Saturday, June 16, 2007
I think if you read my blog from last week, Ben´s blog from Sunday, march 11, and Karen´s from Monday, May 21, you would be able to see why we work so well together. But honestly, I can´t even remember ever discussing money together.
I always remember how before I came, Ben told me about how one of his students accidentally said he was from another world instead of another country, and how for a Paraguayan it was not such an inappropriate error because of their lack of contact with other nations. You see, for many years Paraguay was closed to the rest of the world due to political reasons, and besides the landscape makes it somewhat impenetrable. To counteract this isolationism, we had a missions week at the school where every class chose a country, learned its capital, what percentage of the population is Christian or Muslim, looked for recipes, etc. It culminated last night with an international festival. Everyone made foods from their chosen country to sell, kids were dressed in traditional clothes, each class presented its respective country and prayer requests, and there was a strong focus on missions. I thought it was very fun, the kids learned about countries they probably didn’t even know existed (kindergarten kids and Morocco, grade four and Turkey), and the money that was raised will go towards a school project. I think the international flavour of Colegio Adonai is one thing that makes our school really special. It is good for the kids not only to be taught to learn about and pray for other nations, but to have contact with other cultures every day at school. One of my goals in coming here was for people to see that Christianity is much bigger than just the Paraguayan version, and that the Gospel is applicable in any culture. Unfortunately, just last year grade 4 did Canada, so no one repeated it this year. Although I don’t know how much help I would have been since I think our most traditional food is donuts and I have no idea what’s going on in politics right now.
Update on Rueben:
I knew that paying him 10 mil (10,000Gs) was way too much, now I will never be able to leave the grocery store alone in peace. He insisted on carrying my bags even though I only had 3,000 to give him. In the end I was glad though, because I didn’t have to walk home in the dark and because he was really chatty this time and now I feel like we are almost friends. He lives close to another much bigger grocery store farther down the street, but he couldn’t apply for a job there because he doesn’t have an address. I didn’t understand at first that his mom had died, because he used a euphemism with which I was not familiar (but now I know, so as to not pass through that awkwardness again). Now he lives with his dad, his aunt and 5 other brothers and sisters. And it turns out I was right in being suspect of his wage; he doesn’t really make 10 or 12 dollars per shift, that is the maximum. He admitted to me that sometimes he works 6 hours and makes less than a dollar. But before you start feeling sorry for Rueben, know that he is saving up to buy a new cell phone. He has one now, but he wants a fancier one with a camera and then he can take pictures of his girlfriend.
This week I re-read the diary of Anne Frank. It is almost eerie how utterly complete the work is in and of itself, how the plot moves along with such force, and how perfect in foreshadowing and timing it is. It gives me shivers to read about Anne wanting to be more than just a housewife, to be a writer and live on after her death, and then to think about how those wishes were fulfilled. It just goes to show that we cannot really improve on the drama of daily life, even if it is just eight people stuck in a secret hiding place with nothing to do but read books, reiterate their political opinions and fight over butter rations. I couldn’t help making comparisons to my blog, which is also a narrative and commentary on daily life. I apologize for not having such humorsly annoying characters or an idealized romatic relationship; I suppose my comic Mrs. Van Daan is the way I make fun of Paraguayan inefficiency. Like Anne, I am the most happy when I can be outside on a beautiful day and am also very concerned with self-improvement. However (in the spirit of diary sharing), my personal entry on January 16, 2007 states that “If I have a story to tell, I will not be the hero.” I then write about my intention to be an honest observer, and hopefully the heroes that emerge will be “the people I meet, the buildings, the streets, the dogs…” and all the other things here that make daily life such an adventure. I am definitely looking forward to the time when I will back home and back to “normal,” but there are certain “Peters” I have developed here…NO, I’m not talking about boys to cuddle with, but those things that make my life here very satisfying and comfortable and I am going to miss very much. Two of those things will be Ben and Karen my fellow north Americans, and here are the links to their blogs:
http://karen-lifeinparaguay.blogspot.com
http://suddenlysenor.blogspot.com
I knew that paying him 10 mil (10,000Gs) was way too much, now I will never be able to leave the grocery store alone in peace. He insisted on carrying my bags even though I only had 3,000 to give him. In the end I was glad though, because I didn’t have to walk home in the dark and because he was really chatty this time and now I feel like we are almost friends. He lives close to another much bigger grocery store farther down the street, but he couldn’t apply for a job there because he doesn’t have an address. I didn’t understand at first that his mom had died, because he used a euphemism with which I was not familiar (but now I know, so as to not pass through that awkwardness again). Now he lives with his dad, his aunt and 5 other brothers and sisters. And it turns out I was right in being suspect of his wage; he doesn’t really make 10 or 12 dollars per shift, that is the maximum. He admitted to me that sometimes he works 6 hours and makes less than a dollar. But before you start feeling sorry for Rueben, know that he is saving up to buy a new cell phone. He has one now, but he wants a fancier one with a camera and then he can take pictures of his girlfriend.
