ECHO 2002 Daily Diary

ECHO 2002 Daily Diary

Columbia Education Center ECHO 2002

DAILY DIARY
July 28, 2002

Today's ECHO activities brought to you by

Team "Liberty Spuds"

Jim Harper

Yohandre Suarez

Linda Nolevanko

ECHO visits with the Wenningers	'Pepe' and the Germans Today we visited "Little Germany" in Paraguay. Our first stop in the hillside village of Colonia de Independencia was the pristine home of Jose "Pepe" and Anneliese Wenninger. Frank immediately bonded with their dog "Chiki," and Elfrieda launched into German with her characteristic gusto. Jose noted that about 1,000 Germans live here, and they maintain German citizenship through to the third generation. His 80 year-old house is the oldest in Independencia. At one point, Paraguay offered German families 20 free hectares to settle here and cultivate the land. After clearing the jungle and building their new homes, settlers attempted agricultural production of many European (specifically German) varieties of grapes and other vegetation, but the Paraguayan climate proved limiting, causing many to eventually convert much of their farming to the production of sugar cane and yerba mate, a type of herbal tea popular in the region.
*Yerba Mate "El Agricultor"* Next, we visit "El Agricultor" yerba mate plant operated by Jorge A. Escher. Jorge walked us through the process, beginning with harvesting and delivery of the plant, to the drying, aging and packaging of the final product. The yerba mate tree grows three to four meters and is harvested once per year. The tea leaves and branches are dried by first running through a hot oven for one minute, then airing out for 24 hours on a wooden pyramid-type structure heated from below. Finally, the tea is ground, sorted and stored. Mate may be aged anywhere between six months to two years -- the longer the aging, the better the flavor. A fine, green dust covers everything in the wooden storage barn, and the aroma of roasted leaves tempts our taste buds. We thank Jorge for our tour of his facility and for the free sample of his product.	Turning Yerba Mate is important for the drying process
Jorge Escher and the finished product	"Warmes Essen" From food production, we move on to exceptional food consumption at Deutscher Sportverein Independencia, the German cultural center. We marveled at how fresh and how good the food was -- better than eating in Germany itself! We had chicken cordon-bleu, various salads and veggies, homemade noodles (spaetzli), potatoes au gratin, roast pork and, of course, beer (German style, brewed in Paraguay). To top it off, we selected from various cakes and pies, and what many agreed was an awesome cup of coffee. We were certainly riding a "food high" -- and that's before we even got to the vineyards.

A German Feast in Paraguay Vino tinto, vino blanco After squeezing us through an opening in the fence, Pepe gave us a thorough tour of a wine-making facility (although closed for the winter), including the mechanized grape-crushing vat (You're not in Italy anymore, Lucy!), huge fermenting pools and the equally big oak barrels used for aging the wine. Next, Pepe guided us to the bottling and labeling facility just adjacent to the previous bay. Here we sample a Paraguayan red and white wine. Not quite to some people's taste, but it sure was an experience.
Our guide, Lidia, helps Frank open a bottle of wine	A landscape in the county of Guira
Cana So you don't like the wine? Try some cana (pronounced kahn-nya), a hard liquor distilled from sugar cane that is sure to pack a punch! We sat around in Pepe's back yard to try his homemade versions (47 and 78 percent alcohol by volume, respectively) which he also sells to larger distilleries. Too strong? No problem, just add a little lemonade and you've got a Brazilian caipirinha. We liked it so much that we got a bottle to take back to the hotel with us. Good thing we're not driving back!