ich schaffs nicht, lange zu schreiben, schon gar nicht auf mehreren sprachen, aber ich wollte doch wenigstens mal ein kurzes hallo loslassen. ich bin gerade in campo grande, es ist wunderschoen sommerlich warm und in einer viertel stunde geht unser bus ins pantanal, muss eines der schoensten wildlife-erlebnisse der welt sein, dort zu hiken, reiten und boot zu fahren. freu mich schon total darauf und hoffe ich kann danach evtl von irgendwo her mal fotos hochladen, koennte aber sein, dass das ein bisschen schwierig wird. man wird sehen.
danach geht es weiter nach rio, wo wir etwa 5-6 tage bleiben werden. und dann gehts endlich zurueck in spanischsprachiges gebiet, damit ich mich mit meinen spanischfaehigkeiten nochmal richtig austoben kann. aber auf rio freue ich mich auch schon, werd mir dann bestimmt auch mal einen tag zeit nehmen, um mich einfach nur an den strand zu legen.
ausserdem habe ich versucht, meinen heimflug umzubuchen, allerdings bin ich bis jetzt nur auf der warteliste und ich habe so meine zweifel, dass das noch klappt. ich wuerde allerdings super super gerne frueher zurueckkommen und hoffe deswegen, dass sich da noch was ergibt. wenn ihr wollt koennt ihr gerne dafuer beten, dass ich frueher nach hause kommen kann!

ich drueck euch alle
ich vermiss euch total
Corinna

since some of you already complained today I’ll force ;) myself to update my homepage after all. There are so many things that happened lately but to be completely honest they aren’t the reason why I haven’t written for such a long time. The truth is that I don’t feel 100%, I’m a little homesick and I feel like I’m still not doing the things I really always wanted to do. I’m not sure about the reasons, but it’s probably better not to think about them to much anyway. I guess it’s mostly because I’m more like a better au pair than a volunteer and that’s not really fullfilling. (Lo siento, creo que ahora debería escribir en espanol xq por alguna razon estoy pensando en espanol, que solamente me di cuenta xq escribo frases inglesas con gramática espanola. pero che kai gue - que es guarani para soy perezosa - y entonces todavía no quiero escribir en espanol, solamente esas dos frases para los que saben hablar el idioma).

I spent two of the last three weekends in that beautiful country Argentina and it was wonderful. Two weeks ago I went to Rosario with Sandy, an English participant of Nathalies German course. Rosario is a beautiful city, directly at the Rio Parana, with a weird famous building called “el monumento a la bandera”.

This weekend I spent in Encarnación (Paraguay) and Posadas (Argentina) with a German girl called Wiebke. We visited the Jesuit ruins in Trinidad (Unesco world heritage) and were accompanied by Alberto who asked the funniest questions (didn’t they finish building these houses? hehe, that’s why they’re called ruins man!). Actually we wanted to spend one night in the house of Albertos family but we (and especially Wiebke, who had never seen something like that before) were shocked about their poverty and the circumstances they’re living in. Trinidad was awesome and the weather was perfect, but in Posadas it was raining all day so we didn’t see anything of the city except their bars, cafés and shoppings ;)

By the way…the history of the ruins is really interesting, but I’ll write about that some other day :)

PS: There are some new photos on my yahoo-page, though something didn’t work out and it’s complete chaos, will work on that soon too…

I’m sitting in the office, the watch says 07.16am, the sun is shining through the window, the temperature is slightly above 20 degrees. I’m a little tired. Getting up at 6 is hard for longsleepers like me but the beautiful sunrise every morning compensates for everything. The kids find it cold. That’s a joke, is all I think. Yesterday Nathalie and I picked up four of the kids at their colegio and went to Nathalies work at the instituto cultural. But before Nathalie went to work and I helped the kids with their homework (in the library of the instituto), we went to “dona chipa” to eat some chipas, empanadas and ensalada de frutas. Btw…fruit salad cost 2.500 guaraníes, which is ca. 0,30€!

In the evening I had to bring Danilo and Fabio to bed. Nathalie had brought Maria and Daniel to their ballet lessons. Gosh, I’m telling you, it took me half an our to finally get them into their beds. When I had one of them in his room the other one came back with some awfully important question and so on. Suddenly things are interesting, that are normally of no interest at all. Strange ;)
But I managed it and actually they are so sweet that no one can be mad at them. Especially Fabio was very sad that I was so strict and I had to explain him that that doesn’t mean that I don’t like him.
I really like those kids and I’m looking forward to many more days with them.

See you soon guys,
sunny greets,
Corinna

PS: There are some new photos at “first paraguay photos”!

Anyway…something completely different: During my time in Witten sometimes my days were sugared by music-sessions with my dear roommate Leon and I don’t want to keep an excerpt from you. As I said - an excerpt, that’s why there are some strange skips.

By the way Leon: I have some more records (you didn’t realize that, eh?), I’ll send them to you some day soon :)

unfortunately there is bad news from Paraguay. 13000 people have come down with a virus disease, the dengue fever. According to the population the rate is 10 times higher. Four people died. The government declared the state of emergency - in the first instance for 60 days.
The dengue fever is widespread in south-america and it is above all a disease of the metropoles, since it spreads rapidly in slums and favelas. It is passed on by diurnal mosquitos, e.g. yellow fever mosquitos. Two to five percent of those who suffer from the dengue fever, die from it. The rate is higher among children and adolescents.

So far with the general information. A friend told me that this is a normal phenomenon, thus no reason to worry. It still causes a queasy feeling inside me, but it’s surely not a reason, not to go. 15 more days in Germany. The countdown is on.

“Im Grunde ist das Gewese um diesen Tag
doch furchtbar peinlich.
Wenn jemand nur zum Valentinstag Blumen kauft,
spricht er sich selbst ein Armutszeugnis aus.

Aber weißt Du, wenn ich nach Hause komme
und niemand hat mir eine Karte
oder einen Blumengruß geschickt,
bin ich doch ein wenig enttäuscht.

Denn tief im Innersten meines Herzens,
hatte ich mir erhofft und gewünscht,
dass du vielleicht an mich gedacht hast.
Wenn ich ehrlich bin, ist das der einzige Grund,

warum ich diesen Tag aus tiefster Seele hasse…”
(Copyright D.Schuster)

I don’t care much about valentine’s day. Actually. It’s just a day like any other day. But sometimes it just makes me realize how much I long for something deep inside.

This is a happy day nevertheless: First of all work was lots of fun. Secondly I booked a flight today - my flight to Asunción!!!

That still leaves the question open if those people who have these pure, fragile hearts find the way they break beautiful as well. I’d tend to negate that.

And no, before someone cries out “injustice”, I’m not speaking about a particular event. It’s rather a general leaning. But is it a bad thing? Don’t we also tend to see things in the most beautiful ways? Isn’t our love so strong because we allow ourselves to be weak? Who else can cry and smile at the same time the way we, the ones with the fragile hearts, do?