Easter, Easter break, and Border Agents

A view of the Argentine side of Iguazu Falls, with Saint Martin island in the middle










Stating the obvious...me in front






























Adam and Eve Falls in the background, Bossetti Fall and one of the two Sister Falls in the foreground...incredible views!!



















Looking down the Parana river from Devil's Throat Fall



















One of the trails in the lower circuit--you can almost feel the struggle of man against nature as the jungle canopy overshadows the single-file trails throughout the park.















Garganta del Diablo--Devil's throat















Climbing Yaguaron's hill requires a customary terere stop.




Look at all the people heading up the hill!!










Contemplating the surrounding view and trying to locate Itaugua in the distance
















The giant kurusu or cross on top of the hill and my fellow pilgrims...




















the pose of a typical paraguayan--shaggy black hair, blistering heat in the surrounding tropical environment, and of course, terere in hand




















Alba and I on top of the hill














Hey everyone...long time no write. These past two weeks have been full of adventures and lots of work!!

First, i got a great visit with my old buddies Carol and Tony that i had met back in October. they had come back to travel and also to buy the land where they want to build a house for their retirement here in Paraguay. I loved talking about my project progress as Carol taught me about plants and other projects she is working on to better the hotel in San Bernardino.

I also taught another workshop, this time in Itaugua though it wasn't nearly as successful as I would have liked. The students just weren't interested in it, it seemed, and got bored and conked out on me which made it basically impossible to teach. But, at least i offered the course and hopefully they got something out of it that they can use...

For Easter, Latin culture has an entire week of festivities and Paraguayan Semana Santa (Holy Week) was no exception. Everyone had days off from schools and work, and everyone took advantage to travel or party. I, as the dutiful anthropologist, took advantage to observe some traditional ceremonies and learn about traditional Holy Week rituals. Local schools had even held school on Saturday in order to free up Wednesday and therefore have a 5-day weekend. Not too bad.

I went back to a town called Yaguaraon, home to the Jesuit church I showed in a previous entry. On Holy Friday, the tradition is to climb a nearby hill and hold Mass on top of the hill symbolizing the march to Calgary and Christ's crucifixion...complete with a gigantic metalic cross on top of the hill and a small church filled with candles and sweaty people. It was really hot climbing that hill and despite being only about a 15 minute hike, I was covered in sweat and wondering how it was that I could climb 10,000 feet peaks without a problem and yet climbing a 300 ft climb about killed me. After chilling on some big rocks on the top under what limited shade we could find, we went to the church and watched as the 'apostles' of the local Catholic ministry brought out a wooden effigy of Christ which they proceeded to nail to a cross in the open plaza while people sang in Guarani. There were 2 statues of the virgin Mary on the side--one dressed in white and the other in black--to symbolize the virgin mother and her grief at watching her son die. Then they brought out Saint John though the apostle I talked with didn't have a good reason as to why that was the only saint that they brought out. We didn't get to see the rest of the ritual, but in the afternoon they supposedly take the body down and place it in a glass casket that they proceed to parade around town visiting the different smaller chapels throughout the town to then take it back to meet up with the virgin dressed in white as Christ is resurrected (and they take the wooden effigy and put it back into storage). It was really interesting to me to see though it honestly gave me a very dark impression and I didn't feel uplifted at all. I don't understand the whole emphasis on the cross and the suffering of the Savior when they recognize that He has been resurrected--my Jesus is a living Jesus, not a weak, suffering, shriveled shell of a mortal body nailed to a cross. I accept the crucifixion, but I don't dwell on it.

The next day, Alba and I went to a local museum that showcases Paraguayan mythology--as the story goes, a pair of ancient parents had 7 monstrous children and each one has various characteristics--the most popular one is called Pombero but due to local belief, most people prefer to refer to him as the "man of the night" so as not to tempt his arrival. he loves to drink and smoke and will do favors to people that leave him offerings of cigarettes but punishes those that begin to offer him gifts but then stop. Another common one si Jasy Jatere--a blond-haired blue-eyed midget man that runs through the forest looking for children to steal away. If any children are caught awake at the mid-day nap time, they are quickly reminded that Jasy Jetere is out and about and that they better get to bed right away. in short, all of them are basically nasty, monstrous, creepy, and generally not nice things to run into. And, despite the superficial extravagence of the stories, even the most intellectual Paraguayans believe in at least some part of the stories and knows of somebody that has had personal experience with one of them. I'll be honest that it gives me chills and I've been told some stories that make me wonder...

