At the beginning of July, as I was preparing to rent a house in the middle of town, I was invited by a woman named Ceferina to come live in her house for 2 weeks. Seeing as I still lacked a few weeks until I was officially allowed to move to my house, I accepted, and one Saturday morning I took my clothes and my bolsa de dormir (sleeping bag) and moved to Ceferina's house.
Ceferina, or Tepeli, as the barrio children call her, has a house on arguably the most peaceful, beautiful piece of land in our district. It is located a little ways out of town and its back view looks out towards Argentina over fields of mandioca and yerba. In her barn, she has chickens, roosters, pigs, and cows, and her daily tasks consist of feeding and taking care of these animals, along with cleaning her house, cooking 3 meals a day, washing all of her family's clothes by hand, taking care of her nephew, and the hardest job of all: being my Paraguayan mama. And if she is my mom, then her 4 sons are my hermanitos, my little brothers: Dani (21), Enrique (20), Fredy (17), and Marcos (13). Sharing laughs, clothes, fights, beds, decisions, and most importantly, love, I can call these people my family in the purest sense of the word.
In what started as 2 weeks and grew into 3 months, I had a range of experiences living with the Zelayas. This is a collection of my stories.
The day that I moved to Ceferina's was the first day of the 2 week winter vacation. Dani and Enrique were home from seminary, and although we had already talked on the phone, the day I arrived was the first time we met in person. Also visiting from Buenos Aires was Ceferina's brother, Ito. So many visitors, new and old, called for a celebration - we were going to kill a pig. Kindly enough, the family decided to wait until I arrived to begin the process, and once we began, we didn't stop working (and eating) until 9:00 that night.
Most people know that pigs are my favorite animals, and my brothers could hardly contain their excitement to force me to watch as they slaughtered the kure (pig in Guarani). First they began with the little guys. Completely unphased by the heart-wrenching squealing as they drug the baby pigs out of their pens, they then sliced them open from behind and popped out each of their testicles. The little babies then walked around uncomfortably as blood dripped onto the ground. And I thought that that was bad...
Then came the time for the real show. As if preparing for a soccer game, each person took their position around and in the pig pen. Animal instinct at its finest, the pig sensed what was about to happen and began to squeal very nervously. As Marcos straddled it and Ceferina and my host dad, Francisco, held the pig still from outside the pen, Enrique squatted down and grabbed onto the pig's neck. He told me to come closer and get my camera ready. I squatted down beside him and prepared. Mentally. He then shoved the knife into the pig's neck, and everyone else had to take hold to secure the pig as it scrambled. Enrique pulled out the knife, and my aunt hurried in with a bowl to catch the blood as it dripped out of the pig's neck. Although I had my ears covered, the squeals were intensely loud, and I remember at one point, turning my head and screaming while still snapping pictures with my other hand. After what felt like an eternity, the squeals subsided; the pig breathed its last breath, and everyone relaxed.
They then pulled the pig out of its pen and began to clean it while shaving off its hair with knives and spoons. When it was bare, white, and cold, they skinned it and cut off its head. A pleasant sight to see a pig head hanging alongside its bloody body. I learned a lot that day about how Paraguayans use pigs, and most importantly, I learned that NOTHING goes to waste. Of course, the pig meat is thrown on the "grill" and eaten as asado, a word for the typical cookout, and we ate that for lunch. We also pulled out a string of raw meat to leave to dry and make pork jerky. The rest of the afternoon we spent preparing the rest of the pig. A majority of the time, I sat with Tepeli and cut the pig fat off of the skin in little cubes. We fried this in a pot over the fire and made chicharron, a kind of pork rinds. The rest of the pig fat we melted down for her to save and use in her everyday cooking. Using the blood that my aunt caught and the intestines that we had pulled out, we made morcilla, blood sausage. We also cut up the heart, liver, and other insides, mixed it with garlic and onions then spread it across the pig skin. You then roll it up like a cinnamon bun and cook it over the fire to make enrollado. We then took down the head. After cutting and prying the jaw open, we boiled the pig head to be eaten. They also use the head meat to make a lunchmeat of sorts called queso de chancho, pig cheese. As I said, nothing goes to waste. The prime example being when I looked over to the fire and saw my aunt clipping off the hoofs of the leg and then later cutting up and eating the tail.
Had we not been drinking wine all day or had I not been desensitized to the shock factor in Paraguay, maybe this all would have been a bit more traumatizing for me. But at the end of the day, I only remember us sitting in the dark around the fire, exhausted, sweaty, full.
Unfortunately my camera with the pig-killing pictures was stolen, but this is a picture of a mama pig and her piglets, whom I witnessed be born.
When I first met my new host brother Dani, he had just gotten back from the hospital. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. He looked exhausted, desperate. He was sweating and had no color in his face. He had plastic wrapped around his head, and his hair was wet. He stood up and kissed me and apologized for having no energy.
