I could really use us a turkey sandwich on rye with swiss and cole slaw

So as I begin this next blog entry and look over the things I want to talk about I can’t help but think to myself how once again I’ll hardly be talking what I actually do as a Peace Corps volunteers. I mean, we’re supposed to be out here saving the world right? Well not really. Luckily from things I’d read before arriving and from people I’ve met down here I knew that getting something really significant accomplished was like trying to avoid the toilet after a bowl Paraguayan bean salad—possible but not done unless you squeeze your butt cheeks a little bit.

We come in as complete strangers who don’t speak their language. On top of that we have a sign on our back that says “rich American here to teach English”. A fantastic example I was given once was—Imagine you’re sitting in the high rise office building of a larger supermarket chain and in walks a Paraguayan farmer who can barely speak English. You may know in the back of your mind that he may have something to contribute to your company... but its sure going to take a hell of a lot time and work in order to actually listen and implement something he’s got to say.
Therefore, just to reiterate, I truly spend most of my time just working with neighbors and trying to learn about their situation so IF AND ONLY IF they someday want my help I can approach the work with sufficient background knowledge.


The bad example of trying to help someone if and only if they want my help can be found in that vegetable garden in which I was helping a few months back. You may remember the pictures.

After not having checked on things for about three weeks, I went back to see how things were going. Upon getting there I realized that the watermelon, cantaloupe, and lettuce we had planted were all ruined and inedible. After successfully planting those crops, and teaching them what I had learned and read about them, I wanted to leave them for a while and see what happened. Like so many stories I’d heard about, it turned out not so well. I had told them that the watermelon and cantaloupe require a lot of water so if there is a drought you’ll have to water them—there was a drought. I also told them that once the fruit have decent size they have to be wrapped in newspaper to protect them from the sun. Neither of these were carried out. As for the lettuce, they did eat some but left the rest to rot because they couldn’t eat it fast enough. The truth is that they could have probably taken the left over lettuce when it was ripe and sold it to neighbors.

Like I said, this experience confirmed one of life’s biggest lessons—you can’t help someone who doesn’t really want to help themselves. As it relates to this particular family, this experience has reaffirmed that many people who live in what would be by economic standards “poverty” aren’t really that interested in escaping that poverty. Due to good soil and a small population, the vast majority of my neighbors have enough food to survive every day and that’s all that matters to them. This project was done poorly because at the time I was living with a host family who didn’t have a garden I was looking for someone to let me practice preparing soil and planting something. The family with whom I worked with had said they were interested in expanding their garden and would be willing to do the maintenance after planting… but of course I really had no idea what to expect.

I should also mention that despite the failure of the vegetables in this particular little project I firmly believe and the relationship formed between me and this family is a very valid step in an effort to spread peace. The stereotypes about Americans never cease to amaze me. I was the first American this family had every met so naturally my entrance in their life came with a million questions. Therefore, if irradiating ignorance means helping the peace process then Peace Corps volunteer definitely exemplify their title.

Just for giggles, some of the questions I constantly get: “Is there beer in the U.S?”, “You and Aurora were neighbors in the US no? (Aurora was a PC volunteer from Oregon who lived in my community before me), “In the US everyone works in factories no?” (People associate factory jobs with good jobs because it means a steady paycheck and development of the country) There have been so many other good ones but there not coming to me now. Anticipate them in the next post.




A Very Paraguayan Christmas

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, the question that everyone was dishing out besides “Haku iterei no?” (This is some serious heat no?) was “Moo ehasata la navidad?” (Where are you going to spend Christmas). My response to everyone was that I wasn’t sure and that I was going to split my time between neighbors in my compania and old friends from “the pueblo”, where I was living before. I soon came to realize that whoever I was talking to was going to invite me to spend Christmas with their family, and sure enough they always did.

The excitement kept building up around me and on the 22nd I was invited by a friend to come hang out with him during his radio show. I didn’t have any expectations going into his little community radio show but when I got there I came to realize that my buddy had pretty much planed to interview me. This of course was no big deal as he asked questions like the following: “So why do you wear that helmet thing when riding your bike?”, “Could you sing part of a song in English for us?”, “What kind of books do you like to read when taking a shit?”, Could you talk to us a little bit about the differences in Christmas spirit between Paraguay and the U.S.?”

I then went on to explain how helmets are a smart preventative measure and sang the beginning of a Paraguayan crowd pleasure “We Will Rock You” by Queen. The question about the toilet is actually a complete and utter lie. I just made it up. Similarly, due to the fact I’m Jewish and have never really celebrated Christmas, I had to kind of make up my answer to the Christmas spirit question. What I ended up saying was something to the following effect—“What’s interesting about that question is not that there are so many differences… but more that there are so many similarities. Christmas is a time to spend with the family, take a break from hard work, and share in the beautiful traditions of years past. That seems to me to be exactly what Christmas is not only about here, but also back in the U.S.” To say the least, that response was warmly accepted.

