Christmas Eve´s Eve....

The Christmas Tree outside of Papa Noel´s house

I´ve always had fun calling tonight Christmas Eve´s Eve... it feels very different now. Some how it doesn´t feel like an eve, without the snow.

While the rest of you are shovelling show out of you driveways I´m sweeping mangos off of the driveway. While Canada is enjoying it´s first White Christmas in many years I am enjoying the hottest Christmas I have ever experienced, it´s not white, it´s definilty brown.

There are other ways that I have not experienced Christmas here as well, there is a noticable lack of advent preparations. No big pre-Christmas parties, and no singing in the Candlelight Choir. There is not a huge emphasis on gift giving either. The commericals attempt to make you want to spend more and buy gifts but the same emphasis is not there that I notice back up in Canada.

My Sisters

Ruth (24, and wearing green)
Romina (18 and wearing black)

Rebeca (13 and wearing red)

However there is one way that I experienced Christmas that I hadn´t done in years back home. I visited Santa! Or Papa Noel as they call him down here. Papa Noel is mainly a Coca Cola import. He lives in a house in what was until November; an empty field on the bus route from Tyler´s house to Scott´s house. And has big huge Coca Cola signs everywhere. The family; papa Miguel, mama Abla, sister´s Ruth Romina and Rebeca, and Gedeon (Romina´s boyfriend) and I, had attended a cousin´s high school graduation and were returning home. Or so I thought. When all of a sudden we pulled into the parking lot of Papa Noel´s house. Sigh, I who in Canada had no desire to see Santa, did not have a desire to see Papa Noel, in Paraguay. However we got out of our car, remembered our present (Coke hands out presents to homeless children) and headed to the line up. It had been a hot day, it was around 8 in the evening but was still in the 30´s. At the start of the line I could see I was not in for a fun quick little vist. There was a lovely Coca Cola sign stating (of course in spanish) that it was another 60 min wait from that point on. So we spent the next hour and a half waiting in line while vendors sold Coke and Fanta, children cried, elves laughed and I sighed. I once we were half way through I started to catch my sisters enthusiasm for seeing Papa Noel. I wanted to see what Coke was bringing to Paraguay as Santa. One we reached the end of the line a number of elves took a group of people to different stations describing Papa Noel, his house and what he did for fun. We finally go into the house where we were taken through his bedroom, and kitchen (all decorated with CocaCola symbols) and then got to see Papa Noel! The children in our group were quite excited to see him, as were my sisters. I think for waiting an hour and a halfwe had less than 2 minutes with Papa Noel, and didn´t even get to say what we wanted for Christmas! Very anti climatic.

I am excited however to see what Christmas Eve and Day have in store for me. We are planning on baking cookies tomorrow and then going to visit Miguel´s family in Itacurubi a 2 hour drive away. (when my fellow volunteers and I visited Maria´s Tyler´s host mother father by bus it took us over 3 hours) We will spend the night and return to Villa Hayes the following day. 2 days later I leave for Uruguay to visit family, have a little vacation from teaching and on my return to Paraguay renew my visa.

I wish all of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Enjoy the snow for me!

Becca