Next week everyone will be eating chipa for Semana Santa ("Holy Week," the few days before Easter). It's a type of bread that gets eaten as breakfast, snack, whatever. Yesterday, I met a 13-year old guy on the bus who attends school from 6 till 11 AM, while his mom is making chipa (pronounce it CHEE puh).  Then, he takes the bus and a basket full of Mom's chipa to a town 30 miles away--almost two hours on the bus in high traffic--to sell at stop lights.  Every. single. day.  Well, he stays home on Sunday, but you get the idea.  13 years old, did I  mention?  His basket is a round, flat one, about 2 feet in diameter, which he stacks high with chipa and balances on his head.  He told me he's never had it fall off his head, but I'm not sure he'd admit it if he had.  ;)

Photo by Marisa

CHIPA TRIVIA:

• Along the main roads of Paraguay, especially where there are bus stops, you'll find folks weaving through traffic, waving cars down, or climbing on the buses to sell chipa.  You're driving in the middle of nowhere on a long road to the next town, and out of the blue there's a chipa gal on the side of the road, flagging you down.  Like the Paraguayan version of a drive-thru.  
• People who sell chipa are called chiperos (men) or chiperas (women).  The chiperas, unfortunately, have a shady reputation, and being a chipera is looked at as the worst sort of job.  I've heard parents using that job to harass their kids about an education, saying something akin to our "What!?  You wanna dig ditches all your life?" 
• Chiperas on the roadside wear special uniforms to identify them, usually a very short skirt, a white apron, and pantyhose.  They are the only Paraguay women that I ever see in pantyhose/stockings.
• Men seem more likely to have the big basket on their heads, balanced on a rolled-up hand towel.  The chiperas usually carry them in a more traditional basket with a handle. 
• Sometimes chipa is shaped into various things, although I haven't figured out yet why they make the  animal shapes.  During Holy Week, sometimes you find chipa shaped like a palm branch.
• At ungodly early hours, small trucks with campershells make their way through all the neighborhoods, their beds stacked full of chipa.  They use loudspeakers to announce their arrival.  Many of them blare out that they are selling chipa barrero, supposedly a bigger, better version.  Imagine being woken from sleep before sunrise, by a man in a truck just outside your window at about a million decibels of sound, screaming, "CHIPA BAREEEEEEEEERRO!  BAREEEEEEERO!"  
• If you are speaking in Guaraní, the word CHEEpuh becomes sheePAH.  

Here's the recipe, although further from the city, I've noticed that people make it without much cheese and form it in the shape of a doughnut, unless it's a roadside stand.  It's harder in the doughnut shape, and the cheese makes it SO yummy, so I prefer this recipe, shaped into dinner rolls or long oval rolls.  Give it a try!

250 grams of pork fat (or butter, Crisco, etc.)
500 grams of soft cheese (Mexican works well, if you can't find Paraguayan cheese)
8 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tbsp salt
2 tsp anise seed
1 kg mandioca, yuca, or cassava starch

1. Mix the fat, the cheese, and the eggs.
2. Dissolve the salt in the milk, then slowly add the starch followed by the anise seeds.
3. Knead the whole batch, till it's nice and smooth.
4. Form ping-pong sized balls or either donut shapes, and bake 15-20 minutes at 350 degrees (slighty less for the donut-shaped ones), until the outside is browned a bit and kinda crusty.  (The inside remains SLIGHTY doughy, so don't try to cook it dry.)  
5. Eat 'em while they're warm, because they are gooey and soft inside.  If they get cold, the crust can be quite hard to bite.
6. It's baked in a brick oven (tatakua) here, but if you don't have one in your backyard, oh well.  Just use your electric oven and pretend it's a tatakua.  I won't tell.

I kindly asked this driver if I could take the picture as I got off the bus, but I didn't explain to him how it sums up a problem we struggle with here--that of one's relationship with God not really having an effect on the behaviors of his everyday life.  The sad reality is that what we find is a culture very steeped in traditional God-worship in the form of outward religion, but no real heart change.  Somehow, no matter the topic, our teaching here always seems to wrap back around to the need for a heart change, the need to be in a relationship with God that changes who we are from the inside out.

