Here’s a list of the top 5 things that I’ve learned to love (or maybe I’ve just learned to live with?!) over my 23 months (can you believe it’s been 23 months?!) living in Paraguay.
1. Sharing straws/drinks with complete strangers
Take 1: It’s a hot, balmy day and I climb onto on a rickety, metal bus barreling down the highway thats full of Paraguayans traveling over the summer holidays. It’s standing room only, and I get shoved down the aisle, shoulder to shoulder with sweaty, smelly bodies. Seated on my left, a nicely dressed, middle-aged man is serving terere (an iced, yerba-mate tea) for himself and the man next to him. He must notice that I’ve been eyeing him, and he offers me a turn. Not thinking twice about it, I gratefully accept the drink and slurp it down out of the bombilla (a fancy metal straw). Being the gentleman that this man appears to be, he also offers it to the señora next to me, who accepts as well. We take turns in this circle, drinking out of this stranger’s straw for the next several minutes. The lady next to me smiles and I notice that she has about two teeth in her entire mouth. I smile back at her. I was zero percent fazed by any of this. It wasn’t until I got off the bus and thought about where I was going (headed back to America for Christmas) that I realized this probably wouldn’t happen to me while I was back in Seattle riding the light rail from the airport. Nobody’s gonna offer me a sip from their Starbucks latte if I stare at them long enough.
Take 2: Once again, it’s a hot, muggy evening and I’m surrounded by extended family members at my host family’s house. I’ve been living alongside them for nearly 21 months now, and somehow about once a month a new “cousin” or “aunt” shows up that I’ve never even heard of before (I’m still trying to put together a family tree to figure out how everybody is actually blood related). There’s some Paraguayan polka blasting from a car speaker outside and we are sitting out on the patio chatting. The uncle that I just met for the first time today passes me a cold beer, and I take a sip and pass it on to the cousin I’ve met twice before on my left. The beer is cold and I am happy to have a sip of it. I watch the beer make its way around the circle of 10 people, and then without pause, the empty can is chucked across the yard and a new beer is cracked open from the bucket of ice that sits in the middle of the circle. This is how the night continues, crack, sip, pass, sip, pass, sip, pass…. chuck, crack, sip, pass, sip, pass…
Why do we do this? Well… we share everything and this ensures that the beer you drink is ALWAYS ice cold, no more holding your own beer and being forced to throw back the last bit of luke warm beer left in the can.
Take 1: It’s a hot, balmy day and I climb onto on a rickety, metal bus barreling down the highway thats full of Paraguayans traveling over the summer holidays. It’s standing room only, and I get shoved down the aisle, shoulder to shoulder with sweaty, smelly bodies. Seated on my left, a nicely dressed, middle-aged man is serving terere (an iced, yerba-mate tea) for himself and the man next to him. He must notice that I’ve been eyeing him, and he offers me a turn. Not thinking twice about it, I gratefully accept the drink and slurp it down out of the bombilla (a fancy metal straw). Being the gentleman that this man appears to be, he also offers it to the señora next to me, who accepts as well. We take turns in this circle, drinking out of this stranger’s straw for the next several minutes. The lady next to me smiles and I notice that she has about two teeth in her entire mouth. I smile back at her. I was zero percent fazed by any of this. It wasn’t until I got off the bus and thought about where I was going (headed back to America for Christmas) that I realized this probably wouldn’t happen to me while I was back in Seattle riding the light rail from the airport. Nobody’s gonna offer me a sip from their Starbucks latte if I stare at them long enough.
Take 2: Once again, it’s a hot, muggy evening and I’m surrounded by extended family members at my host family’s house. I’ve been living alongside them for nearly 21 months now, and somehow about once a month a new “cousin” or “aunt” shows up that I’ve never even heard of before (I’m still trying to put together a family tree to figure out how everybody is actually blood related). There’s some Paraguayan polka blasting from a car speaker outside and we are sitting out on the patio chatting. The uncle that I just met for the first time today passes me a cold beer, and I take a sip and pass it on to the cousin I’ve met twice before on my left. The beer is cold and I am happy to have a sip of it. I watch the beer make its way around the circle of 10 people, and then without pause, the empty can is chucked across the yard and a new beer is cracked open from the bucket of ice that sits in the middle of the circle. This is how the night continues, crack, sip, pass, sip, pass, sip, pass…. chuck, crack, sip, pass, sip, pass…
Why do we do this? Well… we share everything and this ensures that the beer you drink is ALWAYS ice cold, no more holding your own beer and being forced to throw back the last bit of luke warm beer left in the can.
