February 22 – 26

February 22

Ed and I arrived in the Buenos Aires Ezeiza airport at 12:00 noon and took a bus across the city to the Aeroparque airport, where we boarded our flight to Asuncion.

Acquiring our visas upon arrival at the Pettirossi Asuncion airport took a long time and quite a few dollars (a special deal for U.S. citizens, given what we put Paraguayans through when they enter the States). So by the time we came through customs, all of the other passengers had passed through passport control. My brother Wesley had said he would meet us. I hoped he hadn’t given up and left, because of the long delay.

When we exited through the double doors into the waiting area, I immediately spotted Wes and ran up to hug him. Over his shoulder, I saw another brother Chris and his son. Behind them my brother David appeared, and then my oldest brother John and his wife. A big lump formed in my throat and just stuck there for a bit. All four of my brothers had come to the airport to meet us. In all the years that I’ve come “home” to Paraguay, this was a first.

 

My family meeting us at the airport:

 

 

 

 

 

 

They had made a reservation at a restaurant called Poso Colorado, a modern upscale place that served beef from the Chaco of West Paraguay. A long table seated all thirteen of us. Since my father had been, and my brothers still were, cattle ranchers in the Chaco, they had fun naming what they thought the various brands of cattle were that each of us was eating (sorry, Lorna).

 

At the table in Poso Colorado:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

David showing off his cut of meat:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Susi showing off her cut:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ate a lot, laughed a lot and reminisced a lot. It was midnight before we dropped exhausted into bed at Wes’ house.

February 23

All of my brothers and their families came to Wes and Esther’s home by 9:00 this morning. We started with mate (the hot form of the traditional yerba tea drink of Paraguay), but before long switched to the cold version, tereré.  We sat in a circle and passed the gourd around, each of us taking our turn at sipping the refreshing bitter drink through a bombilla (metal straw). (I recently published an essay titled “Keeping out the Riffraff,” – see Essays page on my website – which describes this social ritual in greater detail).

Family circle:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It seemed there were endless things to talk about, from sad stories about the pain David’s wife endured before she recently gave up her fight against the cancer that ravaged her body; to hilarious stories about our sometimes disparate memories of our childhood on the leprosy station; to poignant memories of our parents, those two wonderful crazy people who were called to be medical missionaries in Paraguay in the early 1940s, creating the reason for us all to be there in that moment.

When I was little, I was often very lonely, because there were no kids my age to play with on the leprosy station. So I would tag along behind my brothers, watching them carefully (from a safe distance – they didn’t want me around) so I could learn how to roll the red clay-rich mud into marbles, and wishing I knew how to build those traps they set up all over the fields to catch a type of bird we called Putchinut. I tried and tried, but was never successful, and my brothers refused to show me how. They acted as though they had patented the latest gadget that would make them rich.

Wesley’s wife Esther served us all lunch, this time asado grilled in their back yard. “How’d you build those traps?” I asked my brothers over lunch. David explained that it had to be done with green, flexible mulberry branches, and then proceeded to share the secrets about how they had constructed them. I was finally a member of the inner circle!

We spent the entire day together, and it was a sad moment when it was time to say goodbye.

I am grateful for the sadness.

My family:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My brothers:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 24

After an uneventful flight back to Buenos Aires, Ed and I spent the night in a hotel and the next morning made our way to the Puerto de las Cruceras to board our ship. We were allowed to unpack in our stateroom even though the ship was not to cast off until the following day.

As we were checking in, one of the agents asked if we were celebrating anything. As we always do, we said we were celebrating our incredible life together. He laughed and without missing a beat, asked, “What about an anniversary?”

“Well, yes, but that was February 1^st, over three weeks ago,” we said.

“You’ll celebrate it today,” he said, writing something in his notebook.

We had just long enough to eat lunch and unpack before it was time to meet up with a bus that would take us to the dinner/tango show at La Ventana in the ancient San Telmo neighborhood of Buenos Aires.

The food was mediocre (much better food on our ship), but the show was fantastic (thanks, Lori). No photos of the performance that evening were allowed and thus we have only the picture of us taken by the waiter.

Tango night:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

February 25

It was after 1:00 a.m. when we returned to our ship after the tango show. We walked into our stateroom and couldn’t believe it. The room was lit up with candles (fake ones) and balloons and paper hearts hung from the ceiling along with a “Happy Anniversary” sign. A bottle of champagne and a delicious chocolate cake topped off the surprise. We had celebrated our anniversary quite well back in Tucson on February 1^st, but gladly repeated the fete.

 

Anniversary re-celebration:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At 2:00 a.m. we finally dropped exhausted into bed for a short 5 hours of sleep.

We had hired a private car and driver to take us around Buenos Aires with a particular mission in mind: The next book we’re writing is a biographical novel based on the lives of our parents, John and Clara Schmidt. In order to bring forth and highlight a number of facets of my parents’ character, we are including a few fictitious protagonists, including a wealthy British woman who resided in the Palermo neighborhood of North Buenos Aires.

We described Anastasia (our protagonist’s name) to the guide, and then spent the entire day building a story around where she lived, which coffee houses she favored, where she shopped, and so on. It was fabulously successful. Thank you, Dario Javier Jaremczuk!

We returned to our ship, tired and very satisfied with our day.  At 6:00, we cast off from Buenos Aires to make the short trip down the Rio de la Plata to Montevideo.

We sat at dinner with a lovely couple from Montana, Brad and Donna, whom we had met the prior day. Almost unbelievably, Brad’s grandfather was a Mennonite from somewhere in Bavaria. We didn’t play the “Mennonite game,” where you endlessly trace any possible connection that may exist between you. But we shared a lot of experiences we had in common. One of the joys of cruising, it turns out, is the pleasure of occasionally meeting people who eventually become good friends. I suspect that Brad and Donna will be among them.

February 26

Up early to tour Montevideo, again with the primary mission of learning where Anastasia might have gone and what she might have done while visiting this Uruguayan city.

There is tremendous rivalry between Uruguay and Argentina. Each claims 1) to have the best players of futbol, 2) to be the birthplace of the tango, 3) to produce the best beef (of course, what they don’t know is that my brothers’ beef from the Chaco of Paraguay is actually better than either of them), and 4) to have the most beautiful capital city.

Montevideo is indeed a beautiful little city of just under 2 million inhabitants, in a country with a total population of just over 3 million. Many of the streets are tree-lined. People didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get anywhere, despite the fact that it was Monday. Many of them carried a thermos under one arm and a guampa of mate in their hand.

Again, I’m posting very few photos, since most of what we documented were Anastasia’s possible haunts.

Asado Uruguay style:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Beaches of Montevideo:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tonight, we left the Rio de la Plata and began sailing north along the coast of Brazil.

p.s. Since there is no Wi-Fi on our ship, I will post blogs when I can along the way. Stay tuned…