CLIMB ON

The 18 volt pneumatic hammer action drill grinds to a halt.

The rock is too hard for the power tools on hand. The midday tropical sun mercilessly bakes my body, making putty out of my black rubber soled climbing shoes. I hang, tired and scorched, as if on a vertical granite frying pan. My belay partner below is no more fortunate. Suffering the same sun, he holds me in place, waiting for word of what will come next.

Whether it is the bit, the battery or a problem with the motor itself, the outcome is the same: the drill is silent (just another 10 kilos of metal strapped to my harness) much like the rock face has been for millennia.

We are half way through setting the third bolt of a seven bolt route. The first route ever attempted on this mountain – Cerro Mbatovi. Loosely translated from the indigenous Guarani as ‘Balcony of the Gods’ or ‘Window to Heaven,’ Cerro Mbatovi is a solitary rock massif rising abruptly out of the central Paraguayan plains in the Department of Paraguarí. Its rock head caps an apron of subtropical forest. The summit approach requires an arduous bushwhack through jungle underbrush and a hard rock scramble above tree line. Untouched and unclimbed, Cerro Mbatovi offers a rock climber's dream: a wall of first ascents.

Not to be bested, out comes the Petzl Rock Pic and mini sledgehammer. Setting the pic in the half finished hole, the operation is straightforward if brutal: A whack of the hammer followed by a quarter turn of the pic. Hammer drives pic; pic chisels rock. Repeat for forty-five minutes. This bolt will be secured by hand.

Welcome back to rock climbing in Paraguay. A mix of modern technology and old-fashioned rock climbing determination set in the heart of the South American continent.

Two years ago Rock and Ice Magazine (see article http://rockandice.com/news/500-Paraguay-An-Emerging-Scene) relayed the activity of Paraguay’s nascent rock climbing scene to the world. In the interim, climbers Jonathan Bibee and Dale Helm, aided by Mexican climber Victor de Leon and a growing cadre of home-grown talent, have made steady progress.

Successfully bolting two dozen routes in the Cerro Cora climbing area, 60 km to the northwest, in the town of Tobati. The pair has set their sights on Cerro Mbatovi. To say Bibee and Helm have discovered these climbing locales would be unjust. The Paraguayans have known of these rocks for centuries. The two climbers just see them with a new set of eyes: offering the country a new sport and the worldwide climbing community a new climbing destination.

“Ita Jupi”— rock climbing in Guarani— is wide open for exploration, development, conservation, and celebration. Cerro Mbatovi's climbing future remains to be written.

Cerro Mbatovi: Balcony of the Gods

Loosely translated from Guarani as "The Balcony of the Gods," Cerro Mbatovi rises abruptly out of the grasslands of the Department of Paraguari. A solitary rock massif, Cerro Mbatovi represents the newest locale of a nascent rock climbing scene in Paraguay.

The summit approach requires an arduous bushwack through jungle underbrush and a hard rock scramble above tree line. Untouched and unclimbed, Cerro Mbatovi offers a rock climber's dream: a wall of first ascents. Currently being explored via top ropes and "bee veil rappels" (for red jungle wasp control) to develop potential rock climbing routes, Cerro Mbatovi's climbing future remains to be written.

Here is a link to the first article about rock climbing in Paraguay published on Rock and Ice, an international rock climbing magazine.

Paraguayan Primavera

To the northern hemisphere's autumnal transformation, the southlands respond with a brillant flash of primaveral pastel. Here the Tajy Say'ju (the Lapacho Amarillo), a native tree to Paraguay, shines brightly in the church plaza of the pueblo of Guarambare.

Paraguay: 200 Years of Movement Under the Cover of Darkness: Independence at Day Break

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.

SPACE TO LIVE

Let’s be honest, some people take up more space than others.

Beyond the pure physicality of volume, height, width and mass some people just take up a certain space incongruous to their size.

Whether it’s a protruding elbow jabbing into your midsection on an already cramped and crowded bus, a sticky, sweaty leg pressed up against your own or an individual stepping into the boundaries of an unmarked but clearly defined area deemed as personal.
People sprawl, they expand, they spread themselves out, they can be either big or small, simply stated they just take up space.

Space. The area, which an object occupies, or conversely the physical distance between objects. What is yours? What is mine? What is shared?

