I'm dreaming of a white Christmas

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A very blessed and merry Christmas to all of you from Villeta, Paraguay. After what has seemed like weeks of almost triple digit temperatures, I am enjoying a coolish day of 77 oF as I write this post (it is supposed to get up to about 90 oF later, but that’s really nothing). It is rather different for me as I have spent 21 of my first 22 Christmases in cold weather climates with snow, the exception being the Christmas I spent in South Africa. I never thought I would say this and all of you dealing with northern hemisphere winter right now are probably going to hate me for this, but I actually kind of miss traditional winter and cold weather. I am going to go about a year and a half between real winters, a strange thought/experience for someone accustomed to trudging through snowdrifts in below zero weather and happily watching Matthew Kopetsky struggle with the famous Wisconsin sidewalk ice (we all know it is funny to see others fall, until we fall while laughing at them). I have grown so accustomed to the warm weather that mid 90 degree temperatures do not even faze me anymore, when in the U.S., people, including myself, pretty much stop functioning at such temperatures. Some days are a little hotter than others, but overall they all seem pretty hot compared to U.S. standards. Air conditioning is lacking in most buildings, so the best strategies to stay cool are fans, cold drinks, and inactivity. I was advised that many people take cold showers throughout the day to cool off and I have been taking about 2 a day regularly, but things escalated a bit yesterday. I woke up, showered, watched TV and ate lunch, showered, went to my work for a bit and Skyped with friends and family, showered, went to mass, went running, showered, had dinner and watched football, considered showering but went to bed instead. If you were counting, that is 4 showers in one day. Excessive, yes. Necessary, I would argue so. I would rather not make 4 showers part of my regular routine, but when air conditioning is scarce and temperatures reach the triple digits, something needs to be done to maintain a reasonable comfort level. So besides living in an extremely hot climate, I have done a few noteworthy things since my last post including various Christmas activities, albeit somewhat different than what I am used to.

This week’s post
- The Obra Social
- Gift preparation/distribution
- Ciudad Del Este
- Food distribution
- General Christmas experience
- Wrapup
- Spanish Vocabulary

I realize I have mentioned where I work in past posts, but I have never really explained what the Obra Social is what exactly goes on here. Basically, the best way I can describe it is a place in the community where a variety of social services are offered, free of charge, to poor, underprivileged children and their families. The funding for the Obra Social comes from benefactors in Canada, who are called padrinos, which means sponsor or patron. Although I do not know exactly how the funding works, my understanding is that each padrino sponsors one or more of the 507 apadrinados, the children who come to the Obra Social for help. The children know of their padrino and communicate with them regularly through letters and cards. The funding from the benefactors goes toward the many services that are offered at the Obra including but not limited to free pediatric care and medicine once a week, lunches offered 2 or 3 times a week, various food and gift distributions, aid in dealing with domestic issues, parenting classes, after school tutoring, and basically aid with any other type of issue that may be taking place in the families of the apadrinados. There is also a Christian radio station based out of the Obra Social called Radio Manantial. The staff of the Obra Social consists mostly of college-age young people like me, as well as a few middle-aged people and a few of the sisters who oversee some of the operations. I have asked before about how one becomes a padrino but have never really received a clear answer, so I am not exactly sure of the process and what it requires. If anyone is interested in becoming a padrino I can definitely get you more information, just let me know.

