Armadillo

Paraguay is considered a bilingual country, as most folks speak both Spanish, and Guaraní, the indigenous language of Paraguay. In most parts of the country though, Guaraní is actually by far the dominant language. Spanish is spoken when necessary.

As you might expect, the first words in Guaraní my training buddies and I were taught were salutations and vulgarities. One of the first things I was taught had something to do with a sexual activity involving a cactus. By say, hour three in country, it was common knowledge that tattoo –“tatu”- was now the female genitalia.

With that in mind let’s skip ahead a couple of weeks. I’m visiting a female Peace Corps Volunteer as a part of my training to get insight into what life as a volunteer is like. She and I visit an elderly lady who she considers her Paraguayan grandma. Here is a part of a conversation they had…

Grandma: I love tatu!

Volunteer: Tatu!?!

Grandma: Oh yeah! We used to eat it all the time. In fact I’d have some right now if I could!

Volunteer: Wait. You want to eat MY tatu!?

Grandma: No, not your tatu! Tatu de animal.

That last statement threw my mind for a loop.

Eventually we learned that tatu also means armadillo in Guaraní.

The truth is, Guaraní is a really cool language, and not just because it made me blush one time during training. It’s considered much more expressive by Paraguayans than Spanish, and Guaraní is more to the point. I could say a lot about Guaraní, but here are a few basics for those of you with an interest. (I’m more focused on speaking than writing so my spelling may not be the best, and I am not expecting perfect pronunciation from you guys anyway).

Mba’echapa- (Mbah-AI-shaw-PA) How are you?- A bit formal, I use it with women who are older than myself.

Ipora, ha nde- (I-poh-RAH) (Hawn-Day) Very well and you?! Most folks I know tend to say they’re great, no matter what. I came across a guys whose car had broken down on the side of the road in the middle of the summer, and when I asked he said he was doin’ just fine!

Ha upe- (How-PAY) This is my go to phrase when I’m hanging with my buddies. Literally it mean “and then?” Shrug your shoulders and raise your hands a bit, palms up for extra points on this one.

Trankilopa- (Tran-KEE-lo-PA) A standard response to the above, this let’s people know it’s all good!

Jaha- (Jah-HAH) Let’s go!

Well, look’s like you’ve gotten all the important stuff down. It’s time to come to PY for a visit!

Dance Fever

Here’s an example from youtube of Paraguayan folk dancing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fTq56pHbeR8&feature=related )

For a four dollar monthly fee, some of my training buddies and I were able to take a Paraguayan folk dancing class. Due to time constraints, we were only able to go to two practices, but that didn’t prevent the instructor from requesting that we perform with her group in the annual patron saint’s festival in our training town.

Given that I spent most of the second practice asleep on the floor of the dance studio, I was a bit nervous, but hey, why not perform!? I figure it shows goodwill from the US for us to perform a traditional Paraguayan dance at the big town fiesta.

Not to mention that we got to wear some fanciful digs- black pants, white shirt, bandanna, a multicolored wide belt worn so as not to strain one’s back while working in the fields, and a big wide brimmed hat.

On the night of the show the plaza was packed! Several performances were scheduled, but the girls who were officially a part of the dance group were the stars of the show, and danced several other dances without us. They even performed dances while balancing clay pots on the top of their heads, which is traditional in danza paraguaya.

When it was time, my Peace Corps training buddies and I squeezed onto the stage with our Paraguayan partners. Holy smokes! There were so many people watching us in the plaza! I just tried to make sure I didn’t trip anyone, get lost, and smiled really big like my sister did in high school cheerleading. The crowd totally dug our performance. I find that people really appreciate it when you’re not afraid to make a spectacle of yourself trying to learn their traditions.

San Juan Ara

June 24 in Paraguay is San Juan ára, or Saint John Day. There are many traditional festivities and games on this day ranging from sack races to the more peculiar. The chief components are fire and recklessness.

The eve of San Juan Ara I heard some loud music coming from across the street. After leaving my host family’s house I followed the music until I came upon a soccer field filled with people and lots of music. I chatted with the folks I knew at the festival until I spotted someone lighting a soccer ball on fire who proceeded to kick it around. Transfixed, I watched the deadly soccer game until out of the corner of my eye I noticed something coming my way. Turning to the left I saw two people running in my direction in large bull costume that sat on their shoulders the way a Chinese dragon costume does. This would normally be a cause for concern, but the fact that the front of the bull was engulfed in large flames made my eyes bug out like short stack from IHOP. Running in the opposite direction, I dodged two flaming soccer balls that nearly missed my chest. Needless to say, it was time to get out of the field of play.

