Paraguayan Elections

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  Guarambare, Paraguay
Saturday, April 19, 2008

Paraguayīs presidential elections will happen this sunday and its a pretty big deal. The same political party, "The Colorados" have been in power for over 60 years beginning with the Stroessner dictatorship that lasted till 1989. The corruption is unbelievable here. Last election people were voting that had been dead for years and they just canīt shake this party. The main reason is that anybody that is employed by the state must vote with this party or they will lose their job, that is about 20% of the population straight off. My host dad for example had to teach for 5 years without pay because he refused to vote with the party. He had to wait 5 years until a paid position opened up that there wasnīt a colorado to fill. So basically he didnīt get paid a nickle for five years and now he gets $300 US a month which still isnīt enough to support the family on and that is why my host mom goes to Spain. There was a yellow fever scare this summer and in certain places in the countryside all the colorados got the vaccine first and the rest didnīt get the vaccine until a few weeks afterwards. A ex volunteer that married a paraguayan told this story because his family was one that didnīt get the vaccine. One volunteer, on her future site visit, was with here host family when a truck of colorados pulled up offering to pay any medical expenses they had if they voted colorado.

The party will pay you to put up signs in your yard to vote for there candidate.  In this election they are going to give out cellphones and when you go into the box and vote you have to take a picture of your ballot, and if you have shown that you voted for the "correct" candidate you get to keep it. The people in the party get rich and thus can afford to hand out cellphones to keep there party in power. The two main candidates are Blanca Ovelar, the colorado candidate and a woman, and Federico Lugo, the liberal candidate who was a bishop and has renounced the title. He is ahead in the polls by quite a bit, my dad told me 18 points higher than the rest, but sometimes the facts get confused with what people would like to believe. One of the lines in a liberal propoganda song says "If you elect Lugo, then money will rain down from the sky". There will be huge protests if the colorados win and my dad says rioting as well, it could get serious, but nobody can really say. The colorados control all aspects of the goverment and our Peace Corps historian believes they will all get cleaned out if Lugo takes power. Due to the tense climate Peace Corps has ordered that we "Hold Fast" which means we canīt leave our training site until they lift it. It starts tomorrow, but we donīt really need to start worrying until next week when the results come in.

This next friday we are going to finally swear in as Peace Corps volunteers and I will get a cellphone. We have directions to a coffee shop where we can finally get real coffee, because you can only get instant anywhere else. We get to spend the weekend in a sweet hotel down town with a rooftop pool, and get to see some american movies.  Iīm going to catch the two I missed in the US .. "no country for old men" and "there will be blood" they are all in english with spanish subtitles.

My site visit went well. I donīt have pictures up yet, but Iīll put some up next entry. The area was all rolling hills and really pretty. the place where I want to live is a small white adobe house with a porch in the back for my hammack. In the yard it has giant mango trees, lots of banana trees, 3 grapefruit trees, and a mandarine tree. All the houses have running water and real bathrooms so I will be okay on that front. Many of the volunteers are bathing in streams or using latrines. The boys of the family that I stayed with at the house nearby were the old volunteer lived are all around 10. They are the family of the volunteer that was here before me. They took me on a hike in the fields behind there house where there is a pretty good looking soccer field that they have built, but the goals are makeshift out of sticks. Anyway back in the fields there was a grove of avocado trees and mandarines. On the last day of the visit I helped slaughter a pig. I didnīt actually stick the knife in its throat, but I held it while it happened. It wasnīt as bad as I thought it would be because it died pretty quickly. We then peeled the skin off and cut it open. I got to eat pig liver which was not very tastey at all. Also I had to give three speeches while I was visiting site. During one of them I said "I am very happy to be here", and then I paused because I was going to say that I was excited to start working but I couldnīt think of the words, and then after the pause I figured I better have something to say but the only thing I could think of was what I had already said, so I said again " and I am very happy to be here", and they all laughed.

 The first thing I am going to do is start the school garden and start giving charlas on dental health because most of the kids have a few rotten teeth that you can see. There will be lots of those fogones (brick oven looking things) to fix because most in the town are busted up and donīt function.

If you guys have any questions about life here feel free to ask, and if any of you guys want to send me some mail I will be grateful and will respond promptly but it will take a month to reach me and a month for a letter to get back to you.

The address is.

Peace Corps Paraguay
162 Chaco Boreal c/Mcal. Lopez
Asuncion 1580, Paraguay

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