Ellen in Paraguay

Who here thinks Christmas is a stressful time of year? What about if you had a kid was getting married three days before Christmas? And how much more stressful would it be if you had two kids getting married a week apart in two different countries five thousand miles away from home and your whole family was going down for the weddings and needed places to stay and ways to get around foreign cities where no one speaks the same language? On top of that, there’s some missionary girl who wants to spend the holidays with your family and the night before Christmas eve she gets a stomach illness that causes her to spend the whole night throwing up. I wasn’t the first person to get sick either; Ben’s brother-in-law, P.J. got so sick after the family flew into Brazil that they took an overnight bus instead…which was unfortunate, because they needed every single moment before the wedding to buy clothes for groomsmen, rent a huge 9 passenger van (which we usually stuffed 11 or 12 people into), clean the duplex that they were going to stay in, etc. It rained on and off for almost three days, right up until the time of the wedding, which started over an hour and a half late because no one showed up until then. The next day again we were worried about getting Judah to the airport on time, and after that, we had to rush and buy paint before everything closed for Christmas in order to fix up the newlyweds’ apartment. That night I painted until 11 at night and then came home and got sick. The next day we rushed again to get the rental van back in time and buy bus tickets, and then Christmas day (today) half the family left for Brazil. During this whole time, we had no stove or fridge in the place we were staying (I moved in with Ben’s family because Vivi’s family was staying at my house), not to mention that providing food for a dozen people at any time can be difficult. Plus there were the typical Paraguayan obstacles, such as ant infestations and broken showers. Thankfully the electricity never went out.

I am being very selective in the facts I am divulging. That is to let you know that Christmas joy need not depend on favourable circumstances. You have to believe me now when I say that the wedding turned out fabulously and I think was highly enjoyed by all, especially the bride and groom. We ate cake AND cookies AND ice cream, my sweet tooth was overly-satisfied. Ben’s family was tons of fun and had a good time together and I got to share in all the love. P.J. brought me a new Eugene Peterson book, we watched “Fiddler on the Roof” together, and when I got sick Aunt Heidi gave me Pepto Bismal. Christmas dinner consisted of egg-roll filling and cucumber salad, but for dessert Ben and I were afforded the special treat of homemade cheesecake for Christmas eve (Cream cheese is unavailable here). I cried a little on Christmas eve because I missed my family, but Ben’s sister Amy hugged me and let me know that this was her fourth Christmas in Paraguay, and the first time she was with her family. My favourite memory from this Christmas is being stuffed into a van and singing Christmas carols; The Shurances have excellent voices and they all knew lots of verses to all the songs, even “Silent Night” in German. I got lots of hugs and everyone always made me feel very appreciated (my love language=words of affirmation), plus I enjoyed speaking in my mother tongue and making jokes and getting lots of attention!! Everyone already set off tons of firecrackers at midnight on Christmas eve, I wonder what New Years will be like?

# posted by Ellen @ 12:17 PM 0 comments

It’s less than a week before Christmas. I haven’t wrapped a single present. I have no plans to consume any turkey, mashed potatoes, cheese fondue, Schneider’s summer sausage or chocolate Turtles. (No chocolate whatsoever, actually. They don’t really have good chocolate here, or if they do I wouldn’t know because a chocolate bar costs more than 2 meals worth of meat.) And there is a zero percent chance of having a white Christmas. Instead of buying gifts, I guess everyone just shares a bunch of food. I have to admit, I have developed a find liking for fruitcake here, it’s so yummy and soft and sweet. And since I’m listening to Handel’s Messiah right now, I don’t feel like I’m totally missing out on the holiday season. Of course it’s terribly difficult to be away from family, but since HOPE is such an important “Christmas word” I console myself by thinking about how extra wonderful it will be to be together a year from now.

