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Another year, another Fiesta Patronal. My last, I suppose. It’s extremely weird to be thinking those thoughts now. But this year’s was a good one, and I’ve certainly taken enough pictures to last me. And better yet, to bore y’all senseless when I get back to the US.

Assuming I get back. If the odd little snippets of news I get out here are anything to go by, Wall Street has been reduced to rubble, the banks are giving out Monopoly money now, and mortgage lenders nationwide are running from the federal marshals. Should I cash out my return ticket and live like a queen in a riverside terreño out here?

The Guaraní word of the day is ndaipori, meaning “there are/were none”. Last year’s fiesta patronal featured a short airshow, but this year did not. Ndaipori avionkuera fiestahape koaño. But we had a parade, a barbeque, and a week’s worth of dance recitals, musical performances, and futsal games, which culminated in the victors hoisting live sheep overhead. It’s hard to feel cheated, under the circumstances.

These are not funny novelty candles. They’re just plain white wax cylinders I keep on hand for power outages. I haven’t run them through an oven, or purposely subjected them to science or art projects. They just sit in a quiet corner of my kitchen, waiting for the next tree to fall on the power lines.

The reason they’re slumping so dejectedly is that the heat is back. A few days back, I got a reading of 38 degrees Celsius in the coolest, shadiest part of my house. In northern hemisphere terms, this is like recording 99 degree heat in the first days of March.

If past experience is any guide, there is both good news and bad news to this situation. The good news is that it will not get too much worse than this for the rest of the summer. The bad news is that summer is eight months long.

The Guaraní word of the day is mínga, meaning mutual aid or cooperative work. Work at my actual coop has been just straight-forward number crunching lately, largely a one-person effort. But I’ve recently been involved with a secondary domestic violence project. That one has involved the cooperation of the town judge (the initiator and facilitator), the radio station (free advertisement), the Catholic parish (use of their meeting facility), the judge’s assistant (general secretarial help and test audience), Peace Corps Paraguay and other NGOs (stacks of materials and tapes), fellow volunteer Liam (use of speakers and chair wrangling), and myself (as-needed fetching and pestering). Good times!