How to Blend OR Bare Glittery Asses

The following are instructions for how best to blend in Paraguay:
Step 1) Be about a foot taller than the average Paraguayan woman and foreign-looking
Step 2) Have a tattoo over your whole back, which is technically considered sacreligious (defacing the temple of the body God gave you) in a country where almost everyone is either strict Roman Catholic or stricter Evangelist
Step 3) Attend a Catholic Mass in an: a) orange, b)satin, c) floor-length d)Strapless (so it shows that tattoo, you heathen) BALLGOWN.
- a side note on this step: it is not a requirement, although it certainly helps, if at that mass, they are initiating several new nuns into the ...nunnery, so that the first 4 rows of pews are filled with nuns, and a monk, and there is a special guest bishop from Argentina giving the mass.
Step 4) Have at your side (so luckily because otherwise you have no one to whisper smart-ass comments with in English) a black guy
Step 5) (only because this is always the final step) Enjoy!

You may be wondering how I came to be in the very situation that would test these instructions. You may be thinking that that doesn`t sound at all like blending and wondering what those 3 months of training on integration were FOR, exactly, if afterwards I go and pull a stunt like this. Allow me to explain.

Feb 11, my niece, Alè, from my training family, turned 15, which means she had her quinceañera. THIS. WAS. HUGE. Quinces in Latin America are, of course, a big deal - and this one pulled out all the stops. Alè`s dad came back from Argentina, there were 150 people all dressed up, a giant pavilion dance floor with formal tables set up, everything decorated in fuschia and cream with a carnival theme, waiters in tuxes, a delicious steak dinner, a life-sized wooden cut-out of Alè, a slide show, videos (this was actaully a little creepy, with her playing on playground equipment, or slow-motion running, and the Paraguayan announcer voice talking about how she been on the brink between childhood and adulthood and today she is officially a woman)- the works. It`s like My Super Sweet 15.



But BEFORE all this, when I get there in the afternoon to find everyone covered face to feet in depiliatory cream, prepping, my mamà tells me that it`s tradition for the good little Catholic girls to go to mass before their quince, and that we should get ready before-hand because we were going straight to the party after the mass. This is not such a big deal for the guys (who just were shirts and ties), or for mamà (who wears reserved black all the time since she`s still in mourning for her mom), or even for Alè, who everyone expects to be in a fancy dress, but that is how I came to be it mass in an orange, strapless ballgown, next to Ronnell, as a few hundred people burned holes with their eyes into the stars on my back for an extremely long 1 1/2 hour mass. A few months ago, because we were so often at a loss to describe common situations in Paraguay, Melissa and I made up a new Spanish word for it. That mass was super awkwardo. It was also pointless since we did end up going back to the house after the mass, but it is what it is (and it is a funny story, so there you go.)

Alè and family posing AND the happiest nun ever
Dressed for worship

The Quince was amazing.
This is more or less the process:
Ale greets everyone at the door where they kiss on both cheeks and give her a gift.



Then they play a slideshow of pictures and that creepy playgound video (Alè talked for like 20 seconds in the video, thanking everyone, and it was literally the most I`ve ever heard her say at one time).
She switches to a long ballgown and dances with her dad, and then all the guys in the party take turns handing her a rose and cutting in for a few minutes to dance with her.


Then she dons a giant, fuschia, mariachi hat and, accompanied by a mariachi band, visits each of the tables for pictures. Then dinner and dessert and like a ZILLION more pictures, and then it`s time to dance. There were still and video camera people recording every moment of all of this. Paulette warned me long ago that if anyone ever asked if I wanted to watch a Quince video, do whatever possible to get out of it because, although the parties are fun, the unedited reliving of the party on video is definitely not.



