Life in the PY, or how to not go insane moving to a new country

We've been here going on 4 months.  Time is literally flying. Adjusting to a new culture can be a frustrating (and often rewarding!) experience.  We have had to use a new language every day, figure out how to pay bills, buy things we need, get around (without a car), make new friends, work in a different environment, and generally make a new life in this country.  We had no choice but to jump in head first and make it work for ourselves.  Granted, we've had a lot of help from my colleagues, who have become great friends in a short amount of time.  It has been a relatively easy transition, much easier than I ever expected.   I think that there are a few things about us that make the move to a new culture easier like that we've traveled in Latin America before and seen it's "third world" parts, that we both speak some Spanish (more than we give ourselves credit for sometimes) and that we love adventure.

So far, the idiosyncrasies and frustrations of living in this culture are far outweighed by the cool things we get to do and see.    This doesn't mean that everything has been easy. For me, the challenging things have been mostly emotional, like missing my friends and family, or related to work (I work with 12 year olds, everyday is frustrating).  For Matt, they are related to figuring out how to enjoy his passion of fishing more easily and feeling frustrated at not learning Spanish quickly enough.  One of the most frustrating things overall is not being able to get anything done in a timely manner if it relates to the government or you have to rely on a Paraguayan to do it.  Stuff takes for-ev-er.  This is so different than the US and for me personally, someone who likes to get shit done.  Things that I'm used to taking 10 minutes stretch into 30 minutes or an hour sometimes and I often want to freak out about the waste of time.  Usually,  I look around and I notice that I'm the only one getting frustrated about it and I take that as a hint to cool it.


One thing that is part of "culture shock" that we've been told about is how new arrivals will compare their home to this new place and find the new place lacking.  It's natural and automatic, but can become counter productive if not careful.  I've learned to recognize when it's happening, allow the thought, and then try to figure out how to make the way it works HERE work for me. This is not always easy, especially in a country that has NO GOOD BEER.  Something that has been helping has been trying to find "replacements" for things/places/activities that I miss and being purposeful about recognizing the amazing-ness of those new things.  For example, even though the beer here sucks, you can get it delivered to your house.  (I know, right??!!!) And, there's lots of good wine, which is not a shabby replacement. It's toooo hot to run outside here now, so I've been trying Pilates.   I miss the mountains almost viscerally, but I get to go to Rio de Janerio next week.  It also helps to focus on the small victories, like the fact that I finally found quinoa!

Another strategy that works amazingly well is to laugh-laugh at  Paraguay, laugh at Paraguayans, laugh at ourselves.   A phrase I hear often among my American colleagues new and veteran, is "Welcome to Paraguay!" and it's not even always sarcastic! Seriously, there is some funny shit here.  On that note, please enjoy my mannequin montage.  I'm not sure why, but I find my self obsessed with them and realized I have  A LOT of pictures of weird mannequins.