Another Christmas word, somewhat less used than HOPE, is KENOSIS. It refers to the self-emptying of Christ which began when he took on human form, continued throughout his life as he repeatedly denied himself in order to serve others, and culminated in his sacrificial death on a cross. All Christians are called to follow this example of humbling ourselves. Not that I particularly thought of this as one of my reasons for coming to Paraguay, but two times this week I was especially struck by what a disadvantage I have put myself by coming here. The first was during a Bible class when people were taking turns going around the circle reading, and I got skipped over. And to think that back home I used to do the Bible reading in front of the whole church every Sunday. I went straight from the top to the bottom. The other time was at a college graduation ceremony that I went to with my roommate. Instead of giving a speech I had to use all my efforts just to grasp what the speakers were talking about. At times this week I wanted to go home because I felt useless, like I was being a burden, like I have no significance here, like I am incapable of helping anyone, etc. But in the end it was decided that maybe I have become small, unimportant, foolish and weak in order that God’s wisdom and power can be made manifest in my life. Little by little it is becoming clear that any skills or knowledge I possess are quite meaningless if I don’t first recognize that God does whatever God wants, and uses whomever he pleases. I am deeply humbled. And sometimes it feels like low self-esteem.

A few more notes on how I’ve been passing my time. I started to read “The Great Divorce” in Spanish until I realized the anti-logic of reading such a writer as C.S. Lewis in translation, what with his supreme command of the English language. Instead, I read “Our Town,” once on my own, and then Ben and Judah and I performed a dramtic reading of the play for one another, which was really fun. My favourite quotation? From Mrs. Gibbs: “Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don’t talk in English and don’t even want to!” …which does not pertain to Paraguay, because the people here do want to learn, at least it seems that way about most everybody but the poorly behaved second-grade class. If I don’t write again this week, MERRY CHRISTMAS everybody!!! and don’t get all caught up in turkey or ribbons because I don’t have any of that here and it’s still quite fun!!

# posted by Ellen @ 7:46 PM 0 comments

I’m going to add a little bit to the discussion on money that I started last week, since one of my primary forms of entertainment is still to go to the supermarket and look at prices. Here is an except that might be of interest to you, taken from “The Essential Handbook for Short-Term Missions: Produced exclusively for service at Iglesia Nazarena Apostólica Cristiana and Centro Educativo Adonai in Asunción, Paraguay” (that’s just the working title, doesn’t it make you want to read it?)

Empanada (staple snack): 1,500 Gs ($.30)

Potatoes: 2,000 Gs per Kilo ($.40)

City bus ride: 2,100 Gs ($.40)

2 Liter Pop: 3,000 Gs ($.60)

Toothpaste (90 g): 4,000 Gs ($.80)

Notebook: 5,000 Gs ($1)

Lunch at church: 5,000 Gs ($1)

Camp T-shirt: 20,000 Gs ($4)

Thermos: 35,000 Gs. ($7)

Long-distance bus ride: 50,000 Gs. ($10)

Propane tank fill (10 L): 50,000 Gs. ($10)

Desk: 150,000 Gs ($30)

Cell Phone: 300,000 Gs ($60)

Bed (good mattress): 500,000 Gs. ($100)

There is a minimum wage set here, about $200 a month. It’s not much but definitely enough for a single person to live on (my rent is $30 a month and I pay around $50 for food). The sad part is that three-quarters of the people actually make less than minimum wage, because it is not enforced by the government (this sounds like an exaggeration, but I read it in The Lonely Planet Guidebook, a very reputable source, and it is also confirmed by trusted others), and therefore not enough to live on. I was talking with a lady from the church who wants to get into social work, and she told me that there are more than 15,000 homeless children in this city of about 600,000 people and she blames it mostly on the corrupt government and a lack of education.

In some ways I am starting to believe that there could indeed be human sacrifices carried out atop of Cerro Lambaré or on Halloween and the authorities not knowing or caring enough to do anything about it. Lots of times the police just come and park their truck on the corner by my house and sit around drinking tereré. At least they don’t eat donuts and get fat like N.A. police, haha. And I know that traffic violations are rarely enforced, which is why I greatly prefer walking, or as Ben says, taking the linea 11 (Get it? 11, like you have two legs?).

On Wednesday Judah Weinhardt from Phoenix arrived to visit for awhile before the wedding. I think his first impressions of Paraguay must be very extreme. First of all, our church camp started the day after he arrived – three full days of spending lots of time with people and sitting in on Bible classes, difficult things to do when you don’t understand Spanish. It works well for me though because not only do I have someone to speak English with, I am also getting lots of practice translating. The first night of camp there was a torrential rain storm, like nothing I’ve ever seen. I thought it was fun because we were all at the church and of course the electricity was out so we just sat in the dark telling riddles and listening to people play guitar. But then I found out that it was nothing like anyone else had ever seen either, and we started to get worried when the water started coming into the classrooms. Thankfully it let up soon after that, but since the floors were a little wet I had a woman from the church and her daughter come sleep over at my house. One thing I really like about the people here are how easy-going they are; it seems like they will just sleep anywhere, fitting two or three people on a single mattress, with no need for pillows or pajamas. We stayed up late talking, but I finally called it quits after about an hour of the dumbest dumb-blond jokes I have ever heard.

