The 7:00 to Yuty

I stayed 3 days at the McKissicks again before heading further down Route 8 to Yuty to stay with the Reichs.  Route 8 is the only major road in Paraguay that hasn’t been paved yet (and when I say major road we’re talking 5 or 6 buses, and 20 trucks, per day) so travel, especially by bus, is often determined by the weather.  If it’s sunny then everything is good, the red dirt road is dusty and hard, but if it’s raining then there’s no dice because it’s like driving on butter.  I was leaving at 7pm but knew if it rained I’d be leaving the next day.  If a storm is even forecast then the buses don’t leave Villarrica further up the road (where the tarmac ends and the dirt starts), but if the bus had reached San Francisco by the time the rain started it would trudge on to Yuty rather than turning back.

It was quite overcast near 7 but nothing bad forecast but perhaps some isolated showers.  The bus came early and cost 20,000 Guaranis (£2.60 or so) for the 90-minute trip to Yuty.  I paid the driver as the conductor put my luggage in the hold, and we set off.  And everything was good for a few minutes until we left San Francisco and reached the wilds and the driver booted the bus up to between 50 and 60mph on roads where 25 was often too fast.  Lightning started to flash to the West after the sun had set and the streaks lit up the huge grey billows that covered nearly all the sky.  The flashes came every few seconds in multiple areas, some far off through a few layers of cloud, others were striking a mile or so off.  The driver was trying to beat the storm, a storm that hadn’t been expected from the San Francisco area.

By 8pm the bus was overtaken and engulfed by the fast-moving, huge storm and the rain was lashing down.  Lightning struck trees less than a few hundred yards away with a zap and a pop.  The bus slowed down to 5mph and carefully took to the slick roads like a cat on a very narrow fence.  Many times buses have slid off the road and the occupants have had to bed down for the night, or until the storm passes, before the slow rescue vehicle (tractor) rumbles out to save the day.  

Many times, especially going up hill, the back of the bus swayed a yard this way and a yard that way, and once began to drift sideways on the curved path that had been heavily cambered by the rain at each side.  On a slight upward hill we approached what appeared to be a parked truck.  As we got closer the dim bus lights began to pick up its partially spilled load hanging from the side, and reaching the front we saw no cab, as the truck had jack-knifed and the cab was rammed into the ridge 90 degrees off the trailer position.  It looked from the tire marks to have been both recent and a slow-speed accident whereby the truck had simply lost traction over the course of a dozen feet and had slid holus-bolus into the verge.  The bus drew alongside and the conductor shouted out the door to the trucker but nobody replied.  After a few minutes of nothing we continued on and the darkened truck was engulfed by the night again.

Around a corner not far from there, on the steepest hill yet, a motorbike and 2 passengers lay across the dead-centre of the road leaving no space either side for the bus to get passed.  There are stories of people laying dead in the middle of narrow, isolated roads like this, so that drivers are forced to stop and then a pack of thieves jump out of the bushes with guns and rob everybody blind, so the bus driver showed caution and didn’t slow down but flashed his lights and honked his horn.  Out of nowhere, overtaking us at that very moment was a 2nd motorbike (unnervingly we hadn’t seen anything else moving since the rain started).  The odds were heavily in favour of criminality due to the location, timing, and position of all key players, but, rather amazingly it turned out to be the nigh-on-impossible innocent happening, or maybe it wasn’t, because the driver didn’t open the door and the fallen bikers picked their muddy selves up and got out of the way of the revving, less than sympathetic bus.  From a standing start it seemed unlikely that we would get moving again, but we did.

I then got a call from Dan Reich in Yuty (who was going to collect me), and he said the bus was about to reach Yuty as he had spoken to the wife of the driver.  The wife of the driver was sitting in front of me and soon turned around and said hello.  It transpired that the bus driver and his wife are the Paraguayan mom and dad who Hannes, the young Swiss missionary I met on my first Sunday in Paraguay, is living with in Yuty!  It’s a town of 6,000 people, 3 times the size of San Francisco, yet it’s an extremely small world.

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The White House and Other Pictures

I finally got to see Downtown Asuncion today!  It’s meant to be the Royal Mile of Asuncion, the Manhattan of the city.  Danny had provided me with a touristy city map a few days ago filled with 5 small pictures of the must see parts of the city (all of which seemed to be clustered around the unfortunately-named Avenue Colon near the Rio Paraguay).  As the ACA’s old film has a few seconds of Downtown as a view of the city, I thought it wise to have a couple also.

