End of Chapter

September 9, 2024

This is it.  Our last appointment here in Paraguay was to attend service at our tiny, but mighty chapel for the last time this Sunday.  These lovely people had us stand as they said goodbye and prayed for us.  It brought tears to my eyes.  Oh my, what a kind and loving group!  We told our friend David about this little church; he came to the service today.  Maybe he will fill our spots in the pews. 

The last few days here have been some of our best.  We found Cerro Lambaré.  How we missed this spot until just now, I do not know.  It is inside the city, but a 50-minute bus ride to the park entrance and a mile hike up a paved road to the top.  The hill, the tallest point in the city, is forest-covered and stands only 450 feet above sea level.  On a clear day, however, and it was a clear day when we climbed the hill, the Bahia formed by the joining of the Paraguay and Parana Rivers, and the entire city below can be seen through the limbs and leaves of trees.  

From the busy intersection below, our eyes quickly found the angel standing tall atop the Monument to the Victorious Peace as she looms over the hill.  This viewpoint and its monument were inspired by the Valley of the Fallen when Paraguay’s cruel and detested dictator Alfredo Stroessner made a trip to his “Mother Country.”  The work was completed in 1982. 

The statue of an Indian cacique, a term the Conquistadors gave to indigenous notables, stands eight feet tall at the top of the steps leading to the monument.  Chief Lambaré, as he is claimed to be, holds a small image of the Virgin Mary.  On the walls of the monument are Greek historical, possibly Masonic engravings, and the top of the monument is graced by a carving of a solemn peace angel. 

Statues of the country’s first presidents and patriots stand between partitions of the monument.  One partition is empty.  It once held the figure of the dictator Stroessner, but it was removed in 1991 after a democratic government ended the last vestiges of dictatorship. 

On this perfect weather day, we sat on park benches at the foot of the monument, took in the lovely view, and ate our picnic lunch.  A friendly cat, from the neighborhood below might have smelled our tuna salad sandwiches and came for a visit.  Our tuna was all gone but he got a snack of kibbles & bits that Stan always carries and a head scratch. 

On another day while getting our steps in and sneakily hoping to take another look at the Ana and Rex casa and its neighborhood, by chance we found the Parque de la Salud. Wow, this beautiful and serene forest place looks like a botanical garden without flowers. We walked the 1.5 Km loop, met a cat, of course, and enjoyed filling our lungs full of fresh-made air. Feeling frisky we walked a few miles more to the Galleria area to enjoy one more lunch of authentic Vietnamese fresh spring rolls before leaving here. We would have ordered a steaming bowl of Phở as well but we were saving ourselves for dinner that night. We got 7 miles in that day!

That evening we had our last dinner with David.  We met for pizza.  Real pizza!!!  Finally!  But isn’t it curious . . . sometimes you meet someone and just connect.  We three did just that.  David is staying here in Asuncion and will make his life here for the next few years, but we are moving on.   We will surely miss this young man, but we are pretty sure our paths will cross again, perhaps in Europe next summer! 

Then get this!!!  In all our travels, Stan and I have never set foot in a United States Embassy.  Even though our tax dollars create and maintain US Embassies all over the world, a US citizen cannot do a dash-crash like the girl in The Saint running from Val Kilmer to embassy gates shouting I am an American!  Don’t try that.  Simply put, you cannot enter an embassy without an appointment.  Though you pay for it, it is not yours to visit as you please.  We toured the embassy here in Asuncion today.  Never having visited an embassy before is a good thing.  It says that we’ve never, thank God, encountered a situation in which embassy assistance was needed.  Jason, another of our friends at San Andres Chapel, is the Regional Security Officer at the Embassy in Asuncion.  He honored us with a personal tour of the facility.  Wow!  To avoid disruption, it was at a time when most employees had left for the day.  We walked the spacious green landscaped grounds, saw first-class employee amenities like a gym, outdoor swimming pool, and soccer practice field, infirmary with full-time doctor, and the spacious sunlit “breakroom” that also morphs into a grand receiving room where dignitaries are being entertained.  We stepped into the main dignitary conference rooms and open office areas of those who do the work roughly described as maintaining a civilized relationship between the USA and Paraguay, fostering US interests, and protecting and assisting US citizens spending time in the country.  We learned a few tidbits.  This $300 million Embassy complex is new and only just over a year old.  It sits on the same grounds as the original embassy building.  The first-rate installation is efficient and green.  Public walkways have columns designed like the gills of fish that gather and route cool air to those walking under its tall roof.  Jason said despite its design when summer is in full force, the gills cannot compete with Mother Nature; it is still hot. Rainwater is collected and purified on campus so that its drinking fountains spew pure safe-to-drink water.  The system also provides irrigation and water recovery systems for the embassy’s expansive grounds.   

A team of eight US Marines are assigned to the Embassy and live on the premises.  They do not patrol the perimeter, or the roofs and they do not carry AR-15s or the like.  The sole responsibility of the Embassy Marines is to protect the information inside the embassy.  A separate security organization is responsible for keeping the facility and its personnel safe. The eight Marines report to the Head of Security.  Finally, the United States Consulate and the Embassy are separate entities.  They occupy the same facility but enter and exit through separate entrances and have separate security checkpoints.  Employees of both share the community employee amenities but visitors and people with business in the Consulate cannot go through to the Embassy and vice versa. 

Seeing the embassy was an incredible experience for us. But then, our entire visit here in Paraguay has been captivating, out of the norm, yes, but remarkably good and memorable.

Between now and Tuesday we will go through our proven routine for leaving or as we call it, “closing up.”  As a result of my OCD tendancies, we will use the last bits of food so there is little waste.  All our clothing will be washed; things gone threadbare or whites no longer white will hit the basura bin.  We will also give our place a good going-over. Stan and I go all out with our thorough cleaning.  It is just what we do; we like to leave the apartment much like it was or even better than when we arrived here.  In fun, we say we refuse to have our untidiness be the gossip among property owners!  “Closing up” is a process; one that we do not mind.  It marks the end of one great chapter and the beginning of a new one yet to be written. 

Next stop, Manaus, Brazil for a three-night boat adventure on the Amazon River.  Then we will be off to El Salvador for three or four weeks, then to Guatemala for the last segment of this nearly nine-month trek.  

This life is fun.