Playing hooky...in three countries

On Wednesday, my friend Patricia--one of the credit assessors at Fundación Paraguaya--asked me if I wanted to sneak off from work with her early and hang out with her boyfriend, Miguel. He wanted to head across the Argentine border to the town of Puerto Ygazu to buy wine, since it is less expensive than in Brazil or Paraguay (what with it being produced in Mendoza Argentina...and thus avoiding import taxes &c). Like most office workers, the employees of Fundación Paraguaya are completely ingenious in the many ways they escape the control of their bosses. Most of the time they work very very very hard. But sometimes they "head out to give a capacity-building workshop to a new group of borrowers"...while instead go window-shopping downtown. Or in this case, across the border to Foz. And as much as many of you might roll your eyes...ethnography of NGOs is as much about figuring out how development workers "don't work" as how their programs "do work"...so I was actually really interested in what FUPA did to skip out on the job, as it were. So, agreed to be co-conspirator with Patricia.

This was of course complicated by the fact that it was the end of the month and FUPA was supposed to be closing its books and making a big push to get payments from clients in default. So playing hooky at the most stressful and intense part of the month seemed like an awful idea, so I was unsure why Patricia had picked this particular time to skip out on work. Because *everybody* was working like crazy. Credit assessors for the "committees for women entrepreneurs" only make their commissions if their loan portfolios show less than 1% default/late payment rates (which is pretty crazy...I don't know of any financial entity in the entire world that has that sort of high payment rate!). I guess that Patricia had a far higher rate of non-performing loans, so she wasn't worried about getting her commission...unless a miracle happened she would just get her base salary this month. So why not cut work? But she got stuck at the office until around noon presenting loans for approval to her boss, so we didn't actually make it out of the office, lunch, and headed toward the border until around 1:00. Socorro! This was going to be a long day!

Negotiating the tri-border is always a bit hectic. First I have to get a passport stamp going out of Paraguay, and then one going into Brazil. And then one going into Argentina. And then out of Argentina. And then out of Brazil. And finally back into Paraguay. I'm going to have to head to the US Embassy pretty soon to get new pages sewn into my passport! Of course none of the local buses stops at the migration checkpoints since Paraguayans/Brazilians/Argentines can cross without the same hassle by just showing their identity cards. So we decided that the best way to get across was to take a local bus to the foot of the bridge, and that way I could get my stamps, walk across, and register with Brazil's immigration. Patricia and I stopped for a photo-op over the Paraná:


So we got to the other side of the bridge and waited for Patricia's boyfriend to come pick us up so that we could drive to Puerto Yguazu. Maybe I should say "man-friend" instead because Patricia warned me that he was "a bit older, and sometimes people are uncomfortable with that." So it turns out that "a bit older" is 50s, and Patricia just turned 20. They've been dating for 3 years (since she was 16). He has grown children that are older than me. Yikes! And had no idea what to think when an electric-blue suped-up Subaru rally car screamed up with music blaring to pick us up. Clearly here was a man re-living his youth! So we took off like the proverbial bad-out-of-hell, with the general plan of a quick stop at his apartment in Foz (the guy is Argentine but has been living in Brazil for years) before heading off to procure wine across the border. We make it up to his top-floor apartment and I think that things can't get any more crazed. Until he directs me to open the fridge if I want something to drink (I'm thinking water at this point from the long, hot trek across the bridge). Oh no. The fridge is packed to the gills with Heineken. No food. No water. Only bottles of beer. So he pops one open, hands one to me (to share with Patricia), and we chat while finishing out beers. And off we go! Feeling a bit heat-stroked and dizzy from the quick beer, I can't help but wonder what the heck I was getting myself into!

The Subaru rally car was one of the fanciest cars on the road...and with the absence of traffic cops in Brazil, Patricia's man-friend could take some, erh, 'liberties' with traffic laws. I don't think that I've been in a car traveling at that velocity since mom took the Audi out for a spin on some very deserted back roads in yolo county. Needless to say, the Ruta International in Brazil was far from deserted, so 170km per hour was pretty nail-biting. I'll let you do the metric math. But by a small miracle we made it to the check-point at Argentina without a major collision or other calamity. And into Puerto Ygauzu, which turns out to be a cute little tourist town that caters to folks who come to see the Yguazu waterfalls (spectacular!) and relax in one of the many lovely hotel/spa/resort complexes in the area. So we finally stopped at the wine "bodega" (i.e. purveyor of alcoholic beverages). It actually had a decent wine cellar and a pretty good selection. At ridiculously low prices (with the current Dollar/Argentine Peso exchange rate). Fun!



[Patricia pointing to the more expensive vintages in the cellar. The more accessable wines are upstairs].

So, we procured some wine (I got a 1998 Malbec from Montchenot...supposed to be pretty good, and cost $16, yay!)...actually, well, lots of wine. Miguel bought several cases. Looks like he appreciated wine as much as he appreciates Heineken. Then it was off to a wine bar/cafe to refuel before heading back.


In many ways, Argentina is so much more "civilized" than Paraguay. Like in the appreciating excellent wine. And finally found something approximating "beer" (i.e. has hops. And some body. Wow!). But it was starting to get late and Miguel was so impossible that I really just wanted to go home. Despite the excellent ethnographic data that he was giving me on cars. Turns out the Subaru was just one of his many--he works as a small-scale importer (getting used/damaged cars from the US and Japan and importing them to Paraguay, and then to Brazil). So my paper on used/dodgy/stolen cars is coming along well. Despite the rather, erh, "unsavory" characters that are my principle informants. On the way home, Miguel opened up the trunk and went to put some wine back there. Not that much would fit between the sound system that literally was larger than me. Oh, not to mention the two bottles of Nitrous hooked up back there. Socorro! This car was *definitely* up to no good in its time off. On the way back, Miguel asked me to pull down what would normally be the child-seat or ski pass-through on a normal car. Instead, it was a pass-through for the sub-woofer to let the full effect of the sound system to come through. Oh dear. I asked if he raced the car, since it was a rally car (and people actually are really into car racing here). He said that he never was the driver, but that the car "was a real winner"
This I don't doubt. P.S. the next night I was near the Paraná country club for a dinner date with the American anthropologist who was in town for a conference. As we were leaving, two very expensive rally cars pulled up in front of the gated community, headed out on the big two-lane road that goes out to the Itaipú dam. There was a small group of cars/people parked there watching. They pulled up side by side. Revved their engines. And took off into the darkness. I've never seem a street race before, except maybe in silly cinematic depictions like "The Fast and the Furious"...but I'm pretty sure that was what this was. So maybe the Subaru has a secret (or not so secret...with the Nitrous in the back!) other life.

Suffice it to say, when I got back into my little VW Bug and drove myself home from the office just as it was getting dark, I was thankful for my (usually) tame and boring life. Phew!