Thursday April 26

Last night I couldn’t sleep and wrote a whole bunch of witty blogs, but in my sleepiness accidentally didn’t save them. So here’s a summary:

-On Tuesday went on a little trip about 20k from Tacuati to an estancia or ranch. Remembered to bring my camera and captured at least somewhat the beauty of the landscape here.
-Also on that trip clarified the difference between cows and bulls and such:
Toro (bull): male, still has its balls
Mbui or gui (ox): male, castrated, works for a living
Novillo: male, castrated, we eat it (in English would we call it an unemployed ox?)
Lechera o vaca (milker or cow): female that has given birth and now gives milk
?? some other name I forget: female that hasn’t yet given birth
-I also realized as I looked at the herd of toros that I was looking at them with new eyes. As a vegetarian for 15 years in the US, when I looked at cows before it was to appreciate their beautiful eyes or feel sorry for them being held in captivity and maltreated or reminisce about BabyBlue and other cows I’ve met before. But here, when I saw these cows, I just fixated on the huge humps on their backs, which is called the lomito and is the part that makes a delicious bife de lomito or sirloin steak. I now have the eyes of a carnivore.
-Last night unable to sleep I read my Newsweek and was struck by the amount of money being spent already on the US Presidential primaries. I’m a huge Obama supporter since I saw him speak in Nov 2005, and I understand the need for spending in US politics to raise name recognition and such so that one has a chance at winning and doing all the good things we hope s/he will do as President. But I couldn’t help but stop for a minute at the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent already, and converting that into guaranis and thinking of the things that could be done with that money. Obviously cash wouldn’t solve all of Paraguay’s problems, the solutions are incredibly complicated, etc. But it still kept me awake for a while, thinking about how much money there is in the world and how we choose to spend it.
-Today it’s raining, finally, and it’s predicted that the temperature will finally drop as well. We’re about a month overdue apparently for the beginning of autumn, which doesn’t really exist here but is just like winter, when it can be pretty cold at night but during the high point of the day the sun warms quite a bit. I’m just looking forward to not having to do so much laundry (you can rewear clothes you haven’t sweat in!) and not looking/feeling like a big disgusting wet mess all the time. Plus it’s time to put away the tank tops and find a sweater or two!! Hooray!