This Sunday, November 1, we will have Living Stones Presentations after each Mass.
If you have not attended one of these, please do plan to come this Sunday.
There is lots of interesting information, a great DVD featuring our Holy Innocents Community, and a chance to learn more about our parish.
We will have childcare available.  The presentations are no more than an hour long.
Do come!
Gail

In one way it has been an uneventful week – we actually had English class at the high school both days this week and there were even students that I recognized! On the other hand it rained so often and the electricity was out for so many hours that it seemed as if we got nothing done. I have had minimal internet all week – just enough to look at e-mail. I did teach my first lesson with Digna on how to use a computer. She is very good with the mouse but I fear she may become addicted to Spider Solitaire. We don’t have any other programs on her computer but tomorrow I hope to start teaching her a little word processing using notebook.
It is interesting to note that Carlos who has downs syndrome also uses the computer. He can spend hours drawing boxes on the screen. They are actually quite artistic. I’ll have to save one and post it because they are very pleasing to look at.
As usual when it comes to the language, I often feel that I am a day late and a dollar short. For example, this past Saturday Digna announced that we were going to walk over to her copadres land to visit his well (pozo) and that it is only 3 kilometers (about 2 miles). At least that is what I thought she said. I had no idea why we were going but I’m up for any new adventure. Saturday arrived and it was storming with the usual deluge of rain, thunder, and lightning. Digna and I were entertaining Anae, a girl from Peru who is working with Eddy (Digna’s son, head of TeleCentro) on some sort of wireless project. However, Eddy left her with us while he took his wife to visit her parents. The electricity went out, the rain continued to pour down, I got out my embroidery to work on, and we sat in the living room talking.
All of a sudden, Apolonio, Digna’s brother-in-law showed up in his small truck. Within 5 minutes we were on our way (just time to get ice, water, jackets, and a bathroom break). I had no idea where we were going or why. Since it is Peace Corps rules that we cannot ride in the back of a truck, both Anae and I got to sit in the front. Also in the front seat (fortunately, trucks here do not have bucket seats but benches) were Apolonio’s small grandson and Digna, who squeezed in at the last minute – yes – five people in the front seat of a small truck. Carlos and Milo sat in the truck bed with a plastic tablecloth over their heads (remember, it is pouring down rain) and we were off. First of all there was a stop for coca cola and wine. Then we hit the main highway (Ruta 3). Remembering that this was only supposed to be a three kilometer walk, I prayed like mad that we would get there safely because Apolonio has a great sense of humor but has to look at the person he is talking to. He (and half of Paraguay) also has a habit of driving on the wrong side of the road because conditions may be better there. After a couple of Kilometers he turned off the main ruta – not onto a side road like we may have hoped for – but just at a convenient spot along the road so that he could get down to the side of the road where we also drove for a little bit and then turned onto his land (which, of course, had no road, only a bit of a pathway). We made our way through gates and paths finally ending up (after lurching from one side to the other to avoid the closely planted trees ) in front of a very old house. Slipping and sliding from one mud patch to the next we got to the porch where I finally saw why we were here (and it had nothing to do with a well) – to see how they butcher a pig! Fortunately, it was already dead, skinned, and hanging from the eaves. There was an enormous amount of fat on the table and Digna immediately began cutting it into little squares. They showed me the fire in the attached large shed where they had a giant pot of fat simmering to make lard, another large pot of blood sausage, and a third pot of some other pig product. It turns out that we were invited to a BBQ.
This is a real working farm and I was very impressed with the number of animals and their well-being. They had just birthed 16 new lambs bringing the total number of sheep to over 40. Apolonio is also interested in breeding cows and has several varieties – the only one I can remember is a brangus (Brahma and black angus). He also has hundreds of chickens, ducks, geese, guinea hens, and one turkey. He and I tramped through the jungle (or maybe the rain forest at this point) to see where several guinea hens and one chicken had hidden their nests. I was amazed at the number of eggs in each nest – up to 24! He took me around to all the pens so I could see the new piglets. It was a lot of fun and I took a lot of pictures. He and his wife were so excited to show me everything. If I ever get a good internet connection, I’ll post the pictures (as well as the ones from last week). Because of all the rain and mud the sheep (who will be sheared in the next couple of weeks) looked very miserable. One stood right in front of me with an expression on her fact – “I’m cold, miserable, and filthy dirty – do something”. So I took her picture. Best picture of all, however, was the chicken in the bathroom. This, of course, was an out house without a door. I was just sitting down when I noticed something in the corner by the waste basket – yes, it was a chicken sitting on her nest, very comfortable and not at all bothered by the number of people walking into her domain. I asked Reina (apolonio’s wife) about the chicken and she said that since she lays large numbers of eggs, she can set wherever she wants.
I tasted the blood sausage (hated it), and was fed little pieces of pork as it became done (much the best way to eat BBQ here because usually they cook the meat for hours and it is so tough that you can hardly bit into it). It was delicious but very greasy. Anae consumed about 10 times what I did. I couldn’t believe the appetite on that skinny creature! We all had a great time. When you needed to clean your fingers, you just located Apolonio (who had the only towel) and wiped them on his towel.
After a couple of hours (and two bottles of wine with coca cola) we took our leave. It had stopped raining so I figured that we would walk home but we only have to slip and slide our way to the gate (after a halt to make sure that a lost calf got back to her irate mother before we got between them). Turns out that Apolonio’s 16-year old son, Pedro, will drive us back home. He is a more cautious driver than Apolonio but spent most of the time on the wrong side of the ruta. I could just see the headline – Peace Corps volunteer in head-on collision – however, we did make it home safely and the electricity was on and stayed on for a couple of hours.
I finished up my lemon bars that were supposed to be for a treat after Mass. However, it was raining slightly and Paraguayans don’t go out in the rain. Digna had a call in to the priest to see if we were going to have Mass at the chapel but he never returned the call. We walked over there and found Mercedes mopping the floor to get the rain water off. She had everything prepared for Mass but Father never showed up (nor did anyone else). Mass was supposed to be at 6 p.m. and we waited until 7 p.m. and then went home and had the lemon bars for dessert that night. Unfortunately, it meant that we had to get up early on Sunday morning to go to Mass at the main church.
Speaking of lemon bars, I’ve been cooking up a storm lately – lemon bars, oatmeal cookies, carrot cake, and applesauce. I am on the cooking committee for the big Thanksgiving Peace Corps bash. We are going to have garlic rosemary turkey, a pumpkin/carrot dish with walnuts and marshmellows (we tested it without the walnuts and marshmellows and it was wonderful – I even made it for Digna and she loved it), capiche salad, creamed corn, (you won’t catch me eating the last two), and lemon bars for dessert. The recipe that we experimented with was not very good. I got one off the internet and it was better but Elaine Tannesen sent me her lemon bar recipe and it was the best! I’ve made them twice already and they disappear very quickly.

