Drinking Cultures: A Surprising Tale of Unhealthy Choices (Part I)

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.

Guilt: An Unexpected Emotion

April 14, 2011

I was sitting under my mosquito net in my bedroom one evening, stealing a little bit of time to work on this blog, when I realized that I felt guilty for working on the blog instead of hanging out with my host family. I actually felt as though I were “stealing” time from somebody else in order to spend it with myself. As I started thinking, I realized that this kind of guilt, in general, has been a very prominent emotion during my training here. Why do I feel guilty?

First and foremost, I often feel guilty for leaving my real family in the U.S. in order to be here. I truly love and value every member and aspect of my ridiculously huge family. My whole life has been mildly plagued with feelings of guilt for never being able to be in two places at once; attending one family event has so often meant missing another. (Indeed, being with one family has always been the equivalent of NOT being with my other family.) Greater than my fear of being kidnapped or raped in the Peace Corps was the fear that my family(ies) would learn to go about their lives without me, basically forgetting about me and finding it inconvenient to suddenly be expected to include me in their lives de nuevo upon my return in 2 years. In my nightmares I see myself as a RPCV who has left her friends and family for 2 years and is no longer an integral part of their lives, who returns to a place with basically no familial or social network, sitting alone in an apartment wondering what to do, who to call.

This is, of course, a relatively irrational fear. When I do get home from the Peace Corps, all it will take is a few weeks to spread the word about my return, and with a little effort on my part, I will undoubtedly have an overflowing schedule of family and social events in no time.

Second, I have found myself feeling guilty all throughout training for not spending enough time with my host family. Our training schedule is very demanding and allows very little time for us to be at home with our host families. Class starts at 7:45am and ends around 6pm, with no traditional siesta in the afternoon. So while my Paraguayan family is feeling refreshed from their 3 hour naps when I get home and are excited to finally see me, I am absolutely exhausted, with barely enough energy or time to shovel dinner into my starving belly and do my homework, let alone partake in whatever social activities are underway in my host family. And NOTHING makes me feel more guilty than when my adorable 5-year-old host sister Micaela asks me to do something with her (go get ice cream, play soccer, put on music and dance), and I absolutely do not have an ounce of energy left to do it. I want to spend every last free moment hanging out with my host family… but when I get home from class every day, I desperately need about an hour to myself to rest, shower, clean, study, or organize my things. (Hence the extreme falta of Blog posts during my first 2 months here.) 

Finally, I also feel guilty when I DO spend time with my host-family during training, because there is always more studying to be done, and I always feel like I should be working on my Guarani homework or studying our technical materials. Every night that I choose host-family over studying, I regret the choice the next day during class and promise myself that “tonight I will study Guarani for at least an hour” or “tonight I will finish reading the section on Parasites…” 

SO, when it comes to non-class time, I feel pushed into a corner, a lose-lose situation, a Catch-22, if you will. If I spend time with myself, I feel horribly guilty for neglecting my host family. But when I spend time with my host-family, I feel guilty for neglecting my studies and underperforming in my training classes. 

So basically, my feelings of guilt are inescapable no matter what I am doing here. Just like in the U.S., there aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done and make everybody happy. In the end, it is my host-family that most often wins out. I am more disposed to ditch my homework for the day if Carlos pokes his head in my room asking if I want to come drink tereré with them, and to leave the floor of my room unswept if Mica begs me to teach her more salsa dance moves. This is a choice that I make consciously, for I recognize that no amount of technical knowledge will be able to be transferred if my community doesn’t trust me and love me, and por eso, I do my best to always put them first when I’m being pulled in different directions. 

So if anybody thought that the Peace Corps was just going to be one long, free, vacation… think again! It is extremely demanding: intellectually, physically, emotionally, and existentially. Pero es un desafío que nos hace crecer, que al reflexionar nos hace entender mejor al mundo y al nuestro lugar dentro de él.

