Should Old Acquaintance Be Forgot

Or new ones made. Why isn't that part of the song?

A discovery, a juicy one: A person can be reinvented without changing a single thing about themselves. Just change location. A change in surroundings and in people suddenly throws your same borrowing old personality into a new light and you are at once a bright shining new human and your same old same old, one in the same.

Listen: Google maps can't find a way to get from Paraguari, Paraguay to Hudson, Michigan but it seems to be just under 5,000 miles as the crow flies (ask my Mom, she knows a more specific number to which she cries herself to sleep every night). In spite of that seemingly insurmountable number and lack of driving directions, I'm closer with my parents now then I've ever been in life and luckily for me that also goes for a couple of bright shining little stars of friends who are practically family as well. That should be it. My luck should be run out because relationships like I've harbored in the last year are priceless.

But, alas! Look at me in Paraguari. I've reinvented myself as this mysterious norte who at least a few people seem to love. The l word I'm using and I mean it. I am at once a different person here and absolutely myself. I'm my father's daughter and somehow yet 100% the granddaughter of an 86 year-old Paraguayan abuela who I take naps with in the afternoon.  She tells me about birthing her children like they're my brothers and sisters. And I think they are.

Two days ago my host mom was staring off into the south (AKA the side of abuela's house), letting the wind hit her face and looking worried. "La yvytusur," the southern wind, she said, "ombohasyta enteroveva." It's going to make us all sick. That's just how it is, she told me. The southern wind always does this to our family. She asked me if I couldn't feel it taking my spirit away? Yeah, I could feel it. The next day I was feeling down (psychology!!) and she took my hand between hers while we were eating lunch and said to me, as she has before more times than I can count, "That's how I know you're my daughter. We feel the same things in our hearts."

Somehow, when the sappy, emotional, spirit-of-the-earth things are said in another language I don't mind them so much. Somehow when a woman who was a stranger 9 months ago tells me she knows I was meant to be her oldest daughter I don't feel disloyal to my own mother, I just feel incredibly lucky to have two moms. Who would have thought?

To catch up on the 23 years she missed before I popped up on her doorstep, her much-anticipated long-lost first-born, Matchi often asks me about my infancy and my habits as she already knows Jessica and Alvaro's. She now knows when I was born, how long it took, that my mom had an urge to make pasta before she went to the hospital and plenty of anecdotes from the years in between then and now.

To catch up on the years I missed, my body and mind are both syncing up with the family. When abuela has a headache so do I. When abuela gets dizzy so do I. When abuela has the hiccups so do I. Of course I rarely realize that it's happening until later and I say, "Mama, my head hurt all day yesterday," and she tells me without surprise that it was because of abuela. Oh. Of course.

I don't know if I'll teach my future children that the south wind makes us sad and spiritless and that the north wind makes us feel crazy and listless but I know this stuff's too important to lose. And should old acquaintance be forgot..... wait, no! I'm absorbed in my life here but that's the crazy part: I haven't forgotten my old acquaintances nor have they forgotten me. Well, the few faithful and dedicated anyway. It turns out they are the rock upon which this kingdom of dreams is built upon. So thank you old acquaintances. You allow me the luxury of making new ones with some stability waiting behind me. And thanks for not forgetting me because even though I'm in a totally new setting with new people doing new things- I'm still me.

Auld Lang Syne

Tapeguahe poraite 2012. Bienvenidos. Welcome.

If you're in a hurry to get this year under way you might want to come back to this entry later. It's a bit introspective and blah blah blah.

The New Year has arrived: This means reflection upon the Old Year; upon auld lang syne, or times gone by (I never knew). Yet as I advertise that very sentiment on the radio in Paraguari, spreading the word about the very non-Paraguayan tradition of making resolutions and looking back on the year gone by, I find myself hesitant to dive into the pool of memories. I'm afraid to get wet again. Maybe because I don't know what hell just happened. Or what's still happening right outside my front door, just under the surface.... it's all little too close for comfort. Or maybe it's because the 'old' one is inevitably a predictor of the 'new' one.... and the last one didn't exactly handle us gently down here. Or anywhere.

What am I saying? Oh, yes, hallelujah! Como siempre, I tell you, Paraguay has provided me the omnipotent gift of personal development and lead me, albeit at times blindly and through pothole-puddles, toward the road called, "Self Discovery" - cue angels singing. I have found myself. At the bottom of a long, dark lake from which the climb to the surface is grueling but- so the gente say- totally worth it!

