Cerro Cora
Got a lift in the back of a motocaro, a hybrid camioneta-motorcycle, and rode sitting on the ledge along with a lady from the community and her two elderly tias. As we bumped around together, we talked about mandi'o chiriri and how she just came back from villarica to take care of some papeles. They dropped me off where the road parts into two, and I walked the rest of the way into Cerro Cora.
It was the first time I had seen my host family dressed in shorts. Everyone was outside, trying to cool off on this warm day. "Hola Pinche!" "Hola Laura, dice!" Pinche is the nickname of my host family's one year old baby. I think it's a variation on principe. "Mi tesoro! Tesoro del mundo entero!"
Showering at their house was fantastic. I was super sweaty, hot, and since our water at staffhouse cut out again, I hadn't really showered in a few days.
The boys had a funny idea for the campanentos to teach about caveties. They stuck pieces of mandioca in a bottle of coke to simulate tooth decay! Apparently they intended to use a chicken bone but couldn't find one. Dennis and Mason made pancakes for breakfast on July fourth! Boy, was their host mom impressed. I heard her tell at least three people the recipe - two eggs, some milk, flour, sugar. "Muy guapos!"
When I first showed up at the house, it seemed like nobody was home. I walked through, shouting "Buenos Dias!" without any sign of inhabitants. How strange. Then I see Ña Blanca walking towards the house from the distance, with her herding stick/whip in hand. We walk over to Alfonso's together, talk and eat some mandarina, and platicamos for un rato about casual things. Right as I'm about to leave, because I see the boys walking back, he tells me, Laura! Espera un momento! That's when he gave me the lowdown on the project.
Back at Ña Blanca's, we do our assessments while she made chipa. How I laughed when Mason told me about the tooth demonstration! He also wrote one of his goals was to peel an orange in one piece perfectly, and that he's been practicing all the time. "I don't even want to eat the oranges afterwards, I just want to peel them," he said with a smile. No wonder his host family thinks he loves to eat oranges! "Ellos quieren la mandarina mucho!" And the boys showed me the map they've been making of the community, which was eye opening for me, because I haven't actually seen much of Cerro Corá besides the road I walk in from and the three places I always visit.
The next day, I had galletas and dulce de leche for breakfast with cafe. Galletas are like lumps of cracker bread, which are very light in texture and dissolve in your mouth almost instantly. And the coffee they make here is mostly sweetened milk flavored with a bit of instant coffee. As I ate, I fed Pinche little pieces of bread with dulce on it. He's gotten used to saying my name now because the family always coos at him, "Laura! Donde está Laura?"
Sometimes I can't tell if he is trying to say Laura, agua, or hola. All three sound the same in baby talk!
Estelvina my host mom is fascinated by the huerta at my school and always asks to see photos. "Así quiero mi huerta!" she exclaims with every picture of lettuce or beets she sees. They are also really amazed by how young my bisabuela (great grandmother) looks for 94. "No se nota!" they say with shock.
That morning I catch a ride with Profesor Dana, who teaches artes plásticos. She lives in Villarica and didn't mind giving me a lift. Lucky for me because I had to bring the extra campamento kit to the boys in Santo Domingo, and that stack of printer paper along with the roll of butcher paper does weigh quite a bit. Enough that I didn't want to walk to Ñumi to catch the bus if I could help it.
At the terminal in Villarica:
I discovered I had two hours to pass until the next bus came. So I visited Carmen, my friend who sells pork cutlet sandwiches every day at the bus terminal. When I first met her, she had her whole left arm wrapped in a scarf. Kyle and I honestly thought she had lost her hand or something, and was covering her stump with the cloth. Later I learned that it was a bit less traumatic than that. She had burned her arm while riding a moto. I had seen her just yesterday, when I came to catch the bus to Ñumi, and sat on her stool while eating one of her sandwiches for lunch. She does everything with one hand, so closing her purse involves biting on end of it while pulling the zipper with her free hand. Quite the feat to witness. Also, a little unhygenic but interestingly enough, she also uses her mouth to bite the corner of the bag while putting the sandwich inside.
Anyways, I asked her for a recommendation on where to eat in the terminal, and she eagerly got up and walked me over to an eatery where two ladies were serving all sorts of hot plates. I was seated at a table with four men, each of them slurping their soup and eating pasta in silence. The dish of caldo I received had large chunks of bone-in beef with bits of noodles, some squash, and a side of mandioca. It really hit the spot, much more than another cold pork sandwich would have. Glad I was adventurous and decided to try food at the terminal! At least the hot cooked food. The asado is still questionable.
The guarda, and how I met his grandpa:
Last week on route, on my way back from Independencia there was this guarda who basically didn't want to charge me for my bus fare. Guardas are like the sidekicks of the conductor, and they usually stand to the side during the bus ride, alternating between collecting bus money, helping people and their large bags onto the bus, and sometimes making some tereré. I ran into another supervisor on the bus by surprise that day, and Dre and I had a hilarious time laughing about this guarda who just wouldn't charge me. I'd wait as he walked by, but without fail he would simply pass me up. I thought maybe he had just forgotten, but when I directly tried to give him my 10,000 guaranies, he smiled mischieviously and walked on by. Dre couldn't stop laughing at how embarrassed I was. Literally the whole bus was watching us like a telenovela - me, the embrassed foreigner, being flirted with by a Paraguayan guarda on the bus.
