My Spoiled Day

So I’m writing this post retroactively while still waiting in the airport in Uruguay.  My last day in Paraguay was glorious—I went nearly all out on my third world spending.  Highlight: a one hour massage at a fancy spa for $10!!!!  Oh my gosh it was marvelous!  I was thinking if I’m posted abroad as a diplomat one day that I would get three massages a week.  I am going to be back in Paraguay for a week in August with my bro so I will have to be sure to line up massages for the both of us.  Let me reiterate: oh my gosh!!!!  So good!  Last time I was in Paraguay I would get two a week at our neighborhood salon for $5, but unfortunately they don’t offer massages anymore so I “had” to pay the $10. 

Before getting the massage, I worked up the need to “de-stress” by doing a nice bit of shopping at one of my favorite places in Paraguay, Shopping Mariscal Lopez.   This place is amazing.  Basically you step right into the luxury mall and it’s like you’re back in the US—lots of shops in English, super nice, and anything you’d need.  But it comes with two bonuses: 1) full of Latinos (yeah!) and 2) most things are super cheap!  I knew I’d be coming here for a while so I purposely didn’t buy any new clothes for several months in DC.  Before I was here in 2005, I swear I hated clothes shopping.  But after my host sisters showed me Mariscal Lopez I changed my mind.  Now it’s fun (in limited amounts)!  So I cleaned up – new Puma track jacket, workout pants, new pair of jeans (the sizes here fit me way better, since people are thinner), and a new sweatshirt.  Now I’m set!

A store in the Mall "Uptitude" - can you believe this?

 

With Celeste. Notice the Nike in the background.

I also stocked up on my yerba mate (more on maté in future entries).  Then Celeste showed me her collection of Paraguayan herbs.  It was pretty hard to not laugh.  Okay I admit I laughed—a lot!  In addition to having the regular maté you can put in either dried or fresh herbs such as mint, chamomile, and more.  It’s really tasty and quite good for the digestion.

I also purchased this cool adapter to be able to use the power outlets here.  Originally I thought I would need a converter to use my laptop here.  After nearly overheating my converter which could only handle devices up to 50 watts, I decided that probably wasn’t a good idea and was over the capacity of my basic converter.  So I went to Radioshack—yes they have them here.  I think it’s hard to escape from globalization nowadays—and it turns out that laptops are built to handle a voltage range of 110 (US) to 220 (Europe/much of Latin America).  Sweet!  All I needed was this little $1 plastic piece that lets me plug a 3 prong adapter into the 2-prong socket. 

 

 

So much cool stuff already!

I’ve been in Paraguay only since Friday (4 days) and have already done a ton!  This past Sunday we planned to go to some adventure eco-tourism at a national park nearby, but unfortunately were rained out from an enormous downpour on Saturday—nearly 15 cm of rain in 10 hours.  In fact, I am typing this offline on my laptop late Monday night while it may be raining among the hardest outside that I have ever heard in my life.  Instead of going to the adventure course on Sunday (we hope to go in August when my brother visits too!), my host family decided to take us near the course and explore the area.  Most of the route was fine, but on the way a big section of the highway was flooded out.  Since we were in our SUV we decided to drive across no problem (pictured).

Wow! South America!

Picture of the Paraguayan countryside. This is a really special place! I really enjoyed seeing more of the interior.

We ended up having a great day.  We had a delicious lunch at a German-run resort in the countryside.  A little bit about the food here, which I will continue to rave about throughout this blog: Paraguay is one of the best beef producers, and I would argue makes the best steak in the world.  In the US, beef is corn-fed, which is not natural to the stomach of a rumen, and makes it more fatty and the taste different (still good, but different).  Different from the United States, all the beef here is grass fed and all-natural.  This makes it much healthier, containing essential fatty acids like Omega 3.  It tastes amazing!!!  The best part it is cheap!!!!  For example, two kilos of meat, ~4 pounds, costs perhaps $4.  Here the Paraguayans put on a mean BBQ, called asado, where the whole family prepares charcoal, slow cooks the meat, then enjoys, combined with wine and later a nice siesta.

Asado!!!

May be my favorite activity ever!  Additionally, all the food is all natural, homemade, and delicious.  Anyways, at the German restaurant was the delicious steak, potatoes, salad, some exotic vegetable I don’t remember the name, and delicious dessert.  The food here is soooo good!

Silvia (oldest host hister, front left), then Celeste (younger host sister), me, Dario, Estela ,and Vicente (Silvia’s boyfriend). Santiago (host brother) had to study – bummer!

Anyways, en route we stopped at an amazing church, Yaguaron.  In their heyday, Paraguay was full of Catholic missionaries, primarily Franciscans and Jesuits.  Both groups worked to educate and help improve the population of the indigenous people here, to the consternation of the Spanish crown, which later expelled them, since the Catholic missionaries frowned down upon indigenous slavery.  As part of this, the Jesuits created missions for the Guaraní.  Later this week I will visit the Jesuit ruins for the first time, a UN World Heritage site.  So at our stop was a church built in the 1700’s by the Franciscans and Guaraní.