To figure out what exactly went on in the last year (was that a cow utter I just ate? did you say dog meat? i didn't agree to marry anyone), I have to go farther. Another year, another one, two more. Let's go to Roanoke College, 2007.

I had a professor my junior year who had the unsettling ability to create ethical gray areas from your most grounded beliefs. He could logically and inoffensively question the moral righteousness of any action until you were 180 degrees flipped on your head with your trusty Boy Scout's guide turned inside out, haven fallen out of your pocket in the process. Should've been a lawyer. This same man taught me a valuable lesson. I selfishly wish it was an easy or less painful lesson but that's not the case. L'sigh. The right things rarely are the easy choices and I very begrudgingly admit this while rolling my eyes. Damn life and it's things.

"The unexamined life is not worth living," my professor said. Turns out Socrates said it first but he conveyed the sentiment well enough. This profe-o-mine talked about the pains and heavy costs of living an examined life and then about the concurrent benefits, immeasurable by any standards of man and describable only by those few ethereal, always-elusively-defined words: Bliss, satisfaction, tranquilidad. 

I mean, I feel blissful and satisfied when Moose Tracks hits my face but I'm a cheap date. I think he meant something a little more profound. So I commanded myself to look- to really look, look, look damnit! at my life. To examine it, scrutinize it- to buoy up even the murky dark half-truths that keep pushing down from the surface each time they bobbed up. Down, down, down they went and up, up, up I'd have to drag them, into the harsh light of day where they are not distorted by the bend of water or the capricious rippling of waves.

So I look.

I see some stuff. As a well-adjusted and driven 20 year-old, I have the unsettling realization that I'm pretty indifferent to my life. I'm indifferent to my college education. I'm indifferent to my sorority. I'm indifferent to the foods I eat and the parties I pop up at. There are a few shining beacons of excitement in my life at this point- a couple of friends, the thought of graduation, Mexican food on Thursdays. Asi era. Over the next two years, through graduation and graduate school alike, I begin to realize that nothing in my life was really precipitated by me. All the things I wanted to happen, the things I dreamed about and planned for, well they fell through. And the rest happened as matters of consequence. I know Harry Potter whined about a lot of this B.S. in the fourth book so, please Anna, just stay with me a minute. I do have a point.

I applied for the Peace Corps. Granted, I didn't know what I was doing and the act was half the consequence of finals procrastination and half fantastical indulgence. But there I was. I kind of did it on purpose. Kendrick was sitting next me on the computers; first floor of the library; Abril 2009. I started a crazy 9-step process to take me into the middle of nowhere so I could get real with myself and then start doing some stuff on purpose. Thank God it finally worked. I've never spent 11 and a half months   examining my life with so few breaks in between to rest the mind and soul (yah, falta two weeks and I'm one year in this country). Normally work distracts a person; family distracts a person; hobbies or the TV or a vacation distracts a person. But here in the wild wonderfulness of Paraguay the hours roll into each other and time is abundant enough for even the moot, sunken mysteries to be signaled ashore. What washes up isn't always pretty but this guy Socrates told me it's always worth it to have a look.

You know, I think I gave Zach Grigsby a similar talk at the ripe all-knowing age of 21 (24 is a lot better, eh? I obviously know it all by now. Psh.) and was baffled when it didn't take. I guess I get it now. A thing as intimate as 'examining' your life is something a person's gotta come into on their own. And maybe I thought I was doing it before- and maybe I was. But I didn't have the strength to take action  until the US government dumped me unceremoniously at the corner of Ruta 1 and the Petrobras to begin service last April. Un poco a poco, I'm finally doing it. Take a deep breath. I can see the surface.



What do you want? Looking back at the last 12 months, were you skimming the surface and avoiding the pain that might have come with staying under water too long? We you floating? Were you wearing Buzz Light Year floaty wings, good God, get a grip, man. Maybe getting sunburnt occasionally but, hey, it's better than drowning just to see what's down there. Or is it? I don't want to float anymore. I want to dive- like, scuba, not snorkeling. I want to feel the pressure on my lungs because I forgot to come up for air. That's living. And maybe it's hurts a little but I've decided for myself it's better than never seeing the fauna on the seabed. What if there's a treasure down there....?

Come on in: the water's great.