So that's the context for this next story. I arrive at the terminal with a few hours to kill, but didn't want to kill my back by lugging around my mochila, sleeping sack, and the campamento kit filled with art supplies and heavy heavy paper. A very excited older man wearing a baseball cap approached me. He exclaimed, leave your things in here! Gesturing to a tiny little office space, barely larger than a bathroom stall, he placed my bulky items next to a few suitcases as I hesitantly relinquished my backpack (my purse, of course, I kept on my body). He gave me a slip of paper with a retrieval number, beamed at me, then said, if I'm not here, don't worry! My grandson will watch your things.
After slurping up my beef stew lunch, I returned to this strange little storage office. And guess who I found, sitting next to the old man? Turns out his grandson is the same guarda who didn't charge me on the bus last week. The next few minutes were incredibly awkward and hilarious, as the guarda's grandpa pretty much tried to set us up right then and there. After some niceties, he cut directly to the chase and plainly asked if I was married. When I said no, he gestured to his grandson and told me, he's single! The poor guy seemed kind of embarassed, but also sort of nonchalelant about the whole thing. The grandpa also commented about my smile and noted that both his grandson and I have dimples, as though that would surely indicate to me that we were destined to be. Several awkward laughs later, I told them ciao and rolled outta there.
Later when I returned for my mountain of bags, this other weird guy who was there at the bag storage room led me to the bus waiting area and kissed me on the cheek WAY too excitedly, with more gusto than I was comfortable with.
While waiting for the bus, I saw a girl wearing a blue polo with a red white and blue badge that said "peace core". Turns out she is the coordinator for Paraguay and has lived her for three years now. Then funny enough, I ran into two familiar faces on the bus. Who else but the host family I was about to stay with that very same night! It was Maria and her teenage son Moeses, on their way back home from buying groceries in Villarica.
Santo Domingo
It was pretty late by the time the bus dropped me off in San Gervasio, where the camino to Santo Domingo begins. Passing the familiar landmark of la casa del profesor Antonio, a sense of comfort fills me and I know I'm in the right place. The walk is filled with views of expansive pastures dotted with grazing cattle, wooden fences and mandarina trees. A mixture of hard red clay and sand, the path changes moods as you go around the bends, at times stepping into sticky mud, at others slipping around in fine beachy sand. After about twenty minutes, you arrive at a river, or what they call the arroyo guasú. Stretched over the river is a land bridge made of tierra, surprisingly sturdy enough for both people and cars to pass over. If you look up and to the left, you'll see the puente colgado, or hanging bridge, a rickety old suspension bridge that's missing more than just a few planks.
I spent two nights with Patrick, aka Patricio's, family. They are probably some of the most warm and welcoming people I have ever met.
Fragments, moments. I wrote these down as memory prompts to expand on them later, but instead I think it'd be fun to just leave them as random phrases:
Gabe waiting for his watch
Played slap
Porfirio and Lela
Abuela Margerita
Getting jumped by Asención's crazy dog
Edgardo and his chanchos
Torta de mermelada de mamón
Gallo pinto
Hamburgesas
Reunión en la igelsia
Thousands of stars on our walk home
Cats by the chimney
The patron saint Laura
Moeses gets sick
Leaving in the morning
Running into the profesor de carpinteria
Luis comes along
Story about Japan
If you want to know the story behind any of these, I'll tell you personally!
Mayor Cué
Entering Mayor Cué is always like something out of a fairytale. The colors of la tierra roja, set against the bright green caña and the misty blue cerros in the distance, provides an unbelievably beautiful backdrop to the kids running around in the schoolyard and the tractors chugging along the road.
Another set of memory fragments:
Laughing with Nick and Will
Good old doggy
Fermina asking me why I would move
Locro with tendonous beef and mandioca
The carpinter is coming
Visiting Angel
Nelsonito brings us to his house
Ate the tiniest banana
Journeyed through a corn field and cut across many chakras to get to Cecilia Duarte's house, where Nick lives.
His tough, not to be messed with host sister was by a citrus tree, menacingly holding a stick of caña.
Rosita grabs a giant stick and we use it to knock down mandarina from the tree.
The broken ones are tossed to a nearby waiting cow, who rolls it around in its mouth like a giant gobstopper then swallows it whole.
Afterwards, we bring back the bowl of mandarina and sit on the porch, peeling and drinking/eating mandarina. It's a really nice scene, the whole family with me, Nick, Will, Rosita and Nelson, sitting in a circle while spiral peels fall to the floor as people carve their fruits. I really need to work on my technique, because my fruit had holes all over. Rosita peeled hers in one fell swoop, the entire spiral of citrus peel intact.
We played soccer with the kids during recess. A lot of them remove their shoes to play, and even while wearing tennis shoes I still can't play as well as they do. The game is sort of chaotic and hilarious because everyone just groups around the ball and frantically kicks it in all directions.
At night, Will and I sit around the charcoal grill with his family. One of the professors, Aldo, and his two young children are there too. Most people in the community are related somehow, whether it's cousins or madrinos/madrinas or hermano/as espirituales.
I know this blog post didn't follow a certain stream of thought, nor is there a lot of context behind names and stories. A LOT happens on route, so much that I could probably write a small novel based on everything I've seen and experienced so far. I wrote this post weeks ago and never published it due to the fragments. Instead of continually putting off writing the rest, I'm choosing to post it as is and hoping you'll appreciate the unusual and the unsaid...
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