Love all around

It's a small world.

I never fully appreciated that statement until I came here and started finding third and fourth degree connections back in the states. Then yesterday I played the One Degree of Carly Waterstraut game with a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer (RPCV) from 1988 who happened to be walking past my house...

Picture it: 

After church on Sunday morning. The town is fully awake by 9:30am and people are walking in and out to the pueblo to recharge for the week: Their saldo, food supplies, visits to the family, gas for the stoves and the rare purchaser of dog food. My host family's house sits right on the edge of town and anyone coming or leaving has to pass in front of it. We are the gatekeepers. 

I had resigned myself to drinking terere for the morning and generally just being really tranquila- something I'm getting better and better at every day- when it happened. I was siting in the shade of a mango tree when a woman walked by with a strangely stylish teenage girl in tow. She asked if I was a Peace Corps volunteer. I replied in an off-hand manner, weary of those prowling Paraguayans who seek to exploit our facetiously-reported monetary supply. She introduced herself and her daughter (who, in typical teenage fashion, glared at her pink Converse ((too clean)) sneakers in lieu of initiating verbal contact) and told me her husband was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguari 22 years ago and they have since been living in the United States. 

My brethen! She commenced to speaking in perfect English, dotting our conversation with endearingly American terms such as 'freaking out' and 'whatever that thing is'. My heart was flying. 

Her husband soon caught up to us, my host mom came out of the house, and in some strange act of serendipity, everyone reunited as though the meeting had been planned 22 years earlier when this guy left post-service. It turns out this RPCV's wife lived next door to my host mom as a child. Accordingly, I was invited to lunch/social hour at these people's family's house in the next town. Of course I accepted, grabbing my..... nope, didn't take anything.... and headed into the unknown. Me, one RPCV, one would-be-Paraguayan-turned-U.S.-citizen and one mysteriously sullen 14-year-old who somehow complained about the heat while in the midst of one of nature's most impressively temperate days.

I spent 7 hours at the woman's family's home who naturally welcomed this white stranger with open arms and even included me in the family photos. Ah, Paraguay! How do I love thee? Let me count the ways: Fruit, insta-family, spontaneity, Guarani grunts.... The list goes on and on! 

After a walk home in the twilit tranquility that only the campo can provide, my host family greeted me as though I'd been gone a year, saying things like, "We thought you forgot about us!" and "You just left us here!!" I was kind of irritated at the time but writing it down I realize how awesome it is be welcomed into a new family one hour and the next to be lamented by the one you've just left, if only for a few hours. 

Feel the love, anybody?

pueblo- the town; the city; an area bigger than the one you're currently in.

saldo- credit for internet and cell phones

terere- the national cold tea... drink... thing; cold water mixed with medicinal herbs is poured from a thermos, or termo, into a smaller cup, or guampa, which is packed with tea leaves (sort of?), and drank through a metal straw, or guampa.

tranquila- tranquil; relaxed; Paraguayan.

campo- countryside.

Excerpt on Guarani

This is an excerpt from a volunteer who served in Paraguay during the Bush era, Megan Wood. She's currently living in Belize as a free-lance travel writer. Check out the whole story here: Megan Wood's Story

" “And how is your Guaraní coming along?” she [Juanita] began our monthly meeting.

I sidestepped her inquiry by replying in Guaraní, “Little.” This joke went over well in Paraguay, and I used it to hide the fact that I zoned out anytime Guaraní was being spoken.

She smiled patiently, “And what about the vulgarities of the language? Some volunteers can find it off-putting.”

Off-putting? Vulgarities? What was I missing out on?

“We Paraguayans are mostly bilingual and sometimes I think we switch personalities when we change languages. Spanish is the language of business and work. Guaraní is the language of the home and family. In Spanish, we speak like poets with sweeping adjectives and rich descriptions. When we switch over to Guaraní, it can be a bit crude,” Juanita explained.

Was she trying to tempt me into learning dirty words? ....

I phoned one of those self-righteous, Guaraní speaking volunteers for verification. “Do you know how to swear in Guaraní?” I asked her, getting right down to it.

“Obviously,” she replied, “my host mother calls me a slut almost daily. Lovingly of course.”

“I need you to teach me everything you know,” I demanded. She rattled off a list, and I was in awe, fully inspired to start zoning in whenever I heard Guaraní.

Over the next few days, this is what I learned: “Go jerk off on a cactus” is used freely between siblings. “Devil’s crotch!” is the “Shoot!” of Paraguay.

