Comfortable stay in Asuncion - II

We finally learned how to make sopa Paraguay (a cake made of maze and cheese) from another host. Silvio is a gentle and caring man who wants to make sure if we feel comfortable in his place. He even gave us his room and he went to another room of the house. He lived with his sister and her son (i.e. his cousin) Martis. We were quite impressed by the 12 yr old Martis who was a good boy. He greeted with us when meeting and we saw him have good conversation with adults. He liked naruto comic and drew pictures about his favorite comic characters and showed them to us. We compared those Hong Kong kids who play electronic games or parents’ iphone day and night and lost social and conversational skills. Silvio’s sister was also a talented woman who took care of the son, worked and did housework.

 

 

On the weekend after we arrived Silvio took his mother to a village in another province, thus brought us along. We had a good sight of the Paraguay country side. We were surprised to know that the mother has not seen her sister in the village for 15 years ! Because of poverty and mobility of family they haven’t met for such a long time. Silvlo was concerned that we may feel uncomfortable about the poor situation in village. However, we felt more honor to witness this important moment and we like to meet people no matter what they are from. After three hours of car trip we finally went to the village. His mother were greeted with enthusiasm and happiness, she was very moved about going back to another home and meeting her family. At first we were worried that we had started a bit late (noon, we saw his mother waiting eagerly in the morning) and reached there at 3pm, thus she did not have time to talk with them if we left the same day. In fact she would stay until next weekend when Silvio would go back to pick her up. We saw the family talking together; I wish that I could understand. Actually they were talking in Guarani, a language from aboriginal whom the Spanish missionaries came to "civilize", instead of Spanish. We had a hard time in learning Spanish already, and now learning a few extra on another language.            

Silvio taught us some Guarani to say “Ro-ei-hu” (I love you), “Ba-da-ko" (how are you), “Ser-ra-ra-hah-le" (my name is ....) The country did a good job of maintaining this aboriginal language, from a culture conquered by colonist, while other countries like Brazil and Argentina which let the colonial Spanish become their only language and the aboriginals lost their identity because of the loss of their language. In Paraguay, Guarani and Spanish are two official languages. People learn Guarani in school; if their mother tongue is Spanish; or learn Spanish for vice versa. There are still many local folk songs sang from Guarani. We heard some from the singer we met in Asuncion.

We stayed at Silvio’s place for three more days before we bought a bus ticket to go to Encarnacion (later I was a bit regretful to stay such short as we could have gone to other suburban area). We had a good time in his place where we learnt some Paraguay cooking from his sister. His dog was also very friendly. We also watched some films at his home as he had a collection of local and foreign films, including one Argentine independent film Chinese tale” about an only-spanish speaking metalware shop owner who Was a loner, taking care of an only-Chinese speaking man, who is an ophan coming to Buenos Aires finding his uncle but got robbed. It was a pity that we left in his work time and we couldn’t say goodbye face-to-face with him. haler we thought that we should stay in Asuncion longer for her beauty and having this comfortable place to stay. Thank you, Silvio I wish to see you later.