counterclockwise

So I’m in Asunción for a little unscheduled medical visit. Nothing serious at all, just a convoluted it-could-only-happen-in-Paraguay story. I’d had a bit of the flu up in Tacuatí for several days. A little fever, a rotten migraine, nothing to write home about. But I started getting really woozy and shaky around Tuesday, and the weather was getting messy.

It’s just the flu; we all know the modus operandi. You feel awful for most of a week and live on ibuprofen. Then it gets better on its own and there’s nothing a doctor can do about that. But all the same, I decided to play it safe and get myself within range of medical services before the rain took that option away from me.

Of course, by the time the bus rolls into Asunción, my symptoms have pretty much cleared up, and I feel like a stupid cry baby. But no sooner have I struck off for the office, but a massive allergy attack comes over me, the worst I’ve had in years. In the space of five minutes (and to the complete horror of my fellow city bus passengers) I go from a relatively normal kind of non-Paraguayan freak to some sort of oozing extra from a zombie movie. For some reason, my right lower eyelid swelled up like I was trying to bring a pet caterpillar along for a scenic tour of the country. I’m still kicking myself for not bringing my camera. This kind of thing has to be seen to be believed.

So by the time I get to the Peace Corps office, my appearance puts small children in tears, and I actually do need to see our staff doctor. Nothing like a Cortizone shot in the butt to put some zing in your afternoon. It must have been a self-fulfilling prophecy, that’s all I can figure. I came to Asunción because I was worried something bad would happen in a place where I can’t get much help. And then in the absence of any real complaint, my immune system decided to backfire up one of its own once I got within a needle’s reach.

And now my eye is back to normal, my flu is gone, and I’m heading back to site. If I make it through the ride back without acute appendicitis, I think I’ll be ahead of the game.

The Guaraní word of the day is chivivi. This is a digestive symptom I did not experience this week, although most people in Paraguay do sooner or later, especially in those households where the well is too close to the latrine. Living the fancy life, as I do have running water and a flush toilet, I get off light on those kinds of problems.

Well, Paraguay’s election day has come and gone. This has been the closest fight in the presidential race that Paraguay has seen in living memory. The dominant Colorado party’s candidate, Blanca Ovelar, though a loser in the popular vote, is the first woman to ever have a serious chance at the presidency here. I wish I could say that this is truly a progressive sign that machismo is finally ceding to modernity. But the reality is, she’s mainly a passive stand in for the country’s current president, Nicanor Duarte-Frutos.

Term limit laws prevent Nicanor for running under his own name. During his presidency, he tried and failed to amend the constitution to let him hold onto power, which was a profoundly unpopular move. Paraguay has a long, tortuous history with dictators-for-life and is still recovering from forty years of oppression at the hands of a megalomaniac by the name of Stroessner. So Nicanor, thwarted but not deterred, fell back to Plan B: appoint a tractable cabinet secretary to take his place.

Large factions of the Colorado party, including the vice president, did not take this move very well. The Colorado primary elections were acrimonious. Party unity was at its lowest ebb in years.

In previous decades, the Colorado candidate has had the guaranteed vote of every beneficiary of the government’s pork, graft, and dole (40% of the working population, by some estimates). There’s very little private industry here. Most services are provided by government bureaus. And the government bureaus are largely staffed with loyal Colorados, right down to the office errand runners and contractors. Disloyalty can cost a Paraguayan his irreplacable job. Conspicuous disloyalty can extend the penalty to his sons and brothers. So an extremely high level of outrage has to build before the Colorado machine breaks down under its own corruption.

The underdog opposition party, the Liberales, were actually a few points ahead in the pre-election polling. Their candidate is a popular guy by the name of Lugo. He’s not necessarily the best guy from an American perspective, but the Paraguayans could do worse. If that were all there were to it, I’d say he has just won this election. The problem is, Lugo was ordained a Catholic bishop.

