After being evacuated from her Peace Corps assignment in Paraguay at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, a traveler returns to find out what has changed over the past four years…and what hasn’t.
The land is destitute. Barren, ghostlike fields stretch towards the horizon like the hardened gaze of a Depression farmer. A sweltering emptiness remains after the pestilence – the swarm of metallic, rumbling beasts that swallowed the land and left only silence. They came for the soy harvest. Later, they will come for the corn.
Small pockets of forest spring up amidst the fallow expanse, sandwiched between the red dirt carpet and the blue fishbowl sky. The trees huddle together like wildebeest crossing a savanna, hoping they won’t get picked off by lions. They murmur of a time not long ago when this land was forest, when capuchin monkeys ruled the canopies and jaguars prowled the undergrowth.
Now, leering billboards advertise agrochemical companies.
Were those here four years ago? I’ve forgotten.
—
It was March 17th, 2020, when we were abruptly told to pack our bags and evacuate back to the United States. Three days later, I was on the last plane out of Paraguay, aborting nearly a year and a half early what was supposed to be two years working in the Peace Corps.
That last night, I had walked with my host mom through the corn fields at dusk, wading dreamlike through the wreckage of our sorrow’s tidal wave. In its aftermath, we spoke of light things: ABBA karaoke and veggie empanadas and screaming nieces and nephews. She wanted a photo giving me a piggyback ride even though I was a foot taller than her and my limbs didn’t know where to go, but I wrapped my legs tight around her waist and spread my arms out like wings.
The red dirt roads rolled on behind us like a river gone dry and bloodshot.
Back home in quarantine, I dreamed of red dirt. Of uninterrupted horizons, of chipa baking in clay ovens and the sweet stink of mango season. I dreamed of shucking peanuts and sipping mente y boldo terere through a bombilla, of a green chalkboard that never quite erased and whole watermelons attacked with a spoon. I scrolled obsessively through my camera roll, desperate for proof it hadn’t all been a fever dream.
—
In the rural, 600-person town where they lived, Zully and Ezekiel were somewhat anomalous. Childless, vegetarian(ish), environmental advocates and political dissidents who denounced the corrupt town administration, some of the few fighting for real change. They held covert meetings to plan incriminating document leakages and strategized campaigns for upstanding alternative candidates. They organized spirited but poorly-attended protests outside the municipality, fashioned lawn adornments out of tires and plastic bottles, and led resource drives for local indigenous communities. Ezekiel claimed almost anything could be healed with plants and herbs, and above all else he prized his massive tome of natural remedies.
We joked that Zully was my host mom, but she was only twenty seven to my twenty three. She called me her “niña grande,” big child, and took her role seriously, warning against inauspicious food pairings and staying up until I got home. Once, after deeming my foot washing job inadequate, she dragged me into the shower to scrub my feet for me, revealing that my stark Chaco tan was in fact 60 percent dust.
But quickly, the parent-child charade gave way to friendship. We did kitchen zumba during rainstorms and talked openly about religion, relationships, and mental health, a salve for both of us amidst a conservative culture ruled largely by small talk. We watched movies on the floor and went on long walks when the mud had dried enough not to glob into six inch platforms under our shoes, wondering about God and the self and what it means to be free. On dull summer days when the power was out and the cicadas were screaming and I lay languid in a pool of my sweat after accidentally consuming a maggot-filled avocado, Zully was what kept me from wondering what exactly I was doing in Paraguay.
—
Years crept by and the memories faded like old newsprint, taking on dust and sepia tones. Some of them became indecipherable: the recipe for mango cake and how to say “beer as cold as a penguin’s ass” in Guaraní; the names of my favorite students and the particulars of that time we tried to go camping and drove four hours home at midnight over cobblestones instead. In the back of my pantry, an old bag of yerba maté gathered dust along with the guampa that had been a gift from Zully. It leaked out of the bottom now.
But I never forgot how to say grace in Spanish, and sometimes it coursed through my head before mealtimes. Padre celestial, te damos gracias por este día, por estos alimentos, te pido que nos bendiga en el nombre de Jesús amén, exhaled in a single breath, eyes closed, palms turned upward.