And then she finds you

Death is an unfair mistress. She lurks behind corners until a bounce accompanies your step and then she trips you. She watches your parties, your invincibility, your recklessness for the laws of man and nature alike and she pulls the rug out from under you as you dance upon it with a drink lifted high in your hand. The drink spills. The dream dies. You fall down.




After a three-day HIV/AIDS workshop in Asuncion, the seven hour bus ride to Encarnacion commenced. I was on my way to a much-anticipated pool-side Thanksgiving celebration with other Peace Corps volunteers- three days with no community development (whatever that is), no Guarani headaches and no house calls. Vacation time. VACATION TIME!

After hours of sweaty, running-out-of-gas, no-I'm-not-married-but-no-we're-not-going-to-date-mr.-bus-driver, we arrived at Hotel Tirol. Upon entering the property, we were greeted by a pool full of slightly crispy Peace Corps volunteers, floating face-up in inner tubes, hues reminiscent of Life Saver candies, wearing over-sized sun hats with quickly-mixed drinks in their hands, electronic pop blaring from a borrowed sound system and a volleyball net set up on one side. We had arrived.

The next two days were a blur of slathering on layer upon layer of sun screen (still missing spots, of course), floating in an array of creative positions in the inner tubes and then ravenously eating catered food like cows called home by the bell three times a day.

Even though we were in this Shangri-La of generously provisioned food and poolside volleyball tournaments, there were tensions. Here we were: A large group of our friends together in one place for the first time since training activities. You might think we'd be overjoyed to see each other again, to be reunited and have it feel so good. But, being over-emotional women in a unique circumstance outlined by life-defining challenges and exhausting personal development, things become more complicated than that. It seems that in our own isolated communities, talking everyday (or close to it) on the phone, we have become accustomed to having our own friends- all. to. our. selves. And to share becomes something of a trial. So the underlying passive agressive jealousy that we would never admit ourselves capable of because we are good people trying to do good in the world and eliminate poverty, world hunger, teenage pregnancy, parasitosis, cavities, bad fashion choices, ingrown toe nails for God's sake! it starts to creep up in totally novel ways. Things are fun! For certain. But things are tense as well. We are doing our best to ignore the problems and take in as many cosmic rays as we can before it's time to leave Zion.

Thanksgiving dinner rolls around and I find, mysteriously, that I've lost my ability to over-eat. After living without a refrigerator and surviving on popcorn and watermelon for the last month, I can hardly choke down my first plate of delicious, so-authentic American Thanksgiving food before I am nauseous and wondering how long it will take for this dinner to become a scary trip to the nicer-than-usual-but-still-doorless bathroom at this joint. But don't worry yall. Like I've said before, I can get at some desert like Mike Tyson at a fresh plate of ears so I obviously destroyed four different options after declaring it impossible to eat another bite. The night and day that followed the feast did well to prove itself worthy of it's forebearing fodder: Turkey (Juuuui-cy), mashed potatoes, yams with marshmallows, green bean casserole,  mac n' cheese, stuffing and a fresh salad which I didn't touch.

Mm.

Saturday afternoon everyone packed up their sopping wet stuff, trying not to wonder if it was beer, pool water, sweat or some other unmentionable and ate our last lunch at the hotel. As things were winding down and we were talking logistics, a few people came into the dining area to make an announcement. We had been making a lot of announcement these last couple of days: Beer pong tournament starts at 9; stop dropping bottles into the pool; thank you's to so-and-so, you get the drift. This one was different. This one wasn't good. The girl talking wasn't smiling at us. Her voice was shaking. People were frantically shushing other guests at the hotel who were still mumbling in spanish or other languages. This one wasn't good.

Death is an unfair mistress. She waits until your belly is full, your body is satiated and then she starves you of air. She watches your parties, your invincibility, your recklessness for the laws of man and nature alike and she pulls the rug out from under you as you dance upon it with a drink lifted high in your hand. The drink spills. The dream dies. You fall down.

I barely recognize the name but I feel acutely the fear and the loss, like the prick of a hot needle at the nape of your neck. I feel the stomach-churning, discomfort of losing someone who is supposed to be untouchable. Someone who is blond and beautiful and smiling, exploring the world at 24 can't be- dead? Can't be dead. But death is unfair. Death is unfair. And people fall down.

For the rest of us, we can pour another drink, dream another dream and stand up again. But not if it's you. Not if you're the one she found.

