Greetings from Villarrica, the internet access capital of Guaira state. Let me tell you what I have done with my new home in Paso Yobai – I have put maps all over the walls. Also let me tell you something interesting about the bathroom where I live – it contains a urinal. I’m not sure why it is there, those things are not usually found in private bathrooms, but it is. It is quite high off the ground, so I have a stool to make it more practical. The bathroom also contains a duvet, as there are  in many bathrooms in Paraguay. I use it the same way I’ve seen many Paraguayans use their duvets – I wash my clothes in it.

 

Now let me tell you more or less what I have been doing for the last couple weeks.

 

 

When I got back to Asuncion from the St. Louis I was exhausted. I spent a freezing cold, rainy night in Asunción. Everyone had told me before I left that winter was over and I wouldn’t need warm clothes, so I didn’t have any. Luckily, Christina Bell, Director of Technology for Peace Corps Paraguay, lent me her Hoosier sweater. The next day I went back to Paso Yobai. After missing the early bus to Paso Yobai, I caught the afternoon bus, which left Asunción despite the rain. It carried me almost all the way to Paso Yobai, but the road going into town was just too muddy for the bus. So I had to walk the last five kilometers in the rain on a muddy road with my big backpack. I was cold, tired and not in the greatest of moods.
 
But things quickly turned around. It didn’t hurt that, as I expected, the Lopez family with whom I live with welcomed me back with open arms and an open kitchen. The day after I arrive, Doña Eri fixed intestines, in addition to delicious soup and polenta. She asked me if my father had his surgery near our home in Mexico City, and I reminded her again that I am not from Mexico. Then started talking again about her Jewish friends in Argentina and how much she loves matzo ball soup.

 

 

My main role so far at the Municipality continues to be teaching techniques for using Excel and Word to the functionaries working there. The Secretary, Mauda, and the Secretary of Environmental Affairs, Gloria, both know a little about computers. They are both 20 years old. I’ve been teaching them how to use Mail Merge and about spreadsheets.

 

I’m also teaching Wildo, the Treasurer. A few weeks ago he literally knew nothing about computers, but he is now quite excited to learn about Excel. With him I’m going through step by step exactly what I taught prisoners in South Carolina.  That teaching job in Columbia is the most satisfying and enjoyable work I’ve ever done. But the immediate payoff of teaching Excel at the Muncipality of Paso Yobai should be much greater that that of teaching to South Carolinian prisoners. A couple days a go a man came in wanting to know how much property taxes he paid last year. The Municipality of Paso Yobai keeps track of property tax payments in little notebooks. When someone pays their taxes, someone (usually either Wildo or Mauda) records the information immediately after the previous entry. The man who came in didn’t remember what month he thought he paid his taxes last year. So we all spent a good deal of time thumbing through notebooks searching for the name “Ismael Teodoro Abueco.” When we get that information in a computer spreadsheet and everyone knows how to use the spreadsheet, this process will be a lot easier. Also, there will be less of a chance of disaster – right now the only records of taxes paid in Paso Yobai that exist are found in those notebooks.

 

Don Wildo has a phrase that he always says, “Asi son las Paraguayos” or just as often, “Asi son los Paraguayas.” This means, “That’s how Paraguayans are”, although often he is just talking about Paraguayan women. Wildo and his wife Liz used to live in Buenos Aires, Argentina. They saved money there to build his house here, and also the build the neighborhood gym next to his house. He also runs a soccer team for the poorest children of Paso Yobai.

 

Liz liked Buenos Aires and Wildo didn’t like Buenos Aires, even though Liz is afraid of subways and Wildo is not afraid of subways, and Buenos Aires has many subways.

 

 

My English class begins this Monday. I’ve been promoting it again, biking around town and to the nearby companies, putting up signs again, talking to people and going to the two radio stations. Julio Cesar runs one of the radio stations. When I saw him, I said, “Julio Cesar, how’s the Roman Empire this fine morning?” He gave a wan smile. I think he’s heard that joke before.

 

Julio is all scrunched up in a wheelchair and has only one functioning arm. I gave him the information about my English class, and he said he’d announce it several times a day. Then I talked with Lucio Perez, the owner of the station. He said he would like me to have a radio show for the Municipality, whatever hour and day I wanted. Lucio was quite friendly.

