So I’m mostly all settled in here in Villa Madrid, and having arrived right smack in the middle of Semana Santa, my time has been spent cleaning/organizing/decorating my future home, making chipa, and spending a lot of time in what I can best describe as a Paraguayan sorority house. Myself, my host mother Elvira, my host sisters Meli, Yanina, Claudia, y Mariam, my cousins Nilsa and Johanna, and my poor poor host brother who somehow got stuck sharing a bathroom with us all, Aldo, all live in the same house at the top of the first hill in the first fase of Villa Madrid, Limpio. Villa Madrid is split into three “fases” which indicate the water systems they belong to. The first and third fase’s are biggest, and the third fase is widely considered the poorest of the fase’s, but other than that you would never be able to tell as you pass from one fase to the other.
The thing about training that is interesting is that you experience some form of culture/language shock but of course you still have the buffer of the 47 other Nortes you see on a daily basis. It has occurred to me the past couple days (mostly when I try to speak in Spanglish and no one understands me) that THIS is what cultural/linguistic immersion is all about- being all by yourself with English speakers por lo menos a phone call away, surviving one mildly awkward situation after another, all day long, every day. What makes this experience even more intense is that since school and work are out for the holy week, the house is super full all the time, with new people passing through at any given moment with any variety of Spanish, Guaraní, hugs, besos, and questions for me. In short: things are getting very real around here.
One night my sisters told me all about the seven myths in Paraguayan culture. The Seven mitos include stories about a monster that eats the dead, another one that comes at the siesta to steal and enchant kids who are left alone, and a drunk who you have to leave cana for in your chipa stove every night. These myths are all surviving from come ancient indigenous Guarani culture. They asked me what mitos the United States has but I really couldn’t think of any. I told them the headless horsemen story and how people think you’ll have bad luck if you walk under a ladder but that was all I could muster.
Thursday we did some Chipa making which was super labor intensive and I can’t believe they sell it for cheap on the buses now that I’ve seen how hard it is to make. Chipa is the corny, cheesy, bready goodness that Paraguayans eat at nauseum most days a year and since on Good Friday you aren’t supposed to eat meat, and meat makes up about 70% of the Paraguayan diet, Paraguayans are left to eat the only thing that makes up the other 30%-chipa. It was a fun thing to do with the family though, and the little girls made ducks and lizards out of their dough which was adorable.
Sunday was Pascua but it was a very un-Easter Easter, as Easters go. Everyone slept until eleven (mass is at 7am in Paraguay) and then we had some lunch and made our way over to their grandmother’s house (which was quite literally over the river and through the woods). We drank some terere and ate some more chipa and played some soccer and then made our way back before dark.
I have learned a lot this week, for example: how many grocery bags I am capable of carrying on a bus, how to light a gas stove without burning my hand/singing my eye lashes, how many nails it takes to successfully hang a clothes line, how to bucket bathe, how many different words Paraguayans have for “mattress”, how to order cheese in grams, and the list keeps on going.
Anyway, one week down, one hundred and three more to go-on to more learning and I will update soon!
Love and miss you all
Jaim
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