In other news, i just got back from a whirlwind trip from one end of Paraguay to the other and back. I had to renew my visa and so I figured I would go see the Iguazu falls on the Argentine border and get the renewal at the same time. I hadn't factored in the fact that Paraguay doesn't regulate that particular border and that it technically borders Brasil and so i didn't actually want them to regulate it either... So I decided I would go see the waterfalls and then I would have to go back and cross another border. For those that haven't heard of Iguazu Falls, let me introduce you. In every sense of the word, they are INCREDIBLE!! i had heard lots of good things and had wanted to go ever since I went to live in Buenos Aires, but I had no idea how sincerely awe-inspiring they would be close-up. Measuring over 70 meters--about 230 ft high, the sheer power of the rushing water overwhelmes you and you can hear them long before you actually hear them. I started out by seeing the "garganta del diablo" of the devil's throat--a semicircle depression of massive rushing water that is split in half between Brasil and Argentina. The whole region used to belong to Paraguay before the Triple Alliance War in the 1870s and has since become one of UNESCO's world heritage sites and a huge tourist income producer for the other two countries... Anyway, it was incredible to pass through a miles of smooth, crystal clear water that didn't seem to be moving at all and then all of sudden see it crash down a 200-ft precipice creating enough splash to send sprays back up on us gawking tourists at the top. I was impressed with the infraestructure too and Argentina had invested in 2001 to build new metal walkways that take you within 20 feet of the waterfalls. Incredible. I spent more than 6 hours walking along all the winding trails and snapping about a million pictures. It seemed like you could point your camera in any direction and get a postcard perfect shot. examples included in this post...

I then proceeded to jump on a cross-country bus and went to cross the Argentine border at Clorinda and renew my visa there, but made a word choice error of saying that i "lived" in Itaugua when the agent asked me where I was coming from and he got the idea that I was breaking my "tourist" status and didn't want to let me out of the country. They took me into the office and continued to explain that i needed to go to the main office and pay 260,000 Gs. (about 70 dollars) to get a 6-month stay and that they wouldn't give me the stamp to leave the country. I got really upset and said that I knew the law and that i could cross the border and it would automatically renew my 90 days, that i didn't need 6 months and that they were going to have to let me cross the border. I was just waiting for the part when they would ask for their bribe because they obviously wanted one but weren't going to explicitly ask for it and i wasn't going to give in. They finally gave me the stamp with a sigh of resignation stating that i wouldn't be able to come back into the country because i had to spend 72 hours outside the country in order to renew the visa. I spent a day in Formosa meeting up with some new friends going down the same road that sell Herbalife natural supplements and asked around to find an old nanduti workshop that was mentioned in a documentary made in then 1980s. The workshop has long since disappeared, but I got some good leads to go back and talk to in another trip. The next day i went back to the border and, as I had expected, passed through without a single question, hesitation, or bribe request. I now have another 90 days to be in the country...though I am going to Buenos Aires in a week and will get it renewed once again. Ah the frustration of timelines and beaurocracies!!

I am now back in Itaugua and working fervently to polish up a Spanish transcript we have been working on. I have more photos than my computer can hold and am working to organize a comparison showing the nanduti designs that are inspired in local flora and fauna and the actual plants and animals that the designs represent. of the more than 130 designs, I have all but 7 of the photos, and have procured all NEW samples of the actual weavings for photos in our book. I consider it a real accomplishment. i'm a little frustrated with the other partner that was in charge of all the literary write-ups because she hasn't produced the quality of historical and social analysis i was hoping for, but in general i'm satisfied. we are going to work on getting it all organized and then look for funding for printing it and doing a book release at the end of the month or the beginning of May. how cool is that?? Too bad for you guys it's all in Spanish, but since I'm covering the rest of the literary stuff, I'll have a great base for my English work and I'll be updating you on where and when you can get your copy ;)

OK, enough typing for today. Hope everyone had a fantastic Easter! sending my love,

