I think all countries have different kind of expression thru habits, culture, religion or just popular beliefs that after a while become part of their lives.

Here is a list of some of little things we naturally do…as part of our daily life.

1- Great all people with 2 kisses, men between them hand shake

2- Wander around with our Terere or mate set..and sharing is a must.

3- Knock on wood if someone says a bad thing (its a superstition so that thing wont occur if you touch a piece of wood with no 4 legs, no tables for example)

4- Make a cross sign when passing infront of a church.

5- Siesta (a nap after noon) (in most country side towns and cities) not in the capital lately.

6- Having Asado or barbecue on Sundays noon with the family, with chipa guazu or sopa paraguaya. Also on Sunday’s most people visit friends or family.

7- Having Meriden, a mid afternoon snack that can be a Latte (cafe con leche) with some bread or cocido, actually you can try the closest version to the Paraguayan cocido, at Tully’s…ask for yerba mate latte…it is very similar I must say, yeah!!

8- Text messaging!! there is a cellular mania in Paraguay, people walking around with 2, 3 even 4 different cellular phones from the 4 different providers…you can save a lot of money that way. I only had 2 and was a very good idea!!

9- If someone tells you I will call you tomorrow…they actually don’t mean it, don’t be mad, its just our way to tell you that we will call you some day or see you around.

10- People pops up without notice, ding dong!! hey, its me!! LOL

11. Jopara (a mix of Spanish and guarani, both official languages

12- Eating empanada sandwich, jajaja, that one is very particular, you have to see to believe it.

13- Hanging around with friends…on the hammock or drinking beer or terere seated on the side walk in front of some one’s house.

14- Say “buen provecho” when you see someone eating or finishing eating or when you are done eating.

15- The paraguayan doesn’t SEE if he can’t touch, no ve si no toca!! and that is very true, when we are in a store we have to touch or to feet it…and we say: let’s see it and go and grab it to touch and feel it.

16- “Paraguay” doesn’t go alone to the bathroom, meaning that in a reunion or party, if a girl goes to the bathroom automatically all other girls go with her, jajaja, that is so funny and happens all the time.

17- In Paraguay the main and hot meail is Lunch that we have around noon, then we have merienda, a snack around 5 and we have dinner around 8 or 9pm…so very different from the US. Even what we have for breakfast is different, we are not into the cereal stuff. 

I hope you enjoyed my list…I hope I remember more soon

xoxox

This entry was posted on Friday, June 1st, 2007 at 5:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized. 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.