5 Things You’d Never Guess About Living in Rural Paraguay

                Every time that I am about to go on a long trip to a new place, the advice of one of my wise creative writing professors always comes to mind. She always encouraged me to keep a journal from the point of preparation for the journey and throughout (at least) my first few months in a new place. Why? Not so much to remember what I did every single day, but because whenever a person goes to a new place, their senses are heightened to all the differences: in people, culture, nature, etc. After a few months the novelty wears off, and for example, you assume that having assigned seats in a movie theater, and all the exasperation that it causes, is just a normal part of life. The second year the changes in nature happen and you don’t even notice anymore. After almost six months Paraguay, I am beginning to experience this process of assimilation and normalization. A chicken pecking my leg while I am eating breakfast is no longer a surprise, but rather just one of many expected mishaps. Luckily, I have kept a journal, and would like to share five things that have now become part of the norm, but that I (and perhaps you?) would have never expected about living in rural Paraguay.

1.  Some of my future tomato crop may be stolen by the howler monkeys that live in the trees of my site. However, all bananas are safe despite the stereo-type. According to one of my many host-mothers, the monkeys here don’t eat them.
2. Certain fruits: grapes, mangos, and watermelon are considered “delicado” (delicate) in Paraguayan food culture. Attempting to make a fruit salad with all these ingredients indicates (to my many host-mothers) that I am in fact suicidal. Legend has it that if a person mixes watermelon and wine (grape product), they will okapu (explode!). I love how the word okapu sounds like the (yiddish?) caput—it’s over.
3. Most families in my site own an assortment of farm animals (chickens, geese, ducks, pigs, cows, sheep—usually each family has a couple of each). The catch: these animals are generally free-range. This often makes great “animal tv”—like the particular white chicken who liked to follow my host-family’s dog to pick off of his food. In return, the chicken compliantly acted as the dog’s chew toy. My favorite free range moment: one time I was hanging out with a family and drinking terere in their entry-way. There was a loud rustling noise and barking from a distance which quickly became louder. Suddenly we all threw our legs up in the air as a tiny, yapping dog chased a huge, squealing pig across the entire house and then right between our legs. The minute the animals had cleared the front door (and were outside), the dog went off to some new amusement and the pig lay down for a nap in the mud.
4.  The buses. Getting on a bus in Paraguay is always an adventure—while many of the long distance buses are pretty new and occasionally have AC, short distance buses, especially those that come (nearby) my site, make me question if it is safer to just stay home. Imagine, a mini-bus that is a least 50 years old. It drives on both dirt and asphalt roads and has a wooden floor. Underneath the dashboard, there is a huge gap to the outdoors. It makes many suspicious grinding and clanging noises. The bus driver is generally drinking terere with one hand (though luckily there is a person on the bus who collects the fares, and he is serving the tea). The bus is stuffed to the brim with people and groceries (50 kilo bags of flour, Cosco sized bags of noodles, chicken feed, children holding new pets in flour sacks etc). If your house is on the route, the bus will stop at your door, and the guy who collects the fares will help you off the bus and bring down your belongings. The bus is also painted bright yellow, bright blue, and bright red. There is no signage, and you know it’s your bus because you recognize the driver and know exactly which side road the bus parks on before leaving about a half-an-hour later than its scheduled time.
5. Despite the four facts above, if I don’t want to cook one day, I can order a decent pizza for pickup from a family that lives about a 10 minute bike ride from my house. 

A Host of Hosts

                I’ve just moved (again!!). I am now living with my third host family—well more like a host-grandmother—in my site. Next stop, my own house! One of the most challenging but also interesting parts of being a PCV is that I have to live with a host family both during training and during the first three months in site. Though in some countries, like Peru, volunteers must live with a host family for their entire stay in country, after those first three months I have the option of renting my own house. Starting with a host family gives me some amount of “protectsia” in site, helps me integrate (whether I like it or not), and also helps me connect to the resources in my community.

                The first host family that I lived with, I chose because during my first time visiting site (all volunteers visit their sites for 5 days, then return to stay after a couple more weeks of training) Na V was the only person who seemed to understand that if she spoke a little bit more slowly (versus loudly) I would be able to understand what she was saying in guarani. I love her house because she has these two gigantic mango trees. They are perfect for hanging a hammock right down the middle (I may have spent the majority of the month in that hammock) and have the magical mango-tree air-conditioning. It is definitely about 20 degrees cooler under those mango trees at all times and there is always a breeze. Her house is also on the top and edge of a hill, so there is always an amazing view of rolling hills, palm trees, and distant houses. Na V also really loves animals. She always has a million chickens around, cows, pigs, and even a sheep. Everyone would always threaten to slaughter the sheep for her daughter’s quinceneara (15’th birthday), but Na V would hear none of it. She taught me most of what I know about medicinal herbs and also introduced me to about thirty families in my site on foot in the hottest part of the summer.

                The second family I lived with really wanted me to be with them for all two years! Three out of five of the children still live at home and they are just the best kids. They are so full of life and I enjoyed just sitting and watching them at play. Backyard soccer could be pretty intense. My host mom Na R has so much love for all of them (and some left over for me too) and is always super-enthusiastic about trying out different agricultural techniques. She is the oldest of ten children, many of whom still live in my site, and is super boisterous. Her father and mother are pretty much the patriarch and matriarch of half of my site (probably because they have so many kids). My contact is married to one son, two sons renovated my future house, and I am renting my future house from a son-in-law. Also the father is a really impressive farmer and hopefully I will be collaborating with him in the future. Living with Na R, I got to know the whole family better. Also Na R has really delicious grapes. Everyone else’s grapes ran out in January, and we were still harvesting well into February.

