Acuna Batata

My life in Paraguay as a peace corps volunteer. Check out pictures here http://www.flickr.com/photos/donjulio/ And this blog does not represent anything official from the Peace Corps.

Friday, August 25, 2006

I can buy a bottle of liquor for 50 cents. In fact I just did. It’s really shitty, maybe it’s just cow piss. They call it cana. Made from sugar cane. Sugar cane is a horrible plant whose sole purpose is to rot teeth, why not get you drunk too?
Sometimes gardening doesn’t do it for me. I can garden in Texas. So then I go to the store and buy the bottle. There’s better stuff around, but hardly, and it’s a dollar more.
Tonight I mixed it with powdered strawberry juice, another quite disgusting invention. But what can I say without being a hypocrite – I am the consumer. Try not to shop at Wal-Mart.
I was sitting around the other drinking terere (big surprise) when ole grandma busts out with “A la puta!” Son of a bitch! She was thinking about how her son in law, the dumbass, stabbed his friend the other night while drunk off cana. The police won’t come because they don’t bother us here.
Every volunteer has such a different experience. How I wish I had a community that I could actually care about. Instead I get a bunch of idiots who don’t want to work and want to complain all day. No organization, no motivation, bunch of lazy assholes. If it weren’t for my host family, I’d have asked for a site transfer to try my luck in another part of this country. Maybe it’d be better elsewhere, but I doubt it. When my host dad finally smelled my drink while we were watching The Simpsons (an hour each night), he kept asking me to drink more because he wanted to see me drunk. “Tranquillo!” I told him. He’s too old to drink anymore. Maybe he has a bad liver or something. He always wants me to invite him when I have a beer but he never drinks any of it.
I hate this place. Most of the time. But don't worry about me, I don't dig a hole I can't get out of.
Oh and I'm zero for thirty-five with the rabbits now.