Kristine

A week of spiders...that's right...spiders (and other nasty creepy crawly stuff)

as many of you may remember, i am researching 'nanduti' which is most commonly translated to mean 'spider web' from the guarani language. it in fact does not mean spider web since there is another term for that--nandu renimbo or the thread of the spider--but most likely refers to the whiteness created by the spider. this difference may not seem significant since the whiteness created would obviously be the spider web, but the idea is that it culturally describes the visual and aesthetic essence and not the physical space of the spider web. anyway, in studying nanduti, one of my missions is to seek out the inspiration of the weaving which, according to legend, is a specific black spider that weaves perfectly round spider webs in tree clusters in the forest. anyone that has ever met me knows that i abhor spiders and permitted them to cohabitate my room in guatemala to keep away the flies but otherwise refuse to even consider being in their presence. so, taking up the task to actively search them out was quite a personal triumph. i'm not just looking for spiders but also a bunch of other animals that are represented in the weavings and, in doing so, finding all sorts of surprises along the way....




An amazing spiderweb I found floating above my head in an "espinillo" or spine tree. it took a lot of searching and a lot of neck cranage to get the camera to actually get a good picture of a spider web. if you've never tried to take a picture of a spider web, give it a whirl and you'll realize just how hard it is!


the most popular creation myth of nanduti is that a poor indi an wanted to marry the daughter of the chief but the chief demanded the most precious and unique gift from the potential suitor to win her hand and so the poor indian didn't have a shot. he withdrew to the forest to think and try to find something, anything, that would please the chief and win his beloved. he ran across one of the most perfectly symmetrical, round, spider webs and was awed to amazement at the beauty of it that he tried to grab it and in taking it down, ruined the weaving. in desperation he returns to tell his mother of the incident and she accompanies him in another journey into the forest and when they find another spider web, she cuts her long white hair and uses her own locks to imitate the weaving of the spider web which they then take to the chief as an offering. the unique gift surpassed all others and the poor boy triumphs in winning the hand of the maiden and his mother then turns to teach all the women in the tribe how to make the beautiful weaving that we now know as nanduti--inspired by the spider web.

this tree is covered in another type of spider web that was incredibly interesting to find. in one of the creation legends of nanduti, it talks about how a young indian, seeking a wedding present to give to his wife, goes out to hunt and disappears. when the widow-bride finds him years later, his bones are covered in spider webs as if it were his death shroud. jealous of the fact that the spiders were with her beloved when he died and not her, she runs back to town and then back to the forest with a needle and thread and starts to imitate the spider webs that covered her beloved's remains and that is how the first weavings of nanduti came about. that is just one of the versions but it was the first time i've actually seen a spider overtake a tree like this and it really brought the story to life.



















While not as commonly known to pertain to the spider family, these 'garrapatas' or ticks are 8-legged little critters that are most closely related to mites and therefore arachnids, not like 6-legged insects. one of the photos i have dreaded having to take, these were freshly plucked from a neighboring cow and collected just for me...lucky huh? chiquita then threw them on the ground and stepped on them, squirting out some very nasty pools of cows blood that they had been slurping up. garrapatas are supposedly some of the nastiest bugs because they transmit lyme's disease, rocky mountain fever, and other nasty illnesses. i had no desire to even touch the cup that had been holding the critters for fear that one would take up courage to attach to my hand...















This is the national flor of paraguay--mburukuja or pasionaria or passion flower. it's one of the most unique flowers i've ever seen and later sprouts into a rich, yellow fruit that has soporiphic qualities. also one of the nanduti pictures i have been looking for. i thought that amidst all the nastiness of these bugs i should show the 'softer' side of the paraguay countryside.














