Ellen in Paraguay

This week has been a strange fusion of childhood and adulthood for me. On the one hand I played hours of Phase 10 (a card game), volleyball and ping-pong (so much so that I was dreaming of ping-pong). On Monday the boys and I made a fire and roasted hot dogs and made s’mores and slept outside. It was a really beautiful evening and the smoke from the fire went straight up and we left the fly off so we could lie in the tent and watch stars. Tuesday night there was a ping-pong tournament and with all my practice I managed to grab 4th place. It was a fundraiser to buy drums for the church and/or a band that a group of boys from the church put together. They made a whole $5 in entry fees. Wednesday we took a drive through the countryside and climbed a big rocky hill, and I realized again that I’m living in a botanical paradise. Paraguay doesn’t have mountains, but in certain places there is a single hill or a gathering of a few big bumps that rise out of the landscape, and I think they are just beautiful. The boys and I went searching for caves, but our quest ended after Brandon got stung by what they called a bee but looked like more of a small bird to me. Then we had a picnic lunch in the park. It seems like wherever we are, walking down to the river, hiking up a hill, eating in the park, Oscar finds some kind of food to eat off the trees. I was introduced to guayaba, which I think is probably guava fruit, and then when I came home I realized I have it five feet away from my door. Every few minutes I hear one drop from the tree. I just got home from a BBQ with about 4 families from the church, and now I am ready to start working again. So I had a lot of fun playing this week, which got me in a good mood to start teaching and being with kids.
But I also feel more maturity and responsibility being placed on me than ever before. For one thing, I am looking for a new place to live. I think I would like the just rent one of the many empty lots with huge trees and live off all their fruit and stay in a tent. It is kind of frustrating looking for a house because there is no Craig’s List or Bargin Finder; right now my method of house-shopping is also my daily exercise of running up and down the streets. My other grown-up task at the moment is helping Karen write up about the new building project and make a brochure. I am totally excited about it and am convinced that you all will want give lots of money to the school after you read the brochure, hopefully in 3 or 4 weeks. I think having this project to work on and the missions manual are two things that I can set my mind to and they give me a sense of purpose and help me not to be homesick.
Ahem, I have an announcement to make. I finally gave in a got a Nokia cell phone. It only cost $40 and I am on a plan with it seems most everyone from the church that I would ever need to talk to so I can call or text-message them practically free. I am very nervous that people from here will try to call me, because it is one thing to have a difficult conversation in person and it is another thing to try and understand each other over the phone. Everyone had a good time yesterday impersonating me trying to talk on the phone in Spanish… “uuuhhh Hola? Soy Ellen! uuhhh…no entiendo!que?” I never wanted to have a cell phone, and it is strange to me that here where there is so little well-developed infrastructure and up-to-date technology is where I really have learned to appreciate my camera and the internet, and I know I will appreciate being able to have my family call me.
I have learned a lot about prayer since I came here, and I think I’m starting to figure out why these people pray so fervently and frequently. When I am at home in North America, I feel pretty much like I can work to change things and improve my circumstances. It doesn’t always feel the same here. Even looking for a house, it seems like it depends more on luck and being at the right place at the right time, than any kind of vigilant searching. Because the opportunities are not as great, there is always only so much that one can do. And then all that’s left to do is to ask God to help. Except here they already know that so they just start by asking God. Yesterday a friend gave me a cheesy little card showing a picture of a teddy bear with a big red nose, but the silly picture does not match the seriousness of the quotation, which says something like “more has been accomplished in the world by those who pray than those who combat, and if the world is bad, it’s because there are more battles than prayers.” I know I can be very skeptical when it comes to the power of my prayers, but I am glad to be learning about prayer that can bring peace in my life. So I PRAY that you too can give up the battle to God and be free of unnecessary striving and violence in your life. In connection with them, I may as well mention that the high humidity here pretty much makes it impossible for me to wear my hair any way except in a tight ponytail. I always said before that I have a good understanding of not being in control because if I can’t control my hair, then what can I expect to control? Well, that is especially true for me here I guess. Sorry for discussing my hairstyle and prayer in the same paragraph. I just wanted to let you know I feel very at peace. Even with a having a cell phone when I said I never would.

