yvy
yvága
yvytimbo
yvytembo
The words I just listed are land, sky, dust, and (of course, change one vowel in any word and you get...) penis! Those are fun to say, huh?
And don’t worry, my future site is called Curupayty, so I get to practice A LOT with making this sound.
Now something else about Guarani is it is pretty much just like transformers of words. Let’s start with a simple word “vai” which means ugly (one of the first words I learned, obviously). You can add “che-vai” which means I’m ugly. You can add “che-vai-terei” which means I am very ugly. Or you can change it too “che-vai-ve-va” which means I am the most ugly.
All of the words work like this, and don’t even get me started on verbs. Oh, but, if you insist I’ll throw you a bone and show you some of the cool stuff we do with verbs. “Ahecha” is the verb “to watch/to see” So you can throw on “Ahecha-kuri” which makes it past tense, "I saw". You can add “Nd-ahecha-i-kuri” to make it negative past tense, "I didn't see". And you can even thrown on "Nd-ahecha-i-hina-kuri" to turn it into "I wasn't watching".
So pretty much this can get out of hand really fast. You can add things on the end of the word to make them more polite, or more strict, or to change the tense, or just because it sounds cool and its fun to say and why not just add “piko” to the end of every word?
I’m about to head into my interview, and I’m going through my notes looking over what I’ve learned in these past 9 weeks of training, and here’s what I’ve got:
“Akese cheaño ko pyhare” - I want to sleep alone tonight
“Opa vove cerveza, ahata escuelape” - When the beer is finished, I will go to school
“Namendamo’ãi Paraguaype” - I will not get married in Paraguay
“Ne’irã gueteri ahekahina che chicorã” - I’m still looking for my boyfriend
“Ndaipotái peteĩ chico puaraguayo” - I do not want a Paraguayan boyfriend
“Che sogue” - I’m broke
“Ndaikuaái” - I don’t know
“Arekojepy ao ky’a” - I always have dirty clothes
I’m sure all of these phrases will help me at one point or another, and trust me, I some of them already have…but I’m not too sure how any of this will help me in my LPI.....
OKAY, so take it I pass this interview and I’m allowed to live in the real Paraguayan world and I can understand Guarani….now that means I can understand everything?
No, definitely not. Something I haven’t mentioned before is everyone here is so indirect with what they want to say. For example, when someone tells you “ahata aju” which literally translates to “I’m going and coming back” or "BRB!!" that actually means that they will never come back and you’ll be sitting waiting for them all day because they don’t want to tell you that they are leaving you. Another example, when I'm about to head out on Sunday to a soccer game, or to church, and I’m wearing a maxi skirt, my family will ask me “Oh, are you going to change before you go?” instead of telling me “hey, maybe you shouldn’t wear that skirt to the soccer game, you look like your on a religious mission and nobody wears long skirts here.” Or my absolute favorite example… when you make some guacamole and share it with your neighbors and when you ask them if they want to try some they say “Sorry, I just had some milk recently” which does not actually mean they had milk, it just means they do not want to try your weird green mushy thing but they don’t want to tell you that it looks disgusting.
Sometimes this whole indirect thing is great. When someone asks me to do something I don’t want to do, I can just respond “si, otro día” which means literally means “yeah, another day!” but what it actually means is, “yeah, no, that day is never going to happen, see you never, bye!”
There are times however, when the whole indirect thing is confusing you causes you to completely misunderstand entire conversations because you didn't realize they were just beating around the bush with you.
So now, I’ll leave you with a continued list of more things I’ve learned and an embarrassing story as per usual.
22. It is completely normal to light of fireworks at 5am on a regular weekday
23. Paraguayans LOVE emojis
24. Paraguayans LOVE giant whatsapp groups
25. Paraguayans LOVE memes
26.When its hot outside, you can expect to get a steaming hot bowl of soup
27. When its cold outside, you can expect to be huddled up in your sleeping bag by 8pm because your house is the same temperature as it is outside
28. When you have diarrhea, you can expect to be served cheesy rice
29. After you have dengue, you can expect to get diarrhea
Embarrassing story- Sometimes my brain just doesn’t work. That you need to know to understand why this story would every happen. So its early in the morning and I’m about to leave my future site. I’m visiting with a family before I go, watching the news and drinking cocido, all the normal morning feels. Then, I get asked “Que es su club puaraguayo favorito?” So basically they are asking me which soccer team (club) that I like in Paraguay (there’s two basic rivalries that I won’t get into right now). Anyway, I hear this basic question, that I’m used to getting WHENEVER I meet anyone new, and I decide to translate only part of it correctly in my head. I, for whatever reason, thought they asked what my favorite FOOD was…. because club (cloob) sounds like food. And I just immediately scream “CHIIPAA!!!!” That was obviously not the answer they were expecting, I get a blank stare followed by solid minutes of laughter.