Mangoes and class relations

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  Asuncion, Paraguay
Friday, January 25, 2008

After the downer of the last entry, I wanted to share a couple of funny anecdotes.

Anecdote 1)  We are nearing the end of mango season in Paraguay.  Mangoes are an evil fruit - seductive and deadly.  We do not have mango trees in our site because we are far enough south that we get occasional frosts to kill them.  Thank goodness.  Unfortunately, the Peace Corps main office patio has 3 enormous specimens.  During mango season, anyone walking around the main office grounds instinctively listens for the sound of a heavy, over-ripe, apple-sized fruit crashing through branches and leaves on its 40 foot trajectory to the ground.  When you hear that sound, you don't run, you cover your head with your arms and cower.  Running uncovered would only expose you to more danger of being struck by the greenish-yellow missile, which when it hits you feels something like being hit by a decently pitched basefall thrown from 40 feet away.  Even if you avoid such injury, you still run the risk of slipping and breaking your back on anyone of thousands of slimy, half-decomposed mangos lying on the ground.  And should you choose to partake of the juicy, tangy-sweet, fibrous flesh of the mango, beware.  Rumor is that mangoes contain a toxin similar to that of poison ivy.  Volunteers without previous reactions often find themselves, after particularly gluttonous mango gorge-fests or following the leisurely consumption of a single fruit, suddenly suffering from a hideous, festering, swelling allergic rash anywhere the mango juice had dripped.  Delicious.

Anecdote 2)  Where I come from, when your car breaks down and you call a tow truck, you ride to the garage in the cab with the tow truck driver.  You make small talk, you find out where he's from, what his job is like, and maybe it feels a little weird because you're perfect strangers, but anything else would be rude.  In Paraguay, this is not the case.  Today a flat-bed tow-truck, the kind that puts the whole car on the trailer, passed me while I was waiting for the bus with a grey Nissan Sentra as its cargo.  My jaw dropped when I saw the presumed owner of the Nissan riding IN the car, on the flatbed, instead of in the roomy cab with the driver.  In Paraguay, if you own a car you generally are part of a class that CERTAINLY does not mix with the "commoners" if it can be helped.  So much for equality between classes.  It's enough to make me want to become a communist. :-)  And then something struck me.  I may occupy that 1% of the world's population with privilege and education, but in Paraguay, I'm more connected to the have-nots than the haves.  I don't know rich Paraguayans.  I know the Guarani-speaking, calloused-hand, sunburned, generous, unpresuming people from the campo.  That's the priceless reward of being a Peace Corps volunteer - I'd rather ride with the tow-truck driver.

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