Character (&) Development

(left to right)La Presidenta, my awesome contact Nimia, my not-so-awesome former contact Mercedes


Interesting name for a neighborhood


Me and Abuelita


Scenes from Parade of the 251st anniversary of the town






Abuelita and Natalia


Fiorella


So who are these crazy characters with whom I´m spending my days? It´s time you knew more about some of my Paraguayans.

"He Not My Baby Daddy"

Cinthia is a successful, state-employed defense attorney who fights for the accused that can´t afford a lawyer. Two years ago, her lawyer friend had a case of child neglect. A withered and weathered campo "midwife" would volunteer to take whatever unwanted babies she had helped deliver...and then try to sell them. Her shack was crawling with dirty, neglected, snot-crusted kids. A neighbor called the authorities after seeing a baby who,in the care of this midwife, was covered in angry red bites from an ant attack. Cinthia, single and in her late 20´s, adopted that baby and now has a beautiful and charming 2 yr old, Fiorella.

Among her dynamic group of friends was a Catholic priest. One of her other friends had a crush on the priest, had made a pass at him, and been rejected outright. About that same time, Cinthia got pregnant. Her friend, seething from rejection started spreading rumors that the priest was the babydaddy. The outrage hit the town like a tidal wave. It was a huge scandal and all anyone talked about over tereré.

My sweet 80 yr old Abuelita, having heard this rumor directly from the jealous friend, made an off-hand remark to Flaquito that Cinthia was a "Ojaka Kumanda", which translates directly as "Woman that sits with her legs open", but when said in Guarani is one of the single most offensive things that can be said about a person...and Cinthia is his sister. Purple with rage, Flaquito was willing to never speak to Abuelita again over it. There was a huge fight and he only stayed because she threatened that if he left, her death would be on his conscience because she would surely have a heart attack that night from all the worry he caused her. He took Valium and slept off the rage before they managed to precariously patch things up.

It was a very difficult time for the family. Cinthia always refused to say who the father was, but 2 months later she got a job in Ciudad del Este and moved, escaping the gossip. The priest went to Rome for "personal reasons". With both of them gone, the tongues have slowed their wagging and things have settled.

Then Cinthia, watermelon round, came back a couple weeks ago to have her mom´s support for the birth. The baby was just born, a little girl names Soffia...and she looks exactly like the priest.

"Why My Host Brother is a Big Fat Idiot"

My brother,Miguelangel, is fat. I have no problem telling you that because my family talks about it without hesitation. It´s pretty obvious. Ì`m only telling you this because I really like him a lot. We are definitely friends, and it is because of that that I am frustrated with this. There are different types of fat, not all unhealthy, but his is the type accompanied by high blood pressure and heart problems, and this is why I´m mad at him.

Two years ago, at 24, he collapsed outside his back door. It turned out to be a heart problem, and the doctor told him he´d have to exercise and lose weight, or take medication. He doesn´t want to take medication for the rest of his life, and now, at 26, has low energy, terrible headaches for days on end, and general heart and bloodpressure issues. The only other option is exercise, but the reason he says he can´t is because he is too busy with the church. Remember, he spends 7 nights a week at church or meetings for the church. He can´t walk to those meetings because then he´ll be sweaty, and he can´t walk home because he has his moto with him. I don´t know how he eats that much when he´s so full of excuses.

I don´t have a problem with him going to church, but you can´t tell me that God wants him to die, and this is the effect. Paraguayans are extremists, in general, and he is no exception. He has no balance in his life- work and church. He is choosing God over his health. His big dream is to be a missionary, but I don´t see how he´s ever going to make it at the rate he´s going, and it completely defeats the purpose if the would-be-missionary is dead before he ever gets to save a soul. He doesn´t see it like that. He figures God will carry him through.

But I read this book about a guy in the Peace Corps in the 60´s in Ecuador, and this is what he said about missionaries and development work:

I had helped change the lives of some, had helped bring them so far along the road out of poverty that their position in the town was becoming insupportable. I felt like the guy from AID who had come to visit me. He had formerly been a missionary in Ecuador, an Evangelista. I took him across the street and introduced him to Wilfredo, the only Protestant in town, and later, perhaps out of some necessity to be unpleasant...I jabbed him a little. "This is what you´ve done, "I said. "You´ve taken the best man in town, the hardest working man, the most honest man, and you´ve separated him from his culture. He lives completely isolated in this lousy little town, the only Non-Catholic on the beach, the only True Believer, and he´s a joke to the town. Everyone thinks he´s crazy." "Yes," my friend said, "That´s why I left missionary work. I came to realize that I couldn´t be responsible for wrecking the lives of people with promises of paradise, making their whole lives miserable in the certainty of saving their souls. I came to realize that people had to find happiness with their own culture." -Living Poor

So that´s Migue´s goal. Let´s hope he lives long enough to accomplish it.

"La Presidenta"

So I can´t tell if my boss hates me, or if she just hates everyone. She has this way, just before and while addressing someone, of closing her eyes for a second as though she´s in great pain and/or this idiot in front of her has just thrown her into a silent rage and she needs a moment to compose herself before addressing the situation. Her jaw seems rusted shut and she speaks very quietly through nearly clenched teeth, the result being that everyone around her has to lean in to hear, and that I, with my still green and growing Spanish, can´t understand a single word.