I was going to take the bus, but was encouraged not to as there is no direct bus, just one that takes forever to cover half the streets in the city regions on the way, so I got a ride with Pedro.  Pedro speaks as much English as I speak Spanish, so we had a good time acting like very small children pointing at things like ‘car,’ ‘tree,’ and ‘strong wind,’ and acting out scenarios such as ‘daylight robbery’ and ‘police officer shooting person with pump-action shot gun’ (complete with sound effects) and comparing the weather, the robbers and the traffic with Britain (Britain, I explained, has less “fire from the sky” -sun-, has less daylight robberies, and fewer people carry bang bangs).

As we were heading off, the strong wind we talked about with hand gestures, pointed fingers and sound effects, picked up as a storm was blowing in.  Typical, it had until then been a week and a half of sunshine with the occasional puny cloud obscuring the sun’s glare.

On the way we passed the remnants of the city’s train system (just a few locos and carriages parked by the road with no tracks to provide them with an escape)... 

...and got to the place in the picture below which appeared to be the Paraguay version of the White House.  I hung out the car with a camera as we passed it, only to realise there was a platoon of army men looking at the approaching threat.  I felt it best that we should stop and demonstrate our non-threat by being touristy rather than set off at speed.  As we parked nearby Pedro asked one of the soldiers if I could film (and I suspected the pistol he had holstered was a fake plastic gun, but I didn’t want to say anything), and he said we could film, so we were OK and not dispatched.

From there I got to see my first view of the Rio Paraguay, the great river that runs through Paraguay.  Argentina on the other side didn’t seem far enough away or suitably different to be believable as another country altogether.  In fact I didn’t realise it was Argentina until I got back, looked at the pictures, and remembered that the river acted as the boundary between the 2 nations at this point.

The presidential White House (with its pink hut placed on top the white building like a scoop of peach ice cream to add to the vanilla) was set amongst a few acres of fancy, old buildings (in fact all the ones pictured on the map), and immediately behind them, sandwiched between the presidential grandeur and the river’s sandbanks, was a large shanty town.  From the stairs down to it I could see the storm picking up clouds of sand from the banks and blowing them over the horizon.  As the kids and I watched the sight, some of the local fuzz approached the tourist with a camera, possibly to get a bribe (if travel books and advice are to be believed), but I saw them coming and headed off before they could shake me down for the £3.40 in local loot I have.  Pedro said it was a lucky escape.

We moved onto a grand museum which was three levels high and was to celebrate Paraguay’s 200 (now 201) year history.  It was probably the most sparse museum I have ever seen.  There were a few statues of 4 or 5 famous Paraguayans from its past 200 years complete with huge papier mâché heads.  There was also a serious-looking decapitated head on a stake in a room of flags, a canoe so long and dark I mistook it for a while as a beam to hold up the ceiling, and some instruments.  

It was a bit disappointing, but the mens toilets had a narrow spiral staircase that led up to the roof (to make up for its apparent lack of anything more than a sink) where I got a good view of the shanty town the museum on the country’s greatness overshadowed.

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Radical Guampas

On Wednesday I joined Jeff and Andy the Guarani and Spanish teacher on a trip to Brasilia Avenue which is getting a bit closer to downtown, and probably the nicest area I have seen in Asuncion so far.  It was really only to get a mountain of fried chicken for about 13 people, so the order was very large and took a long time to prepare, so we got to roam around the premises while we waited.  I discovered the fried chicken place had a small tereré accoutrement room for personalised guampas and flasks.  Guampas for tereré (see tereré post for more details) and mate (the same drink, only hot) are made from hollowed-out animal horns, and all Paraguayans, it seems, use them daily -they have tereré breaks the way we would have coffee breaks.  All Christian missionaries here have them too, not to fit in, but because they all like the drink and the daily community experience drinking tereré creates.  Here are some pictures of the wares:

The most common designs for guampas tend to be the word 'Paraguay', and the logos for Paraguayan football clubs.  One club, Olympia, is about 15 blocks from me.

The special straws (bombillas) are necessary, but the bombilla brush (in Jeff's hand) is just to look superior.

The designed thermoses, all leather exteriors.  Nice.

Jeff and Andy are probably thinking, 'This thermos could fit a chipmunk.'

Another football club.  Interestingly, I haven't seen anybody wearing football strips for local teams.  97% of seen strips are for the Paraguayan national team, with 3% for Brazil or Argentina.

