By decree of Marcia, Lila is officially mine. *Angels sing Hallelujah

In return for me getting Nati’s rabbit, I have to go buy her another one, which, if left to her own devices she will probably kill or maim. Bitter sweet. I get to keep my little gem safe from Nati’s brutal hands, but at least one other rabbit will suffer because if it.

It started all started this morning…

1) I told Nati that Lila couldn’t sleep in her room with her bed.

2) She asked if she could spend the night in her room. I also said no to that as well.

3) Later, she went into my room, took Lila out, put her in the kitchen, and Inigo started attacking her. I told Nati to put her back in my room, when she didn’t, I did it myself.

4) A short while later I snapped at Nati because she ran over to the bushes Inigo was climbing in and forcefully jerked him out by one leg, probably almost breaking it. I yelled at her for grabbing him by one leg so harshly as well as for freaking out every time he tries to climb something.

She had a conniption the other day when he was climbing on the roof of the chicken coop. She tried to send Aldo up onto the roof to get him down. She literally almost strangled him when she took the cord I was using as a leash for Lila and tried to tie it around his neck to keep him from getting back up there. I keep trying to explain to her that his climbing habits are normal, and in all honestly it will just get worse since he is going to be quite the little tomcat since there is almost no chance of him getting neutered. They bought the poor guy a collar today, so I think they’ll start tying him up, but at least Nati isn’t going to asphyxiate him with a homemade noose.

5) Anyway…I’m going to take care of Carly’s dog Luna for about a week when she goes on vacation to Brazil. I’ll be staying at her house and I have every intention of taking Lila with me because I don’t trust Nati with her. Nati told me I couldn’t take Luna with me and that she would take care of her. Personally I have far more confidence in my ability to control Luna than my ability to get Nati to care for Lila appropriately. I told her she didn’t know how to take care of Lila, she didn’t even know how to take care Inigo and he is a far easier creature to take care of, she doesn’t listen to me when I try to teach her how to take care of either of them and I wasn’t willing to leave Lila with her without supervision.

6) And then a little while later I told her to stop feeding Lila the leaves off of some random tree. Nati still doesn’t understand that just because Lila will eat it doesn’t mean that it is good for her. Case and point: Luna loves cow poo and random dead bird carcasses but won’t eat the fabulous, well-balanced meals that Carly makes for her.

7) Then I told Nati to leave Lila under my dresser because Lila is terrified of Nati. Nati took her out, claiming that Lila licked her hands. I accept that Lila may have licked her hand, I do not accept that she came out of her own volition, which means that Nati grabbed her and pulled out. My dresser has about 2-3 inches of space between it and the floor. The fact that Lila is somehow able to squish herself through that space is a miracle in and of itself. Which means that Nati probably came very close to severely hurting Lila as she wrenched the poor little one from her safe space.

8) I scolded Nati for taking Lila out from under the dresser, and then gave her a ‘I don’t believe you for one minute’ scowl after Nati gave me her fish tale about Lila coming out of her own free will.

Yea, all that in one day. We were not getting along to say the least.


Nati started getting really bratty after all of this saying how it was her and Aldo’s rabbit, implying that I couldn’t take Lila with me and that I had to let Nati play with her. I gave her my same, ‘You don’t listen to me when I tell you how to take care of her so I don’t want you around without supervision’ speech.

This is that same child that has never bought a single leaf of food for the rabbit, who only yesterday bought her first bag of cat food for Inigo, who was willing to let Lila starve to death in her own urine and poo in a bucket in the kitchen, still doesn’t understand that you have to support a rabbit’s body, you can’t just pick them up by their arms, who causes Lila to run and hide under my dresser in fear AND who introduced Lila as ‘Lila Jolley’ when my program directors came into town for my site presentation, and has been referring to her as ‘your rabbit’...suddenly she cares that the rabbit is hers.