School starts in two weeks and I think everyone realizes that and is trying to enjoy the rest of summer vacation while it lasts. I spent a lot of time reading and visiting with people this week after three really boring days of trying to get more prep work done for school. On Tuesday we did a little outreach program at my friend Carolina´s house for the neighbourhood kids. They called it, to the delightful snickers of me and Ben¨Hora feliz¨ or ¨Happy Hour.¨ I think it was tremendously sucessful, very much due to the presence of pop, cookies, and four charasmatic clowns; I was a kind of dumb clown with a cone-shaped head and Ben was a grumpy old man who poked the kids with his broom. It was indeed a very happy hour and I probably enjoyed learning the songs and actions in spanish just as much as any of the kids there.
My best memories of this week are the times spent with Pastor Dario and his wife Marlene. I ate lunch there for the past two Sundays and spent all day Friday helping to prepare for a ping pong tournament. We were expecting about 20 or more people to compete and I made a big poster organzing the tournament with rules and eveything, and we even got a small trophy and some medals. Everyone would pay a 2,500 Guarani entry fee (about 50 cents) and the money was going towards a drum kit for the band that 5 or 6 of the boys from the church put together. Unfortunately there was huge storm and the electricity went out, so instead we sang and played games around the table and it was really fun anyways. I taught them how to play Phase 10, a card game that my mom and sister sent me, and we played it until I was totally sick of it. Dario and Marlene are not the wealthiest people, but their are so very rich in hospitality and I am looking forward to going there again tomorrow, when we will have a second attempt at the tournament.
I kind of laughed at the ping pong table when I first saw it, because it is just a big board that someone painted green and they set it atop of four ricketey chairs. But since then I have also seen kids playing volleyball with their feet/chest/head (piki volley) with an old cable strung across the yard, and other kids playing with part of a broken bench set on two stumps. They have to be very innovative here. I guess it´s not a big deal to not have great spots equipment, but I feel sad when I see kids who so badly want to play music but don´t have access to an instrument and can´t take lessons. And it makes me regret all the times when I fought with my mom over not wanting to practice piano, a talent I am so glad to have now. I want to help the band, ¨Harvester¨to raise money for the drums, which we would also use at church. (English names for a band or english writing on t-shirts are really popular, as well as english graffiti which frequently contains errors in grammar and I always take pictures of it; poorly spelled english graffiti is becoming somewhat of my specialty in my photo album. Harvester made t-shirts and on the back it says something like ¨a brite in the night¨I think a poor translation of that verse in Isaiah). So there is a light shining here in Paraguay and it brings a lot of hope: Hope for a building addition to the school, a drum set, a website, computers, and all kinds of material things. But most of all the refrain goes ¨Paraguay for Jesus¨and we hope that people´s lives can be turned around through our witness in the neighbourhood. People like the guys who hang out on the corner between my house and church and get drunk at 3 in the afternoon and make fun of me in ways I don´t want to write about in my blog.

School starts in two weeks and I think everyone realizes that and is trying to enjoy the rest of summer vacation while it lasts. I spent a lot of time reading and visiting with people this week after three really boring days of trying to get more prep work done for school. On Tuesday we did a little outreach program at my friend Carolina´s house for the neighbourhood kids. They called it, to the delightful snickers of me and Ben¨Hora feliz¨ or ¨Happy Hour.¨ I think it was tremendously sucessful, very much due to the presence of pop, cookies, and four charasmatic clowns; I was a kind of dumb clown with a cone-shaped head and Ben was a grumpy old man who poked the kids with his broom. It was indeed a very happy hour and I probably enjoyed learning the songs and actions in spanish just as much as any of the kids there.