My biggest unsatisfied craving is for applesauce. I would like to use it when I make my oatmeal cookies substituting the applesauce for part of the oil. I decided that I’ve made applesauce before and I can make it here in Paraguay. The biggest problem is finding 16 apples that don’t have multiple bruises, dents, and gashes. The next problem is transporting them from Coronel Oviedo to Carayaó. This is in addition to my regular 7 apples for the week. But I did it. The recipe was simple (apples, lemon and a bit of sugar and cinnamon – okay, a lot of cinnamon). Since we don’t have a potato masher we put the cooked apples in the blender. You would have thought the results came from the store! Looked and tasted great. However, next time we won’t blend it so much and I can use less sugar – a couple of tablespoons instead of ¼ cup. I was thinking how expensive this all was but when I figured it out I had more than a quart of applesauce for about $2 U.S. so that’s not so bad.

I did make oatmeal cookies. Since chocolate chips are unheard of here in Paraguay, I substituted the Paraguayan version of M & Ms (called rocklets). The cookies were delicious and all 4 dozen have disappeared so I think that I may bake some more this afternoon (I shared).

That’s about it for this week. Be sure to keep me up to date on what is going on in your lives.

P.S. I just got a request today from Digna to make my oatmeal cookies as a birthday cake for her little granddaughter who is turning 5 but instead of little cookies, she wanted them done in a cake pan. Of course, I didn’t have enough oatmeal but heck, this is the age of experimentation. I threw in a little ground up peanuts and a little more flour and a lot more rocklets (which was the whole point of the exercise) and we had ourselves a cookie cake. I also used the rocklets to write her name on the top. It didn’t look like much (except a lot of rocklets) because they are bigger than M & Ms but if you like candy, you certainly got it in this cake!

Weekly Bulletin 10-25-09

Living Stones Newsletter #7- 10-25-09

Please consider being a volunteer for /The Living Stones Project./  This is a short-term responsibility that packs a long-term punch for our parish!  We need volunteers to call fellow parishioners to invite them to one of the final presentations.  We also need help placing reminder calls for people to return their pledge cards.  (You’ll NEVER have to call anyone to ask for contributions!)

We have over 300 calls to make.  The calls are brief, but important.  By volunteering to make 10-20 calls (which takes less than one hour), you’ll dramatically affect the success of our Project.  Not only that, but you’ll help us update our Parish Database.  You’ll be providing /two/ important services with this one act of volunteerism!

There’s a training session tonight in the Blue Room from 7-7:30 PM.
Please come.  If you can’t make it but still want to help, please reply to this email so we can make other arrangements.