I never forgot how to say “my stomach hurts” in Guaraní (che pya rasy) or “let’s drink” (ja’umina) or “the situation is very grave” (hendy kavaju resa, literally, the “the horse’s eyes are on fire”).
I never forgot how to say “I’ll be right back,” ahata aju, because it was a promise I’d made.
—
The road is paved now, but the bus is still thick with dust. My phone pings. It’s Zully. “Che memby, donde pa estas?” Three crying face emojis and then, “No puedo de la emoción.” My daughter, where are you? I can’t handle the excitement. I send her my location, and she responds with a gif of one cat giving another cat CPR, and then one of a dog riding a turtle that says “me voy,” I’m coming. Fingers sweating, I send her one of a corgi grinning through a heart-shaped hole in a watermelon.
We rumble to a stop outside the PetroMax gas station. “Kilomotro doce,” announces the bus driver. Kilometer 12. All the towns along this road are named for their distance from the main turnoff. Km 12 is the only “urban” center for miles, boasting two schools, a health post, and a municipal building.
Next to the gas station stands the Milcell where Ezekiel sells cell phones part time, on the days he’s not teaching. A massive Christmas tree made of plastic bottles dominates the median – Zully’s handiwork. They led a project this past year to make Christmas decorations from recycled materials.
My heart thumps wildly as I stand and make my way down the steps out into the swelter.
What if everything has changed?
What if nothing has?
—
Paraguay is not beautiful in the way of grandeur. There are no snow-capped peaks or white sand beaches, no alpine lakes or rainbow hills or Mayan ruins. It is landlocked and hot and dusty and flat. Many conflate it with Uruguay or even Panama, and the few backpackers that do make it to Paraguay seem to all ask one another the same question: “So, why Paraguay?”
Sometimes called “El Corazón de Sudamérica” (the Heart of South America), Paraguay sits wedged between Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia, overshadowed by its sprawling and more ostentatious neighbors. It is unique in Latin America for its true bilingual status: Guaraní has not only survived Spanish colonization but flourished, and today it is taught in schools and generally favored as the language of the home and the heart. Many Paraguayans use a Spanish-Guaraní hybrid called jopara.
The country’s post-colonial history has been marked by violence and authoritarianism. The Triple Alliance War (1864-1870) and the Chaco War (1932-1935) were two of the bloodiest conflicts on Latin American record; in the former, Paraguay lost more than half of its population to violence and famine and surrendered significant swaths of territory to Brazil and Argentina. The midcentury Stroessner dictatorship (1954-1989) ushered in an era of censorship, repression, and fear-mongering, the legacy of which has marred Paraguayan attempts at democracy with endemic corruption and weak rule of law.
Economic growth, however, has skyrocketed in recent decades.
Thanks to industrial agriculture, Paraguay is the fourth largest exporter of soy in the world.
—
I squint into the sunlight and, suddenly, there they are: Zully, and Ezekiel, and most of the extended family, nieces and nephews four years older than I remember. Zully is thinner, which I know she is thrilled about. She wears cut-off jean shorts and a cropped pink blouse that shows off her collarbones. Her dark ponytail is sleek and long, and she looks younger, somehow, than I remember.
She waves a sign that says “WELCOME che memby te extrañamos” a tri-language mash translating to Welcome, my daughter we missed you. I stumble off the last step and into her arms. Her body, for years only implied behind messages or Facetimes, is real and warm against mine. We rock and laugh, and I cradle the back of her head with my hand, feeling its shape, its solidity.
The house, once painted bright white, is now splotched black and brown in places, and red dust creeps up from the ground like a water stain. Inside, almost nothing has changed. There is the red sofa with the flowered pillows, the massive photo collage of Zully and Ezekiel’s wedding day, the wall stickers textured to resemble white bricks. The red bookshelves and wooden kitchen table. The red termo I’d given them as a gift before I left, embossed with the Paraguayan and American flags.
They kept everything I left in my hurried departure: photos of home still line the walls of my room and a stack of abandoned clothes sits on a shelf in the corner. The barely played, water-damaged guitar leans at the foot of the bed, a tribute to all the times Zully and I madly squeegeed intruding rainwater out of my room. A purple-haired doll – a gift from a student – grins lopsidedly from the corner; now with a lazy eye, tangled hair, and marker scribbles on its face, courtesy of Zully’s nieces.
