Paraguay Day #7: Last Day with the Family
Not much time to write tonight. We have a long drive tomorrow, so we’re getting up at 4:30.
My cousin, Lina, and her family drove us around town last night. We even stopped to play basketball with a few of the locals. Heidi must have a golden tongue. She convinced my mom to shoot a few baskets. My mom was really good back when she was in high school. There weren’t sports scholarships for women at the time, or folks say she probably would have gotten a full ride.
Today, Good Friday, we spent resting. We visited a few folks this morning, but then it started to rain. It rained all day. Tonight everyone came to say goodbye. It was really emotional. I can’t believe how many people have come to see us.
While here, we’ve asked someone from each of my aunt and uncle’s family to write down the names of all their children and children’s children. From what I can tell, I have at least 45 first cousin’s on my dad’s side. Though it took some effort, my family was happy that I asked them to do this. They said they did not have any such record. Of course, that put a little pressure on me since I am the only one who now has it and I live several thousand miles away.
Tomorrow’s plans are a little unclear. Ultimately, we want to get to Caagazu and back to the capitol. Roads are not as advanced as they are in the US. There’s no direct route. We will have to go to the capitol 3 hours away and then travel 3 more hours to Caagazu. Since this is such a big holiday weekend, we want to try and come back to the capitol tomorrow night. We’ll be taking public transportation at this point and we expect that the bus terminals will be much worse than an US airports at Thanksgiving.
Not sure I’ll have time to write again before we leave.
