Asuncion, Paraguay • December 3-6, 2024
In downtown Asuncion, near the river, you find the monuments, palaces, and places of interest that constitute what I call the “national mall experience” of Paraguay. This is where all the history, culture, and national pride of the country is on display. But the exhibit that grabs my attention the most is in the Cultural Center of the Republic, and it is about the early twentieth-century immigration experience into Paraguay. The black and white photographs and documents on display look surprisingly similar to those I saw on Ellis Island in New York earlier this year, and I realize that the people leaving eastern Europe between 1900 and 1930 went many places besides the United States. Looking at an immigration document of a 20-year-old school teacher, I imagine the anxiety she must have felt entering the country, wondering if it might have been better to stay in Poland, which for all its problems was still home, rather than immigrate to this terra nova which held the promise of a fresh start, but was nevertheless filled with many unknowns. Perhaps I should amend my assertion that “Nobody goes to Paraguay” to say that “Nobody goes to Paraguay lightly.” Paraguay is never a casual choice as a tourist destination. You go to Paraguay when it is the place to go.
We stop at a store to buy some water, and I see some mangos for sale. I ask Tanner if he wants to buy any, and he gives me an incredulous look. “Why would I buy a Mango in Paraguay?” he asks with clear contempt in his voice. I feel the response is a bit harsh, but then I see him in action on the street. He walks along as if nothing at all interesting is happening until he stops under a mango tree where he spots a ripe, yellow mango up in the branches. He reaches down and picks up a mango off the ground and throws it up into the tree. It hits the branch, and the ripe mango falls down into his hand. Tanner then continues walking, as if he has done nothing more than brush a strand of hair away from his eyes.
In Benjamin Aceval, we have lunch with a family Tanner likes. Their home consists of two or three small structures that sit on roughly a third of an acre of land. The door to the main house opens into a large bedroom where several mattresses are arranged on a dirt floor. Behind this room is a kitchen that opens up to an open-air dining area. Here we have lunch which consists of meat and pasta, bread, salad, and Coca Cola. Tanner and the family laugh and tell jokes and stories about the good times when Tanner was in the area. As we eat, the neighbor is blasting Brazilian music (“Zeze Di Camargo & Luciano”) from his stereo, and we watch chickens cluck around the yard. One of the chickens sees that a door has been left open by the kids, so it walks into the room and jumps up on the bed where it struts around until a passing adult chases it away and closes the door.
The name of the street that runs in front of the house is Calle Ultima—the last road. When we walked here from the highway, this is where the road literally stopped . There’s nothing on the other side except empty Chaco—Terra Incognita. It’s as if I’ve come to the edge of the world, and an unchartered and unknown desert extends from here to the frontier with Argentina. I take a picture with my phone. Before I put it back in my pocket, though, I look at my system settings. I have come to the last road at the edge of the world, and I see five Wi-Fi networks.
We are going to need that chipa recipe