Mission to Brazil: Two Cities in Paraguay: Part 3

Asunción is the capital city of Paraguay and home to more than 1.7 million people. The city is dense with commercial and residential buildings side by side and for me it was disorientating to navigate outside of the neighborhood I lived. I was lucky to have a guide for my trips beyond a jog or an afternoon walk. I spent about a month in the city and even on a map it is hard for me to find one a place of reference. I am very grateful for the aid I received traveling to different parts of the city. You are warned by taxis drivers and locals to be careful in the tourist areas and at certain times during the night and early morning. I will say my night life was limited to group activates but that didn’t always mean I wasn’t out late on occasion. These brothers and sister “try” to keep normal hours, but that’s not always possible, between youth events and missions in the streets.

My first week in Asuncion was in late October during the order’s twelve year celebration. I was able that week to see many things in a tourist sort of way. I left for the boarder of Brazil and returned four weeks later to experience life on a day to day basis. It is important give you an overview before describing my return.

Asuncion is a swirling blend of locations and districts that buzz amidst constant sound and movement. One such place is the market district that wraps around many city blocks encompassing store fronts, wall-less shops packed in warehouses, and tarps covered stands tucked between building and road sides. The maze like district is covered from both the hot sun and the passing torrents of rain. The market is lively and exotic for foreigners as vendors sell just about everything. They have no restriction on what they can offer in their varying sized spaces, from car parts and electronics, to meats and fruits, it is all in the open and ready to be sold.

The Government square, “Heroes’ Memorial”, the center statue park, and the Cathedral all reside close to each other in the down town tourist district. I walked with two Americans friends and my spiritual mother Sister Magdalena to the edge of the statue park. The stands sell hand crafted wood working, intricate sewn items, and even piercing and tattoos. I walked away from shopping and watched the men at the many concrete tables playing checkers. I could see the seriousness of their games as I walked closer, each man held a wad of cash in his hand or tucked it under their side of the board. The players chain smoke and exchange sours looks as roving spectators drift around the tables. Under a grand looking statue people sit and talk while resting in the heat of the day. The native women sell their own jewelry and Rosaries fashioned from different types of threads, beads, and local seeds. They sit segregated from everyone else next to the goods arranged on blankets. The native people live in the poorest parts of the city, some live in shanties along the stale drainage ditches, and others in housing alongside the city trash dump.

The United States is embraced in Paraguay, and so is American themed fashion, capitalism, and coke a cola. I helped interpret many shirts with knock off logos and non-sense phases; some were comically bad in translation. The capitalist system is well instilled in the cities culture, and it’s a hustle to survive. Yet there is a Spanish and Guarani phase that defines the easy mind set of the people, “Tranquillo Pau”. As a question it means, “Are you Calm?”, or as a statement, “It’s all quiet and good.” There is a strong work ethic in the people, and I have seen it working alongside the laborers of Paraguay, but they don’t worry about things, just relax in between and pace themselves. They do love Coke a Cola in Paraguay -it’s made with real sugar, along with American vehicles like the Toyota Tundra, I feel the giant Tundra is an American vehicle especially next to the French Peugeot truck. There are American restaurants like TGI Fridays’, malls that have American or American like stores, and the hotels and bars use English names. All priced for the wealthy and the tourists in areas far away from the average Paraguayan.

I lived in an area that was typical of the many neighborhoods threaded about the city. These areas are packed between the fast moving thoroughfares where cars and buses weave for supremacy. In my neighborhood the speed bumps and uneven stone streets and prevent speeding. The family living across the street shared their living space with a warehouse for reupholstering furniture. When it rained the three children would go on the roof and clear the water off the low spots and to the gutters. Many of the houses up and down the street had open windows to sell small household items, cigarettes, food, beer, and soft drinks. There is a barber, an internet house, little bars, a salon, a couple restaurants, and a gym. The outer streets are lined with repair shops, butcher shops, a supermarket, and many other services; there is no shortage of little businesses.