Unfortunately she is on the spoiled side, so her parents don’t do a thing about it. She went to school; I went to the muni. When I got back Marcia and I talked. She recognizes that I care about Lila or at the very least have put a lot of money into feeding her and building her a cage. We agreed that I would get Nati another bunny and I would keep Lila. When Marcia and I told her that I would buy her a bunny, she was so excited. Personally if the situation had been reversed and they offered to buy me a new rabbit in order to let Nati keep Lila, I would have rejected the offer. Lila is special.

I’m going to keep trying to teach Nati how not to torture the thing, but I’m not touching it, looking at it, or providing any care to it whatsoever, not one dime. It doesn’t get any of Lila’s food, they will not be friends. If I hear it scratching in a bucket in the kitchen, I’m eating outside. If Nati is playing with it, I’m going somewhere else. I will buy it for her per our agreement. After that I don’t want to know it exists. I Will Not Get Attached.

Marcia and I agreed that Nati will probably kill it. Personally I think it is horribly irresponsible for Marcia to just stand by and let Nati treat a living creature so poorly. She and Anibal seem completely oblivious to the presence of the animals in the household. I think Nati could decide to set Inigo on fire and they wouldn’t notice and if they noticed, they wouldn’t correct her.

Now to make matters even worse, Nati had decided that she doesn’t want a baby bunny, she wants a grown rabbit. Marcia has decided that she is going to purchase a rabbit of the opposite gender so they will have babies and she can sell them in the campo. Now instead of having one bunny that Nati is going to kill and hopefully learn a lesson from, Marcia is going to sponsor her cruelty by making it into a business, giving her plenty of little rabbits to smother. At least Marcia might actually somewhat take care of the rabbits. It is still going to bother me how poorly Nati treats them, but they will probably have a semi-decent place to live somewhere in the yard and they will get fed. And a lot of them will probably die in the summer because Marcia doesn’t know how to really take care of them.

If this becomes a rabbit chop-shop, I’m going to have to leave. I might have to leave anyway depending on how poor the living conditions of the rabbits’ are. I already know of a really nice lady who hosted a PC volunteer in the past who was the backup in the event that Marcia didn’t have space.

I just can’t stand to be with Nati right now. Inigo tried to bit her last night when we were watching tv because she was smothering him. She asked if she could hit him for it; I said ‘no’ and explained he clearly wanted to get of the bed and she wasn’t letting him, so she deserved it. Oh boy do I understand how he feels.

It is really terrible that this is coming between me and the family. Marcia told Nati that she and I are sisters so we can’t fight. Overall they are amazing in so many ways. Marcia and I are getting closer, we joke around and have a friendly cooking competition going. Up until now, I’ve been incredibly happy here. But I have a big heart, my big heart led me to join Peace Corps, and big heart won’t let me stay some place where small little animals are dying slow miserable deaths.

I some ways I feel responsible. If Nati had just killed Lila from neglect maybe we would be done with this mess. Aldo wouldn’t have bought two bunnies of his own, Nati wouldn’t be getting a second one to mistreat, and Marcia wouldn’t be trying to start a bunny business. I feel like by saving one and showing how it can thrive with a little bit of care, I may have caused innumerable others to suffer.

And yet I just love Lila so much. She makes the lonely nights so much easier because if I feel bad I can just cuddle up with her or watch her run around my room in crazy happiness. Every morning I sit up and look over into her makeshift pen at the end of my bed. When she sees I’m awake she looks at me as she sits on her back legs and gives me a ‘Good Morning! Let me out plez, noms plez, cuddle plez? kthanxbi’ look. [Yes, she speaks lol]. Sometimes I let her out and then curl back into bed if it is cold. If I still don’t feel like starting the day a little while later I’ll put my hand over the side of the bed, within seconds Lila comes binking over to give it little bunny kisses. There is no better way to wake up.

I’ve even been in contact with a rabbit rescue organization in North Texas to get advice about how to best care of Lila in such a non-rabbit friendly environment. For example rabbits are supposed to eat large quantities Timothy and Alfalfa hay, but they don’t really sell hay of any sort here. Even the large livestock animals like horses and cows don’t get it. So I’ve been given the okay to stick to fresh grass. I also have been feeding Lila these rabbit food pellets, which have been responsible for her weight gain, but I doubt they are very good for her. Their purpose is to fatten commercial rabbits and it probably has goodness only knows what kinds of random fillers. Amazingly the rabbit people have recommended switching her to rolled oats, and equally amazing is that this is what I eat for breakfast every morning. I’m probably in one of the only places in the entire country where I can easily find quality oatmeal.


