El Temido Calefon

This blog is dedicated to my shower experiences, those that I've had indoors. I'm not ready to talk about the other ones. I'm borrowing this post from a fellow volunteer's blog. The original can be found at the address below the article.


"Most Paraguayan bathrooms (those that have running water) have electrical showerheads called a “calefón.” Cold water passing through the showerhead is heated by an electrical element. Once the water is past the heating element and through the showerhead it disperses into the small droplets that make up your nice, warm shower. The temperature is regulated by the water flow – more water flow descreases the temperature of your shower and vice-versa. You can only make your shower so hot, though. Once the water flow diminishes too much the calefón will automatically turn off, at which point the bathroom lights may get brighter. Increasing the flow will turn it back on. To cut power off completely look for the switch (many times it is a black and red flip-switch) in or directly outside the bathroom. Most calefóns have winter and summer settings with varying degrees of water- heating capabilities.









From the point of view of certain foreigners a contraption that involves water and electricity and a naked user is alarming. This is especially so because the electrical wiring is clearly visible in most calefón installations. Many times the wires are barely insulated with electrical tape. It is worth noting calefons are nicknamed “widow-makers” in English. Calefóns are in widespread use throughout Latin America. They are cheaper than regular water heaters (“termotanques” in Spanish), simpler to install and use less electricity because they do not have to keep water hot all day long. As a foreigner you will quickly (hopefully) learn the calefón tricks locals learn from an early age. If you touch the water just under the showerhead, before it has dispersed enough, electricity will travel through you to the floor. It is not a pleasant experience. It is best to avoid reaching above your head and, if you´re tall, engage in extra careful hair-washing. Also avoid fiddling with the showerhead settings while showering unless you are certain the calefón has been switched off. Despite the fear-factor calefons do have one main benefit: you can take as long a shower as you´d like without fear of running out of hot water (as long as your electricity doesn´t go out)."


Retrieved from http://discoveringparaguay.com/home/the-dreaded-calefon-el-temido-calefon/

Fighting off the sub-tropical diseases

There are surprises around every corner and one of them happens to be dengue-ridden mosquitoes. Another happens to be giardia. And yet another happens to be the drunk neighbor who has forgotten where he lives again and would like to swap opinions on his mother's cooking - in Guarani.

You don't know what dengue and giardia are? Here, look them up:

GIARDIA

DENGUE FEVER

I find that if I let my guard down for just a moment ('my guard' includes peering behind bushes, liberally applying bug spray to my bed sheets and shouting about the deliciousness of all food, at all times), something sneaks up to bite me in the ass. Literally. Living in a foreign country (yep, still feels foreign) means being on your toes at all times or else finding yourself in curious situations that you're way unprepared for. Can I relax in my own home? Not entirely. It's not my home. I'm just squatting here, sharing a bedroom with a 40 year-old woman and an 8 year-old boy and sharing my bed with mosquitoes, fruit flies and bed bugs.
* I don't know why the fruit flies hang out in the bedroom. 
In addition, my family watches every move I make like I'm a newly discovered species of human who needs to be carefully monitored, observed and heavily criticized. If I shower less than 2 times a day, it becomes necessary to discuss and laugh uproariously about it with the extended family; if I eat bread for breakfast instead of fatty, creamy cow's milk, I'm put on suicide watch (any girl not eating her fill is obviously depressed); and if I stare too long at a passing man, my compatibility with this man is thoroughly discussed over the phone with at least two other members of the family. It's good have second and third opinions before we decide the wedding colors.


However, the good thing about this constant state of either surprise or preparation for surprise is that my reflexive instincts are becoming finely honed. I've noticed an improvement in my reaction time when grandma says, "You don't like my food?". I can verbally dip and dodge until suddenly the tables are turned and she's practically drowning in guilt for even asking the question. I can skirt around the controversially honest answers to inquiries on religion, salary or U.S. government intent in the war in Iraq (what is that, again?) until the bombillas around me are hanging drolly from mouths plunged in astonishment. As a Peace Corps volunteer, it's necessary to do what other people might call, 'lie'. These half-truths keep us alive and out of the spotlight when it comes to politically- or religiously-charged issues. The rest of the time, the spotlight is all ours.