So what are we supposed to take away? Are we supposed to forget all the inconsequential tensions of the day and love each other unconditionally?  I would like to do that but even though she died I still feel irritated at things I know are inconsequential. So what? I don't get it. I'm in Paraguay sweating bullets surrounded by people who love me but I know I'll still be irrationality irritated at stupid things so what? Am I broken because I can't see the divine light that death has shed on the ugliness of the world? I don't get it.

Death is an unfair mistress. She is inescapable and unrelenting. The only thing for it is to live while you can and see what happens. Is that true?

You Want Me To Do What?

I can do anything.

In Paraguari, a major city center, situated about 3 kilometers from my town, there rests a pleasant little building titled, Regional Hospital Paraguari. In this hospital there sits a special area designated for youth titled, Zona Joven. The Young Zone. An obstetrician who works in the Zona Joven heard through the grapevine that I possessed the triple threat of youth obstetrics: Yoga, teenagers and pregnancy experience. I've only directly experienced two of the three but had pretty intimate contact with the third. Lots of blood and screaming. Anyway, this obstetrician named Laura rooted me out in my little town down the road and asked me to lead a yoga class for pregnant youth. 

You might be wondering... Is Carly certified to instruct yoga classes? Then again, you might not care enough to wonder. Either way, the answer is...  In what context? .... okay technically in the United States well no not really. I'm not licensed or anything. But hey- this is Paraguay. And my mere access to Google makes me an infinitely better resource for yoga classes than the overwhelming majority of the gente (people) around me. So ah ha! The answer now is yes: I'm certified. Don't worry about it. 

Obviously I said yes and after about a month we have organized the group. Se llama Mama Felices, Bebes Sanos: Happy Moms, Healthy Babies. Hopefully by increasing the mothers' awareness, we can increase the likelihood of a healthy, educated upbringing for the child.

This morning I had my first class. But let's back up because the class is important- it was a huge moment for me- but even before that a huger moment presented itself to me for which I'll be infinitely grateful. And that's a for real statement. An un-exaggerated-yes-I-mean-it-life-changing kinda' thing.

So it's 10 o'clock this morning. I've just finished the first in a sequence of radio broadcasts on the topic of women's health with my dear friend Anna Banana Sanger. Hey- we spoke in another language on the radio. I'm kind of proud of myself. Anna and I are eating unhealthy food on the way to yoga class because that's how we roll. I got a sweet tooth that would put Cookie Monster to shame and I am not messing around with that statement either. You're shameful Cookie Monster. Anyway, I'm thinking to myself... I'm thinking... after all this managing spanish, it must be so nice to go willy nilly and teach classes in your native language. What a breeze!! What a break!! 

Thinking this I feel a little bit ... what...?....  a little bit like my hubris has up and abandoned me? Like I'm flourishing my bravura a little too brazenly? I don't care. I can feel the power of my thoughts welling up inside me and I've got to say them out loud and hey, there's Anna, a fluent English speaker and the ever-present sounding-board of my sometimes frightening thoughts so I say to her, "I think I can do anything," and before I can even finish tacking on, "after this experience," an ambiguous statement in itself, she's already nodding her little head and pointing affirmatively at me. "Yeah!" We both say how relieving it would be teach a class - on anything- in our native language considering we frequently teach classes in Spanish and Guarani on topics we knew almost nothing about 10 months ago. I can't imagine ever being very nervous for a job interview again- unless it's going to be in Russia.

Considering this incredible feat- having acquired the confidence to tackle any obstacle- the two years are worth it. Two years away from friends and family, two years of not 'climbing the corporate ladder' or advancing academically are suddenly worth it when weighed against the backdrop of personal development that comes from constantly living outside of your comfort zone. If the Peace Corps dropped me off in April of 2013 with nothing more to show than this confidence in myself, the two years are worth it. 

Now consider this, my friend. Add on top of the personal development and leaps and bounds in self-worth the fact that I am affecting other people live's positively and -WOAH- the two years become more than worth it. Pile on top of that the fact that I'm learning a set of personal skills that will benefit me the rest of my life- for example, I can now do anything by hand- and top it off with the cherry of life-long friendship.... uhhhh. I would have paid a lot of money for this junk. Hey. Maybe they should put me in a commercial. As much as the bureaucratic stuff is stupid, I kind of love this.

