The Grass is Always Greener ....

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Part of my aforementioned change of itinerary involves Paraguay. There I have relatives whom I have only read and heard about since I was a little girl.

In the 1890's, in Sydney, many shearers and their families were caught up in a struggle for survival. The 'landed gentry' (wealthy farmers) were forcing the shearers to accept lesser and lesser wages until they couldn't survive on what they were being paid. So they went on strike in order to try to secure at least a liveable wage. In those days of no unions, this action was considered akin to an insurrection. So the police force was called in and the strike was brutally put down. As a result of this, under the leadership of a well-to-do idealist William Lane, a new home in some more welcoming part of the world,was sought for the shearers and their families. Paraguay offered such a home and so the first boatload left Australia forever, in a tall clipper, bound for their new 'utopia'.

The trials and tribulations of their settling into a totally foreign land and subsequent culture shock are recorded in two books: Gavin Souter's "A Peculiar People' - The Australians in Paraguay, and Anne Whitehead's 'Paradise Mislaid' - In Search of the Australian Tribe of Paraguay.

I planned to spend 4 weeks in Paraguay and so tried to contact some of my unknown relatives. Easier said than done. There is not much information about Paraguay, in contrast to the wealth of information about the rest of South America. Last known details of one of 'my tribe' were well over 8 years old and no one in the family had ever been there.

By coincidence, (or not, depending on your belief system) 3 months ago, there was a 3 page article in the West Australian newspaper about the 'Australian Tribe', followed by an SBS TV documentary on these people a few weeks ago. By this time I had already paid a non-refundable $AUD600 odd return fare to Paraguay.

The first shock was the e-ticket, telling me my flights were on (a very old) Fokker Friendship!
These 'planes were the old prop. planes used before the Fokker Fellowship jet plane came into use. At which time, after a lifetime of hard work, the Friendships were sold off to various Third Word countries.

The second one was a 'phone conversation I had with an Eastern States relative who told me of quite a few of my unknown relatives who have gradually returned to settle back here in Australia.

The third shock was watching the TV documentary and seeing so many of my previously unknown relatives telling of a Paraguay whose economy is in disarray and which provides a life which is poor and very hard, unless one is from the small percentage of wealthy families there. Everyone interviewed, wanted to come back home to Australia!

And so, after a lot of 'will I go, or won't I?', my decision was to forfeit my Paraguayan trip and plane fares and add the four weeks onto the Cuzco part of my stay instead.

So, as the famous French saying goes:Se La Vi!

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