On Sundays, we have lunch at Zully’s parents house: boiled mandioca (yucca), grilled chicken and pork, cucumber tomato salad, and a steaming tray of sopa paraguaya (like cornbread but full of lard). Just like we always did. We drink terere and talk about how hot it is, watch Rango in segments on YouTube, and harvest peanuts from the fields, slapping at the biting gnats on our ankles.
“Estás más gorda,” Zully’s mother observes. You’re fatter. Said fondly, factually, with a nod of approval.
—
Zully’s parents – now subsistence farmers – first came to the area back in the 80s, when land was practically free. Antonio had been hired to cut down trees, which he did with a machete. Back then, he said, the forest was so thick you could barely see through it, and they slept in tents at the mercy of wild things.
This forest, the Atlantic Forest, was once one of the world’s largest and most biodiverse, covering large swaths of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. But logging and industrial agriculture have reduced it to fragments. In Paraguay, just 13 percent of the original forest cover remains.
In its place, commercial soy and corn plantations, mostly owned by Brazilians, have overtaken eastern Paraguay. Brazilian land acquisition began following the Triple Alliance War and continues to this day as impoverished farmers are enticed to sell off their lands to wealthy buyers. Brazilians now control at least 14 percent of Paraguay’s land.
But rural communities are suffering amidst the agribusiness boom. Genetically modified soy and corn crops are inundated with pesticides, many of which have been banned in other countries due to their harmful toxicity. They contaminate water and soil, poison animals and subsistence crops, and cause serious health problems in humans. In 2019, the UN Human Rights committee ruled that Paraguay had failed to safeguard its citizens from the consequences of pesticides.
To add insult to injury, industrial agriculture provides few local jobs, and younger generations are increasingly abandoning Paraguay to seek opportunity elsewhere.
—
Zully tells me her mother’s chickens are dying. And Zully’s garden, once full of eggplants and tomatoes and herbs, has fallen into disrepair because the plants don’t grow like they used to.
“It’s the chemicals they use on the plantations,” she tells me grimly. “They kill everything.” Everything that hasn’t been genetically modified to resist them.
So, too, does poison plague politics. Ezekiel tells me the new mayor is even more corrupt than the old. Their political action has made them unemployable in town, so they must motorcycle over an hour to teach at their respective schools. The people aren’t interested in truth or change, he tells me, just in which candidate is sending them a fruit basket.
“Hendy kavaju resa,” I say grimly, inadequately. They laugh and nod. “Hendy.”
—
Though the once formidable Atlantic Forest is in tatters, it is still one of the most biologically rich and diverse forests on the planet, and the patches that remain continue to provide critical ecosystem services.
And, earnest restoration efforts are underway. Under the Trinational Atlantic Forest Pact, hundreds of organizations are collaborating across Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina to preserve and revive what remains. Over the past three decades, they have restored over 700,000 hectares of land, and they aim to reach 1 million hectares by 2030 and 15 million by 2050 – an area larger than Nicaragua. Projects to support cultivation of organically grown yerba mate are also emerging – using methods that capture carbon, reforest land, and provide economic opportunity for indigenous peoples.
I want to believe that this will be enough, the same way I want to believe that Zully and Ezekiel’s resistance will bear fruit, that the seeds of their activism will not simply be blown away in a cloud of tractor dust.
But if no one sows the seed, the only certainty is that it will not grow.
—
Nascent corn crops rise like soldiers, called to duty from their soil slumber. As I walk along their edge, the sun hangs low and golden, spilling its rays over baby bump hills. Cows graze and swish their tails and something rumbles in the distance – a tractor or a motorcycle.
Even though I know the land will be razed again, that the beasts will come and take everything down to the nub, I can’t help but smile as I bask in the sun’s last rays. It’s the time of day when sharp renderings soften just before darkness, when everything is tinted with nostalgia and forgiveness.
It’s the time just before dreamworld jungles emerge – where rivers rage and orchids sway, where jaguars lounge and caimans crawl, and unseen things hoot and sing and howl.
