Ellen in Paraguay

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