this week i came into contact with the largest spider i've ever seen in my life and i honestly didn't have the stomach to get close enough to get a good picture and had to hand the camera over to my friend to take it for me. she had called me incredibly excited saying she had found a huge spider web at her neighbor's house that she wanted me to see. i accepted the invitation, thinking that it was just another spider web, but i had no idea that i would stand face to face with a spider web stretching out three feet across in the middle of a family's patio. i asked how it had managed to create such a web and they said that it had been there for a few days but that just now they had seen the spider and so my friend Alba called me in a panic to get me to come over and get it on camera. I have yet to find out exactly what it is, but it gave me the scare of my life. everyone was super calm, climbing on chairs to get closer to it and commenting on how cool the web was. i have to admit it is quite humbling to see a creature like this and the work that it can create with its own thread, spun inside a bulb on its backside. At the same time I was certain that the thing would freak at and jump straight at the blonde and attack me then and there. They say that spiders are far more afraid of us than we can be of them, but i reached a pretty high level of fear in that encounter... i now have the thing mounted on a piece of syrofoam and tucked into a box that i got to carry around with me today to scare all my neighbors. i laughed my head off becuase i would tell them that i had a little present that i wanted to offer them and then i would just open the box and they would stop and stare at the thing. paraguayans are markedly reserved in general and it was interesting that nobody screams or shies away or reacts strongly like i do when something grosses me out. they would simply freeze and ask how i got it while staring and analyzing every part of the dead creature. i should take a photo with something on the side for comparison to show the size, but the thing stretches out to a goodm 6 inches, it's backside a full inch long and 1/2 inch around. don't ask me how i've suddenly become a spider collector...and along with the gigantic ficus boar that i grabbed the other day and the dragon fly hanging on my wall, and the consant invasion of little beetles that fall on my bed at night as they congretate around my flourescent light, i'm practically becoming an entomologist!

time for interviews!!

Maria Cristina's mom undoing the mistakes in my nanduti...pretty embarassing huh?

















A beautiful "carpeta valle kare" or Kare Valley doilie made with fine thread














Some more nanduti I recently sent off to friends in Chile that I met over the Christmas holiday.


As you can see, there is a tendency to only make one type of design--this one is called Jasmin Flower in Itaugua and called Star in Pirayu and is becoming the standard design in nanduti despite the fact that there are more than 150 designs in print and more than 300 speculated to be in existence.





A new friend who, as you can see, weaves nanduti while working in her shoe store. A great example of using nanduti to supplement one's income and break the exploitation cycle rather than depend on on'es weaving to put food on the table.























My good friend Alba and her little brother and I on our weekend trip to Atyra--the 8th cleanest city in the world and one of the only touristy places outside of Asuncion in Paraguay. We took a great tour of the small town alongside a jovial yet presumptious tourguide that led us through a gigantic complex being built by an Italian Fransiscan priest. Look up the town on the internet if you get the chance, really interesting.



This is part of the nanduti display in the Ceramic Museum in Asuncion. I tried to get an interview with the administration and she sent me away saying that I should email her my questions...we'll see if she responds. basically i'm interested in finding out what motivates them to maintain a textile display in a ceramic and pottery museum...



















This is the road that i had to cross in order to get to the museum...a saddeningly common site when it rains in Asuncion. Regardless of the fact that it rains rather frequently in Paraguay and that when it rains it rains hard, they haven't quite caught onto the idea of using drains and tubing...














Another display in the museum showcasing hand-made and hand-baked pottery from Tobati. They also showcase stuff from Ita (just down the road from where I'm living).














This is the famous church in Yaguaron. I'm already committed to coming back to watch the dramatization of the passion and resurrection of christ during Easter Week when we'll climb from the church up to the top of a local hill in a procession behind the actors...certain to be interesting. Oh, and the restauration of the this church was made possible by the local priest in Itaugua (whom nobody likes because he's supposedly really dull, constantly angry, and otherwise overly restrictive...never met him but doesn't leave a positive impression...).















Hello all! Welcome to another adventure in the anthropological life of mine. I feel like I've packed an entire project into this past week and it's been such a blast actually advancing my project and feeling like I'm being productive and not wilting in the Paraguayan sun. I was trying to put my finger on just why I felt so renewed and refreshed this week and I realized that it had rained all last week and the weather has been incredibly nice. Kinda weird to owe my life to the weather, but that's the honest truth. It's still hot but nothing like January and February. In fact, I feel like I am "warming up" to Paraguay and the more I get out and conduct my interviews, the more established and comfortable I feel. That's not to say that I didn't get out before, as you have seen through the rest of my posts, I definitely got to meet a bunch of people, but I honestly didn't feel like myself and had a hard time even concentrating on a job at hand because I wanted to jump into a freezer and cool off. I also had a lot of long-distance interviews with current students of Syracuse University who spoke VERY highly of the school and the atmosphere, the student body and the professors, the location and the curriculum etc. It was highly motivating to have them initiate contact with me as well as other contacts that I initiated and have both types of contacts offer their personal view of the school. I feel really lucky to be accepted and am excited to move on in my schooling and move forward in the professional world!!

