Semana Santa (Easter)

This past week we celebrated Semana Santa or the week leading up until Easter.  The celebration here in Paraguay is very different from my experiences in the US but I had a wonderful time.  So below I will summarize a little bit about what I learned about this week as well as share a few photos.  I am by far not an expert nor did I understand everything that went on, but I hope you get a snapshot.

The celebrations seemed to start (at least for my family) on Wednesday night where we made chipa.  This was a very fun evening with my host mom, sister, and nephew.  Making chipa is a little bit hard to do but my host family are experts and were happy to share the process with me, it mostly just involved a lot of time kneading the dough which is a fantastic arm and hand workout (which I found out the following days).  My mom made just the “normal” chipa shapes as well as shapes of birds for the kids and then I started to get a little creative and made letters for different people’s names.  K for Katie-my name in site since no one can say Kaitlyn, A-Alcides who is a friend in site, B-Basilio for my contact, and then I also tried making pretzel shapes which were great but they didn’t understand the concept of pretzels so I guess I will just have to make them sometime.  The chip was then put in the outdoor oven (tatakua) and baked.  It turned out great and I had a great time making it with my family.  Chipa is VERY POPULAR this week and everyone seemed to be making it and I had to pace myself eating it so I wouldn’t get tired of it.  

This is a picture of my mom making up the first part of the dough.  Notice the two kittens under the table and three of the six dogs trying to get the scraps.

This is my mom trying to cook a little piece of chipa with a fork over the gas stove for my nephew and to do a taste test before we rolled it all out.  It was very similar to roasting marshmallows and we all got a kick out of it.

This is a picture with my host sister (Rosie) and her two year old son Junior.  She is just two months older than me but has her wonderful son who I love but is a handful!

Here is a picture of some of my wonderful chipa designs that I had fun with.  I even decided to “decorate” them with cheese that I cut into different shapes and pressed into the dough.  Overall the chipa turned out fantastic and we had enough to last for a few days.  I have learned that the best time to eat it is hot out of the oven!

The celebration continued on Thursday- Ultima Cenar (the last supper) where we had a huge asado (BBQ-sort of) where we had a mixture of beef, pork, and chicken that was marinated in fresh garlic and lime juice all day and then cooked in the tatakua.  We also made Sopa Paraguaya which you probably read about a couple of months ago (the heart healthy corn bread).  We had a big family dinner and it was so great to just see all the family together. 

On Friday things started to get a little messed up because it POURED just about nonstop for two days with the rain ending on Saturday night.  On Friday (Viernes Santo) you are not supposed to eat meat but we ate all of the leftovers from the night before.  Saturday (Sabado de Gloria) is just a day of reflection and a day to just spend with family. Also during this week no one played music so the community was abnormally quiet.  Sunday was Domingo de Pascua where evidently everyone normally attends church.  Unfortunately (at least in my community) Sunday ended up being a day to work since everyone lost two work days with the rain so instead of going to church we all spent the day working on various projects.  Overall it was a great week that was full of spending time with family and friends and making wonderful food, I also learned a lot and was able to share some of my Easter traditions.

During Samana Santa on Monday one of my bosses was able to come out and look at my final housing option and I was able to get approval for the house.  I have a lot of work to do including replacing all the electrical wiring, putting in running water, replacing windows, and a lot of cleaning up.  My house is just in fact the old high school and is just one big room.  It is going to be great when I get everything done and finished and will be my own space that I am very excited about.  I love my host family but living with host families for seven months now I am ready to have my own space and be able to set my own schedule and to cook for myself.  I am trying to get everything done by the first week in May but time will tell and I will keep you posted.  Below you can see some pictures of my future house!

This is a picture of when you enter what you can see.  I have moved out all of the old desks but it will be cool to have such a big chalk board in my house!

This is a view from the door looking at the other side of the house.  The cabinet that was in the house was home to a large wasp family and after three days I finally got rid of them all and was able to get it moved out and to get everything cleaned up.  

This is a view from the front outside.  As you can see I am going to have plenty of natural light and have plenty of windows to replace.  I just can’t wait to get it finished up and start on my garden/ other landscaping.  Stayed tuned for more pictures soon!