When I mention that I’m from Paraguay, people usually ask me all kinds of questions from the most common to the weirdest ones… like:

• Where is Paraguay?
• What is the population?
• What does it look like?
• Do you have cars there? or malls?
• Do you speak Portuguese?
• Have you seen a tiger or a toucan?

I’m already used to these questions; most of the time I smile and answer them. It’s really very hard to find info about Py (Paraguay), it’s no wonder no one knows it.

There is so much to say that I don’t even know where to start. Well, Live Local can help me answer the first question:

(um… for some reason Paraguay is the only country that doesn’t show a label at this zoom level, go figure)

And here is some general info from wikipedia:

Paraguay, officially the Republic of Paraguay (Spanish: República del Paraguay, pron. IPA [re’puβlika del para’É£waj], Guarani: Tetã Paraguái), is a landlocked country in South America.

It lies on both banks of the Paraguay River, bordering Argentina to the south and southwest, Brazil to the northeast, and Bolivia to the northwest, and is located in the very heart of South America.

‘Paraguay’ is derived from the Guaraní word ‘Pararaguay’, meaning, ‘From a Great River’. The ‘Great River’ is the Paraná River, which produces the greatest amount of hydroelectric power in the world.

Let me add a few things:

My language is Spanish, not Portuguese like some people think because we are close to Brazil, but we are NOT Brazil (see the map above).

Yes, we have cars, all models, brands, from the oldest ones to the newest and more expensive brands; we have several malls in the capital and tons of shops, galleries and stores in Ciudad del Este (another major city among Asuncion and Encarnacion), and yes I’ve seen wild animals in the zoo, like in any other country…

This entry was posted on Monday, September 25th, 2006 at 6:45 am and is filed under Paraguay. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.