Each culture can provide an appropriate response to each of these ideas. Beyond culture however, there lies a more fundamental question, which oddly enough pairs together practicality and perception: How much space does one need to live?

The short practical answers would be “Enough.”
The longer, more perceptive answer would be “As much as it takes.”

The space that we need to live. How much is necessary? How is it determined?
These are grand assumptions, that tend to be taken for granted and reckoned more on what we want and what we can afford rather than what is of absolute necessity.

In terms of residential real estate square feet or meters are used. While agriculture will talk in terms of hectares. A hectare is a one hundred square meters or for ease of mental imagery, two professional size soccer fields placed side by side. Each are valid units of measure which present quite contrastive implications.

Suspending the effects of location on overall cost, a house of a certain size will fetch a certain price proportional to the amount of space it takes up. Two floors, three floors, 1500 sq feet, 2500 sq feet, 5000 sq, feet etc. Correspondingly, the larger the tract of arable land, the higher its asking price.

Here is the rub however, unless you reside in a doorjamb, the laws of physics dictate that you can only be in one room at any given time. Across time however, again being honest with ourselves, within our own particular domicile we like to move around.

Leaving the one room farm house firmly in the American past or precariously constructed in the developing world countryside, the basic components of a modern house include a kitchen, a bathroom, a bedroom and a common room. A bedroom for each corresponding family member has become de rigueur in today’s house hunting experience, the outsized master bedroom accommodating the matriarch and patriarch of the household of course.

Now, what else is needed: a living room? a den? a formal dining room? an attic? a basement? a garage (of the two or three car variety)? a front hall? a sun room? a breezeway? Perhaps we can even add in a walk-in closet.

The point is not affordability, for that is an easy one to answer, we can afford the house or we cannot, if not to put into practice. The point rather is of necessity: How much space do we truly need to live?

Again, the practically minded answer says “Enough,” while the perceptive answer says “As much as it takes.” Both can indeed be right, but which is most appropriate?

Stepping out of the front, side or back door and returning to the agriculture landscape a farmer is perplexed by the same question: How much space do we truly need to live:
One hectare, two hectares, five, ten, twenty hectares?

His query becomes a bit more specific and consequential however. Will the crops I produce from a certain hectare of land be sufficient to feed myself for the entire year? Will it be sufficient to feed my family? How many pounds of seed are needed to produce a certain ton of crops. How many rows of crops should be left for future seed supply, while how many should be dedicated for animal feed? These are questions most college educated individuals and over eager real estate agents could only guess at but subsistence farmers must get right year in and year out for continued personal survival.

Being tied to the land makes the calculation of one’s Space to Live obligatory. It is essential to their existence. Fortunately, for most of us, our own Space to Live calculation can be taken with much more leisure and luxury.

Climbing from the Heart

Paraguay is not known for anything. Land locked in the heart of South America; it is a country of six million, the size of California, swallowed up geographically by its neighbors, Bolivia, Brazil and Argentina. Outdoor enthusiasts would not be looked at cross wise for moving from the beaches of Rio de Janeiro to the high peaks of the Andes and on down to the wind sweep plains of Patagonia without giving Paraguay a second thought. Globe trotting climbers would give even less of their fanatically driven attention for big walls and vertical spires to lowly Paraguay.

No longer.

Over the past year, three individuals have been quietly cultivating their climbing passion in a country as far off the map and as virgin as any modern day explorer could dream.

In the established world of climbing where first ascents and new routes are discussed and determined by degree, Climbing in Paraguay by contrast is wide open. Climbing in the town of Tobati, seventy kilometers northeast of Paraguay’s capital Asuncion, former Peace Corps Volunteers Jonathan Bibee and Dale Helm, along with close Argentine friend Hugo Vidomlansky recently bolted the first handful of sport routes in the country. With kilometers of unexplored wall and the sun shining hot and bright, there is much to be done.

Although Paraguay is not fated to become a premier climbing destination, nevertheless there is a certain sense of pride and a sparkle of contentment knowing that first ascents are not reserved only for the most elite of climbers on location in some exotic locale.

Beyond the convoluted jargon and often times contrived international climbing culture Paraguay Climbing offers a newness, a freshness, a rawness that harkens back to the days of yore when people went barefoot up the rock face and possibilities were endless.

