Impoverished Paraguay

The more I think about it the more I realize I skipped over a small part of everyday experiences and cultural aspects of living here. Therefore, I just want to clear up any and all confusion about where I am living.

For starters they always greet you with two kisses starting from the right to the left cheeks. If you enter a circle of ten or twenty people you still must greet every person. Most of the time people are sitting and they do not stand so you do this awkward squat thing. For me I cannot get used to the kissing it seems really close and personal and you still do it if you’re a stranger to people. The women give ¨kisses¨ to everyone does not matter about gender. The men only kiss the women and shake the men´s hands. Also, some people do a high five fist pound thing which is much quicker if you are passing by or there are a ton of people. My host father does that, quite funny because in USA that is something only young people do and here it is common for the grandpa´s and two year olds.

Another aspect here that some people may have experienced is the not flushing toilet paper. Yes that is correct; you stick it in the trash you can NEVER put it in the toilet because the piping is very thin. You obviously must change the trash once or twice a day or it leaves an odor in the bathroom (we all know why). In the beginning it was very hard for the students to adjust to that. In the welcoming camp in the girls ¨dorms¨ all the toilet were broken by the end of the two days because it is just reaction to throw the paper into the toilet. Quite a hard habit to break;  when you tell people here that in USA you throw the paper in the toilet they are all astonished and ask why?! And I say that’s where it is supposed to go! No one quite understands it.

The water situation here is not very great. I am a very lucky student because in my first city the water was very clean and now my family drinks well water which is very clean. But, it does have a weird taste. The weird taste is from when my host father adds iodine to the water. Because, it is very common for Paraguayans to have iodine deficiency considering there are no laws on iodized salts (which is where most people ingest their amount of iodine). Sense there are no laws on adding iodine the manufactures do not because it is an extra cost. Having an iodine deficiency can lead to an enlargement of the thyroid body also known as a goiter because the body loses its thyroid hormones which the iodine helps create. Most of my exchange friends have to drink from the big purified water jugs in their homes because the water is not safe to drink.

Paraguay is a very poor country. I seem to have over looked that topic many times in my blog and some people forget I am living in a third world country. This is a country where %80 of the wealth goes to %1 of the population. Yes that statistic astonished me too. Though there are very rich parts of this country, like any country, there are so many more very poor parts. I am so fortunate to live in the city that I do, sense it is close to the capital because though it is very impoverished it is also largely globalized. Yet everyday when I board the busses there are venders selling anything from Q-tips to pineapples. Ranging ages 5-90 with lines of hardship across their foreheads and the imbedded dirt on their feet. Also, when you drive in the cars into the city and you get caught at a light you are always greeted by a 5 year old holding a baby, in mangled clothes and broken sprits, begging for money. I have seen a whole different side of poverty. I look at the homeless in America and though have sympathy for them, it kind of makes me giggle considering poverty there is nothing compared to poverty here. Poverty here is not eating for days, having half a pair of battered pants and a piece of card board to sleep on, not to beg with because they do not know how to read or write. I have also seen all the families that live in the slums that just so happen to be next to the governmental building, irony at its best. The biggest sign of poverty here for me is the trash and the animals. The ASPCA would have a cow if they stepped foot into this country. The amount of homeless dogs is about equal to the human population. You see these animals that are walking, bone and fur, searching for food. I have seen dogs with three legs and I know it was not removed surgically. The dog of my friend, white lab, got out into the street one day and someone poured boiling water on it. You know what happens when you pour boiling water on a white lab? Their fur turns pink. The respect for life here is so low which is so sad, but I can also see that there is a priority for the well being of humans to deal with. But no one is helping anyone. From what I see is this country is at a standstill. The next president will be an X mob, drug trafficker. You know why? Because all of Paraguay believes that this man has so much money that he only wants to help this country. I do not know, I love the hope these people put in people, but all it will do is kill this country a little more. Though I cannot judge; because all of their political candidates are some type of X drug dealer or something. It is also so interesting to hear these people talk about their country. They all love this country so much. You say one negative comment and they are ready to attack. Though there are a select few who think this country needs to change, they will do nothing to be the change, and the other %90 of the country thinks that it is the best place in the world and does not need to change. Many also have no desire to travel or see the world because well according to them it doesn’t get better than Paraguay. The trash is the other section of poverty and lack of intelligence that there is here. It is showing how the people do not understand the effect of anything they do by tossing everything off into the streets. I have been on the busses many of times seeing women cleaning out their purses and all the trash they just toss out the window of the bus. This is true for everything. My friend threw away a fruit cup one day in the trashcan and someone came up to her and asked where she was from. My friend was puzzled because she fits in with her looks very well here and asked why he knew she was foreign. The man responded simply ¨because you used the trash can, no one uses those.¨ This year the lake that is usually home to many of the tourists in the summer is too contaminated to swim in which means the tourists will not come. Therefore meaning the little money they would receive usually from that is no longer there. This country is slowly dropping down I think. My friends and I all are interested to see what this place is like in twenty years it will either be much worse or a lot better. Though I feel the latter one is not going to be correct I hope this country proves me wrong. 

an everyday sight...

This is Paraguay´s population pyrimid (top) of 2010. The kiss formation is the sign that it is a devloping third world country. When the pyramid looks like this is shows that the IMR (infant mortality rate)  is high and the life expectancy is low. Which in all terms is bad.  On the bottom is the deloped country poplulation pyramid, such as USA. This means that the life expectancy is older and most people reach it as well as the IMR is very low. For example the IMR for paraguay is 26 deaths of infants for 1000. While the USA is 6 deaths per infants per 1000.