This week I re-read the diary of Anne Frank. It is almost eerie how utterly complete the work is in and of itself, how the plot moves along with such force, and how perfect in foreshadowing and timing it is. It gives me shivers to read about Anne wanting to be more than just a housewife, to be a writer and live on after her death, and then to think about how those wishes were fulfilled. It just goes to show that we cannot really improve on the drama of daily life, even if it is just eight people stuck in a secret hiding place with nothing to do but read books, reiterate their political opinions and fight over butter rations. I couldn’t help making comparisons to my blog, which is also a narrative and commentary on daily life. I apologize for not having such humorsly annoying characters or an idealized romatic relationship; I suppose my comic Mrs. Van Daan is the way I make fun of Paraguayan inefficiency. Like Anne, I am the most happy when I can be outside on a beautiful day and am also very concerned with self-improvement. However (in the spirit of diary sharing), my personal entry on January 16, 2007 states that “If I have a story to tell, I will not be the hero.” I then write about my intention to be an honest observer, and hopefully the heroes that emerge will be “the people I meet, the buildings, the streets, the dogs…” and all the other things here that make daily life such an adventure. I am definitely looking forward to the time when I will back home and back to “normal,” but there are certain “Peters” I have developed here…NO, I’m not talking about boys to cuddle with, but those things that make my life here very satisfying and comfortable and I am going to miss very much. Two of those things will be Ben and Karen my fellow north Americans, and here are the links to their blogs:
http://karen-lifeinparaguay.blogspot.com
http://suddenlysenor.blogspot.com
Monday, June 11, 2007
One of the very first things I noticed about Paraguay is that it is a very service-oriented society. Even though upon arrival I only had two pieces of luggage, and two other people to help me besides, the guys at the airport insisted on carrying it for me. Of course you have to give them a tip after, but to refuse the service would be somewhat of a cultural blunder.
Up until earlier this week, however, I have opted against soliciting the help of a bag boy at the supermarket to help carry my groceries. Due to my obsession with effciency, probably even more than most other North Americans, I usually run to the supermarket, stuff my backpack with food, and if it isn’t too heavy, then I trot home too. Having a bag boy along would slow me down a lot. Usually I don’t have that much, because I go at least two or three times a week. This way I can buy my vegetables on Tuesdays when there is a 20% discount, and meat on Thursdays at a 10% discount. Everything from the bakery is 20% off on Wednesdays, but it’s not worth the pain because even if I bought a huge bag of bread, it’s so cheap and at most I would only save less than ten cents. Besides, I really like to have fresh bread, no more than 2 days old. And if it lasts longer than that, I buy fresh bread and make croutons out of the old! Maybe everyone thinks I am cheap, but I have to do something, since coupons don’t exist here and I don’t have the option of doing comparison shopping.
Returning to the former topic, another problem with the bag boys is the way some of them put the tomatoes on the bottom of the bag, underneath something heavy like a can of peas! Or when they stick ground beef and lettuce in the same bag. You’d think if someone bagged groceries for a living, they would think about stuff like that. So I don’t want to give a tip to someone who can’t even do their job competently. But I suppose the main reason is that I would have to walk 11 blocks in uncomfortable silence, or I would have to make small-talk with a stranger, not to mention some 15-year-old boy who would probably not understand me or make fun of my accent.
Last week I went to pick mandarin oranges at the neighbours’. I spent about 40 minutes there, playing with the kids, constructing a long stick with a hook on for getting the ones high up, and picking oranges between conversations, but when I was ready to go, the lady seemed to want me to stay longer. I gave the excuse that I was going to the supermarket, which was true, but on my way I felt convicted, knowing I could have passed another hour at her house and still fit in everything that I had to do that day. Jesus would have fit well into Paraguayan society. He always had time to sit and talk to a woman at a well, get up and preach an impromptu sermon, go to a synagogue leader’s house to heal his daughter. I read an article in Christianity Today, almost humorous, about how Jesus’ seemed to not really have any plan other than eventually get to Jerusalem and be killed. “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake” “You give them something to eat” “What do you want me to do for you?” His life lessons popped out of things he observed as he wandered around “Look at the flowers of the field” “Let the children come to me” “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.” I had a friend in college that used to stand in the longest line at the grocery store in order to start a conversation with the person waiting in front of him, and he wasn’t even a very outgoing person. If you’re trying to model your life after Christ, you’re better off not planning too much and taking provisions for the journey, and better to stay up all night praying than get some shut-eye even if you have an important meeting the next day.
