Swords and Missing Teeth!

After rather reluctantly leaving Yuty and the Reichs, I spent a couple of great days with the Floyds in a village outside Yuty.  Like Hannes, Tony Floyd uses his God-given gift of fixing stuff to great effect so I got to go on a couple of adventures with him to the nearby farms.  The first was brilliant: it was around 10am and the farmer was in high-spirits on the porch with a small bottle of something probably verging on the stiff.  When he found out I was Scottish, he said he liked the name as it reminded him of scotch.  He spoke Guarani so I couldn’t understand anything he said, but whatever it was he was saying he was heartily laughing at the conclusion to each sentence.  He was, in the terminology of Enid Blyton, an absolutely positive scream.

After Tony set to work on his busted washing machine, he vanished off only to reappear moments later brandishing a 100 year-old sword which he did some moves with before laughing.  However, I’m not sure now how to incorporate the whiskey, guffawing and sword-wielding footage into the SIM film.

Later we headed to the iron master who set to work on some equipment.

His tap from the cold water barrel he’d dunk the worked-on iron into was a watering hole for wasps.

He also had a bunch of piglets on his land and his wife saw I was filming them without much success so she dropped some corn for them which they turned their noses up at.  She then gave them a bowl of fruit which they didn’t move for but rather surrounded her as if wanting something better.

Hannes was also by to demonstrate his reception dish for stronger internet connection.  With a download speed of 0.3kb per second, it had been taking a long time to get even emails, but the Hannes Device produced a steady 80kb per second speed which spiked for a time at 120kb!  He quickly became a legend in the Floyd household.  Like the McKissicks and the Reichs, the Floyds have super-fun kids and they got a kick out of the device.

They had started the school term last week for the first time in this new village, but one day was the first day they had the school uniform, so there was the obligatory posing in the garden photo moment at 7am when they set off.

Later that evening, Daniel refused to eat a sandwich and it was determined that the reason for this was to avoid his wobbly tooth falling out.  We encouraged him to pull it out with floss for the camera.  With the tooth suitably lassoed, he gave a firm yank and the tooth shot out across the porch to somewhere on the cluttered workbench.

…or under the workbench.

Ultimately it couldn’t be located so he went for a surrogate tooth in the form of a chunk of cement.

And to end to post, here are some random pictures of a man on a horse...

...and a helmet-cam shot of a farm.

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More Photos from Yuty

There was a kids club at the Yuty church which was very well attended, not only by kids, but also by their parents or grandparents who came along to hang out in the shade of the church playing field to drink terere and socialise whilst the kids ran around, played sports, drew, sang, and watched a film projected onto a large church wall in its makeshift cinema.

 

At sunset the kids left with big smiles after a really good day of fun and activity.

Afterwards we helped the Camerons empty their trailer ready for another load, and 4 of us had the fun ride of sitting in the famously failing SIM trailer a few blocks around Yuty.

Another day the Reichs, Camerons, Hannes and I headed out to a nearby river which had a now disused railway bridge crossing it.  Although most the track around the country has been removed, the rails still remain over the bridge.  This turned out to be fortuitous as not all the sleepers were still there leaving large gaps for the adventurous trio of Hannes, Greg and I as we took a stroll over it.  It was rather dangerous as there were no barriers to grab if you stumbled, there was just the rails, the wooden sleepers the rails rested on, and the narrow metal bridge structure the sleepers rested on.  Most of the beams were rotten, and it was a dried-out rotten so they looked firm to stand on but creaked and crumbled underfoot.  Greg and Hannes marched over happily, but I was not only trying to balance myself but the balancing aid for the camera, and I was certain I wasn’t going to make it all the way over the river, but thanks be to God, I did.

Hannes came by motorbike so paid to cross the river by barge.  The locals in the nearby isolated village can do the same, but often they walk over the bridge (something I wouldn’t do a second time).  There are stories of drunks who would stumble up to the bridge in the night, and as their first foot touched the first sleeper of the bridge they would instantly become sober!

The Reich boys had their instruments so they played several songs on guitar and traditional Paraguayan harp for us all.  They are amazing to listen to!

Hannes offered me the chance to ride on the back of his motorbike back to Yuty.  After 5 minutes of travel I remembered I promised my mom when I was little that I would never ride a motorbike ever.  However, as I remembered afterwards then it wasn’t deliberate disobedience to an ages old and firmly kept promise.  After I got off the bike in Yuty with about 10 bugs in my eyes, and a ton of fear quivering through me from the speedy journey of clinging onto the back of the bike, I realised it wouldn’t be hard to remake and keep the promise!

