Not Much to Write Home About...
Trip Start
Jun 04, 2009
1
2
Trip End
Aug 25, 2009
Asuncion, Paraguay
Thursday, August 13, 2009
And in some cases, it doesn't seem designed to do even that. Such is the case in Paraguay, where my girlfriend Tamara and I have been for the past ten weeks or so. We came here in early June because I am working as a summer intern at a non-profit microfinance organization, and at the end of this week we'll be on our way to the States. I'm really thankful that it wasn't my first travel experience, or else I might not have gone anywhere else aftewards.
There are certain things in Paraguay that remind me of Costa Rica. Old cars, imported from the first world, are prevalent here just as they were there. In the bathrooms, the faucets only have one handle, for cold water, and in cities the showers have electric showerheads which heat the water right above your head. Random dogs run around everywhere, and the sidewalks have metal baskets sitting a few feet off the ground to prevent animals from getting into the trash. Bus drivers often keep the front door of the bus open when it's hot. The slow pace of Latin American life gets to you very quickly both here and there.
Some things that I noticed right away about this country:
- There are many old cars here, and the undisputed king of the road is Mercedes. Most, if not all, of the buses and trucks here are very old Mercedes models, and nearly half of all the cars on the road are Mercedes models from any of the last fifty years. One of the things I really like about developing countries is that you see cars that you never saw in real life before or never even knew existed in the past.
- Nearly all the cars have their windows tinted very dark. Some do just the four doors and the back windshield, while others also put window tinting across the top and bottom of the front windshield so that they see out of a fairly narrow band of non-tinted glass. Theft is that big a problem.
- There is an incredibly big informal sector, which is "economic activity that isn't taxed or monitored by the government (according to Wikipedia)." Sometimes, in American cities, there are a few people who try to make a few bucks by washing car windshields at intersections, helping you parallel park your car, or pan-handling. Here in Paraguay, there are droves of people who try to make their living like this. At a major intersection, there might be two people selling apples, two selling oranges, one selling instant lotto tickets, one selling candy, one selling Paraguayan biscuits called chipa, a team of kids (under 10 years old) washing windshields and wiping headlights, and a pair of even younger kids (as in, between 2 and 5 years old) going car-window to car-window pan-handling. And that's at each of the four entrances to the intersection. Then there are others that hop on and off local buses all day selling all the same stuff.
- Poverty is very real here. There are more than a few people who build makeshift tents in vacant lots from stuff they picked up in the trash and survive by selling things on the street, stealing, or other means. There is a well-known park in the downtown section of the capital, Asuncion, full of makeshift tents and their tenants. On the east side of Asuncion, there is a park where kids without parents hang out and sleep at night.
- Private security guards are everywhere, and they pack serious heat. Some are hired to protect individual houses, sitting in guard stations that look like porto-potties on the curbs of rich neighborhoods. Others guard apartment buildings, private schools, bus stations, car dealerships, restaurants, and nearly everything else. The weapon of choice for many of these guards is a 4-foot-long shotgun, and for them the night-stick seems to be just an aesthetic accessory. I guess this is what happens when the police can't be relied upon.
- The police - they wear beige uniforms, complete with beige hat and black army boots, and look more like some sort of military force. They don't seem to be the kind of people you'd want to go to for help, whether you're a visitor or citizen, especially considering this is the second-most corrupt country in all of Latin America.
- Everyone here drinks something called terere (cold version) or mate (hot version) all the time. They carry a locally-designed water bottle with a ring on the side to hold their terere/mate cup. They fill the cup with yerba mate (which looks like shredded tea leaves), and they put in a straw with very small holes in the bottom so that they can drink without taking in the bits of yerba mate. Then they fill the cup with water, drink, refill, pass it to their friend to drink, refill, drink, and repeat all day. Everyone - bus drivers, armored-car drivers, policemen, office workers, security guards - all drink (and share) terere/mate all the time.
- The beef is incredible. Most, if not all, cows from Paraguay and Argentina are raised naturally, and the meat - whether grilled, breaded and fried, stuffed in an empanada, or otherwise - is superb.
- The diversity of people here surprised me. Besides the "typical" Latin Americans - mestizos (descendants of mixed Spanish and indigenous heritage), there are a fair number of people of indigenous, Italian, German, English, Japanese, and Korean descent, among others. I think many of them (especially Europeans) came around the time of WWII to escape the rule of the Axis Powers.
- There isn't much tourism. Paraguay has no beaches, no mountains, and very little jungle, so it's hard to draw tourists when the region has places like Buenos Aires, Montevideo, Rio de Janeiro, Valparaiso, Patagonia, the Bolivian altiplano, Tierra del Fuego, Iguazu Falls, and the Amazon.
- There's nothing to do. Downtown Asuncion is completely dead on the weekends. If there's nothing to do downtown in the country's biggest city on the weekend, you can imagine how fun this place is. There are a few discotecas around, but mostly people just go out to eat and drink or hang out at the mall. I guess it's ok, though, since I got to know my girlfriend much better (and that's a good thing). We've been hanging out, trying to find ways to enjoy ourselves despite the bleak atmosphere of this country, and we've found enjoyment in playing online games, joking around, and acting really stupid.
Unfortunately, most of my time here has been spent sitting at a desk, but Tamara and I were able to get away for a weekend to visit Iguazu Falls (on the border of Brazil and Argentina and near the border of Paraguay). To get there, we had to go through Ciudad del Este, Paraguay's notorious border town. It's dirty, crowded, noisy, and full of illegal activity. Surprisingly, the minute you cross the Friendship Bridge into Brazil, you feel like you're in a different world. Suddenly, it looks very green, with plenty of grass and palm trees. We were pretty dumbfounded when we got to Iguazu, which makes Niagara seem a lot less impressive. Along a walking trail on the Brazilian side of the falls, view and breath-taking view eventually led us onto a bridge that lets you stand in the middle of the upper and lower falls right in the middle of everything while getting soaked by a never-ending mist. That short trip was what saved our sanity during this uneventful summer.
So overall, our experience in Paraguay (both in and out of the office) has been pretty dull and unpleasant. Generally, I don't like to say bad things about places but, other than a few local friends, everyone and everything in this country has left a bad taste in our mouths. The pervasive corruption and poverty here, combined with a very bland lifestyle and mediocre work experience, had us packing our bags long before our departure date. It wasn't all bad - we got to know each other that much better and we got to visit Iguazu - but when we think about the possibility of leaving this very bleak environment, only one thing comes to mind: we can't wait to get out of here.
