Peace Corps Memory
Imagine walking into your host family's small dark, humid, dirt floor, home with two bags. All you can think of is how much stuff you have. How in these two bags you have so much stuff, worth more than anything in this home and all your host family's possessions put together. How come you have so much stuff? In the US two bags for two years isn't much, but here it seems ridiculous someone would even own this much. Why do i need so many clothes? I have an iPod! Wow I need to hide that!
You are shown to your room that you will be sharing with your host sister. she has a nice smile but is timid like yourself. Your language in either Spanish or Guarani is lacking, and so you sit.
A few days later, you know its important to get out and see the community. They teach you this in training, so you decide to go for a walk. You come upon a home and you clap twice, the greeting that lets anyone know you are entering their property, and say Mbaechipa, the greeting you just learned. You pass a small above ground light blue grave with a cross. Later you will learn that here in this community they do not burry the dead children and babies with the adults in the cemetarys but outside their homes. But you do not know that now.
Suddenly two ugly small starved dogs start barking at you. You are scared but their owner appears, and makes a hissing sounds and kicks one to back off. You are welcomed into the shade underneath a grass roof hut. You try and block how you remember something about chagas disease and grass roofs and concentrate on the smiling woman putting a tiny too small wooden chair down for you to sit in.
it is uncomfortable and awkward. Before you thought you knew the meaning of awkward but here it is so much better represented by the inability to say much, in a strangers home, being looked up in your nice clothes, sweaty face, scared look, skin color, in shock. Luckily the terere comes out. the ice tea
You start to drink the terere and you love it. You push back thoughts of where they got the water, will i get giardia....soon this will be easier to forget. You focus on how much money was spent on the tea leaves and the ice. The ice, they must have brought it from the store nearby, because there is no frig here, you can see the small rooms that come off of the area you are seated in.
You sit and comment on how good the terere is "hau hee" you are not sure if you even said it right so you point like an idiot to the drink in your hand. and the woman who now has three children climbing on her, where did they come from?, she smiles and gives a nervous laugh.
The children occupy us, and multiply. You notice a younger woman with a baby. you can say in Spanish linda, and she smiles and places the baby on the dirt floor with the other children. You see marks on the baby's face, later you will learn that chicken flees are to blame. Then you notice the children you feel it is safe to look at them, children are loved in any culture. You know your every move is being watched. You see the chicken poop, dog poop on the dirt floor, and chickens come and go. You smile and take a deep breath, another sip of terere, it is your turn and it grounds you. Terere saves you from freaking out.
Finally you feel you have had enough silence and the two women taking to themselves and the children and you walk back. you say gracias, smile and sigh a big breath of relief as you step though their wooden gate onto the red dirt road, toward home.
You did it. One neighbor you met, just a hundred to go. But that is enough for today, home to your host family, more awkwardness, but hopefully you can take a nap.
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