Saturday, February 24, 2007

Good News from Paraguay




These are my kids in Paraguay! Brian and Jackie along with my grand daughter Elena!

My son-in-law is feeling much better. Jackie is also resting better. They are both now in the "rash" stage of Dengue Fever and that is "itchy"!

This is only the third season of Dengue in Paraguay and there have been over 100,000 cases this season. Fortunately, the strain is a relatively mild one with quicker recovery than some of the other strains. There is no vaccine for Dengue, because it is a virus. The only prevention is mosquito control.

I Thank our Lord for his mercy in allowing them to recover quickly and providing the help they needed. So far little Elena has not shown any signs of the fever.



Our packing is going well, thank goodness we work better under pressure it seems. The difficulty is that we aren't leaving until the end of June, but our stuff needs to be measured and weighed as we wait for a container to send it consolidated freight.

We don't have a lot of furniture or things to send. Most of our stuff had to stay in the jungle, so we only have personal, sentimental things. The furniture we are using was only purchased last year and with the knowledge that we might be leaving and need to sale.

Since you cant just take large sums of money out of Venezuela, we are hoping to sale our car to someone with dollars. Our other stuff we need to sale off little by little and use that money for our regular expenses while still here. To change Bolivares to dollars is only done through the government and they basically keep half. The Bolivar is valued at Bs.4000 to the dollar, but the government official exchange is only Bs. 2100.


Today 600 stores were closed by the government for not selling products at the controlled price , they are being forced to sale at a price so low they actually lose money. Many are choosing to no longer sale controlled products.

I was at the local grocery today. They had a little bit of chicken. They also are selling, grade C beef rather than Grade A. I asked the butcher when they would have more meat. He just shook his head.

They are getting clever though! They are wrapping meat up and have it packaged as DOG FOOD! And it is actually the better cuts of beef. But Dog food is not controlled, and who are they to say we cant eat Dog Food!


Capitalism wins again!!!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Thanks for visiting my blog... what's the interest in Cubans???

Sherry said...

You can't mail money to your sister or daughter for safe keeping until you get to your next destination? I would think you could do that.

Rita Loca said...

arod: with the cubanization of Venezuela and the 30,000 Cubans now here working for the government in medicine and education, I am interested in all things Cuban.


Sherry: yes we could send Bolivares, but they are practically worthless outside of Venezuela. Carrying large amounts of dollars is dangerous and according to recent comments coming from His Highness Hugo, will soon be illegal.So, its best to use up the Bolivares here, and sale high prices items to people who still have dollars in accounts in the states.

Harry said...

"Capitalism wins again."

It's interesting that Socialism, which we are told is good for us and in the best interest of "the people" always has to be imposed by threat of force.

The problem with Capitalism is that someone is always going to have more stuff than others, and THAT'S JUST NOT FAIR! Or so the Socialists tell us.

TO BECOME said...

I am so glad to hear your children are doing much better. I hope they will soon be completely well. Connie from Texas

Unknown said...

So good to hear your babies are doing better. I will continue praying Lele doesn't get it!
Have you all been able to buy and good *dog food*?

Anonymous said...

I'm glad that your family is doing well and that the baby didn't get sick...God is good. Wow, what's it like to live there in the jungle? Is it pretty hot right now? If so, send some my way I'm drowning in snow!