Supermercado, Hipermercado

So.
I just realized that for the past month (as of 8pm last night it's been four weeks since disembarking in Paraguay) I haven't used shampoo on my hair once. I've mistakenly been using conditioner. At first I thought it was just the high humidity that was giving my hair the full body and healthy shine that I hadn't experienced in the desert dryness. Then I began to think that since I'm washing my hair more frequently, maybe it's producing more natural oils... details aside, today I really began questioning whether I should have just packed my good old American made shampoo.
And this is when I looked at the bottle.
It's not like “acondicionador” is such a far cry from its English cognate. Perhaps it's that the bottle was sitting directly under (as in hidden by) the shampoo sign. Or maybe on my first shopping trip I was concentrating harder on deciphering what scent it was supposed to be (really, I don't like my hair smelling of coconut) than on the product itself. So this morning I went back to the supermarket and picked up an identical looking bottle at the other end of the aisle that was clearly marked “shampoo”.
Shampoo and a bottle of guaraná. Though it's becoming more popular in the U.S., I'm told that guaraná pop, along with churrasquerias (meat-spear smorgasbords) are really a Paraguayan (and Brazilian and Argentinian) distinctive. It's one of those things that, as a 4 year old returning from Brazil, stuck in my memory: guaraná pop, super-sweet guava paste, almost sickly sweet dulce de leche, and little juice boxes of chocolate milk...it's interesting note what a four year old remembers. So when I went to the store for the first time here, along with shampoo, I found myself some guava paste, a little dulce de leche, and some guaraná. And bananas.
I came in exactly the wrong season for fruit; a month ago there were still a few haggard looking mangoes, avocados, and papayas on the shelves. Now it's down to bananas and imported citrus, but fortunately for me, between the climate and a little pesticide, bananas grow in abundance year-round. And they're cheap. Really cheap. On my last trip I picked up a little over 3 pounds for around 60 cents. For that reason alone I would consider taking up residency in Paraguay.
But my favorite part of the supermarket is the little video screens you can watch while you're waiting in line (not to be confused the grocery store movie theaters; this week I went to a theater built into the equivalent of Safeway or Dillons). Evidently, the stores want to demonstrate that they're at least as modern as any American Safeway. So they have these video screens by the cash register where you can watch documentaries about factory-farmed chickens. From growth-hormone injection to the automated butcher machine, you can follow lives of your future chicken nuggets right up to their demise. I laugh whenever I see it. Any grocery story in the U.S. that showed how their chickens are raised would a) have PETA picketing outside the store and b) see their customers swear off chicken.

I'm including a picture of my hair, but it also includes my face, and one of my co-volunteers, Teresa. Sometime soon, I'll actually write about what I'm doing as a volunteer. So until next time...

Jogurt

If I knew one thing about the Mennonite colonies in Paraguay prior to my arrival, I knew that they were largely responsible for turning parts of the Chaco (a geographic region that stretches over several countries, and is by all accounts an un-farmable wasteland) into a productive agricultural enterprise. And if I knew one thing about the productive agriculturally enterprising Mennonites, it's that they have one fabulous dairy processing plant. Prior to my departure, I was actually told by one person, “if you don't see anything else, see the dairy plant. They're way more advanced than the U.S. They make drinkable yogurt.” Last I looked, the dairy processing plant wasn't on my itinerary, but I had planned on at least trying this famous drinkable yogurt.

● ● ●

Friday, June 12: I bought a bag of drinkable (bebible) strawberry yogurt. Yogurt, like milk and mayonnaise here, often comes in plastic bags, at least if you're buying more than 4oz. I find plastic bags to be ultimately sensible for storage before they're opened (store in cool, dry place, free of sharp objects) but ultimately a pain once you've cut a pour-hole. Each opened bag then requires its own pitcher.

Monday, June 15: I open my liter of drinkable, strawberry yogurt and enjoy it on a bowl of cornflakes and bananas.

Tuesday, June 16: Call the corps of engineers, we're in over our heads!

I'll back up a little. My stay here in Paraguay isn't exactly a vacation, since I'm volunteering at the AIDS foundation that my family started (the family I'm living with). There's a lot to be said, but what you need to know is that this foundation is staffed largely by volunteers, and is paid for largely by donations. In addition to other services, it provides meals for HIV/AIDS patients, along with bags of groceries to take home. With more than 2,000 total clients, that translates into a lot of food. And one of these food sources is the Co-op dairy plant (making no assumptions, I expect this might be the plant I was advised to visit) so every Tuesday they have to get rid of all the unsold and nearly-expired yogurt and milk and cream cheese and butter and dulce de leche that's sitting in their warehouse.

This Tuesday, apparently, was a bumper harvest. I wish I had a picture of the pickup full of yogurt that arrived Tuesday afternoon. Or a picture of the kitchen floor, covered in crates upon crates of yogurt that wouldn't fit into the three fridges. Or a picture of the hundreds of pounds of yogurt we sent home with patients. But this one will have to do.

Wednesday, June 17: Some might call this a fridge full of yogurt. I call this my new reality. I'd brought home a modest 6 liters of yogurt on Tuesday, but the Co-op called again and sent another 6 crates our way, so my fridge became part of the overflow plan. Somewhere back in there I think I still have some bread and eggs and cheese, but I'll have to eat my way in.

