Politik Kills

I just stepped out of an amazing shower. Wish I had realised 6 months ago all I had to do was clean the shower head. Tonight, instead of standing under a sort of drip, switching at regular intervals between scalding hot and sharp inhale cold, I had a full lukewarm shower. Like showers should be. I can’t describe how happy it makes me that showers can be an enjoyable experience again instead of a daily inconvenience.

The Colorado Party (right wing) won the local election on Sunday. I have no idea what that means. Probably that no one cares about politics. We went to a party a few weeks ago which had a live band and a lot of liberal party people talking about change, progress, children, money, jobs etc. Well, that part wasn’t much of a party, but the messages were good, if very boring.  A few of my friends were working for the Liberales which is encouraging, but the Colorados still won. I really think though the people here just don’t care and sometimes I think why should they? What benefits do they ever see?  They don’t even have a proper road to their town. Many of the houses are still without electricity and the ones that do have it have probably stolen it off the main power line at great risk. The government have been promising a better road since I arrived here and probably for longer than that. From their point of view all I can see is broken promises so they must do too.

The road to get to Laguna Blanca from the main Routa 3 in Santa Rosa is 30km of dirt which changes to sand about halfway down. It has 3 bends, 6 hills and 4 bridges. The bridges are made up of a row of planks parallel to the streams they cross with two or three more planks running perpendicular which you can line up your wheels with. Much of the time (depending on the weather), the edge of the bridge is a few feet away from the road so your wheels kind of fall into a hole and come back up onto the planks. It’s fine in a camionetta like the one I drive which has huge wheels or for the trucks transporting wood and coal to Brazil but not so great for the motorbikes with their wee wheels which is what most of the local people drive.  A few months ago Jeni and I were called on to bring life jackets (which they have here for people hiring kayaks) to one of the bridges. A woman and a girl had fallen in the stream after her motorbike had fallen down the hole and she lost control. Unfortunately, they went into the fastest flowing and deepest of the four. When Jeni and I arrived, the whole community was there. The girl had been found and rushed to hospital with some injuries and the woman was still missing. Some men had gone out on a boat to look for her and shortly after they returned with her body. She was found 80m downstream of the bridge and turned out to be the Aunt of Concep - one of the guys I work with. Jeni was quite upset but Rosario made her feel “better” by saying that this happens all the time and you just accept it and move on – asi nomas. Explains why the Paraguayans in the country here have 10 brothers and sisters.

To compensate for the loss, the municipality pledged to build proper bridges over the streams. So far they have drilled about 25 30ft concrete blocks into the mud near the existing bridge. Each one is a different height and at least 20ft above the road. Every time we drive by there, the volunteers and I speculate on how exactly this bridge will work. Will it have a lift into the sky? Is it a suspension bridge? Who knows, but they would have been better hiring ants or termites to build the thing. It’s been nearly 6 months of putting concrete posts in the ground. In the meantime they put little pieces of wood at either side of the bridges, perhaps to help the motorbikes catch some extra air as they soar off the edges. Probably luckily, these have since fallen off and never been replaced.

The local government has done some good things though. The most notable is the new bus terminal which is excellent. The buses used to stop (a bit dangerously) at the side of the road in Santa Rosa. There was a row of cassitas or little huts selling barbequed meat and mandioca at the opposite side of the road. To get to the houses you had to climb a sort of muddy hill, and they had no running water, no electricity, holes between the planks in the floor and the playground for the workers kids was the main road. I liked going there but Paul always refused stating he really wasn’t up for getting dysentery. Now they have built an actual terminal with a sign that says so and everything. The huts are now concrete houses around a central square complete with a statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle. Each house has light and water with seating etc. while the kids have a safe place to play. There is even a place where you can wait for a bus. There is still no ticket stand – you just have to know the right guy to talk to, and there is still a healthy quota of drunk, homeless people hanging around, but it feels better.  

What started out as me being happy about a shower turned into quite a morbid blog. Maybe next time I’ll write something a bit happier – after a few more decent showers perhaps.