I made a deal with my heavy conscience that if help was offered me, I would take him up on it. Oh, I forgot to say another reason why I was thinking of the bag boys is that I heard they don’t actually get a salary, just the money they make from tips, so I thought maybe I should start letting them help me so they could make money, plus I could find out if this was actually true. Here is a summary of my 11-block conversation with Rueben the bag boy from Stock Supermercado on Cacique Lambaré:
-15-old-boy, goes to school in the mornings and works 6 hours every day after school and on weekends too (that’s a high school student with a 42 hour workweek)
-thinks he has a great job, likes his coworkers, doesn’t have a salary but sometimes he gets free food at work
-the farthest he ever had to walk was 7 blocks with an old woman. I made him count how many blocks it was to my house. He said 11 but I have the suspicion he was just guessing
-I also have a hard time believing that he makes 10 to 12 dollars per shift, which means he would be making over $3600 per year, more than a full-time teacher at our school who works about 3 hours more per week, and over double the average income in Paraguay which according to a 2004 Encyclopedia is $1,570. (Although I am sure it is actually a lot lower than that, considering the 75% of the population who make less than minimum wage because it’s not enforced.)
-the best tippers are middle-aged men, but Rueben informed me that the ones who need help most often are the other señoritas “like yourself” (My theory from my waitressing days is that men tip more because they don’t have purses to put the change in and change in the pockets is annoying)
-usually him and his coworkers tell each other how much they make in tips. He tries to be in the lines of people who he knows give good tips and gives them better service. Sometimes he likes to keep a secret of a good tipper to himself so he can be the first to offer to carry their bags. I had no idea how much to give him, but I was scared to give him too much since he told me he was almost certainly going to tell the others the amount, and I didn’t want them to be too anxious to help me next time.
-sometimes people give him food as part of the tip. I hadn’t bought any snack foods, but I offered him mandarin oranges, which he refused.
-I gave him 10,000Gs ($2). Later Emi told me that half of that would have been a generous tip. I justified it by thinking at least now I know how many blocks it is to the super and to pay him for all the information he shared with me. Plus all I had was the 10 mil or 3 bills worth one mil each, which seemed too little for a boy supposedly making almost 10 mil an hour.
-Rueben has never had someone ask him so many questions in his life. I wanted him to be very happy and say “si gracias!” when I handed him the money and asked if it was suficiente. He responded with an ambivalent “I don’t know.” Maybe after all the talk about money he was expecting a new car or something. Maybe he was confused and just wanted to get back to work. As for me, I went in my house and giggled as I put away the groceries, folded the bags just how Emi likes them, and thought about writing this in my blog.
Up until earlier this week, however, I have opted against soliciting the help of a bag boy at the supermarket to help carry my groceries. Due to my obsession with effciency, probably even more than most other North Americans, I usually run to the supermarket, stuff my backpack with food, and if it isn’t too heavy, then I trot home too. Having a bag boy along would slow me down a lot. Usually I don’t have that much, because I go at least two or three times a week. This way I can buy my vegetables on Tuesdays when there is a 20% discount, and meat on Thursdays at a 10% discount. Everything from the bakery is 20% off on Wednesdays, but it’s not worth the pain because even if I bought a huge bag of bread, it’s so cheap and at most I would only save less than ten cents. Besides, I really like to have fresh bread, no more than 2 days old. And if it lasts longer than that, I buy fresh bread and make croutons out of the old! Maybe everyone thinks I am cheap, but I have to do something, since coupons don’t exist here and I don’t have the option of doing comparison shopping.
Returning to the former topic, another problem with the bag boys is the way some of them put the tomatoes on the bottom of the bag, underneath something heavy like a can of peas! Or when they stick ground beef and lettuce in the same bag. You’d think if someone bagged groceries for a living, they would think about stuff like that. So I don’t want to give a tip to someone who can’t even do their job competently. But I suppose the main reason is that I would have to walk 11 blocks in uncomfortable silence, or I would have to make small-talk with a stranger, not to mention some 15-year-old boy who would probably not understand me or make fun of my accent.
