Wednesday, February 25, 2009

The Top 10 Most unsanitary practices in Paraguay….

....of which we do on almost a daily basis

1) Sharing the same guampa and bombilla (drinking cup/bottle and metal straw when drinking Terere). In other words drinking after others using the same straw.

2) Being served and huge central trough of food among many people, and all sharing one set of silverware.

3) Being served a plate of food on a plate recently used by someone else, and not yet cleaned.

4) Being expected to use the tablecloth as your napkin, that is, grabbing the table cloth and wiping your mouth and hands on it. (I have yet to adopt this practice).

5) Sharing a glass with any acquaintance remotely known, when drinking almost any beverage.

6) Eating meat that was just recently sitting on the counter (hanging in the open air or in a bin unrefrigerated).

7) Watching just about everyone go to the restroom and continue cooking without washing their hands

8) The absence of soap in almost all public and private restrooms

9) Nose picking in public (this apparently is not seen as something gross here)

10) Continuing to consume food after finding a bug or insect in it.

2 comments:

juliebe8 said...

I'm snagging this for my blog!! hope you don't mind!! miss you mark, hope you are enjoying your new job!!

Anonymous said...

Wow, kinda bothered by this post. I lived in Paraguay for almost 10 years and while their way of living is nothing like in the States, this is not an accurate reflexion of the Paraguayans. I've lived in the States for over 10 years as well and have traveled to many places within it, and you can find the same type of behavior around here as well. Which I don't take as a reflexion of American people at all and posting things about it. I would recommend you to travel around and meet other people because by no means is this list a reflexion of who Paraguayans really are.