Despite this, or maybe because of it, people seem to always be scrambling to please her, bending over backwards to kiss her ass. It´s natural for people to want friends in high places, of course, but come on. At every meeting, she´s served her glass of coke with a napkin around it in case it sweats (God forbid), and a special little plate of the hors de´ouvres in tiny, pastel, paper, muffin cups. She is always served the first piece of cake at the many parties. I can´t bring myself to serve her food, but I do find myself beaming when she throws a stiff nod of approval my way, just like everyone else she deigns to compliment.

It´s like when a bride has a bunch of desperate single friends. When she throws the bouquet they all scramble around on the floor in their fancy dresses, pushing, pulling and squealing over a bunch of now wilted and torn flowers. Once the half-smile moment has passed and she´s again behind her fortress of robotic professionalism, I´m left empty-handed, limping on my broken high-heel, holding up my torn dress, and feeling stupid for trying so hard for what I logically know is an empty token, and being reminded all over again that we will never be friends.

I´m secretly thrilled each time she has lipstick on her teeth, or sweat-stains in her armpits, or takes a 3rd cookie in a way where you can tell she´s been eying it for a while and trying to restrain herself.

At times I question why my Peace Corps assignment was to help people like this, but I´m definitely learning form the experience, so maybe that´s why. And at least they have an achievable goal and I´ll get my project done. They´re already extremely together and don´t need much help. It could be worse, like how after FOUR years in his town, The same guy that wrote "Living Poor" realized that:

There was an insane quality to the poverty in the town, some black secret that lay just outside the mind´s acceptance...(he goes on to explain how a great percentage of the babies and kids in the town die, and about how a man had come in drunk and looking for trouble until he received it in the form of having his head slashed open with a machete)...I began to be aware that there was scarcely a moment when a baby´s crying didn´t fill the air, and there was a resemblance between the violence of the babies´ furious raging cries and the violence of machetes slashing through flesh. Like a revelation, I suddenly realized that these screams were the screams of human beings learning about poverty. They were learning about sickness and about hunger; They were learning in a hard school what they could expect from life, learning to accept their destiny and the futility of revolting against it. They were being twisted and maimed. They were being turned from normal human beings into The Poor. After the age of 6 they were ready for life, and as far as being poor, they know all about it; there isn´t a thing they don´t know. There are no more tears. They play quietly, gravely in the dirt before their houses, and there is something terrible in their eyes, a kind of blindness. For years they will go without weeping, and then a strange thing happens. At about the age of 19, the boys discover the healing magical release of alcohol, and until they are about 24 or 25, whenever they have money, they drink cane alcohol almost as a rite, seeking out the purging relief in those few minutes just before unconsciousness when everything concentrates in a flashing, searing point - all the hopelessness, the misery, the stupid deprived past and the stupid endless future..."Oh, puta," they yell in the street. "Oh, la gran puta." Oh, great whore, they yell in the street. They are screaming at life in a paroxism of rage, accusing life of cheating them. The tears gush out of their eyes,they roll on the ground, beating the ground with their fists, hewing the earth. "Oh, puta. Oh PUTA. Oh Gran Puta, LA GRAN PUTA!" After about 26 all the revolt is burned out of them, by that time they are beginning to get old. They finally accept their estiny. Or if they can´t, I guess they take up their machetes and go looking for it. And this thing about the town that I had been afraid to think, the town´s black, unspeakable secret? They mentioned it on a news broadcast one night, sandwiched between the stories of wars and riots, announcing that 60% of the world´s children were suffering from protein starvation, and that this deprivation in the first 5 years of life permanently and irrevocably destroyed up to 25% of a man´s intelligence. 25%. If 75 is the IQ in the town, what is the medical word that describes this poor, doomed people, this wasted resource living out it´s unproductive destiny in the impregnable prison of a destroyed mind, in a twilight, idiot world where nothing relaly makes much sense? -Living Poor

Of course, some of that is true here, just like some of it is true everywhere, but here there is much more hope. Still, it´s an awful lot to be up against, and it´s the same reason why there´s a new kid in our house. Abuelita has "adopted" a 7 yr old, Natalia, who is from a campo family that couldn´t take care of her. I think she weighs like 20 pounds because I can easily lift her over my head; overrun with parasites, Abuelita explained. She also explained that the reason she has her is because with her, Natalia could end up a teacher or professional, while in the campo, nothing would become of her.

I can´t help but see the similarity between all these situations, Cinthia and Abuelita with their adoptions, Migue with his missionary work, me and the Peace Corps in general. Everyone´s intentions start from a good place. How can we not help these poor people? With a little help from me, they can be saved. But how can we know that helping is really helping? Can development come from anywhere other than a perspective of superiority? We clearly bring with us all of our problems and issues, judgments and ideals - who´s to say we´re better? Who´s to say what´s good? Would you want to be "developed"? Would you resent it if you were? The efforts of parents trying to develop their kids are often resented. What about if you´re the presidenta of a successful cooperativa?

Just some thoughts...All I can do is what I can do, and of course I love it here. It´s just that with all the vacations, I´ve had a lot of time to think