Sleeping with the lights on...and other scary stories to tell in broad daylight

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Greetings to each and every one of you on this fine November afternoon. It is the day after Halloween and I am not in the least bit feeling the effects of last night. That is quite a strange thought as I have spent my last 4 Halloweens in Madison, but the holiday is thought of in a much different way in Paraguay. They don’t call it Halloween (Día de las brujas), there are no costumes, no parties, pretty much nothing like a Halloween in the United States. I asked the sisters about why this was and I was told that the day is thought to have connections with darkness and the devil, so it is not something to be celebrated. Apparently, according to my host mom, many young people go to cemeteries and perform very strange rituals in hopes of encountering the devil. Therefore, I am told that every cemetery in the country was guarded by policemen last night to prevent this from happening. I imagine that there not being a drastic separation between church and state in Paraguay has a lot to do with how Halloween is treated. So anyhow, instead of my usual Halloween antics I spent the night at home watching a movie and going to bed early. I know that Halloween is not the most important holiday, but I think it will feel a lot stranger not celebrating Thanksgiving. Other than not celebrating Halloween, I have done a few things of interest in the past few weeks.

This week’s post:
- Paraguay vs. Perú World Cup Qualifier
- Real life Ratatouille
- Heavy Storms/Country wide blackout
- Wrapup
- Spanish vocabulary

On Wednesday, October 15, I attended my first International fútbol (soccer) game of my life. As you can probably imagine, fútbol is kind of a big deal here. In fact, it is really the only sport anyone in the whole country cares about. Since I have been in Paraguay, the national team has played four World Cup qualifying matches, against Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, and Perú. On the days that Paraguayo national team plays the whole country transforms into a sea of red and white jerseys and there are flags almost everywhere you go. When game time rolls around, every business, storefront, and street is completely deserted (kind of like the shots of Green Bay that they always show when the Packers are playing). Although I am not a soccer fan and don’t particularly care for the game, I try to get into it as I am Paraguayo for now and I guess I should attempt to act like it. I watched a tie against Argentina and a victory over Venezuela at my friend’s houses as they were played in other countries. The following two games were to be played in Paraguay and I told my friends that I would love to go as I had never been to a game. I was told that this was possible, although it would be hard to get tickets. I did not really understand why as their explanations did not really seem to add up, but I could do nothing more than hope we would get tickets somehow. We were unable to get tickets for the first game played in Paraguay and I was beginning to think I was not going to get to go to the other home game either, but somehow we found tickets to the game against Perú. I was extremely excited as I thought it would be one of my experiences in Paraguay that I would remember for the rest of my life.

We left Villeta around 2:00 pm in a bus headed for Asunción. The whole ride was quite amazing as we basically drove the same route that the national team would drive from their training complex to the stadium only a short time later. The highway was lined with people of all ages wearing jerseys, holding flags, and basically just showing their passion and love for their team. There was literally about a 30 mile stretch of people lined up, anxiously awaiting the passage of their team. It was something that was quite fun to see and it definitely got me more excited about the game. Myself, my friends Julian and Arnaldo, and Arnaldo’s cousin and boyfriend arrived in Asunción about an hour before the start of the game around 4:00 pm. At that point I was thinking to myself, “the game starts in less than an hour and I have yet to have a beer, this has got to change.” I am by no means an alcoholic, but after four years of college I have come to associate any sporting event with the opportunity to tailgate and have a few beers (obviously never more than a few). We stopped and bought a few beers and drank them on the way to the stadium as it is completely legal to drink in public. As we approached El Estadio Defensores del Chaco, the number of vendors selling almost anything imaginable Paraguayan increased rapidly. There were hats of all sorts, more models of fake jerseys than I could count, flags, seat cushions, whistles, and many other things. I did not need to buy a jersey as I had gone to the Adidas store the night before and purchased my very own authentic team jersey, which I figured I would be able to wear the rest of my life. Unfortunately, due to an unfortunate washing machine accident, the white parts of my jersey are now tinged pink, so if anyone has any suggestions on how to remove this, send them my way. But anyways, back to the story of the game. We entered the stadium about 45 minutes before game time and found seats in the top of what I would call the equivalent of section O in Camp Randall. I started taking pictures of everything as I was and was extremely excited to be there.

