My goodbye with Mom and Brian was eased by the fact that my other brother, Will, would be staying with me for 3 more weeks. Unlike the visit with my family which was back to back with plans and schedules, these 3 weeks with Will were much more open and tranquilo, these being euphemisms for slightly slow and boring. Through the span of his 5 weeks here, Will got to experience the full spectrum of my life here, with its highs and lows, sun and rain, social outings and down times, endless chatter and silence.
A majority of our time in Paraguay, we spent in Natalio at my house. We would wake up every morning at 7 to the clanging, hammering, as well as singing of the construction workers next door. (Whyyy does everything have to start at or before 7 AM?!?!?!?!) Our days were usually centered around one specific event, and we spent the rest of the time bumming around. Since I conveniently broke my Internet modem the day my family arrived, we were left with an even more genuine Peace Corps experience seeing as we were cut off from our source of contact, information and entertainment. Will went through quite a few Sudoku books, and I spent lots of time reading and writing. As you can imagine, the best part though were the countless thoughtful, inquisitive conversations that we had. Seeing as we haven't lived together in over 6 years, it was great having the liberty of time to kind of get to know more deeply the people we have each become.
We also watched a lottt of movies! My best bud Erik is constantly switching around movies and TV shows with other Volunteers and has stocked my Mac with a very extensive collection. (It is nothing compared to his external hard drive though!) We made it through all 7 Harry Potters, a majority of Planet Earth, and a couple classics such as Talladega Nights and The Hangover. One of the most interesting movies we watched was Restrepo, a documentary on the war in Afghanistan. It was one of those long conversation starters, and we both found ourselves unsure as to what to feel. Ironically enough this coincided with the killing of Osama Bin Laden, which we discovered in the cyber cafe, giving us yet another topic to discuss. On that same day, I had gone out for a run and ran into the 2 Mormons in my town. When I stopped to say hi to them, I commented to my fellow American the news, seeing as they are limited to even less Internet access than me. The American Mormon made some weird comments in response; then we said bye, and I continued on my run. I was already a couple blocks away when I realized it -- the Mormon had thought I said OBAMA was killed!! In a state of panic, I turned around immediately, running through the streets asking people where the Mormons had gone. When I hadn't found them, I had to finish my run with a guilty conscience. "The poor guy thinks our president has been assassinated, and it's all my fault!" One block from my house in a rush to tell Will about the misunderstanding, and who do I conveniently see but my suit-sporting friends waiting for me on the corner. Apparently they too had realized the mistake and had come to clear up the confusion. We laughed and laughed, and Will was craaacked when I got home and told him.
Luckily we didn't spend everyday holed up in my house. We had lots of invitations for social events, lunches, terere dates, and birthday parties. "Wili" as he soon came to be called in town, was such a charmer with the Paraguayans! Although they couldn't really understand each other, Wili came to make many friends. Despite the language barrier, the kids loved to play with him, and the adults loved to joke with him. On the day of the Paraguayan soccer rivalry game, Will quickly chose Olimpia as his team and cracked everyone up at the lunch table when he refused to drink cerveza from a Cerro glass. One man came to love him, asking him what he thought of the Paraguayan women and then offering to lend him his car to go riding around town if he wanted. It was hilarious watching him play soccer with Pipo and Diego, them constantly yelling instructions to him in Spanish and him just running around.
Having Willy here with me was wonderful, and I love dwelling on all the great memories of our time together! Te quiero mucho Wili!!!