So let's re-focus on what's happening. I'm in town preparing to lead this group of medical professionals in their first ever yoga class. I've just finished a radio program with Anna on the importance of exercise. We have declared the importance of the ever-elusive-to-define "Peace Corps experience" in our lives and affirmed our ability to rock out job interviews, university lecture halls or Broadway stages. It's whatever. But here we are preparing for yoga. And I have a strange feeling. It's a somewhat familiar feeling but I can't identify it, like a smell in the air that takes you back to a specific place in time but you have no idea what the smell is. It smells like... it smells like.... It's creeping in around the edges of my consciousness and I can almost identify it but there's something out of place... something missing. 

Anna and I grab our power health bars from GNC and we're off. We're picking our way through a poor excuse for a sidewalk in a major city center along the country's most well-known highway. In my head, I'm reviewing all the words I looked up last night to make the yoga narrative as eloquent as possible: Let your arms relax; the head hang; the bones to sink; the muscles to melt... and there's that feeling again. Like a twinge of something in my stomach. A little light-headed maybe? I don't know.

With the hospital in site, a large-ish one-story building painted a dull yellow but well-maintained, Anna and I cross the street, once again miraculously not plowed down by any manner of "vehicles" on the highway. I'm always waiting for the impact. Anna spotts a familiar old man drinking terere on the sidewalk so we stopp to chat for awhile. He mistakes me for another white girl in the area (per usual) and after much confusion and correcting, I'm starting to get anxious to move on and start this class already. 

BAH! 

That was it. Anxiety!

Anxiety!! How stupid! My old friend! It wasn't until that moment when this old man whom I'd never seen before was chastising me for leaving his wife waiting (who was she?) and thinking I was some other white girl who lived 20 miles away (that's you, Stephanie) that my foot took on a very American life of it's own, started tapping, tapping, right there on the sidewalk and I identified my anxiety. My stomach! My head! My foot! I was nervous! I was feeling anxious and the feeling was so incredibly foreign that I had lost my ability to even identify it. You're a weirdo, Carly.

This is what Paraguay has done to me. I have to say it again, if the Peace Corps left me with nothing but my ability to relax the two years would be worth it. 

Class went beautifully. I spoke in spanish. Sometimes I messed up. That's life.

FAST FOWARD

It's 2 o'clock. I'm sitting in my house after running around Paraguari all morning. What have I done today? I have transmitted a radio broadcast to the departamento (county) in Spanish. I've taught a yoga class in Spanish. I've created a calendar of events for the hospital in Spanish. I've reviewed the plan of submission for our pregnant yoga class. In Spanish. Hake! (Watch out!) I speak Spanish!

I find myself a little tired. A wee bit sleepy. It's hot out and I've walked 6 kilometers today which isn't that much but it's nothing to scoff at in 90 degree heat either. I feel-    full. I feel satisfied. I feel physically and mentally exhausted for the moment and if I had the energy I might be blushing with pride but for now, it's just sweat tinging my hairline. I've done what today needed and tomorrow can wait for tomorrow. This is life. And we can do anything.

Guilty as Charged

It may come as a surprise to some of you that I suffer from a moderate to severe guilt complex, instilled in my sub-conscience sometime between the childhood phases of, "Lying to your mother puts black spots on your heart," and, "Those tiny wooden elves are watching you and they will rat you out". And, I mean, I don't know, I guess the persistent phase of, "There are poor, suffering children in China who would really appreciate that food you just threw away," might have played some role as well, but it's really hard to say in hindsight.

This complex results in deeply-rooted feelings of guilt. Sometimes it's legitimate: White lies, ex-boyfriends, divorces, people dying. Sometimes it's not. I used the choke chain on my Dad's dog Isabelle. God, she loved to chase squirrels and I just couldn't stop her unless I really pulled hard and then I would get really irritated (!!!! anger problem, next post maybe !!!!) and then she was choking and coughing and people were staring and oh God why did I do that to her?!? I'm sorry Isabelle. I miss you quite a lot and I'm sorry for using that choke chain, but I didn't know what else to do.

With so much free time on my hands, guilt that I've been carefully harboring for a half decade-ish, pruning and shaping it just so, carefully tweaking the edges and gripping tight-tight-tightly to the bulk of it (ooo, my knuckles are turning white), just pops up again! These feelings... they come bubbling up to the surface like a dreaded case of heart burn that you stupidly brought on yourself- it was a double-fried cheese stick, you idiot. But it looked so good! Now you have to suffer. But, wait- it gets worse. In addition to the physical shame- a burning in your chest, the inability to open your mouth without embarrassing yourself and a rumbly- you're also kicking yourself for doing it in the first place. What the hell?! You knew this would happen!