Brazilian guampas aren't flat on the bottom so they need a bench.

Leather and wooden guampas aren't so nice.  You might as well just use a mug.

Magical: Guampas can also be used to make emergency phone-calls (when the person you're contacting is standing in earshot).

This post was made to give me a break from editing film footage (the most anti-social task known to man). I'm spending the next week in Asuncion editing, but also, on Monday I return to Asuncion Christian Academy to film some of their soccer practice which was cancelled last Thursday.

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Mission Trip Photos (Habitat for Humanity)

These are pictures from the recent one-day mission trip with Habitat for Humanity.  Well, rather they are pictures taken from video clips.

This picture is of one of the kids whose family we were helping build their new house.  She was an expert at climbing trees.

This is at the 2nd location.  As videographer I got to go to 3 house-build locations unlike everybody else who had to stick with just one.

Some of the ACA students hard at work in the mid-day heat.

They had to sand and chisel the cement, then wash it with some chemical or other.

Heading to location one through the woods on the back of a 4x4!

A sander.

This is one of the huts we were replacing.

Climbers.

Peter and fiancee, teachers at ACA.

One of the kids goofing around.

They moved their beds under cooling trees for siesta time.

A lot of hacking was required.

Teacher Courtney at the moment she was hit by some foliage.

The cute kids.

The girl who set out her little chair and watched proceedings for quite a while.

One of the electricity poles/trees I mentioned in an earlier post!

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Negotiating Tricky Spots!

Foreigners are encouraged not to drive at night, as even in the daytime all roads in Paraguay have tricky spots.  I’d encourage them not to travel at all as a tricky spot is found on nearly every road.  Tricky spots even for pedestrians are road crossings without pedestrian signals (I’m yet to encounter even one!), roads which are rendered gauntlets by the 6 lane expressways (one, helpfully, if not negotiated, has a major graveyard on the other side to ensure you reach the other side in death if not in life); sidewalk sculptures such as rock gardens that surround major trees that leave sometimes no route past without stepping onto the road; interesting parking procedures which means a car can be parked to cover 100% of the sidewalk to force the unfortunate into the path of traffic; sudden drops of over a foot (one guy in a wheelchair had to use the expressway to get around, and it was a harrowing sight); and my favourite obstacle: the 1ft drop from sidewalk to road immediately followed by the 8ft drop into the river if more than your leg could fit through the rain drains.  It’s good that most of the time the sidewalks are raised, because low ones are used by impatient motorists as slip roads around queues. 

On the SIM street is a clothes shop and daily from 7am the clothes are hung out over the sidewalk under the shop’s overhanging roof.  The roof is 7.5ft high, and the average t-shirt hung from it is about head-height.  Further obstacles are placed deliberately in the way of the already ducking or blinded walker by the setting out of 2 large chairs, a water flask for terere, and a foul guard dog which lays in a heap in the dust and looks in a state of rigor mortis.  The shopkeepers then sit themselves down at waist hight (below the hanging clothes) and look flabbergasted as to why people are getting caught up in their wares.

The Low-Flying Clothes Shop

Things get trickier when you venture off the high, Crypton Factor sidewalk and climb inside a dodgem.  All cars here carry scars, and some cars are left where their life had left them, minus their chairs and radio.  To observe a busy road here is to observe a scene of an accident moments before it all goes wrong: buses and taxis charge the wrong way up one-way streets to make time; traffic lights are few and far between (and not programmed for rush hour); most junctions of minor roads onto major ones require looking for a space between a couple of weedy bikes and an onrushing truck and flooring the gas over the two lanes, then braking in the middle of the road, ready to be t-boned by the truck if he didn’t see you or can’t swat the bikes out the way in the 2nd lane to make space, whilst you wait for a gap to open in the other two lanes.  Drive defensively, they say.  There’s a lot of horn honking (mainly to make people aware that you are overtaking them -or undertaking as the case usually is), motorbikers trying to get themselves crushed by dodging cars and buses like flies buzzing around a cow’s slapping tail.  When safely onto the 2 lane expressway then it’s best to be in the fast lane as if you aren’t paying attention there might be a 30ft tree growing in the other lane, or, like on the road to the airport, someone has extended their house onto the slow lane so motorists are faced with an actual brick wall in a 60mph zone (I’m not making this up).

A 20ft long storm drain into a river with a human-sized section helpfully cut away to illustrate the peril.

