lost in translation

As I am currently writing this, I have been in site for almost three weeks, and have only had one conversation in English with a volunteer a few kilometers away. Its really not that bad except that now when I go to bed I start automatically translating my thoughts into Spanish and then random words into Guarani. But as much as my obsessive and unconcious language habits are affecting my normal sleeping pattern, Im still struggling to actually hold a conversation in Guarani. My brother has taken it as his personal duty to teach me the language, but him speaking to me usually consists of him saying a sentence five times and me staring at him with my eyes scrunched up and my mouth kinda hanging open because even after the fifth time, I still only understand a word or two which means I have no idea what hes saying. It`s also a fun story when I get intoduced to someone new and the family has the conversation for me in Guarani as if I can understand anything which is actually usually true except for the introduction part. That part I understand well. This is usually how the introductions go in Guarani,

Stranger to family member "Whats her name?"
Family member "Alison."
Stranger "O, Alison. Shes rubia, pretty."
Then the family member usually looks at me with a little smile and a little sense of pride at their rubia sister.
Stranger "Where does she live?"
Family member "Shes living with us, but she will be living with someone on calle´i soon."
Stranger "E´a! Is she happy here?" (As if my family member was more qualified than I am to answer this question.)
Family member, "Yes shes happy here" (then in Spanish to me) "Right Ali, you´re happy here?"
Me in Guarani, "Yes, I´m happy here"
At my sudden input in Guarani, the stranger´s eyes widen a little, jaws drop and then they quickly turn to the family member again.
"Does she understand Guarani?"
Me "Yes, I understand a little Guarani." This then always gets the biggest reaction.
"Ha! A little! I understand a little Guarani!" After they have repeated what I said, they then either grab me by the shoulders and shake me a little, turn to the person behind them and say, "She speaks a little Guarani!" or I get a mitakuña´ipora. (That literally means pretty little young lady and is quickly becoming a favorite nickname for me among the older women.) No matter what I say, they always repeat it and it always puts a smile on their faces.

Of course, not all my conversations go all that smoothly. The other day I went to visit my future neighbor and was feeling pretty good about how the conversation was going even with the typical pauses of silence that are typical for Paraguayan conversations. I was feeling pretty good about my Spanish abilities and even throwing in whole Guarani phrases and sentences. She had said something about my dog and then apparently changed the conversation to her daughter without me realizing what had happened and I continued talking about my dog. A couple minutes later I realized we were both confused and with a little bit of embarassment and laughter, and a few "wait who?" and "wait, what?" I realized I had just been describing her daughter as a dog. We both laughed a little and Im sure she went and told her husband what I said when I left and I have no doubt that she told her daughter when she came home. I could be super embarassed about that, but I think Ill just add it to the list of stupid Ali moments that is getting longer and longer by the day, like calling my ears a very specific male body part in Guarani, leaving a store with a half kilo of raisins because they looked at me funny when I said "I want this much," or telling my brother that I was hot (as in attractive) instead of telling him the water felt hot to me.

During training, our trainer often said that he came to Paraguay able to speak one language and will leave not being able to speak three. I think the same thing applies to me. I have had more than one person tell me that my English sucks now and I fully believe them. When I write in Enlgish I usually have to sit and think about how to spell perfectly normal, every day words, and when I speak in English I find myself throwing in random Spanish verbs. I guess theres not much to do about that except keep struggling through the Guarani and try to avoid describing anyone else as a dog.