Kathrin Salame
I. Monseñor
“¡Chipería Mi Abuela!, ¡Dos chipas a dos mil!” And the sound of the revving engines of motorcycles and feet hitting the broken, uneven streets, and concrete dust that stains the shoes with every step. That is my house; that is my street; that is a miniature version of a multitude of places that connect when I look down from the 12th floor through my room.
A triangular section that smells like when a flower dies, and a trash-ridden, poor excuse for a garden sits on the right side of my building like that one pocket in a backpack that holds every miscellaneous thing. The slabs of concrete that encase the greenery are thick enough to sit on, made of black marble; if you lean back enough, your feet can dangle a little, which is fun, save for the fact that it also means a print of dried, yellowing leaves on your back that stick to the fabric of your shirt in a mess of wet dirt and broken-off nature limbs. The cabs are white in Ciudad del Este, at the station in Avenida Monseñor Rodríguez, where my friend Fernando sits on his lounge chair, waiting to take me to school when the bus forgets to come or I run late. He is the only taxista my mother trusts. And then, there’s Doña Marta, the owner of the hair salon in front of my building, whom I’ve been catching carrying bags of hair product and getting barked at by stray dogs on the street since I was about eight years old and the salon had opened. “How are you today, che memby?” She’d ask, and I’d reply sweetly with my usual “I don’t know” and a giggle.
II. El Lago
There’s a cheery, giggly tree that giggles cheekily every time she sees me eat. She looks funny to me. I laugh. They call her Lapacho, and her extremities are bathed in a bright pink that matches the sky when the sun sets over El Lago de La República. I sometimes sit on the edge, cheeks full of some mbeju that the kind man with his cart on the side of the road sold me. My chin is covered in melted strings of cheese, which ooze from the corn dough every time I take a bite, along with a small cloud of steam that makes my nose red. And the Lapacho, which towers over me, sways in tandem with the motions of my jaw as if mocking me for making a mess. Later, it is joined by Josué, who rides through on his bike and, with a snort, calls me goloso at first sight. We take a walk around the lake, stopping every once in a while to pick a leaf or watch the man on the boat with the string hat who rows like he’s in a hurry, and we make up stories of where he is going. I wonder if his dreams come alive, too.
III. Dos Niñas
The only stars I know are ink-made, drawn on my left wrist by Paulina as she uses my skin as a canvas when we are sitting on my bed, watching the newest episode of Baila Conmigo Paraguay. There is enough light pollution to turn the sky into a blue nothing, and I notice it as I stare at the exposed crack on the side of my window, promising a glimpse of emptiness I sometimes wish I could exchange for everything else I own. The good and the bad of this house, of these streets, is so good when it’s good, but it holds a price. What I pay for is the smell of Pauli’s perfume when she wraps her arms around my neck as we walk down Monseñor and make a right to the corner where Quiero Fruta sits for some fruit salads. And how the darkness of my hair, which my tía once described as una selva azabache, melts into the skin of her exposed shoulder, and I can’t stop looking at the point where we are one. At how my inky sky grazes her, and I’m scared it could pull her into the same yearning if I dare open my mouth to say. What I pay for is the smile on every cab driver, every hairdresser, every florist, every server, and every
doorman, and the sounds of chaos in the city becoming a memory when I am asked to leave because, where I am from, one can only become a copy of the same label—only live the same life.
IV. El Milagro
“Ingredientes para una sopa paraguaya: Leche, Aceite vegetal, Huevos, Harina de maíz, Queso paraguay, Sal, Cebolla (and if you want to give it an extra touch like your abuela used to do, add some corn too).” You begin by taking a walk to Supermercado Arcoiris, your favorite grocery store that stands right in front of the back entrance of your building and to the right side of the same gas station your father would stop by sometimes on the way back from a trip to the farm. You traverse every hallway, filled with the same ingredients you always see, and graze your hands through the snack aisle, grabbing a chocolate bollito for later, which you know you’ll hide from your brother under your pillow when you get back. You grab your eggs and your milk, your cornstarch, and the corn that your grandma likes to use, and you remember your mom said she has onions and vegetable oil at home, so you don’t get that. Just as you are going for your last and most favorite ingredient, you run into Don Luciano, or Lucho, as everyone calls him, who does maintenance around the neighborhood, buying some meat, and he waves at you with a smile as you cross to the opposite side of the Deli section to where the cheese is sitting behind a glass counter. “Medio kilo de paraguay porfavor,” you ask, and the lady with the hairnet hands it to you, wrapped in a plastic bag. You scan every item at the register, pay with your cash and coins, and head back home. Your body shakes in excitement as you cross your door, and your mom looks at you and says, “Let’s get to work.” The words “sopa paraguaya” translate to “paraguayan soup,” and yet what you’re making is not a soup in the slightest. The story goes that Paraguay’s first constitutional president once asked his cook, Machú, to make him his favorite soup, sopa blanca, and that she accidentally added too much cornstarch, turning the dish into a fluffy and moist soft solid instead, which he then tried and loved, deeming it an official national dish. You adore that story because it gives you hope that the unfamiliar is not abominable and that names are just names after all; that they cannot fully define the truth. Soon, everything is whisked and set. You place your sheet pan in the oven and wait for the miracle to happen.