However, the most devious device in Asuncion is the speed bump.  They are everywhere, usually a few yards before a junction, but others are just thrown here or there.  They are the full sleeping policeman that reach across the road (some leave a slight gap by the kerb and motorbikists swerve towards them bringing themselves perilously close to telegraph poles, and the branches of thorny shrubbery).  Some still have their yellow war paint from when they were first constructed, but most have been plastered with hot, black rubber from cars that have launched from them into orbit leaving them, especially at night, almost invisible.  There is a cross-roads next to SIM HQ with a disguised speed bump and constantly there are cars screeching to a halt as they approach, and the clattering of loose suspension with cars leaping over them, and once the smashing of glass as one van carting glass-fronted fridges found speed bumps can certainly rock your contents about with force.

I have had the opportunity to drive once, at the tricky time of 9pm (Monday) when it was dark.  The vehicle was a left-hand drive 4x4.  As I was negotiating the crossing of major intersections without blinking or prising my clenched teeth apart, I kept telling my passenger, I’m really enjoying this!  I think I was, and I lived to tell the tale.

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Habitat para la Humanidad

The Man With No Surname's certificate.

On Saturday I joined Asuncion Christian Academy’s teachers and students on a one-day mission trip.  It cost only about £10 for the bus trip, the mid-day meal, and the t-shirt all volunteers for Habitat for Humanity get.  I don’t remember where it was, only the distance and general direction (east of Asuncion about 70km).  I think it was off Route 2 somewhere, so Mbokajaty del Yhaguy, or Itacurubi de la Cordillera (I might be way off).

There were about 20 of us scheduled to depart the Academy at 6:00am.  I arrived in English time (early) at 5:45am having got up at 5am and walked the almost empty darkness from HQ, and found 2 others, actually Paraguayan students I had gotten to know a bit this past week.  We jested about the differences in hot climate and cold climate cultures, and pondered why it was actually the American should-be-on-time teachers who were the ones holding up the parade whilst the locals had set a stirling example of precision time-keeping.

So we left at 6:30, 20 of us crammed into 3 cars, and we made our way to Habitat HQ where the bus would start, where the other 10 or so would be waiting (we waited for them in the end).  There we got free t-shirts and I realise now how I often start these blog posts with details which I then repeat to no effect.

And so to continue as I started: Our day was to be spent in a rural town [see above for location possibilities], where we would assist the building of houses for those in huts not adequate for the families they contained.  It’s a good organisation as they seem to help out with families who are also prepared to muck in and build alongside the volunteers and architects.  We split into 4 groups from the bus stop and went in different directions to nearby settlements set amongst the rolling hills and thicker-than-usual woodland, 7 or 8 of us all hanging over the edges of 4x4s which trundled jerkily over insanely bumpy country roads (one which had 2 tyre tracks, only one track was about 1ft lower than the other) which provided good filming moments.  I had gone along to record some of the mission work students and teachers from ACA do.  Realistically I’d only use about 15-20 seconds of the work in any ACA film as it would be tangent material, which meant it would be far and away the lowest filming production day, but I had also gone along for the craic as the ACA teachers and students are rare fun (and one of them is dating a Northern Irish teacher from another Christian school in Asuncion who came along -who incidentally passed my N.I. test by rendering the phrase How now brown cow as Hoy noy broyn coy).

The house-building tasks included the digging of trenches, shifting of piles of 15kg rocks, sanding, chiseling, and digging deep holes for sceptic tanks.  As we were out in the sticks the people spoke more Guarani the Spanish, found pale-skinned northerners comical, and the children found fun in climbing trees rather than making their video game characters climb trees, so I got a bit of footage of tree-climbing as well as of a little girl of maybe 3 who had a small, wooden, reclining chair who set it out and sat in it examining the workers for about 30 minutes like an old lady as they built the foundations of her new home.  One family had their wooden beds set out under a large tree, perhaps for siesta time, or maybe they spent all night under it.

We had a rollicking time of adventure and hard work, and drove through a thick cloud of smoke on the way back as a large field was on fire.

I’d post lots of pictures of the tiring yet fun day, only I had to leave all my equipment at the school rather than walk the mile home with it.