Taking full advantage of the collective experience and improvements gained over the past fifty years in terms of climbing gear (bought in Argentina or Brazil or hand carried down from the USA), climbing techniques and code of ethics, Bibee, Helm and Hugo Vidomlansky, have discovered a climbing area where it can be applied completely from the ground up.

Constructively and consciously developing unknown walls and a brand new sport that infuses courage, self confidence, communication, fun and awareness to the Paraguayan populace, Bibee and Helm relish the challenge of doing what they love, loving what they do and making it accessible to any and all Paraguayans willing to step into a harness and confidently call out the climbing commands “On Belay…. Climbing.”

EL ESTADIO DE SAN VICENTE

Over the last two years the wheels of life have certainly rolled on in every fathomable direction. But the beauty of a circle is that, no matter how large the circumference, as one travels its trajectory, one must eventually return to the place of embarkation.

In 2007 as I rode across the Indian subcontinent, Team America (you) graciously raised money to help complete the construction of a community soccer field in my former Peace Corps Site of San Vicente. 15 dollars for 1500 kilometers ridden. Team Paraguay (the family members of San Vicente), chipped in with 15 thousand guaranies (three dollars) for 1500 kilometers ridden.

The grand total of money raised was close to a thousand dollars.
The funds were used to level the pitch, add grass and build bleachers.

In 2009, last week, I had the opportunity to return to San Vicente after a two-year absence. Arriving on a Sunday afternoon, I was certain of two things: it would be a hot, sweaty, uphill seven kilometer walk from the bus stop on the paved highway to San Vicente but it would be worth it for without question every one would be at the San Vicente Soccer Field watching the Partido Hape.

Hape in Guarani means “event” or “the place where something happens.” Partido is Spanish for “game.”

Working in the sugar cane fields all week, come Sunday afternoon, the entire community congregates at the place where the game will be held: the Partido Hape at what is now called El Estadio de San Vicente.

As I walked up the cut dirt road across sprawling fields of electric sugar cane that carried the whispers of the southern wind upon their stalks and through vertiginous dark green woodlands reaching toward the hot subtropical sun hung high against an expansive blue sky the beauty of my visit was visible on my face: a smile of surprise. No one knew that I was returning to San Vicente.

Every Sunday, there are two games played. Eleven v. Eleven. Complete with uniforms and shared soccer cleats. My plan was to catch the second half of the second game.

Even before I crested the last hill and beheld the San Vicente Soccer Field for the first time in its crowded and completed state, the kids playing under the bleachers saw me at a distance, blew my cover and announced my arrival.

Heads turned, hands were shaken and hugs given, questions asked in an incredulous tone, the baby pig soon to be raffled off escaped its caretaker and ran out onto the field.
Play continued without a moment’s pause.

I grabbed a seat on the bleachers with my host family, la Familia Martinez, took in the soccer scene and began to catch up on all the local news. Within a heartbeat I was back sitting in the midst of the San Vicente Community and to them that is what mattered most. Not where I had been or what I was doing for the past two years but that I was back and that I had remembered.

Thanks to your support for a bike ride in a far off land more than two years ago, a soccer field was build and a community grown closer. Well Done.

The day’s game ended in a 2-2 tie, which meant penalties kicks would decide the winner.
As the players concentrated and the fans braced themselves in anticipation, there was one more trick to pull out of my sleeve.

Prior to leaving for Paraguay in August, a dear friend of mine gave me three high quality soccer balls to bring down to give to San Vicente. Perhaps I have watched too many international soccer tournaments, but the timing was just too perfect. I jumped off the bleachers, grabbed the deflated balls out of my bag, ran over to the referee and in a hasty presentation explained that “if we are going to play good soccer, on a good soccer field, we need to have good soccer balls.”

The balls were quickly inflated, flexed and kicked around in admiration and appreciation and put directly into play. Thank You Todd.

If you are keeping score, your scorecards should read as follows:
Zorrilla Kue 5 – Nacional 4 in a penalty shoot out.
One Giant Thank you from Team Paraguay to Team America.

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.

PAVE PARADISE AND PUT UP A …..HIGHWAY…PLEASE

If need be, everyone can walk 15 kilometers. It might take some of us all day, but the distance, roughly nine miles, is certainly traversable. For the developed world, a 15 km walk can be called an outing, a day hike, a backpacking trip. People plan weekends to do it; Boy Scouts can earn merit badges for it. In sum, walking 15 km is a luxury not a necessity. To cross that distance is what a private motorized vehicle is for.