Another sad thing that caught my eye this week happened just a few miles from us.  For those of you who share this blog with your children, you may want to pre-read this one before sharing it at the dinner table.  A 15-year-old boy's friend dismembered and buried him.  The arrested 19-year-old young man says he didn't actually murder his friend, but that his lifelong buddy appeared at his house injured.  He showed where someone had hit him in the head, spent the night, and died within a few hours.  The older guy then found that his younger friend had been shot once and stabbed numerous times, and was pretty freaked out about having the dead body in his own home.  So what did he do?  He took the body apart, put it in a few trash bags, and buried him friend in the backyard.  Who knows how much of the story is true, but it's a little freaky that this happened so close to us and that we have passed that neighborhood a trillion times.  Stories like this renew our passion to work with the youth here and keep them off the streets, showing them a better way to live--God's way.  What a tragic end to this young man's life.  Lord, give us strength and wisdom to minister to these people.

Yesterday, it seems we spent the day in the Word.  My friend Susan, who lives close enough again to walk to our house, came over for the Bible study we've been doing in the book of John.  Her husband hadn't gone in to work yet, so he piled in for some of our discussions while Camille and Caroline took turns cooing at their baby girl, Zoe.  We talked about the importance of baptism, and how freaky it must have been for John the Baptist to be studying the Old Testament writings, come across the passage in Isaiah 40, and FIND HIMSELF THERE!  Imagine!  How did it dawn on him that HE WAS that voice in the wilderness, announcing the Lord?  Kinda like if I pulled out some ancient text that talked about a 30-something mom of 2 moving to Paraguay and getting hit by a truck.  Just freaky.  


After this young family left and we ate lunch, it was time for our family devotional time, which happens to be on spiritual warfare.  Yesterday's chapter was "Embracing Truth," and we learned how the truth sets us free from the bondage of shame and secrecy.   How sharing our own struggles brings freedom to those who may be in the same boat.  How admitting our shortcomings and confessing them in community breaks the power of enemy and opens us up for healing.  We all have these situations where we would rather wallow where we are than go to the trouble to "get it out there." But God's upside-down kingdom teaches that if we want that great feeling of release and light airiness (you know that feeling?) that comes with real freedom, we have to sometimes jump into the "uncomfortableness" of sharing and confession and admission of guilt.  How does that work?  Just freaky.

A few hours later, a small group came together in our living room--they're really "The Porch Group," but it was raining--for a time of sharing and learning.  We sang songs, insights from our personal devotions, asked questions, prayed.  Each person contributed something to our gathering, and out of nowhere, I think I felt a bit like John the Baptist.  No, I didn't wanna run out into the wilderness or get beheaded or anything, but I saw myself in the Word of God.  It was written a whole lot of years ago, but I realized that all those scriptures about sharing, about fellowship, about freedom, about those of us who need it--they were written just for me!  How is it that after thousands of years, the human condition hasn't changed THAT MUCH, and what applied to them then still applies to me now?  How is it that God was able to write this book that is absolutely timeless and applies to every person who ever lived or will live?  Just freaky.

But don't worry, I won't be cooking up locusts and wild honey tonight.

The porch is the center of activity here.  In Paraguay, most folks live outside because a hot breeze is better than no breeze at all.  The heat is just intolerable in the house.  In a typical country house, the kitchen and washroom and eating area (aka dining room) are outdoors, and bedrooms plus a small sitting area are inside. Gotta have somewhere to be if it rains, right?  The home we've been living in here at Hogar Ganar is designed with a front porch that offers shade and lots of space for hanging out, so we take full advantage of that.

One of the first things Ken did for me when we moved in was put up our hammock, which has followed us all over Paraguay.  It's there that I spend a lot of the day, because I can stretch out my leg in front and do my exercises.  A few chairs scattered around make an easy terere circle for socializing, and also for Bible studies and homeschooling.   

praise and worship in the shade

baby Zoe's favorite place to nap

Today we had visitors of another kind.  The girls and I were all studying quietly when the cows and horses made their way into our yard, and the next thing we knew, they were practically on the porch with us.  

They're only a week from finishing the 2011-12 school year, so not even wild horses could draw Camille away from her work!

Caroline was really hoping this cow would come close enough that she could feed him her math book. (Can you see him hiding behind the tree?)

This is the cow they tell me is crazy and will charge you, so for a split second I thought he might actually join us.  I had my crutches ready in case I needed to skedaddle!

So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you, not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls, because ye were dear unto us.  1Thessalonians 2:8

By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.      John 13:35