I was lying in bed in my house having just finished dinner at my neighbors when my neighbor Lorena came to my door and told me that our neighbor on the other side had died and asked if I wanted to accompany her. Obviously I said yes but I was so nervous, so full of emotions, I had just been talking with him yesterday, what could have possibly happened?
And so off we went into the darkness towards his house where we turned on the outside lamp and saw him, peacefully laying in his hammock. And my neighbors began to cry and wail and gather the neighborhood to help. I'd never seen a dead body before, nevermind touched one, but in all the shock and emotions running through me I kept my composure.
And little by little people from all around the community came. We bathed him, changed the sheets on the table we laid him on, put him in his favorite clothes and laid the most beautiful flowers all around his body.
And it is very rare for Paraguayans to show emotions, just isn't part of their culture which is why the few times I've cried have made it all around as neighborhood news. But nobody was afraid to share in the moment. Screaming, sobbing, falling down in anger and sadness it was so hard to watch. And I wasn't sure of my role, whether this American girl who showed up a few months ago had any right to cry in comparison to people who have been neighbors their entire lives.
Thats the thing about my campo community, nobody leaves. So there's a lot of gossip, a lot of little cliques, but there's also a shit ton of love and support. And at 11 o'clock at night almost a hundred people came from all over, not one of them part of his family, to be with him and provide love and support to those who needed it most.
People were cooking meals for those who would stay awake all night with the body, heating up water to bathe him in, lighting candles, leading prayers, and doing something that I haven't seen my community do yet....work together.
And it was amazing. I never felt awkward, never out of place, always felt like I belonged. My hugs were received with open arms (Paraguayans don't hug like some other people I know), and they didn't seem to care one bit that I didn't understand most of anything they were telling me through their gasps and tears.
And the burial was sunday and every night for the next nine days is a time to come to his house and pray. I made the community favorite banana bread for tonight and am so happy to see people come together.
So to my dear Alejandro, Thank you. Thanks for calling us the guapos sin familias or the cool kids without families. Thanks for always welcoming me into your home and offering me beer. Now I wish I had taken you up on it. Thanks for helping me put up my hammock because I'm far too incompetent to tie ropes to a tree on my own. I'll think of you every time I'm lying in it. Which as we both know, will be a lot. Thanks for going house to house passing the time with me with our friends because neither of us have families to tend to. Thanks for bringing this community together and for reminding us of just how precious and beautiful life is. Cordillerita misses you lots! I hope you know that. Lots of love!!
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