My best memories of this week are the times spent with Pastor Dario and his wife Marlene. I ate lunch there for the past two Sundays and spent all day Friday helping to prepare for a ping pong tournament. We were expecting about 20 or more people to compete and I made a big poster organzing the tournament with rules and eveything, and we even got a small trophy and some medals. Everyone would pay a 2,500 Guarani entry fee (about 50 cents) and the money was going towards a drum kit for the band that 5 or 6 of the boys from the church put together. Unfortunately there was huge storm and the electricity went out, so instead we sang and played games around the table and it was really fun anyways. I taught them how to play Phase 10, a card game that my mom and sister sent me, and we played it until I was totally sick of it. Dario and Marlene are not the wealthiest people, but their are so very rich in hospitality and I am looking forward to going there again tomorrow, when we will have a second attempt at the tournament.
I kind of laughed at the ping pong table when I first saw it, because it is just a big board that someone painted green and they set it atop of four ricketey chairs. But since then I have also seen kids playing volleyball with their feet/chest/head (piki volley) with an old cable strung across the yard, and other kids playing with part of a broken bench set on two stumps. They have to be very innovative here. I guess it´s not a big deal to not have great spots equipment, but I feel sad when I see kids who so badly want to play music but don´t have access to an instrument and can´t take lessons. And it makes me regret all the times when I fought with my mom over not wanting to practice piano, a talent I am so glad to have now. I want to help the band, ¨Harvester¨to raise money for the drums, which we would also use at church. (English names for a band or english writing on t-shirts are really popular, as well as english graffiti which frequently contains errors in grammar and I always take pictures of it; poorly spelled english graffiti is becoming somewhat of my specialty in my photo album. Harvester made t-shirts and on the back it says something like ¨a brite in the night¨I think a poor translation of that verse in Isaiah). So there is a light shining here in Paraguay and it brings a lot of hope: Hope for a building addition to the school, a drum set, a website, computers, and all kinds of material things. But most of all the refrain goes ¨Paraguay for Jesus¨and we hope that people´s lives can be turned around through our witness in the neighbourhood. People like the guys who hang out on the corner between my house and church and get drunk at 3 in the afternoon and make fun of me in ways I don´t want to write about in my blog.

I’m back from the Big (pine)Apple! I just thought of that nickname now, since an easy way for me to describe Buenos Aires is as the New York City of South America. (I once called Paraguay the North Dakota of South America, and I still hold to that.) There are about 15 million people in the metropolitan area, anywhere you turn there is a hot dog or newspaper stand, and the people dress fashionably and are serious and in a hurry like in any big city. It even has a subway system, which is kind of scary because it’s so old and creaky. In some ways Buenos Aires is extraordinary because although it’s a big city, it’s not a concrete jungle; it seems there is a park every couple of blocks and big trees lining the streets. The downtown is not giant skyscrapers but rather lots of interesting old buildings. But of course in true South American style there was garbage all over and the buildings, though possessing beautiful exteriors, were often in states of disrepair, such as the apartment that we stayed in with my friend’s aunt. Luckily, I didn’t spend much of my time in the apartment, except when I was tired in the late afternoon and I would happily pass the time watching English news on the television. The friend that I went with, Maria Teresa, grew up in the city, she’s 35 years old and speaks about 5 words in English. One day we went to the zoo though with her brother and sister-in-law and that was really great, mostly though she just wanted to go shopping the whole time or stay at home. So for the last three days I was free to roam the city by myself, and not being permitted to take the bus, I put a lot of miles on my flip-flops. It was great because the aunt lived only 3 blocks away from the central downtown area.
