Clever!

I went down town this weekend to the artisanal market in the hopes of finishing up the last of my Christmas shopping. I looked around at the leather goods, wooden bowls, embroidered clothes and jewelry but nothing caught my eye. In the end I returned home with only two new photographs to speak of. These pictures show what I think is quite clever, the kind of second hand use of things that I love to see people do. As you can see the men in this area have come up with a cheap way to play checkers. All it took was a bit of paint to put the board on the concrete slabs that were already there along with enough bottle caps in two colors to make up the two playing pieces. A few steps further on I actually saw two men playing, only they had collected yellow and red twist off lids for their playing pieces. Clever!

Virgin of Caacupe

Today is a national holiday. The holy day of the Virgin of Caacupe which also happens to be the feast of the Immaculate Conception. I have been gathering a vague idea of what this holiday means to Paraguayans over the past week. My Spanish tutor shared a bit of the history and told me that she will taking a bus to a town close to Caacupe where she and her family will make a one to two hour pilgrimage on foot to Caacupe. This is something that it seems a large part of the population chooses to do on this day. Why? What is the story? From what I have been able to piece together there was a Guarani Indian being chased when he hid behind a tree. Praying to the Virgin Mary he promised that if they would pass him by unnoticed he would carve an image of her. Which, of course, is exactly what happened. The man then carved a statue of the virgin (or two depending on the story) one of which is in the cathedral of Caacupe. Paraguayans see this as a true miracle story and believe fervently in the Virgin of Caacupe. As for me, I’d be interested in going to Caacupe (perhaps on the 8th of December next year) and experiencing some of the national belief myself. In the meantime I will try to sort out more of the story (although I have little hope in actually covering the one true story as is so rare in much of Catholic history).

See here for an account of Caacupe.

How much?

After four and a half months in Paraguay I still find myself struggling with the money. It is not that I don’t understand how much people are telling me, although I have to admit at times I’m not sure I understand, and at others I think I must be wrong because it is just to cheap. No, my problem comes when I actually try to pull out the money to pay. I’ve got the bills down fine. There’s the green 100 mil bill (worth approximately $20) with a picture of the dam on the back. A purplish 50 mil, the blue 20 mil, the brown 10 mil and the red 5 mil. The different colors help to keep it all straight, and the numbers are pretty easy to see. I might not know who the people are on the front side yet (except for the name which is written on it) and I might have trouble keeping small change as no one ever wants to give you change except at the grocery store. No my problem comes from trying to use the coins. There are coins worth 1 mil, 500, 100 and 50 Guarani. That should be four different coins. Not to hard, you think. Not so true when there is two different versions of almost all of the coins. One gold and one silver 500. The same for the 100 and 50. Add in the different thicknesses and you start to see how sorting out coins by touch can be hard. Oh, and did I mention that the silver 50 is almost exactly the same size as the silver 1 mil? Is it any wonder that I get confused? Usually I just end up paying with bills and not worrying about the change, which as you can imagine makes it pile up. The alternative is the pile of coins it takes to pay for something when I decide to actually dig it all out. I wonder if I’ll get it all figured out by the end of two years?

A shopping ???

I’m not quite sure what to call it. It is not exactly a shopping basket, nor is it really a shopping trolley (cart). Although at times it functions as either one. I think perhaps I should call it a shopping…trasket. You’re probably thinking, what are you talking about? I have to tell you that the shopping trasket is one of the more clever things I’ve seen here in Paraguay. It is perfect for when you are just running in to pick up some groceries and end up with a few more than are comfortable to carry over your arm, yet fewer than you really want to deal with a trolley for. It is basically a shopping basket on wheels. Often there are two handles – one which lets you carry it over your arm as you would with a normal basket, and a longer flip up one which allows you to pull the trasket along behind you on its wheels. One of my friends raves about them for the simple reason that they work for a person of any height. Are you shorter? That just means that your trasket will be a bit farther behind you. Are you taller than the average Paraguayan? No worries, the handle will still be long enough for you to hold comfortably. I’m telling you, this is a gadget (can you can it a gadget?) that I’d love to see adopted in other places. In addition to its versatility in handles you also have to appreciate a smaller wheeled container which doesn’t clog up narrow aisles and makes it quite simple to pass the shopper who is stopped studying the racks. You can stick with your shopping cart or basket if you want, me, I’m going to grab a shopping trasket as I go into the store.

