Skinnin´ Alligators

Greetings all and happy 2009! That´s me, drinking terere, yerba mate with cold water and herbs. Everyone drinks like 5 liters a day of this stuff, no kidding.

During the Thanksgiving holiday we visited some Jesuit ruins near Encarnación.

Fernando, my host brother, work partner and best friend in Acuña.

The tatakua, a traditional wood stove. You make a big fire, then you take out all the firewood and the residual heat cooks your food. Very cool, very hot.

Watering my huerta. No rain for forty days makes for 8-inch high sunflowers. But the brandywine tomatoes I´ve got growing under my shade structure seem to be doing pretty well.

Christmas dinner with the host fam. If you can´t see the snow in the picture, it´s because it was dark. And also because the temperature was 100 degrees.

The centerpiece of this photo exposition, the alligator we hunted, killed and ate day after Christmas. Don Valerio, the father of my host family, told us about a big lizard he´d seen sleeping under a tree, and asked if we´d like to kill and eat it. He didn´t have to ask twice. We didn´t even know it was an alligator until after Don Valerio had speared it. The gator was about 2-3 feet long. I delivered the death blow with a machete to the neck. It was the first time I had killed an animal. Raise your hand if you´ve ever killed an alligator? Nope, didn´t think so.

I rule.

Skinning the jakare. If you´ve never had alligator you are missing out. It is delicious, especially when you killed it yourself!

Me and my host dad Valerio ¨Willy.¨

The turkey is sort of the policeman of the house. He patrols around, puffing himself up, and gobbling. The gobbling is cool at first but it gets old real fast.

If there´s anybody out there still following this blog other than my parents, sorry for the sparse updates. There´s no internet in my site so I only get a chance to update now and then. But I did, at least, get to see the video of that guy throwing a shoe at W.

A merry merry Christmas

And a happy new year

Let´s hope it´s a good one

Without any fear.

- John Lennon