Clarity

Summer dropped into Paraguay two and a half months ago and brought the heat with it. But this lovely country brought us a special treat this year – a two month drought coupled with clouds that pour seemingly everywhere but here. 

The grass has withered thatch-brown but for small stands that remain verdant. The roads, which stuck like glue after rain, have turned to dried silt and sand. When it mixes with the sweat on my feet, it paints them slime brown. Fruit crops, especially guava (which should be in season right now), have plummeted, both in overall numbers of fruits and individual size.

My well, which was full to the brim a few months ago, has dropped, week by week. A few days ago, I could see the clay bottom for the first time of my time here. And work around Potrero Pucu has all but stopped, except for the chores that are absolutely necessary.

Oh for my high-pressure shower and cool basement back home…

The heat usually drops off at night, but from 11am-6pm, there is nothing to do but stay in the shade and try to stay cool. This is not as easy as in the states, obviously. Sometimes relief comes in lying on the cool pavement of my house, other times, liters and liters of terere infused with mint and other refreshing herbs. So I walk through Potrero Pucu in my rolled up jeans, flip-flops, and t-shirt, seeking the shade, a guampa, and some minty terere.

Frustrating as it is, the experience can be sort of bracing. It cuts through the humdrum and the distractions and the silliness. Instead of spending time focused on irrelevancies, all I can think is “It’s hot. How can I cool down? When will it rain? Please let it rain…” And it’s a lesson in patience. How can I expect people to want to work on manual construction projects or more involved cooking practices if it means they are going to spend more time baking in the sun, or working over a stifling fire?

So instead of working, we sit, pass the guampa, and share stories. We’ll get back to work after it rains.

Names, names, names...

Back in the states, I constantly shuffled between two different names. At home, I was St. John, to distinguish from my father, who we call Sinjin (which is arguably the correct pronunciation of the name).

That continued all the way through my second year of college, when I transferred to UPenn, and everyone there started calling me Sinjin. It was less confusing than St. John, apparently.

The fun has continued in Paraguay. When I got here, I took the name “Santo.”  This seemed like a perfectly logical choice – it honored my American name, but it didn’t weigh heavily, and it didn’t sound funny to me like “San Juan” did.

But Santo, without a solidifying second name, lends itself perfectly to Paraguayan improvisation. Over the last two years, I have developed a whole list of “Santo____”isms.

Henrique is Potrero’s plumber and amateur electrician. He’s a shifty looking character with small eyes and his face is all angles but for the mole that pops out of his left jaw. He often pauses at Taito’s house for a few moments, and he’ll spout out “Santo Virgen!” Then I’ll get a lengthy little discourse about my singleness in Potrero Pucu, and how I need to find a girlfriend.

Then, just as it’s winding down, Taito says something like, “Nahaniri, San-Toro!” (Basically, no, he’s St. Bull, or stud, I guess…) There are the jokes “There’s nothing saintly about this saint!,” or “Ugly Saint,” or other examples of Paraguayan ribbing.

Then there’s my host brother, Andres, who calls me Santo Luzardo, after star character in one of the country’s extra melodramatic soap operas. Nestor calls me Santo Torre Alba (St. White Tower), after another soaps star. Hopefully they're good characters - I've never seen the show.

Some people dispense with the name entirely. A civil servant I often see on my bus just calls me “Mister.” (Disconcerting that, reading a book and having someone shout “Mister!” and wave at you… It rolls off the tongue like a bad joke, and doesn’t come close to the poetic ring of “Sir,” or “Señor.”)

To my friend Diego, I am just “Gringo!”, shouted determinedly and enthusiastically. (This was probably the most annoying.) And to the cowboys that pass me by on the road, I am just “Americano.”

The whole situation used to vex me to no end, until I realized that Paraguayans do it amongst themselves too. And their nicknames for each other are sometimes even more interesting, particularly when the names originate from Guarani, which causes so many of the names to be based on animals and nature. Some of the names are startling and perceptive, others just silly. 

For example, my closest neighbor is a man named Ernesto. He’s a powerfully built block of a man, but he has large, lidded eyes with long, full lashes. He has become “Ña Curutú,” which is the Guarani name for a hawk with eyes like his.