The brothers’ house was nearly abandoned before they began renovation and the neighbors welcomed them warmly. The house is three stories with a roof used for hanging laundry. It has an open air courtyard of brown aggregate concrete, with a grand mango tree living off to the side, and a grotto to the Lady of Caacupa; the Mother of Jesus Holy Mother of Paraguary. The kitchen, dining room, and chapel are on the ground level, the brother quarters are on the second floor, and the sons’ quarters are on the third. I lived on the third floor with the sons. The sons all were in their late teens and twenties, living with the brothers after struggling with drugs or alcohol, estranged from their parents and family, and without good options in life they turned to the Fraternity for help. They all attended a Regate-me (recue me) which is a religious retreat focused on younger adults both men or women that are struggling with drinking or drugs. I my time in Asuncion, five sons lived with the brothers. They alternate tasks, like cooking or cleaning, but all had plenty of time to recover, reflect, and find a focus. Martin was one of the men, he was around twenty, and after six months started working, staying with his parents on weekends, and speaks to groups about his drug additions. Another son was named Ronny, he is originally from Brazil, and after time spent with the brothers began working for a painter and lay member of the Fraternity.

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First Street Mission in Asuncion, Paraguay

We packed the cars on a hot night in late November with bread and juice for the Friday night mission into the streets of Asuncion. The donation materials for the street mission in Paraguay consist of bread, butter, and powdered juice. This is a poor country and the Legos (lay Members) stretch what they have to keep the weekly mission going for most of the year. There are many different missions with the youth, children and families, and the regular needs of the brothers’ and sister’ houses. The legos all give time, money, supplies, their homes for retreats and events, and their talents in the capacity they can sustain.

Brother Seraphim was in charge of the mission that night and we fit fifteen people in three small cars and headed to the other side of the city. We drove through at a grand complex for South American soccer that had a large office building for administration, an elegantly lighted hotel, practice fields, and sporting stadium. At first I expected us to drive on by into a nearly neighborhood, but we drove in front of the hotel and jumped the curbs on the other side of the road. All three cars parked inside the ring of light provided by the hotel and when I got out a string of long shadows approached us. Where the light begins to fad is a deep drainage ditch mostly full of swampy water, full from the persistent rains and run off from the streets and fields. The first to arrive at the cars were the children, and they quickly organized themselves with little help from the Formados. In their native language of Guarani they prayed and lined up for bread and juice. I came around one of the cars with my camera and a little apprehension because this was my first mission in Asuncion and I remember being overwhelmed by the crowd in the border of Cidad De Este earlier in my travels.

The children smiled and wanted to have their pictures taken, and then asked to see the pictures in the viewer. This went on as the line for food and juice moved steady. The calm of the people was striking and I remembered the madness in Cidad De Este in late October. The adults were behind the children holding the youngest children, who now chewed on little French breads and wriggled around to see the action that was going on around them.

When the line dissipated so did the space between us and new groups formed with the brothers now holding the babies. The children played alongside the road in a patch of mowed grass, and I was asked to take more pictures by the natives.

I was walking beside the largest group and a tall dark featured man spoke to me in English.

“Hello.”

I paused and said softly. “Hello.” I didn’t recognize this man and he didn’t come with our group. “You speak English?”

“Yes, I speak English. Would you like me to help you talk to the people here?”

“I would, thank you. My name is Sean, what’s your name?”

“You can call me Rob, Sean.” He drew a breath,” You are an American and this man wants you to know about him.” He pointed to a dark skinned native man who stood very straight and was wearing a clean white shirt. “He speaks Spanish and I can translate between you.”

I was still confused because I didn’t know this man, and wasn’t sure how he knew I was American, but he spoke softly with direct intension.

That is how I met the indigenous man Maximo who stood alongside his girlfriend Antonia, and they told me of the situation in this camp along the water. There are 125 people living in the long line of wood and tarp shacks that run into the darkness. Maximo came here a year ago without an option from the agency that assists natives call “the Institute of Native Affairs”. Much like the Native Americans the US, the Guarani peoples were displaced from their homes and enslaved for centuries. In this century areas in the undeveloped lands to the north became “reservation” like villages. The issue is compounded with little employment and a preference for the more European Paraguayans. One positive movement is the Paraguay’s renewed appreciate of its past heritage. This includes the language and the culture of the Guarani peoples, which has been embraced with great enthusiasm. The country has celebrated its improvements during their bicentennial, but social and economic changes remains slow.

Still Maximo lives here among the many children and want for assistance. Like his people before him, he was living in another city to the north until he was unseated from his housing. His assistance ended and after losing his home he moved to Asuncion for work, but work is hard to find for many native people and he remains unemployed. He and the other adults claimed to have no problem with drugs or alcohol and I could see the genuine care for the children by their clean clothes and faces.

I was amazed at the pride in Maximo’s weathered face and his clean blue shirt, for he had not given up, but knew he needed a voice, for his was not being heard. He asked me to speak for him to the people I knew in the United States, and he said that with a real faith. Even still he is there without good shelter, power, and water beyond the faucet outside the hotel.