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Breakdown (150km in 7 hours)

Thursday was the biannual SIM Paraguay missionary meeting where everybody meets up in Villarrica (a halfway city between Asuncion and the most southern missionaries in Yuty).  For those coming from Asuncion it’s a boring drive along freeway and a toll road, but for those south of Caazapa it’s a 3 hour adventure rally over dust roads and rickety bridges in major 4x4s!

As I’m staying with the Reiches at present, I joined them coming up from Yuty in their 4x4 alongside Hannes.  Hannes and I were given the Yuty treasure hunt sheet which listed various things to look out for along the road, including things like person herding cows on a bike, and at least 3 people on one motorbike.  Other things such as tarantula crossing the road, and cactus I am yet to see.

The road there was dry coming up, so it only took the projected 3 hours, (2 hours on dirt, one hour on tarmac -see my map of the area above), but when we were in Villarrica the heavens opened back on the dusty road turning it into a thick mud.  This wasn’t good news for the Camerons as they were taking a 4x4 and SIM trailer [a 2-wheeled trailer that has repeatedly let everybody down who leads it, but that’s another story, or 5] loaded with stuff for their new Yuty house.  Dragging the two-wheeled Judas trailer along the slick, mud course was to be a 5 hour, 25kph slog.

We overtook them a few miles south of Caazapa where the mud started, sliding the vehicle sideways and leaping over the ruts.  At about 8:30pm, an hour after sunset (and 10 minutes after passing them) we got a call and they let us in on Judas’s new act of treachery: the tow bar ball had been severed and Judas had broken loose with half their kitchen and the contents of two bedrooms!

We turned back and saw the lights of the stranded Cameronmobile on the lonely road located somewhere in a flood plain.  The trailer was leaning back, detached from the tow-bar but jammed into the back of their RV at a 45 degree angle.

We soon realised the ball hadn’t been severed, but rather it had somehow become unscrewed, so the large bolt that unscrewed was the only thing missing from getting the parade back on the road, so Hannes climbed aboard the front of a vehicle which drove up and down the road a few hundred meters to find the bolt that had to have been shorn not far before.  But there was no finding it so the search party returned.

The tow bar ball was then affixed to the back of the Reiches wagon with the few tools at disposal.

It was a 1 hour search and failed rescue and transfer, during which the 4 kids made the most of the adventure location and held various track and field events.  The whole time we were utterly overwhelmed with flying insects from the plains.  You could feel about 10 hitting your face every second as you walked around.  None of them seemed to be mosquitos, fortunately, despite the watery location (they come from still-water locations).

From there we were extra careful with the trailer, and with about 50km to cover to Yuty, it was hoped that at a steady 25kph we’d be back for 11:30, but a steady speed was impossible.  Some areas we were stuck at 10kph with the trailer sloshing back and forth behind like a pike on a fishing line.  We arrived in Yuty at 1am on the dot, 7 hours after leaving Villarrica 150km away. 

Prayer point: God provides all things and owns the cattle on a thousand hills.  Please pray that He will provide for my current needs that He knows about.

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San Francisco and Yuty Pictures

Here's a few pictures from the past week in San Francisco and Yuty.  I was in San Francisco to be at the kids' club and for a couple of other things, then took the bus (last post) to Yuty where I got to attend my third different church in Paraguay, and went on a fishing trip with the men from the church in the flood plains...

5 on a motorbike!  A common sight outside of the main cities.  Brilliant.

The kids' club is held at the church -the church with no roof but rather a canopy of leaves.

Baseball game at the kids' club.

The church 'cinema'.  It works really well.

Ryan McK playing a local at checkers with beer lids.

The kid on the right has turned up at a few events, and he likes using my camera.  When his friend arrived they filmed a Street Fighter 2 style fight complete with actual hits and sound effects.

There was a grand river to fish in, but the locals preferred the drying-out flood waters nearby as it keeps the fish trapped and close together.

Hannes was on the trip so when a guy walked past wheeling his broken bike, Hannes fixed it for him on the spot for free!  The guy was so happy as he was about 10-12 miles from town.

There are a lot of rickety wooden bridges, and these big nails hold the planks in place, but as there is a lot of movement in the planks a lot of the nails are loose.

A truck crossing the large river bridge.

Sunset over Yuty.

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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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