In the developing world however, for subsistence rural farmers, a 15 km walk is a fact of life. Out in the countryside, pavement is a limited quantity and the sidewalk ends rather quickly or far from home depending on which way you are looking.

Walking is at once a part of the traditional, agrarian routine and yet a constant and obstinate geographic impediment to connection to the greater wide world.

Fifteen is only the average, used here metaphorically, it could be only 5 or 10 km, or as much as 20, 25 km and beyond. We are talking about fifteen kilometers of dirt, mud, earth roads between a community where someone lives and the nearest paved road, where the rest of the world lives.

As the crow flies the distances are short but the consequences are long and profound. The lack of all weather paved roads takes measurable distances and makes them really quite immeasurable in terms of time, economics, psychology, culture, receptiveness to new ideas and ultimately livelihoods.

Fifteen kilometers on asphalt takes a half and hour to drive. Fuel costs are negligible and produce will certainly not rot en route. The same distance on dirt roads can take an hour, an afternoon, a day. It really is any one’s guess, depending on the weather, road conditions and how big those erosion ditches have become since the last rain.

If there is a doubt whether a farmer can get out to sell or some one can get in to buy and transportation costs will consume most of his earnings, it’s a certainty that a farmers choices on which cash crop to plant will be severely restricted. Fifteen kilometers can be the distance and difference between subsistence and upward mobility.

We love to love nature. However, the catch is that we love to love it as long as it’s easily accessible through a reliable network of roads. Most of us enjoy the thought of spending the day out in the wilderness but with the benefit of being able to get away from it and return home at the end of the day.

We are quick to criticize large-scale public works projects that tend to pave the world over. However, we do prefer individual pavement projects that come right up to our garage door.

The next time you gaze upon that ubiquitous black expanse called asphalt, learn to step a little more lively and tread a bit more lightly, for it has taken us far. Let’s hope it starts taking the rest of the world, mired in mud and poverty in the same direction.

LIFE IN PERSPECTIVE

The animosity between Paraguayans and Argentines is good natured but visceral. From boasts and brags of cultural superiority to a devastating 19th century war, the Triple Alliance War 1861- 1865, that literally decimated the Paraguayan population (Argentina was helped out by Brazil and Uruguay but in their defense, Paraguay did start it, declaring war on all three), this rivalry finds its outlet in all forms of life.

Being South America, a soccer match played between the two national teams serves as unparalleled battle ground for this never ending war. Wednesday night in downtown Asuncion, the Paraguayan capital, in the form of a 2010 World Cup Qualifying Match, the latest Paraguay – Argentina skirmish was fought.

In an unprecedented turn of events, Argentina, a perennial soccer powerhouse and historically a shoe in for a World Cup berth, came to town needing a win to keep their flagging campaign alive. Paraguay, on the other hand, was in the position where a win would seal their invitation to the big dance in South Africa in June of next year. (After two years of home and away tournament play, only four out of the ten South American teams will earn berths to the World Cup). Although unknown on the world stage for anything else, in soccer circles, the small, six million strong land lock nation of Paraguay is a force to be reckoned with.

Qualifying for the World Cup at home and at the expense of their arch rivals, Argentina, were another loss would virtually eliminate them from World Cup contention was almost too much for Paraguayans to handle.

At kick off, the energy in the stadium was electrifying and the silence throughout the country was absolute. The nation had stopped, all motion suspended, everyone glued to their televisions and collectively holding their breath. Across the border in Argentina, there was no less concentration and devotion.

In this corner of the world, on that night, there was only one thing and one thing only that mattered: the best eleven men of each country playing ninety minutes of soccer to decisively determine the power, glory and right to go to the World Cup.

Despite the best of intentions and a commensurate amount of hard work, Paraguay,
in terms of soccer, history and politics, is benighted and hapless. The national team, for as talented as they are, always finds away to let victory slip through their fingers, like a late opponent’s goal sneaking past the goalie’s outstretched hands.

The Paraguayan populace knows this all to well and, during the run up to the game, they were on their knees praying for a different outcome to the same old story.