This past week I had a great time making new contacts and working on maintaining old ones. I finally got to go back and visit Maria Cristina and I showed her my nanduti that I had been working on. I had stopped woring on one piece because I had messed up the "armaje" or base and I knew that I had messed it up and that I would have to undo it all and start over. But I simply didn't have the patience to undo it and had left it there. As soon as I got to Maria Cristina's house, I handed over the "bastidor" or the wooden frame they make the lace on, and her mom started looked at, she shook her head and said that it was badly made and would have to be redone. I admitted that I had done it wrong but didn't have the patience, so she, without e asking, sat down and undid it all and then showed me how to fix it and told me that she would expect it to be good next time or she would punish me by stabbing my hand with the needle (this is a typical punishment for the girls that are learning to weave though I can't imagine how much it would hurt!). We chatted and I got a good interview from her about her past participation in a weaving cooperative that doesn't function anymore. In visiting her, I also got to "estrenar" or showcase my new bike and I'm so glad to have my transportation back. If you don't remember, I had a beautiful purple bike that got stolen back in January and now I finally got the landlords to pay for a replacement.

On Tuesday I interviewed a local journalist that is writing a "Folklore magazine" and also writes a bunch of poetry in guarani. The people generally think he's crazy and a hippy (and physically he fits the part with a full beard and ponytail) but he was really passionate about his work and it was fascinating to argue with him about the value of changing the Guarani orthography to a standardized international phonetic script rather than the old system that tried to write Guarani using Spanish phonemes. He's adamant that the government is run by groups of friends and nepetists (which I would have to agree with) and that they are working to brainwash his children into accepting a materialistic, modernized and corrupt agenda that disrespects the great leaders of the past and the national Paraguayan identity (which I would have to consider more to make an informed opinion.). We chatted for about 5 hours during which we had lunch and talked about Mormonism and the fallacies of institutionalizing religion. He asked me to write an article for his magazine on my view of Itaugua's social and cultural atmosphere which I took over to him on Friday. I don't know if he's really going to print it, but I'll let you know. Interesting encounter.

I then went to interview the founder and owner of one of the largest artesanry shops here in Itaugua. She actually knows how to weave (unlike most owners) and started her shop more than 35 years ago. As we started talking about the future of nanduti, she lamented the current condition of the youth and their general disinterest in working for their pay, in learnig moral conduct, and in taking care of their elders. She said they want to experiment, try new things, and end up getting into trouble because they don't know the severity or the consequences of the choices they make. They are too independent, too lazy, and too curious for their own good. She was very observant and very expressive and I have to admit I identified a lot with her complaints. It's been hard to be a young, single adult here when the only real outlet for meeting people my age are discotecas and soccer games (both of which invlove heavy drinking, smoking, and crowds of horny sex-driven Paraguayans). There are church activities which don't invlove the drinking and smoking and is a lot more calm on the sex-drive, but also full of social fanatics that live for the church and don't have anything to talk about besides marriage and the next church activity. To be honest, it's just like Provo within the single young adults...quite disparaging. That was just Monday...!

I did a bunch of interviews in Asuncion on Thursday...going to a local printing company that has started a line of notebooks with nanduti designs on the covers. They are a lot more expensive than the other typical school notebooks but basically the same price as other notebooks from this particular company. It's run by a Korean family and I was more than disappointed that when I arrived, the boss that had agreed to interview with me had left and they simply instructed me to talk with another supervisor that didn't have much to say other than they liked the design...

I then talked with vendors in Asuncion and experienced, again, the closed world of the nanduti trade. When I talk to the weavers themselves, they are incredibly open, honest, friendly, interested, inquisitive, and playful. Talking with the sellers I get the distinct impression that they don't trust me. They must think that I am going to steal their busy, uncover the fact that they really are exploiting the weavers in order to make more money, or that they are simply wasting their time talking to me. If I'm not there to buy, I must be there with an ulterior motive.