Lately, I have been doing a lot less work on my educational information while focusing a lot more of my time and energy into helping out with the social work aspect of the Obra. During the week of December 15-19 I helped out with the annual Christmas gift distribution. Many of the children that come to the obra come from extremely impoverished families, so as you can imagine, Christmas gifts are not priorities for the families of these children. Therefore, the Obra devotes a large amount of time and money to putting together yearly Christmas gifts for the children. We began putting together the gift bags on Monday, December 15, to be ready for distribution from Wednesday, the 17th until Friday, the 19th. Each child was to receive a bunch of candy, a towel, a toothbrush, two tubes of toothpaste, two bars of body soap, a bar of soap to wash clothes, a plastic drinking cup, a pair of flip flops, and a special Christmas bread that is popular here, called pan dulce, which means sweet bread. We spent Monday and Tuesday folding towels, organizing flip flops by size, sorting and putting together candy bags, and putting the correct amount of every item in plastic bags. We needed to make more than 500 bags, on for each apadrinado. It was kind of tedious work as there were many people helping throughout the day, and when they were not given correct instruction and put the bags together incorrectly, we had to go through all the bags numerous times to confirm that each had the correct contents. An especially patience trying moment occurred when we had already tied off all 500 some candy bags and were then told by the sister in charge that we needed to untie each bag, add one or two extra pieces of candy, and then retie each bag. This happened as a result of a slight miscalculation, which was pretty frustrating because it added a few hours of extra, unnecessary work. But anyways, we eventually completed the bags by Tuesday afternoon. We then went to a local bakery and purchased 500 loaves of pan dulce, the special holiday bread eaten in Paraguay. The best way I can describe it is bread that contains the type of fruit used for fruitcake, and also sometimes nuts. It is a lot less dense than fruitcake, but in my opinion, really nothing too special. Seeing 500 pan dulces sitting on a table was quite a sight and we were happy to be ready for the children the following morning. The children or their parents came to collect their gifts from Wednesday until Friday, based on the first name of the child. Although we were not giving the children toys or what one may call traditional Christmas gifts, we were giving them useful, practical things that they may not otherwise have had. It was obvious that the annual gifts were kind of a big deal for many of the children as they would probably not be receiving much else for Christmas. It was very nice to be able to help give the children something that seemed to make them truly happy. I was very glad to have helped out with the Christmas gifts as it gave me a sense of the number of children that the Obra Social helps and allowed me to interact personally with many of them and their families.

To continue my worked related to the social services at the Obra Social I took a weekend trip to Ciudad Del Este (City of the East) with one of my friends/coworkers to buy backpacks for a large number of the children. Ciudad Del Este, located 327 kilometers (about 200 miles) from Asunción on the border of Brazil and Argentina, is the main commercial center of Paraguay. It is the third largest free-tax commerce zone in the world, so many people travel there to purchase things such as electronics at highly discounted prices. There is also an EXTREMELY large black Market in Ciudad Del Este, the value of which is estimated to be five times the value of the national economy. One thing I found very interesting is that the city pretty much operates on the American dollar instead of the Paraguayan Guaraní. Sorry for that little tangent, back to the blog post. On Sunday night Arnaldo and I met up around 9:00 pm to catch a bus that would take us to the bus depot in Asuncion, from which we would depart on a coach bus. He said a bus would come at quarter after 9:00. It never came. Next he said one would come at 9:45. It never came. We called a friend and asked him when a bus would come and he said 10:30. It never came. He told us it may be running late, so we waited until after 11:00. It never came. After over two hours of waiting we sought another option. We asked a friend of ours who works with us to get the truck from the Obra Social and take us to a place where we knew we could catch a bus. He obliged and dropped us off about halfway between Asunción and Villeta, where we were able to catch a bus a little after midnight. For some reason the bus that we caught drove slower than I walk and it took over an hour for us to cover less than 20 miles. For the record, we were not the happiest at this point but could only laugh about it. When we arrived at the bus terminal in Asunción we found out that the company that we had hoped to travel with (the best known, most comfortable, and most direct) did not have a bus departing until 7:00 am in the morning. We found another company that said it had a bus departing at 1:40 am, so we bought tickets and went to wait on the platform. Around 2:00 am the bus finally rolled into the station and we were on our way about 15 minutes later. Unfortunately, because we did not get a direct bus (faster, does not stop a bunch of times to pick up more passengers than the bus can hold), the bus seemed quite overloaded for most of the ride and I had the comfort of a man sitting/leaning on my armrest/me for the majority of the time. After a little over five hours we arrived at the bus terminal of Ciudad Del Este, from which we grabbed a taxi to the center of the downtown. It was a little after 8:00 am now and we had hoped to catch a bus back to Asunción at either 11:40 or 2:00. We ambled around the streets filled with vendors of all sorts of knock off, falsified name brand stuff. The vendors definitely took notice of me being American or Brazilian (some tried to speak Portuguese to me) and tried really hard to get me to buy their “quality products.” The funniest offer I got was for 8 pairs of fake name brand socks for 10 mil guaraní, the equivalent of about $2. Although I needed socks, I resisted the not-so-strong urge to buy the socks that looked to be made of some sort synthetic, plastic material with name brand logos stamped on them. After going into a few legitimate stores and buying a few Christmas presents for my host family (electric tea kettle, bottle of Jim Beam, the only American brand I could find), we went to find the backpacks. Our goal was to buy as many backpacks as we could for about $800. I had never bought backpacks in bulk, so it was a new experience. We bargained the salesperson down from $4.20 to $3.70 per backpack after telling her that they were for underprivileged children. From there we sealed the deal, 216 backpacks for four million guaraní. We were told that they would bring the backpacks from the warehouse to the store within the hour and would drive us to the taxi stand. We went and walked around the city for another hour, hoping that we would be able to return by about 11:00 and possibly catch the 11:40 bus back to Asunción. Yeah, like that was really going to happen. We got back to the store to be told that not only were the backpacks not there, but also that their truck was broken and we would have to talk to the taxi stand, with six huge boxes of backpacks. With no other option we walked around the city for another few hours, had lunch, and eventually returned. The backpacks finally showed up in six huge boxes. The store agreed to help us carry them to the taxi stand, so 4 of us took off carrying six huge boxes through the busy, congested heart of the city. Somehow we made it to the taxi stand where we crammed the boxes in to a taxi and headed to the bus terminal. Once there we had about an hour wait until our bus left. It was kind of funny because one of us always had to guard the backpacks while the other one went to buy something, use the bathroom, etc. The ride home was pretty uneventful, although more comfortable because we were luckily able to get a direct bus. Unfortunately, when the cargo was unloaded one of the boxes of backpacks was absolutely soaked from being near the air conditioner, but being Paraguay, we could do nothing but accept the wet box with a small apology from the company, nothing more. From there our friend picked us up in the truck and we were headed home. All in all, it was an exhausting 24 hours, but we had accomplished what we had set out to do.

