Goodbye, Potrero Pucu

Last night was my despedida – my goodbye party.

Honestly, I wasn’t really feeling it. I had to spend a lot of money on meat for the barbecue and invite everybody. There were the silly logistics of the thing – I didn’t know who would come, or if the stuff would be enough for everyone.

Nevertheless, Antonio pushed me to do one, and after two years here, why not go out with a blaze of glory (or infamy?)

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So I went around inviting my people – not everybody I would have liked, but as many as I thought I could adequately provide for. I gave Antonio enough cash to buy meat for at least 60 people. I invited teachers, neighbors, even some students.

Then, yesterday, it rained for five hours in the morning. One of those long, soaking rains that turns everything to muck. (And fills up wells, and for which I have been waiting for four months!) And Antonio was stuck in Asuncion.

Hello mayhem. All I could think of were unattended meetings, and two years of equivocations and unfulfilled expectations.

I was so wrapped up with worry that I forgot that things here work out. Not how I would do them, but they work out.

We decided to have the party despite the rain. At 6pm, I pulled on my dress shoes and a nice t-shirt and jeans, and wandered down to the school, where Antonio had arrived a few moments before with my supplies. He, Rubio, and Taito were already hustling about, starting the fires in the grills, prepping meat, and pulling out the tables.

It was one more frenzied cook-fest. While we worked, people started trickling in – Juan Lucas, Peña (that guy I walked 40kms to Itape with last year), my host sister Claudia and her kids. Ina came, and Felix, and Teofilo, and Javier too. A lot of names to my readers, but to me, my community. two PCVs got here too, in spite of the rain.

So finally, we sat down and ate. Not only had people come, but they’d brought a mountain of food. Antonio alone looked like he’d kicked in half as much food as I had bought. Here I had been wondering if there would be enough meat to cover everyone. I probably could have invited 20-30 more people.

There were the little toasts and speeches of course, all of which were incredibly gratifying. But it was what Antonio said that got to me the most. (He said a lot of things, but this is what was most important.) Basically, “Santo, we know that sometimes you felt like you couldn’t do everything you wanted to do. But we really valued your work. And if you sometimes tripped, it was because you were clearing the trail for the volunteers that follow.”

There was more, about sharing and exchanging cultures, and embarrassing and funny stories about my mishaps integrating into the community. But that was one of those moments – “They got it!! They really cared!” 

Paraguayan Asado never tasted so good. And I definitely had it with mandioca.