First night (and morning) in Asuncion
About a month and a half ago, there was a national exposition of industry and crafts in Paraguay. It was held outside the capital at a place reminiscent of the N.C. Fairgrounds. Well, a few of us from the Villeta crew had the ganas or willpower to venture there via micro (bus) on the night that Calle 7 (a popular evening gameshow…think Survivor-style competitions with the exaggerated sex appeal of Baywatch) was filming a live show . There aren’t words to describe how grateful I was to have a seat on that bus, and better yet to have Maureen as my seatmate. It must have taken 2.5 hours to get there. Body to body. Stop and go. Maureen’s right shoulder supported a man’s protruding stomach for much of the ride.
We arrive at the expo. We’re checking out the national pavilions (Taiwan, U.S., Argentina, Brazil were among those represented), artisan booths, performance stages and livestock showcasing barns.
zach with barack at the US pavilion
this cow is realizing he’s up for sale.
ox = buey
We pass on the slabs of carne, and opt for shavings of carne and chicken: lomito arribes, essentially a gyro, with French fries and hot sauce. And a cold Tecate.
carne at the expo
lomito arribes at the expo
After some more wandering we’re ready to catch a micro to more central Asuncion to meet up with some other trainees from Ypane (other satellite training community) and go to a discoteca or club!
Well. The streets outside the expo gave the impression that all of Asuncion was evacuating for some natural disaster. Bumper to bumper traffic for miles. And every micro was full, with people hanging outside the bus.
So we walk. And walk and walk. Looking for any micro that might have room for us. And then our standards change and we’re looking for a taxi. It might be worth it. Nope, all full. Ok, maybe a truck or van? Some nice Paraguayan could give us a ride part of the way?
And then I see a familiar van. I look at Brett and say, “Uh…is that your host brother from Villeta?“ I’ll be damned. He had come to the expo with his wife and kid, but decided to turn around because it was a mad house. If that’s not coincidence I don’t know what is.
So he gives us a ride to the club: Faces. It’s 11pm by this point, way too early by Paraguayan standards to head to the club. So we go to a corner store with a patio across the street and wait it out until about 1am.
(I am shaking my head to myself as I tell this story.)
So we party hard. We make friends with some Paraguayans. Maureen actually used the line, “Entonces, vienes vos con frecuencia?” — “So, do you come here often?” And she’s wearing a genuine leather Paraguayan cowboy hat she got at the expo (with some not too shabby negotiating skills). We also successfully requested Lady Gaga from the DJ. He obliged. The group from Ypane, due to some transportation issues of their own, arrived at 3am.
We leave. The club. At 530am. The hamburger street vender is still outside. We eat and chat with him, hovering beneath his umbrella while it begins to drizzle.
And suddenly the veil of a fun night has been lifted, and we see the gross reality that is the next morning when there’s sunlight, you haven’t slept, it’s raining on you, and you don’t know when your bus will ever come. And my gosh where is my bed? And then you take the wrong bus, that takes a huge loop around the city before going to the terminal.
And then you take the wrong bus from the terminal. Because no matter how many times you ask if the bus is going to VILLETA, the bus driver thinks you said some other town. And suddenly we’re in the campo, hauling ass down a red dirt road, full of pot holes. And we see a roadsign that says Capiataa…and that’s in the wrong direction.
I’m sitting in the back row of the bus alongside Brett, and we hit a particularly bumpy ditch, he both look at one another, not sure whether to laugh or scream of frustration. We laughed. And then we found something to hold on to. And the driver is getting a kick out this, watching our reactions in his rear-view mirror.
An hour later, the bus drops us off in Nemby. Nemby is a thoroughfare on the way to Villeta.
It’s 9am by this point. So we say, eh, we’re here at the supermarket. We might as well eat breakfast. So I pick up a bottled water and miraculously find cereal bars.
We wait until 10am for the Villetana (our town bus) to come through. We board, rolling back into town at 1030am. I said good morning to my host mom, she laughs when I explain the bus situation and that we were in Capiataa, and excuses me to go sleep.
End scene.