I’ve written about my friend Taito before, too. But many people don’t call him Taito, they call him Taito Teju – “Taito the Lizard.” I’ve never understood how he picked that name up, because like Ernesto, he’s a solid, powerful man. Geckos are the last thing he reminds me of.

Ale Gallo “Alex the Rooster,” makes more sense. He’s short, with a small barrel of a belly, and a raspy tenor that carries whenever he explodes with mirth and sound.

Most of these names are harmless, but I would hate to be “Chico Kure,” which means “Boy Pig,” or alternatively, “Small Pig.” That’s Francisco, a handsome, but short man who teaches English and PE in the high school. And his brother Ignacio is “Pajaro Loco,” or “Crazy Parrot.”

And at the very least I escaped Ernesto's old nickname - "Huerova," or "Ox-Face."  Things could be worse.

COS Conference

A little later today, I will be attending my Close of Service Conference. This is something we do three months before we swear out and finish our service.

So it's been two years, minus a week, since I arrived to Paraguay and the Peace Corps. This one of those moments that prompts even more navel gazing than usual. This is a bit off the cuff, but a few thoughts:

It's obviously been a worthwhile experience. If I had to do it over again, I would. I've received this barrage of experiences that I never would have had I not left the states.

Some include
- butchering pigs and chickens
- living without running water
- living in the middle of NOWHERE
- surviving, and thriving, while often being totally confused
- growing my own food for real consumption
- learning to cope with very fractured and broken people
- learning to LOVE very fractured and broken people
- getting addicted to chipa
- loving the tranquility
- learning Spanish and Guarani

On another note, I remember a conversation I once had with a very wise friend of mine who urged me to get out into the world and go somewhere where my moral and ideological compass would receive totally different inputs than they do in the states. Paraguay has certainly done that too. I'll write more about that later, but suffice it to say for now, Paraguay has given me a much broader lens to look at the world.

Parents' visit, part two

Random bird

Some nature at the falls...

Monkey!

Tres Fronteras Ferry

This is the three frontiers ferry. From this point, you can stand in Paraguay and look out at Argentina and Brazil.

Parent's visit

For those of you who didn't know, my parents came down to visit. Again. Anyways, much fun was had. We visited several sites you guys have already seen, including the falls and the jesuit ruins, but also got to go to the Tres Fronteras (the border crossing between Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay) and Itaipu Dam (one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the world)

Here are a few pics...

Iguazu Falls

A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to Foz de Iguazu, some of the largest waterfalls in the world.  (They are certainly the largest in South America, and while Africa’s Victoria Falls are taller, Iguazu Falls pour out much more water.) They lie just an hour or so east of Paraguay’s border with Brazil and Argentina.

Unfortunately, I went through torrential downpours, but it was still an incredible sight.

If any of you dear readers hope to see it some day, I can't recommend the place enough. I stayed and viewed the falls from the Argentinian side, called Puerto Iguazu. Brazil owns part of the falls, but as far as I could tell, all of the prime views and best trails are in Argentina. So here's a goofy photo of me and a couple of snaps of the falls.

Tom Gavin.

Most of you from back home who have been following my blog know that I studied and worked in Philadelphia for several years before becoming a Peace Corps Volunteer. For much of that time, I lived with Tom Gavin (an old classmate of my father’s from architecture school) and his wife, Cara. I cannot think of my time in Philadelphia without thinking of morning coffees with Tom, the extravagant dinners that he cooked up, or the questions he peppered me with about Philadelphia’s streetscapes as we explored them. His generosity of spirit, curiosity and kind-heartedness, were a powerful demonstration about how I should interact with people, of what I should strive to be like. I took to calling him my godfather when explaining my relationship with him to other volunteers and with Paraguayans.

A month after I arrived in Potrero Pucu, Tom was diagnosed with an especially pernicious form of brain cancer. And as my experiences with Tom defined my time in Philly, his battle with brain cancer came to define my time in Paraguay a little too. He died last night. I’ll miss him very much.