 

We’ll see what happens with the English class. I hope too many people don’t show up. I’ve been giving private lessons to Arsenio, Doña Eri’s son. We’ve been using this excellent little booklet. I figure if I give private lessons to him a couple classes ahead of my big class, I will have already taught the material once and it will be easier. Also Doña Eri will have added incentive to keeping feeding me lunches. We’ve already gone through a couple lessons, which had all these adjectives to describe people. The first on the list was “boring.” So now when I see Alfonso I ask him, in English, “How are you?” He usually answers, “I am boring. How are you?” I respond, “I am boring also.”

 

A lot of Peace Corps volunteers don’t like to teach English classes. For me, I want to teach English because the only thing which I am sure that I do better than any other person in Paso Yobai is speak English.

 

 

I’m making progress with my guitar playing. I enjoy it and it’s addictive. I generally like my hands, but when I try to play the F chord, I do covet long fingers.

 

A couple days ago I booked my first gig, quite by accident. On Monday I went downstairs to the store to buy some vegetables, and Gladys, who works at the store, asked me to sing and play a song on the guitar at her Evangelical church on Wednesday. I explained that I had just started playing a few weeks ago. She said she didn’t care, that I needed to come and play. I said, no really, I’m not being modest, I’m not very good, I just started. She insisted, so I agreed. Luckily back in St. Louis my brother Danny had taught me Amazing Grace, which I agreed to play on Wednesday. Perfect for church!

 

The next day I gave Gladys a sample rendition of Amazing Grace. She said, are you sure you want to play that, it’s slow and it’s putting me to sleep. I reminded her again, that really, I just began playing the guitar, and I am unable to combine speed with accuracy. I consider her comments to be a compliment. She didn’t say it was hurting her ears. She just said that it was putting her to sleep. I can begin my guitar playing career as a lullabyist!

 

 

My journeys to the companies of Paso Yobai continue. On Tuesday, after singing Gladys to sleep, I hopped on my bicycle and biked sixteen kilometers to Torres Cue, supposedly the gold mining zone. I didn’t discover the mines, which were supposed to be on the way. I discover some other things. On the way there I discovered, or you can say relearned, that chickens are really stupid. They kept darting out in front of my bicycle. I also am now convinced of the strange phenomenon I call bad-luck-squashed. This is how it works. Say you have bicycled on a narrow road for twenty minutes without passing a single vehicle. The moment that you see a bus coming towards you, you can be sure that there will be a tractor or something else large coming from behind you, and that the two vehicles will pass each other right where you are and run you off the road. It always happens, it can’t be coincidence.

 

At the crossroad between Torres Cue and Mangrullo there was this young woman, Marilu, who gave me a tour of Torres Cue Line 3, and took me to the elementary school. I learned about a rural elementary school, and participated in the handing of report cards to mothers. The classrooms were pretty barebones, not much there but chalkboards and chalk in a shack. I then played volleyball with the teachers. After we played, they played a game called Pigi, which I let them know was English a little animal which wallows in the mud. This game is volleyball where you cannot use your hands, and they were astoundingly good at this game which I wouldn’t even like to try to attempt.

 

On way back I discovered that when you coast rapidly down bumping, hard-packed dirt roads on a bicycle the feeling in you arm is akin to using a jackhammer.

 

 

The big news in Paso Yobai is the scandalous end of the soccer season, which I had the privilege to witness. On Wednesday I attended the final game of the soccer league championship, between 12 de Octubre and Karai Chive. Karai Chive has more money; they are the team from the center. All the championship games are played at Karai Chive’s field, because it is the nicest field. 12 de Octubre is from one of the poorest sections of Paso Yobai. On Sunday I witnessed 12 de Octubre dominate Karai Chive, especially in the second half, and win 4-1. The first game Karai Chive won. So the Wednesday game was the final of a best 2 out of 3 series. All the soccer I’ve seen here is of extremely high quality.

 

The stands were full, but being a Wednesday they were not as full as the Sunday game. Unlike the Sunday game, this time there were more 12istas than Chivistas in the stands. At the end of the first half Karai Chive was up 1-0, although it seemed to me that 12 de Octubre was playing a little better. It was in the second half that things got interesting.