In some ways living in Asunción reminds me of my first two years of college in Saskatchewan: a limited wardrobe, less food options, small living space, no reading lamp, and yet I was very content then, and am now. I don’t think this is just a coincidence. Away at college, I didn’t watch TV and never saw any billboards or newspaper advertisements which would make me want to buy stuff, and besides, there was one only restaurant and our school bookstore where I could spend money if I wanted. When I went home for Christmas after the first semester and saw all the excessive materialism that had been missing from my life, South Edmonton Commons literally made me sick to my stomach. In Buenos Aires for the first couple of days, I was overwhelmed by the urge to buy all kinds of stuff that I never would have thought of while in Paraguay. I wanted white Argentinean slippers, Converse high-tops, a Che Guevara T-shirt, magnets of tango dancers, new dresses, a hot dog at 10 in the morning or dulce de leche cakes after I’d just eaten a big lunch. Then I realized it was just all the “propaganda” (the word for “advertisement” in Spanish) that was working its magic on me, and after buying a pair of Nike running shoes, I only looked to buy books. My favourite place I found was one round room with tall windows and the walls covered bookshelves from floor to ceiling. It was run by an old man who had crazy Albert Einstein hair and met Jorge Luis Borges when he was ten years old. He could speak a little English, and he told me all kinds of things about his city and showed me his special collection of old books, and then as a parting gift he gave me a book of easy Spanish plays. It is nice to have the book, and the new shoes, but I realize that the most valuable things I took back home were my experiences of the city, and memories of the people I met, like the bored security guard at the museum or the little lady next to me on the park bench.
I got along fabulously with Maria Teresa’s family, and got many invitations to come back and visit during winter holidays. Her aunt gave me a little book and I found a poem by the famous Chilean poet Pablo Neruda that I feel sums up my trip quite well. Here is an except from “¿Quién muere?” (“Who dies?”):
“He dies slowly… / that does not revive his memories and continue to move himself with them / as though he were living it at that moment, / who does not travel, nor read, nor hear music, / who does not speak with someone he doesn’t know, / who does not lend himself to help. / Let us avoid death in small shares, remembering always / that to be alive requires and effort much greater / than the simple act of breathing.”
So in some ways it was very difficult to travel with someone I didn’t know that well, and when I didn’t understand the language, and felt lost most of the time, but I am glad that I traveled and read and met new people and saw new things. On a side note, I also invented a joke in Spanish, of which I am quite proud. Do you know those kind of jokes that start with “what do you call a man…?” for example, Q:What do you call a man lying on the floor in front of a door? A: Matt (mat) or Q:What do you call a man standing in a hole with a shovel? A: Doug (dug). My personal favourite is Q: what do you call a woman with one leg shorter than the other? A: Eileen (I lean). (What do you think of that one, Auntie Eileen? I always think of you when I tell it). So mine in Spanish is requires that you know “sin” is the word for “without” and “tía” means “aunt.” Q: what do you call a girl of whom neither of her parents have sisters? A: Cynthia, which in Spanish is spelled Cíntia. The accent is in the wrong place, but it’s funny, trust me, because everyone I told it to so far has laughed. I though of that joke because it is the name of Maria Teresa’s sister-in-law.
It was nice to have a surrogate family in Buenos Aires, but it was also nice to return to my church family here. At the same time, I realized I wasn’t really coming home, and I got quite homesick on the bus ride back. I arrived only half an hour before church started on Sunday morning and was very tired and I barely understood the sermon, so I was even sadder. But then Oscar handed me a handful of Christmas cards from my family that finally made it here, at just the time I really needed the encouragement!! So I gratefully dedicate this blog to my Sabo relatives who I love and miss dearly. Special thanks to Auntie JoAnn, Dean and Teresa and their kids, and Tymen and Caroline’s family, Bella (I can’t believe you’re pregnant!), Ed, Dawn and Aurora, and Auntie Barb and all the rest who were at the Millwoods Christmas Party. Auntie Margret, in regards to your question as to what to do with my candy cane, I think it will be okay to save until next year if you can hold on to it for that long!

Feliz Aňo Nuevo!!
