Another American Part of Me Dies

I said I’d never do it. I’m an American, doggonit-- I’d never even go near that green maté tea stuff that all the Paraguayans drink in the morning. I may do everything else strange and uncomfortable to fit into Paraguayan culture and be a good missionary, but I need coffee when I wake up: coffee that’s rugged and bold and full of life-giving caffeine, the sort of drink that puts hair on chests and makes mighty nations tremble before its awesome power. As an apt student well-trained in American history, I know that both George Washington and George Bush drink coffee every morning, and everyone knows that they are tall and handsome and intelligent and, although I can’t confirm it, I can imagine they have hairy chests, too, because of their black American coffee. I think I even heard once that coffee is the reason why the Americans won the Revolutionary War. While the Brittons were sipping on their dainty tea and nibbling on their sissy crumpets, the manly rebels were able to sneak in and beat them to the ground because they had guzzled down several tankards of coffee along with their hearty morning meals of bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffins.


All of my American cultural knowledge about coffee, though, is now weighing heavily on me as I’ve decided to start drinking Paraguayan maté in the mornings. Although I feel like a rebel against my own upbringing and culture and everything good that I have as an American man, I also feel like I can’t stop or even slow down this conversion to drinking maté. The weather, you see, has finally changed to falltime, so there’s now a distinct South American chill in the early-morning air. It’s this new Paraguayan chill, a chill that makes my feet go cold and my nose go runny and the air on my bare skin feel like a thousand sharp needles, that’s calling me to a distinctly Paraguayan remedy of hot maté. This maté is potent and long-lasting in its ritualistic fight against the chill, offering my hands hours of precious heat-giving movement as I pour the hot water from the thermos into steamy draws of only a couple sips each.


And so, after today, you’ll be able to see me carrying around a thermos full of hot water for maté in the mornings, instead of the coffee you might assume an American man should have. I’ll no longer have an industrial-black glazed porcelain mug in hand, either, but instead an organic wooden guampa, the short and stout gourd-looking cup that holds the yerba (the Paraguayan tea-like leaves) from which is sipped through a metal straw the delicious and comforting maté. I may be taking another step away from my own American culture and good upbringing, but it’s a step that brings me a little closer to the Paraguayan way-of life and a step that carries me to a warmer, happier, and more content place in the cold morning.


In all of this talk about identity and national pride and contentment, though, there is one thing I must confess. Even if I weren’t in Paraguay, I probably would have given up on coffee in favor of maté anyways. I’ve been drinking the hearty American black stuff for ten years now, and the chest hair is still yet to come. It’s definitely time to try a new strategy.