*very sad sigh

I just don’t understand how people who have such big hearts for people can have such small hearts for defenseless little animals.

I do not have enough buckets to deal with this !!!

Ahhh shit shit double shit. I’m getting flooded here! There are now at least 5 spots of actively dripping water in Lila’s living area, 2, oh no…let’s make that 3 in the corner by my bed, the 1 by the door is gushing, and now there are 2 leaks around my light bulb, 1 from the actual socket area, 1 a foot away …and…every time I turn around I notice a new leak…and I do not have enough buckets to deal with this! And …the buckets/tupperware I do have doesn’t work well because most of the drips are right along the wall and the lips of the containers and the fact that the containers are slightly rounded or completely circular means I can’t get them close enough to wall to actually catch the water… and the containers are so shallow that the water is splashing out of them… and since they are shallow they are going to need to be emptied during the night or they are going to overflow on the floor…and now I can’t keep my rug from getting wet because there are too many leaks… and it is going to smell to like a rat died in the wall for days because of the moldy, dirty rug….and people are going to think its Lila who is making it smell bad, but it really isn’t because I clean her litter box out every day and… and… wahhhhhh, I want my blankie…….*curls up in the fetal position and prays to the peace corps gods that there are not little drip, drip, drips on my bed tonight.



(Just a few of the buckets in my room)

Forecast tomorrow: More rain, still no running water
Irony = all of the buckets I have to collect clean rainwater outside the house, are being used inside the house to collect dirty roof-filtered water inside.


(And we are now passing the lovely Jolley Falls on your right coming down the wall there and just below you can just see Lake Lyn and Jolley Lake, which is on its way to becoming the Jolley River as it works its way towards the door)

Job Description: PC Volunteer Aka Bunny Raiser

You’re probably thinking, hmm I didn’t realize that Lyn/Lyndsay went to the Peace Corps to play with bunnies and kittens. Ahh, if only that was good enough to count as work. I do feel like my work related energies are currently focused on training bunnies and kitties to be polite and training Paraguayan’s not to kill them, at least not accidentally. No one at the Muni who is nearly as cute as my two little fuzzy pocket pets and official work has been slow. This is a challenge because I’m far better at working than doing anything else. Heck, I’m so bad at mindless small talk that I’ve created a community survey to help give my conversations a purpose and give me a reason to knock on strangers’ doors errrr… clap at their front gate.


(Lila drying herself on my computer fan after her bath, and then I learned you aren´t supposed give rabbits bathes. Evidently it stresses them out. Woops)

I will admit that it took me a long while to write the questions for survey for the funcionarios and community members. I blame the great Teresa Purge of August 2009 that spilled over into September. But then it took almost 2 weeks to get copies of the surveys printed because Nelson’s printer didn’t want to work…And there was rain for almost an entire week, nothing gets done during the rain. I also made the invitations for my site presentation on Tuesday and handed those out to all of the funcionarios. I’m going to have Marcia talk about it on the radio in the morning and the tv on Sunday.

I intended to start my community surveys tomorrow morning…but it is raining again…and the world stops turning for rain. At least I did my laundry yesterday.


I got my first pesado text message the other day from some guy commenting on how my skirt fit me that day. I didn’t know who it was at first, but then he called me, asking to speak to Nelson, the guy I work with most right now. Turns out that Mr. Pesado is a guy who works in the Muni who has been pesado since Day 1, asking me one more than one occasion if have a boyfriend, do I like to drink, to I like to go out, the normal pesado things that pesado guys ask. Oh brother.


Nati talks all of the time. I mean all of the time. She follows me around and talks. She doesn’t really say anything, she just talks. Most of it is nonsense to me because she mixes in ‘hina’ and other random Guarani words where I don’t think they belong. Smile and nod. Smile and nod.