Camp was a little low-key because usually they have one-hundred or more people that come from other churches, but I guess the biggest of those decided to have their own camp this year. I thought it was nice that almost everyone in our church had time to come for the whole weekend. On Friday it was a national holiday for the Virgin of Caacupe. Thousands of people made a pilgrimage to Caacupe, some leaving even on Monday or Tuesday and spending the whole week walking to Caacupe. So I’m glad at this point not to be catholic, because instead I got to play volleyball and eat great meals with all my friends! Although I regret not being more informed on exactly why so many people went there and how far away it is.

Speaking of being informed, on Sunday I had a chance to read a newspaper in a bakery while Ben and Vivi shopped for wedding cookies. I’m not sure if it was a high-end newspaper, but the “world section” was exactly three pages long. It had great pictures in the entertainment section though. I’ll tell you about an interesting piece of local news. Last year a fire started in a big supermarket, and the owners didn’t want all the customers to run out with their un-purchased food so they locked the doors. It ended up costing them more money in the end however, because some 400 people died and they had to go to court over the matter. This week it was decided that the owners whose decision it was to lock the doors would get two years in prison. Some people were so upset with the lenient sentence that they burned down another one of the supermarkets in the chain!! Generally people tend to not exercise a whole lot of caution with fire. One day someone that lives across the street from the church decided to light a huge pile of trash and yard debris on fire, and it also burned down half a mango tree. Composting is unheard of; almost every day someone from the neighborhood has a big stinky fire burning, even today when it’s over 30 degrees!

# posted by Ellen @ 8:10 PM 1 comments

This entry marks a new epoch in the life of my blog. My family has been encouraging me from the beginning, telling me that it’s not boring and they hang on to every word, but this week I realized that there more than 50 people reading this and ones that I don’t even know. Now I am even more humbled (i.e. embarrassed) than I was previously. I hope I still write honestly and don’t worry too much about who’s reading it. It’s good though because now I feel pressured to spend more time and write well, as opposed to the usual stream of consciousness. By the way, if my diction seems strange and a little bombastic, it may be because I’m starting to use more and more Spanish-English cognates. Probably when I go back home for a little while until I get accustomed to it (see? I said “accustomed to it” instead of “used to it”), I will say “a moment please” instead of “hold on a sec,” or that something was realized instead of saying it happened.

Here are some things about Paraguay that are interesting and neutral and suitable for a broad audience. First of all, I think I wrote before that out of all the capital cities in the world, Asunción is the cheapest place to live. I read that a person can live here and pay one-sixth the amount for the same standard of living in New York. When you think about it though, the comparison is someone ludicrous – you can’t just base it on money. One of the best things about Paraguay is the free sunshine and lush vegetation. You can’t grow pineapples in your backyard in New York. As well, even in the downtown area, it seems like there is so much space. Everyone has a yard and there are not very many tall buildings.

Conversely, there are many things Asunción doesn’t have that you could do in New York. This became very apparent to me the day that my roommate and I watched “The Chorus” (a French film in the style of Mr. Holland’s Opus about a man who goes to teach at a school for troubled boys, but a million times better) and were listening to the choral music playing at the end while the credits were showing. She said to me “Oh yes, I like this kind of music. I went to a concert once and it was wonderful.” ONCE she had the opportunity to go and hear professional live music, and who knows if it was even very good or not? I thought about the myriads of times I have attended musicals or other plays and concerts and how much richness it has brought to my life, and I was sad that the people here don’t have the opportunity to appreciate things like that.

There’s an implicit sermon in that last sentence but I’ll just make it explicit: if you live in a big city in North America, you’re really lucky to have access to good art and music. One of the more uppity malls in the downtown always has a little art display. The art I saw was fairly weak, but Ben said last time he went it was really good, but still no one seemed to care about it. All this concern for good taste trickles down into everything from clothing to perfume to table settings. I feel extremely snobby writing this, but the Paraguayan style is pretty ridiculous. In a way it works out well for me because I am a missionary without a lot of money and this way I am never tempted to buy anything.