I remembered that 2 weeks before when Ceferina was visiting Dani and Enrique in Villarrica, Dani was in the hospital. He was there all weekend. He was very sick; he had some kind of problem with his stomach.
Saturday night we ate dinner just me and Dani. We ate vegetable soup with egg. It was really good, light but filling. He told me that's the kind of food he has to eat; he has to be careful because some foods make him sick. I asked him what was wrong with him. He told me the doctor says he has a virus in his head that is entering his blood, traveling to his heart and his stomach, making him sick.
Sunday morning I ate breakfast with the 4 boys. We drank coffee with milk and ate coquitos. At 8, Marcos, Fredy, and Enrique went to church. Dani stayed; he said he wasn't feeling well.
We sat at the kitchen table talking again, just the 2 of us. He told me that the coffee had made him sick. I asked him again about what was wrong with him. He told me again about the "virus in his head" and then said that the doctor in Villarrica said he had a digestive problem. He then told me he has kidney stones, which is a sickness apart from his stomach problems. Then he told me about how he also has a problem with the bones in his back and it sometimes hurts in his lungs and in his back.
A little bit later, I was about to walk out the door to go to Celmira's house; we were going to Rolando's grandma's birthday party. Dani asked me to accompany him somewhere. We started walking down the path alongside the mandioca fields. We started talking again. He told me he got sick 7 years ago. The symptoms come and go, but there is a constant ache, something not quite right.
We arrived at the wooden shacks not far from Ceferina's house. The senora invited us in and Dani gave her the milk and food Ceferina had sent. We then said hello to the senor and sat in chairs alongside his bed.
He looked about 30 years old. His head was on a pillow; he was covered with a blanket. He kept bending and then straightening his legs. He kept rubbing his fingers together. His hands were shaking. He never stayed still. His face was pale and glistening. His eyes were filled with confusion and fear, and when he talked, his voice was high-pitched. At one point, he pulled himself on his side.
I was fighting back tears the whole time.
We said goodbye and left the house. I saw one of my students, one of the middle school girls. She rushed up and hugged me. She said Esperame wait a second and ran off. She came back with 3 mandarinas and threw her arms around my neck. She kissed my shoulder and then kissed my cheek.
We started walking home. Dani started talking about how the man had had a moto accident about a month ago. He went on to talk about how asi es la vida, that's how life is and started to talk about God and Jesus and how through the Espiritu Santo we can feel things.
I left and went to the birthday party in Yatytay. After we got back, I was walking in the dark, in the rain back to Ceferina's house. I was overwhelmed with the thought; I almost doubled over crying; I felt sick to my stomach. How... How is it that I was born in the richest, most powerful country in the world? With access to everything I need? Born to a smart, successful, loving family?
HOW?
The 2 weeks of winter break ended up being the coldest days that I've experienced here. It rained everyday, and it was intensely cold. A couple of mornings, there was even frost. Although we didn't have heat, I still found our house to be much warmer than outside, and I pretty much fell off the face of the planet to the rest of my town because I hardly left the comfort of my sleeping bag. The only time I left my house was to go for a run in the afternoon. And the only reason I went for a run was to warm up my body so that the cold water of the shower wouldn't feel so frigid. The water was soo cold!! After about 3 weeks of living with the Zelayas and taking cold showers, Fredy showed me how to work the hot water. I had been embarrassed to say anything thinking that they didn't have hot water when really in the end, I was just embarrassed by my ignorance. They still love to laugh at the fact that I was taking freezing showers for 3 weeks.
August 16th, el Dia del Nino, is the Day of the Child. This day is a longstanding tradition because a long time ago when Paraguay was at war, there were no more men to fight so thousands and thousands of children went into the battlefields to fight for their country. For this reason, el 16 de agosto celebrates the children of Paraguay. In the school we had a big party; there was food, candy, cake, balloons... At the end of the day, the teachers got together for a game of volleyball, and they asked me to play. A little reluctant but unable to say no, I stepped in and started playing. As many of you know, I played volleyball all throughout high school, and it is definitely my favorite sport, but sadly Paraguayans put the game to shame. They play uglyyy volleyball without rules which means lots of cheating and lots of illegal hits. My team lost the first game, and I was annoyed. For the second game, I was determined to give a better show. A ball came flying deep and I set it into the air, but my momentum sent me flying backwards. To catch my fall, I put my hands down and CRACK! I jumped up and ran off towards the office. "Rompi mi brazo" I kept repeating. "I broke my arm." I looked down and saw the hump, my distorted bone. "I need someone to take me to the hospital in Hohenau," I announced calmly, Hohenau being a German town about an hour away. Then came the protests: "Why do you have to go all the way there?" "Why don't you go to the hospital here?" "I know this guy who could fix that for you." My thoughts: Have you seen how disgusting the hospital is here? And thanks but I don't want some toothless witch doctor rubbing herbs on my arm and massaging the bone back in place. I somehow survived the long and bumpy ride to Hohenau but eventually arrived to the Adventist Hospital, which turned out to be beautiful and well worth the trip. I ended up staying the night, and I often reminisce on that night of such peaceful sleep. I miss the luxury of a comfortable bed, heat, and an IV with "calmante" meds. I doubt many people would say they enjoyed their time in the hospital, but I would have gladly stayed longer.