Last week I went to pick mandarin oranges at the neighbours’. I spent about 40 minutes there, playing with the kids, constructing a long stick with a hook on for getting the ones high up, and picking oranges between conversations, but when I was ready to go, the lady seemed to want me to stay longer. I gave the excuse that I was going to the supermarket, which was true, but on my way I felt convicted, knowing I could have passed another hour at her house and still fit in everything that I had to do that day. Jesus would have fit well into Paraguayan society. He always had time to sit and talk to a woman at a well, get up and preach an impromptu sermon, go to a synagogue leader’s house to heal his daughter. I read an article in Christianity Today, almost humorous, about how Jesus’ seemed to not really have any plan other than eventually get to Jerusalem and be killed. “Let’s cross over to the other side of the lake” “You give them something to eat” “What do you want me to do for you?” His life lessons popped out of things he observed as he wandered around “Look at the flowers of the field” “Let the children come to me” “The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed.” I had a friend in college that used to stand in the longest line at the grocery store in order to start a conversation with the person waiting in front of him, and he wasn’t even a very outgoing person. If you’re trying to model your life after Christ, you’re better off not planning too much and taking provisions for the journey, and better to stay up all night praying than get some shut-eye even if you have an important meeting the next day.
I made a deal with my heavy conscience that if help was offered me, I would take him up on it. Oh, I forgot to say another reason why I was thinking of the bag boys is that I heard they don’t actually get a salary, just the money they make from tips, so I thought maybe I should start letting them help me so they could make money, plus I could find out if this was actually true. Here is a summary of my 11-block conversation with Rueben the bag boy from Stock Supermercado on Cacique Lambaré:
-15-old-boy, goes to school in the mornings and works 6 hours every day after school and on weekends too (that’s a high school student with a 42 hour workweek)
-thinks he has a great job, likes his coworkers, doesn’t have a salary but sometimes he gets free food at work
-the farthest he ever had to walk was 7 blocks with an old woman. I made him count how many blocks it was to my house. He said 11 but I have the suspicion he was just guessing
-I also have a hard time believing that he makes 10 to 12 dollars per shift, which means he would be making over $3600 per year, more than a full-time teacher at our school who works about 3 hours more per week, and over double the average income in Paraguay which according to a 2004 Encyclopedia is $1,570. (Although I am sure it is actually a lot lower than that, considering the 75% of the population who make less than minimum wage because it’s not enforced.)
-the best tippers are middle-aged men, but Rueben informed me that the ones who need help most often are the other señoritas “like yourself” (My theory from my waitressing days is that men tip more because they don’t have purses to put the change in and change in the pockets is annoying)
-usually him and his coworkers tell each other how much they make in tips. He tries to be in the lines of people who he knows give good tips and gives them better service. Sometimes he likes to keep a secret of a good tipper to himself so he can be the first to offer to carry their bags. I had no idea how much to give him, but I was scared to give him too much since he told me he was almost certainly going to tell the others the amount, and I didn’t want them to be too anxious to help me next time.
-sometimes people give him food as part of the tip. I hadn’t bought any snack foods, but I offered him mandarin oranges, which he refused.
-I gave him 10,000Gs ($2). Later Emi told me that half of that would have been a generous tip. I justified it by thinking at least now I know how many blocks it is to the super and to pay him for all the information he shared with me. Plus all I had was the 10 mil or 3 bills worth one mil each, which seemed too little for a boy supposedly making almost 10 mil an hour.
-Rueben has never had someone ask him so many questions in his life. I wanted him to be very happy and say “si gracias!” when I handed him the money and asked if it was suficiente. He responded with an ambivalent “I don’t know.” Maybe after all the talk about money he was expecting a new car or something. Maybe he was confused and just wanted to get back to work. As for me, I went in my house and giggled as I put away the groceries, folded the bags just how Emi likes them, and thought about writing this in my blog.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
I wrote a poem about my house last week. I am not going to post here because I think it could possibly be read it as a long list of complaints, and really I love my house and am very comfortable here. However, I don’t think a visitor would necessarily be comfortable, because in order to get along well with my house you have to know her tricks. For example, if you leave the fridge plugged in for more than 7 hours on a chilly day, it will freeze your lettuce. And if the day is really cold, I wouldn’t leave it more than 4. I wrote in my last entry that our shower doesn’t have hot water, but that was before I learned the trick. The neighbourhood handyman demonstrated to me that the faucet needs to be turned just so, and you knows it’s at the right place when the light dims a little because the shower is using electricity to heat the water then. I tried showing it to my roommate, but wasn’t quite sure of exactly how to find the sweet spot. Her concern was “what if you need to take a shower and you’re in a hurry?”
