Paraguayan Logic: Some Good, Some Bad, Some Funny, Some Tragic

FOR WANT OF AN EXTENSION CORD

Between 1975-1991 the Itaipu Dam was constructed on the Parana River between Paraguay and Brazil. Costing upwards to 20 billion dollars, upon completion it was the world’s largest dam, producing nearly 14 Gw of energy per year. (Currently, the Three Gorges Dam in China has taken over as the world’s largest). In percentage terms, the dam supplies 90% of all energy consumed in Paraguay and roughly a fifth of that used in Brazil.

However, almost twenty years on and there are still communities in rural Paraguay that do not have running water or electricity.

THE MISSING INGREDIENT IN THE TABLE SALT

A goiter is a swelling of the neck resulting from the enlargement of the thyroid gland. It is caused by a deficiency in iodine. This iodine deficiency in the diet of the world’s population, and thus the growth of goiters has been effectively curtailed through the addition of iodine into common table salt. This ingenious, effective and economic solution was devised almost a century ago.

Recently however, while I was out visiting a subsistence farming family the wife of the couple with whom I was staying had a goiter. She is 70 and unfortunately grew up in a place and time where there was no iodine in the salt. The time and place in question is Paraguay in the 1950s.

Note mind you that this tragedy of health is not due to lack of iodine availability but rather the more pernicious fact that the Minister in charge of making sure that there was sufficient iodine in the table salt under the Paraguayan Dictator Alfredo Stroessner (1954-1989) was instead pocketing the money and falsifying his reports.

EXPORT –IMPORT

A woman out in the rural Paraguay has fourteen children. Three have died and the rest are all grown. Two are farmers and live in the same community in which they grew up.
The rest, nine, are all abroad in search of work. Seven have gone to Buenos Aries while two have ventured as far afield as Spain. One of Paraguay’s biggest exports is people. All gone, without education or a skill set to speak of but faced with a life to live. The woman speaks longingly of her faraway children and their hardships as she tends to the evening meal over an open ground fire in a soot covered wooden kitchen. Kids grow up and get gone; gainful employment is an elusive mirage both home and abroad and remittance is hard pressed to trickle home.

HAKU

Hot, at best, is only truly a rough approximation of the Guarani word “Haku.” Sitting directly on the Tropic of Capricorn, Paraguay pushes the heat index to new levels.
Haku can best be described as follows: sitting on the beach toasting your body, perhaps reading a book or sipping on a cool beverage, you suddenly become aware that the sun’s rays and heat has reached an almost unbearable, intolerable level. You quickly jump up, rip off your clothes and run into the refreshing ocean water… Ahhhhh.
Well, since Paraguay is a land locked country, there is no water. Everybody instead sits at that unbearable, intolerable level of hot sipping beverages where the ice melted away long ago. Haku….

For a little more insult to injury:
Back to our man, Dictator Stroessner. During his rule, 1954-1989, by official order he never allowed the temperature posted in the upper right corner of every one’s television screen during the nightly newscast to go above 29 degrees Celsius. No sweat, just a mere 84 degrees Fahrenheit down here in this tropical Paradise called Paraguay.

HELLO – GOODBYE

Paraguayans are certainly not known for being in a hurry. The “haku” heat has seen to a decidedly slower pass of life.

But Paraguayans must be given credit for their efficiency, succinctness and bluntness. When walking past any one on the street, whether be it in the city or the country, rather than give the hollow, noncommittal “Hello, how are you,” they will cut to the chase and say “Adios.” That is right, goodbye. As you walk past some one you have never seen before and have no intention of stopping to talk to, you say Goodbye. While not breaking your stride you both are politely on your way.

Adios…

To Rake and To Fertilize

To Rake and To Fertilize
To Slash and To Burn

A man goes into the forest and cuts a tree down, a few trees, many trees.That same man returns three months later and burns everything in sight.

By all accounts this should be appalling and that man thrown in jail for environmental destruction, arson, etc.

On the other side of the world, a man goes out into his backyard, rakes up all the fallen leaves, every last one of them, and puts them to the curb never to be seen again.
That same man, three months later returns to his backyard after a harsh winter and applies chemical fertilizer to his green grass lawn.

By all accounts this should seem normal and that man praised for being an upstanding suburban home owner taking pride in his property.

Man Number One has just practiced traditional Slash and Burn Agriculture. He represents one of the billions of subsistence farmers that literally make their living off the land of this great Earth. The wood he has cut down has built his house and cooked his food. The land he has burned has grown the crops that have provided for his family.

The ironic thing about Slash and Burn Agriculture is that it works. When a farmer burns a parcel of land, rather than destroying the soils productivity, it actually boosts it. The fire unlocks precious nutrients, nitrogen, potassium, phosphorus, that are present in the soil but structured in such a way that they are unavailable for plants to use. In addition, the newly created ash reduces the soil acidity (a common characteristic of tropic soils) by raising the pH and thus provides a more fertile environment for plant growth.

Man Number Two has just practiced traditional Suburban Middle Class Lawn Care. The leaves that are on the ground, although they are the primary source of organic material that if left will replenish the nutrient deficiencies of the backyard lawn, are seen as messy, unkempt and thus must be swept away. It’s a good feeling: to keep everything clean and tidy and the neighborhood pristine and orderly.

It has been proven that people fear death and public speaking. At times, most of us fear public speaking more than death. It could also be ventured that no one wants to be the only guy on the block with the brown and dying lawn. So out we go, motoring off to the local hardware store or garden center to buy the organic material we shipped off the autumn prior and color correct our lawn from a waning yellow to a verdant green through a healthy dose of chemical fertilizer.

The funny thing about traditional Suburban Middle Class Lawn Care is that it is purely cosmetic. Leaves get raked; grass gets cut, watered and fertilized because it makes the lawn, our lawn, look good. No one, neither cows nor humans, have to eat off this suburban landscape. Bare feet and blankets, barbeques and bocce ball are the beneficiaries of our lawn care diligence.

The catch with Slash and Burn Agriculture is that it does not work in the long run. With population growth and limited land availability, Land has been forced into continued cultivation and not given the necessary time to lie fallow and recuperate. Subsistence farmers the world over are faced with poorer soils, reduced yields and increased economic hardships.

The catch with traditional Suburban Middle Class Lawn Care is that it works all too well in the long run; just buy better genetically engineered grass seed, higher concentrations of fertilizer, more ergonomic rake handles to take the strain off the lower back and more powerful leaf blowers.

If a subsistence farmer must begin to change his agricultural attitudes and practices to sustain his very livelihood and contribute to the idea and reality of a greener planet, correspondingly Suburban Middle Class Lawn Owners must awaken to the notion that we in fact must do the same.