Sunday, June 20, 2010

can you tell me how to get, how to get to seasame street?

Directions in Paraguay are a funny thing and in fact, most directions are rather relative. Of course pre-Paraguay, I quite enjoyed and used rather often both Map Quest and Google Maps, two wonderful websites that will tell you approximately how long it will take you to get from point A to point B, how many miles you will be on every street, and the fastest way to get there. They give you precise information and always gave me a sense of comfort because I felt like I knew exactly where I was. You’d be hard pressed to find that kind of information anywhere in Paraguay. If you are in Asuncion, you usually have to ask anywhere from 3 to 5 people directions to the same place to ensure you are actually getting correct directions. I will admit sometimes it’s my own stupidity in not understanding the directions I’ve been given, but the majority of times I get about three to 4 different answers when I ask 5 people the same thing. (And for those of you who have spent a lot of time with me getting lost and know that side of me, yes I have gotten over the whole lets-stop-and-ask-for-directions thing. I kind of had to.) Apparently the different answers stem from a couple of different things, the first being that people don’t know the city that well and sometimes they think they know where something is and so they tell you where they think it is. Other times, people just want to feel nice and don’t like telling you that they have no clue where that restaurant is, or where the post office is located, so they just make something up in the direction they think it could be located. I have backtracked so many times in that city it’s not even funny. The strange thing is, Asuncion is neither large, nor complicated. I could probably walk from one end of the city to the other in less than 4 hours and every single street runs either north-south or east-west. So when I get one person telling me to walk two blocks to my destination, another person telling me 5 more blocks and then turn left for 2 more blocks, and a third person telling me I need to walk about 6 blocks and then turn left and I’m there, I start wondering if my final destination is imaginary. By the way, I should also mention that 85% of the time, the estimation on number of blocks I have to walk is off by about 2 or 3 blocks so even if you do get 2 people to tell you the same thing, you still can’t be completely sure those directions are 100% accurate.
And then there are directions in the campo which are about as vague as they come. Maybe this is partly because everybody knows everybody and their families have usually lived in the area for a few generations so they never really have to give directions. I told a girl that I would come over to her house the next day to help her with her homework and I asked where she lived. She said, “you know where Fulana’s house is?”
“Yes.”
“Well I live right by there.”
Um… ok… “So your house is next to her house?”
“No, that’s not my house, but I live right near there.”
Well that was helpful. “So your house is in front of her house?”
“No, I don’t live there, but my house is like right there.” Ok, well that just cleared up my confusion. I still don’t even understand if it’s on the left or right side of the street.
I’ve also been told things like, “Oh you know where so and so lives? Well just pass their house a little bit and you’re there.” Well tell me, how long is “a little bit?” For someone who likes facts, exact directions, and an estimated time of arrival, responses like this are not something I like to hear. The other day I went to go visit the Heath Center in the nearby pueblo to ask for fluoride pills for my school. I had been told by several people that the it was “just down that road a little” by the plaza. When I left that morning I asked my host mom directions just be sure I knew where I was going. She told me, “Oh ya, just go down that street, you’ll see a big sign and it’s on your right.” I got off the bus confident and feeling good about myself that I knew exactly where I was going. I walked all the way down the street until I hit a dead end and no Health Center. While the walk wasn’t all that long, it was uphill and a cobble stone like quality that really hurts if you’re walking in rubber flip-flops. Now feeling a little foolish, partly for not knowing where I was, and partly for thinking it could really be that easy to get somewhere, I turned around and headed downhill while the people sitting out in their front yard watched the white girl retrace her steps. Half way down the street, I asked a lady if she knew where the Health Center was. She pointed down the street she had just been walking down, “Yes, just walk that way and it’s right there.” A few minutes later, I came up to a semi-official building that looked like it had a waiting room in the front. There was no big sign indicating my stop, but there was a nice little sign on the lawn that had a whole bunch of information about the Department of Cordillera and it said somewhere on there, “hospital.” Ladies and Gentlemen, I have arrived. The Health Center was on the right side of the street, but I’m still mystified why no one ever told me you have to turn left on to a side street to get there. Maybe when my host mom told be “big sign” she meant there is a big sign on the street where you want to turn left to get to the health center which is on the right side of the street approximately 5 buildings down and it has a small sign on the front lawn and is located across from a park. Yes, now that I think about it, she must have meant that.

la cupa mundial

I have a couple updates on the whole futbol front. First of all, let me correct myself in saying that Paraguay has qualified for the world cup before, but you can probably find better facts on the internet than I can asking people in my site. My current host dad told me they have qualified the last 4 World Cups, but I’ve also been told by more than one Paraguayan they’ve never qualified before, so I really don’t know what’s happened.

