Twelve Years Gone - November 2023 visit to Nueva Germania

 One of the strangest things about traveling, especially on a relatively short break from a regular working schedule, is that it highlights how linear time is. I’m here, sitting on the porch on a blessedly cool drizzly morning in Nueva Germania, Paraguay, at a friend’s house. I lived in this town from May 2011 to February 2012. There are chickens wandering around the patio and yard (as there are everywhere). It’s a world apart from where I was and what I was doing a week ago, and the week before that and the week before that and the week before that. In a big way it feels like I’ve been transported back to twelve years ago when I lived in this town, when I was last immersed in these sights and smells and sounds and social cues and ways of speaking and all of it. 

Generally I remember past experiences as kind of cloud of memories/places/interactions, all essentially related to each other and to the present moment in a not very hierarchical way. Most of my memories are from close to home, and it’s easy to revisit them and the places where they happened. But when I’m at my desk at work, no amount of remembering could put me on this bench in Nueva Germania, and it’s difficult to even come up with any sensations that are close to the sights, smells, sounds etc. of this part of the world. But then, by boarding a plane, and then another, and then two more after that, and then a taxi and a bus, boom I am here and in a lot of ways it’s like I’ve transported twelve years back into my past.

Many of the teachers I worked with here are still working, but are near retirement (teachers retire early here and then get a pension). Few people I was close with have passed away. The streets and buildings and foods and animals are still here. So the memory still holds its shape, for now, and it’s satisfying and reassuring and fun to step back into it, and bind it more coherently to the rest of my life.

At the same time my past experience of Paraguay was shaped by my peculiar role as a Peace Corps volunteer. Idealistic, still fresh out of college, getting by on a low-budget, trying to let go of my American assumptions, with a bevy of compañeros to confide in and compare experiences with and get tips tricks and reliable updates. Now I’m a tourist, not bound by any organizational rules, with money to spend, and a short timeline. All of my Peace Corps companions are gone, except Johanna who works for the department of State now, and has been posted at the embassy for the last year or so. I’m older, more confident, wiser I think, and with so much less to prove.

Back then, especially when I started, I had a tendency to romanticize poverty. Partly that was out of a desire to help those with the least resources, but partly it was my desire to be a time-travelling tourist, and see how people lived fifty or a hundred years ago. I came here with no computer or audio player and initially tried to live without a refrigerator when I moved out on my own. My dad ended up bringing me a laptop and shipping me an old ipod and I broke down and bought a refrigerator, but I did make it the whole time without air conditioning in my home.

I was trying to shed my Americanness and live in a “true Paraguay”. But there was no such thing. Waves of change were washing over the country then as they are now. The spread of technology in the last ten years is impressive; smartphones seem ubiquitous, and mobile internet coverage is excellent, so far at least. Residential wifi seems to be a common thing, partly purred on by the pandemic. Air conditioners likewise are even more common, which is a good thing because it’s gotten hotter, and they still have cheap, clean hydroelectric power. 

I was surprised to find that they’ve paved most of the streets in Nueva Germania. I think they paved over all the ones that were previously cobblestone, I imagine that provides a solid base for the asphalt on top. There are a few new public buildings, and new houses, though I don’t remember well enough to know exactly which. Everyone uses WhatsApp on their phones instead of regular texts and calls. There’s a lot you can look up online, and gosh it’s so much easier to travel with a smart phone, with Google Maps and Translate etc. It’s also fun to have such a good camera on my phone, and to be able to easily upload photos and videos to social media.

Lyda waiting for the bus with me

I asked Lyda about earlier changes. The highway that runs through town and connects with the capital has only been paved since 2007 or so. Running water only became available in town a decade or so before that. Lyda was in her mid-twenties when electricity arrives - so about 35 years ago, maybe around 1990. I didn’t ask Lyda about water transportation, but I remember my Doña Lola and Don Ramon previously telling me they remember when boats where still the primary way to get to other cities and towns.   

Lyda dealt with her own linear time dilemma during my stay. Her mother passed away the day after I arrived. She said just a few weeks ago they had been sitting on this same porch together, laughing and joking. Her mom liked to stay up late, and would try to get Lyda to staff up late too even though she had to work. 

I’m so fortunate to be able to come back and see my friends, people that cared for me, people I worked with. To step back inside that memory with the perspective of a 37 year old gainfully employed adult. It’s helps clarify what about that time was contingent on my temporary perspective as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and what was really about this place.