I don’t know how any of you picture a South American soccer game to be like, but I always thought it would be a lot crazier than an American football game. I guess I thought this because when they show games on T.V. it looks like all the fans are going crazy and singing the whole game. This, in fact, was not the case at all. I can honestly say that there is a lot more spirit/passion at American football games than there was at this game. The Badger student section is by far more rowdy and fun than anything I experienced that day. Before the game most of the crowd was standing/singing/showing their excitement and appreciation as the teams took the field. Both teams lined up there was the presentation of the flags of both countries (Perú and Paraguay) and the Paraguayan national anthem (which I had never heard). After this, the president of Paraguay shook hands with every member of the team and wished them luck, which I thought was kind of cool, but was something that would never happen in the U.S. With that, the players assumed their positions and the crowd assumed theirs, on their butts. I remained standing and was absolutely shocked when almost everyone sat down to watch the game. Not only did they sit down, but it was surprisingly quite. When I asked my friends why this was, I was told that people in Paraguay are extremely serious about their team and like to ‘concentrate’ on the game. Although I thought this was somewhat strange, I just kind of accepted it for what it was.

Another weird thing is that there was no game clock in the whole stadium. Therefore, the only way to know how much time was left was to keep track on a watch. The first half was somewhat dull as neither team seriously threatened to score. I was beginning to think that I was going to witness a 0-0 tie and was somewhat unhappy with this thought as I really wanted to see the reaction of the fans when Paraguay scored. I had to wait until the 81st minute for this to happen, but there was eventually a goal. After Paraguay had about five or six good scoring chances in a row, they finally managed to put one in the back of the net. With this, all hell broke loose and the entire stadium erupted. I would liken it to the Badger student section after almost every Badger touchdown (minus all of the drunken falling that usually takes place). Therefore, although exciting and fun, I did not feel as if I had witnessed anything more exciting than a good old fashioned Badger touchdown celebration (oh, except for the flares that were being lit in the stands). The game ended in a 1-0 Paraguay victory over Perú and this put everyone in extremely good spirits. This allowed Paraguay to maintain its hold on first place in the South American World Cup qualifying standings, something I think is kind of impressive considering they play the likes of Brazil and Argentina. There is not another game until the end of March, so they will remain in first place until then and probably beyond, as they hold a 6 point lead in the standings.

Overall, I would say that my first international fútbol experience was very fun, but that I think I still prefer American sporting events. There were obvious notable differences, such as the vendors walking through the stands selling traditional Paraguayan bread on their heads, but there were many similarities as well. I am very happy that I was able to make it to a game as I felt no South American experience would be complete without experiencing such a big part of the culture firsthand. I have aspirations of traveling to South Africa for the World Cup in 2010, so who knows, maybe I will see the Paraguayan National team play again. If you would like to join me, the invitation is on the table, assuming I am able to make it there.

Aside from the soccer game, nothing that exciting has happened in the past few weeks, so I’ll thrill you with a funny story that I have been involved in for quite some time now. The story involves me, my bedroom, animals, food, feces, sleeping with the lights on, terror, and construction work. If this intrigues you, keep reading. I may have mentioned this before, but my bedroom is not in the house. I live in what I would call a pool house, complete with bathroom and all. Overall, I really like my living situation as I have a private place to get away from everything when need be. However, there was one thing I did not like about my room. Until about a week ago, there were three rather large spiders that lived behind my light and a number of geckos that would come and go as they pleased. I thought this was fairly harmless and just decided to live with it, but then something else started happening. I started finding what looked like rodent feces in various parts of my room. I initially thought it was from the geckos, but I was wrong. I started waking up during the night to the sound of scratching up above me. I would turn the light on, and the sound would stop. Then, I would turn the light off and the sound would start again. I assumed it was a rodent trying to enter my room and I really did not like this idea as I now have a small supply of American food which I keep in there. I noticed that there seemed to be a rather large gap between the ceiling and the wall, and the gap seemed to be getting a little bigger. One night, when I turned on the light to stop the scratching noise, I saw something moving up above me and I was terrified at the thought of losing my precious American food. I had visions of waking up and finding all of my food gone and was very disturbed by this.