Getting in the habit of identifying emergency exits
I am only partially joking! This past Saturday I went to a school production put on by the high school to tell the story of Paraguay’s history. This year marks the country’s Bicentennial.
viva el pueblo paraguayo 1811 - 2011
So each grade level put together a skit depicting an aspect of Paraguayan culture. The first skit opens with a little house with flaming porch torches…flames maybe 6 inches from an entirely wooded and paper construction. And then the canons start firing.
fire hazard
Not to be outdone, another grade level was tasked with telling the story of the Paraguayan rail system. So they disguised a car as a locomotive and drove it into the building.
train
And finally, for a reason I could not decipher, another group had a woman ride a completely terrified and skittish horse into the noisy, crowded building. And the horse was losing its grip all over the slick floor. He needed some sneakers.
horse wigging out
Birthday Surprise
Back in August on my birthday, my host mom threw me a little fiesta and afterward fellow trainee friends and I went for a walk around town, a vuelta, as we had become accustomed to doing in the evenings. We’re walking along the main road, when a moto pulls up beside us, and I recognize one of the teenage riders to be trainee Zach’s 15-year-old host brother Victor. And he has a gift, which he presents to me. Bless his sweet lil 15-year-old corazón. The first part of the gift was a pink teddy bear key chain with a suction cup attachment (I put it on my mirror in my room) and a giant, gaudy white flower hair clip (they’re all the rage here, and I promptly put it in my hair).
Carolina del Norte
I’ve been out of the loop as far as news goes–international and U.S. news especially. But my host family was watching the news just last week, and came to report that there was a hurricane and it was heading toward tu estado, Emi–Carolina del Norte! I was so proud that they remembered my state, and even better that my host sister Karin remembered that Michael Jordan went to my university! I got lost in that moment and forgot to ponder the severity of the hurricane. A few days later, from the room with the television I hear my host dad yelling, “CAROLINA DEL NORTE! CAROLINA DEL NORTE!” So I go to check things out, and he’s watching the news, which has footage of Earl coming inland along our coastline.
I say Chomache, you say tomate
Over the weekend, host brother Derlis brought a large crate of tomatoes home, which he’d gotten for a real deal. There were tomatoes everywhere. So I ask my mom what she’s going to do with them. And she says she’ll freeze them. To which I banter we could open a tomato stand on the ruta and have a tomato-selling contest. But in the midst of this, my entire family starts correcting how I say tomato. Send in the pronunciation police. It’s not all that different in Spanish…but they were convinced I was saying chomache. And I could not stop laughing. That’s absurd. Who says chomache?
But I diffused the situation and we all got the last laugh when I surprised them with a Guarani phrase they had taught me the day before: Aña memby peguare TomaTe! Translation: Son of a devil tomato! Score 1 Emily.
Another useful phrase I learned: Hendy kabaju resa. Literal translation: Flashing horse eyes. The phrase is used when a situation is rotten. Like you’re broke. Or you’re a native English speaker learning Spanish (and Guarani), but you’re in a room full of people all speaking in Guarani.
My first meeting at AMUR
I was nervous about this. All eyes in the room looking at the newbie in town. So I came prepared with a short speech I wrote to introduce myself and my personal goals for the first few weeks, months in town. And I wore my new aho po’i shirt.
The meeting begins with mingling. Each of the socias arrives and I greet her, introducing myself in a jopara (mix) of Spanish and Guarani because I know they will appreciate the effort to speak Guarani. We kiss on both cheeks. They look me up and down and say something like Oh que linda or Ipona, which mean “So pretty!”
We arrange our meeting room with classroom desks in a circle. My community contact who’s also the Vice-Coordinadora of AMUR, kicks off the meeting with some formalities welcoming me. And just as I knew she would, she looks at me and says… “Emi, do you have something to say?” And this is why I came prepared. So I read my little speech, introducing myself, where I am from, what I studied in school, that I have been involved in community work my whole life with adults and young people alike, that I am motivated and organized, and that I look forward to visiting and chatting with the ladies one-on-one very soon. Whew. I’m feeling good. Time to relax and just listen.
Not. Too. Fast. Conversation erupts around me. Two, Three, Six people talking at once. In Spanish and in Guarani. In a serious jopara so that in one sentence you’ll get half of each. I sit back, smile, trying not to let the frustration crack on my face.
I pick up on the fact that they’re talking about me and where I’m going to live. In three months I’ll move into Sasha’s house. Oh but rumor has it the landlady wants to up my rent by what amounts to 40%. And that house has moisture in it. Maybe it needs repairs and she shouldn’t live there! Oh but she needs to see it first to decide for herself. But there’s no other house in town! And there’s competition for that house, she needs to act fast!
I ask to see the house, and for assistance negotiating the price with the owner. Ña Inma agrees. Done and done.
Fresh orange juice and a cake are brought out from the kitchen and served. I nibble, continuing to listen to segments of jopara conversations. And I realize one metric of success may be out of my reach:
An ability to understand a group of 10 ladies, talking in a jopara of Spanish and Guarani, 3-5 people at a time, in a room with the acoustics of a cave.
And then I repeat my jopara mantra: Tranquilopa. Poco a poco. It’s all good, relax. Little by little.
