Fuerza!

I was talking to my volunteer friend the other day about how different my friendships with Paraguayans are. I feel like I have people in my community that I consider my friends, but it is not the kind of relationship I have with my American friends, who understand my culture and (yes) my socio-economic background. It´s not that they are fake friendships with Paraguayans. I laugh all the time in my community, and I miss being there when I´m away for a few days. Yet, I cannot share myself completely with them, as I crave to do in my close relationships. I think it´s doing wonders for my communications skills, and I don´t just mean linguistically. Because of the language and culture barriers, I am forced into being extremely clear and direct in my wording, which I´m realizing I would not necessarily be in my own language. We tend to skirt around issues, say ¨you know¨ when we really don´t, and misinterpret tones and gestures. It´s harder to pretend in a different language.


There´s been another death. Eight months after my boyfriend, Jorge´s, mother died, his uncle was found dead in the river. He apparantly fell in while drunk, and wasn´t found until three weeks later. This meant another week of prayer vigil, another cow and many chickens slaughtered. I have so much admiration for the grandma, who´s lost two children, and is still such a positive, hard-working woman.

Speaking of rivers, we got a bunch of rain earlier, which washed away bridges, and sent the bus driver all over treacherous ground. We had to take the bus over tiny, wooden bridges it scares me to ride my bike over.


I can tell the progress I´ve made in my comunity because they finally let me work! During the final day of the week of prayer vigil, the family is responsible for hosting a lunch for all the friends and family--or the whole community. I remember the first reso I went to in December, sitting around, akwardly watchign people stare at each other. This time, I asked my 16-year-old friend, Griselda, and her grandmother (whom I only know as Aguela) what I could do, and, without hesitation, they put me to work clearing the table, doing dishes, reclearing the table, reclearing the table...

In order to feed everyone, three tables are pushed together, and about fifteen people at a time stand around eating out of dishes borrowed from neighbors. First, the children eat, then women, jovenes, and finally the men, who have been sitting under the shade of the mango tree, drinking caña, during this time. The Señoras prepare the food by building a fire in a large ditch, over which are placed large pots of pasta and grills of sizzling beef and chicken. It´s expensive to host this kind of event, but the community chipped in what they could, making empanadas and selling them door-to-door (a common fund-raising strategy), and by hosting loteria night, when we play Paraguayan bingo with kernals of corn.

Aside from teaching English and gardening classes, I´ve started going to the girls´soccer practice, so I´ve been getting to know the kids of the community. At the reso, a few of them asked me to play, and five minutes later, I was leading forty children in blob tag, hide-and-seek, and duck...duck...chicken (I couldn´t remember the word for ¨goose¨). It´s started getting hot again, so I was sweating by the time I walked back to my house to prepare for my cooking class. We´ve been switching up every other week, making something edible and something hygeinic. This week we made fabric softener, and next week: ravioli.


Last week, my compañera, a health volunteer, came out to help with give presentations on HIV/AIDS. We spent the morning at the high school, and then gave a more informal presentation to my womens´group, where I was asked to explain exactly what is oral sex...I had not prepared for that, but I think they understood. I did manage to get the point across, though, of the importance of having the respect for your body to get check ups, which are free now for women in Paraguay. Cervical/uterine cancers are one of the leading causes of death for woman here, so there´s been a push to educate and offer opportunities of prevention. It´s still a challenge, though, for women living in the middle of nowwhere. And most of them probably don´t want to know if they have something.

Two weeks ago, there was a race in Asuncion that I entered on a whim, not being a runner at all. I ran the whole 10k, and got hooked. So I started running in my community, with the motivation of my students, who run with me sometimes, or at least yell ¨Fuerza, Emilia, fuerza!!,¨ as I go by.