Double whammy.

The sudden excessive free time is to blame here. Look. I'm considered a 'busy' person in the context of this culture: I teach 12-24 classes a week; I organize/take home/'grade' one big project for my students every week; I visit at least two families a day; I help out with an exercise group and I'm starting a project with the regional hospital to teach pregnant yoga to teenage mothers-to-be (which will hopefully develop into a don't-get-pregnant class). And yet- with all of this- I have an average of 8 hours a day where I. Am. Doing. Nothing. As you can imagine, the mind wanders.

I have to thank my lucky stars (thank you, lucky stars, thank you) that I have the network of friends and family that I do. They not only keep me sane during these mental meanderings, but they are helping me to become a better person through the tiring, frightening task of facing my emotions. Emotions- woah. Hang on a second. Let me introduce you to my emotions: These days, they are my constant companions and although they demonstrate definite signs of Multiple Personality Disorder and/or bipolarity/manic depression, they are not to be under-estimated as sources of personal growth and development, okay? Be careful not to insult my emotions: They're very sensitive. Highly explosive, even. What? Oh, well, yeah, it's true that they have a rebound rate of approximately 16 seconds but that doesn't mean you should go tromping all over them like an abandoned garden project. They have potential. I'm serious.

What do I do with all of these emotions? Well, we enjoy long walks on the beach (stumbling lost through the campo), firelit talks that last until the wee hours of the morning (mate by the brasero) and just relaxing and having a good time (crying)! You know!

No really, while those things are true (I don't cry, don't worry, Dad- I'm just making my readers feel better about how much they cry into their pillows made of other people's moldy old t-shirts stuffed into a ripped and re-sewn sack that gives them rampant, almost painful and certainly embarrassing allergies every night and morning), my emotions take part in much more constructive activities lately. It's called: Talking It Out.

Talking it out goes like this. I find a friend. Their name might be Emery, or Herre, or Anna, or Taylor or Kendrick. Sometimes they have more exotic names like Matchi. It just depends on the day or the tema. Then I hit them with a, "What's up?", "How's work?" or "Mbaecha'pa". It just depends on the person. I follow with something that will hopefully steer us in the direction of my most current guilty feeling. It sounds something like, "I've been thinking," or, "Dude I. Am. Freaking. Out." or, "Ay, mama, che corazopohyi!" It just depends. And then, you know, I just have to drop the bomb. I gotta let it out. The last couple of times I've done this it has resulted in this gush of emotions comparable to the levees after Katrina, and we all know they were not built to withstand storms of that magnitude. Well, neither was my heart y'all. This shit (sorry) is getting serious.

My fellow volunteers will agree that throughout most of our previous lives (pre-Paraguay lives, that is) we were not conditioned to withstand such a barrage of emotions in such a short period of time. Was anyone? We don't know what to do with them. What resources do we have to handle this? We're sitting here in the middle of some strangely-half-way developed third-world country looking at people pooping in holes in the ground while they facebook their brother-in-law from their Blackberry being told to 'help the people' and do the 'sustainable development' and hey, here's a stick a paperback book to do it and by the way, we forgot to tell you, you're about to experience the ultimate mind-f*ck. Our resources are each other and some God-bless-you-thank-you-Lord-in-Heaven-for-existing friends and family and, if we can dig it out from the rubble, our own inner-strength. That's the hardest one to find. Dig past the guilt, the self-doubt, the confusion, the loneliness- pull that one out because the others are no good without it.

Whew, I got pesada on myself! Revelations! Confessions! Forgiveness! I am not in church, I am just preaching my life! Hallelujah, brothers and sisters!

To leave you with a heavy lightness, it is my pleasure to give, you once, the genius himself: Dr. Seuss.


- "I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too. Games you can't win 'cause you'll play against you."

- "Be who you are and say what you feel. because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."

Oh, darling, I don't wanna grow up

It's the inevitable conundrum of the human experience: We are young and we want to grow up, we are old and wish we were young.

 In the Peace Corps, this ongoing battle against age takes on a new light against a backdrop of cultural mysteries and struggling to focus on the 'right now'. But 'right now' is rarely as important as the 'just a second ago' and the 'two years from now'. The battle of time and age take a back seat to the actual war we're fighting: The War of Where.