Now in Latin America in general, being Catholic is more of a prerequisite for holding political office than a handicap. Paraguay is no different. But Paraguay’s constitution does mandate the separation of church and state. The separation laws here are toothless compared to those in the US (Prayer in public schools? Not just allowed, but compulsory) but they do prevent clergymen from holding positions of secular power.

Any Lugo supporter can tell you that the candidate is no longer acting as a Catholic bishop, that he has essentially abdicated his authority with the Church. And any Jesuit can tell you that Catholic ordinations just don’t work that way. When Lugo took his vows, there was no escape clause permitting him to leave if it became politically inconvenient. As with the Italian Mafia, once you are a made man of the cloth you cannot be unmade. At least, not by anything short of excommunication. In short, Lugo can’t disentangle himself from his staff and mitre without committing political suicide.

A few months back, in what looks at first glance like an extremely noble gesture of largesse, President Nicanor gave Lugo permission to run for office anyway. This sounds generous of him on the radio news, but is actually a shrewd display of gamesmanship. Nicanor can no more legalize Lugo’s candidacy than I can gift the Grand Canyon to him. As he demonstrated during his bid to overcome term limits, the president doesn’t have the authority to rewrite the constitution no matter how much he holds his breath and stamps his feet.

Nicanor and his advisors were quite aware that even though Lugo could pull off the upset and win this thing, they’d retain the ability to promptly haul him before the supreme court of Paraguay. Even if the justices weren’t all loyal Colorados down to the last man, Lugo would have a weak case. Now it remains to be seen if the Colorados will actually do this, or whether they’ll just take the loss as a done deal.

Nicanor’s permission is also a particularly deft act of political revenge against the supreme court. The same justices who shot down Nicanor’s last, frantic attempts to grab power are now going into the unenviable position of having to rule against the likeable, Catholic candidate who won the popular vote, and all for reasons that the average Paraguayan sees as befuddling technical quibbles.

You know, I only wish Nicanor’d been half this competent in actually running the country.

The Guaraní word of the week is rugua, meaning deep or internal. The Colorados typically do better out in the country because they are better able to mobilize campesinos from Paraguai rugua - the interior, the campo, the boonies, the back of Paraguay’s beyond. On election days the buses bring citizens of the hinterlands in to the polling places from dawn to dusk, but there’s no mistaking the party affiliation of each coach.

Well, if I’m going to end up a crazy old maid cat lady, I suppose there’s nothing to do but embrace it. The next logical step is to take up needlework, so here I go. I’m starting with crochet. So far, I’ve more or less got the hang of chain stitching, slip stitching, and I’m working on single crochet. My main problem is gauge. I read that a pro can work with yarn at any level of tension. It’s the mark of an amateur to need every strand locked down tight, and it leaves the end product stiff and less attractive.

So I’ve got a ways to go till I’m turning out works of art, but I’m having fun. Che mbaracajakuera are very jealous of anything that gets this much lap time, of course. It’s also good to sit and think warm thoughts because we’ve finally gotten through summer’s last insufferably hot gasp and into fresher weather. I’ve got all the neighbors intrigued. Thanks, Aunt Rite!

The Guaraní word of the day is kuña karai, meaning woman. Or more literally, female gentleman. Lots of women crochet out here. Most of them are making simple chains of white thread to decorate table cloths and traditional blouses for dance recitals. But every once in a while, you do see some remarkable, complex designs. My contact in Tacuatí made a meter square tapestry of swimming swans. The host mother I stayed with in Valenzuela gave me a very intricate embroidered pillow case. They’re both younger, professional types although there’s a fair share of grannies out there, clicking away with their hooks and needles.

This past week, my mother and her sister (my aunt) came to visit. That was wonderful on many different levels - wonderful to see them, wonderful to show off some of the fascinating parts of the life I’m living, and wonderful what they did for me while I was here. I have an elaborate new drainage system on my front patio now, a hammer, and a mind-boggling assortment of plastic bags and second-hand capri pants.

