that all the drawings were different.

    On Friday night, we had pasta for dinner and on Saturday night, we had pizza. The food was really nice and we had many options to choose from for each meal and merienda.

                          

Dinner on Friday night                                    Saturday lunch: Milanesa with french fries and vegetables

    On Saturday, we stayed up late after dinner. We had a small bonfire to celebrate Anneleen's birthday and played volleyball. I went to bed earlier than my roommates, but I was still so tired that I didn't notice when they came back at 2 in the morning. On Sunday, we woke up to a lot of wind. We had breakfast indoors, packed, and rode back to the office. My sister and dad picked me up.

    

The bonfire                                 A frog that we found

    

More bonfire                               Late night volleyball

    The camp was really fun and it was nice to see my friends again. We also got some closure about the ups and downs that we´ve had so far. Today, Tuesday, was my second day back at school after not going for 3 weeks! I was sick for 2 weeks and last week was my school´s vacation. I´m glad to be back and the classes aren´t any more understandable.

    I'm going to try to update my blog more often, probably just with a bunch of pictures. I miss you all back in the US, and I hope school is going well for you guys. It feels weird that I'll end up graduating a year later than you! Keep in touch, and I'll try to post more soon!!