In Paraguay, we honor a couple of go-to questions on the road. It's guaranteed that each time you step outside the house in this country (whether 'you' are a seventeenth generation local farmer or a recent US import such as myself), two questions will affront your sense of privacy, if you still maintain one. 1- Where are you coming from? and 2- Where are you going? Many times, these questions precede even the globally mandatory, How are you?

Why?

Well, the people in Paraguay seem to require some sort of space-time continuum to cement each person in an ever-expanding grid. To be unaware of someone's location immediately before or after an interaction is a risky business and seems to blow an air of uncomfortable mystery upon the interaction. To insinuate that you are simply walking, aguata, no mas, is likely to cause a bit of distress in the ever-worrying heart of your new Paraguayan friend. To be sure of you as a person, it's necessary to first establish your geographical place on the grid.

Also included in this placement system are your marital status and age. These two factors seem to be inextricably connected. To incite one without mentioning the other is a possibility only after many months of friendship and shared hours together not speaking. I mean.... to be married indicates an entirely separate line of your grid of life. To be married insinuates another half to the whole that you might have been and links you not only to another human being but to that other person's entire grid as well! Things can get messy.

Age on the other hand seems like a fairly straight-forward issue but of course, in the unwavering tradition of the Peace Corps, the people here have found a way to make it depend. Depend on what, you say? It's your age for God's sake, how much more straight-forward could it be? Age is a  number changeable only by time itself- time! Unfortunately, age is also a number that can be used as a basis to judge all accomplishments in life and to anticipate the impending accomplishment of your dark, uncertain future. That shadowy, uncertain road I mentioned on which people keep rudely pushing you forward.

The issue of age depends greatly on whom you are speaking to. If I say, "I'm 24," to my 86 year-old abuela she inevitably comes back with "Jovencita, todavia!" - translated as, Still a young little thing! She means to say that my entire life is ahead of me and feebly reinforces my cries that now is the time for work, for gaining new experiences, for making new friends! She agrees that love will come later. I mean, hey, she's got 60 years on me - been there, done that.

However, when I reveal my age to a campo man of 55, he is quick to tell me that time is running out, I must hurry! What am I waiting for?! If I don't buck up and find a Paraguayito soon, it may to be too late! All of the sudden, I'll find myself living in a hut in some beaten-down border town all alone, with only my pigs to comfort me when I cry at night because, as we all know, it is impossible to either travel or find the will to live without a man to push us forward.


Haikuepete! What I am doing here?!

I must tell myself... Resist, resist, resist.... from telling these panic-enabling farmers of an alarming trend that connects developed, first world countries with a higher number of women in the workforce and a lower average age of women marrying for the first time. Such a chuchi statistic seems a little pish-poshy, riff-raffy anyway ... or some Guarani equivalent of such.

So, do I want to be young or old? I DON'T KNOW! But it's impossible to stop thinking it as we are constantly reminded of our age and beat down with the question, What are you going to do when your two years are over?

Hey, didn't I come to stop thinking about the future for awhile? Wasn't one of the points of inserting myself into a foreign culture, a much slower culture, to focus on the here and now and stop worrying so much about the future?

What am I going to do when I get back? Do I have to think about that now? Do I have to remove myself from the reality of my current situation to start planning for a future that seems completely disconnected from the cow-poop, sand mortar wall in front of me? My life is suddenly full of allusions to that shaded, dangerously windy road of the future. Allusions full of pressure... and high expectations! Bah!

I'm 24. I'm single. I'm surely on my way from the market and probably headed home to hide out for awhile. Hide from all these people probing into my future which is supposed to be sitting on the back burner while I focus on myself and the present. Ah, the best laid plans of mice and men.

Nobody knows... the trouble I've seen...

The normal cycle is as follows: You leave high school to attend a college and whether that college is near or far away you begin socializing with at least a few people who have no idea of your past. Your first car, first kiss, family history, high school experience- all of it's a total mysterious to these strangers who wander in front of you. Eventually, people get a good idea of what your life is probably like in that 'other' place - your home. Then you leave college and you go- where? To work somewhere? Alright, good job finding work first of all and second of all- isn't it daunting to imagine?!- you have to explain your ENTIRE.LIFE. to a new group of strangers with whom you share cubicles, lunches, stories about your significant others, etc. You share such a prominent chunk of your time with these people and yet, this is not your life, is it? There is a mysterious entity floating just beyond the reach of what these used-to-be-strangers could possibly comprehend because they float around in the realm completely opposite of it- your home life.

