Thanksgiving

What were you thankful for, this Thanksgiving? I was very thankful for my life! After 2 super fun days with the McKissicks and Floyds, I was coming back to Villarrica with the Stirlings, when Renee got a text message from the Terhaars warning us to be careful because there was a plank missing in the next bridge, and that they had put big tree branches in front of the hole so that we could see it! The McKissicks and Floyds live almost one hour from the paved road, so to get out to their houses, you have to travel on red dirt roads and over several scary wooden bridges. When it rains, you can't go out there because your car will get stuck in the mud! Buses are canceled and everything! So we came to the place the Terhaars had marked for us and all got out of the Landrover. Sure enough, there was a board missing and it was a really big one! So Renee and us stood on the bridge to mark for Greg the location of the 2 boards that ran lengthwise, under all of the planks, so that Greg could line up the Landrover's tires and make it over. All of the sudden, he started revving his engine, and Renee and I realized that once he actually made it over the hole, he was going to be going really fast! So we started screaming and turned around and started running away from Greg. But we had forgotten that there are lots of smaller holes and smaller planks missing or not lined up right all over the bridge so we were trying to jump over the holes and get away from Greg at the same time! It was pretty scary. Greg didn't make it over his first 2 tries, but he made it on the 3rd. We sure were thankful to be alive, this Thanksgiving!

The pig slaughtering and Thanksgiving, itself, was really cool, too. I learned more about anatomy and cuts of meat in that one day than in all of my science classes put together! One of Tony and Jean's Paraguayan friends came over with his son to teach them how to butcher the pig. That took all morning, and then we ate the pig for lunch! Imagine- it was running around free at 8 am and on our plates by 2 pm! While the men worked on the pig, us ladies snapped and canned beans. Do any of you have a garden and grow beans every summer? Taking the ends off of beans is a fun thing when there are several people to help, but it takes a really long time and is kind of boring if you have to do it, alone. That's one thing that I've learned since coming to Paraguay- the joy of teamwork. Usually, we like to get our own way. If we are playing a game with our friends and they do things that we don't like, it's really easy to want to quit and not play at all. But it's so much more fun to do things together, even if we don't get to do things exactly the way we would do them if we were by ourselves. Lately I've been in several situations where one person has a problem or is working on something, and the entire family stops what they are doing to help that person. It's really cool and something that I need to learn to do better! Anyway, we snapped beans and washed dishes almost the entire day! But we were all together so it didn't feel like work, at all. After finishing dishes, we ate homemade ice cream and then went over to the McKissicks' for dinner.

I decided not to post pictures of the actual pig butchering, just because I promised that this blog would be kid friendly and I'm not sure that all of you want to see it. But i have posted them, with descriptions, on my Picasa site, so if you want to see them, please go and check them out (http://picasaweb.google.com/alyssa.lugbill). Hope you all had a great day!