Hello everyone!
I have had another two good months here in Asuncion. The past months have included some traveling, having visitors, and celebrating the holidays, all of which have been a nice change of pace from the routine, and now I am enjoying being back in the routine again of work and church and being home. I usually feel good about the process of some year-long things of focus, such as friendships in the church and at work, Spanish, getting to know the community/country, growing in my faith, etc. and when these things seem slow, I remember that our leader said that growth in these areas is usually exponential, so I have to patient and know that the second half of our time here (I can't believe we're already half way done) will be even better than the first.
Not long after I wrote the last time we traveled to Iguazu Falls in Argentina to renew our Visas. A week or two later Dani Klotz, the student intern leader of our team, visited Asuncion. Then we had two weeks off of work during which we celebrated Christmas and New Year and did various things around our barrio (neighborhood) and Asuncion. A week after starting work again, Doug and Sharon Risser, friends from church in Goshen arrived in Asuncion to travel around Paraguay and Bolivia and to visit me and our friends Allison and Isaiah Goertz, who are Peace Corps Volunteers in the Paraguayan interior. I traveled with them for a week. Then a few weekends ago we went to a church youth camp. So we've been up to enough good things.
Now jumping right in... To go to Iguazu, we hopped on a nice double-decker bus early in the morning and headed to Ciudad del Este, which is one of the next biggest cities in Paraguay behind Asuncion. After arriving, we spent the afternoon visiting Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam, which is just a little bit north of Ciudad del Este. It is one of the biggest hydroelectric dams in the world, both in physical size and power output, so it was very impressive to see. It is shared between Paraguay and Brazil, so on the guided bus tour we also crossed into Brazil.
The next morning we got up early and got a taxi (a friend of my host dad) to take us to a ferry that would take us directly to Argentina instead of going through Brazil first for Visa reasons. On the shore before leaving we met some nice fruit traffickers who were loading hundreds and hundreds of pounds of melons, mangos, and grapes that had come from Brazil into rowboats to go to Argentina. A little shady, but who cares, it's Paraguay!
The taxi guy then took us to the Iguazu park entrance and we started our day there. We went first to the most incredible part, the "Garganta del Diable" or the "Devil's Throat." While the majority of the falls are evenly spread along a 1-2 mile stretch, the Devil's Throat is a point where the falls converge from three sides. It's basically just a bunch of water falling in a giant hole where you can't see the bottom because of all the water vapor. The park has made walkways that go all the way to the edge of the falls so that you can look down on them. The beauty and power of this place almost brought me to tears as it was so amazing. Unfortunately pictures can't capture it but I'll attach some to give you the idea.
We spent the rest of the day walking on the many trails the park has and admiring the hundreds of huge waterfalls that are scattered along the ledge which runs down the river. Along with the tropical forest, and the high lookouts over the river below, it was all incredibly beautiful.
In the late afternoon we took a taxi back to the Argentine border town, found a nice hostel for some cheap lodging, and explored the city a bit, which is considerably different (classier?) than most of the places in Paraguay. The next morning we got the ferry again, a taxi to the bus terminal, and a bus to Asuncion. And that was the end of our very fun trip.
A week or two later Dani Klotz arrived in Asuncion for a week with our team. It was very exciting to have a familiar face from the US even though we only knew her from the week of orientation. We visited as a group, had an Asado for our host families at the pastor's house, talked individually about our experiences, took walks in the Jardin Botanico, ate at a Mexican Restaurant for a little taste of Goshen, introduced her to our work and families, and took a day to travel into the country to a nice place with a stream and little water falls to swim in. It was great to have her here to talk to her about our experiences and process things as she has had experiences very similar to ours. Furthermore, she is fluent in spanish which made everything so much easier.