2. Waiting
It’s currently 8:21am. I told two of my students to come over at 8am today and I would open the center for them so they could work on a computer program I downloaded on the computers to help them learn how to type with speed and efficiency (think Type2Learn). Are they here yet? No. Do I expect them anytime soon? Also no. Am I mad? No. I am writing a blog and drinking some cold brew coffee.
I’m officially on “la hora Paraguaya” or Paraguayan Time. It’s like when when you go on vacation to Hawaii and you are told that you are on island time, so you don’t need to worry about anything besides sitting on the beach all day with your piña colada. Well that’s exactly how my life is, except for without the beach or the blended cocktails. Relax. Things will happen when they happen.
(Real talk: back when showing up on time and waiting for things used to annoy me, I actually thought about setting my watch 10 minutes BEHIND so I wouldn’t spend as much time waiting around for people)
3. Being Passive
This nice lady and her daughter came by my house one afternoon selling grated coconuts. I happily bought some to put in my oatmeal and use for cooking. Unfortunately, nobody warned me that fresh coconut here also tastes like soap. She came by a week later and I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t want anymore, so I bought another pack of it. She kept coming and I kept buying it and forcing myself to eat it. Finally, since I couldn’t say no, I just told her “otro día” (another day) and she smiled and left. And never came back. Ever. Never ever.
In Paraguay, you don’t say NO to people, it’s too aggressive. Instead you tell them “great! thanks! how about tomorrow?” and they know that means it’s never going to happen. Perfect, that was easy. No hard feelings. I kind of like this. Rejection never felt so good.
4. Talking about the weather
“Ha’ku”
“Ha’kutereiiiii”
“Okyta”
Somehow, 90% of my conversations are about the weather. Whether or not (ha!) it’s a million degrees outside or we’re having massive thunderstorms, this is a go to talking point with any Paraguayan. No one checks their smart phone for the forecast (and even when I try its never accurate here) so we fill in the part of the weather man and talk about when we may expect to see some rain or which direction the clouds are coming from. Watch out Steve Pool, I’m coming for your job when I get back.
5. Using the tablecloth as a napkin
Yes, you read that correctly. Using the tablecloth as a napkin. At first, I thought this was one of the strangest habits that Paraguayans had, but now I’m actually a fan of it. Let me tell you why.
So when I first got to Paraguay, I was mortified to see a communal napkin. There would be one hand towel sitting on the middle of the table and I would see everyone reaching for it to wipe their hands and their mouth. A little kids mouth would be covered in food, the mom would wipe her face with it and then set it back on the table. Then I would watch as the grandma wiped her hands with it and passed it to her brother to wipe his mouth off with it. And the pattern continued until we had finished eating. I was always really careful to never rely on a napkin while eating. Other times, this hand towel wasn’t present, and I would gasp as I saw my host mom reach for the table cloth and wipe her mouth on it. Then I realized that was the norm, as everyone casually grabbed a hold of the table cloth and wiped their hands on it. I was flabbergasted. But from a health standpoint, this was much better than the communal napkin that was passed around from face to mouth. And the tablecloths are washed (nearly) every day. Which also, is less laundry since you are already washing the tablecloth and no need to wash every individual napkin. So now, I happily will reach out for a tablecloth to wipe my hands.
I was actually in a restaurant while I was home for the holidays and I instinctively went to reach out for the tablecloth to wipe my hands on it. I heard the Jaws music playing as my hands reached out in slow motion for this white tablecloth at a fancy restaurant and just before the tips of my fingers reached the clean tablecloth I remembered the napkin on my lap and adverted my hands as fast as I could, hoping nobody saw what the crime I had almost committed.
So not sure if those are my Top 5 of just the first few things I could think of, but there ya have it!