Day 7b Of Jesuits and Nazis

The Itaipu trip ended at the falls and we arranged a tour guide for the next part of the trip. So as our friends prepared for the trip back to Ascension we got in the van, met Oscar, and drove for several hours to the border of Argentina. On the way we talked to Oscar about what we wanted to do in addition to the falls, and Alixh and I definitely wanted to see the Jesuit ruins. At 8:30 we finally got to our hotel exhausted, but our driver pointed it out and drove on by. When we asked where we were going, he said, the best ruins are just 10 minutes away. We were confused. It was dark, which hardly seemed like the best time to see anything.

But when we got there we could see them in the distance lighted up, and it was a beautiful night (with heat lightning lighting up the sky) so it seemed pretty cool. Then all the lights went off. Someone said there was a power out. But the site tour guide led us by the light of his blackberry screen and started the tour anyways. He gave us a bunch of back story, but it still seemed weird that we were going to tour ruins in the dark. Then we heard the sound of a child singing from inside the ruins, and then music started and one by one, the buildings began to light up. As we walked through the complex, the music followed us and new buildings lit up.



The air was cool but heavy and there was a wind blowing a storm in. The whole thing was moving and meditative and, everyone agreed, a perfectly peaceful end to a crazy day. Now, I recognize that the place of the Jesuits in history is complicated at best. Their legacy is tainted by the heritage of colonialism. But I like them. I am especially a fan of the early Jesuits…to the point that we are naming our son Xavier after one of the original seven. This tour was decidedly pro-Jesuit. The guide argued that the Jesuit’s main goal was to protect the indigenous people from being enslaved by the Europeans. This is why the Spanish kicked them out , because they were impeding with the colonial hegemony.

Anyway, I am going to watch that movie “The Mission” again because between the similarity of the Jesuit story and the waterfalls, I am pretty sure it must have been set in this part of the world…and I remember it being a pretty good film.

After the mission we returned to the hotel, which was essentially a German chalet. Our guide explained to us that we were in the middle of German Paraguay. When I asked him when the Germans came to Paraguay, he said, “the 1930’s”. Yup, Nazis. Over 300 Nazis came to Paraguay including the infamous Mengalay to evade the Nazi hunters (and justice) after the war. It was a little strange to have a nice German dinner at a restaurant that was the legacy of these settlers, but the desserts were really good.