I know I have covered quite a bit of my work experience from the past few weeks, but there is one more thing that I feel compelled to write about. In the afternoon of Tuesday the 23rd I was asked to help put together food bags that would be distributed to impoverished families for their Christmas meal. I then learned that we would not only be making the bags but would also be delivering them to some of the most impoverished areas around Villeta. I have seen poverty before, but what I was about to experience was different in that it was more personal as I know or at least recognize many of the families we would be visiting. Three of my coworker, one of the sisters, and I loaded up the truck with bags of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, pasta, pan dulce, cooking oil, and fresh chicken and headed out of town. One of my coworkers put on a Santa suit to try and make the holiday a little brighter for the children we would be visiting. The first few houses we arrived to were in kind of bad shape, but they could still be called houses in that they were made of brick and had roofs. Each family received some vegetables, pasta, cooking oil, pan dulce and chicken, the amount determined by how many people lived in the house. We greeted the families, gave them the food, took some pictures with them and Santa, and kept moving as there was a imposing storm approaching. As we moved farther out of town we came to an area called, mundo aparte, which means a separate world. I must say, it was a separate world. What we saw next could really not be called houses. I can not say it was the first time I have seen poverty like this as I witnessed much of the same thing in South Africa, but it was nonetheless extremely sad and very humbling. Many of the people we visited lived in ‘houses’ constructed of cardboard, plastic, scrap metal, and anything else they could possibly pull together. It was evident, based on the numbers we were receiving for the food count, that there were whole families of up to four or five kids living in one or two room ‘houses.’ Like I said before, the personal aspect that I knew many of these families made it all the more troubling. The amount of happiness that we brought to those people with just a small amount of food was nice to see, but also made me wonder what they may be eating without it. We delivered most of the food in a steady downpour, often walking a significant distance between houses that could not be reached by car, but this did not bother us in the least. The fact that we were giving the people something that was so important to them was worth every second of discomfort that we felt at the moment, because many of the people lived with discomfort like that all of their lives. I kept thinking how hard it was to see so many children in such poor living conditions, knowing in my mind that all they would know for the rest of their lives was extreme poverty. I do not have a great understanding of the government of Paraguay, but I do know that it has been very corrupt for a very long time, so the reality is people in these types of living situations will be receiving no government help any time soon. When talking to my coworkers they were telling me that the more ignorant and less educated a person is, the more kids they are likely to have. This seems to make perfect sense but does not seem like a problem that can easily be solved. I am not trying to use this blog as propaganda or an agenda to make social change, I just want to make you aware of what I am experiencing and what it makes me think about. Needless to say, my experience delivering food to some of the poorest of the poor was very powerful and helped me put into perspective how fortunate I am to live comfortably with all of my basic needs being met. Many people are not able to say that, so please remember to be thankful for all you have been blessed with.

