Trip to Ca'acupe

This past Sunday I participated in the Catholic pilgramage to Ca'acupe, which is the capital of my department (or state)... Many people walk to the church in Ca'acupe to request a favor of the Virgin of Ca'acupe or to thank the Virgin for a good year. Fortunately I don't live THAT far from Ca'acupe...If you were to go along the main road it would've taken about 10-13 hours to walk there, but we went with a group that has gone every year for 15 years, and they new a lot of shortcuts, and we walked through Paraguayan countryside and it took about 6 hours, but only about 5 hours of that we were actually walking. It was actually really fun, but that was two days ago and I'm still really sore. We left at 6pm because it was too hot to walk during the afternoon, got there just in time for the midnight mass...but there were sooo many people we couldn't even get close to the church..they say that 3 million people made it to caacupe that weekend, and that's a lot considering there are about 6 million in all of paraguay haha... I have friends that live on the other side of the country and walked for three days straight, sleeping in churches along the way.. It's a really interesting experience because everyone helps you along your way, giving you food and water and even a place to sleep if you want... but we brought our own food and didn't need to sleep anywhere, but people did give us water and ice, which was nice.. and there were doctors and nurses checking people's health along the way and even giving massages hahah! Once it got dark, I almost fell a billion times because we were walking on dirt roads with lots of rocks, but i never actually hit the ground..thankfully, we also had a doctor close by, so if something did go wrong, we would be well taken care of haha... But we went in a group of people mostly my age, one couple that are some of my best friends in altos, one p.e. teacher and his girlfriend, Laara (the volunteer that lives in Loma, close to Altos) and my friend Cecilia, the secretary from the municipality) and me.

Sonia and Hugo before the sun went down... we took the back way, so we didn't see many people, unlike the paved road, which was so packed with people you had to walk slow and all traffic was shut down..

The half way mark, a church in Atyra...These are the girls that we went with.. Luz, Sonia, me, Cecilia, and Laara (another volunteer)

We were so tired that we were feeling kind of loopy...

One kilometer from our religious destination, naturally we stopped to share a beer... notice the one cup being passed around the circle, this is how all drinks are drunk here in the PY.

Ca'acupe was a weird mix of vendors and sleepers at 12am when we arrived...

We had a little "trencito" so we wouldn't loose eachother...

And finally we see the Basilica in Caacupe, but there is no way we are seeing the Virgin of Ca'acupe with all these people!!

Right now, it's over 100 degrees F and I'm sitting in my kitchen, drinking terere and wearing spandex, I've become so Paraguayan haha. (Spandex are all the rage here).

Yesterday was a national holiday (for the Virgin of Ca'acupe) so I took the opportunity to take my first dip in my host family's pool...and it was very nice.. Even though I have lots of time on my hands, sometimes it seems like the day goes by so fast just taking care of my house and cooking.. It takes a lot of time to sweep everyday, because of all the dust, doing laundry but mostly COOKING..takes SOO much time.. I sometimes don't want to eat haha.. so I feel like I spend a lot of my day cleaning andcooking...but overall, it's worth it.. I love my little house..

If you are wondering.."Julie, why aren't you talking about your work that you are doing in Altos?" It's because it's quite depressing, and I tend to just skip over that kind of stuff when I write my blog.. I went to the municipality this morning but I am completely lost when it comes to any possible projects.. Everything I try just kind of flops (like the activities I planned for world AIDS day and for the day against domestic violence) and so today I retired myself to my home, and some index cards to learn some Guarani... Mainly, my "work" so far is just researching what I can do to work...but once I have something concrete, that actually turns out to be a project, you won't be able to get me to shut up about it!!

That's all the updates for now.. I hope I caught you up a bit on my life.. MUCH LOVE!! Julie