You have to have lived in Paraguay for a little while to understand how exciting some of this is. But take my word for it, I’m enormously grateful. And I’m especially grateful for their patience and flexibility. We had some hold ups in our travel arrangements. Nothing completely devastating, but some definite frustrations. I’ve known people who would have melted down in the face of being stranded by a broken bus, 20 kilometers from anything. But not these cool chicks.

The Guaraní word of the day is for giving commands. If you want to make an imperative statement to one person, you prefix the verb with the sound e. For two or more people, you use pe. There are various suffixes you can add to make a request more or less forceful. So if you wanted to politely request for people to come visit any time, the verb form would be pejumi.

I’m in Asunción for a few days. There’s always a lot to do when I’m here. Groceries and supplies to be bought, library books to exchange, e-mail to read, air to be conditioned, and green vegetables to be consumed.

This time, I’ve also got a ton of photos to be developed. My landlady’s oldest daughter (who’s also one of my computer students) recently had her fifteenth birthday party. So this month, in lieu of rent, I’m developing about a hundred different shots of friends, family, and frilly dresses.

Digital cameras are getting more popular in Paraguay, in much the same way that cell phones are. We seem to have by-passed film cameras and land lines completely. But cameras still aren’t quite ubiquitous yet, so I offer to take pictures when I get invited to events. And looking over the photos after the fact is a good way to get to put names to faces.

The Guaraní word of the day is the suffix -hape, meaning one’s presence at an event or party. Jahata fiestahape? Yes, thanks.

The good people of Tacuati have (correctly) figured me for a sucker. Yes, I’ve taken another step down the road to dying a crazy, old maid cat lady and accepted a second kitten.

I couldn’t not do it. The whole sordid story involves half a dozen sad-eyed children, a dead mother stray, two piteously mewling fuzz balls, and the cool, drenching rain of a Paraguayan autumn. And now (The shame! The horror!) I’m a single woman writing about her two cats on her website.

The new one is female, white with a few spots, possibly a distant relative of Mimosa’s. She’s a wretched little beast, an incessant screamer and an inveterate clawer. I’d finally gotten Mimosa 100% litterbox trained and coming when called. Now this newcomer has me starting over from square one with spoon feedings and urine mopping.

The kids who found her suggested the name Margarita, which means daisy in this part of the world. I’m going to treat that word’s English meaning (along with that of Mimosa) as entirely irrelevant and coincidental. You can’t buy tequila and triple sec in Tacuati, nor champagne. Or even real orange juice, as far as that goes.

The good news is, I should be getting passionfruit this year. In the five months that I´ve been in my house, my vine has gone from a little 10-leafed twig to a 20 foot long monster plant. There are plenty of things that don´t grow well in my part of the country (green vegetables, for example), but when it works, it really works.

The Guaraní word of the day is -kuera, which is the suffix used to make plurals. Che mbaracaja’i has become che mbaracaja’ikuera.

Sad to say I haven’t gotten a whole lot of teaching done at the coop here lately. Our computer monitor burnt out, which means a temporary halt to classes.

Which isn’t to say I haven’t been productive. We’ve been doing a lot of work with our actual business of giving loans and offering savings accounts. Sometime during 2006, the coop got behind on its bookkeeping. Some recent questions about our financial solvency have prompted us to do a complete re-tally of all our accounts. If I were trying to do that, and teach thirty hours a week, and design a new spreadsheet system, I’d go bonkers.

But the teaching load is off my shoulders for a bit here, and the timing couldn’t be better. I’ve done some nifty things in Excel. Now we just need to hire our next secretary so I can train somebody to use the new “hojas de calculo“.

The Guaraní word of the day is yva, meaning fruit.  The ciruela tree in my backyard has been raining little wild plums for about the last three weeks. Before that, it was the mango tree, and before that the lemon tree. The neighborhood kids tell me that the mandarin oranges are all but ready, but the grapefruit look like they need a month or more. Still no sign from the passionfruit and banana plants, but they’re good healthy specimens, so I live in hope.