I came to a couple of conclusions at this point. 1) I had a city of rodents living in my ceiling, probably exactly like movie Ratatouille, if you are familiar with this movie, and I mean exactly like the scene when the old lady shoots down her own ceiling and thousands of rats fall into her living room, exactly like that 2) They were eventually going to find a way into my room 3) The only way to stop them from ‘working’ was to have the lights on 4) I needed to do something to stop this from happening or I was going to be overtaken by an army of mice/rats 5) I was not going to let this happen. Therefore, here was my plan of action. First, I talked to my host dad about the problem on about Tuesday night and told him that we needed to patch the holes so the animals could not get in. He agreed that we would do this on the following Saturday, so I needed to defend my ground until then. Therefore, I did the only logical thing I could think of (I know it is not going to seem logical) at the time. I began sleeping with the lights on and leaving all the lights in my room on 24-hours a day. Although it still seemed to be raining feces from the ceiling, sometimes directly on my pillow, I was hearing a lot less of the noise. Also, I placed all of my food in one of my suitcases, so if the animals were to get in they would still have one more barrier to cross. I decided this was the best I could do until Saturday and slept restlessly for the next four nights in the glow of fluorescent light. On Saturday my host dad and I climbed on the roof and began inspecting it. Sure enough, we found a number of holes and what looked like rodent nests. We did not encounter any animals as they were probably off contemplating their next move to enter my room. We removed the nests and patched up all of the holes with cement, hoping that we had not trapped any mice/rats inside to eventually die and stink up the place. Also, we placed poisoned pieces of cheese on the roof as a nice surprise for my unwelcome guests. Then we patched all of the holes inside my room as well, including the one I knew the geckos loved to enter. We also sprayed some insecticide into the ceiling. I found that a convenient time to take care of my pet spiders as well. With that, my rodent problem was no more. I was extremely proud that I had found a way to defeat the face of evil that had been trying to plunder my treasured food. I can happily report that my room is no longer a zoo. I am no longer hearing the noise and can now rest in peace with NO LIGHTS. I hope that was a slightly entertaining story, because, although finding feces on my pillow and in my bed irked me, I also thought it was a little funny.

As Paraguay is in the southern hemisphere, we have now entered spring, with summer rapidly approaching. I have never experienced such consistent, heavy rainstorms in my life (although I have experienced freak heavy storms at times, most notably during the “Great Flood of Summer ‘06” in Madison). The best way to describe the rainstorms here would be to say, “when it rains, it pours.” Often times, you can not see more than a few feet in front of you for extended periods of time. It is very typical for these storms to last for hours and sometimes even days. Just yesterday I got caught walking in 2 storms and felt like I was in Oregon Trail trying to ford the river that was the street I was walking in (should have taken a ferry, definitely lost a few oxen trying to caulk the wagon and ford the river). Last weekend something really weird happened. Around 2:00 pm on Saturday afternoon, the power went out. This was not that weird, but it did not come back on for the rest of the day or night. We finally had power again at about 1:00 pm on Sunday. What was weird about the whole situation is that I found out that what had happened the night before was a country-wide blackout. I could not believe that the whole country had been without power for an extended period of time. I didn’t even think it was possible for an entire country to be without power, but I guess in South America anything is possible (or something like that).

I imagine that you are probably thinking to yourself that you have heard enough useless stuff about my last few weeks, so I’ll stop here for now. My Spanish is definitely improving, my work is going fine, I am now volunteering with a private ambulance company in Asunción one day a week, and I can say that I am fairly happy. Oh yes, I forgot to mention that I purchased a plane ticket to Argentina from January 11 to January 30 and plan on traveling through parts of Argentina and possibly Chili and Perú, so if you have any suggestions/advice, please share them with me via messages on my blog or email. The only pictures I have from the past few weeks are from my soccer game experience, so that is all you get to look at. I apologize. Oh, and for the record, I no longer have what some would call a dirty/patchy beard. I am now only sporting a goatee type thing with a bit of an afro, very rock and roll of me I must say. That is all the news I have for meow, thanks for reading, I hope all is well with you.

Until next time, chau and suerte,

-MWC

Spanish Vocabulary:

- la votación - the ballot
- el resultado - the outcome
- sin embargo - however
- Tener confianza - to trust
- preocupar - to worry
- el ratón - the mouse
- el cangrejo - the crab
- cargar - to load, fill, charge

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Comments

[pr]

WIth all that red and white on.......
I thought for a minute your were back in Madison :)

[mark]

I am glad you tried to bring the amish beard to Paraguay
Hey matt, nice to see that things are going well for you. That ratitioulle image is stuck in my head. good story i guess. i am in my fourth week of my new job at johnson controls. i dont know when i talked to you last. i got the job at johnson controls doing hybrid vehicle battery designs. my job thus far has been good overall. i still need to learn alot before i can take much over myself. I mostly have been doing side projects for my boss thus far. on the bright side, he seems very interested that i learn a lot, so i doubt i am going to be doing what I have done thus far all the time. It snowed last night for the first time in miwaukee. minnesotans always talk about the weather. Its good to see things are going well for you. take care. mark