V. Sueños de Folklore
My cousin Noe pulls my dress down, and my mom and aunt walk into the room just as I begin to complain about it being too tight. Her rings get stuck around the tag for a moment, and I silently pray that she’ll accidentally rip it and I’ll be spared from wearing this monstrosity of a gown. We are at the infamous Anfiteatro for the annual Folklore celebration. The girls on the stage wear their bright red polleras with the ruffles at the bottom and the snow-white Ao po’i with the rim that rests delicately over the collarbone. The cantaro vase rests firmly on their heads as they move in tandem. One places the cántaro back on the stage floor and grabs a glass bottle instead. She holds onto the rim of her skirt with one hand and sways it in an upward motion before bending down and placing the bottle on her head effortlessly, and then she grabs another, then another. The girl with the three bottles on her head and I make eye contact. She smiles. I can’t imagine how I could possibly measure up to that grace. This year, my aunt Gloria, ever the patriot, had volunteered me to sing one of her favorite Paraguayan polkas, Trece Tuyutí. It is a poem in honor of the bravery of our soldiers during the Chaco War, and I tell her it is too big for me. “Porfavor, nena, sing na for me. si?” she replies, and listen, I am a big family person, and my tía had been through a lot this year, first losing her job at the hair salon on Monseñor, and then there was the divorce, which we have all been instructed to never talk about. And so I said
yes, even though I hate being on stage, with tiny eyes looking up at you as if they’re about to discover the next greatest thing, when in reality, you don’t have much to give to them other than shaky words and a poor attempt at a falsetto. But your tía cheers for you the loudest anyway, and to her, you’ve always been a star. “Thank you, Mariela, mi estrellita del norte.” The fondness in those eyes is not a feeling you would ever replace.
VI. Recuerdos Perdidos
The trees meet me in multitudes, and they are no match for the dexterity of my feet. Muddy puddles greet me with a song when they splash as I sprint aimlessly, wetting the rims of my bell-shaped beige pants a deeper brown. My blistered palms grab at a trunk and then a branch and then another. It’s a wonder; what one can relive with the shutting of the eyes. My younger self craved the altitude; to be suspended above the earth was to quench my thirst for exploration. In my mind, I was already traveling, going to any place I wished. Maybe I would be a writer or an instrumentalist. I’d only just tried it, but what if I could be great at it and just didn’t know it yet? My travels would teach me more about what I could become. The sky’s the limit. The highest point of any tree I could reach was my favorite place to sit. Back then, I lived in Asturias, in a small town in Spain. My father had selfishly moved us again for yet another doomed job opportunity, having previously been living in Buenos Aires for the past year. I missed home terribly every day. If I tried hard enough, I could still hear the shrill echoes of the pájaros campana that decorated the edges of the arroyo near home. My sisters and I would hold our rock-finding contests in the dry river bed, always ending the day with soiled arms and feet and small patches of dirt caked on our hair that my mother would endlessly scold us about.
Back in Asturias, there was much greenery, and the tree I sat on was only an example, but the beauty was interrupted by the chatter and the commerce, like a mirror breaking an illusion. It was simply not the same as home, where sometimes, if I was lucky and if it had rained enough, I would find Irupé flowers, white as snow, branding the river’s mess with a delicacy that would stop me in my tracks. The legend of the Irupé tells the story of a beautiful guaraní girl who fell in love with the moon and who was determined to reach it, attempting every day to find her beloved. One night, her dream came true, and she saw the moon reflected in the river’s water, and so she jumped. Tupá, the god, felt pity for her, and so he turned her into the Irupé. Freedom is romantic; it beckons you like a mirage, holding a reality that you can’t be certain will be real.
VII. Mi Monseñor
At the mercy of my building, on the streets of Avenida Monseñor Rodriguez, the light begins its descent. The overwhelming rays of the blaze remember each quiet hit of a chord being struck over and over, that one quiet afternoon with the sound of my and my mother’s voices melding together as one as she plays the harp on the balcony, singing Natalia Lafourcade’s “Hasta la Raíz.” With hands atop the chest and belts of “I have you here, down to the roots,” my mother goes and I follow, “Yo te tengo dentro, hasta la raíz, y por mas que crezca, vas a estar aquí.” And we’re singing a promise; there is no way, my ray of moonlight, that you may leave.
Kathrin Salame is an Arab-Latina writer from Paraguay studying Biomedical Engineering and Creative Writing. She loves reading, preferably near a body of water, playing rugby, singing, and spending time with her family whom she misses very much. She dedicates this piece to her mom Monica.
