Jake in Paraguay: Che Róga Pyahu

Today´s Entry: My New Home

This entry is a little bit delayed. I actually moved out of my last host family’s home and began living on my own several months ago. However, I’ve been putting off writing about my permanent dwelling place in Prettyview for awhile. For those of you whom I don’t speak to on a regular basis, I will describe my little corner of Paraguay.

I rent my house from a family who lives about 10 minutes away. They often invite me over to lunch when I come to bring my rent money. The rent is affordable and, even with water and electricity bills, comes to less than $40 a month. I live in a house made of material, meaning brick with a plaster covering. It’s quite a step up from the wooden board or bare brick style of many homes in the Paraguayan countryside. The nicest aspect is that the only holes in the house are around the doors and windows – there are no open chinks in the walls for air to enter. The roof is also made of wooden planks with tiling (the norm is grass reinforced by a skeleton of bamboo) and only leaks a little in one place. My house’s construction is definitely chuchi (fancy). The inside and outside are painted pale green.

The house itself is a duplex, with both sides opening out onto a little tiled porch. I only live in one side of the house and use the other to store trash that I plan on reusing and other supplies that won’t suffer from dust and spider webs. The side I live in consists of two rooms. The front door opens into a small, tiled entry room, which itself leads into a very large main room with a rougher brick floor. I use the entry room to store some tools and supplies and also use it to bucket bathe (more on that later). The large room contains a big shelf (for food, kitchen supplies, books, clothes, and school supplies), a fridge, a borrowed table and three chairs, my bed (replete with mosquito net), and a gas stove. I also keep my bike, my collection of polanganas (plastic tubs) and valdes (buckets) and some tools in the main room for ease of use.

The main room and entry way have electric lights and there are a number of outdoor lights for security. The windows and doors are all secure and have many locks and crossbolts. All the windows have bars. My house is very safe!

My yard is huge! It contains a running water tap out front (again, lujoso) and a latrine in a nice little house out back. The backyard also contains a dirty well (maybe I’ll clean it), a trash-burning heap, many fruit trees, and a garden, which I built (see Episode 1 of Ñande Róga Paraguaya). I also have hung up a profusion of clotheslines to cope with my very un-Paraguayan tendency to only wash my clothes once a week.

So what do I do in my house? In some ways, living in it makes me feel like I’m back at “The Succulent Supple House of Delight” on East College Street, Oberlin. I make myself tasty foods and eat them while reading. I hide from my neighbors when I feel antisocial. I sleep. I garden. I study. I talk on the phone to other volunteers and my family. I write in my journal or compose letters. So really, life is not that different, until I hear the soft grunting of pigs tunneling into my garden and chase them with a machete.

Cooking is of course one of my greatest delights. The local despensa sells gas tanks, and one I started using on 1 February has yet to go out. I also own a hot water kettle, thanks to the previous volunteer. This is the handiest device; I often warm water with it so that I don’t have to use of my gas waiting for water to boil. What kinds of foods do I eat? Right now, a survey of my shelves and fridge turns up, among other things: flour, salt, sugar, spices, oatmeal, ground peanuts, rice, pasta (fideos), textured vegetable protein (carne de soja), plenty of yerba (ka’a), vegetable oil, eggs, cabbage, black beans, popcorn (pororo), apples, soy sauce, vinegar, onions, garlic, peanut butter (from my trips to the capital),instant coffee, and milk. Often, I buy peppers, tomatoes, carrots, pears, pineapples, bananas, and other fruits and veggies from San Juan Nepomuceno. Twice I’ve eaten meat others gave me to take home, but otherwise, la casa de Jacobo is vegetarian. I wash my dishes in two polanganas out by the tap. Some of my best culinary feats have been cakes (I am growing famous for this in Prettyview; people love cakes but seem to believe that they can’t make them), biscuits, homemade bread, curries, tomato sauces, and, using my blender, Jake’s Fiber Smoothie (applies, pears, carrots, raw oats – make sure you’ve stocked up on toilet paper before hand).

I wash my clothes in polanganas pope (by hand). Paraguayan amas de casa (housewives) universally and indirectly disapprove of my methods (“Does that work?” or “You certainly are fast.”), but here they are: leave clothes and detergent soaking in a polangana in the sun to warm the water up. Then sit on a low chair and scrub. Hold the cloth by curling in the fingers on your right hand and use gravity to spread the garment across your wrist, they grasp with your left hand and make rub the cloth laterally from your cuticles down your forearm and back. Tougher stains may require a brush, jabón común (I hate this stuff because it never rinses out), or the inexplicable (to me) method of beating the clothes against a hard surface as if you were the Swedish Chef. Pay special attention to collars, armpits, crotches, cuffs, and “accidents” caused by tereré-transmitted stomach ailments. Then rinse two to six hundred times to get the detergent out and dry on the line. A normal week’s work of clothes takes about three to four hours to wash and put out to dry. I don’t mind washing clothes that much, but I regularly have cause to thank Dan L., the friend who convinced me to bring my iPod to Paraguay. Washing clothes by hand is much easier (and more ironic!) when I’m joined by mellow Gillian Welch, trippy Sufjan Stevens, or revenant ABBA.

I bathe by standing in a big polangana (noticing a trend here?) and ladling water from a valde over myself using a metal mug. Though not as sensuous and fortifying as the showers of my American life, this method does get me clean. Importantly, I can easily heat up a kettle or two of water in the electric kettle to have a warm or even scalding bucket bath (che gustahaicha, “however I like it”)! My entry room is tiled, so I just sweep water out onto the porch when I’m done.

Here are some pictures of my delightful Paraguayan home. Yes it’s a little off the beaten path, but if you come to visit, I will make you a “famous” Jake Cake and even scrub the dust of the ruta off your feet while you sip tereré or maté. Until then, that’s the news from Jacobo Róga.

Jacobo at Home