Dengue, Drug Dealers & Demonstrations

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On returning to Paraguay after two months travelling it is good to see that some things never change. It is still as hot as ever, still as quirky, the people still manage to surprise me day in day out. Food is still as cheap and tasty (and just as likely to give me diabetes), Asunción still has it's run down charm that I love so much. After changing country every week (more or less) for 10 weeks, this was very comforting. Although three minutes after getting off the plane, the extremely professional immigration officer tried to hit on me, so the men don't change either - I wish they would.

On the other hand some things change a lot...

I returned to Paraguay during an outbreak of dengue... an illness spread by mosquitos which causes flu like symptoms: aches and pains, fever, sensitivity to light, dehydration and so on. Everyone knows someone who has, or has had dengue. My students tell me that the reason for there being so much dengue is that people don't look after their houses and gardens and therefore there are lots of places for the mosquitos to lay their eggs... This may be true, but there is also a huge lack of awareness or of campaignes to teach people about the causes of dengue. I, being from a country with no dengue, knew very little of the symptons or causes, and there is nothing in the streets or papers to tell me about it. Maybe on the TV there is more information... but if you have no TV, and I'm guessing a lot of people don't, this is pretty useless!
Some people have bracelets which somehow repel mosquitos, when I asked where I can get one from, my students told me that there is a two week waiting list at most chemists. Asunción was not prepared as last year the dengue epidemic was in other regions of the country. This week it is said that there are 3000 people with dengue in the hospitals all with the potential to infect 10 more people... excellent 😞


Horacio Cartes and Lillian Samaniego - A short while after my return there was an election (there seem to be elections of some kind every week here) to decide the new president of the Colorado Party, the party which was in charge for decades before the current president gained power. Candidates' pictures were sprawled across the city, the most prominent of which was a lovely photo of Lilian Samaniego, aka Chucky, as all the newspapers called, here due to her similarity to the horror character... Another colourful character always appeared next to her, the face of Horacio Cartes with his beaming smile.
Horacio has many a reason to smile. He backed Lilian in the election, with all his billions of dolars, as she had voted to change the party constitution, so that a newer party member, with only one year of party membership, could run for president (before 10 years membership was necessary), which Horacio, with his impressive one year membership, plans to do in the next general election in 2013.
This may all sound pretty standard of politicians, being cunning and ruthless, however Horacio has a very interesting past of smuggling contraband, and has been wanted by Interpol and the Brazilian government, making him more dodgy than most. The contraband he is accused of smuggling is tobacco, although cocaine and marijuana have also been discovered on his ranch. Paraguay, a while ago, banned the smoking of tobacco in public places, however there was a vote last year to try to re-introduce smoking in public, mainly backed by the smiley, happy Horacio. Apparently, many members of the government were paid to vote in favour of the action. On top of this, he owns more or less half of the country, including a football club, a major soft drinks manufacturers and a hospital... How can someone with so much money know the needs of the majority of normal Paraguayans...?
Lilian is an interesting person to be president of a political party as ten years ago when working as director of a hospital she was found to be selling contraband drugs in Bolivia... something she never went to prison for.


At the beginning of March, there is a national holiday as it is the day on which many years ago Francisco Solano Lopez (aka. Mariscal Lopez) was killed during the Triple Alliance War. Now, this war was basically Paraguay vs. Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, so yeah, not exactly fair. Mariscal Lopez lead Paraguay in this war, which some would say was suicide. Paraguay, needless to say, lost the war, and along with it a lot of territory and masses of its population. After the war there were few more than 20,000 men left, mostly elderly men and young boys. It destroyed the country. And Lopez kept fighting and fighting until his death (after around half the population had died first). In Paraguay this makes him a hero... Although, at the risk of being lynched in the street, I will say that to me it does not... I do not understand this concept at all. Someone leading their own country to ruin... hmmmmm, not a hero in my eyes.


March was also a crazy month for protests. Paraguayans appear to like a good old protest at the moment.
One day all the buses started doing crazy routes making me late for some appointments I had. This was because a group of young anti-Lugo protesters were walking up and down the main streets making a racket so buses and cars had to go on crazy diversions.
A similiar thing happened a few days later, except this time the people were in cars, pomping very loudly, demonstrating about the privatisation of the airport. This to me appears to be a good thing, as there may be more flights, maybe the baggage handlers will have to stop stealing my things (idiots!) and it should generally improve the airport. Of course, all the workers in their cushty little jobs don't like the idea.
Ahhh yes, and things finally started to kick off about the bloody 'cuida coches'. These are guys who 'look after' you're car at night if you go into a bar or a restaurant. By look after, I mean they sit on the street chatting to their friends and then demand money or they will key your car. Some of the cuida coches look about 6 years ols and I'm sure my nana could beat them up. I've no idea how they would stop someone stealing a car...
Anyways, to me the solution is simple, buy a cheap, shitty car, so you don't care if they scratch it and don't pay them... The government decided to give some of them licences to do this job. They were given a nice, little tabard and were made official 'cuida coches' and could charge 10,000 gs per car, which is about £1.30. Many people were outragged by this and quite rightly so. If these guys look after 20 cars a night, over a month they would earn about 6,000,000 gs which is about triple what I earn as a teacher... Somehow it doesn't quite seem right.
The taxi guys protested by driving very slowly across town pomping their horns continuously, very early in the morning to might I add... ANNOYING. Not sure what they protested about. I hope not fares, as the fares here are ridicuous. I am a teacher and I cannot afford taxis. Not that I would get in one anyway as they are scary. One of the drivers decided to stalk my housemate for about 3 weeks declaring his love for her in creepy messages...


Do I really want to go home?
Although this blog my seem negative, the things above (minus the letchy men and dengue of course) are exactly what I love about this country. It is so unbelievably weird and different and I am constantly shocked. Its amazing.

My quality of life is loads better here. There are so many cultural events all the time. I can afford to go the the theatre and to the ballet. There are exhibitions every week. I meet cool people and have opportunities such as being able to volunteer at the UN (which I may be starting soon) which would never happen in the UK.

On top of that, the weather is better and therefore I have more energy and in general feel healthier...

So am I looking forward to going home? Of course, to see my family and friends, yes. But I'm sure after a year back home I'll be heading back over here, if not to Paraguay then to somewhere very near. 😊

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