Days 4-5: Food Adventures

The first few days in Paraguay had almost no down time, so I these blogs will blur together a little bit. We have enjoyed some excellent food here. Because of work and a slow metabolism (courtesy of Graves Disease and thyroid adventures) I have been limiting my meals to a small breakfast (a little fruit and a piece of prosciutto on scrambled eggs) and dinner. The first night, Chan, Guillermo and I ventured downtown to a restaurant the hotel recommended. I let the waiter order for me (which has become my custom in new cities) and it paid off again. The meal pictured below is a local fish wrapped around shrimp and the sauce was amazing.



After the first night, we had the odd cultural experience of negotiating multiple invitations to dinner (between two groups that roughly seemed to break down into the out of town Paraguayans and the Brazilians[1]). The first night we joined the Paraguayans at a restaurant that had been around for decades (I forget how many, but definitely >30 years). It was described as ‘typical Paraguayan food.’ It came out in a steaming pile of meat including conventional (ribs, steak, chicken) and less conventional (for me – blood sausage, tongue, and intestines) types. It came with ‘soup’ which was, in fact, not liquid but a sort of dense corn bread. It was all excellent.



The next night we joined the Brazilians (and one gentlemen from Uruguay, who I spent most of the evening talking to). We went to an upscale, outdoor pub, and had ‘bar foods’ but with a distinctly South American flare (essentially a plate of bite sized fried meat and bite sized grilled meat). I also had a ‘typical Brazilian beverage.’ The name eludes me but I took a picture. [2]



One of the fun stories from this night was that I learned that Guillermo’s Spanish was from his high school years. So I asked if he had an English accent. They were picking on him and said, “Stan’s English is easier to understand than Guillermo’s Spanish.” It was a joke (also, for the Brazilians, Spanish is second languages – thought more of a 1b), but afterwards they asked where I was from in the US because they really did find my English easy to understand. Guillermo was very kind, suggesting that it was because I am a clear communicator, but Amanda says we have heard this before. I said that I was from everywhere in the US (growing up in the East, living in the Midwest and West and spending a lot of time in the South). They also said they thought the lectures were very funny, which, again, is kind, but also a bit of a relief that at least some of them were laughing with and not just at me.

It seems like other countries look a bit askance at Paraguay as somewhat of a South American anomaly. Both Paraguayans and their neighbors (as well as the book I’m reading and another American I talked to in the Sao Paulo airport) seem to think that Paraguay’s relatively tragic history affects the country. They fought in two devastating wars last century[3] which created the conditions for decades of totalitarian rule. One dictator acquired the ‘distinction’ of the second longest reign among dictators in the modern world. But all of them share bemusement about Guyana.

One of the questions I commonly get is if I have been to South America before. I respond that I have been to Guyana twice which has often been met with bemusement (including questions about the location of this strange place). This was clarified in a more detailed conversation where one of the students told me ‘we are all very curious what those countries are like – they seem very strange to us.’ It seems that the tendency for Guyana and their neighbors to consider themselves Caribbean rather than South American is somewhat reciprocal, which is understandable because the cultures I am interacting with here have far more in common than any of them do with Guyana.



Also on Thursday night, the Badgers were playing in the Sweet 16 (I don't want to talk about it). I have been unable to find anywhere playing it, but while we were looking for a cab we passed a two story Hooters/TGI Fridays that had TV's playing the game. "How much do you love the Badgers?" asked Guillermo. Not enough. I was embaressed to be an American. One of the highlights of the trip has been interacting with engineers and scientists from so many interesting systems. South American geography is so diverse that just about any hydrologic conditions you could imagine. The most interesting insight is how hierologically similar Chile is to California. The Parana is the 5th largest watershed in the world[4] and the word “Paraguay” itself means “surrounded by Rivers.” Tomorrow I will try to do a “Paraguay fun facts” post and then this weekend we are taking a road trip to the dam, which should provide ample blog fodder.

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[1] Our suggestions that these groups merge were unsuccessful, even though most of them lived just across the river from each other.
[2] At the end of this meal, the waiter handed me the bill, which everyone enjoyed (“He gave it to the gringo who has all the money.” One of my companions joked.)
[3] One against Bolivia that one author describe as ‘over 250,000 hectares of desert’ that killed 80% of their soldiers and most of their male population. The second was against Brazil, Argentina and Uraguay simultaneously, and that ended about as well as you might expect.
[4] But dwarfed by the neighboring Amazon. This reminds me a little of UC Davis, which is a top 10 university but no one thinks of it because Berkley is 1 hour away.