Physically, these surprises come in the forms of living and inanimate objects at all times of the day and night. Most recently, I've been struck by an interesting set of symptoms that indicate I may be suffering from anxiety or a fatal sub-tropical bacterial infection. Or it might just be something I ate. Endemically speaking, bed bugs are a lovely addition to my life. Or should they really be a concern? Are most people necessarily 'concerned' about the people (or creatures) they share a bed with every night? Their snuggle partners? Their love bugs? No- but I am. Each morning I wake up to an array of new spots and fissures in my skin that indicate an impending life-long dependency on Mederma®.  If I was a stronger person, I might greet these new markers of my resiliency with pride but as it were, I take a peek in the 8 x 12 inch mirror in the bathroom and try not to have a panic attack so early in the day, realizing I have little to no control over my body. Of course to have a looksy in the bathroom mirror, I have to fight off a horde of hungry mosquitoes that rise like the second coming of the Messiah from the watery grave of the bathroom floor when I turn on the light. Dengue cloud.

Some of you may be thinking.... God she sounds miserable. Defeated. Depressed. But rest assured, I am none of those things. I've only [further] developed a sense of black humor to prevent myself from sinking into feelings of home-sickness or defeatism.

The challenging part about this first initial piece of service is that we are all struggling through the challenges of living abroad in a third world country and have yet to see many of the rewards. At times, it becomes difficult to remember why we are. The rewards, both for ourselves and for those around us, become a distant point on the horizon, barely visible and seeming to sink slowly backward with each step forward. But with our logical, well-evolved brains (yes, we have those! I swear!), we can remember that thousands of people have come before us and done just what we're doing now and not only survived but flourished.

A day in the life

Since I'm feeling productive today, I'm going to outline my activities so yall can all get a taste of what my day-to-day looks like.


5:30 - my little brother starts screaming in the next room, claiming to be stuck inside of his mosquito net and really has to pee. Not stuck. Not actually possible.
6 - my Mom cranks up the radio, TV and the blender.

*sidenote: doors do not exist between the three rooms of the house

6:30 - I stop pretending to be asleep and get up, eat and get dressed
7:30 - I leave for the health post
9:00 - We make a house call to the next community. For the next two hours, I watch incredible feats of modern medicine take place, including the following:

-- Peeing laying down, sans bed pan or catheter;
-- A saline drip hanging (with the rope from a cow's leash) from a thatch roof; and
-- An RX script written on a chunk of paper found blowing around on the ground outside. Don't worry- she put the stamp on it: It's officla.

11:30 - Return to the puesto (health post) to review the community's censuses and develop a plan to work with the doctor and nurses to teach sex ed in the schools (what what!)
12:30 - Eat lunch. Almuerzo consists of boiled potatoes, tomatoes, green peppers and onions and bread.
1:00 - Internet time
2:00 - Private English class with two young boys

* now I'm writing in the future

3:30 - Walk to the city to buy groceries (about 4 miles round trip)
5:30 - Visit Grandma's house where, surely, I will be fed something fatty and delicious
7:00 - Drink milk for dinner
7:30 - Visit the school to watch a class
9:00 - Bid my family goodnight while I go to speak on English on my cellular phone



That's a pretty normal day for me!! Throughout the day, plans might change dramatically when someone realizes there is a very important event that I must go to. Paraguayans don't really talk about the future much, so even though you might have specifically asked your neighbor if anything was going on tomorrow night and they said no, when tomorrow night actually rolls around they may realize at that moment that a huge ceremony is under way- and it's in your honor. They've been preparing food for three days. You better go.

Somehow, I think all of these things are funny. Frustrating in the moment but when I swap stories with my other volunteer friends at the end of the day, all I can do is laugh.

If you want to get a better feel for the problems I run into on a daily basis, please follow the twitter account: paraguayproblems My friend Taylor posts things that we text to her throughout the day. It's worth signing up for a twitter account.

Learning street slang in Guarani... and other things.

For ten weeks during training, I had 3-4 hours of language class a day, five days a week. It was intense. I learned more in ten weeks than I imagined possible and our local language professors were even considerate enough to tell us the proper version and the actual version- I am well, thank you as opposed to, Good, you? However, there were also an unthinkable number of instances where the answer to a question was, It depends- Es depende. God how it depends!!!

Conversations with our training staff went something like this for 10 weeks:

"Will I have cell service?"

-It depends.

"Will I have a bathroom?"

-It depends.

"Is it safe for me to live alone? To run outside? To drink the water? To date a local? To give out my phone number? To talk on the phone in English in a public place? To drink alcohol? To wear shorts? To wear blue? To wear red? To wear gold jewelry? To use this word?"