I’ve been nothing but busy as of late, working hours that make 9 to 5 look good. There’s a certain amount of business with the financial co-op I work for, but largely it’s teaching computer classes that fills my days. It’s crazy. I went for months all but begging for people to sign up, and then at the first of the year they all came, so many that I’ve had to turn prospective students away.

I’m still not sure what it was that opened the flood gates. I don’t think New Year’s Resolutions are a big tradition here. It could be that the start of the New Year makes people think of the upcoming school year - and reflect on all those things they still need to get done over summer break. Whatever it was, the difference is night and day.

I’ve also found differences here in how people approach the material. Especially with my younger students, the Spanish language literacy requirement is a real challenge. Paraguayan culture has traditionally been more oral than written, which works for me and against me, both. Against me, because the written parts of the user interface are a little less intuitive in this environment. For me, because my students seem more at ease with receiving complicated instructions just by voice than Americans would be. 

I’ve known plenty of university students who dreaded that one class where the professor had a thick accent because they couldn’t follow him easily. Far as it goes, I’ve been one of those students. And now I’m the professor with the impenetrable foreign accent and awkward diction, and I really appreciate the patience my students have shown with me.

The Guaraní word of the day is mbo’e, meaning to teach. “I teach” would translate to ambo’e. “I teach computer” would require Spanish loan words because the Guaraní Indians certainly didn’t have computers. Or forks. Or wheels. Or any of thousands of other technologies we take for granted in day to day life. They did leave us an awful lot of words for different species of grass, though.

Three times now, I’ve tried to plant acelga (or by its more cumbersome English name, Swiss chard) for my little garden. It’s one of the very few leafy greens that tolerates the heat here well, and it’s good nutrition in a diet which is otherwise heavy on starch and dairy.

But three times now, what’s come out of my little starter pots has been beets. I’ve bought seeds of 2 different brands from 3 different sources over a span of about 4 months. Beets, beets, and more beets.

I’m baffled.

Every Paraguayan I’ve asked has reassured me that no, “acelga” is not just a little-documented nickname for beets. And everyone I’ve shown the seedlings to has verified that they’re definitely not just really funny looking acelga. Sometimes what I miss most about the US the quality control for manufactured goods.

Well, we’re past the solstice now. Our days are getting shorter and, hopefully, cooler. In another few weeks the climate should be a lot more lettuce-friendly and if I’m really lucky I’ll be able to find the seeds for broccoli.

The Guaraní word of the day is poty, meaning flower or bud. The previous resident in the house that I’m renting was a little old granny who dearly loved her flower beds. She died in the first half of 2007, but her prize roses live on even if the picket fence is getting a bit shabby.

Meet Mimosa! She’s my new kitten, a day-after-Christmas gift from the Sanguina-Martinez family. The name also comes courtesy of their children. She’s a little out of focus in this picture, which is only fair because she’s so small that the world is still a little out of focus to her.

I suppose we’ve always been more dog people in my immediate family, but I’d been planning for a while to get a cat here in Paraguay. For one thing, a cat is better able to fend for itself after you’ve completed your term of service. For another thing, no amount of familial dog preference can trump my overall anti-rat tendencies.

At present, Mimosa is substantially smaller than the rodents I hope she’ll soon be dispatching. She’s not onto solid foods yet. From the looks of things, she opened her eyes no more than a day before I got her. She also hasn’t quite figured out her forward gear yet. She can put it in reverse pretty well and crawl ahead a bit, but walking as most cats know it still escapes her.

She seems to be managing well enough of a diet of whole milk, bread crumbs, and raw egg, though. I don’t imagine she’ll stay small for long.

The Guaraní word of the day, naturally enough, is mbaracaja, which means cat. It’s easily confused with mburucuja, meaning passion fruit. During training, one of my classmates delightedly informed his host family that he’d eaten a lot of cat while on a field trip. But that was months ago and we don’t tease him about it anymore. Much.