New Tribes Mission

These past 2 weeks I have been working with New Tribes Mission (http://ntm.org) and I have been all over the North of Paraguay with them visiting tribes and Bible translators and so forth.  There have been many adventures, but that's for another day.  However, here are some pictures of the sights so far...

Seeing the often primitive shacks the tribal people live in is humbling.  The sense of community is the advantage they gain from the disadvantage of living conditions.

Hair-combing seemed to be high on the agenda for most women and girls.

Some tribe kids watching a dance performance.

A tribe's older men folk form a line to dance.

The women wore these cool ankle thingies.

A kid down a tribal street.

A tribe's church.  It has no glass or shutters in the window gaps so people, not only children but adults too, use them as entrances and exits.

Carrying water from the well for the church-goers to have terere.

One of the worship leaders stopped mid-song to get some terere, then continued on after a few seconds!

Highway from the church.

Tribe elder giving me a look.

Kids with a bike with no tyres, only rims, but having a great time nonetheless!

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Yuty to Encarnacion Photo Gallery

A couple of weeks back I was in Yuty and one day I got to travel south to Incarnation, and as I'm editing the film I took in Yuty I thought I'd post a lot of sights I saw along the road between Yuty and Encarnacion.

Raphella's perfume smells like 'Booz'.  Not so appealing for those with UK English.

I promised my FM friend Paul that if I saw parrots in Paraguay I'd take some pictures of them for him.  Unfortunately they aren't all that exciting.

In a jungle hotel in Encarnacion there's a large tree with a shrine to Mary. :(

Paraguayan baby wanting terere.

A huge toad getting prodded into life by Dan.

Old map of the region in a Jesuit museum on the road.

Looks like he has been speared, but is carrying a huge pole for use with a barge.

Jesuit ruins.

Small fry dog. 

One of the oversize lakes created by damming.  Nearby there is a house 90% submerged.

A typical roadside stall.

A major road constructed around the perimeter of a new lake.  There were 2 cars in the 15 minutes we were there.

The sad remains of the torn-up Paraguayan railway system.  The country is much less tourist-friendly because of it.

A pup separated from its litter.

A good place to plant a bush. 

It's not uncommon for cows to roam freely in the streets, although the local fuzz sometimes escort the rogue bovine to fuzz station and farmers pay fine much like parking tickets.

A dead tree pretending to be a pylon.

One of the towns used to be named after a chief from ages past called Bobi.

The other end of the town had a different chief.

A place that looks like a coffee shop only won't sell coffee so I don't know what you call them.  Well, besides 'cafe'.

Wide Load!  Besides transporting 5ft strimmers, the most popular dangerous article to carry on a motorbike in this country is the 15kg gas canister.

A road cutting across one of the now flooded regions in the south of Paraguay.  It's quite serene.

Nice flowering bush.

A frog living in the bathroom.

Frog caught by a kid.

Frog prepared to be transported outside.

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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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