Like a Virgin (of Caacupe)

12-15-09
Like a Virgin

I’ve been sitting at the airport customs office for the past four hours. I wish I was exaggerating this number but am simply not. My lovely parents mailed me a Christmas package via DHL and I was sent here to retrieve it. I paid 115,000 Guaranís ($22) at the DHL office. Now I’m waiting while a woman runs around to gain the right signatures necessary to let me have the package. I’ve seen my box twice—one time to verify that it was the correct box, the second time to open it and pull out a book to claim it was only books inside. This is not true but the woman told me we had to lie to minimize the tax. (I think that it is so we avoid having to bribe both her and her boss…) I’m actually lucky to get it today. A friend had to come back to the airport 4 times (!) to get a box a few months ago. Yikes. I’ll end up paying this woman another 150,000Gs ($30). To put this in perspective, I pay $40 a month in rent. Good God, this process is exhausting, but I’m sure it’ll be a fabulous package! Please note: If you want to send a Peace Corps Paraguay Volunteer a package, claim it is less than $100 to avoid this absurdity.

A week ago I did the holy walk to Caacupe to honor the Virgin of Caacupe. Another PCV, David, called the day before to ask if I was going and see if he could join my community. I had plans to walk with the younger of my two youth groups. David came over as I tried to get a solid timeline as to when we were leaving from my youth gropu. After many calls (including mostly llamada perdidas or missed calls where they call and hang up so I’ll call back and it’s free for them) I still had no solid answer. David and I decided not to wait around any longer. We got on the bus from my neighborhood at 9pm. It was full of teenagers who were prepared to celebrate this holiest of Paraguayan holidays. We were standing with our bags chock full of water bottles and other survival necessities (extra socks, bandaids, towel to sit on, etc.). Then, on this holy bus ride, the kids began to yell and catcall anyone we passed. They heckled each other and even set off fireworks—all while packed on the bus! I was feeling closer to God and the Virgin already.

After the hour and a half bus ride on our feet, we reached Ypacaraii and bid farewell to our new teenage amigos for a quick stop to assure we started the trek off right—with a bathroom break and a beer. We began to walk with the throng. While estimates vary widely, I was told about 50,000 people make the hike each year. The problem with starting so late, I guess, is that the night crowd is rowdy and doesn’t seem as concerned with the Virgin as it does with flirting, heckling, catcalling, and generally being teenagers away from their parents for an entire night. We walked for 5 hours all told—stopping only for a brownie sundae at the best American-type food place in the country and for me to push a big mill thing in order to squeeze the juice from sugar cane. Basically there are two men who push two logs clockwise. The entire machine is made of wood only. I asked if I could try. There are some sweet photos that I’ll link whenever David puts them up. The juice is not very good but the uphill hike seemed much easier after pushing against the mill for a few minutes. We walked most of the way with two Paraguayan guys we met. People were selling chipa (dry cornbread-like traditional food), hotdogs, meat on a stick (always), Virgin memorabilia (including a plastic hat with the Virgin AND a 2010 calendar on it, obviously). Everyone opens their houses up to sell bathroom privileges, food, and ground space to sleep. There were thousands of people sleeping on the sides of the road and all through the main plaza. It was incredible to see. Very luckily, we were able to stay at a PCV friend’s friend’s house so I got about two hours of sleep in a bed and a few more on the bare floor. The next morning while most people went to one of the hourly masses, we bought egg sandwiches and I watched as two other PCVs sang Madonna’s Like a Virgin on the karaoke machine. Nothing says Catholicism like Madonna, right?

I also started a mini-camp at the comedor last week. For much of summer break, on Mondays and Wednesdays I’m teaching English and playing games with the kids. I played a fabulous English-teaching version of Monkey-Fire with the kids which was a definite hit. Then I went to help teach games and icebreakers to the newest group of volunteers on their last day of training. I taught the usual crowd pleasers—Gaga, Monkey Fire, Fire People, Everybody Wins Musical Chairs… OK, I didn’t finish this blog, but did finally get that phenomenal package…