As a typically comfortable Westerner with an Apple Mac, courier bag, and interesting multi-colour scarf, I often find myself going to the fashionable coffee house Starbucks the way a person dressed like a cowboy would find himself attracted to a 1850's saloon and John Wayne's fist. So attached to the franchise I have become that I took my Starbucks reward card to Paraguay in the hope of loitering with clear intent to sup (I even brought my branded thermos for discounted top-ups), only to discover Starbucks doesn't exist in this country. :O !!!!!!
And for a few hours I was secretly depressed.
But the same person who killed the mermaid later introduced me to the Paraguayan alternative. Actually, it's not an alternative, because the word alternative suggests something similar, but this isn't even in the same league as Starbucks; it puts Starbucks into the 3th Division. The drink is tereré. I had been in Paraguay just 15 hours when first offered the reason to never drink coffee again. Kelly is a missionary/mom here and a couple of us joined her family for a meal followed by the social event that is drinking tereré.
So you have what I can only describe as a simplistic trumpet-shaped mug called a guampa which has a dangerous-looking metal straw inside with a strainer on the bottom. You put some herbs in the guampa till it's about half full, then you put the smallest amount of freezing cold water into it (roughly double the amount of water you could hold in a traditional non-curly straw), and then grip the metal straw with your lips and suck like you want to hold a table tennis ball to the end of the straw (that is to say fiercely), and after a few seconds of no dice you begin to get the payback of icy water flavoured with whatever the herbs are (mine was minty). This lasts about 7 seconds (any more and your eyes would pop out from effort). Never has such a small amount of liquid brought such cooling to my whole body! Yum!
Once done you pass it back to the server who splashes another small amount in and passes it on to somebody else. You share the straw, and risk drawing backwash, and it's not hygienically sound, but it doesn't really matter as it tastes so good and minty. Minty minty minty.
Today I have noticed everybody at the SIM offices has tereré and its necessary accoutrements (guampa, straw, and 2 litre container of very cold water).
Danny, native to Paraguay, took me shopping and showed me an aisle of tereré. I think I will loiter there with intent in the future.
2 comments:
Interesting, do you think Paraguay is a Western country? What about Latin America? Here in China, people identify me as a Westerner even though I think I'm not. In fact I feel more at home in Asia than I ever felt in the UK.
Hey Humberto! How's China? With Paraguay, well it's West in location, but there seems to be a distinction between Western North and Western South, so when I call people Westerners I realise now I'm only meaning North Westerners. Unlike you I feel Western, although, like you, I oddly feel more at home in Asia (Japan particularly) than the UK. If not a Westerner what would you call yourself? I'm curious. Biblically speaking we're citizens of heaven rather than this world. ^_^
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