The three-stooges with strippers

TV is a little different here.

The news is very graphic. One time I saw a guy pinned under a truck, blood running out of him, pooling on the concrete, moaning. He later died. The news shows crime scenes, and talks to suspects before it is probably prudent to do so. The morning news programs generally just consist of the news casters holding up a copy of that morning’s papers, pointing and summarizing some of the stories.

Most of the TV programs, other than telenovelas, are dubbed US shows. I’m not sure if they really realized this. Nati, in J.A. Saldivar, once asked me if we had America’s Next Top Model in the US. I explained to her that that is where the show is filmed. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that all of the episodes she was watching were very old and that I already knew which contestant would win.

One day as show came on with a distinctly 80’s feel. I sort of recognized the actors, and then, oh yes, there he was… Alf… the muppet alien anteater creature. I almost fell off of the couch. Boy Meets World is still going strong, as are many other long-retired US programs.

I must comment that Hannah Montana is far less annoying in Spanish. The show with the two little blond twin boys is still very annoying. Amazingly my 22-year-old host brother watches Hannah Montana. Not in the ‘well it is what is on in the living room so I might as well watch it’ kind of way. He has a TV in his room and I can hear it playing. My 20something host sisters in J.A. Saldivar also enjoyed the program. I’m certainly not going to tell them that it is geared towards the 10-year-old age group.

Some of the day-time tv programs are really long made-for tv movies. However, when the commercials come on, evidently they don’t stop the program. So when you come back from commercial break, you’re at a different spot than you left off at.

There are two programs in the evening that are very popular. One is called Polibandi, which is set in a police station. Basically it is the three-stooges and Reno 911 with strippers. Another show, Conejo [rabbit], is basically an extended commercial for a new sponsor every 15 minutes or so, mixed with Candid Camera, mixed with strippers clothed in the sponsor’s logo.

Let´s just say I don´t watch much tv here.

Taking a slide on the tile side

I am a glutton for punishment, as such I have started trying to litter box train Lila. I made the final decision after Nati decided to take her and Inigo on a trip to Grandma’s house in the campo. I told her that she shouldn’t bring them both because she wouldn’t be able to watch both of them at the same time. Thankfully the family invited me to come along; Inigo spent the first 5 minutes being introduced to the family and then was relegated to sleeping in the car when they got bored of him soon after that. Lila spent the entire time in my lap. The minute we got into the car I felt my lap suddenly get very warm and instantly regretted folding the towel under her in half only once. Yup, time to teach bladder control.

I actually the last time a rabbit peed in my lap I was in a car, about 10 years old, coming going back to Arlington after spending the day at some sort of flea market in Canton with Nana and Jolley Pop. Garrett came home with a turtle; I came home with a little black and white bunny whose ears criss-crossed, because of which I was going to name him ‘Scissors’. The turtle lasted a long while; we eventually gave him to a nearby pet store. Scissors wasn’t so lucky; Nana and Jolley Pop’s Yorkies got him after a few days.

Actually in general Lila is very good. She usually pees on the concrete in my room, not the rug. However she has had 2 accidents on my bed recently. No bueno. I have a little litter box for her in my room and I think she is actually getting most of her poo in or near the box. However she has a strong preference for peeing in front of my door. Again, she gets points for avoiding the rug. I’ll give my floor a good scrub with vinegar to help get rid of the odor from her old spots and motivate her to use the box.

Lila has been eating her little rabbit pellets and has gained some weight. It was difficult to tell that she was skinny because of her fur, but for a long while her spine was very prominent. Now she is rounding out little, her hips are still a little bony, but her spine isn’t sticking out. Actually she has gained enough weight that she can’t jump on my bed anymore. She is a downright hefty little heifer.

Inigo looks like a healthy little US kitten now. Tia Carly brought him over some cat food that she had left over from cat-sitting for another volunteer. When I put it down for him for the first time he attacked my hand and so I sent him sliding across the kitchen floor. He almost never attacks me anymore; just Nati and Lila. Just the occasional hit-and-run while I am ironing in the kitchen or walking past him while he is ‘hiding’ in the bushes. I say ‘hiding’ because he is a bright white cat who can hardly sit still in brown dirt and sparse coverage of the bushes. It is like when Brinkley, my parents 60lb tank shaped white boxer, thinks she is being stealthy as she slowly creeps into our laps on the brown couch. Smooth guys, real smooth.