Che Py’a Rasy (a.k.a. I’m Gonna Vom!

Today (April 20) is my first full day in site, it is 8pm, and I am about to vom. In Peace Corps Paraguay, we have a number of abbreviations to describe various GI issues. “Vom” of course, is short for “vomit,” while “chivivi” is the Guarani word that you use to refer to your massive, chronic diarrhea. When your “lombriz” wakes up, that’s just your way of explaining how hungry your tapeworm is today... And don’t be confused when someone asks “How’s your G?-” they are simply inquiring about your Giardia symptoms today, since this parasite’s symptoms tend to wax and wane.  

But Paraguayans have one phrase to describe all GI issues: “Che py’a rasy,” which, roughly translated, means “My belly feels sick.” 

In any case, my belly feels sick. Could it be the tereré that I drank this afternoon? (It had a large amount of strong herbal remedies added to it. And it wouldn’t be the first time that strong T-re upset my tummy.) Most likely though, it’s the 3 pieces of chipa that were handed to me in succession and dutifully eaten post-tereré. Chipa is THE traditional Paraguayan food, and is eaten in extreme excess during the week of Semana Santa (this week). It is a sort of dense corn bread held together by pig lard and whole milk- it may be super rica, but it is not the best food for a vegetarian who is moderately lactose intolerant (me). Never having consumed more than a few bites of chipa at a time, I feel relatively confident that this is the source of my stomach upset.

Of course, if you ask a Paraguayan, they immediately know the problem: “You ate the chipa while it was still warm, didn’t you?” Yes. “And then you drank water, right?” Yes again. To any Paraguayan from the campo, this is one of the most obvious sources of stomach upset: you can never eat warm chipa and then drink water afterwards. The contrast between the heat of the chipa and the coolness of the water “makes your stomach bad.”

The solution? Drink boldo tea, and jog around the yard 5 times. Duh. So, host-mom Yolanda made me some tea with boldo leaves from the backyard, a strong herbal remedy that Paraguayans believe cures any and all stomach ailments. Then she encouraged me to go walk if off for a while in the yard outside. I came back in from my walk feeling exactly the same as before: ready to vom. When host-Grandpa found out that I didn’t feel better yet, he told me that I needed to go jog around the yard at least 5 times to encourage my system to excrete any unwanted items out the other end. (At least that’s what I understood from his combination of Guarani and gestures.) Having taken enough Paraguayan medical advice for the evening, I passed on the jog and called it a night to retire to my bedroom.

But it appears to be passing a little bit. While at the beginning of this blog I was contemplating sticking my finger down my throat just to get the vomiting over-with, I now feel like I may actually be able to keep it all down after all. So I guess by Paraguayan logic, the true key to curing stomach ails is to sit down and write blogs. It worked this time… we’ll see if I can at least get some placebo effect from it next time! The only down-side to this remedy? That all y’all are gonna have to hear about it again the next time I have stomach upset. 

Much love.

A Paraguayan Birthday: Parties, Patience, and Pictures (March 2011)

On March 5^th, I went to my host-cousin Clariss’s birthday party. It was a huge bash, held outdoors, with gifts, a cake, asado (grilled cow), lots of beer, tons of picture-taking, and about 30 people, friends and family. She was turning 2. Although she won’t even remember the event, this is one of Clariss’s most important birthday parties. Here in Paraguay, birthdays at ages 1 and 2 require the same or a greater amount of preparation and enthusiasm as all the others. Older children often pull out the albums of their 1^st and 2^nd birthday parties to show us how much their parents love them and “introduce” us to all their family members. 