                Finally, my current host-grandmother Na S lives on the complete other side of town. Living in her house, I am realizing that even though I have lived in my site for two months (and it’s not that large), I still have so much more to explore. Just being physically present in another part of town has helped me meet so many new and kind people. Many of them just show up to visit Na S and I get to sit in on the conversation. Yesterday, one of the neighbors visited. This morning I returned the visit and went with the neighbor’s daughter to visit yet another new family. As we walked down a hill (where I had never been before), suddenly the path opened up to an area of flat fields, with barely any houses or trees and lots of cows. I thought I knew my site’s scenery by now—hilly with lots of different types of trees—this was the complete opposite. And I got to meet a family who grows rice! I don’t know anything about growing rice and I think they may be the only ones left in my site who grow it.

                Much love from the other side of town (or as my 2^nd host mom would describe amooooite = waaaaay over there).--Emily

A typical (?) day in Paraguay

So what does a typical day in site look like? Well everyday definitely brings its own adventure but as time goes on, things are beginning to fall into a general structure (which of course will change beginning on the ives of March when I move out from my final host family).

                I wake up between 6:00 and 6:30am every day. By this point, my host-dad has already gone off to work (he is a farmer and is currently working on a cotton crop at a nearby agricultural school). As I stumble out into the light, I usually run into my host-mom sitting in the ogaguy (essentially a roofed porch between the room for the kitchen and the bedrooms/overhang?). She greets me with the traditional morning salutation mba’eichapa neko’e (how did you dawn?). After this little guarani quiz, we sit together and drink mate.

Though most of my host families don’t eat breakfast until a couple hours later, my defiantly American stomach starts grumbling for breakfast around seven. The most common Paraguayan breakfast that I’ve seen in my site is the infamous tortilla—essentially a savory fried dough made with home-made Paraguayan cheese and home-grown scallions. Unfortunately I have discovered that the aforementioned defiantly American stomach and the tortilla do not get along. So, following in the footsteps of many other PCVs in Paraguay, I have introduced my host-mother to oatmeal. She was both somewhat frightened and amused as she watched me the first time I attempted to make (non-instant) oatmeal in a soup-pot on a wood fire. Unfortunately the oatmeal box only offers microwave instructions. Hmmm.

As I make sure that my oatmeal does not boil-over while hoping that a little more of the water will boil off, the children begin to wake up and my host mom goes to milk the cow. By the time the cow is re-tethered, I’ve eaten breakfast, and the kids have started their first round of soccer for the day, it’s usually around 8:15. 8:15-11:00am has become my “work time.” While the sun hasn’t yet reached its full strength, I take the opportunity to visit neighbors (sometimes visiting neighbors can involve an hour walk to get to them, other days I just go next door), dig my mini-field/demo-plot, monitor and turn the two composts that I helped build, or whatever else needs to be done. During my visits with neighbors, in addition to terere-ing, I am attempting to learn the agricultural practices in my community and community needs. I have been learning what crops are most common, what pests are most common (currently the bean crops are being attacked by a bug called purgon), what people feed their animals, etc.

Generally, I get another round of terere-time with my host family around 11am. While at first, I sometimes found the amount of terere overwhelming, now that the sun has reached its full power , I’ve found myself asking for an extra pitcher after my host family has had enough. January and February are the hottest months here and it can be over 100 degrees farenheit for days at a time with no AC. Lunch is usually at noon and the most common dish is hot stew (either beef, chicken, or beans) with either rice or noodles mixed in.  And then siesta (yay!!). Coming from a siesta-less culture, it’s always a little funny/surprising to see my entire host family all asleep at the same time in the middle of the day. Siesta is only about 2 hours (everyone is awake by 2:30) but it is generally too hot to really get moving until 3:30 or 4:00.

During this siesta/hiding out from the heat time, sometimes I get some sleep in, but when it’s too hot, I read about gardening and work on my ao poi—Paraguayan needlepoint. Right now I am copying patterns from another woman in the community (she has hundreds and copying them will probably serve as my down-time entertainment for the rest of my time in Paraguay). On Fridays at 5:00pm, I attend the meeting for the women’s commission who requested me. Right now I am still observing and learning, and they are working on fund-raising and organizing a project to get modern bathrooms sponsored by the local government. On other afternoons, I generally go on a visit to next door neighbors or help out with some of the agricultural chores around the house (which currently includes harvesting, husking, and pulling kernels off of corn). It’s always much easier to ask people questions about their agricultural practices while I’ve got an ear of corn in my hands (and am sharing the work).

8pm is dinner—usually something light (I make salad or have a little bit of leftovers). Similar to my experiences in Israel, lunch is the heaviest meal, with a light breakfast and dinner. And shortly after dinner comes the bucket bath. Attempting to get water from a bucket onto me and soap/shampoo from me back into the bucket without flooding my bedroom (where I take said bucket bath) is always a bit of a challenge. By 9pm, after a quick glance at the stars (the constellations are different here and I can see the milkway!!) I am off to bed.