In our two weeks off from work, we did quite a few fun things as a team, as well as spent time with our host families and Paraguayan friends. With our team we made Christmas Cookies and Peppernuts and traveled around Asuncion to places like an art museum and the national cemetery where we found famous historical people's graves among the fancy house graves (what are those called again?). We have enjoyed watching BBC's Sherlock at Austin's house, and pigging out on tropical fruit that is in season, especially the endless supply of Mangos that we can find in the Jardin Botanico. One day we also traveled to the beautiful city of Aregua which is an artisanal city about an hour away from Asuncion. It is on the banks of the very big Ypacarai Lake which, while beautiful, is contaminated beyond repair. First we hiked and climbed up a little hill/mountain which has some unique hexagonal rocks, and from which you can see all of Aregua, the Lake, and almost Asuncion. We also walked among the crazy pottery markets which line the streets, saw some art galleries, went to the lake, and ate food. Also during these two weeks off, I got to go visit Brenda Perez at her house a little ways out of Asuncion. Brenda was a volunteer at Goshen College last year staying with the Nolt family in my neighborhood, so I had gotten to know her a bit. It was fun visiting her and meeting some of her family and friends.
During this time off we celebrated Christmas and New Year with our families, which were both very different experiences. The church didn't have a service for Christmas Eve or Christmas, and didn't even focus on it that much in Sunday church which somewhat surprised me. On Christmas Eve, all the women started early making all of people's favorite foods, and all of the girls started doing each other's hair and making themselves up in the late afternoon, some 4 hours before they would've needed to. In the late evening friends and family came over and started sitting together and drinking Cidra, which is slightly alcoholic sparkling apple juice, and eating some of the food the women prepared. At 11 at night we sat down to eat a huge dinner. Once midnight arrived everyone went around hugging everyone else including neighbors and friends and wishing them a merry Christmas. We then continued to sit outside our house with friends and family, and occasionally walked to other peoples' houses to say hi until 4am when I called it quits and went to bed.
With all the buildup to Christmas I thought that we were going to do something special, but we didn't really. Everyone was obviously very tired from the night before and so most people groggily went about doing nothing all day. All my siblings did go to the Shopping Center, which at least served to get us out of the house. This day was kind of depressing, mostly because I couldn't be with my own family for Christmas, and there was nothing going on here to distract me from that fact.
New Year's was almost exactly the same as Christmas, except my host family went to my mom's side of the family in another part of Asuncion. I didn't find all of her brothers or nephews especially charming as they basically just ignored me or talked to me in Guarani and laughed and made fun of me in Guarani when I didn't understand. Maybe it was just in good fun, but it felt mean to me, and my relationships with that extended family never really took off the ground. There were a few nice ladies, but that was all.
Fortunately, on New Year's Day a few families actually went to a nice campground type place in the country to pass the day together. There was a pool, some areas to play soccer, and a grill to make an Asado, so it was a good time.
After a week of work again, Doug and Sharon Risser arrived in Asuncion. I met them at their hotel Saturday morning and we spent the day going to Mercado Cuatro, places downtown, and a cute, colorful neighborhood that looks like it's trying to copy La Boca in Buenos Aires. On Sunday they visited my church and ate lunch with my host family and me. They also brought me a suitcase full of t-shirts and some care-package things from my church and family back home that they had collected before coming down. I loved receiving some awesome foods, games and an Aerobie, and my family and friends loved all of the cool used t-shirts that they got. Now I enjoy seeing shirts like MCC Run for Relief or Goshen College around our neighborhood. So many, many thanks to everyone who sent something along with Doug and Sharon. I really feel supported and loved by things like this.
The next day we hopped on a bus headed for Yuty (more or less pronounced "Jew two") where Allison and Isaiah Goertz are Peace Corps Volunteers. It was a long bus ride as the route isn't too direct, but it was still beautiful, with all of the dormant volcanos of Paraguarí, and the flat plains and rolling hills of Missiones and Itapúa. In the next few days there in Yuty, Allison and Isaiah showed us around their cute, dusty town of 5,000 people, including some of the things they are doing for work and some of their friends. We took several walks, talked a lot, ate a lot of good food, and got to go to a soup kitchen that they help at on one of the days it was open. At the soup kitchen we played frisbee with some of the 30-40 kids that came, watched Allison read stories to them, and ate with them and the volunteers. Each evening we sat outside in the somewhat cooler air and enjoyed delicious dinners such as fajitas with homemade tortillas, or vegetables and hummus. We heard many traveling stories from Doug and Sharon, and heard about Allison and Isaiah's time there in Yuty, and saw pictures of their recent trip to Patagonia. It was so fun to spend a few great days there with these two couples.