Paraguayan birthday parties in the Campo always take place after dark and are always outside. Cumbia and reggaeton music blast from a loud speaker system the entire night (this seems to be the preferred splurge of middle class families who have a bit of extra disposable income). In Paraguay, if it doesn’t last until sunrise, then it’s not a party. So we get together around 8pm, sit around talking and drinking beer for a couple hours, and depending on the family, the food will come out between 9pm-12am. At Clariss’s party for example, the asado came off the grill around 11pm, so we were all STARVING. The first round of eating is for the kids- because by this point they are pretty much dead from not eating for so long. Then, the women collect the dishes, wash them, and the second round of eating begins with the adults. As a vegetarian, I was able to eat the rice salad and mandioca that came on the side, then cut up my asado, pretend to be eating it, but was really slipping onto Herre’s plate next to me. 

Finally after midnight the cake came out. Everybody gets their picture taken with the birthday girl, and we load up with sugar from the cake and soda pop to keep us bouncing for the rest of the night. After the cake is when people will start leaving, little by little. Children and the elderly are usually the first ones to go, as those who remain continue to talk, drink beer, and dance. At Clariss’s party, my host-mom and I left around 2:30am to go to sleep, and there were still a handful of people sitting around, drinking, and dancing. 

When we got in the house, we realized there was an extremely loud cricket in the house and went on a mission to kill it, which turned out to be a nearly 10 minute endeavor. Needless to say, we were exhausted the next morning , but igual no mas, my host mom Laura was up and about early in the morning sweeping, feeding the animals, and cooking. Que guapa!

The Video: Family Support Matters! (March 29, 2011)

 I was sitting under my mosquito net just now, listening to my host-mom’s pig squealing in the backyard and worrying about my 2-year old host-cousin Elias who had to go to the hospital today, when I suddenly remembered that today my DVD player got fixed. Until today, I didn’t have the right software downloaded onto my new Acer netbook in order to read the DVD files from my external drive. Now, I could finally, after 8 weeks of suspense, watch the “Advice” video that my family made for me before I left. Each of my family members and friends at my going away party was videotaped by my brother Bryan, giving me their parting words and/or words of advice. As soon as I remembered, I ran to get out my netbook, hooked it all up, and settled in for a little listening session. I was going to ration them out and only listen to one per day, but it was too tempting so I listened to the whole thing.

Luckily, I closed the door to my bedroom first, because this video made me laugh and cry all in the same 20 minutes. If my host family had heard these small outbursts of emotion, especially the crying, they would have been very curious and concerned. I was really grateful for all the advice that my family & friends offered to me… but even more important was the general moral support and words of encouragement that they all offered. Knowing that they are proud of me, that they miss me, and that they are happy I’m here make my emotional load much easier to deal with. As somebody who greatly values family, I sometimes find myself plagued with guilt at missing out on family events and losing touch with the individuals who are most important to me. Feeling as though they support my decision to be here has been important to my coping process.

Staying Healthy Is Hard To Do

It is important to come to the Peace Corps expecting to have health problems and anticipating how you might deal with them. Of course, the Corps provides you with all the medical assistance that you might need during your service. Dealing with the physical and emotional stressors of training and service renders all of us immuno-compromised. Here is a list of SOME of the problems that we have faced in Guasu Cora alone during the first 8 weeks of training:

ME PERSONALLY:

·         Foot fungus

·         Heat exhaustion

·         Giardia

·         Common cold & Flu

·         Yeast infection

·         Back strain

·         Strep throat

OTHERS:

• ·         Everything I’ve had
• ·         Headaches
• ·         Roundworm (sevo’i pyta)
• ·         Contact dermatitis
• ·         Other assorted skin rashes
• ·         Vision deterioration 
•             Hearing deterioration
• ·         Sinus infections
• ·         Constant diarrhea due to yet unidentified causes
• ·         Depression

I’m lucky that I came here expecting and prepared to get sick. Others who were less prepared were overwhelmed by their illnesses and some questioned their decision to join the Peace Corps.  I personally have not been distraught over my ailments, but simply took them in stride because I was mentally prepared to deal with it. Despite all my illnesses, I have not found health to be an issue that has greatly detracted from my first 2 months in-country.