Muy Lejo

Sam is a member of Highland, located in the heart of the jungles of Paraguay, more or less right in the middle of the country. There are some four hundred people who live together sharing all possessions, modeling their lives on the Early Christians lived immediately following the death of Jesus Christ.

 

Sam is excited, for he is going to the United States to help pave the way for the establishment of a new community. Sam has been with Highland for six years and is happy to return to the States, to his home, and he is proud to bring the vision and witness of the radical Christianity of Highland to the States. He thinks of himself as a missionary, in much the same way as the early first Apostles of Jesus were. After many years of searching he found the truth, and the word of God, and the word of Christ, and the Way Christ. And Sam is extremely happy to have found the way. Happy to have found the Christianity that Jesus and the early disciples created: a community in which they all lived together sharing all goods and sharing all funds. The Highlanders look upon themselves as one-body much in the way Paul described it in one of his letters. And they speak with one voice, which means they work at it until they can.

 

What a privilege! What a joy for Sam to be chosen to go back to the States to help establish community in the wilderness of the commercialization and heathenism and rampant secularity of the United States. Yes, he is an Apostle and proud to be one.

 

The first leg of the long voyage home is to get on the back of a truck that is going to take him to the river port of the village of Villa de Rosario, where he would board a small wood-powered steamship for an overnight sail down the Rio Paraguay to Asuncion, the capital city of Paraguay. From there, after a few days, he would board a plane and after a thirteen-hour flight is back home in the United States, home being Boston.

 

The truck trip to Rosario would take about eight hours from Highland. Eight hours to do around sixty miles. That gives you some idea of the condition of the road. Very slow and very rough. Fortunately, it had not rained for several weeks, otherwise the road would have been muddy and probably the trip would have had to be with a wagon and a pair of horses. That trip would take something like two days of sloshing through mud. So Sam feels lucky to be on the bed of a truck.

 

The truck begins its journey in the village of Carolina, next stop is Vaca Jhu, and Highland follows, then, Santa Ni, Itacurubì, and finally, Rosario. The highlight of the trip is the stop at Itacurubì for the great almaçen of Salomòn Portòn is there. There is a two-hour stop there for food, beer, matè, caña, (the whiskey of Paraguay, made from sugar cane and at about 150 proof, it seemed!) and other delightful necessities. There were two benches along both sides of the truck on which people sat down. Of course by the time Sam got on the truck the seats were already all filled up with men, women, and children, for naturally, the first on the truck get the best seats, which are near the front, closest to the cab. The bumps of the road vigorously toss one around in the back of the bus. Passengers include children, chickens, and small pigs. After the seats are all taken, people pile in the center of the truck, standing, sitting on the bed, and using makeshift pillows of blankets, ponchos, wooden carts, and boxes. It is a hot day and people are already drinking tererè, the hot weather cold drink of yerba matè. It is drunk with a silver straw, called a bombilla. The yerba is usually placed in a cowhorn which has been cut near the tip and sealed to make a drinking vessel and is called a guampa. Most people use plain water to drink tererè, but when you want to be fancy you use sparkling water. At Solomon’s almaçen it is always sparkling water.

So, in a way, this truck ride is an adventure for Sam and he boards the truck with such expectancy. He squirms his way to the front with his suitcase and stands facing and leaning on the cab of the truck and places his suitcase in front of him. A Paraguayan man is standing next to him. Sam speaks a little Spanish de la calle, (of the streets), and knows one or two Guaranì words, so he turns to the man and proudly says, in Guaranì, the universal greeting of all Paraguayans, “eM-ba-ee-ja-pà?”  Or, “How you doin’?” To which the equally universal response is given, “ee-po-nà,” Or, “Great! How are you?” And thus the ice is broken and conversation begins. The conversation, of course, is conducted in Sam’s street Spanish with a dribble of Guaranì, and of course, again, all in a local campaña-Spanish, on the part of Wencelao. A loose translation of Sam and Wencelao’s conversation throughout the rest of this story follows, hopefully, with a feel of some of the local idioms and language conventions of the campaña. A few Spanish phrases will be thrown in to pepper the feel of their talk.

 

Sam, brimming with the excitement of his journey, looks at his Paraguayan companion and says, “Great day for travelling isn’t it?’

 

Wencelao, for that is his name, says, “Yeah, it sure is, especially since it hasn’t rained for over two weeks.”

 

Sam, “Yeah, now at least we know we won't get stuck and have to push this truck out of the mud.”

