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...