Thursday, June 18: Not sick of yogurt yet. Ask me in a week.

I'm not really a fan of product placements for large American corporations, but Tony and Sam and Mrs. Müslix wanted to say hi. I'm probably just behind the times, but I hadn't seen a cereal-yogurt combo package like this before.

And to Think That I Saw it on Mulberry Street

my regards to Dr. Seuss.

In my room there’s a window, where should be a wall

Open onto the street so that I can see all

That is passing by foot or by hoof or by wheels

A fantastic parade of all sorts of mobiles

And spectating there from the bed where I slumber

I’ve started to note all the wonders that lumber

‘Long pot-holey, narrow, and cobblestoned streets

And the list I’ve compiled, while far from complete

Is a taste of the traffic on mulberry street.

A horse is (of course, is) a good place to start

A regular horse with a broken down cart

Filled with branches and leaves

Or with trash or recycling

To take to the dump, if that’s what’s to your liking

Or if you’d prefer not to pay the for the dumping

The man on the cart will oblige you by thumping

The pile of branches, (just now and again)

As he drives by the neighbors’ front doorways and then

With a thump and a bump a small branch will fall off.

“Oh, it’s quite accidental,” he says, if you scoff.

But as soon as he reaches the dump he will see

That there’s nothing more left of his pile of debris

So he’ll go home, dejected, until the next day

When your neighbors will call him and ask, if they pay,

Would he please come and pick up some branches and leaves

That they found on their doorstep on Mulberry Street.

But piles of branches, a-flipping and flopping

And regular horses, a-clipping and clopping

Down Mulberry Street are but only a start.

There’s more to be seen here than broken down carts.

There are bicycles, too, with their tires running flat

From the trash on the streets and the weight on their racks

Cause the rider decided he needed to carry

A 3 meter pipe down the Street of Mulberry.

A bicycle plumber: he’ll fix all your leaks

If he isn’t run over on Mulberry Street.

For buses are bigger than bicycle plumbers

And scary to ride for the city’s newcomers

Who ‘spect they will die when the bus runs a light,

Or have their purse stolen (they’re probably right)

But the driver is cool, collected, contained,

As he talks on his cell phone and counts out your change

And swerves through the traffic on streets with no lanes

And no names and no claims to the concept of sane

But buses, I’m told, are a toler’ble scene

If you don’t try to ride to the futbol arena

They’ll lurch and they’ll launch you right out of your seat

And you’ll land with a thump, safe, on Mulberry Street.

And when all the horses and bikers and buses

And motorbikes, pickups, and big semi-truckses

Get lonely and go out to be where the crowd is

They jam in and try to see who honks the loudest.

Just go out and watch them; you’re in for a treat:

The symphonic arrangement of Mulberry Street.

I Believe in Miracles

I've decided my first blog post should thoughtfully encapsulate my first impressions of South America, the essence of what it means to find one's self a stranger in a strange land, and also pay tribute to the rich heritage and local culture. So, cliches be darned, I'm going to introduce you to my bathroom:

Don't drink the water from this faucet unless you grew up in Paraguay. Even Chileans come here and get very, very sick. I suppose it's just a matter of time until someone serves me coffee or juice (or milk) made with local water. Until then, hands are washed with this water, and teeth are brushed with bottled water.

please refer to the schematic (below) to reference the following quips.

1. The trash can. Yes, even men's bathrooms have these little guys. I'm not convinced that the kind of toilet paper they sell in S. America is stout enough to clog even an artery, but it still doesn't go in the city sewer system. I remember it taking a little time to unlearn that habit twenty-some years ago when I moved back from Brazil. It's taken a little time to get back into the habit now...my personal apologies to Sao Paulo airport if their sewer system backs up. It was my fault.

2. The eagle-eyed among you will look at the shower head and wonder why there's electrical tape. That's mostly to keep the water from coming in contact with the electrical wiring. I'm glad someone thought to put electrical tape on that junction because there is a stream of water coming off that plastic tube to the side. If you adjust it properly, it won't spray on the wire. Here's the benefit of a bathroom with no carpeting and a central floor drain: the whole bathroom is your shower stall, solving that age-old need to brush your teeth and shower at the same time. For all you home-modification fans, the shower's naturally ADA accessible with a built in multi-functional shower seat: the toilet.

3. That's right, read it and weep, my bathroom comes with a urinal. It's possible that's a byproduct of my bedroom/apartment being a former storefront. I understand not all residential commodes come with such high-brow plumbing. True, I have to walk outside to get there, but a urinal's a urinal. Sometimes you just have to go the distance to reap the rewards. Another byproduct is that I've found the words “urinal” and “miracle” apparently occupy neighboring registers in my brain. Whenever I walk into the bathroom I start humming “That was a miracle [urinal] too” from Fiddler on the Roof. More recently it's been “I believe in [urinals]”.

I guess these wouldn't generally be considered “stained glass” windows, but they do give the bathroom a little more of an ecclesiastic aire. I have yet to kneel at the porcelain altar, but as my system continues to adjust to Paraguayan bugs, I'm sure it won't be long.