a German with a gun
Right now we are in Tarija, a fairly big city in the south of Bolivia just across the Paraguayan border.
We arrived from Paraguay a few days ago. It took me these few days to overthink and realise how I really feel about Paraguay. Jannis already told about the struggle to get through this country, so I´ll write a bit about some of the other impressions I have of Paraguay.
Besides that it´s soccer team is the Number 1 in the South America poule for the worldcup 2010 at the moment, we didn´t knew anything about Paraguay before going on this trip. We hadn´t met any other travellers or knew anybody who had been there before. I can say that Paraguay is really off the beaten track. So before we arrived we did some reading about this country.
The main thing which becomes very clear when you read about Paraguay, is that it is a very corrupt country. Luckily we mainly had good expeciences and thought the people (and even the very corrupt police) were very friendly indeed. We didn´t experience the corruption too much ourselves, but you can tell if you know. We even came across the building of the minister for anticorruption.
There is a joke here about the fact that Paraguay has been Number 1 on the list of the world´s most corrupt countries year by year. There was an exception a couple of years ago, when Paraguay was suddenly Number 2 on the list. The saying is that this is because they had sold their Number 1 position….
One of the impressions I have of Paraguay is that of a country with huge contrasts.
Here in Paraguay is the first time we saw slums (sloppenwijken). In other parts of South-America we know there must be some as well, but it was not something we ever actually have noticed anywhere. But in Paraguay it is something you can not mis. In the backyard of the very expensive, very new and well mantained congress-building is a slum. It is not something they try to hide…….
In the capital, Asuncion, we also passed Hollywood-like neighbourhoods. You can´t imagine a bigger contrast.
Even in the isolated orthodix christan mennonite villages in the far east, you could still see a big gap between the rich mennonites and the poor indigenous indians. I assume they were poor, because many of them were hanging around drunk, looking for work.
Another impression I have is that Paraguay is tropical. Luckily we were here in fall, but in the far east it was still unpleasantly hot, besides very dry and dusty.
One thing I am very possitive about is the Paraguayan food. After having travelled through a mainly meat-eating country, it was a relief to get loads of vegetables. Also rice, sweet patatoes, cassaves, beans, corn and lots of fruits is part of each meal.
What I liked too is that they are really soccer-mad here. When we say that we are from Holland, people often say they know Holland because it is the land of the famous ´Naranja Mecanica´, the Orange machine.
But the thing that striked me the most was the fact that we had breakfast with a German who was carrying a gun around. He put the gun on the table and acted like it was very normal. He is the director of a farming-thing (if I understood correct, because I was stunned for a while) that bought a piece of land somewhere. And this piece, is the land that a big and rich landowner wants to buy, so for this landowner it would be very convient when the German would die. So from now on this German is watching out, especially every time he gets out of his car…
As you can see it was again a very different country to all the other countries we´ve been before, with lots of new experiences. Only the flag is like the Dutch flag, so that made us feel a bit at home. But now we are very happy to be in the (so far) very cheerful Bolivia!!
Love, Martine.
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