THANK YOU!!!

Weekly Bulletin 10-18-09Weekly Bulletin 10-18-09

Living Stones Newsletter #6- 10-18-09

Greetings!

It is one week to Late Night Catechism here at Holy Innocents, October 24.  If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, go to our web site
(holyinn.org) and you can buy your tickets through paypal (credit & debit cards okay).

1.  We have decided to add a “happy hour” before the Late Nite
Catechism:  downstairs doors opening at 6:30 pm. Beer & wine will be available for purchase and appetizers for a donation. Soda, water, coffee also available.  Doors for the show upstairs will open at 7 pm.

2.  Join the fun in helping build the sets for LNC this Sunday, Oct 18 from noon to 3.  We will provide the pizza.  Painting and prop
preparation:  let us know if you can be there so we have enough for lunch.

3.  More fun!  Help set the stage on Saturday morning, the day of the show, starting at 9:30 am.  Again, please rsvp so we know who to expect.

Hope to see you there!
Gail

Look under the category of Michel’s Musings for parishoner Michel Gallegos’ amazing adventures in the Peace Corps.  I’ve just updated 3 weeks of posts.

Week 20- Cities and Kitties

This is two for one week. The internet is so slow and I’ve had nothing to do but write notes. I actually have a Facebook window here (no G-mail or anything else but Facebook on the internet), so decided to post them both while I had time. It is storming here again. I finally figured out that there is no rain without thunder and lightning. Very interesting concept. I will try to post my pictures but I fear the internet connection is too slow and will have to wait until Eddy gets back from Peru and his internet conference before I can get a decent connection at the Telecentro.

We are used to unusual city names in the U.S. In Washington State alone we have Issaquah, Humptulips, Puyallup, and George. However, Paraguay puts us to shame when it comes to naming cities. Take the name of the pueblo where I live – Carayaó. It’s a nice Guarani name – kind of equivalent to Issaquah. However, Guarani is a very simple language (except when you listen to it or try to speak it). “Caray” means Mr. and “aó” means clothes, so Carayaó means Mr. Clothes – go figure. Everyone I asked gave me the same answer and they are just as puzzled about who Mr. Clothes is or why a town would be named that. Most of the other Guarani names make better sense – Ita is rock so we have Itapu (big rock) and Itacuribi (little pebbles – because there is a lot of gravel in this city), etc. Very comforting to have names that make sense.

I also like Arroyos y Esteros – Creeks and Swamps. And that is exactly what it is. I spent 5 days there on long field training and spent most of the time trekking through swamps and streams. It is a lovely place but very difficult to keep your shoes clean.

The nearest city to Carayaó is Coronel Oviedo. He was a rather ineffective soldier in the Triple Allliance war (couldn’t find out anything about him but then the city was founded in 1822) but they named a city after him – and you just can’t say Olviedo – you have to say the entire name – Coronel Oviedo. At least it isn’t as bad as Desmochados Villalbín – that one is a mouthful.

The Paraguayans also name a lot of cities (and even more streets) after days of the year. For example, Liz lives in Sixto de Abril (the 6th of April). There are also 3 de Febrero, 10th de octubre, and 25 de Diciembre. Except for Christmas no one is sure what happened on those days – it had something to do with the “war” and since Paraguay has had a lot of major wars, that is a safe answer. (This is also the safe answer to whatever holiday we are celebrating – it had something to do with the war – and you don’t even care which war because it is a free day).

Many towns are also named after saints – but it’s not as simple as San Francisco or San Jose. The Jesuits, not the Franciscans, brought the faith to Paraguay and if there is one thing certain about the Jesuits, they get their facts straight. It is not sufficient to name a town San Juan. We need to know which St. John this town is to be named after – so we have San Juan Bautista and not too far away there is San Juan Bautista de Neembucú. In the other direction there is San Juan Nepomuceno. I can just see the Jesuit conversation now –

“Father, we’ve decided to name the town after San Juan.”

”That is good, my son, but which San Juan?

”San Juan Bautista, Father.”

“Yes, my son, but which San Juan Bautista?”

“There is more than one, Father?”

“Of course, we have San Juan Bautista, the original cousin of Jesus, we have San Juan Bautista de Neembucú; we have San Juan Nepomuceno, we have San Juan del Paraná, we have . . .”

“Never mind, Father, we’ll name it Jesus, there is only one.” (And yes, there is a town named Jesus in southern Paraguay.

Now if a Franciscan had done the naming the conversation would have gone like this –

“Padre, let’s name the town after St. John.”

“Sounds great to me – there are a lot of St. Johns so we can honor them all.”

And just when you think there are no easy names, we arrive in Yhu – black water. Doesn’t get any simpler than that (except for Ita).