Life here is different. I was hiking the other day with my friend Courtney and couldn't help but laugh at our conversation. As we hiked further and further into the mountain, it became more and more remote. When we finally reached the top we stopped to have a picnic snack, at which point Lassa began barking at something over the hill. We glanced over to see 3 men walking towards us. We were uneasy for a second, until we saw their machetes....and then we breathed a sigh of relief. "I'd be worried if they DIDN'T have machetes!" We both agreed and continued eating our snack like it was a totally normal conversation.
I couldn't help but remember having similar scenarios play out in my mind in Paraguay. At the end of my service, the other volunteers and I remarked on things that were only normal in Paraguay and we would miss once gone---things that had seemed so odd at first but were now commonplace. Seeing people walking down the street with a machete and not even thinking twice about it was one of them. See, anywhere else in the world, someone walking down the street carrying a machete might be cause for alarm. But here, it means they are up to good, chopping wood or other things that are menat to be chopped with a machete. I love how things are all relative and must be taken in context...I would for sure freak out if I were sitting in a Target parking lot and saw someone with a machete approaching. Ah, life in the campo. : )
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