The next day, in typical Paraguayan fashion, a procedure that was meant to start in the morning took place at 3 pm. I was put to sleep and woke up with my bone reset, a small pin in my wrist, and a huge plaster cast up above my elbow. I was to wear the cast for a month, and what a long month that was. I was lucky to have Ceferina, Fredy, and Marcos to take care of me; helping me put up my hair, get dressed, bathe. Uncomfortable, heavy, and limiting - that cast was my nemesis. At the same time though, it had some unseen benefits. One of the main goals of Peace Corps is sustainability, that is, teaching people to be proactive and self-sufficient. This is one of the challenges though, because a lot of our Paraguayan counterparts would rather be handed materials, resources, or ideas. During the time I had my cast, a lot of my projects in the schools were taking off. Since I was unable to use my arm, it removed me from being capable to do a lot of the things my teachers wanted me to do, therefore forcing them to do it.
During the month that I had my cast, I really came to appreciate having good health and good health care. I had a few really dark days during that time, where I felt sad, homesick, hopeless. It made me realize that those days, the days that I feel lazy, unmotivated, angry, or when my mind is somewhere else, are the days when I'm tired or sick. I learned that each day I have to prioritize making sure I am personally ok before I can commit the rest of my day to serving Paraguayans. It feels odd that the first step to being selfless involves being a bit selfish...
I couldn't have been happier to finally get my cast off. While it was not the first time that I had broken my arm (the 4th actually), it hopefully will be the last and definitely the most memorable.
Sometimes when reading memoirs or stories of people's travels, you read a conversation and think, "surely they didn't really say that.. Or at least, not in that way." Some conversations just seem disconnected or outlandish, and you feel like there's no way someone actually said that or had that train of thought. Well, I can now attest that sometimes those conversations are real. Word for word.
One evening, Ceferina and I were sitting at the kitchen table. She was in a particularly talkative mood so I stayed quiet and let her talk. Some prefacing important details are that 1) Paraguay has a problem with infidelity, 2) the culture in Paraguay is traditionally very machista, sexist, and 3) Ceferina has a 6th grade education and has never worked outside of her house. Our "conversation" went a bit like this:
Ceferina: I'm worried about Dani and Enrique studying to be priests. I don't know if they should do what people say or do what God says. They don't have any money, and they're not going to make any money. My sister says I should stop giving them money. How are they going to support themselves? And what are we going to do when my husband stops working? Who is going to support us? ... I would love to be able to work. I want to work in the church. I want to clean in the church. But my husband won't let me. He's too jealous. He says that I want to go work in the church so I can find another man. But I would never cheat on my husband because he told me if I did, he would kill me. Like he really would kill me... And I never text with anyone that lives around here. Because people here gossip. And if I was texting with someone, my husband would find out. So I text with men that live in Asuncion. I really love my boyfriend from when I was 13 years old. Sometimes I text with him... But I know my husband's been with other girls. When he's traveling. I won't tell you which one but before he tried to get with one of my sisters. I'm very jealous of her. You are the only woman in the world that I trust with my husband. I know you would never do anything... Really I would love to open a lavanderia (a place to wash clothes) from my house. People could bring their clothes here and pay me and I could wash and dry and iron them. Although I hate ironing... (she stops to think)
Me: What are you thinking about?
Ceferina: I'm just thinking about who I'm going to text with tonight...
Ceferina, Enrique, and Marcos in the back
From the moment I moved in with the Zelayas in July, the invitation was extended for me to live with them for my entire 2 years, the issue being that I had already signed the contract for my house in town. After making many pros and cons lists, after many protests from Fredy and Ceferina, after long conversations with my mom analyzing the internal conflict I was experiencing, I took the leap, and at the end of September, I moved into my own house. I don't know why I had so much anxiety about moving to live alone; I think I just really fell in love with that family and was afraid that I was going to miss out on an incredible experience of living with them for 2 years. If I could go back in time, I probably never would have signed the contract and would have stayed with my familia paraguaya pero asi es la vida. Now I am embracing the incredible personal experience of living alone. Turning a house into a home. Learning how to cook, clean, be completely independent. Travel to the depths of myself and back again. Should be a good trip. Stay tuned...
The view from my window at Ceferina's house one foggy sunrise.