 

Wencelao, “I just hate that. I make this trip once a month and have pushed the damn truck many times out of the mud. Sometimes, more than once on a trip.”

 

Sam, “Well we’re in luck this time. How come you do this every month?”

 

Wencelao, “I go to Solomon’s almaçen, in Itacurubì, to buy supplies. You know things you can't grow or pick off trees like soap and grain and yerba matè and caña, and stuff and tools and things. And also to have a good meal. Solomon makes a great “bif a caballo.”

 

Sam, “Bif a caballo, what’s that?”

 

Wencelao, “Aii, ee-po-nà, (meaning here, something like, “fabulous!”). It’s something to die for. First he makes a nice asado (roast) of the steak over an open fire-pit. Then he puts two eggs with their yolks staring you in the face, on top of the steak, and the steak is surrounded with thin slices of fried mandioca (a root plant, comparable to potato) and the steaks are served with a tall glass of cerveza—Ahhh, I can just taste it. It makes this long trip more than worth it.”

 

Saliva flows in Sam’s mouth, for the food of Highland is rather plain and basically tasteless. Usually, the fare is thin soup, with small squares of vastly overcooked meat floating on top, along with a piece of mandioca, usually over-boiled, and tasting like cardboard. Whenever any of the members of Highland manage to get out to go on a trip, of course, one of the first things they do is have a smacking meal, and now Sam is looking forward to one, saying, “You’re sure making me taste it. I can't wait to get to Solomon’s.”

 

Wencelao, “It’ll take many hours before we get there. Would you like to have some tererè?”

 

Sam, “Thanks, I sure would.”

 

Wencelao opens his maleta, a simple sack with a hole in the middle, useful to sling over the neck of a horse when riding, or over one’s shoulder when not on a horse. The usual contents of a maleta are yerba matè on one side, and matè, (gourd), or guampa (cowhorn) one uses to drink from, and a bombilla, a silver straw-like tube. The other side of the maleta invariably contains mandioca. This is the basic diet of the Paraguayan campesino, without which he or she would die. But instead of mandioca, Wencelao has a plastic bottle of sparkling water for the tererè. In this way he treats himself for the arduous trip he has to make. Usually one uses plain water of any description to drink mate or tererè. In fact many a Paraguayan scoops up water from any stream or puddle, during rainy season without any ill effect. So powerful, say the Paraguayans, is yerba matè.

 

Unlike other cultures, Paraguayans don’t talk when they are sipping matè. Two to four to six people may be sitting by a fire sipping. Usually, either the female compañera of the man of the rancho, or the youngest of the family would prepare the matè, which involves boiling the water, placing yerba into the gourd or matè, placing a bombilla into the matè, pouring the boiling water into the matè then giving it first to the oldest of the group, or the guest, or the man of the rancho. That person sips the matè dry and hands it back to the server who refills it and hands it to the person sitting to the right of the first one. And in this fashion the matè goes around the circle. This continues until one of the circle says “Gracias,” after sucking his matè dry. Next time around, the one who says gracias is skipped. And so it goes until each person says gracias, and the matè ceremony is finished. Then they talk.

 

Sam knew about this strict matè protocol and kept a respectful silence until he broke it with the word, “Gracias.” Wencelao, who is serving, takes another drink. Then he puts away the mineral water, and the guampa, and begins the conversation.

 

“So,” he said, “You're with the barbudos, the bearded ones.”

 

“Si,” says Sam, “I am.”

“Ah,” says Wencelao. “I see many barbudos in the campaña. Especially the vaqueros (cowboys) who work on the estancia, when they drive their cattle they sometimes go through Carolina.”

 

“Is that where you live, Carolina?”

 

“Si.”

 

“And your family?”

 

“Si, mi compañera, and six children, four girls and two boys.”

 

Some words about the use of the word compañera. In the campaña of Paraguay, which means way off the beaten track, away from the major cities of the country, the institution of marriage is rare and casual. This is not because people don’t want to get married, but because priests are hard to come by. Yes, there is usually a church, an almaçen, and a one-room schoolhouse in most villages. The almaçen usually doubles as a bar. The larger villages have their own bar. But having a church in a village doesn’t mean there is a priest. Priests may be in charge of ten to twenty churches and they travel around to them every so often. And when the priest is sick he may stay in the village he’s at and rest. The chief work of the priest when he comes is first of all to baptize all the children who had been born since his last visit. Then he may perform a marriage or two. He hears confessions, and next morning would say mass, usually to a small group, usually female. Then, his work completed, he rests for a day or two, visits the local almaçen or bar, maybe drink matè with some of the people of the village, and eventually, drive off, usually on horseback; or if he’s a priest with enough money, he may have a small wagon with a horse.

