Christmas in Paraguay

Christmas this year in Paraguay was very different from my celebrations last year.  Last year this time I was living with a host family and celebrated with them.  This year though I am in my own place and had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas with my family and friends in my community.  This blog post is about my celebration and the few days leading up to and after Christmas.  I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas surrounded by your own family and friends.  Feliz Navidad!

A couple of days before Christmas my family killed the large hog they had been fattening up for this sole purpose.  So early one morning they killed the pig and a bunch of neighbors and all the family came over to help with the butchering.  I was surprised because they ended up taking all of the meat into Caaguazu to sell and just used all of the other “parts”.  This helps provide an income to my mom during the holiday season that she used to buy other food for Christmas as well as other things she had been waiting to buy.  This picture is of the men cleaning up the pig skin and cutting off all of the fat.  The fat then was used in a variety of ways.  A delicacy here is called chicheron which is just pig fat that is fried and eaten, not my favorite but a big favorite of Paraguayans.  They also boiled down some of the fat and then that’s what they use to make the famous Sopa Paraguaya and Chipa Guazu.  

What I loved about this picture was just how is showed how everyone was involved the day of the butchering.  The men were working with the fat while the women worked with many of the organs and made up fresh blood sausage and cooked many other parts to be used in soup among other things.  The kids had a great time and were in charge of trying to keep the dogs and cats away.  Here they are playing with bubbles.  

Christmas here is mainly celebrated Christmas Eve and this year I celebrated with my family.  So Christmas Eve evening we started out mainly just hanging out and talking and having a good time with everything leading up until midnight.  The popular drink here for Christmas is Cidra which is sparkling apple cider which is slightly fermented.  This drink is popular with the kids and adults alike.  So we had a great evening and this picture shows all of the wonderful meat we grilled and ate once midnight came around.  So once it is officially Christmas everyone tells each other “felicidades” and then we all sat down to eat all the meat, sopa, and mandioca.  We also had quite a few fireworks (many of which are not “legal” in the US) but here in Paraguay it is all about who can make the loudest noise when it comes to fireworks.  

This is called clerico and is just a very large fruit salad (apples, oranges, melon, pineapple, bananas, and grapes) that is mixed with wine and sugar.  This fruit salad is very popular for both Christmas and New Years and eaten by the gallons by kids and adults alike.  It comes at a good time though when many of these fruits are fresh from the fields or trees!

A picture of us eating our Christmas “dinner” but really early breakfast! Luckily it had cooled now quite nicely that evening and many of us were actually reaching for light jackets which was a very nice change from the hot weather lately.  

The cake my mom and sister made for Christmas.  We had already eaten all of my Christmas cookies by this point, so sadly didn’t have any left but the cake was a nice touch.  Also on Christmas day I made up a carrot cake to celebrate baby Jesus’ birthday, which is a tradition that I always did with my mom back home.  

My wonderful Christmas morning breakfast compete with chocolate chip pancakes (my all-time favorite), bacon, eggs, fresh apple and peach, and maple syrup!  

The little Christmas area of my house, complete with a small tree with two ornaments, one owl and one nativity scene.  I also had some pine scented candles as well as Christmas lights and nativity scene stickers my mom sent down.  Lucky for me Santa brought more paint for my kids to use as well as fireworks and pineapple!  

My Christmas lunch with a fresh bird from the forest made into a wonderful soup (more information on that later) with fresh bean salad with the veggies and beans picked fresh.  

The past week or so I have had the privilege to be learning some more primitive hunting techniques from someone who has lived with the local indigenous community.  So here are some picture of a trap for birds using just wood, a knife, corn or beans for bait, and a small fishing line.  It’s a very simple setup using all things that you can find in the woods and has been very successful providing a lot of meat for wonderful soups (as seen above).   

Some trees that were growing in my garden from the nearby Tajy or Lapacho (national tree of Paraguay) that I decided to transplant into containers with the hopes of transplanting them back somewhere else later on.  Also a good use of the Pringles cans I have collected during my first year of service!

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas surrounded by many friends and families.  I can’t wait to see what the next year may bring and where I will be celebrating Christmas next year, who knows!