Second, the closest thing I can compare watching Paraguay’s opening game is watching the Super Bowl. Unless you had to work, you were watching the game, even if you never follow futbol. I went over to my neighbors house and watched it with them, laughing at them freaking out every time Paraguay almost made a goal or someone stole the ball from Paraguay. When they made the one goal of the game, almost everyone jumped out of their seats screaming because they were so excited. The 6 year old started running around the room doing a victory dance that had some resemblance to Michael Jackson style dancing. We made popcorn for the second half and one of them started throwing popcorn at the TV every time something happened in the game that she didn’t like. The whole thing was quite the event, and quite exciting.

Lastly, I would like to tell you how being in the World Cup has suddenly made the neighborhood boys much more serious about our front lawn pick up games. We usually spend an hour or two playing two on two or three on three and I spend approximately half of that time listening to them yell at each other in Guarani about whether or not it’s a corner shot, whether or not they have 3 goals or 4, or whether or not they get a penalty shot. The games usually spontaneously start and people join in and leave in the middle of the game. On Friday we played 4 on 4 and not only did we have an official start to the game, but we had everything from line up and the national anthem, to shaking hands, and warm up exercises. They decided one team would be Paraguay and the other would be the United States in honor of me. We also had to choose which famous soccer player we wanted to be for the game. They asked me who the most famous soccer player in the United States was. Um, I don’t know… David Beckam? I don’t even think he’s in South Africa right now but he’s honestly the only soccer name I know. Luckily they were satisfied with only one name and I got to be David Beckam while they all fought over which Paraguayan soccer player they would be. We all stood in two lines and then they told me that I had to sing the national anthem of the United States because that was our team. I made it through two lines before bursting into laughter. Apparently just singing, “Oh say can you see, by the dawns early light,” was good enough for them and they all put their hands over their hearts to sing the Paraguayan national anthem. I don’t even think the game actually lasted for 5 minutes before the ball got stuck in the tree, or one of the boys ended up on the ground fake crying because he got kicked… I don’t remember which happened first, but after that happened, I just sat around listening to them yell at each other in Guarani and chase each other around to beat up the kid who kicked the boy lying on the ground. I guess the ceremonies were more important than the actual game.

Monday, June 14, 2010

fuerza paraguaya!!!!