 

The society of the campaña is matriarchal. This means the woman of the house stays put and the man roams about. So a man may have more than one compañera at a time. But usually, a woman has only one compañero at a time. The man goes from one rancho to another. He would also have children, usually several, in each of the ranchos where he has a compañera. This gets complicated because all relationships are tenuous and change. A man and a woman may get into a fight and separate. This means that the woman stays in the rancho and the man takes what he claims is his, a horse and wagon, if he’s lucky enough to own them, maybe some livestock, his knives, clothes, and maybe he may have a gun, and off he goes to another rancho where there is probably another compañera waiting for him. Or he may have met a woman at one of the weekend dances in the plaza, who agreed with him that they become compañeros. Then another family begins. At the same time, another man may take the place vacated, and a new compañero relationship begins, this means, more children. So there is a household of several children of different fathers but a common mother. For this reason, one does not ask a child about the details of his or her parentage.

 

“And so you’re off to Itacurubì.”

 

“Si,” says Wencelao, “and you, where are you going?”

 

“I’m going all the way, to Rosario.”

 

“Ah, si, Rosario.” says Wencelao, “Es muy lejo.” (It is very far.) “I’ve never been there.”

 

“What,” says Sam, “you’ve never been to Rosario?”

 

“No,” says Wencelao, “es muy lejo.”

“But it isn’t that far, only about a legua or two beyond Itacurubì.” (A legua is about as much a healthy, strong man, can walk in a day.) “Anyhow,” continued Sam, “how do you like Carolina?”

 

“Is a nice village. It has an almaçen and a school and a church.”

 

“And what do you do for work?”

 

“I have a horse and sometimes I work on a nearby estancia in Vaja Jhu. When there are a lot of cattle it is easy for me to get work at rodeo where the branding and castrations are done. I’m a good rodeo vaquero.”

 

“And do you drive cattle also?”

 

“No, I can't do that because the horse I have is too small and too weak and too old for such work.”

 

“So then what do you do?”

 

“Then I am home with my compañera and children. I plant mandioca and beans, and there are many citrus trees in the nearby woods, and bananas and guavas and papaya, and I have two goats for milk, and chickens for eggs, and pigs for meat. And I go hunting once a month and usually get a small boar or a tapir, and that is enough meat for some time, and so the time goes, and the time comes when I need to go to the almaçen in Itacaurbì, and so I go and here I am now with you. And what will you do in Rosario?”

 

Sam says, “There I catch a steamer, and go down to Asuncion.”

 

“Ahh,” says Wencelao, “Asuncion. Es muy lejo. And what work do you do?”

“Well, as you can see from my beard, I am a barbudo. I come from Highland where our religious community all live together.”

 

“Ahh, si,” says Wencelao, “Highland. And why is it you don’t shave your faces?”

 

“Well, you see, it’s sort of part of our religion.”

 

“Ahh, your religion. And what religion is that?”

 

“Well, it’s Christian, naturally.”

 

“Christian?” says, Wencelao, “With Jesùs and Marìa?”

 

“Yes,” says Sam. “But it’s more than that, you see, because we all live together, we all have everything together, I mean we don’t actually own anything. Everybody owns everything together.”

 

“Ah, si. But what about Jesùs and Marìa? Where do they come in?”

 

“Well, they don’t really come in because, you see, we don’t have to think about them because they’re there already.”

 

“Are they in the church?”

 

“Well we don’t really have a church, you see, we meet in the dining room where we all eat together. We meet there every Sunday and the dining room becomes our church.”

 

“Ah, so Jesùs and Marìa are in the dining room where you eat.”

 

“Well, no. You see it’s not like we have statues like you do you in your churches and put them on shelves. We have Jesus and Maria in our hearts.”

 

 “Ah, si, el corazón. And what about the priests? Where do you keep the priests if you have no church?”

 

“Well, we don’t have priests.”

 

“Ahh,” says Wencelao, “no priests. Then how do you have religion?”

 

“We have religion without priests and we have people who do what priests do for you, only we don’t call them priests. Do you understand?”

 

Wencelao says, “Ahh, si, pero, es muy lejo.”