On a night that will be talked about and lionized for generations, the national side did not disappoint. Playing as a team, aggressive and hungry for a win, Paraguay beat the Argentines 1-0. Paraguay hit the post twice before they found the back of the net. Tensions and jockeying for the ball were unrelenting throughout, ending in a red card for an Argentine player. Despite being a man and a goal down, the ultimate opportunity for vindication if not outright victory was Argentina’s. But the striker missed tapping in the superbly placed cross in front of an open net by centimeters in the final minute of the match.

As the ball spun out of bounds and into oblivion, the nation of Paraguay leapt up in euphoria as the national team stepped into history.

In a single, 1-0 victory over Argentina, the plight of Paraguayans was forgotten. No one left the stadium or turned off their televisions. This was not just soccer. It was life, renewed, reborn and rejuvenated.

As the players danced, the fans cheered and flags waved, the President of Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, stepped onto the pitch. With six million people enthralled to a Paraguayan victory, he did the only logical thing: he declared Thursday, the following day, a National Holiday.

Schools were closed. Government offices shut down and stores remained unopened.

The mundane transactions of life could wait another day. An Argentine loss, a Paraguayan World Cup berth. This was big. Down right momentous and needed to be put into proper perspective.

CPI: CHIPA PRICE INDEX

Putting a finger on the peculiarities of the Paraguayan pulse is always a tricky affair. The pervasiveness of Paraguayan indirectness can stymie the simplest of questions. Are you going to the party tomorrow can be met with a myriad of responses.

One could make the case that cultural indirectness is indeed so profound that it is imbedded in the grammatical structure of the language. In Guarani all questions are asked in the negative form. Ndeho moa’i la fiestahape? You are not going to the party? How is one to answer this inquiry directly?

Against this cultural backdrop and the reality of widespread poverty in Paraguay, figuring out the financial and economic climate of rural Paraguayans is a daunting and delicate task indeed.

There is a way however to go about it without getting too personal, too professional and distracted by facts and figures. Beyond the traditional consumer price indexed basket of goods, such as flour, salt, oil and the like, to serve as a bench mark for measuring year on year inflation Paraguay offers a single consumer product that can get at the heart, or really the stomach, of the economic matter: chipa.

For the uninitiated, chipa, can be thought of as a corn meal Paraguayan bagel. The freshly ground corn is mixed with copious amounts of milk and lard, sprinkled with a healthy dash of anis seed, brick oven baked and served piping hot along the major paved thorough fares of Paraguay (now numbering twelve in a country the size of California) by industrious women touting massive baskets perched atop their perfectly erect heads.

For Paraguayans buying chipa is not really an option, but more a requirement born out of tradition, habit and hunger for a delicious snack. Without exception long distance buses traveling to and from the capital, stop and pick up a prearranged chipa woman, specifically at km 74 on Route Two, to sell their corn meal morsels to hungry passengers. Different bus lines work with different chipa companies, where the bus driver undoubtedly gets a free sample.

Back in 2002, a single chipa, the size of a good New York City bagel (Sara Lee supermarket bought, five to a sleeve “bagel” look a likes need not apply), sold for 1000 guaranies, the Paraguayan currency which floats freely against the dollar and is presently valued at 1 USD = 4900 guaranies. Thus, a chipa cost roughly twenty cents. To complete the comparison, a typical Paraguayan day laborer makes 25,000 guaranies or five dollars a day.

Over the last half dozen years however, while the price of chipa has remained stable at 1000 guaranies , the size has steadily decreased to that of a Thomas English Muffin. Unscientifically, this reflects two trends: the rise in the cost of raw materials (i.e. corn, lard) and the idea that 1000 guaranies is the Paraguayan psychological price akin to 99 cents.

Returning to Paraguay after a two year absence, I was eager (and hunger) to continue my chipa price index study on the rural economic situation of Paraguayans.

Traveling out to the eastern department of Caazapa, I made my requisite stop along Route Two to purchase my tasty, Paraguayan roadside snack. Driving in a private vehicle, I rolled down the window and opened my wallet, not knowing what to expect.

The woman, basket atop her head, leaned in and handed me a chipa. The size was back close to its original (2002 baseline) but the price was now double: 2000 guaranies. Being caught short, I had to reach deep into my pocket to make up the difference.

The sweetness of the snack was the same as I had remembered, but I got the feeling that over the intervening years this slice of rural Paraguayan life had become a bit more sour and hard to swallow.

Chipa in hand, Paraguayans can attest to the following as they scratch out a subsistence living in an acute economic environment: the problem with “normal” is that over time everything gets worse.