While Bree told me that little boy cats are naturally very mischievous, Tia Carly, who also grew up with cats, has officially certified Inigo as particularly naughty. Yes, it does make me feel better to know that someone who knows cats agrees that his is quite the little imp.

Lila loves Inigo’s cat food, which is terrible for her, so I try to keep her out of it. However he does a good job of keeping her away all by himself. He will swipe at her with one claw while he has his head down in the bowl. It reminds me of a large school yard bully avoiding punches by putting his hand on the forehead of his swinging opponent and extending his arm. He eats like the food is his first, or last, meal. When I saw him eating like this for the first time I felt terrible for not getting him on real cat food earlier. Clearly he was ready for it. Oh well, he is on it now. Nati she is going to buy the next bag of cat food for him. We’ll see.

I’ve started cutting Inigo’s nails as well. Yes, the beast has been semi-disarmed. The first time Nati and I both had to hold him down. They don’t make kitty sized straight-jackets do they? I guess you’d need kitty mental hospitals first. Anyway, he was not a happy camper to say the least. The second time I was actually able to do it alone. I did it in front of Anibal and Marcia. I don’t know if they were impressed with my manicurist abilities or if this is just another note for them to put into their list of ‘Strange Gringo Habits’. Note: I actually sort of picture this list being narrated by some sort of Paraguayan Steve Erwin. Hmm, what would an Australian speaking Guarani sound like?

Gringo Custom #&*^: Our gringa child decided to cut the malcriada cat’s nails today. We are not sure how she managed to survive. Perhaps she is protected by ST. Francis of Assisi.

Inigo has generally seemed to learn not to bite or claw me. He can paw at me with his razor blades sheathed, but the minute they come out, weeeeee he goes across the tile. Sometimes he will just sit in my lap with his open mouth on my hand, he doesn’t bite down, he just looks at me, waiting, watching for my hand out of his peripheral vision. Then I start to wag my finger at him like a scolding mother, the way I do when I yell at him for attacking Lila right before I send him to take a slide on the tile side, and he thinks twice, and closes his mouth.

I’ve started prepping Nati to give me the bunny if/when I move to a place of my own. Today I mentioned her giving her to me when I go back to the states, which btw would make her the hands-down luckiest bunny of all time.

Oh and just a note ‘Lila’ may have to be changed to ‘Lilo’ at some point. I really have no idea whether or not he/she is a… well…a he or a she. Little bunny genital is a bit ambiguous if you don’t really know what to look for. I’m secretly hoping she is really a he because I don’t want her to start having babies. There is a reason we have the saying ‘breeding like rabbits’



The whole little bunnies thing is a real possibility because for some insane reason Nati and our little neighbor, Aldo, want to get another f^&!$#@* bunny! They say the second bunny is to keep Lila company. But Nati doesn’t take care of Lila as is and I don’t want to take care of two of them. For heaven sakes, Lila lives in a bucket! Actually she has been spending most of her time in my room. I’m really hoping that her parents step up and just say ‘no’ this time.

Colorado Birthday Party

While yesterday was the 8th anniversary of 9/11 in the US; in Paraguay it was celebrated by Colorado party members as the anniversary of the party’s founding.

In recognition of this day I was awoken at 3:30am to the sweet sound of what I initially thought were 3 gunshots on the other side of our front gate. After my heart finally started beating again in my sleepy terror/shock I realized it was just the normal bombas[noise making fireworks, no pretty lights]. Since they were within such close proximity, they sounded a little far more menacing that usual, I swear.
Goodness, you’d think I’d be used to them by now; they set them off all of the time. Anyway, after the three bombas went off, I heard a song being playing on maximum volume from a stereo. The song ended, I heard three more bombas, and then the song started playing. Song ends, three more bombas, the song starts again… you get it. The song started getting progressively softer a few repetitions. I realized that it was probably a person in a car as opposed to obnoxious neighbors having a party. The way I figure it, they were probably moving about 2-3 houses down after each round of bombas/song.

