Semana Santa

Hello everyone! You may notice that it has been awhile since I last blogged and for that I apologize.  I wish that I could say that I have been super busy in site and overwhelmed with projects but that would be a lie.  What really happened is Semana Santa (Holy Week) or Easter, then I went home for a week, then I went to a week of training and now, I am back!

Semana Santa is a big deal in Paraguay.  If I remember correctly (I am typing without internet so I cannot double check this stat, please don’t quote me on this or anything really), Paraguay is about 90% Catholic.  When I arrived in site everyone asked if I would be here for Christmas, New Years, and Semana Santa.  I think everyone in my G (group of volunteers that I swore in with) was a little curious about what all the hype was about.  The first few days of Semana Santa are like any normal week, and then Wednesday comes.  Wednesday of Semana Santa should just be called National Chipa Making Day in Paraguay.  This was my first experience making chipa from start to finish and I was lucky enough to get to do it 3 times in one week (it’s not really something you need to experience more than once).  This is the list of ingredients that can be found in chipa (Ña Julia’s recipe): 5 kilos pig fat (yum), 7 kilos Paraguayan cheese (make by taking fresh cow milk and soaking a cow stomach in it, the cow stomach causes the milk to curdle and they collect it and let it harden making a soft cheese), about 5 kilos corn meal (fresh, I know this because I helped grind it), about mandioca flour (has to be bought but can be made in a long process), and a little bit of anis. The flour numbers may be off a little because they had huge bags of each and poured it in until they felt the recipe was right.  We then mixed this huge mixture in a big metal pan (that we also use for bathing).  From what I gathered you have to mix it and roll it out with your hands for a while because you need to heat up the pig fat?  Some of these things may be a little wrong because I am having everything explained to me in Spanish and Guarani.  While we were doing all of this the men were heating up the ‘tatacua’ or huge brick oven outside.  We filled it with wood and let it all burn, then took a piece of bamboo with leaves attached to it and swept out the oven.  Then we put the pans of chipa (we took about 3 hours forming little shapes with the dough) into the oven and my host sister Lourdes took care of cooking them.  Then ta-da, Chipa!

The whole process took around 5 ½ hours and was exhausting.  Fresh chipa is actually pretty delicious if you try to forget about how the recipe is almost ¼ pig fat.  The problem is that EVERYONE in town makes over 200 pieces.  Then they try to share them.  Naturally everyone wanted to make sure the PCV tried their chipa so I was gifted over 20 pieces of chipa.  I think I ate only 3 or 4. 

I spent most of Friday and Saturday at the Church since some missionaries from a church in Asuncion had come in and most of the town was there.  What I enjoyed most about this is that since the people running the show were from Asuncion they spoke less Guarani (it is really a language used in homes in the campo, or countryside).  I was able to understand more and help them out.  By the time Sunday came around I was on a chipa high and just wanted to sit in my house and not be given food.  Semana Santa was an interesting experience.  I enjoyed comparing the differences since in the States (or at least in my family) we put more importance on Good Friday and Easter Sunday and here it is all about the chipa.

*I made sure to take a lot of picture of the whole process because I felt it would be easier to explain.  Then when I was in the ATL airport getting ready to head back to Paraguay my computer died and I lost all of my information on my computer. Although I had everything backed up on an external hard drive my pictures are impossible to locate! Sorry for the lack of photos, maybe I’ll find them later?