In America we say, “I don’t believe it.” In Paraguay they say, “About your vagina.” Teachers affectionately call their pupils “devil’s children,” and a mother reprimanding her child sounds like a scene from The Exorcist. 

Nde rasóre! Devil’s crotch! Shoot! I had been missing out because of my own stubbornness. As soon as I began dropping Guaraní into conversation, I saw a whole new side of my host family and Paraguay. "

Ciao, Julio

July is gone, gone, gone and that's probably a good thing because it was weird, weird, weird. I lived in five different places during the month of July, not including a hostel/hotel in Asuncion, and I was feeling pretty disoriented- geographically, emotionally, ecumenically... You know what July: The only good thing you gave me besides an intimate relationship with Anna Sanger was HARRY POTTER. Yes, I got to complete the journey in 3-D with Spanish subtitles and I cried the whole time.

Now, on to August. What shall we do?

This month, I start teaching! My friend Anna and I "successfully" completed a winter break camp in July, so I now have some experience teaching in another language. Of course, the classes at our camp only had between 3 (rough day) and 15 kids in them and the classes at my school have more like... 15-20, depending on the weather. It turns out rain or temperatures below 60F just aren't conducive to teaching.  Ridiculous, right? Makes you want to spout some of that oh-so-classic "I-walked-to-school-in-3-feet-of-snow-uphill-both-ways-with-holes-in-my-boots-and-a-baby-on-my-back" nonsense that grandma gave us, right? Well hold on because in reality I wouldn't go to school either. The classrooms are uninsulated, some have windows (swinging wooden doors) that don't close and the profesoras will be feeling equally as kaigue as the kids which translates to painting their nails, drinking mate dulce and cooking mbeju. Considering those factors- seriously, inclement weather just doesn't allow for productive classes.
So I will do my best and hope this overcast, gray, soulless weather clears up before next week so I can start teaching nutrition. I will teach every Wednesday, 15-20 minute sessions with each class in the morning group, afternoon group and the high school group at night. Entonces, Wednesday's will be busy but guapa points should be quickly piling up.

My puesto de salud is just rocking their socks off! The walls are stretching to hold the number of patients everyday and my doctor and I have organized two support groups: One for pregnant women and new mothers and a second for people with metabolic syndrome (obese, diabetic and hypertensive). Once every two weeks these groups meet and the doctor runs a short meeting, covering a different aspect of health: Cooking healthy meals, exercising, correct breastfeeding tactics, etc. Additionally, the doctor has taken it upon herself to conduct a study of all the people in our town with metabolic syndrome (about 20% of the adult population at the first count) and is utilizing a snazzy new computer program she conseguir-ed to enter and track data such as HDL/LDL levels, waistline measurement, weight and blood pressure over time. She wants to publish the study afterward and, hey, if I could get published internationally I wouldn't really mind it.
Hello, med school? I'm knocking. Actually, I have battering ram with a team of Paraguayans behind it. Can I come in?

Hey, by the way, who's a single, independent duena-negotiating firecracker? It's me! And after six months of sharing homes with incredibly accommodating locals, I have my own house! I moved in two days ago and am currently feeling the ulcer-inducing stress of negotiating with my landlady, Mercedes, in another language. It turns out my refrigerator is actually a freezer (rock-hard carrots, anyone?), my stove is out of gas and only the stovetop functions, not the oven, and I do not have hot water. I'm going to work on either conseguir-ing those things or getting the rent lowered in lieu of them. Another problem... or maybe it's more like a prize in the bottom of a Cracker Jack box, not a problem... my duena is planning on staying with me once a month or so and she's going to bring her quickly disintegrating mother. Should I take this as an interesting opportunity to cuddle up with a stranger in bed and share my food/utilities/patience/space or should I demand that I have my own space? I'm not really sure. Ideas?

In response to a few demands from family and friends, I have left out all SAT-size words from this blog and have instead replaced them with Spanish and Guarani words. See below for the magic decoder list.

Until next time- thank you all for your love and support without which I would surely be in a boneless, undignified puddle on my dirt floor.


kaigue (Guarani)- lazy; can be used as a chronic or acute term
mate dulce- a milk tea drink that is drank with a straw (bombilla) and poured into a small cup (guampa) which is filled with shredded coco.
mbeju (Guarani)- a traditional Paraguayan food made from corn meal, cheese and animal fat.
entonces- so, well, then, therefore, etc...
guapa- super hard-working; the best compliment you can receive. In other Spanish-speaking countries, these term generally means good-looking.
puesto de salud- health post
conseguir- to acquire; to get; to materialize magically from thin air
duena- land-lady