Semana Santa - Easter Week

Easter week begins here on Holy Wednesday, when schools and businesses close and everyone stays home and makes chipa. Chipa is the yellow cheese bread you see above. Chipa-making is a multi-hour process that involves dozens of eggs, cheese, corn flour, manioca flour, salt, pig fat and margarine to make a cheesey bread that´s quite good (at least in small doses). It´s literally what everyone in Paraguay does on Wednesday, because on Friday (Good Friday) they "fast," which here means they don´t eat anything EXCEPT the chipa. Everything´s been pretty quiet this week, my family´s store was even closed yesterday, and apparently several hundred thousand Paraguayans travelled to the interior of the country to spend time with their families back in the campo. For me, it´s been a nice time to relax, spend time with friends, and start packing, b-c we leave on Friday!!!