After that, we got on another bus and went to Encarnacion. There we got a hotel and explored the city a bit. The parts we explored were trashy and there wasn't much to do but i'm pretty sure there are nicer parts as well. It has potential partly because it has so much shoreline on the Río Paraná. We went to the beach twice, and there were many people enjoying swimming and sunbathing in the day, and volleyball and walking around at night. The next morning we got up and took a taxi to Jesús and Trinidad, the ruins of two Jesuit missions that are both about a thirty minute drive from Encarnación. They are both on the edges of small towns, and despite being UNESCO World Heritage Sites, they don't receive many visitors. In each mission, there is a huge basilica, housing for all of the 3-5 thousand indigenous that used to live there, a plaza, a meditation garden for the two priests, classrooms for the privileged youth, workshops, and extending in all directions is land where they would have had gardens and plantations for things like Yerba Mate and Manioc (I think). All of the building structures were made of stone and wood and all that remains is crumbling stone. I will not go much into the history of the Jesuit Ruins, but you all should read about it because it's interesting and it was very influential in the history of Paraguay and all of South America. But basically the Jesuit Priests arrived in the early 1600's to evangelize the indigenous, and built up these utopian villages where the Guaraní people, now Catholic, would work, attend Mass, and participate in village life, all accompanied by Classical Music and under the gaze of ornate statues. While there was strict discipline, it was clearly not slavery, as for a mission of 5,000 indigenous, there were rarely more than two Europeans present at one time. Plus they were saving the Natives from slavery and other violent tribes of Indigenous. For reasons dealing with their great economic success, and politics between Spain and Portugal, the Jesuits were expelled from South America in the 1750's and the missions were abandoned. Seeing this place and learning about its history was very interesting and enjoyable for me.
While Doug and Sharon when on up to see Iguazu, I headed back to Asuncion. I saw them again after they had visited Bolivia and when back in Asuncion for a few days before catching their flight back home. We went to the house of some people they had met at the hotel at Iguazu, the family of the president of MEDA for Paraguay. The next day they came to Alto Refugio to see the place where I work, as they are going to give a presentation about what Allison, Isaiah and I are doing in Paraguay. We said goodbye, and they headed back to the ridiculous cold and snow of Indiana, which I miss a lot. I feel so grateful to this couple for making the trip down here to visit us and spend time with us. It was really so great to travel around with them and spend time getting to know them in this interesting country.
The next weekend there was a church youth camp in a town called San Bernardino, which is a town across the big lake from Areguá. Youth groups came from all over the country, and although not many from our church went, we had a great time meeting a bunch of interesting and friendly people. They had meals, worship services and several planned games and activities. Some of the activities weren't that fun, like apple-bobbing but with mangos that they reused a bunch of times, or their version of Survival which included dragging yourself in the mud. For the last two worship services they brought in a charismatic preacher from Argentina to give the sermons. He said a lot of good things that I appreciated, and by the end of both services he had basically everyone at the front crying, twitching, and falling over when he placed his hand on their foreheads. They even had a team of volunteers that came to the front when they thought people would start coming up so they could catch people when they started falling over. This was a very new and interesting experience for me and it left me thinking about what I believe about these charismatic gifts and spiritual things taken so literally in general. Earlier I might have just blown them off and been very critical, but I was challenged to have more of an open mind about them. It was also good having our team there to talk about things.
