Students visit Paraguay and Brazil

by Mattie Lehman (’11)

 This summer, eight girls (including me), one boy, two teachers, a mother, and a young toddler took a 12-hour flight to South America, where we were immersed in a language and culture foreign to us. We laughed, we learned, and we made mistakes, all of which were part of the cultural experience.

 Upon our arrival in Asunción, Paraguay, we met our host families. Some were rich, some poor, but all were willing to open their homes to us. And despite the fact that it was finals week for their students, they were gracious hosts. They fed us delicious food, took time to entertain us, and sent us off with generous gifts.

We participated in all our hosts’ activities. Some of us were lucky to attend a Quinceñera—a girl’s fifteenth birthday party, which is an important rite of passage in Paraguay. Heather Schwartz (’11), who attended one such party, said, “We had a dance and sang karaoke in Spanish.” Every night felt like a party. New experiences filled our time.

On a day trip to an impoverished neighborhood, our group witnessed another side of Asunción. We visited an elementary school, Sotero Colmán, where we were greeted by excited chatter in each classroom we visited. The students were especially excited when they learned that we were from the United States. Our group donated $6,000 to the school, which we had raised over a period of six months through coat-checks at school basketball games, a sloppy joe supper, and donations.

After spending time in the “big city,” we headed to the Chaco, a rural region where we drove for hours seeing only desert scrub. However, upon closer examination, the area is home to unique plants, animals, and groups of people. Indigenous tribes reside in the Chaco alongside German Mennonite colonies. While staying in one of these colonies, Filadelfia, we experienced a culture unlike that of Asunción.

Hearing Spanish day in and day out may have been challenging and disorienting at times but easy in comparison to listening to Portuguese. At one point during our stay in Brazil we went shopping in a local mall without Marcelo (our Portuguese-speaking teacher), which made communicating next to impossible. We learned the art of pointing and arm motions that day.

We learned a great deal from our cross-cultural experience, including not to mix up the Spanish word for embarrassed (embarrados) with the word for pregnant (embarazadas) and not to wear shorts in the Mennonite colonies. However, the most significant thing we learned is that Paraguayan people were willing to understand and forgive our ignorance of their culture.

2009 Spanish Language Trip Group: Marcelo Warkentin (leader), Juanita Hershberger (co-leader), and students (in alphabetical order) Corine Alvarez, Hannah Grieser, Karsten Hess, Leanne Hochstetler, Mattie Lehman, Ellie Schertz, Heather Schwartz, Emily Shenk, Marla zumFelde