It's getting hot down here

It’s getting hot down here, not that this is any real surprise. After all one of the big draws of Paraguay for me was that I would be moving back to a country that was predominantly warm and sunny. The heat definitely suits me more than the cold. The real sign for me that summer was truly coming here was when all of the street corner vendors start displaying pool floats and blow up pools. At times they seem to call to me saying “you know you need a way to cool of once you’re back at your house.” Most of the well off (and middle class) families have some sort of pool in their backyard. Most of the time the pool is just big enough to cool off in not the sort you would do any exercise in. Sadly that is the one thing our house doesn’t have. The way we’ve been debating the blow up pools lately, it wouldn’t surprise me if we end up with one our back porch though. In the meantime I’m stuck trying to figure out how to talk about the seasons. I know this is summer, or soon to be, but at the same time I’m considering the approaching Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and wondering how they can really take place in a season that is not fall or winter. Talking to folks back home just makes me even more confused, is my upcoming break from school the summer break or winter break? It will be summer here, but I’ll be returning to visit winter for a good part of it. How to keep it all straight in my head? Perhaps I’ll just stick with saying it’s hot down here.

White ribbon campaign

White ribbons for hope. I am starting to see them all over the areas of Asuncion that I walk in. It started out with white strips of fabric and plastic tied onto car antennae and luggage racks. It expanded to grace the gates and doors of houses around the town. Now it has expanded to include white ribbon stickers, bracelets, stickers stating “together for a safer Paraguay”, and posters proclaiming “White Ribbon campaign for peace in Paraguay”. I have even seen my students out on the street by school asking if they could attach a ribbon onto the cars stopped at the stoplight. What is this all for, and why are my students involved? Sadly, a few weeks ago a man was kidnapped here. He happens to be the uncle to several of the students at school and part of one of the largest families that I’ve been exposed to through the school (yes, this is exactly the type of students I teach). What is going to happen? Who knows – it is a situation which leaves many people feeling helpless. There is no telling what will happen. I have no idea if they are attempting to pay the ransom, or if they could even gather enough money if they wanted. The most that the majority of us can do is hope. Hope for a good outcome. Hope that things turn out in a way that won’t traumatize the family any more. For my part I am trying to give all of the nephews I teach (they all seem to be boys in the high school) the most normal continuation of life as they deal with this turmoil. Students and teachers have banded together for this campaign of hope, as a show of solidarity for the family. There isn’t much more I can do, except to remember to hope each time I see a flutter of white in the air.

(Please don’t worry about me….as far as I can tell something like this only happens once every couple of years, besides teachers don’t make enough money to be worthwhile!)

Scarily Crazy

You wouldn’t think that Halloween would be a big deal in a country that doesn’t exactly celebrate it, but today I am telling you that my school goes absolutely crazy about Halloween, scarily crazy. I had no idea that the American School would so wholeheartedly adopt this crazy American celebration, after all the American population of the school is only about 5%. When the hallways outside the elementary classrooms began to get decorated with smiling spiders, ghosts galore and witches, I began to wonder. When some of the elementary teachers shared that there was actually an informal competition between the class moms for the hallway decorations I suspected that it would get a bit over the top in that area. And sure enough for the last two weeks you’ve had to dodge hanging decorations to get to the classrooms in that part of the school. Then about a week ago decorations stated going up around the school. One day the courtyard area had streamers, ghosts and pumpkins. The next day there was a giant wooden “Happy Halloween” sign above the guard house. The following I saw giant ghosts peeking out from behind trees and hanging upside down out of the branches. After that came a blow up Frankenstein to greet visitors to campus and scary mask/wraiths along the sidewalk. It got to the point where I wasn’t even sure I wanted to see what else would go up. And I didn’t even see the school when it got to its most decorated as I didn’t return for the Halloween party on Friday evening. While I’m pleased to have actually had something that felt a bit like Halloween I have to question the over the top way in which it was done. A few of the cleaning and maintenance staff tried to ask teachers what the point was, why they went so crazy for the holiday, and frankly none of us could come up with an answer beyond “because they can.” Looking at it through their eyes we could see how difficult it could be to watch the celebration when you know there are so many other things that the money could go to. Is it worth it? I really can’t say. All I can say for sure is that ASA goes scarily crazy over Halloween.