I finally got to the famous Museo del Barro--an anthropological museum showcasing ceramic artesanry from all parts of Paraguay. They had beautiful displays and modern showcasing of thousands of pieces of pottery and statuary, as well as religious imagery and thousands of little Catholic Saints and crucifixes, and my motive for going: a nanduti room.

The nanduti they had didn't have any special labels so I had no idea where they had gotten it from or how old it was, but they had some beautiful pieces, all in white, on display in between sheets of glass. On the walls they had displays of "images of Itaugua" that a photographer had donated. I realized that in living in this small town nicknamed the "cradle of nanduti" that I've grown to take things for granted just like the natives do whereas the "outsiders" see everything as new and exciting. The photos highlighted the weavers among other artesans, the colonial columns of downtown Itaugua, and the rustic atmosphere of a growing town.

I then worked with Chiquita and Maria Angela updating our progress on the book publication. I hadn't had much of a chance to work on their materials but we are moving steadily forward and I'm really excited to have something more concrete under our belt :)

On Saturday, I went to Yaguaron, a town about 30 km from Itaugua down another highway heading South towards Argentina. It is famous for its Catholic Church which was honestly impressive. I had worked out with a good friend Rommy to head out with the task of capturing more real-life objects that had inspired nanduti designs. It's been a real uphill battle looking for these objects because, despite the fact that they are native to the scenery and environment of Paraguay, it's not very easy to show up and take a picture of a fox or a crab...most of the plants I have been able to find but not all of them are in season so I haven't gotten all the flowers that I am seeking either. I'm not sure how to make up for that, but we'll see how it works out.

Anyway, we visited the church, drove around the sleepy town and visited a small museum that was one of the homes of Paraguay's self-declared "perpetual dictator" Dr. Francia. Back in the 1800's, he ushered in the "golden age" of Paraguay by closing the country off and forcing the fledgling country to be completely self-reliant. People had to make their own food, clothing, transportation etc. and importation was completely shut down. It is in this period of time that Paraguayan artisanry really took off and probably when nanduti became more localized, more inspired by the local scenery and environment, and more sustainable as an artform.

We went to various places including a nursery to look for plants and the side of the road to look for other plants, and in all it was a fruitful trip. I also found a local lady that does waxing and got a full leg wax that I haven't had the privelege of receiving in almost a year. It hurt like a mother and I wasn't all that satisfied with her methodology, but finding a wax in Itaugua Paraguay was a pleasing discovery.

Today I just got back from another golden interview with a weaver that works in "hilo fino" or fine thread rather than "hilo grueso" or thick thread. Traditionally, nanduti was all done with a very fine, sewing thread that would take hours and days to produce a small piece of lace. Nowadays they use a lot thicker thread that is easier to see, easier to use, and easier to make larger designs with. It's a lot cheaper too because it doesn't take as much time, but you make more money per hour making it with thick thread because the buyers don't like paying a large sum of money, and the fine thread stuff is harder to sell. She was incredibly open and talkative and unabashed in telling me of the exploitative nature of the paraguayan marketplace and Paraguayan society. People just don't value hand-made things anymore, she said. The government doesn't help, and the one government institution that is supposedly there to help out is completely corrupt and worse than the regular intermediaries.

I love getting into conversations like these with the weavers because I feel like, if nothing else, I provide a bit of emotional release for them and an understanding ear to help them express their complaints. most people that come through Paraguay (which these days aren't many...) only get to see the pretty side of nanduti--the history and the native legend, the colorful displays in the artisan shops, and the nostalgic representations of the old national nanduti fesivals. They rarely come into contact with an actual weaver, a mother working in her home and trying to keep her family going by the skill of her hand, desperate to break free from the cycle of poverty that surrounds her.

So, if anyone is planning a trip to South America, I cordially invite you to come to Paraguay--preferably March through September when the weather is beautiful and mild--and get to know some real-life artisans and the hands behind the tourist trinkets.

I hope all is going well and that you are all enjoying the oncoming Spring. Sorry to not be as up-to-date with my blog and I hope you enjoyed this week's anthropological ramble. Until the next one, take care,

Kristine