This process of explaining what has happened before, the actions that carried you forward to the place where you stand now, literally becomes longer everyday, doesn't it? Our histories stretch out behind us in a winding trail with every step we take forward toward the future. Every minute, every second, that slow and laborious (although certainly entertaining) story of our past stretches on and on and the eventual re-telling inevitably becomes less accurate, more exhausting.

Now, what makes this relating of your past so much less daunting is that the people with whom you interact, those would-be-strangers would gradually acquire the titles of co-workers, friends, lovers, spouses, likely have similar backgrounds. Thus it becomes unnecessary for you to dive into the tedious details of how your family ate dinner (with what utensils, in what room of the house, consuming what food) or what high school was like (were there desks? what time did you start and finish? did you have summer vacation?). Instead you can float on the surface of those experiences, including only the really moving or entertaining details that catch your eye from a distance.

However, imagine if you moved to a far-off land where those similar backgrounds disappeared into the abyss of the cultural grab bag that threatens and simultaneously enhances international travel. Really, you don't have to expend the energy to imagine the situation. I will describe it for you vividly as it's happening to me at this very second. Now you can use that saved brain power to do something productive like pulling the stick of Congress's ass or complete a Rubik's cube. Good luck.

Here in Paraguay, most people I meet assume that it's impossible for us to share any common history beyond the physically evidenced fact that we are of the same species both breathing this stuff called air. What luck! We're both humans. But honestly, there aren't really clouds in the US are there? No, no, that's not right. Do you really celebrate Christmas there? And you go to high school too? Well that's poppycocks!! Surely two continents so spread apart couldn't have developed in such a similar social fashion.
Well, remember, Paraguay, it isn't so similar as you think but, yes, we also indulge in weather patterns, education and family traditions - even in the US.

But honestly, back to the point. These would-be-strangers from a different country who now comprise the majority of my social life have no inkling as to my 'past life,' as I like to think of it. Not the past life where I desperately hope I was a lady-in-waiting for Her Royal Highness Queen Elizabeth as this would explain my abnormal interest in the time period, but my past life where I shopped in downtown Philly, got professional hair cuts and ate fat-free frozen yogurt all at a moment's notice. These aspects of my life, along with my family, friends and education, are all beyond the realm of the people around me. They did not experience them with me and therefore I must begin the re-telling. The differences this time? The re-telling is done in another language, an automatic point deduction from the categories of clarity and accuracy. Secondly, the re-telling is done in the setting of a different culture; there go points from realism and relatedness. Finally, many of the pictures I'm trying to paint with my Guarani and Spanish words are non-exist in this place (e.g. la-z boys, bunk beds, maple trees, smores, Ghostbusters, sledding) and so the re-telling of my life becomes a fanciful story of made-up objects and mutant plants, not unlike a Dr. Seuss book.

Por eso (for this), I often feel as though my strings have been cut and I might easily float off into the void where no one knows who I really am or what I come from. I'm ungrounded. In this first real opportunity for me to completely re-invent myself and plant my strings again, attaching them to whichever foundation I see fit, I find myself desperately trying to pinpoint the exact locations from which my strings were cut upon disembarking the plane in Asuncion: In Hudson, Michigan; in sipping hot chocolate after rolling around in the snow; in my grandparent's lake house; in learning to drive with my Dad on back roads. I tell anyone who will listen in any language available to me every scrap of past I can remember. I babble on to strangers on the street about, Oh Che Dios! My Mom does the same thing! I joyfully recount my life in a series of mythical Dr. Seuss-like journeys around places that surely don't exist in the real world (do they?): Mackinaw, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Sleeping Bear Dunes (yes, she's talking about a Dr. Seuss story, for sure). Because I suddenly realize, staring into a blank future and a present that- I'm serious now- is a Dr. Seuss hybrid with an episode of the Twilight Zone, that all I really want are the simple things that I so despised before. I'll save the world for now but after that I want what's simple. I want a rocking chair, a faithful dog, Sunday dinners and yes, I want to live in a country song. So what? If I chose to take extravagant vacations twice a year to satisfy the burning itch that is the travel bug (is that what that is? I was looking at pamphlets...) you don't get to judge me. Because I know what I want- and that took long enough.

To sign off, a quote from the One-and-Only, the most appropriate inspiration in my present life (not my past): Dr. Seuss (only minimally related to the topic above).

"You have brains in your head. You have shoes on your feet. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go."
-Dr. Seuss, Oh, The Places You'll Go!