Alè, cutout of Alè, and Me
Daisy and Belèn
Me and Mamà




After hours of Dancing (still lookin`good)

Perhaps it was feeling so conspicuous in the mass earlier that pushed us over the edge, but neither Ronnell or I felt like trying to blend Paraguayan-style on the dance floor. So we tore it up like Americans, much to the amusement of everyone there, who already know and love us, and so forgive our crazy norte ways. We got a lot of attention dancing OUTSIDE the 2 line formation that all Paraguayans use, and actually following the Beat of the music (I know, right?!), and were a huge hit. It went until 4 in the morning and by the end of it we were soaked with sweat and exhausted but happy.

The next morning, I advised them to put that cutout of Alè in the window as a security measure for when they`re not home, and headed back to site, only to leave the next day for Villa Rica where I went to the Carnival Parade some other volunteers. This is also huge, and everyone has cans of spuma (spray foam) that they`re spraying all over the place as the parades pass. The parade was cool. Lotta bare asses. Lots and lots of bare, glittery asses. My favorite was the 5-year-olds in little toddler-sized thongs. I didn`t even know they made those, but how naive I was. Unfortunately, those pics aren`t downloading for some reason, so I`ll have to leave that to your imagination. Oh, and "Enjoy!"

Falling Ass-Backwards Into Saving the World

"What you`re doing is so much more important, they tell me, but I don`t do ANYTHING." Jenna and I were sipping juice on a patio in Asunciòn while she was telling me how sad she`d been to miss her dad`s birthday, and how her family just downplayed it to her. We went on to talk about how it seems like no one in the US understands what we do, and maybe don`t want to know, but they still put it on a pedestal as being this wonderful thing. There`s plenty of PC literature that warns us about how when we go back, people will want to hear about our experience for about 10 minutes before their eyes glaze over and they tune it out. Not that they do it maliciously, but of course it`s going to mean a lot more to us than it would to them, and it`s possibly the development-work equivalent of looking at someone`s vacation slides.

I`d recently had a conversation with my dad where, in the midst of showering me with compliments and telling me how proud of me he is (that`s the good part), he was also making in sound like Paraguayans were just these hopeless idiots whom I had to swoop in and save. I defended them, and after a short pause, he logically followed with, "...so what are you doing then?" Good question, and the answer is just complicated enough to write a whole blog entry about...

We`ll have to start a while back to explain. After a several hundred years of crippling and mismanaged wars and corrupt and thieving governments, Stroessner took over in 1954. Try to understand what this time would have been like, and how it would have affected people. This was the book 1984 (without the technology), where Big Brother was watching all the time in the form of all your neighbors and "friends" that could turn you in to the government, and society was completely ruled by fear. Stroessner didn`t have to shove THAT many people out of planes over the Chaco, or kidnap THAT many people in the night (either never to return, or to return emotionally broken and silent about their time away), before the chisme started flying and word spread fast. Dissenting opinions got you killed. If you weren`t a member of the Colorado party, you couldn`t get a job and your family might starve. Critical thinking was an exercise in futility or outright treason, so it was best to sit down and shut up. Crime went way down because stealing a pack of gum could turn you into one of the Disappeared. The curfew was strictly followed and families peered out from behing closed curtains at night and told their children about all the terrible people out there, waiting to get them.

They still do this. 31 years after Stroessner was overthrown, there are bumperstickers on buses that say, "Stroessner- we didn`t know we were happy", because they felt safer then, at least when it came to street crime. A lifetime of dictatorship mentality cannot just be turned off in an instant, even once the dictator has been chased to Brazil.

Paulette told me of this animal study she`d read about with regards to human/animal behavior. They put animals in a small room with a low hurdle and shocked them. All they had to do to get away from the shock was jump over the hurdle, and they all figured it out easily, until they brought in this certain group. This group had been through another experience where they`d been shocked with no escape (we don`t have to explore the whole animal testing issue right now, just go with me on this). These animals, when faced with this new test, instead of jumping over the hurdle, just laid down and took the shock.

