There is a saying in Guarani which states that “only the stars and the poor move at night.” Far removed from the rest of the world in the heart of the South America, Paraguay offers ample room to journey across both its expansive night sky and through its open countryside. With 200 years of independence, Paraguayans have had an equal amount of time to take this journey on their own accord. As the sun rises on the dawn of May 15, 2011 —the date of the Paraguayan Bicentennial — curtailing the mobility of the celestial and the penurious alike, it will illuminate an enigmatic country and complex culture shrouded in a simple agrarian way of life. This project reflects upon how Paraguayans, a people of deep indigenous roots permeated by modernity, articulate and celebrate their own identity and independence. It examines what Paraguayans choose to include and honor as part of their national character while at the same time exploring what Paraguayans are reticent to recall, recognize, and redress. Neither the Guarani Indians nor the present day Paraguayans have left much in the way of physical testament —no ancient ruins or modern urban metropolises— to a great civilization. Instead, throughout history the strength of Paraguay has been its people, its language and its culture. This holds true today as Paraguay prepares for its bicentennial celebration. This project asks where do the Paraguayans find themselves 200 years on and where do they see themselves heading.
Daybreak in the Paraguayan countryside is a busy time. As the first rays of sunlight make their way through the cracks of clapboard houses to the dirt floors and soot stained kitchens, they are met with the rising smoke of rekindled open-hearth fires. Having drank their mate –a traditional hot tea infusion of water and yerba mate leaves— together in the predawn darkness, Paraguayan women busy themselves preparing the day’s first meal while the Paraguayan farmers –men of all generations— grab their hoes and machetes and head toward the field. Breakfast, simple tortillas of fried dough and boiled mandioca, will come later, wrapped in cloth and brought out by a child before he makes his way to school.
This scene is as accurate a portrayal of Paraguayan agrarian life in 2011, as it was centuries earlier in both 1911 and 1811. To be sure, radios, cell phones and motor cycles have been added to the morning routine over the last 200 years, yet living under straw roofs, cooking over open wood fires and scratching out a living with manual farming techniques still remain staple characteristics of rural life. Much has changed, really come and gone, in Paraguay throughout two centuries of independence –an early period of prosperous, self imposed economic self reliance, a devastating ten year war against Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay, a national railroad system, a Pyrrhic victory over Bolivia in the Chaco War, the 54 year Alfredo Stroessner dictatorship, rapid exploitation of natural resources, the start of a fledgling democracy and most recently, the hand over of power from the Colorado Party to the Liberal Party after 61 years of single party rule. However, for many Paraguayans living in the countryside, much more has remained relatively unchanged.
At the country’s cultural heart is the indigenous language Guarani. Although banned under the Stronata –the period of Alfredo Stroessner’s dictatorial rule – but now recognized by the 1992 Paraguayan Constitution as an official language, Guarani prevails as Paraguayans’ most amaranthine and identifying characteristic. Spoken as a first language by over 90% of Paraguay’s six million strong population, the Guarani language determines the cadence and rhythm of Paraguayan life. The Guarani name for the language itself, avane’e, can be effectively translated as the people’s language. While in comparison, the Guarani name for the Spanish language, karaine’e, translates to the man’s language. This semantic distinction poignantly demonstrates just how fundamentally Paraguayans identity as individuals, a community and now as a nation with their native language. More fittingly, Paraguayan campesinos capture this same sentiment in contemporary conversation. “Why speak Spanish,” they quip, “When all the good conversations are in Guarani.”
Mingled together, the sunlight and smoke of the early morning kitchen scene represent the competing hope and hindrance of independence in rural Paraguay. Throughout the generations, although Paraguayans may have enjoyed 200 years of independence, they have also endured 200 years of subsistence. According to World Bank statistics (2009), Paraguay’s per capita gross national income (GNI) is $2270 and 20.5% of the Paraguayan population lives below the national poverty line. The overwhelming majority of these poor Paraguayans live in the countryside and rely on small scale farming to subsist. By definition, in a subsistence farming existence no one goes hungry. On the contrary there is always just enough food to go around. This however is a specious and over simplified statement of affairs. Although easily defined, the term subsistence farming lacks the details to truly understand and empathize with the gravity of its meaning. “Just enough” must be met three times a day, indefinitely: where a belly is full but not satiated. The term also belies the immense humanness of the situation. Even the remote fear that there will not be enough to eat puts tremendous psychological pressure on a person and their household. By no means do people starve in Paraguay. With good soil, favorable weather and hard work Paraguayans can produce enough to eat. There is however, in many rural communities, an acutely felt reality of chronic hunger.
As the vitality of a new dawn wears on into the heat of midday; then fades into twilight and exhaustion as the sun sets once more beyond the horizon, the stars and the poor return to trace their midnight arc across the darkened sky. Thus, although Paraguayans have a culture and language uniquely their own, Paraguay remains a country characterized by the enervating routine of subsistence living. For most Paraguayans it has been a hand-to-mouth existence for nearly a dozen generations. Thus, Paraguayan’s gnawing sense of physical hunger reflects not merely a lack of production potential but a desire to have their voices heard and the hunger to truly exercise their independence earned two centuries ago.
