Hi, I’m Emily’s
brother, Aaron. I’m taking over the blog for today while Emily cooks some
brownies to celebrate the new tank of gas for the stove/oven. I left the hot
summer in Massachusetts to come visit Emily in Paraguay. Paraguay is a lot
different than America, and I want to share a few of the things that I have
experienced during my visit.
I’ll start with lesson number two. To greet someone, one person says,
“ba’ay shappa” [mba'eichapa] the other person(s) replies “E’pona.” [ipora] This is equivalent to:
“How are you?” “Good.” If I am walking down the street, and I see
someone but do not plan to stay and chat, I say, “Adios.” Although, people are
always happiest when Emily, and I stop by for a chat. If you want to know
lesson number one, I am sorry, unfortunately it had to be censored from the
blog.
On my first day here, Emily and I ate breakfast and then we went on a
walk. We stopped by one of Emily’s former host families. As we walked up to
their house I said, “Ba’ay Shappa”, the family laughed and replied, “E’pona.” Emily
introduced me as her “Armano” [hermano], “Brother.” We were told, “eh’wapu,” [eguapy]“sit.” As
they asked Emily questions about me in Guarani, we were given breakfast number
two, Pireka (similar to fried dough) with a cup of Cocido (when made
traditionally it involves taking Yerba mate, and sugar, then caramelizing the
sugar with a coal from the fire, and then putting all three into hot water or
hot milk.) When I finished my first Pireka I was offered a second one, and as I
was afraid to offend my host, I accepted. Emily tried to turn her second
helping down, and she tried to explain that she wasn’t hungry, but her former
host mom would not hear of it, and made her accept a second helping. I can only
imagine what would have happened if I had turned mine down, as I don’t know how
to speak Guarani. Like a lot of Emily’s friends they wanted to know how old I
was, if I spoke Guarani, if I was married, and if I had any children yet. (One
grandmother I met joked that by 18 I should already have two kids.)
A cool thing about Paraguay is that this type of hang out isn’t only for
people that are close friends. In the community many people run small stores
out of their houses. When we have gone to buy food, or cooking supplies, before
we make the purchase we sit down, we drink some terere (yerba with cold water),
or mate (yerba with hot water), and we chat for a little bit. Emily introduces herself,
she introduces me. They ask if I am happy in Paraguay, and if I have kids yet.
When that is out of the way, then we can buy what we need. It’s really
relaxing, but we need to have a lot of free time when we plan to go to one of
these stores, Emily tells me that it’s possible that we might be invited to
lunch.
Oh hey look! There’s an ox cart passing by the house! Anyway…
One thing I really don’t like in America is our pennies. It costs more
than a penny to make a penny, I always lose them, and I really can’t buy
anything with a handful of pennies. But Paraguayans have figured it out. The
answer to pennies is “candy change.” With most transactions, if there is any
change I’m handed a few sucking candies with the receipt. It’s wonderful.
Instead of endless frustration with coins lost in the sofa, I get to enjoy a
little candy.
I’ve noticed that when it comes to “reduce” “Re-use” “recycle”
Paraguayans have Americans beat with both “re-using” and “reducing,” and in
general being resourceful. Old soda bottles are used as containers for seeds,
honey, milk, etc. When we had the cocido it was poured from a container similar
to a cool-whip container. CDs hung from string are used to scare the birds away
from plants. The trunk of a taxi was opened with a screw-driver because the
lock was busted, and toys, tools, appliances, and cars seem to have later
expiration dates than they would if these objects were used in the US.
Whose cow is this, and why is it in my yard? As a resident of Needham
Massachusetts I rarely get to see cows, chickens, guinea fowl, pigs, or horses.
In all of the places I have visited in Paraguay, every family has at least a
few chickens, a cow or two, probably a few pig, etc . For anyone who was
wondering, roosters start cock-a-doodle-doing at around 3:00 AM. I really don’t
know why people think they start at sun rise. Despite the pre-mature wake up
call, the animals are really fun to watch. At one house the chickens and the
pig would all try to sneak into the kitchen every time the door opened. Then
our host would run into the kitchen to kick them out, and around twenty
chickens would run out of the kitchen. By Emily’s house there is a gang of
around seven chickens that roam around and stop by the house every so often,
when they’re done digging through the yard they walk over to another house.
This is cute, but I have noticed that it can lead to a few problems. Because
there is a constant flow of animals running around the yard eating anything
edible many gardens suffer. Emily worked with some Paraguayans to protect their
gardens with new fencing. Additionally
there is a large loss of eggs. One lady in the community keeps her chickens in
a very large cage/pen. One day she sold us a dozen eggs from her chicken.
However, other people with a similar number of chickens lose a lot of eggs.
Chickens like to lay eggs in the same place every day. Without a centralized
designated laying area, chickens might lay their eggs in any number of unknown
places.
I have had a lot of fun visiting my sister and meeting her friends in
the community. Unfortunately my trip is almost over, and I have a really long
ride home. Time to start packing, Chaio.