The flaming bull is called the toro candil and is something of a parody of the running of the bulls in Spain. The flaming soccer balls are called pelota tata and is a special homage to a song by Jerry Lee Lewis.

Scarcely before the soccer game ended and the scent of burning polyurethane left the air a new and very different game began, albeit one involving a similar potential for bodily harm. A group of adolescent youths tried to climb a pole about 20 feet or so in height that was totally saturated in grease. Given the nature of the other games I half wondered if the grease was really lighter fluid. Regardless, the task of climbing the giant pole seemed totally impossible to me. With all the oil, the pole was impossible to climb so the boys used their clothes to wipe away the grease. While everyone looked on with anticipation, I cringed at the thought of someone falling and breaking their back. At the top were prizes, like some money and a bottle of cheap whiskey, but I would have happily bought the guys some whiskey just so nobody would get hurt. Climbing onto each other’s shoulders, the boys created a human tower almost but not quite high enough to reach the top. Luckily no kid came home with a broken back, though I’m sure some of those boys caught some trouble from their parents for totally destroying their clothes.

Trainin

I spent my first three months in Paraguay in training. My training group of 21 was split up into two towns outside of Asuncion, with training 6 days a week. About twice a week both groups had training in the same site. In my town, there were ten of us, and we were split up into different host families. Needless to say, we spent a ton of time together- in language classes, technical training lectures on family finance, discussing the joys and stresses of our host families and new foods, etc. Luckily, I had a great group!

Training, unlike actual Peace Corps service, is (necessarily) very structured. I felt like I was always either in class or doing semi-mandatory dysfunctional family time, which made maintaining my sanity a bit difficult. Certain things helped me to keep my balance. There was an old lady a few blocks away who made the most delicious cake for 25 cents a slice on the weekends and I was a top customer. Ok actually that was the main thing that helped me keep my balance.

There are several things from training I could talk about. I’ll mention a couple now and add more later…

A little explanation of the photo above- this is the half of my training group that lived in my community along with our trainers in the bus that took us out of town when we had training with the other half of our training group. Not a bad lookin crew, eh?

A stop in Miami

Before flying out to Paraguay way back in June of 2010, my training group met in Miami for a day and a half for what is called staging. It’s a sort of pre-departure preparation for what is to come and a last minute chance to say “This isn’t for me!” before leaving the country.

We stayed at the lovely Courtyard in Coral Gables, and I got a chance to meet the other 20 members of my training group and eat some delicious fish and chips. Sadly, there was no time to try out the pool.

The staging director talked to us about techniques to cope in a different environment and about his own previous experience in Peace Corps. The environment was very upbeat. I imagined the group as a rag-tag team preparing for a secret mission. Kind of like the A-Team.

Our first mission was to find our way through the Miami airport, which was a success. After a 9 hour, and totally sleepless overnight flight to Buenos Aires, we switched to a much smaller plane and flew into Asuncion, Paraguay!! Unfortunately, someone was at the airport with a camera to take our pictures to make our Paraguayan id’s. Notice the sweet cowlick on the left side. I needed a nap.

Enough already, let´s get rolling with the blog...

Hey friends! Remember me? I hope so!

If it helps, people have been saying that I´m this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhOyU5rwWiQ

What can I say, I´ve had my computer break, power chord break, two seperate attempts at internet service which haven´t worked... All the while I figured I would eventually get my trusty ole college computer running and internet service in my little community in Paraguay and then start up an awesome blog of my experiences in Paraguay.

Here I am a year later with neither a decent blog, nor internet. But, when I can go to a bigger city or am with a friend I´m just going to get online and post... I miss you guys! And I want to let you in on my experiences out here in Paraguay.

To be honest, part of my reluctance to start a blog is that it seems impossible to adequately reflect my experiences have been like. But, while you guys might never really get an idea of what it´s like to drink terere on a hot summer´s day in the countryside or any of my lame jokes that I´ve learned in guarani, hopefully you´ll get something out of my little messages.

My only rule for myself is to try to be brief.