ONE DAY ON THE ROAD IN PARAGUAY

SATURDAY, JUNE 19

5AM
Half awake I try to contemplate where I am. A bed, a roof over my head - how did I get here? It is still hard to believe what happened yesterday. I remember I took a bus out of Asuncion - the ever-busy capital of Paraguay and it brought me to a place called Villa Hayes. Too big to be called a village and too small for a city, Villa Hayes looked more like a distant suburb of Asuncion. Still what mattered more than giving Villa Hayes an apt definition, was the fact that it was getting dark and I had no place to stay.

I approached a guy working for one gas-station with the usual desire to camp near a place that had 24 hour security and running water.

Is it heavy? Carola is helping the curious to try on my backpack.

Many questions followed and the answers had to be repeated several times as other workers approached us. After I had once again tried to squeeze my journey into a shamelessly brief summary it was my turn to remind the gas station folk my selfish purpose of being there: "So what about that tent then?"

All except one started looking around with a sign of concern on their faces and the one who did not said: "She will come to my home".

This is how I met Carola - a 34 year old administrator of the bus-park which was attached to the same gas station where the conversation took place. Carola´s home was not so far from where she worked. Her parents held a small grocery shop and the entrance to her house lead through it. I met Carola´s mother and father, her sister, her brother, her sister´s boyfriend, her little nephew and her friend Leo.

"I will cook soup for you", said Carola and started mixing together the ingredients: onions, first cooked in butter, then milk, corn-flour, eggs, salt, cheese. The thick mixture was poured into a cake pan and put into an oven to bake.

"You are making bread?"
"No, it is a soup," said Carola.
I wondered...
About forty minutes later the "soup" was out of the oven and Carola cut it into square pieces encouraging me to try it.
"Does it taste strange to you?"
"The taste is great, it is the name of it that is strange." I said biting into my third piece of... whatever they called it... to me was corn-bread.
"Yes, it is the most unique soup in the world because it is solid," said Carola proudly.
I could not help a sarcastic thought if it would be allowed to call juice cake and say that it is the only liquid cake in the world...

I bathed, we watched a Colombian soap-opera (tele novela in Spanish) "Doña Barbara" where mother and daughter were in love with the same man. Who comes up with these plots anyway? Yet they make these tele novelas quite well and addicting from the moment you try to follow so when the serie (probably one of a thousand) ended, I actually felt sad that I would never know who will get the man.

After this we quickly fell asleep. I slept next to Carola, as she only had one bed... admiring how much trust she had for a complete stranger.

6AM
Carola gets a phone call from work: "One million guarani (local currency where 1 US $ is about 5000 guaranis) has gone missing!"
"Take me along with you," says Carola after the phone call, "your life has no stress like that. It must feel great."
We have breakfast and take a walk to work. Everyone at the gas station comes to say good-bye. For the last time they try to lift my backpack and the guard holds my staff as an arm asking me to teach him to use it.



Carola (third from left) and the friendly gas station folk

8 AM
I only manage to walk away a few meters as a car pulls over by my side.
"Where are you going," asks a woman behind the wheel.
"To Bolivia," I reply assuming she is just curios.
"I can bring you about 12 kilometers further," she says.

On our way I learn that the kind lady is called Gladys and that she is a school principal. We talk about education and she invites me to meet her family. Gladys is forty, she and her sister still live with her parents, her brother´s house is on the other side of the street and the fourth daughter of the family also lives in the same village. My journey and the fact of being "all alone in the world" far away from my family does not fit into their understanding. I try to explain that European mentality is slightly different: parents encourage their children to become independent, support their studies in other countries and although adult sons and daughters may once in a while come to visit their folks, it is rather uncommon for someone in their thirties still to live at home. I remember I had to speak on the same subject also at Carola´s place.

Gladys´ family home, the fruit garden, the yard, animals - everything looks neat and well looked after. The impression is not only of that household but of Paraguay in general. No matter if rich or poor - the house and its surroundings are always clean and tidy - quite different from most Latin-American countries. I also notice that the dishes they use are of real materials - glass and porcelain whereas the majority of homes I visited in other countries of South America would use plastic dishes.

11 AM
Gladys takes me around and we visit her school "Isla Ita". Probably it is the smallest school-building I have ever seen: there are only three classrooms: one is outside and out of the two that are in the building one is divided into half to make space for the principal´s office and the library, which is just a few shelves with no more than a dozen books.



"Isla Ita" school principal Gladys in her outdoor classroom

12 PM
The lunch is served and I feel like an honoured guest.
"We rarely have foreign visitors," says the father of the family.
"Just once when two Korean salesmen came by and were looking for a place where to have their lunch, we invited them," remembers Gladys.
In return I guess that not every foreigner gets an opportunity to be a guest in a true Paraguayan home. There exist no ticket one could buy to have such an experience. I am very grateful to my hosts.



Lunch is served...

13 PM
Before parting we exchange presents: I receive a t-shirt, a city emblem, fruit, "Paraguay" key holder and a poster with seven wonders of the world. From my part I give a book about Tallinn (which my parents sent me when I was in Bolivia) that I give to the school library. Gladys then brings me another 15 kilometers further to a highway-police check point. Her neighbour - a young officer in his early thirties is on duty today and he promises to help me get a ride to Bolivia.

14 PM - 19 PM
I sit on a bench writing-reading-drinking terere (a traditional cold tea that is passed from one to another and drunk through a metal straw called bombilla), telling travelogues to the officers, eating the food they bring me until the Santa Cruz bus comes and they jointly speak to the driver who agrees to take me for free 1400 kilometers North to my Bolivian home in Santa Cruz. The food is included in the "price".



A police officer tying to the lamp post a gift for the chief from a truck that passed by

SUNDAY, JUNE 20

2 AM
I receive my exit stamp and am officially out of Paraguay. Four more hours and I would enter Bolivia and from there on I would have another ten hour journey before I reach Santa Cruz.

MONDAY, JUNE 21

A LONG BUS-RIDE AND A NIGHT OF REST LATER:

I am back and my passport has been stamped for another 90 days that I can live in Bolivia. No-one expected my coming, and many are still to be surprised. It was only 15 days that my journey lasted. To them who stayed here it feels forever that I have been gone, yet to me it seems like I only left for a day. Nothing has changed. Just me.