Rohayhu Paraguay <3: Why isn´t Paraguay more famous?

This is on one of the only paved roads in my town, I don´t know why this cow was walking down it

This is when we went to visit the Rural Economic Development group at their temporary site, it was really beautiful out there

learning how to transplant plants at the training center

The Muni girls minus Rebecca at a San Juan festival

This is when I was in San Lorenzo, the second biggest city in Paraguay, and I was interviewed on the radio for a radio show they were having about the municipality. It was pretty comical considering it was all in Spanish.

It has so much to offer…

Here are some of the top:

- The biggest underground aquifer in the world (under the Chaco)

- It’s the only country that has a different code of arms on the front and back of the flag (a star and a lion)

- Contains the last frontier of South America (the Chaco)

- The biggest operating dam in the world (Itaipu, soon to be topped by three gorges)

- Equal-distance from every coast of South America (good business headquarters)

- Fertile soil and beautiful flowers

- Colorado political party is the oldest party to be in power in the world, but it will be somewhat replaced, by a new party, mix of liberales and colorados, starting August 15^th, when the new president elect Lugo, the former bishop, swears in.

- Highest population growth rate in South America

- We beat Brazil in soccer on Saturday, for the second time EVER! (score: 2-0)

- Had the longest dictatorship in South America (1954-1989)

- I think it has the fastest deforestation rate in the world, but at least in South America

Personal offerings:

- Everything, Paraguayans are so hospitable it’s ridiculous, especially when you consider how little they have

- Games with fire- I’ll try to upload a video from the San Juan Festival (saint of fire)

- Lots of tea

- Parties until 6 in the morning

- Lots of music and dancing

- Lots of culture and traditions

As a side note, the legacy of the dictatorship is very detrimental to the creation of a fully-functioning democracy. For 60-some years there was no civil society and groups more than two people were not allowed to congregate, with the exception of family members. This has led to a generation that has no idea what steps they should even take to hold their government accountable. Civic education is critical for the upcoming generation, if they want to decrease the governmental corruption that is rampant in the country currently. This fact makes my future job especially difficult because it can be very difficult to organize people and motivate people to hold their municipalities accountable as well as demand the services they are being promised.

The festival of San Juan is very unique in the way it is celebrated to Paraguay. He is the Saint of Fire and therefore there are a lot of games with fire that take place during the three weeks of celebration, with the most important being June 24^th. They celebrate with games, traditional foods, and traditional dancing and music. Some of the games include pelota tata (tata means fire in Guarani, and Pelota means ball in Spanish). This is where little kids kick around a ball on fire, I don’t think there is really a point to it. Eventually the ball falls apart. Sometimes people catch on fire and the whole crowd helps to put them out, unfortunately, I wasn’t lucky enough to witness nay incidents like this. Haha. Every San Juan celebration ends with Judas Ca’i, which is a dummy made out of old clothes and usually they give it a name, like Bush, Bolivian Soccer players, or corrupt Paraguayan politicians and they hang it in a tree and light it on fire. Inside the dummy there are bombs, so once the fire starts to burn into the inside of the dummy, it starts to explode and falls from the tree. I’ll try to post a video that my friend taped if I can. They also have regular games, like sack races and something similar to a piñata, but it’s actually a clay pot that you hit and it has candies in it.

Some of the traditional foods eaten during this time are mbeyu (in Guarani) which is kind of like a cheesy bread pancake made with flour of mandioca, I like it a lot for a snack. Also, a type of empanada that is also made out of their favorite food, mandioca. I don’t know if I’ve talked much about mandoica, but it is at every meal, without fail. They eat it like bread, and they dip it their food, or just eat it on the side. If you don’t know, it’s a very starchy vegetable, kind of like a potato, and they fry on it occasion and make something similar to a French fry. I try not to eat it much because it doesn’t add much to the meal and it is a load of empty calories, and they already over feed me as it is.

They also have lots of traditional dances, two that I learned about is the “chipera” which means seller of Chipa (a cheesy bread they sell in the streets) and the girls dance around with chipa trays haha. The other one is “solita” where one person sits on the chair and the members from the opposite sex dance around the chair. I was preschoolers do it when I went to observe a class and it was sooo cute, I’ll try to post that too. There are tons of traditional dances and another cool one is with the pots on their heads and they dance all around while balancing the pots on their heads and they even laid on the floor and rolled to their backs, it was pretty impressive. The traditional music consists of guitar and harp music for the most part, usually with a singer as well.