New year’s here is basically the same as Christmas: tons of firecrackers and a big meal served at midnight, two things very bad for your health, in my opinion. People tell me that every year lots of kids are in the hospital with injured or missing limbs and eyeballs. I saw a boy sneak up behind some girls and stick a firecracker in their midst, and it went off before I had time to warn them. It is kind of sad because I think the people here would love a real fireworks show but of course the city officials don’t put one on. (warning: this entry is very cynical of people who work for the Paraguayan government. A joke from my dad: what does a government employee and a broken gun have in common? Neither of them work and they can’t be fired.) I watched from the second story of the Caballero’s house, but mostly it was just lots of noise and smoke. I also think the big meal at midnight is funny because you are basically starting out the year with a terrible eating habit, while all of North America is vowing to eat healthier. I’ve been asking people if they make new year’s resolutions, but I’ve only found one lady so far, who doesn’t write them down, which makes me think she doesn’t take it very seriously. I already told my family I don’t have to make any because I am totally preoccupied with self-improvement every day of the year.
Let me tell you something about the Paraguayan postal service: besides being almost non-existent, what they do have is terrible! Ben and Vivi had to deliver all their wedding invitations by hand. Only a very few people have international post office boxes. Oscar has one which he checks every week, and one day he got a notice that there was a package for me, but he needed my visa information to get it. He came back later the same day, only to find out that they sent the package back “because he took too long to come and get it.” I totally don’t trust any of the post office workers. Basically anyone who works for the government here can be compared to the tax collectors in the Bible; No one likes or trusts them, they often have houses and cars that are much too extravagant for their incomes, and lots of them have private security guards, like the judge that lives by my house, I guess because it is easy for them to make enemies. Anyways, I finally got the Christmas card that my mom sent a month ago, and she wrote that she hoped I would be able to celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, since people here probably don’t know about Frosty the Snow Man or make such a big deal about Santa. And it’s true. I went to a mall five days before Christmas and they had a few trees and decoration, but other than that there were no other signs of the season and it wasn’t very crowded. First of all, nothing EVER goes on sale in Paraguay, except maybe stale crackers. The grocery store still has Christmas decorations out and tons of fruitcake and there isn’t even a 10% discount! Secondly, virtually no one can actually afford to shop in the mall. I don’t understand it, because people don’t make very much money by North American standards, but the clothes in the mall and any electronic items or household appliances are the same as American prices. For example, a small sandwich maker is $40. Probably the only people buying them work for the government! Most people do their shopping in street markets. But even then, I don’t think most people buy Christmas presents, at least, no one that I talked to received a Christmas present. I didn’t have to feel left out then, with no family to exchange presents with. It’s all about the food. So without the commercialism and presents and reindeer are Paraguayans able to better celebrate the true meaning of Christmas? I think it’s good that they focus a lot of spending time together, I would say this is a strength of Paraguayan society year-round. At midnight on New Year’s Eve it was fun to watch all the people go around to the neighbours’ houses to greet one another. At the same time, I would not exactly describe any of their festivities as contemplative or serene, which I felt like I was missing out on. The one pious thing that people do is put out offering by their (usually gawdy) nativity scenes. As far as I know, everything is over after Christmas eve, they are finished celebrating by the next day. Usually people go to the church on the 25th, but rather than for a church service, they go to play soccer! I celebrated the first day of the year by playing volleyball at church.
Enough about holidays until Easter, for which we get a whole week-long vacation! Speaking of vacations, I am leaving on Saturday for Buenos Aires. I am taking the bus with my friend Maria Teresa, who is originally from Argentina, and has our tourist itinerary for the week all planned out. I am a little worried because the bus that Ben’s parents took to Brazil got in an accident and rolled. His sister (who was getting married four days later) was knocked unconscious and her fiancée suffered a large gash on his face, but I guess the wedding still took place. Then two days later the bus that Ben and Vivi were taking to Brazil broke down and they had to wait and switch buses. But it should be okay, because the Lonely Planet Guide book says that Buenos Aires is one of the safest (and also one of the most beautiful) South American cities. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back!!