There have been a few other fun things that we have done recently that were out of the ordinary. Hannah and I (the other two preferred being lazy and staying home...) went to a presentation on the nature in the Chaco given by a famous British nature TV guy named Nick Baker at the Paraguayan American Cultural Center. He had spent the last week in the Chaco and this presentation was his report from his travels. It was a good talk, and it changed my perception of the Chaco from a lifeless, desolate wasteland with little worth, to a diverse and living place that has some of the most interesting life on earth. Now we want to visit it to see some of the things he showed us. Unfortunately, the Chaco's jungle is being deforested at a faster rate than any other on earth (I think), so it would also be interesting to learn about and support any campaigns there might be to stop that. I hope that the Mennonites that live there aren't part of the problem, but they probably are.
Other things - The other day we also went to a friend from work's house for a hymn sing. We were the only ones there that didn't speak German, but it was still very refreshing to sing some awesome hymns with good musicians, and eat some good German Mennonite baking.
-The other night we went to see the move "Frozen" with a friend from Church. I actually liked it.
-A few weeks ago Austin and I went to a Co-worker's house to watch him speak on a radio program he and a friend of his have. Before hand, we also participated in a martial arts training class he was giving, as he is the national champion for his weight class for some martial art. The radio show was a hoot, and at the training class, I did more pushups than I had done in the last two years, and then regretted it for the next week. As it turns out, our co-worker was best friends in college with Dani Klotz's husband.
-This week the church is starting some weekly bible studies that we are going to participate in. ----On Sunday we are going with some friends to a small town in a beautiful part of the country to pass the day there.
So that is how I am spending my days nowadays. I am spending less of my time being board now than I was in the first few months, which is a very good thing and instead I am more often having a great time. I usually really enjoy my days at work, as I am getting to know all of my fellow co-workers and volunteers and some of the regular patients that come. Often in can be meaningful work, although there are still days where I ask myself "what am I doing here?" At church, it feels like there are many more people that I know and consider friends. And we are starting to do things with those people outside of church, which I am very happy about.
The weather down here is borderline unbearable, as it is commonly reaches 105-108 degrees and there isn't much way to escape it besides going out and and drinking Tereré in the shade. But these last few days have been gorgeously cool and have reminded me of early fall, so we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. For perspective, right now it is the southern hemisphere equivalent of the middle of August in the North. It's also almost Avocado season!
At the end of this month we are thinking of taking a trip to Buenos Aires and maybe Uruguay to renew Visas, visit Corin Wenger, a kid our age who is working with the Mennonite Church in Buenos Aires and who was at our orientation, to visit some different, cool places in South America, and to have a team retreat, where we will talk and reflect about the year.
Well, that's probably about all there is to say for this update. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts, prayers, and support of me during this year, and for having interest in reading my infrequent blog. I hope everyone is doing well, and I can't wait to see you all in five months.
Ben
Itaipu Dam. These in front are water runways for when the water level is too high, and in the background you can see the dam itself and the white water-carrying pipes that lead to the turbines. (Photo Credit: Austin Regier)
The "Devil's Throat" at Iguazu Falls. In real life the water didn't look so yellow. (Photo Credit: Austin Regier.)
Good-lookin' group at a good-lookin' place.
Pretty. (From AR)
From the top of the falls looking down. (AR)
A huge Christmas party in the Jardín Botánico for children and families that our church helps put it on. There was a presentation with singing and dancing, food, activities for the kids, and Christmas presents for everyone. As you can imagine, giving out gifts was a fiasco as the thousands of people all made a line,, and it was hot, and people were impatient. (photo: AR)
The typical setup on the streets of Aregua. All the little piggies and frogs and mushrooms are Aregua's specialty. (photo snagged off line)
My team in the group activities at the church youth camp. We won those annoying games that I told you about so we got t-shirts.
Brenda Perez and me at her house. Thumbs ups are a big thing here.
Family and friends at the place with the pool on New Year's Day. I'm sure all of you in Northern Indiana were doing similar things out in the sun that day as well.
What was the main plaza in this village. On the right and left is housing and straight ahead is the Basilica.
A Guaraní-carved statue.
The Basilica. This used to have walls and pillars as tall as the front part supporting a roof. Pretty impressive.
The famous (for Paraguayans) beach of Encarnación. Not bad for a land-locked country. This is now the hotspot for Carnaval on the weekends.
