| September 14, 2006 |
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| Written by Michael Berg | |||
| Thursday, 14 September 2006 00:00 | |||
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Planchada Wedding
Hello from Villarrica, where I am attended a meeting of Plan International on their plan for improving early education in the northwestern zone of Paso Yobai district. Let me tell you what is going on in Paso Yobai.
The Municipality of Paso Yobai is still on unstable ground. Amancio Cristaldo still is acting as Mayor, even though according to two sources Petrona Cardoso won her lawsuit and has legally been declared Mayor. I get along and like both of these people, but after reading the law, I believe that Petrona clearly is in the right and should be the interim Mayor. In fact, its perhaps the clearest law Ive ever read. I need go by and talk to her and figure out what is happening, according to her. Ive just been too busy lately.
In something that I believe is related to the Mayor dispute, the municipal counsel has not met in the last month. Thus my work on the municipal cadastre has been further delayed. I am ready to do the field work, take a team door-to-door to measure and observe every building and plot of land in town. This is work that I estimate will take two months. Ive talked to every counsel member individually and they all are in agreement that this is very important and will pass the resolutions I have designed. But if the counsel doesnt meet then nothing official can pass. I cant possibly go door-to-door with a team of measurers without official municipal permission and an official authorization permit. And I am not going pay the measurers out of my own pocket; the Municipality has to authorize money to pay people. Not a lot, but theyve got to invest something.
Still, I have plenty to do. I spent a week fixing up and organizing the maps. Ive designed new Municipal vehicle registration cards. I am designing and entering a data base for all the Municipal business taxes in Paso Yobai, which Im halfway done with. Its fun work because I get to learn where all the stores are in the district and who owns them and how much taxes they pay. And I continue to teach English six times a week: On Monday and Wednesday nights to my beginning students in Paso Yobai, on Tuesday morning to the Planchada high school, on Tuesday afternoon to the Planchada elementary school, and on Tuesday evenings first to my intermediate students and then to my advanced students in Paso Yobai. The English classes are going better now than any previous session, perhaps because a year of experience helps. Also Ive got a lot of little kids. They like to jump around and so do I.
One of my high school English students from Planchada just got married, a sixteen year old girl named Sara Garay. The Planchadeños really wanted me to come to the wedding, so I biked the hour and a half to get there on Saturday, after observing in Paso Yobai the first ever game of Paso Yobais new female team handball league. (If you dont know what team handball is, its kind of like soccer but with your hands. NEVER let anyone talk you into playing goalie.)
The wedding was a traditional catholic wedding in the church. I had trouble understanding the priest because he was mumbling. The party was at the brides familys home. It was huge, the entire town attended. People danced up a storm and consumed large amounts of meat, mandioca, sopa paraguaya and coca-cola with caña (sugar liquor).
I was planning to go to the wedding and the party, then bike home that night. It was close to a full moon and I have excellent night vision. But people convinced me that there are bandits between Arroyo Moroti and Paso Yobai who hide in the woods on Saturday nights and attack passersby. Im pretty sure the danger is slight, but still I stayed with my friends, the Britez family. I was planning to wake up, talk a little with the Britez family, then head home. But on Sunday day morning the Britez convinced me to watch a movie with them. After that I passed the house of Ña Vivi, who was having a party because her daughter just came back, a doctor, from medical school in Cuba . So I had to go to that party. At the party I met this nice man from Arroyo Moroti and his pretty niece, both of whom invited me to the soccer game. So I had to go to the soccer game.
Eventually I left the soccer game and headed home. On the way I passed the newlyweds, who were picking garbage from the scene of the party. So I stopped and picked up garbage with them, and reminded the bride that marriage or not, she needed to study for her Tuesday English test. Then I kept going, but I ran into this nurse I know who really likes jokes about Argentineans who invited me to drink terere. So we drank terere and told Argentinean jokes. Then I finally left and made it home just before sunset on Sunday. Im not sure what the point of this story is, but I know that it was hard to escape Planchada.
There have been a lot of parties lately. My friends in Paso Yobai threw me a party on Friday at my apartment. I made pizza and set up all the chairs on the roof, but when it started raining we all left the roof and went back into the building (under the roof). The roof offers better protection from rain when you are under it than when you are on it.
Two nights ago after English class I was dead tired, but Saul Paniagua came by on the motorcycle and invited me to his moms birthday party. Im pretty close with the Paniaguas so I knew I needed to go. There were some interesting discussions at the party because the Paniaguas rent out little rooms to itinerants. So there was at the party a gold miner from Asuncion and an orthodontist from Asuncion . Also Paso Yobais doctor, Doctora Raquel, was there. She was also trained in Cuba . Thank God for atheist Cuba, without which Paraguay would have a severe doctor shortage.
It was a good party, but I was tired. I stumbled home around 11pm. At the little bridge two dogs surrounded me and snarled. I hate snarling dogs, but I have gotten used to them. I did a bad job trying to act menacing. There were no rocks around and since I was wearing slippers (pink slippers) I didnt try to kick their skulls in. One of the dogs bit me, and then bit me again, then again, then again. None of the bites were serious. In fact, the dog bites didnt even pierce my pants, so my skin and the dogs teeth had no direct contact. They were the kind of bites that the dogs in Paso Yobai give horses and cows to expel them from the dogs territory. Ive just got scratches all over my leg.
Now Ive gotten used to snarling dogs, but this was the first time that one has bit me. So I overreacted, panicked, and screamed Ayudame! Los perros me muerden! Ayudame! Ayudame! Then I ran and fell down in the dust, hard, on my right hand. Very quickly Saul showed up on his motorcycle, revved it up to scare the dogs, and accompanied me home.
My hand swelled up like a balloon that night. I couldnt move my fingers. The next morning I visited the doctor, who said that she also is scared of dogs. She checked the hand, assured me that nothing is broken, and gave me anti-inflammatory drugs, that have been working really well (Notice how I typing. You cannot see me, but I assure you I am using both hands.)
My friend Ña Celia was bitten by a dog yesterday morning. Weve been talking about how in the United States most municipalities have dog catchers.
I am rereading the excellent book by Jerry Mander, Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television. Its about 30 years old, but it is profound. I would recommend reading it and then smashing your television into small bits. Then smash everybody elses televisions, but be careful, because they might get angry. (Im interested in knowing what Manders views are on video games and internet, things that didnt really exist when he finished the book in 1977). One of the many things he points out is how television gives a distorted view of reality by broadcasting the strange and sensational and ignoring the mundane, which is the essence of life but makes for boring television. And thus reality starts to seem more boring to people who watch television. I just thought of this because I am using the same technique. Being attacked by dogs is not a usual occurrence for me, and is not representative of my life in Paso Yobai.
So in an effort to bring some perspective to this writing, let it be known that during the last two weeks I was attacked by dogs for two minutes, and I spend 20158 minutes not being attacked by dogs.
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