Monday, July 25, 2011

dreams of Target and washing machines

During my first three months of training, I had a couple of dreams that stuck out to me and made me laugh. I was still going through huge adjustments, like learning to wash my clothes by hand. It was so tiring and time consuming to my and my hands ached for hours afterwards. I couldn’t help but feel awkward as I laboriously scrubbed every inch of my jeans while sitting next to my host mom who busted out three pieces of clothing to my one. I was also still figuring out how and where to buy things I needed. There wasn’t any “normal” grocery store, nor was there a “find-it-all-in-one-place” store. Milk and yogurt came in plastic bags and they sold food by the kilo. In many stores you had to ask for the exact quantity of food that you wanted rather than picking it out yourself and stores seemed to have a rather sad assortment of options. In response to my struggles, I dreamed of using a washing machine and the beautiful ease with which I could use it. I also dreamed that I shopped at Target, a glorious place that offered almost anything I could ask for.

Now, a year-and-a-half into my stay in Paraguay, my dreams and my opinions have changed a bit. I just got back to Paraguay from a three week visit to the States and I was shocked and surprisingly please by a variety of things. I’m sure those watching my reactions were quite entertained. As I flew into Los Angeles, I was conscious of my jaw hanging open at the shock of the enormity of the city. It seemed there was no end to the buildings! My first night in the states, I took off my shoes and started giggling at the feeling of carpet squishing between my toes. My first morning, I opened up the refrigerator and stood there staring for about five full seconds at the incomprehensible amount of food piled in front of me. I went to the beach with my cousins and before my sunscreen was fully soaked in, I went running like a child into the waves, giggling with excitement. I had almost forgotten how good the ocean water felt.

To put this into a little more perspective you need to remember that I live in a very rural area of a almost completely rural country. There are 300 people living in about 100 houses, stretched out between two different streets and about 12 kilometers in my site. This is now normal to me instead of the two dozen houses you would find on one half-kilometer street in the United States. I grew up in the suburbs of LA, thinking that the 60,000 residents of my town seemed few. Now when I go into Asuncion, the capitol and largest city of Paraguay, which boasts of one million people (suburbs included), I get stressed out and overwhelmed.

So here are my experiences with washing machines and Target aver a year-and-a-half of their absence.

I was so excited when I did my first load of laundry that I went skipping out of the laundry room yelling, “Mom! It’s so easy! You just throw your clothes in, pour some soap in, and push a button. You don’t even have to work for it! And it doesn’t even matter when it’s raining. And when it’s done, you just put it in the dryer and it dries it for you!” It felt like a revelation to me, too good to be true. There is, I will admit, a small satisfaction I get from hand washing and air-drying my clothes, but I can’t say that scrubbing red dirt (and with it the color) out of my jeans is something I will ever miss.

My visits to Target and other large stores in general however, was quite a different experience. Even after several visits to those stores in the 3 weeks I was home, I felt somehow traumatized upon leaving. As soon as I walked in, my senses were assaulted with large sale signs, items stacked in front of and in between aisles for maximum advertisement, mood music, people talking over the music, smells of plastic and food and far too buttery popcorn, bright and flashy packages, and lights that made everything look shiny. I distinctly remember trailing behind my friend during my first excursion to Target and I literally stopped when I saw the cheese aisle. Cheese is a luxury for me in Paraguay. Unless I buy farmer cheese in site, I only get a couple chunks of mozzarella if I splurge when I go into Asuncion. I could not comprehend the rows of grated cheese, shredded cheese, jack cheese, cheddar cheese, mild cheddar cheese, sharp cheddar cheese, extra-sharp cheddar cheese, pepper jack cheese, swiss cheese, mozzarella cheese, Mexican blend shredded cheese, and I don’t even know what other kinds of cheese, all packaged brightly by several different brands in various sizes for convenience. Then I passed the cereal and bread aisle. There was an entire aisle for bread and an entire aisle for cereal. I could hardly comprehend why the amount of bread and cereal was necessary and even possible.

I mostly spend my time trailing after people in these stores, not really knowing what to do with myself. My heartbeat always quickened and I was easily and very quickly confused, loosing track of every task at hand. My second visit to a large grocery store almost made me cry and my first visit to Target almost sent me into panic. And the mere thought of Costco… well, we won’t go there… I’m fairly sure that most people though I was just exaggerating, but whether anyone but other volunteers believe me, I promise I was not exaggerating.

When I got back to site, I went down the street to the almacen to do some “Paraguayan campo” shopping. I was very warmly greeted after my long absence and invited to sit down and drink mate. She got my needed food items off her shelves and asked me how my trip was. Granted, I had far less food options (she had run out of tomatoes, one of the three vegetables she stocks), but this time, I wasn’t bothered at all.

After all of that, here are my conclusions: washing machines are absolutely worth dreaming about. Target, on the other hand is definitely not. In fact, I don’t believe I will be sorry if life never permits me to enter another Target again.