One of my favorite rituals when hanging with other volunteers is to compare some of the funniest "Corporate America Gone Wrong" that we have seen here during our service.  For example, when a guy who looks like he could out drink a whole rugby team and still fight a grizzly bear and win is wearing a "Cabbage Patch Kids" t-shirt…. that's funny.  When you walk down the street and hear Madonna's "Like a Virgin" playing to four old guys in straw hats bobbing along to the beat…that's hilarious!  When a mom of four sports a "Metallica" t-shirt…come on!  These are some examples of how I get a chuckle out of Paraguay.  One such occurrence happened this weekend…

I play volleyball every weekend at the house of Esperanza and Peron because they really are the nicest people you ever will meet and always very accommodating to everyone playing.  This week we moved up our playing hour because it is getting colder and there's not a lot of sunlight so we try to take as much advantage of the warm sun and natural lighting.  That doesn't mean we rush it though…oh no!  This is Paraguay so of course you get there and sit around for a good bit chit chatting about nothingness really until someone gets up the "fuerza" (strength) to put down the string we use for boundaries and the game begins.

This week while sitting around I noticed Peron was wearing a jacket I had never seen before.  Upon further inspection I noticed the word, "MILKSHAKE" on the front in all funky letters and jumbled all over the place.  I IMMEDIATELY started thinking of that song…you know the one…

My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard

And their like

It's better than yours

Damn right it's better than yours

I could teach you…but I'd have to charge

Go on…you know you want to bust out and sing it right now!  Amy (the new volunteer that is in Yuty now) and I started to and then we started laughing and there is only so long you can sit there and laugh without people asking you what is so funny.  I decided to come clean to Peron on what we were laughing about but there was positively NO way for me to directly translate how some girls flipping milkshake brings people to her yard.  First of all they don't know what an actual milkshake is so I would have to explain that whole mess, "yeah so it is a desert that is sort of like ice-cream but with more milk and you mix it up with fruit if you want to or chocolate and then drink it with a straw but that isn't why the boys are coming to her yard..." uh-huh, that would have worked perfectly.   I just ended up saying, "Well Peron, you are wearing a coat that says the way you dance brings all the boys to your house" which is a LOT to get out of the word "MILKSHAKE" but he wanted to know what we were giggling about!