Ro Hajhu Paraguay (Pronounced "Row - High - Who")

Te amo, Paraguay. I love you, Paraguay.

One of the few Guaraní phrases I learned that actually stuck with me. Curre (coo-ray) means Pig. That´s all I´ve got. If you say Ro hajhu ParaguayA - it means I love whatever Paraguayan girl. Oh the subtleness of it all.

The boat trip brought me to Fuerte Olimpo in northern Paraguay - a small, quite town where I had to wait 4 days for the single bus that leaves the town.

But I was in good company. I stayed in a great little family-run place that Diego Sosa showed me. I met Diego on the boat - a great 26-year-old do-gooder who is an "ingeniero" as everyone calls him. An engineer who helps indigenous groups find supplies, make ends meet, and all sorts of general development goals at multiple locations around Paraguay.

We were set with 3 things to keep us occupied for the extended holiday weekend: Cerveza (cold beer from the fridge), Fútbol (watching the World Cup when there was electricity...the evenings proved difficult) y Malditos Mosquitos (constantly slapping my legs which got riddled by the annoying pests who somehow went through my multi-layered repellent)!

It was an interesting to get a real view of rural life.

I attended mass at a beautiful church perched atop one of the three hills that make up Fuerte Olimpo´s unique position at the lower end of The Pantanal (a huge marshy, swamp area that extends from northern Paraguay well into Brazil.) The first twenty minutes of pre-mass prayers and mass meant many of the roughly 20 people there (mainly older ladies thumbing over their rosaries with one hand and using the other to weild a little thatched fan on their legs and face against the mosquitos)

I also attended a local...no...correct that...THE LOCAL bar of Fuerte Olimpo. Diego and I got there late, meaning that the clientel was already ripe. We witnessed a sad fight between a Paraguayan girl who we sat with and an Indigenous girl. Although not at first, it quickly became a racist comment extravaganza for the lighter-skinned one. It was depressing and a harsh look at a part of society. Racism is large down here, just like anywhere else in the world.

On a related note - many people in Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and already in Bolivia have asked me what I think of black people. It´s such an unusual question that it always throws me off. I explain that, unlike any of the aforementioned countries and their respective indigenous populations, there is a lot of diversity back in the US and that I know a good number of people from many different skin shades. The answer always seems to throw them off as well.