Paraguay. Part II. ChacoMap
January The Indians live not only in reservations, but also along the roads. ![]() All of them live in extreme poverty. ![]() All trucks are equipped with the Argentinian automatic tire inflation system. ![]() Every Paraguayan truck must carry traffic cones. Many of them have double license plates on the back—I never did manage to figure out what for. Maybe they’re issued two plates each and decide to put both on the back? ![]() The Indians are all poor and are transported to work in trucks. ![]() Exits from large cities are equipped with special inspection stations. You can climb up on the rafters and see what’s hidden on a truck’s roof. ![]() Respectable people use NASA buses to get around. ![]() Paraguay is divided into two parts. The Eastern Region is situated to the right of the Paraguay River; this is where all the fertile land and most of the population is located. The Western Region (to the left of the river) consists of thousands of kilometers of completely empty grasslands. This isn’t the Mongolian steppe, of course, palm trees do grow here. But there’s no water just the same. The cows under the palm trees are a particularly unexpected sight. The grasslands region of Paraguay is called Chaco. ![]() Vehicle inspection certificates are stuck on the windshield. Paraguay still has a long way to go compared to Guyana, of course. ![]() All the traffic signs have legends. Two-way traffic. ![]() Here I am in the center of the country, where a Mennonite colony was founded over a hundred years ago. The Mennonites are a particularly devout religious sect, sort of like the Amish in the USA. The first settlers were from Germany, the rest gradually joined them over the first half of the 20th century. The ones who joined were from Canada and Russia, but the end result is that everyone speaks German. ![]() The Mennonites are religious hermits who refuse to engage in war or acknowledge any outside authority; they spend their days praying and working. Many came from the Ukraine. Not surprising, then, to see little memorials for car accident victims along the road here. ![]()
The Mennonite towns are situated in the middle of the arid grasslands. The town of Philadelphia has an ethnographic-historical-zoological museum with a Russian earflap hat, a Soviet ![]() The main exhibit is the skull of a cow whose horn grew back into its skull. ![]() There’s absolutely nothing to do here. The Mennonites see Paraguayans as lazy idlers and despise them. Consequently, they live in near-total isolation. It’s no wonder incest is so prevalent among them. ![]() Paraguayan money—guaraní—has so little value that small-denomination coins are taped together into rolls of ten. A stack worth less than a nickel is shown here alongside some ants for comparison. It’s used for payment just the way it is, without unwrapping it. ![]() The postal system is reminiscent of Mongolia or Uruguay. It appears that mailboxes simply don’t exist. ![]() A grocery store. ![]() I came across an absolutely brilliant system at a Mennonite supermarket. Since everyone knows everyone else here, it makes sense to sell bread baked by specific people. Artur Doerksen’s rolls are at the top, Bruno Hiebert’s on the bottom. Sheer genius. ![]() Paraguayans consume more maté than anyone else. Hot water is added to the maté in the morning, cold water in the afternoon. No one else on the continent puts cold water in their maté. And another local custom: everyone drinks maté from the same straw-spoon out of the same mug, passing it around in a circle. Because Paraguayans consume so much maté, their thermoses are appropriately large. Every thermos has a mug attached—they’re even sold that way. ![]() All clerks sit behind glass windows with one to three holes drilled through them. This is a completely inexplicable custom, since it’s hugely inconvenient to communicate through a hole like this—no one is going to actually stick their pursed lips through it to talk. So people just repeat themselves over and over. The same custom exists in Uruguay, by the way. ![]() It’s about a six-hour drive from here to the capital, and another six hours from the capital to Ciudad del Este, which is on the border with Brazil. |
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january 2009
Paraguay. II. Chaco
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