I'm currently staying with my host family in Guarambaré. My previous post not withstanding, it's wonderful to see them again. Words fail to describe the privilege of being able to travel across the world and to be received with such kindness and generosity.
A few quick notes from the last few days:
- In every family I’ve visited several family members have diabetes and/or hypertension. It’s not hard to see why - there’s not much societal immunity to cheap, heavily-marketed, processed foods full of sugar and white flour. There’s growing awareness and concern, but still it seems like many people don’t have the fundamentals to understand how sugar is sugar, even if it’s dissolved in soda. It’s a shame because the country is rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, and people do in fact eat them, but they’re generally looked down on and not considered proper food.
- My host mother in Guarambaré was stuck by a driver in front of her business/home about a month ago. She’s mostly recovered but her back was injured and still hurts a lot, especially since she spends long days on her feet working in her beauty salon/school. This case was particularly stupid - they showed me the security camera footage from the pharmacy next door - she’s walking on the side of the road and the driver just slowly backs into her from a long ways away. He was probably looking at his phone? It’s a bizarre outlier, but it does highlight how dangerous it is to walk in many places in Paraguay today, with heavy truck, car, and motorcycle traffic, and few, poorly maintained sidewalks.
- Now that I have a good-paying job, and since my life has continued to be blessedly easy and fortunate, the contrast between my living conditions and those of my Paraguay friends is all the more stark. When I came here in 2011 I’d had a hard time finding a job after college during the Great Recession, had loads of student debt, and most recently had been working - and freezing my butt off - for minimum wage as a Salvation Army bell ringer outside of a Fred Meyer in Portland . I could at least share stories of some difficulties I’d had. Now, I make good money at a job I like. I have a masters degree in a subject I find fascinating. I live in a safe, clean house with a wonderful girlfriend. Neither I nor any of my family members have grave diseases. My government rained money on out economy during the pandemic, unlike here, where there was a crippling recession, many lost their jobs, and simply couldn’t put food on the table. My life circumstances are objectively, to an almost unbelievable degree, fortunate. At least I can complain about housing costs…
- The heat yesterday was oppressive - I think it got up to 98 F, with 50% humidity towards the end of the day. It rained last night so it cooled off quite a bit, but the humidity is also much higher. It was even hotter the week before I arrived. I’ve also been blessed with several cool windy days in the 70s, but everyone I talk to mentions how much hotter the weather is these days. We’ve only in November, the equivalent of May in their calendar. I remember December and January being impossibly hot, feverlike months, especially my first year in Nueva Germania in the north of the country. Folks know it’s climate change, though I haven’t heard any interest or enthusiasm about how to address it. There’s no rage, just dismay, and a certain grudging acceptance. What else can they do? Paraguay contributes to little to global carbon emissions, doesn’t have fantastic state capacity for major policy programs, and has little influence abroad. Fortunately electricity remains cheap, and clean (hydropower), and air conditioning is increasingly ubiquitous. Still, I’m afraid of what will happen here in the next few decades. Is there a breaking point?
- In addition to the increasing availability of air conditioning, I’ve also noticed folks I visit now have good quality modern washing machines. When I was here ten years ago most washing was still done by hand or in large, strange sloshing machines that didn’t really get the job done. Every house I’ve visited (all middle-class households) has wifi and everyone has smart phones. Say what you will about the global economic system, but the availability of these affordable, incredibly useful products in a relatively poor country is most definitely a happy story.
- When I was here last Facebook was the new thing, significantly altering how and increasing the amount of time people used the internet. The effect of cell phones was still working it’s way through the economy, with the legacy government provided landline telephone provider existing largely as a source of patronage jobs. Peace Corps Volunteers used our tiny simple cells phones to send texts and call each other (in free 10-minute increments). Smartphones, especially the Samsung Galaxy 3, were just starting to appear. Now WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) is the ubiquitous way to call or text, including video calls and sharing images. Google maps is also pretty widely used and incredibly helpful - my host family’s hair salon is shown, for instance. Mostly people send short voice messages instead of calling or texting, which hasn’t widely caught on in the USA, among my social circles at least, but makes sense in a place with relatively low functional literacy and where oral and written communication differ in the language in which they are expressed. (Written communication tends to be a fluid mix of Spanish and Guaraní, while written communication is usually confined to just Spanish.)
- The little things, the little ways things are done always remind you that you’re in a foreign land. Habits of eating and drinking, expectations around the kitchen, ways of traveling, the questions that are asked and the appropriate responses. There are little things that annoy me of course - dirty refrigerators, no napkins at the table, no middle sheet on the bed - but it’s all relative. Good to remember how our expectations are invented. Good to be reminded there’s no one right way to do things.