 

And with that Wencelao slumped down, and with his back to the cab of the truck, shut his eyes and took a rest. Sam did likewise. But he is distraught. Here he is, an Apostle, talking to his first potential convert and he cant get anywhere with him. He realizes what he was saying was indeed muy lejo for Wencelao. And what is worse is that Sam didn’t know words that Wencelao could understand, about what community is all about, what the Early Christians were all about, what one body is all about, what unity is all about. He didn’t get to say anything about that and these are the most important things. He felt he was failing as an Apostle. He wondered if the Apostle Paul had it so bad? Did Paul have such a hard time speaking to people from different countries? He realized that the distance between Wencelao and himself is indeed muy lejo. And he also realized that muy lejo is not merely on Wencelao’s part but also on Sam’s part. Sam is muy lejo from Wencelao as much as Wencelao is muy lejo from Sam. And Sam slept a sleep of doubt. Doubting himself and depressed because of his inability to communicate with his first potential convert. His inability to reach him, make him understand. Muy lejo.

 

Wencelao shook Sam, “Despertarsi, llegamos a Itacurubi.” (Wake up; we’ve arrived at Itacurubì.) Sam opened his eyes, and rose to his feet. They were in a village. It is rather large as far as Paraguayan villages of the campaña go. The truck is parked in front of a huge storefront. On the front white stucco wall is painted in large letters, “Almaçen di Solomon.” Wencelao told Sam that there is enough time to buy supplies and get something to eat and drink.

 

Sam got off the truck and followed Wencelao. Right outside the door, perched on a block of wood is a vulture, holding a raw chunk of meat with his claws. It swooped down with its sharp beak ripping apart the meat and thrust it into its mouth. It gave Sam the chills to see this. “Eso es don Pedro,” says Wencelao to Sam. He says, that don Pedro is a pet vulture of Solomon. They go into the almaçen. It is amazing. It is comparable to a department store like Macy’s up in the States, in that it has just about everything. Not only food of every description: beans, tacos, meats, all sorts of provisions, live animals like pigs and chicken and even snakes and birds. All the fruits found in the campaña, like banana, mango, papaya, guava, grapes, oranges, grapefruits, lemons. The almaçen also has clothing that a vaquero would wear—bombachas, the long trousers that balloon at the bottom, straw hats, leather hats, all sorts of sombreros, leather aprons, worn by the vaqueros in rodeo, umbrellas, boots, all sorts of leather goods, saddles, ponchos, maletas, knives, sharpening stones, sharpening steels, guns, rifles, ammunition, leather holsters, light bulbs, candles, oil and hurricane lamps, and of course, yerba mate, guampas, bombillas of every description, made out of pure silver, bamboo, tin, made especially for mate, or tererè, and all sorts of gourds for the mate with burned-in decorative designs of every description.

 

The king of this domain is Solomon. When Sam sees him he is startled. Solomon looks exactly like the double of Sidney Greenstreet, of the Maltese Falcon. He has the same crusty voice, the same mannerisms, the same laughter, the same smile, and the same almost threatening geniality.   

 

And then there is the restaurant. There are tables inside the almaçen as well as outside. Sam and Wencelao choose a table outside; so they can see the steaks roast on the open fire pit. They have their bif a caballo. They eat, and drink their beer, and finally it is time to board the truck again to continue the journey to Rosario. Wencelao asks Sam, “And what will you do in Asuncion?”

 

“There I’ll catch a plane and fly back to my home in the Estados Unidos.”

 

“Ahh,” says Wencelao, “los Estados Unidos. Es muy lejo.”

 

Sam says, “Adios,” to Wencelao. Wencelao says, “tal luego.” And Sam climbs up the back of the truck. The truck takes off. Sam waves to Wencelao. Wencelao waves back. And Sam wonders. The total ken, the total range of knowledge and experience of this wonderful simple man is narrowly confined to less than sixty miles.

 

And he, Sam, boasts a ken of many thousands of miles. And Sam wonders who knows more about life, he with the larger macroscopic ken or Wencelao, with the microscopic ken? Who gets more out of life, he, Sam, who has travelled to Europe, Italy, Sicily, Africa, Nigeria, Switzerland, and now South America, Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Cuba, Corumbà on the southern edge of the Mato Grosso? Or is it Wencelao who has travelled to Santi Ni, Vaca Jhu, and Itacurubì, where there is the great almaçen of Solomon? Wencelao has not even gone to Rosàrio. Rosario is muy lejo. Does Wencelao find everything he needs in Solomon’s almaçen? In Carolina? Does Sam find what he needs to find in the almaçens of all the cities of the world he visits? Does he find it in Highland?

 

And from there to where? To muy lejo? And Sam wonders who is further away or muy lejo from life? He or Wencelao?

 

 

May 3, 2009