The Wonders of the World Cup

Another month done and dusted (and another late blog post oopsies). I have now experienced all 12 months of the year in Paraguay, and winter is coming to a close. July was filled with lots of gardening, soccer, and travels.

On the evening that I wrote my June blog post (June 29), Paraguay beat Germany in the round of 32 of the World Cup, and it was such a big, exciting upset that the president declared the next day a national holiday! Throughout the game, my neighbors were setting off fireworks every time Paraguay scored, and when they won, everyone ran into the streets yelling, honking their car horns, and celebrating.

Because soccer culture is not as pervasive in the US as it is in Europe and South America, I have never followed the World Cup (WC) before (or even watched an entire fútbol game start to finish). So it was fun to learn about the teams and players while being constantly subjected to the games; the teachers at the elementary school brought in a tv to the office to watch at work, and the trabajo y tecnología profe would set up her phone for the students to watch during class.

During the fall semester of my senior year of college, I took a Spanish class called "The History of Soccer," where we learned about the sport's roots, analyzed literature and poems, and how it became such a widespread phenomenon. This background, plus the TV show Ted Lasso, was especially interesting to draw from as I watched countless WC games.

At the beginning of July, I spent the weekend at Ziggy's site because our friend Goergie was visiting! We attended the birthday party of Ziggy's directora (principal), who just so happens to be the twin sister of my directora. There, we watched the wildly exciting Argentina vs. Cabo Verde game. For various reasons, I do not support the Argentinian soccer team (although Argentina as a country is wonderful), but this tiny island nation almost defeated the reigning champ powerhouse, and it was amazing.

That same weekend, I watched the Paraguay vs. France round of 16 game with my host family, and sadly Paraguay did not make it any further. But the excitement of their win against Germany had far exceeded expectations for the selección (national team) this year, so it was a bittersweet end.

The next day, my friend Jorgelina (Little Free Library), her husband, and I planted 8 little arbolitos (trees) in the cerrito park next to her house. She has big dreams for the park, and more shade and clean air is just step one. We have 20 more trees to plant, as well as trash cleanups and building more benches/places to sit and enjoy nature.

My little tire huerta (vegetable garden) received little labels, hand-drawn by my students, to know which veggies were which. And then I left it to grow and prosper while I was away from site for 2 weeks for winter break.

The first stop on my winter break tour was to visit Sofia at her site in Itapua, very far south. In fact, she is the furthest (by distance) that any volunteer lives from Asuncion. Sam, Sof, and I spent the weekend making kavure, getting our hair and nails done, eating delicious food prepared by Lucia (her adorable host mom), and spending time with Sof's lovely grandma friend, Delia.

Then Sam and I took a 5-hour bus (that we thought was only going to be 2 hours and also had no heating—we froze) to Ciudad del Este (CDE), Paraguay's second biggest city on the border with Brazil. Technically this city is off-limits to volunteers due to high rates of violence related to drug trafficking, but we're allowed to just pass through. From CDE, we took a ferry across the river to the city of Puerto Iguazú, Argentina. The area is called the "triple frontera" (triple border), since it is where Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina all meet, all separated by rivers.

In Puerto Iguazú, we randomly met up with a friend from our cohort, Kelby, who helped to get me my passports since I left them at home (oops). We had a lovely dinner with him, and the next morning we headed to Iguazú National Park, home to the famous Iguazú Falls, the largest waterfall system in the world with a total of 275 different drops. The weather was perfect, and we got to enjoy the falls in full sunshine (+ rainbows), and we spent a full day walking the various routes including "la garganta del diablo" (devil's throat), where many waterfalls meet, sending up clouds of mist and water over the excited tourists. The park is also famous for its large population of coatis, a raccoon relative, who provide plenty of entertainment for the visitors.

Originally, Sam and I had only planned to stay 2 nights in Puerto, but we extended our trip to watch the Argentina vs. England game in Argentina. Since we now had an unplanned full day to spend, we explored a much smaller waterfall system called Saltos de Mbocai (the same mbocai (cocotero tree) that my town, Mbocayaty, is named after). We hiked around and looked at Paraguay from across the river, then headed back into town to watch the WC. We sat outside on a street that had been closed to cars and instead filled with tables and huge screens for the game. And then Argentina won! So of course the entire city converged in the center for a huge celebration, complete with fireworks and waving flags—so fun.

The next day, we took the ferry back to CDE and a bus back to my site, where we spent 2 days relaxing in my town, since Sam had only visited briefly. Unfortunately, there was a terrible windstorm, which brought lots of dust, so we did not get to explore as much as planned. Then we were off on our last stop of Maya and Sam's Winter Vacation Whirlwind—Asunción. In the capitol, we got a couples massage (hehe), watched the Odyssey and the WC final (vamos España!), and said bye after a wonderful 10 days together.

Instead of heading directly back to my house, I visited one more friend, Amelia, at her site in the department of Cordillera. It's always so cool to see how different each person's site is and the ways in which the volunteer was integrated and made the site their own. We spent time with Amelia's counterpart's family and watched movies on her projector since it was rainy. A lovely little 2-night trip, and then I was back to site to get ready for classes to start again.

This past week I have been getting back into running shape, doing lots of laundry, weeding my huertas and preparing to make 2 more, and attending community events. La vida es buena and busy these days, and I am really so happy with my house, schedule, independence, and lifestyle. I genuinely can't complain.

So that wraps up month 10! Can you believe that I have almost been in Paraguay for an entire year? I definitely cannot. Thanks, as always, for following along. Sending mucho amor to you and yours. 💚💚💚