Saturday, March 03, 2007
Wow, the past few weeks have gone by so fast, and after one month of work I was already rewarded with a mini-vacation. Karen´s birthday was on Tuesday (if you want to know how old she is, maybe she wrote the age in her blog), and since March 1 is a national holiday, the family like to take advantage of the boys´ day off school to get out of town for awhile and celebrate. I was lucky enough to be invited along. We went to a national park called Ybycui, (which means ¨sand¨ in Guarani)¨ and spent the day swimming in a natural pool underneath a waterfall. It wasn´t just the warm weather and not-ice-cold water that reminded me I wasn´t in Banff national park; Ybycui lacked two things that made it stand in stark contrast to anything you would find in North America: signs and people. I saw only one sign about throwing garbage in a garbage can, and two small beat-up signs by the river, one that said ¨no fishing¨ and another saying that the water was deep and dangerous, but left me confused as to if swimming was still allowed past that point. The last sign was one advertising a 930 meter, with a recommended travel time of one hour! Karen always told me everyone knows I am a foreigner just from the way I walk, and after finishing the hike in a fraction of the estimated time, I assume this must be because my leisurely stroll is 4 times as fast as the average Paraguayan´s. Even though it was a national holiday, there was only one family camping there and a few carloads of people that came and went throughout the day. The campers were a group of twelve that had come from opposite directions for a family get-together. Karen and Oscar made friends with the lady who seemed to be in charge, and their amiability paid off when she saw we were somewhat unprepared to spend the day (we thought there would be a place to buy lunch and had only brought along a bag of Doritos, 2 oranges, and some cookies). She brought us a lunch of Paraguayan staple foods and every ten minutes or so returned with another 2L of pop. It was generosity to the excess for complete strangers, a fine example of Paraguayan hospitality. That night, at the pleading of the boys, we decided to stay at a hotel called the Villa Americana. It was really more of a camp setting, with about ten little cottages and a nice outdoor pool and I suppose it would have been considered somewhat luxurious by Paraguayan standards. Again, in spite of the holiday and nice weather, we were the only guests at the hotel that night. I got frustrated because it took the kitchen staff an hour and a half to make us sandwiches for dinner, forgot part of our order, and served us extremely salty fries with fermented ketchup. I remarked that in North America at the very least one could ask for something else to eat, or get the meal for free. Here I have just learned to keep my mouth shut, as it would be very insulting to say that the fries were too salty, and they wouldn´t do anything about it anyways. The boys and I made friends with an administrator who was obviously bored out of his mind, and played lots of games of free pool with him.
I spent a lot of time with my nose in a book about a man who travels by train from Boston to the Southern tip of Argentina. He doesn´t go through Paraguay, but I have been inspired to learn more about this country, in order to tell you my reader more about it. I still have 150 pages left, but I have already learned so much about Mexican and Central American geography and politics. Here goes my first attempt, then, to make my blog more than just some general observations, but it is pretty bad. After this I am going to read a book on Paraguayan history (after which, Dario says, I need to teach it to them!) and then maybe I can write something more trustworthy. Heroes´ day commemorates the death of Mariscal Lopez. I am not sure why he is a hero though: he was some kind of a dictator who fought in a war for independence alongside women and children and he lost. I do know, however, that there is a shopping mall named after him. I also read about the history of the AC church, and since I didn´t know very much about Mr. Lopez, I instead celebrated the heroes who risked their lives to share the gospel and eventually formed our church. More on this next week…
I spent a lot of time with my nose in a book about a man who travels by train from Boston to the Southern tip of Argentina. He doesn´t go through Paraguay, but I have been inspired to learn more about this country, in order to tell you my reader more about it. I still have 150 pages left, but I have already learned so much about Mexican and Central American geography and politics. Here goes my first attempt, then, to make my blog more than just some general observations, but it is pretty bad. After this I am going to read a book on Paraguayan history (after which, Dario says, I need to teach it to them!) and then maybe I can write something more trustworthy. Heroes´ day commemorates the death of Mariscal Lopez. I am not sure why he is a hero though: he was some kind of a dictator who fought in a war for independence alongside women and children and he lost. I do know, however, that there is a shopping mall named after him. I also read about the history of the AC church, and since I didn´t know very much about Mr. Lopez, I instead celebrated the heroes who risked their lives to share the gospel and eventually formed our church. More on this next week…
# posted by Ellen @ 3:00 PM 
