It is really interesting arriving at site during Semana Santa (Holy Week) in Paraguay. Paraguay is a predominantly Catholic country with some pretty cool cultural aspects thrown into their beliefs and traditions that makes it unique.
First theres the food aspect of Semana Santa. I don't know if it's like this everywhere, but there are certain things you can and can't eat and cook during SS here. Of course theres the usual no meat on Friday rule but here most people don't cook at ALL on Friday. For example all I've eaten today is fruit salad (I peeled approx 10 oranges, 1 pineapple,and 2 apples to help my contact make it...my hand hurt all day) and chipa. Chipa is a huge part of SS all on its own. Traditionally, people make chipa on Wednesday before Easter. I had the great honor of helping one of the families in my community make chipa so I got to see how its made. I am surprised I can still eat it after watching.
What I had chosen not to think about every other time I had eaten chipa on a bus or in the street (besides being a SS tradition, chipa is also one of the most popular street foods in Paraguay) is that its terrible for you. We used around 15 kilos of flour (mostly corn, but some mandioca flour too) and about 15 eggs, 2 liters of milk, at least 5 kilos of Paraguayan cheese and 3 kilos of LARD. When all of these ingredients are mixed by hand just so by whipping the egg whites seperate from the yolks, only adding the milk a little bit at a time, and kneading vigorously its ready to be put in the tatakuaa, the special chipa oven. It looks kind of like an igloo, and its basically just a half circle made of bricks with a base and two openings on each side to add wood and later chipa. First you add tons of wood and get it really hot. After an hour or so of preheating, you push out all of the ash and embers and put in the chipa. The end result is sort of cornbread textured but with a harder outer shell and a slightly gooey cheezy interior. If your mouth isnt watering yet, it should be, because its delicious. And even though I know its extremely unhealthy, I have allowed myself to eat a ton of it by telling myself I will exersize my chipa kilos off once I get my bike from Peace Corps.
But enough about my love affair with lard filled goodness. I also got to go to church for the first time here today. I had been to the oratorio (local church with a layperson reading the mass), but the church in Caazapa was a totally different story. The church was huge and beautiful with adobe walls, high ceilings and big arched windows. I'll take a picture of it next time I go into Caazapa for sure. And the service was pretty interesting as well. The first part was outside and they talked about the crucifixion and all that, then basically did a mock funeral, where they took the statue of Jesus down and walked it into the church for the second part. I didn't understand all of it, but it was neat since I've been to Catholic church a bunch of times in the US and they say all of the same prayers, but they still have their own local flair for it.
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