Semana Santa!

This will be a culture lesson for all of you on how Paraguay celebrates Easter or Semana Santa ( Holy Week). We did a lot, Easter is a huge deal for Paraguayans. We started the week on Tuesday and ended Sunday. It was a really neat experience and I enjoyed it a lot. I feel like I have experienced the Paraguayan culture in a whole new way and have a much better understanding of Paraguayans. The best way to write this post is in a time line form so I will try and break it down for you as best as I can. 

Disclaimer- if you are a vegetarian this may be hard for you to read, suerte ( good luck) ! 

Tuesday 

Woke up to my day slaying and skinning our pig. Came home after class and my mom was stuffing pig sausage and frying all the pig fat... pig fat everywhere!  I then found my 82 year old grandmother chasing around a chicken preparing to kill it for lunch the next day. It was very interesting but I enjoyed it all. We were also preparing the oven for all the chipa cooking we would be doing the next day

Wednesday 

This day is dedicated to making chipa. To best explain chipa I have to relate it to a bagel except harder and not as good. It consist of flour, egg, cheese, milk and pig lard. You make it by the kilo and eat it for days! Its good when its hot and then if just gets hard. But every house in Paraguay on Wednesday was making chipa, it is a Semana Santa tradition. You can make it into different shapes and sizes. Please check out the picture below. My family enjoyed watching me, the Americana make chipa and kept joking with me. We ate chipa all day and had a big lunch and even bigger dinner. For dinner we only had pig and cow, yup thats right. Paraguay loves their meat, and oddly enough I didn’t hate it. Meat and Chipa thats pretty much how Paraguay celebrates Semana Santa. 

My family making chipa! 

After the chipa is cooked! Notice the different shapes and the little cat I created!

The "brick oven" used to cook all the chipa and meat! 

Me, the Norte making chipa!! 

Thursday

This is the big party/ family day. My family was over by 10am and already cooking and drinking. We made more chipa killed 4 chickens, cooked half a cow and more pig for lunch. We didn’t stop eating until 4pm to say I had a food coma is an understatement. I literally was unaware of how much meat I was able to eat, it looked like a food heaven for any male! After lunch I slept for a long long time. My family kept eating and drinking. I’m not sure why but Thursday was the day for them to celebrate Semana Santa! 

Friday 

On Friday no one does anything. All the stores are closed and all the busses stop. It is a complete day of rest, you shouldn’t do anything around the house or prepare any meals. It was a giant fast. You are supposed to only eat chipa and relax. And thats what we did, it was so nice. The house was quiet because everyone was sleeping and was perfect because after Thursday I didn’t want to eat anything! 

Saturday and Sunday 

Nothing much really happened these two days, pretty normal for Paraguay. Had the normal big lunch with what ever family came over, cooked some more cow and pig and called it a day. On Sunday I did get some real chocolate eggs from my sister and then it started to really feel like Easter Sunday! Paraguayans love their traditions and I enjoyed learning about them over this week. 

I didn’t have class for 4 days and it was so nice to rest, integrate some more with my family and hang out with my friends. We played a lot of soccer and hung out a lot. It was good because we really only have 2 weeks left together... which is crazy! Training is already over! I find out my site on WEDNESDAY and then on friday I go to my site for a whole week! After that we have a week to pack up and finish things up at the training center then we swear in and become official volunteers! I cannot believe it. I was freaking out this past week but now I am so excited! I am on the ultimate adventure and I cannot wait to see whats next! Everything is really good right now and I can’t wait for it to get better! Its blowing my mind that it is April freaking first! I hope you get some good pranks in... Paraguay doesn’t understand April fools and my language level does not have the capacity to explain it! 

Update- I just received my first package with a lovely friend all the way from California!! Thank you Brenna, you made my week!!  

This was from on night after we played soccer with some of the kids in the community