Jakay'u!

So I don't think I have ever taken the time to explain the Terere/Mate culture in Paraguay. Maybe briefly in a blog mixed with other information, but not separetely. The difference between Terere and Mate is that Terere is cold water and Mate is hot water. What you are drinking are plant leaves that have been dried and cured over a long period of time from the plant called ka'a or Yerba Mate. In Guarani if you want to say let's drink terere you say "jaterere" and for Mate you say "jakay'u." The word for let's get drunk is "jaka'u" and can easily sound the same, so be careful with this distinction.
When drinking Terere you have your equipo, or your equipment which includes:
1. Guampa (a cup made out of wood for mate and a cow's horn with a wooden "plug" for Terere)
2. Bombilla (a straw that has a filter at the bottom that looks similar to a tea ball.
3. Termo (a thermos. For Terere you usually use just a pitcher, but for Mate the Termo is important so that you can have hot water the whole time)
4. Yerba Mate (The Yerba goes into the Guampa with the straw. You fill the Guampa up almost all the way with the Yerba.
5. Yuyos (Herbs. Found in the garden, in the forest, around your yard, in the street. Lemongrass, or Cedron Paraguaya is one of my favorites along with Burrito and Anis seed. You put the yuyos either in the water and sometimes in the guampa.

Now that you have your equipo invite some friends and sit in a circle. Start conversing about whatever you want. The weather, your day, a good story, some new information about farming. One person is the server. They pour the water into the Guampa and pass it to a person in the circle. That person will drink all the water in the guampa before passing it back to the server. The server will then continue serving all around the circle and will develop an order in the serving. When you no longer want to drink anymore it is polite to say "gracias" or "Thank you" so that the server knows.

Its a beautiful custom that has a lot of ceremony to it, but is surprisingly simple.

A Subtropical Rainforest Winter...explained

Do you know that a large majority of Paraguay was or is a subtropical rainforest and that it is the only subtropical rainforest in the world? It is fun to be able to say that I live in a rainforest and I love the vegetation that is here as a result of the climate. The trees are so different than the trees that I grew up in my frozen tundra of Minnesota. The weather in Paraguay is usually hot. In the summer it reaches 100 degrees F almost everyday. Starting in May we began to experience "Winter" weather.
Coming from the Minnesota cold that I know, I wasn't sure what to expect. They said that it would get down to 32 degrees F, or 0 degrees C occasionally during the winter. So yes, winter in Paraguay is cold. It is at its worst in the mornings, in the evenings, or when its cloudy and rainy. If there aren't any clouds and the sun comes out during the day it will warm up and I can sit in the sun and drink Terere with my neighbors. If its cloudy and rainy the day is miserable and I usually spend my day sipping hot mate and cooking banana breads or, my new favorite, Mexican Lasagna in my house. But then there are weeks where its as if we have an "Indian Summer." It gets hot again. Reaching back into the 90's. I stay cool in the shade sipping ice cold terere and aprovechar the nice weather by working in my garden, washing my clothes, or getting out and visiting a friend I haven't seen in a long time because its been so cold. I still haven't bought a fan for my house so these Indian Summers really kill me. I am waiting until it is more consistently warm and I have the money to purchase one. I know it will be necessary when the heat picks up again. For now I enjoy the cold on the good days, and dread the cold on the bad days. Its a love
hate relationship and it makes me miss those hearty Minnesota winters where on the coldest days you run between the car and the house and then sit in front of the fireplace until you thaw out. Unfortunately my house doesn't have any insulation against the weather so this makes the winters harder.
I recently tried to explain "winter sports" to my host brother and that when it snows it makes winter fun. You can go sledding, skiing, snowboarding, ice skating, play a good game of hockey, make a snow man, throw snowballs at your neighbor. Unfortunately there is no snow, so I put up with the cold weather and make winter enjoyable by cooking and drinking yummy mate!