Anyways, I’m glad I wrote about having a cold shower in my blog, because Lane and Sheri Elliot, fellow Albertans serving as missionaries in my very city, read it and kindly invited me over to their house to take a hot shower. You always hear about how when Bolivians or Hondurans run into each other in a foreign country they will embrace each other and act as though they’ve known each other their whole life even though they are complete strangers. Well, I think it’s the same with Canadians, or at least Albertans. We had no trouble filling up six hours, talking (in English) about everything from to vegan diets to language school to Leighton Hickman! Lane filled me in on the Paraguayan political situation (an ironic mess!), we drank tea together, and looked at maps of Paraguay (apparently Paraguay is bigger than Germany which we find hard to believe), and Sheri told me about how they ended up together (They were highschool sweethearts. When Lane remarked, “what do I know? I’m only 32” Sheri was able to tell him that he’d been saying that since he was 17.) My favourite part was their really cute kids. It was weird to hear little voices speaking in English, or I should say euphoric. A recurring theme throughout the evening was Tim Horton’s and Timbits. Their language tutor always asked them what was a Canadian food, and they best they could come up with was Timbits, and of course the tutor thought it must be some kind of joke to say that the national food is the donut hole. I can honestly say I haven’t thought about Tim Horton’s even once prior to last night, but I woke up this morning craving a honey crueller.
I have always wondered why people say it’s so important to be married if you want to be a missionary. In my mind, it makes a lot more sense to be soltera, free to serve others, immerse yourself in the culture and not have a family to take care of. But it sometimes comes at the high cost of personal crisis: homesickness, loneliness and “I can’t do this!!” Sure the Elliot’s miss some things (like Timbits), but whenever they want they can return to Canadian society just by entering their home and being together as a family and being reminded that they have each other and that is what the most important. I am so thankful that I could spend time with the Elliots, and that I am always welcome in Oscar and Karen’s home, and that I can always pick up a book in English and transport myself to familiarity; but at the same time I am so glad to have the experience of living with Emi and learning so much about Paraguayan life and to go whole days without speaking a word of English. I just don’t think I could do for the rest of my life.
Anyways, I’m glad I wrote about having a cold shower in my blog, because Lane and Sheri Elliot, fellow Albertans serving as missionaries in my very city, read it and kindly invited me over to their house to take a hot shower. You always hear about how when Bolivians or Hondurans run into each other in a foreign country they will embrace each other and act as though they’ve known each other their whole life even though they are complete strangers. Well, I think it’s the same with Canadians, or at least Albertans. We had no trouble filling up six hours, talking (in English) about everything from to vegan diets to language school to Leighton Hickman! Lane filled me in on the Paraguayan political situation (an ironic mess!), we drank tea together, and looked at maps of Paraguay (apparently Paraguay is bigger than Germany which we find hard to believe), and Sheri told me about how they ended up together (They were highschool sweethearts. When Lane remarked, “what do I know? I’m only 32” Sheri was able to tell him that he’d been saying that since he was 17.) My favourite part was their really cute kids. It was weird to hear little voices speaking in English, or I should say euphoric. A recurring theme throughout the evening was Tim Horton’s and Timbits. Their language tutor always asked them what was a Canadian food, and they best they could come up with was Timbits, and of course the tutor thought it must be some kind of joke to say that the national food is the donut hole. I can honestly say I haven’t thought about Tim Horton’s even once prior to last night, but I woke up this morning craving a honey crueller.
I have always wondered why people say it’s so important to be married if you want to be a missionary. In my mind, it makes a lot more sense to be soltera, free to serve others, immerse yourself in the culture and not have a family to take care of. But it sometimes comes at the high cost of personal crisis: homesickness, loneliness and “I can’t do this!!” Sure the Elliot’s miss some things (like Timbits), but whenever they want they can return to Canadian society just by entering their home and being together as a family and being reminded that they have each other and that is what the most important. I am so thankful that I could spend time with the Elliots, and that I am always welcome in Oscar and Karen’s home, and that I can always pick up a book in English and transport myself to familiarity; but at the same time I am so glad to have the experience of living with Emi and learning so much about Paraguayan life and to go whole days without speaking a word of English. I just don’t think I could do for the rest of my life.
