" “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. "
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