It took about 7-8 repetitions for the song and bombas to be soft enough that I could sleep through them with my ear plugs in. Unfortunately I was wide awake, so I probably didn’t get back to sleep until around 4:30-5am.
In my humble, sleep-valuing perspective, scaring the @$*& out of your neighbors’[okay maybe just me] but at the very least waking everyone up mid-sleep cycle is probably not going to win you any political converts. Send a little lady around to give out free chipa or alfajores or something like that, during the day, when people are awake. Now that is a recipe for success.

Don’t mess with my sleep man. You’ll put the rooster in the chicken coop out in our backyard of what seems to be his chosen profession at the moment.

Bring on the encore of the pots and pans chorus

On September 1st I symbolically packed away my sleeping bag. It had been a while since I’d needed it, so I figured it would be best to accept that summer had arrived and began to mentally prepare for the heat wave that was soon in coming. A few nights later, I unceremoniously unpacked the sleeping bag because some thunderstorms and cloudy days had brought back the chilly nights. I’m back to doubling up my blanket and stacking my 3 jackets on top of me to keep warm. I also had to unpack a pair of pants and some long-sleeved shirts. I definitely am not complaining though. Summer is going to long and nasty. I’ll enjoy the cool weather for all its worth while it lasts. Last night we had a huge thunderstorm with quarter-sized hail. The lightning flashes that I could see through my window make my room look like the scene from an old black and white horror movie. I kept half-expecting some disfigured man with a butcher knife to appear in one of the corner after one of the flashes. Did I mention the roof of my room is made of tin?


It sounds like a 2-year-old future heavy metal drummer practicing on mommy’s pots and pans in the kitchen. My host mom and sister asked me if I was scared of the storms; I said no’. If I was in Texas, I would expect some tornados to be out and about, but I was told they almost never have those here. So a little hail and lighting? I don’t have a car to worry about anymore, so bring on the encore of the pots and pans chorus. The hail does seem to have done some damage to roof over my room. I used to only have one spot along the wall by my door that leaked during heavy rains. Now there are about 5 new spots along the wall with my bed dripping steadily. Fortunately I’ve moved everything on that side away from the wall so the water is just getting my cement floor and rug wet. They probably needed to be washed anyway.

The power went out, as it has been doing on and off this morning as well. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like the power going out in a small city like this where nothing has back-up power. One minute you’re in civilization, the next you might as well be out in the middle of the woods. The other night, while some fellow volunteers and I were watching the Paraguay vs Bolivia soccer game on the patio of a little restaurant, the lights went out for a few seconds for no apparent reason. It felt like I had been suddenly pushed into a dark basement; it was completely disorienting. The rain also means a free pass from doing any sort of work. Pretty much everything is guaranteed to be cancelled. While I didn’t have any specific plans for today, the rain gives me an excuse to sleep until 8:30 and then spend the rest of the day huddled in my sleeping bag on my bed writing to you. In addition to writing for my adoring public and my own private notes, I have been playing computer games excessively. I purged myself of Spider Solitaire recently, and have managed to stay that particular addiction after getting about a 68% win/lose ration.

Yes folks, read it and weep.

I also figured out that it is possible to cheat and artificially boost my percentages by saving a game that I am about to win and playing it over and over. However my score was duly won. I won my first game of computer chess, I’m still terrible because I can’t think ahead to how to trap the king. I spend most of my time just trying to capture the other players pieces. After a few rounds of Hearts I got bored. Mahjong Titans was interesting until I realized that most of the games are almost impossible to lose and require no skill. Inkball is not interesting. Actually the most interesting game, I’m a little embarrassed to say, is memory. It is for kids, so I have to match up cakes or cartoony faces. The gumdrop level is the most difficult in case you were wondering. If only they had tetris…or maybe I should just go study.

Good thing I went shopping yesterday for my ingredients to make tomato soup.