So you’re probably asking right now—“So do you lie to people about your religion?” The answer to that would be “no”. It’s just that on the radio which the whole town listens to isn’t exactly the best time to start introducing the Jewish Peace Corps Volunteer. I can just hear the gossip now “Did you hear that Mateo is now doing something similar to those Mormon Norte Americanos? He’s trying to convert us all to his religion, but instead of giving us money, he wants to take all of our money and start some sort of bank.”

As I am now writing this I can officially say that I’ve had not only my first Christmas but my first Paraguayan Christmas. Despite having previously been a Christmas Virgin, I can say with quite certainty that by far the biggest difference between Christmases here and there is that in the U.S. the celebration of Christmas happens the day of the 25th but here in Paraguay that celebration takes places the night of the 24th and culminates when the clock strikes midnight.

I was later trying to figure out this difference and see if I could find a direct relationship to the differences in culture. Since then, I have come to a conclusion but I can’t say for sure if this is right or not. My conclusion is that in the US Christmas has a lot to do with Santa in the snow with his rain deer, coming down the chimney and delivering presents. In Paraguay, they’ve never seen snow and due to financial restraints there is much less present giving. Therefore, instead they kind of have a party leading up to Christmas and drink and eat till their heart’s delight. The ironic thing is that they could have bought everyone fun little presents for price spent on food and booze but that’s not how they do things down here. In a society that teaches very little saving, they have adapted very well in order to enjoy life in the present.


Tsssssss, Tsssssssss

If the title above doesn’t mean anything to you-- it’s the hissing sound. More specifically, it’s that sound you make during an exam when you’re trying to get the attention of the person next to without the teaching hearing that you’re about to cheat. This is a sound very widely used down here--everywhere but the classroom.

During our two day training in Miami before coming down we had learned that hissing was a common thing for Paraguayan men to do to women…especially American women. Despite this being true, hissing is also used between any two kinds of people in order to call attention. This means that Paraguayans don’t just do that soft whisper kind of hissing but have brought hissing to a whole new decibel. It’s practically an instrument down here. What has fascinated me so much about hissing is that it is a replacement for what would be the call of a name in our culture. For example, if we were in the states and I was walking on the sidewalk on one side of the road and you were sitting on your porch on the other side of the road, you’d probably call out my name like “Hey Matt”. Here, that name call is replaced by the hiss. Although there may be several people in the vicinity of the person you’re hissing at AND you know the person’s name whom you want to call they STILL opt for the hiss. I can’t believe it to this day and simply call out people’s names when I want their attention from afar. But, I must say that I did get to use this infamous hiss just the other day.

I was walking through the little plaza in the small populated part of town and from a distance spotted the ice cream man who walks around wheeling around his Styrofoam ice cream container all day. As he began to walk in the opposite direction my mouth began to water with every step he took. I needed to act fast I knew the only thing between me and dirty ice cream scooped out of a 6 year old Styrofoam container was…a hiss. As I prepared for that hiss I though everyone in the plaza was going to look at me like some sort of alien but no such thing happened. I launched the hiss with all my might but it didn’t reach the ice cream man. It only made it as far as the kid 20 in front of him, about 50 yards away from me. The kid looked at me and I raised my eyebrows and chin in a single motion in order to signal that it was the ice cream man I wanted, not him. He quickly turned around and snapped a Paraguayan hiss at the ice cream man for me. My world turned into a baseball diamond and it was as if a ball had just been hit in the gap, the left fielder sprinted out to get it, threw a perfect strike to the cutoff man and then gunned the runner out at home. And as fast as a 6-4-3 double play, I had my ice cream in hand and was making my way back to the dugout… which I now call my home.