In terms of my Christmas experience in the southern hemisphere, it was definitely different. Overall, there is much less Christmas spirit here, to the point where I did not even realize I should be listening to Christmas music until a bit after Thanksgiving (I am one of those crazy people who likes to start Christmas music season in early November). There are no real pine trees here (way to hot for them to grow) and very few fake Christmas trees in homes, at least in my experience. The big thing here is the Christian manger scene. People do not ask if you put up your Christmas tree yet, they ask if you put up your manger yet. There is very little hype leading up to the holiday in terms of music, Christmas cheer, etc. Many people have these annoying Christmas lights on their houses that continuously play Christmas songs in high pitched squeaking noises, so they have that going for them I guess. The Christmas celebration is more geared to Christmas Eve than actual Christmas Day. My family went to Christmas Eve mass at 9:00 pm, where the priest entered mass carrying a life-sized baby Jesus to place in the manger. The mass was fine but lacked much of what makes the church Christmas season so special for me, the Christmas hymns. Therefore, although I was celebrating the birth of Christ as I usually do, I felt a big empty the whole time, like something was missing. After mass we went to one of my host grandma’s house where we had a Christmas feast, drinks, and a theater production put on by my host sister and the cousins. The big moment on Christmas Eve is the strike of midnight, which signifies the birth of Christ. At midnight everyone goes around greeting the whole family with hugs and kisses. Afterwards, my host family returned home, where everyone received exactly one gift. There seems to be very little focus on gift-giving, something that was very different from our practice in the U.S. I went to bed late and did not wake up until late the next day. As it turned out, it did not really matter when I woke up. Sadly, for me at least, Christmas day was pretty much treated like any other day of the year. Aside from not going to work, I did not do anything out of the ordinary. This was pretty hard for me and really made me think a lot about what I would be doing if I were at home for Christmas. It was one of my more homesick days in my time here, much like Thanksgiving was. Although I was still celebrating the holiday, it just felt kind of empty without my friends, family, and all of the normal customs I am used to. There is something to be said for experiencing different cultures, if for nothing more than to rediscover the richness of your own culture that you often take for granted. I know one thing for sure; I am not missing Thanksgiving and Christmas with my family next year, absolutely no chance.

Well this quickly turned into another epic post that some of you probably hate me for right at this moment. Sorry that they seem to be getting a little longer, I have tried to space them out a little more to give you more time to get through the whole post. I will be off of work for the whole month of January (as the Obra Social does not offer services for the month) and will be traveling for much of it, so you may not hear from me again for a while (I realize some of you just got happy when you read that ;-) that’s ok, I’m not offended). I will be headed for Iguazu Falls, Buenos Aires, Mar del Plata, the Andes mountains, and who knows where else. I plan on spending time on the beach, hiking in the Andes and maybe on an active volcano, whitewater rafting, visiting a vineyard or two, just to name a few things on my to-do list. I am sure I will have a few more epic blog posts upon my return, so you have that to look forward to. Again, a very blessed and merry Christmas and a happy new year to you all, I hope you have been able to spend some time with those who are near and dear to you. Know that you are in my thoughts and prayers and that I think of many of you from time to time. Please stay in contact, I am still interested in your lives too.

Besos y Abrazos,

-MWC

Spanish Vocabulary

- Feliz Navidad - Merry Christmas (actually happy Christmas, but the closest thing)
- el pino - the pine tree
- el pesebre - the manger
- los Reyes Magos - the Magi (3 kings)
- el Año Nuevo - the new year
- Esquiar - to ski
- Nevar - to snow
- el vino - the wine
- la Nochebuena - Christmas Eve

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Comments

[sheila]

TEARS!!!!
Well, Matthew, your blog was very moving on a number of levels and it had me in tears - especially your encounter and description of the extreme povery you saw. Thank you for the details, and the challenge to always be appreciative of what we have, especially realizing that we live in such a wealthy society. Your dad also shed a tear - usually it is only Dickens that does that! We love you Mom

[Matthew K]

showering?
I've noticed that although you claim to be showering four times a day (four more than you often did in college), you seem to be wearing those blue shorts in every picture on here. Maybe a little less showering and a little more laundry is in order.

[rija]

very humbling indeed
just wanted to say that it has taken me a while to catch up with your blogs but I really enjoyed reading this one. Some of the stuff, like the fake socks and pan dulce (pao doce), brought back fond memories. I remember spending probably 2 hours in that huge super store in ciudad del este staring at all the american candy i hadn't seen in months. But then there are things like the utter destitution you witnessed that makes me feel like we're really not as far apart as geography says we are. here in india we have terms for differentiating the houses when we go out to survey the villages..."pacca" (houses made out of cement, brick or any other standard building materials),and "kutcha" (houses made of anything people can get their hands on including forest produces, random waste findings and anything else they can get their hands on. And think about how many houses like that we could construct with the crap that comes out of one garage cleaning. eesh. Anyway it was great reading your blog...i'm doing my best to keep up! please stay in touch ~rija