-It depends.

And now that I am in site, independent of trainers holding my hand, friends scratching my back and language professors telling me the difference between the vulgar version and the proper version of the word, all of those wishy-washy aspects of my life are being cleared up- quickly

How do I know when I've made a social snafu? A Paraguayan says to me, Around here, we........ (fill in the social norm that I was previously unaware of). They are a very indirect people and therefore it's possible to ask them what is going on- they will just say, I don't know. Instead, you have to wait and see what goes on. Waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting....

The latest cultural challenge: Learning the slang version of this language, Guarani. All of the helpful phrases we learned during training, all in "formal" Guarani, are barely comprehensible to these people who have been speaking it since they were in the womb and informalizing since the same second. Now, at first, this really irritated me and I kept saying to myself, That's not the right way to ask what someone is doing!!

That question in particular - what are you doing? - was my first slang accomplishment. For once, I heard the words for what they meant, not for how they should be pronounced and I answered reflexively instead of stewing over it first.

Formal Guarani for "what are you doing?":

Mbae'pa rejapohina

Slang/actual Guarani for "what are you doing?":

Mba'ejapo

But I can't complain too much because when it comes to abusing a language, American-English speakers are about as bad as it gets. We go from,

What are you doing?

, to

Whatcha doin?

It's inevitable that every language becomes shortened, abbreviated and the significance of words change over the course of time but when it's come to abuse, American-English speakers are Mike Turner on a bad day. We are negligent of the rules and thoroughly beaten our mother tongue to a bloody mess. And thus I thank my great-great grandmother Herrietta for coming to US from Germany  in 1865 so that I learned English as my first language because I sure as hell wouldn't have the perseverance to learn it as a second.

Don't quote me on this

A few quotable moments from my loquacious friends, Paraguayan and North American. Some quotes have been translated, from Guarani and/or Spanish, to the best of my ability. And, if you see yourself quoted here and I never asked for your permission, please don't call your lawyer because I'm positive I didn't actually ask or warn any of you. So thank you for your anonymous participation.


"That guy would be really hot if he had teeth."

"May I hold the baby?"
-"Oh... but he's not wearing socks."

"Mmm, it smells like Paraguay. Like sweaty fruit or fruity sweat; I'm not sure which one."

"Despite 10 weeks of technical training, the most important thing I have received to received is a cell phone with solitaire."

"Porque?"
-Porcause, I want to.

"I love my material things!"

-"Yeah, you love them now because you're still in American mode. It will probably take several months for you to be completely converted to the third world lifestyle. By the time you get back here you'll be whistling  a different tune. Then I will buy you a pair of knee high grey suede boots form JCrew and you'll faint and be re-converted to consumerism."

Exploring meal times in Paraguay

The digression of a healthy meal:

"Can I make lunch today?"
-Yes, what are you going to make?
"Pasta and vegetable sauce."
-Hmmm, and tortillas (a fried food)?
"Umm... sure."
-Tortillas and sauce?
"And pasta?"
-Hmm, just tortillas and sopa (fried food).
"Bueno."

A debate with a child over vegetables


"Are you going to eat the vegetables, too?"
-I don't want the vegetables.
"Eat the vegetables. They're healthy."
-I don't want this food.
"What do you want?"
-I just want a battery for my little car.

The discussion of my birthday meal


"What do you want to eat for your birthday party?"
-Pizza and salad!
"Hmmmm. Salad."
-Is that okay? Is it normal to eat salad at night?
"She wants to know if it's normal to eat salad at night. Yes, yes it's normal. It's all good."
-Okay, so salad and pizza.
"And empanadas. And sopa (a fried food)."
-Okay, so salad, pizza, empanadas and sopa.
"Yes, empanadas and sopa, then."

A few observations...

I just want to list a few things I've observed the past two weeks. These are things that occur and I think to myself, "Wow, no one thinks this is weird but me." These are the times I most miss America.
Observe:

A 2 year-old cutting the grass with a machete.

My 8 year-old brother with a can of pesticide in one hand a box of Paraguayan-style frosted flakes in the other. He's spraying the yard while snacking.

There are always ants in the sugar.

There is always a skin on the milk.

There are always chickens in the yard even though we don't actually have any chickens.

The cake here is soggy. I'm still trying to figure that one out.

Dogs and cows are very combative.