“Take your shirt off, twist it around your head spin it like a helicopter”

Two things that I’ve mentioned quite vigorously in this blog are that my neighbors are farmers and that it’s hot. Consequently, one has the pleasure of very rarely seeing a resting male, implying he’s drinking terere or beer on his front porch, with a shirt on. I think for me it’s quite comical to see because never in a million years could I picture my dad and buddies sitting in a circle with their shirts off and their bellies showing--as if they were Abercrombie models at the pool. But, that’s exactly what it looks like. And after a long day of work it seems like there nothing more Paraguayan than ripping your shirt off and settling down for a shirtless Brahma beer. It may be surprising that I mentioned these men as having bellies--considering they work their humps off all day, don’t overeat, and don’t have a McDonalds around every corner—it surprised me too. What I’ve learned is that these bellies come from eating fatty red meat, plenty of fried food, and a fair helping off beer each week. Truly, the most entertaining part of drinking beer with a group of shirtless middle-aged men is seeing how they simultaneously turn into mosquito killing machines. If you’re outside at about 6pm or 7pm it’s a fact that a mosquito is bound to land on you about every ten seconds. Instead of this being something that bothers them it’s as if nothing is going on at all. And while in mid conversation hands are flying all over the place killing mosquitoes that dare to make a shirtless Paraguayan man their landing pad. Even better, is when someone doesn’t feel a mosquito land on them but the guy next to them happens to see it land. He’ll without a doubt wind up and smack the crap out of that mosquito as if his open hand to the bare shin of his buddy was, as my big brother used to call it when he gave me Charlie horses as a kid, a love tap.

Speaking of my big brother, he is almost surely reading this part of the blog and asking himself “So do the women take off their shirts too?”. Well, if you consider a woman who is breast-feeding shirtless, then yes they do. The families down here are quite larger and that means ton of kids and lots of breast feeding going on around me. For some of you this may be completely normal but for me I came to Paraguay at age 23 I had only seen one women every breastfeeding in my presence. (About 15 years ago when Tim from Tennessee’s wife when they came over to fix the computer) In Paraguay, it is a completely normal to be hanging out with a women, many times more like a “young adult”, and in mid sentence without a warning she pops her boob out and brings her baby up to her chest. Now of course I understand there is nothing more natural in the world but coming from my upbringing this is still a very distracting site. The amazing part is how the other men around don’t flinch or falter in the slightest in their conversion. Me, on the other hand, I want to throw up my hands and say “Did you guys just see what happened!? She just puller her breast out without warning! What do we do? What don’t we do? Where am I supposed to put my eyes? What are the rules about looking the breastfeeding woman while she’s talking…or how about if I am talking to her? Am I a terrible pervert if I quickly glance at her boob? Somebody please fake and injury! I think I’ll go use the bathroom so I can sit on a wooden box and do some preparational meditation for the next time this happens…



Simple is Good

A few different friends have written me after reading my blog and said something to the effect of “reading your blog makes me of how thankful I am for the things I have.” In response, I have to be honest and say that although I live in an “underdeveloped” rural area, I can’t say that I always agree. Let’s examine un poco.

Here, for example, nobody has a car, restaurants to go eat at, or a cell phone constantly ringing.

In the case of our society, we have the pleasure of spending tons of money on an air/lung polluting car, while talking on a cancer transmitting cell phone, on the way to restaurant where we eat food that probably traveled thousands of miles to get to us and contains who knows what preservatives and chemicals.

Let’s pretend that over that meal we continue discussing the two situations. We may talk about things like how healthcare is so much better. But then you might look the harm done to your body in my simple above example and think “Maybe, just maybe, it kind of evens out?” (Also considering how I mentioned in a previous blog how many preventative medicines are free here.) In the states, we love the vast selection that a grocery store provides. Here, they have the incredible pride of eating the food that comes right from the soil they live and work upon. Not to mention the peace of mind they get from knowing their food is completely natural and didn’t travel on truck halfway across the country/world to find its way to their plate. In the states, we think it’s better because we have air conditioning. Here, they just use the heat as an excuse to relax more. In the states we love going out to eat. Here they eat almost every meal together, as a family (many times that includes grandparents too). In the states, we have very few bug issues. Here, there are tons of bugs and nobody is even the slightest bit inconvenienced. It’s the kind of peace of mind that allows them to ignore millions of bugs which extends into all aspects of their life, yet many Americans pay tons of money to get these issues treated.

Clearly this list could go on forever but the point of bringing this up is not to be depressing and point out how destructive our culture is, but much more to reiterate what we all already know—luxuries or “things” don’t make us any happier or our love any richer.

Many Paraguayans here often ask me if I like Paraguay better or worse than America. What I tell them is that there is no real answer, “it’s just different. For me, whether I’m in Paraguay or in the US, it’s much more practical to find happiness within my present surroundings than try to and change my surroundings to what I think is going to make me happy in the future.”

Lastly, it would be completely unfair to the ideals of democracy and development to finish this up without mentioning the things Paraguayans would start cutting off limbs in order to have--and rightfully so. Those include: a high functioning system of law and order, education (especially a computer based one), and health facilities/insurance.

Hope everyone had a very happy new year. I truly miss you all. I love getting updates on your lives so please email them. Take care.

~Mateo