Paraguayans, for reasons I have yet to understand, do not believe in the idea of individual drinking glasses. All drinks, with few exceptions, are shared. A dinner table of 5 people will be set with no more than 3 glasses to drink from. (If there is a drink and glasses at all…) Además, the traditions of tereré and mate (practiced by ALL Paraguayans, EVERY day) involve passing around a shared glass where everybody drinks from the same straw. Basically, in this culture, there is almost no individual or private drinking of liquids. Almost all instances of drinking take place in a context of sharing. I cannot stress enough how deeply ingrained and prevalent this cultural custom is.
A couple interesting things logically follow from this custom. First and most obviously, there is an excessive sharing of germs. Paraguayans get sick together because they are constantly sharing germs with each other via drinking glasses and bombillas. During training, me and my entire host family got a horrible tonsillitis infection when my 5-year-old host sister came home from school with it. She was very sick, missed school, and couldn’t get rid of it for over a month. Within a week, me, my host-mom Laura, and my host-dad Carlos had the same infection. We all had to take antibiotics for it, which, by the way, can be bought over-the-counter in this country with no prescription and no instructions for proper use. AND, there was absolutely NO effort to avoid spreading it to friends or other family members. Tereré glasses were still passed around when outsiders came over to say hello, and the outsiders didn’t miss a beat when they found out we were all sick. “Oh that stinks,” they would say, as they took a hefty swig of shared tereré. “I hope you guys feel better soon!” It’s as if there is absolutely no concept of “contagion,”and absolutely no sense of what germs are or how illnesses are transmitted. You can already see the extent and variety of larger problems presented from this whole germ-transmission standpoint. (Antibiotic-resistant bacteria, children missing school, parents missing work, and just being sick/miserable, for starters.)
Secondly, there follows an unexpected cultural rule of thumb from this custom. Drinking can never take place during eating. No drinks are ever poured until after the meal. I assume that this is because it is considered disgusting to share drinks containing backwash that might include pieces of food. Small children who complain of thirst while eating their dry, salty, fatty meals are reprimanded for being so “uneducated” as to desire liquids while eating. “Finish your food and wipe your mouth off, and THEN we’ll talk about getting some juice,” says Dad. “You need to learn some manners, cochina,” adds Mom. As a privileged guest, I am often extended the courtesy of my own glass at a meal. But it took me a couple weeks to realize exactly what was going on with the drink situation at the dinner table. For a long time I didn’t understand why my family stared at me with incredulity when I, thirsty during my meals and confused by the lack of drinks, started bringing my personal water bottle to the dinner table to drink from as we ate. I don’t know that there are any immediate health risks posed from this cultural difference, or whether it is necessarily better or worse than alternative ways of doing things, but it is an interestingly stark contrast to how we conceive of drinking liquids in our country.
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