From the outside, it appeared impressive. One of my favorite pictures so far!

Inside was even better!  The altar here was made entirely from wood by hand in the 1700’s.  It’s hard to convey via the picture, but was very powerful.

Here’s a really cool picture of our maté gourd next to the door.

Being a life-long Protestant, I have to admit I’m really warming up to Catholicism, as a lover of Latin America and also attending a Jesuit university.  Plus, I’m realizing more and more that being a Lutheran really isn’t that different.  More on this later.

Photo below with host Silvia and Celeste and their swanky Georgetown shirts!  Celeste made the best welcome kit package ever for me – with yerba maté, my favorite snacks, and also the brand of the first beer I ever drank (Baviera)!

Go Hoyas!

What I Learned Today

I learned something profound today.  I was talking with my host father, Dario, about a Guarani word that I learned earlier in the day, kaigue.  Background info the Guarani people – they are the largest indigenous group in the country that essentially forms the culture of Paraguay, making the country 95% mestizo and bilingual, with Spanish and the Guarani language as official and spoken everyone.  The language here is many times a combination of the two, called Japare (spelling?), where you’ll say something like “esa cosa es muy guazu” (esa cosa es muy grande = that thing is really big).  When I was originally here learning Spanish before it was really confusing to have this mix, but now it is just plain cool.

Anyways, Dario invited me and one of my host sisters (Silvia) to go see a Mexican art exhibit downtown.  Silvia wasn’t really feeling it, and she said “ah, me siento kaigue”, meaning I feel lazy (kaigue instead of perezoso).  So I learned how to say I am not lazy, which is “che ndai che kaigue” (pronounced “shay, nuh dah aye, shay, kah goo ehh”, try saying that three times fast!).  So Dario said, “Great!” and explained to me that the word enthusiasm comes from the Latin root of “theus” (God) and “en” (inside), meaning if one is enthusiastic, it means God is inside them!  So cool!!!  If someone lacking enthustiasm, che ndai che kaigue, it means lacking God inside.  Interesting!

Earlier in the day I went to visit the Japanese-Paraguayan Cultural Center in the neighborhood.

Paraguay-Japan Cultural Center. And yes, there are Asian people in Latin America.

Inside the Center, a mixture of Japanese and Paraguayan architecture

A really interesting sign I saw was the following, in Spanish, Japanese, and Guarani:

Sign in Spanish, Japanese, and Guarani at the Japanese-Paraguayan Cultural Center = we respect the academic environment here

What an interesting place!  I am disappointed to only be here until Saturday, but excited to return later in August.  By the way, I have so many more posts to write!

The long-awaited blog is finally here!

After much insistence from my friends at the International Student House in Washington, and due to the fact that I am starting perhaps the best summer of my life in South America, there’s never been a better time to get a blog going again!  Last time I was in South America (4 years ago as a freshman…) I had a blog and I also used to blog about Mexico for the Foreign Policy Association.  A lot of my friends suggested I start a blog about dating or random stories, since both tend to be highly entertaining, but I am going to start out with a travel blog, since my adventure has just begun.

About me: I’m in my second year of graduate school (yeah!!!!  I can now say that I am a “half master”) at Georgetown University, working on my MA in Latin American Studies.  I moved to Washington in August from Denver (I think Colorado is the best state in the US!  So far I’ve visited 39 states, so that’s quite a bit of the country).  This summer I will be in Santiago de Chile with a Georgetown Program at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, studying globalization, political economy of Chile, and societal inequalities.  I’ll also be putting together a large research project on the country’s sovereign wealth fund for copper (more later – input will greatly be appreciated).

Before heading to Chile I decided to spend time in Paraguay.  Paraguay?  Yes, Paraguay!  (see Wikipedia here and an English-language tourist site here for some great information) I lived here for two months during the North American summer after my first year of college at the University of Colorado.  At the time it was quite a shock to my system being 5000+ miles from home in a very foreign country, but in retrospect it was one of the best decisions of my life.  After being accustomed to living there, I had such a great time that I decided to come back to visit my host family, soak in the culture, see old friends, and eat delicious food!

I arrived in the capital, Asuncion, on Friday, and have been loving every minute of it.  Instead of telling you all about it, these two pictures can basically sum up the past two days:

At a birthday party for my friend Lily. Gosh Paraguayans are so cool!

Eating asado, essentially the best steak in the entire world

This summer is going to be great!  Of course I miss everyone who is reading this blog, and that’s largely why I am writing it.  I will also enjoy the chance to reflect on how my summer is progressing, and hope to continue learning more about myself and this region of the world that I continue to fall in love with.  Until my next post (soon)!