Electricity pole/tree (one in good shape)

Also, as I am interested, oddly enough, in electricity pylons etc, I note something great about the sticks of Paraguay: a few years ago the government passed a bill (or something) that stated all Paraguayans should have at least 1 electric light in their house, and being away from a major city like Asuncion, or a major (yet quiet) bus route town like San Francisco, I got to see what the rapidly-produced, spangly electricity pylons/poles/etc were like to the more rural folk.  It seemed that besides some far-spaced, sturdy cement poles, the in-between lesser creations were wooden poles similar to what we have in the UK for telephone wires.  Well, similar in that they are are made of tree trunks.  It seemed that no discrimination had been factored in to the choosing of suitable tree trunks, and none, clearly, had to meet a suitable thickness or hight standard.  So what was holding up the cables were often rather spindly, unhappy, twisted, leaning, broken, split, tooth-pick-sized trunks shorn of their feeble branches and left with their grey bark.  As creosote had clearly been deemed surplus to requirements, 100% of the poles were left to face the elements without their suitable sunscreen to protect them, thus they largely looked rotten and as dry as driftwood.  Most looked like a good kick could fell them, and often it was the cables holding the trunks up, braced by the 1 in every 5 cement poles.  It was totally brilliant and has given me a rare opportunity to share in my random interest.


Additionally, here's 2 pictures of the SIM dogs:

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Zoo

I skipped 4th period of school today.  Well, a large group of Americans arrived at the academy and said we were all going to Asuncion zoo so I didn’t have any option.  I was only 5 minutes from being done anyway.  10 of us went in the 5-seater and blended in amongst the other Paraguayan carpoolers (some there -none of us- hang onto the backs of 4x4s or perch precariously on the sides hoping for no major bump to wipe them out).

Me and Dexter

The zoo featured what are probably the only Paraguayan jaguars left that aren’t riddled with Paraguayan bullets and hung on walls.  They cut a pretty miserable sight in their concrete dungeons, and one was very flabby (or perhaps pregnant, to be fair).  Apart from the unhappily incarcerated native cats, the zoo was brilliant in many ways, partly because it wasn’t trying too hard, and approximately 15% of the animals had broken out of their cages and ran around us to the concern of nobody.  Loose animals included: one of the vultures, and about 15 small monkeys that had escaped their island with the help of a fallen tree that had bridged the monkey-proof moat.  One of these primates threw a fruit at us which struck an alumni from the school I was working at.  We named him Dexter (the monkey, not the graduate), and Dexter followed us around the small zoo, posed for pictures, ate sticks we handed to him, and even chugged some Coca-Cola from a discarded bottle which impressed us all.

SIM Paraguay's new dog.

Speaking of animals: the SIM HQ has got a new dog (currently named either ‘Sam,’ ‘Zim’, or ‘FreeToAGoodHome’), and all SIM Paraguay members have to submit names for her.  The suggested names range from the common (Shadow, Wolfy, Indy), to the downright peculiar/Swiss-German (Ueli).  She's a softy but races towards any suspicious people.  My suggestion is the name Twiggy, although 2 year-old Julia’s baby-speak name Hababa is quite good because it sounds funny.  We’ll find out the results soon.

Tomorrow I join students and teachers on a mission trip with Habitat for Humanity (habitat.org) to get some footage of their own mission work.  Should be good.  Would appreciate your prayers, however, that I can be up a 5am when I have to leave HQ.

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Pictures of the Week in San Francisco

I taught 2 of the younger McKissicks how to work the camera and they made a film about getting fruit from a neighbours tree by throwing rocks at it.

This was at an outdoors meal where fancy furniture was placed under trees.

The 2 young filmmakers.

A rabbit that happily lives in a chicken house.

A baby rabbit born during the week I was there.

A chick rescued from the jaws of one of the dogs.  It had a broken wing.  It sadly died on Friday night.

The best day was when I was given an iced coffee by Amy.  I can't express how good a cold drink is.  Like cold water to a weary soul is good news from a distant land. (Proverbs 25:25)

A view of the high street in San Francisco.  As it's a main bus route companies pay the locals to have advertisements painted on their walls.

On the left is a fixed fan control, and the right is a camera cable into a US to UK adaptor, then a UK to Paraguay adaptor held in place with string.

Amy McKissick trying to lasso.

The lasso teacher.  He had 4 students and 2 managed to lasso a cow (one by the head, one by the leg).  I failed.

Pigs are great.  They stand in the middle of roads grunting seemingly oblivious to the approaching 4x4s.

The San Francisco high street.

Sugarcane getting split.

God provided an amazing sunset on both Friday and Saturday.

A hammock in the sunset.

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