Paraguayans also always have music playing in the house and in their cars, and while I cannot tell you the names of the artists or the songs, I do end up spending a lot of time listening to Paraguayan music. One style is called Cumbia. It has a distinctive drum pattern and uses instruments traditional to Paraguay, such as guitars and harps, and it also has vocals. This style is upbeat and great for dancing. Generally, I have found that people here prefer upbeat music, even in more casual environments when Americans would typically listen to more chill music. One time, I was playing cards with friends, and I was playing some Alternative Rock, and they complained that I wasn’t playing music to which we could dance. I was very confused why we needed music that we could dance to when we were relaxing and playing cards, but this made me realize that the cultural traditions around music are probably different between the United States and Paraguay.
The best thing I did this week was take a long bike ride, which I broke up over two days. The other volunteers in my department and I had plans to go to the Infona Center to pick up trees on Friday the 23rd of January. I had been wanting to do a long trip on my bike since getting it about a month ago, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. In total, I biked about 80 miles over two days, staying the first night with two Peace Corps volunteers in Carmen De Paraná, a touristy town on the coast of the Rio Paraná, and the second night in Trinidad, a town I had already visited during training that is widely visited for its Jesuit Ruins. Trinidad also has two volunteers from the Peace Corps, a married couple that lives together and works on the same projects.
