Things are starting to become more normal and though still conscious of how successfully I’m integrating, I’m sure it will be so much that one-day I will not notice. Once upon a time, I couldn’t imagine why people don’t go anywhere including school on days it rains, or work only a couple hours in the morning and maybe a couple just before dusk on hot summer days. However, I’m starting to come to terms with justifying any feckless time spent either on my own or with neighbors on how hot/rainy/muddy the roads/windy/late/rain threatening/etc are. I once read that in Paraguay, no one is familiar with Carpe Diem, as today is a chill day, and tomorrow is a day to seize.
On the topic of weather…as that is what is most often talked about and can get crazy all up on us without warning….and because it’s just the quintessential small talk topic. It’s been generally sweltering hot since late December, so much so that within 15 minutes of hoeing in the garden or chacra (field) I’m dripping sweat and nearly soaked through my shirt it’s gross (thought I like to flatter myself and thing that it’s partially due to the humidity…because I never thought I could be that sweat so much so fast). However, in the past few days, the rain gods have graced us and quenched the baked and parched earth and nearly drowned it. Monday afternoon became overcast and very gray so everyone commented on how it was pretty ominous of rain. And rain it did. A thunderstorm came a rollin’ in just past midnight and it rained in buckets. Literally. The lighting was hitting nearby so I couldn’t sleep from the thunder and I figured I’d put an empty bucket to catch water near my patio, and noted that within an hour, the water was overflowing. Through most of the night lightning twinkled through my door; often the time difference between the lighting and pounding thunder was within a couple of seconds. The worst, twice, I saw no lighting through the windows, but only felt the energy run through the earth, rattle under my bed, similar to a little earthquake, instantly followed by an ear bursting thunder. I gotta admit it was pretty crazy awesome but the thought that lighting may have just as well struck at my doorstep made me feel like I could crap a brick. Since then, rain has just been a constant threat, but not attacking so fiercely, but it’s still kind of balmy warm combined very low hanging rain clouds, so that you can feel the drizzle falling but the air is saturated of humidity, it kind of just is near suspended yet falling…I don’t know exactly how to put it…it’s not like the cold thick fog we get in the California central coast, but it wasn’t uncomfortably clingy like in the Connecticut summer, it was like just drizzling in slow motion from clouds that were only 10meters overhead. It made the beautiful misty landscape feel quite exotic.
Nonetheless, I have been up to doing some kind of work!! I have impressed my neighbors when they saw that I went out to collect a formidable amount of takuara (bamboo) for a fence around my huge garden all on my own. Over the week, I made several trips of a short distance of about 200 meters from my house to a neighbor’s land where three huge cohorts of takuara grow. It is of course an easy peasy walk there, but dragging many water heavy, fresh cut, up to 7m long takuaras makes the task a tad more grueling, especially when you are as stubborn as I and wanting to lug six at a time…I had to give up and carry no more than four of varying sizes to make it manageable. On the other hand, I’ve pleased myself that I’ve become a pro at chopping up the takuara, dragging it, cutting it to fence length size and slicing it half using just a small hand saw and a machete. The first couple of times, my arms were satisfyingly faintly sore from the work.
On the long term, I am determined to make my own way here, including possible vacations to neighboring countries in the future. The allowance we receive each month is quite modest, enough that one can well enough get by, especially in the campo, where the most expensive things tend to be imported foods in town, and trips to the city, but once it’s time to consider vacation it’s often necessary to tap into the pocketbooks of family at home. It’s something that I know I could count on in a pinch, but I admit I am stubborn in my independence and am conscious that there is rarely much to spare at home, nor do I count on the well paying college job to pay for vacations and superfluous commodities like I did in halcyon days. Therefore, I have tried to cut corners and save here and there. The easiest has been in transportation to town. The bus from site to town costs 6mil Gs (about $1.30), and I end up going about seven times a month rain or shine (as of late, more like scorching arid hot or pelt down rain). So if I were to ride on the bike I was given, I would save over $100 in one year, almost enough for a Brazilian visa…not so bad I guess. …I just have to now work on that garden and transplant the vegetables I have potted and hope they provide veggies that I won’t have to buy and transport from town in the future. It’s kind of exciting that my vegetable and tree planting efforts have been pretty successful.
Thus, since I was given the bike about a month ago, I have made the 20km roundtrip distance to town on bike. It hasn’t been so bad; I guess the previous summer spent in spinning classes at the gym wasn’t so futile. Though Paraguay is known for being quite flat topographically, I discovered I live on a very long and soft sloping hill that at one point abruptly erupts into a cerro, a very steep protrusion that is far too little to call a mountain, but much to steep to consider a hill. (I hiked the peak with a group of locals and spent about 75 mins from base to summit, but it felt like a rock climb for a good part of the way). Anyway, this bike into town makes it so that on about a straight km or two as I reach town, I’m coasting and picking up speed from the constant slight downhill slope so much that I was nervously clinging to the handlebars, catching a lot of attention from whomever happened to see, but trying not to brake too much because the pain of speed over the road paved by brick size gravel was something I wanted to instantly get over with.
About the second or third time trippin to town on the bike and going over the speed limit on that long soft downhill part, I began to think of that time we hiked in the cerro and on other random hikes and such. I realized I’m pretty scared of going downwards, and just can’t fathom why some people are most scared of uphill. A guy who went hiking with us commented on how much harder it was to go up the cerro compared to going down, yet I was comfortable going up and not at all in pain, yet once we were downward bound, I was hugging the nearest tree at almost every step, holding my breath while concentrating on where to take the next step, afraid that if I took a wrong footing I’d slip and tumble or fracture something. I thought of the question one occasionally hears involving the fear of falling while going upstairs. Maybe I don’t get it, but I’m not afraid of it at all; I am pretty sure I have tripped while going upstairs, but I just brush it off and continue. Perhaps it’s my infamous accidents involving downward motion. In first grade, I dislocated my wrist while roller-skating down a handicap ramp; freshman year of college I caused a mini avalanche and deflated ego as I thought I’d have the balls to ski (more like tumble down half a snow covered mountain) down an expert ticketed mountain in Lake Tahoe, after only two days experience; junior year, I fractured my left ankle jumping off a boulder five days into what was supposed to be a two week hike. Yet, I seem to have never minded any cuts and scrapes or pains of extra effort when upward bound. So, can you blame me if I’m coasting downhill at what feels like 40km/hr on a bike over gravel road, and I hold my breath the whole way, praying to God that I don’t end up splattered and smeared all over the road, yet I don’t mind returning uphill, huffing and puffing with about 20lbs extra weight of groceries on my back??? My point is that this smells to me like I should be a winner in life, but I’ve never before considered even considering myself a winner. I suppose I’m content being a winning loser and admitting I need a little dose of daredevil to enjoy speeding downhill.