People are the same way. Why try if you can`t escape? Why question if it`ll get you killed? Just tow the line and everything will be all right. It is not that Paraguayans are lazy or stupid (although I have heard this COUNTLESS times from Paraguayans, just before they tell me that a big problem with Paraguayans is their low self-esteem). They are not. In fact, they are very together in a lot of ways (some, more so than Americans), and getting better all the time. They are not these poor, lost souls who don`t know how to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and they are NOT, as Christian so eloquently put it during his visit, Fucked. They are exactly where everyone else in the whole world would be, given the same set of circumstances. We are all products of our experiences and our environments.

So what I`m doing here, as I explained to my dad, is just providing a different perspective. I am helping, and I am making a difference, but it is in a much more subtle way than I pictured before arriving here. They have 95% of what they need, and the 5% I bring can make all the difference. So what I do is listen and watch and try to keep up with what`s going on, and then I ask things like, "Why?". Then, as they explain to me, this clueless but lovable foreigner, the logic behind what they do, the light dawns as they think about the Why of it, maybe for the first time. Sometimes there`s no good reason why something is, other than it`s just always been that way, and through the questioning of it, they see it`s ok to change it. They weren`t taught in schools to question. It`s not that I`m so smart and this is some brilliant psychological move on my part, either. I probably just really don`t understand what`s going on. But, just my being here is enough of a catalyst to spark change, as bumbling and poorly spoken as I may be, and there are these wonderful Wizard of Oz moments where they see they`ve had this power the whole time, and start clicking their heels like mad.

The youth, especially, having never lived under a regime, are driven to question and change, and I am so lucky to be here at a time like this, when things happen. I`m working with these jovenes (youth) from the leadership camp we had a few weeks ago, and I watch them just GO, knowing full well that at 16 and 17, I was neither driven or enthusiastic, like they are. They are coming up with all these project ideas and planning and doing, and I stand slightly off to the side and say things like, "Perhaps we should try this on a small scale before we start feeding and clothing every poor person in the country" and they agree, and slightly adjust - so I`m like a rudder.

That`s why the Peace Corps is set up the way it is - why we come here to LIVE as part of the community, not just do a project and leave, because it`s the little things that make all the difference. I say, "Perhaps we don`t need 4 links on the website going to the same place, and we could simplify this," or "If we have all the books in digital form, why do we need to spend the socios money on buying expensive books?" or "Yes, I`m blonde naturally but I think dark hair and dark eyes is so much prettier, like you, so that`s why I dye my hair" and things are just slightly better in a lot of areas.

Our coordinator Betsy told this story about how her host family had come into some extra money, and her dad had wanted to build the future house of his 11 year old daughter, effectively telling her that`s where she`d belong. His wife, though, asked, "How do you know she`ll want to live down the street from us? Maybe she`ll want to travel the world, like Betsy." Just her presence there completely changed that little girl´s life, and she didn`t have to say a word. That`s what we do here.

Michel, Bambi, and Mike all left with the same excuse - they didn`t feel like they were helping enough, but things take longer than a few months to get done in Paraguay, and maybe they just didn`t see what a difference they were making. There`s a reason it`s a 2 year process. Sometimes, especially when we`re missing home and we don`t see the impact right away so we feel like we`ve done nothing, it`s hard to see how those little moments are adding up to something bigger than all of us.

When I was helping Michel pack, her internet wasn`t working and her host mom Digna and I, knowing very little about computers, were staring up at the blinking lights on the modem on a wooden pole outside her room. Digna tssked and then announced, "Este sistema es jodido" (this system is fucked). Nevermind that this is super funny coming from a sweet, old lady, I`m going to extend this metaphor a little. After a moment, the lights came back on. The people and the systems of Paraguay are not jodido either, although it may appear so to someone who doesn`t understand those systems, and in fact, all it takes is a little tweaking, a little questioning, and a little time, and all the lights come on, like on this modem, and everything comes out ok. That`s what I`m doing here - falling ass-backwards into saving the world, one poorly-pronounced Why at a time.