 

About ten minutes into the half, 12 de Octubre scored a goal, tying up the game. Meanwhile the sky had turned overcast, and some sprinkles of rain began to fall. Then still far away, bursts of lightening, followed by thunder. People talked about the lightening, but nobody moved and the game went on. As more lightening came down, the players got rowdier, and the game got rougher. The referees gave yellow cards left and right. Then one of the Karai Chive players kicked the legs out from under a 12 de Octubre player. A referee assigned a penalty, but the 12 de Octubre coach thought that since the Karai Chive player already had a yellow card, he should be given an immediate red card and booted from the game. So he went out to talk to the referee. Then the Karai Chive coach went out the talk the referee. Soon the owners of both clubs joined the discussion.

 

The discussion must have heated up pretty quick, because before long the owners and coaches had come to blows. Seeing their coaches and owners punching each other in the face, the players of each team came out to support their leaders. Then six police officers ran out to break up the rapidly escalating fight, which is amazing, considering that Paso Yobai has only three police officers.

 

Meanwhile the lightening had finally gotten to the center of town. Thunder and lightening struck all around the field time after time. Boom, boom, boom! Some people finally got scared and ran away, a few leaping off from the back of the bleachers. Others decided that they had to yell at fans of the opposing team in order to back up their teams on the field. Julio Cesar, announcing the game from his wheelchair atop the rickety wooden press box, sent his assistant down with a microphone to record the noises of the fight and interview the main protagonists. His equipment was getting soaked by the now hard rain that was falling.

 

I’m not sure at what point things are out of hand, so things possibly did get out of hand, but things could have easily gotten out of hander. Nobody died, nobody was bleeding profusely, the stands did not erupt in fight and the police officers broke up the fight on the field. Whoever came up with the rule to prohibit alcoholic beverages at Paso Yobai soccer games saved the town from some serious problems. Thank you!

 

Nevertheless, the game was cancelled, not due to rain, not due to dangerous bursts of lightening (through which all guarantee me the game would have continued) but rather due to fight. Wildo told me that it is likely that it will be played on a neutral field, far away, and no fans will be allowed to watch it. I told him that that didn’t make any sense; the fans were not to blame for the behavior of the coaches and owners. Why would you have a game that no one was allowed to watch?

 

“Asi son los Paraguayos,” was all that Wildo said.

 

After the game I stopped into talk with some friends who have shops on the main street. The rain got harder and harder and all of the electricity went out. I went for my gig singing Amazing Grace at 6:30pm, as asked, but nobody was at the church. My first guitar playing gig was cancelled due to a thunderstorm / power outage.

 

 

Yesterday, I went with Wildo, his five year old son Kevin, and two teenage boys to his field in order to plant mandioca.

 

Mandioca is a tuber, very similar to casaba or yucca. It is the staple food of the Paraguayan people. Here is how you plant it:

 

First, make some small holes in the ground with a hoe, spacing them out at the intervals that Wildo tells you. We planted these particular mandiocas between rows of corn.
Second, find some cut mandioca stalks. If there happens to be a big pile of them nearby covered with hay, this is helpful.
Third, use a machete to cut off the ends of the stalks and then cut them into pieces roughly four inches long. Not all the pieces are acceptable. They must be moist on the inside and there can be no black rotten areas. Roughly half of the pieces you cut will be acceptable. Once they are acceptable the pieces of mandioca stalk are officially known as seeds
Fourth, take all seeds and stick them in a burlap sack.
Fifth, take the sack with the seeds to the holes that you made at the beginning.
Sixth, drop one seed in each hole and step on the seed.
Seventh, kick some dirt over the seed and step on it. If you try really hard you might be able to keep up with a five year old boy. Don’t even try to keep up with Wildo or the teenagers.

 

Now you are ready to plant your own mandioca.

 

We all had to walk to the fields. We were unable to catch a ride from Jose the Donkey. Why? Because Jose the Donkey is dead. He died during the time when I was in the United States. According to Liz, Jose was out in a field when a bunch of horses bit him all over his body. The bites got infected and he died.

 

I asked Wildo why the horses would want to mutilate poor Jose. “Asi son los caballos Paraguayos,” was all that Wildo said.

 

 

If people are itching to send me something, send me something small that fits in an envelope. Send me maps. The maps I already have are:

 

The World
Paraguay
The United States
Manhattan
The New York City Rapid Transit System
Africa
Southern Brazil
Northern New England
Turkey
Asunción

 

So if you’re particular map is not one of those previously mentioned, it will most likely end up on my walls.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."