For those of you who follow soccer, and possibly some of you who don’t follow soccer, you probably know that the world cup has started in South Africa. I think I’ve said before that Paraguayans get really excited when it comes to futbol. Let me make myself clear: Paraguayans are serious about their futbol. It is about as hard to imagine Paraguayans without futbol as it is to imagine them without terere every day or without chipa on Semana Santa. Maybe qualifying for the World Cup doesn’t sound like a huge deal, but for a country who lives and breaths futbol but has never qualified for the World Cup, it’s the most exciting thing that has happened here for a very long time. Because of this, for the last month or so, about two thirds of the commercials on TV and every few billboards or so in Asuncion have had something to do with the upcoming World Cup. “Fuerza Paraguay” has become a very popular phrase recently. My host mom told me that if the United States, who has also qualified for the World Cup, plays Paraguay, I have to cheer for Paraguay. My neighbor asked me what I was going to do if the US plays Paraguay as if I was obligated to cheer for Paraguay because I was here. “I don’t know,” I said feeling a bit conflicted about cheering for my home country while everyone here almost expects me to turn against my roots. “I don’t know.”
There was an opening concert Thursday night and my family stayed up late to watch Black Eyed Peas and Shakira perform even though they didn’t understand a word of it except for the line in “Hips don’t lie” that says, “Como se llama, bonita. Mi casa, su casa.” They got all excited for this part and said, “Listen! She’s singing in Spanish!” Friday was the inauguration and neither my 6 year old brother or my 14 year old brother went to school so they could watch the opening games. By the time I had woken up my 6 year old brother had drawn a mini soccer field in the dirt and spent the next few hours kicking around a mini soccer ball and yelling, “Gooooooooooooalllll!!!!!!! Ole Paraguay! Ole ole!” My 14 year old brother devoted his morning to gawking at the TV for the inauguration and the opening game between South Africa and Mexico. After the end of every game played (I think there have been 7 so far) my brother dutifully tells me the score of each team and then makes sure to inform me which countries will be playing next and at what time. Paraguay hasn’t even stepped foot onto the field and he’s already keeping track of every single goal. My 20 year old neighbor and host mom are a little disappointed that the World Cup lasts for a month because that means a month devoted to watching soccer games instead of their favorite TV series. Paraguay will be making their way onto the field this afternoon to play against Italy. I have been told that there will be no school that afternoon because everyone will be at home to watch the game. Since when did school get cancelled for a sports game? In honor of the upcoming game, my dad (and several other Paraguayans) put up a Paraguayan flag in his front lawn. I can`t wait to see how this whole event goes and I am secretly praying I the United States will not be playing against Paraguay in the nearby future. But for today, FUERZA PARAGUAYA!!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

some random thoughts

Has it really been over a month that I’ve been in site or is the calendar lying to me? I thought when I moved to site time would slow down and I would have to start making a paper chain to help count the days. Granted, many of those days have been long and seemed endless, but as a whole it seems like the month flew by. I finally feel like I’m actually settled and belong (mas o menos) in my community. These are some random stories and thoughts about my first month in site.

I am in a constant state of changing emotions and have possibly never felt so conflicted in my life. It seems that with every step along the way, Peace Corps has managed to bring me joy, anger, frustration, a sense of accomplishment, confusion, and peace. I didn’t know it was possible to feel all of that at once… for days on end. It’s truly amazing how quickly my feelings can change about the exact same thing within minutes and sometimes seconds. I will have days when my feelings swing from extreme opposites and back about every 5 minutes. This type of experience is a common occurrence for me and is proving to be an extremely growing experience. My emotions bounce back and forth between being lonely to feeling like I’m accepted in the community, feeling like me being here is pointless to feeling like I’ve accomplished something and made a difference, and feeling like learning Guarani is impossible and pointless to feeling like I’ve actually made headway and understand something. The only comforting thing in this confusing mish mash of feelings is that I’m not alone in strange experience and most volunteers feel like that. I have the expectation that the following 23 months will be a similar experience.

I built a fogon with only the help of my host brother and my training manual. I didn’t expect to do something like that for at least another 9 months or so, but someone bought the materials and two days later we got to work. I wasn’t completely sure that I knew what I was doing and was afraid that once we got to the oven and chimney I would have to call a friend to come help finish it. After two days of hard labor (aka a break every hour or two for terere and or food) the fogon was completed. What do you know, training actually did teach me something!

I’m changing. Maybe that all started the day I got on the plane to Miami but I haven’t felt that change too strongly up until now. I think a piece of me is becoming Paraguayan and that’s funny and scary at the same time. I can actually sit down with my family and chow down on the tallerin (greasy noodles and typically fatty meat) with a fork in one hand and a piece of mandioca (the closest thing I can compare this to is a potato) in the other. This might not mean that much to you, but if any of you ever come to visit the campo in rural Paraguay, you will know exactly what that means. I have also been known to mimic my family and pick up a bone off my plate to try and gnaw the rest of the meat off. I feel like it’s a treat when I get warm water for a shower. And sometimes I find it easier to think in Spanish than in English. There are things that I do or accomplish almost every day that I didn’t think was possible. I am finding a strength I never knew existed and sometimes I have to search long and hard for that strength, but I always find it.

Four months down, 23 to go! I don’t have any inkling that these next 2 years will be easy by any means, but I’m home.