Maria, in response to your question, there are movie theatres here. I’ve asked about them and have been told that it is a popular past-time more or less, but by evidence of the fact that I have never seen one nor heard anyone ever suggest “hey why don’t we go watch a movie?” I think it is safe to draw the conclusion that there are not hundreds or people crowding a theatre on a Friday night. Ben said part of it is that by the time movies or concerts end, the busses aren’t running anymore, so you either have to have a car or take a taxi, which is “expensive” and thus the people are separated into classes, if they weren’t already by those who able to afford the price of entry to the event. But even so, there just aren’t as many entertainment options available. As far as I know, this capital city with about 600,000 people has one bowling alley. And no ice rinks!

The major source of revenue for the country comes from the hydroelectric plants along the rivers. However, in the past week there have been two major power outages. Karen thinks that the people in charge do it on purpose to conserve electricity (just like how they also make it so people can use the water in her neighbourhood during peak hours of the day). The first time it happened back in October it made me cry because it must have been the hottest day and we couldn’t use the fan and my sister had just called on the phone but she was cut off. On Friday night we were practicing music for the weekend church services when all of a sudden the keyboard stopped working and all the lights went out. The bad part is that it can be very dangerous and a lot of looting goes on. I was running down the street to catch up with the others who were walking some girls to the bus stop when I totally tripped on the “sidewalk” and gashed my toe. (I put sidewalk in quotation marks because their existence is unreliable, even on main streets, but sometimes people have concrete alongside their fence.) Then again today I was at the cabinas and just about to use the internet when the fans stopped working and the computers were silenced. It turned out fortunately enough though, because I got to sit and talk with the ladies there while we waited.

To me, occasional power outages or the lack of a movie theatre aren’t very big sacrifices, because I am very entertained in other ways, plus I only plan on staying for another year. But I wonder what effect it has on the society as a whole. Are the people worse off because they can’t hear a full orchestra playing the hallelujah chorus or see original etchings by Picasso? How sorry should I feel that my friends don’t get to watch a live production of “Fiddler on the Roof?” Not to mention that that the good movies they do get to watch are all dubbed or in subtitles (usually with more boring formal language). I feel like these experiences have largely shaped who I am and made me a better person. The three hours I spent in the Winspear Centre listening to Handel’s Messiah were the three best hours I ever spent in mediation on the greatness and goodness of God. I am very grateful that God has given humans creative abilities and that we have the luxury of time for such things. The Paraguayans entertainment is playing and watching sports, and drinking terere and talking, which may or may not be very beneficial for inspiring one’s soul. (I heard some jokes here for the first time this week. I think Paraguayan humor is pretty lame. It might just be because I don’t share the same cultural knowledge, but I’m pretty sure it’s because the people will laugh at anything. I know this, because I told them this joke and it went over WAAAYY too well: A horse walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “why the long face?”) The characters present in jokes are a Paraguayan, and Argentinean, and a Brazilian. I think they are most prejudiced against Argentineans, because Paraguay is really “back-country” whereas Argentina is very European and snooty.) I guess the best I can do is appreciate whatever beauty is available to me, to be creative myself (with my blog!), and encourage the people here to be interested in some “high-culture” that they are presently missing out on.

I dedicate this blog to my friend Andrea, who loves art and music and is very creative, in return for smuggling me into her art history class and inspiring some of these thoughts. Plus she would probably laugh at Paraguayan jokes. I’ve been writing awfully long blogs lately, sorry if it doesn’t fit with your tight schedule, but I am anticipating not having any time to write one for at least another week, so you can savor this one for awhile.

# posted by Ellen @ 4:50 PM 1 comments

Hola everyone. Assuming that the majority of my readers have high-speed internet, I encourage to you to go to googleearth.com or whatever website that is where you can view Asunción from space. I live in a “suburb” called Lambaré, but other than that I don’t really have functioning address to google. The postal service here is non-existent; only a few people who expect international mail have post office boxes, and Karen says even then they only expect to receive their mail about 80% of the time. For those of you who have asked, you can send things to me with a 20% chance of it getting lost to:

Ellen Sabo

c/o Oscar Cabellero

C.C. 3146

Asunción, Paraguay

C.P. 1209

We only have one hill, called Cerro Lambaré. (“Cerro” means “hill.” I guess you are allowed to call your hill “hill” as long as there’s only one in the whole town.) On Monday night we jogged there instead of running around the track. It’s was probably the longest run I’ve ever been on in my whole life, but I made it all the way to the top, where there is one of the oddest/ugliest structures I’ve ever seen. A lot of urban myths are in circulation about the demonic symbolism of the structure and the child sacrifice that apparently goes on there. Right now I don’t believe any of it, but I would like to find a reliable source to inform me. I do know that people from an evangelical church at the bottom of the hill march up the hill singing songs at 4:00 on Friday mornings. If I were Dan Brown I could write a story about it and make lots of money. And if I had lots of money, I would buy a djimbe drum (spelling?) and put up a basketball hoop at the church. But I’ll probably do those things anyways. I bought a basketball this week and I’m really excited because people want me to teach them how to play. I’ve already caused a few ripples by pointing out some of the volleyball rules that they have neglected to follow thus far, but don’t worry, I’m not being too much of a stickler.

I said I was going to write some thoughts about baptism, because I thought my week would be uneventful now that school is out, but no. (And I realized that besides the fact that we had a baptism in church last Sunday so it was something I was thinking about, it’s not really fair that I would write my opinions on such a topic just because I have a captive audience.) On the contrary, this is the busiest week so far at church, mostly because camp starts on Thursday. We heard a good pre-camp sermon from Psalm 107 on Saturday night. I’ve never paid closer attention during sermons in my whole life, because if I zone out even for a minute I risk the chance of losing the whole train of thought and never getting back on track. The Psalm tells the same story over and over in a different way each time: people were in trouble or hungry or thirsty or about to die or lost or afraid but every time God came and rescued them. The sermon on Sunday morning was basically reading the entire book of Esther, and that day we had an hour long prayer meeting AND a members’ monthly tithe-giving meeting, but it wasn’t long and boring like it seems like all those meetings would be, especially the prayer meeting was really exciting. There is a core group of twelve people that have been meeting to pray together for two years. Now those people have spilt into seven groups and the plan is to get 10 people in each group who will commit to praying together every Sunday. (I’m loving the significance of the 12 and the 70, and then the eventual plan is to get to 3000 like at Pentecost! Right now there are 5 or 6 people in each group.) I’m proud that my group gave me a lot of responsibility in bringing more people into our group because I’m already friends with kids “on the fringes,” that is, they kind of come to our church but aren’t really committed. So we’ll see what happens when I talk to them at camp. Other than that, I’ll just have to tell you about it afterwards, because I have no idea what to expect. Right now I’m disappointed because Ben and I had a great plan to make a “campfire” but instead of a fire it would be a fan with orange and red streamers that everyone would want to crowd around, but I guess he wasn’t being serious. But to counter that, I’m extrememly excited for the arrival of Judah Weinhardt from Phoenix on Wednesday and that he and Ben and Karen and I might create a quartet and sing a song in English for camp.

And now, the account of my most triumphant moment in Paraguay up to this point. On the corner between my house and the school there is a dirt volleyball court, a big workshop for reupholstering furniture, and very often a large gathering of men from the neighbourhood, a constant source of shyness and embarrassment for me whenever I have to walk past. Sometimes I almost want to stop and watch because they play a game with two guys on each side of the net and can only use their feet, head, and torso to get the ball over, and some are very talented, but their other hobby is to drink a lot. They learned my name early on, and if I was walking alone they would always call out things to me, but yesterday it reached an insufferable climax. One man professed his love for me in English, “my love, my love,” and proceeded to kiss my hand. My response? The equivalent of “oh please, you have go to be kidding!” with a LOT of attitude. Prior to this the only word I ever said in their presence was “hola,” but this time I really let it go. I told them that from now I don’t mind if they say to me “Buenas tardes señorita” or even greet me by name, but no more of these ridiculous displays of affection, because “eso es tonto” “that’s just silly!” Victory! The man apologized and now I feel really good because our relationship has been defined and when I walk past I can greet them and not be afraid that they think I’m flirting or something. It’s kind of embarrassing here if you walk past someone from your neighbourhood and you don’t greet them, but you also have to be careful even with the way that you make eye contact with some men. And now I just have to let the guys at the carwash on the corner by the supermarket know what I think of them…

# posted by Ellen @ 3:36 PM 1 comments