Just Another Day in Asuncion

The night of May 18, 2000 began no different from any other night. Alvaro and I had been out to get dinner and a bucket of Bavieras at the little pizzeria nearby, and were up late watching television when we noticed the sound of helicopters overhead. It was such a strange sound to hear – I hadn’t heard that sound since I’d moved to Paraguay three months earlier, since there were no helicopters in general use there. No news helicopters, no police helicopters, no life-flight choppers, no private ones either. The only helicopters belonged to the army, whose bases lay mostly far outside the city. We discussed what that might mean, when a moment later, the phone rang – it was cousin Cecelia, calling to tell us to turn on the tv; there was a coup attempt in progress – a ‘golpe de estado’ – and the news was covering it live from the national congress building. We watched as reporters and congressmen congregated in the foyer of the building and the news anchors relayed the lawmakers’ calls for their compatriots to join them against the unknown assailants. Not long after, a few tanks arrived in front of the building, and even fired a round from the tank gun, sending the gathered crowd diving behind pillars and leaving a gaping hole in the façade. The situation ended quickly afterwards, when it became clear that no other army units were joining the mutineers and the uprising consisted of only a few hundred men. We went to bed that night sure that our role as spectators was over.

The view up Calle Santa Ana from in front of our house

The next morning I was alone in the house – it was one of the maid’s off days and Alvaro had gone in to work already. We lived on a quiet, cobbled street in Barrio Las Carmelitas, a neighborhood named for the order of Carmelite nuns who maintained a cloistered convent and a tiny jewel box of a chapel there. Our house was the oldest on the block, one of the original homes, and as such it was a bit more open to the street than the other houses. Most of those were completely walled off, fronted by gated garages and 15 foot walls. By comparison, ours was protected by a solid 6 foot wall along the sidewalk, with a metal door for entry. Behind the wall sat our garden – a concrete path led the forty feet to the front door. The yard was shaded by lime and guava trees, and by the walls of the houses on either side, which stood over us along the property lines. The weather in Asuncion that fall was hot, and we kept the doors and windows open all day to catch the breeze. The lapacho trees were just beginning to bloom, and their small pink flowers floated down through the streets and dusted our patio and lawn.

I heard the sound of someone clapping their hands together on the sidewalk outside our gate – the Paraguayan knock. We had people at the door daily, selling strawberries or watermelon, asking if we had any garbage to be hauled away or used clothing to donate. I went outside to see who it was, but the feet clad in black combat boots didn’t look like a street vendor’s, and the roof and emergency lights of two Toyota pickups showed over the wall. I knew immediately it was the police, and my stomach dropped. By then I was halfway to the gate and my quick mental calculation told me it would be much worse to turn around and pretend not to be home than to open the gate. So I did. Standing before me was an older man dressed casually in jeans and a button-down shirt, with a holster strapped over his shoulders. Behind him stood a group of police officers wearing the khaki brown uniforms of the national police, some of them carrying assault rifles. To this day I’m not sure how many – at least six but that seems so few – maybe as many as ten. It seemed to be much too many to fit in the cabs of those two pickups – there must have been undercover cars on the street as well.

Looking into our yard from the sidewalk

The plainclothes officer introduced himself as a detective and asked if I was American.  He then asked how long I’d lived in Paraguay, why I was there, who I was living with, and what did he do. Now, Paraguay is one of the most corrupt countries in the world, and they’re not known for their fine and upstanding judiciary system. My mind raced, wondering why he was asking me these questions, what they wanted, and if it was legitimate or not. I stuttered through the answers with my barely passable Spanish, trying to decide if I needed to be as worried as I was. He asked a lot of questions about the house next door, but I didn’t have any answers for him except that the house had been vacant for the three months since I’d lived there, and I’d never noticed anyone coming or going. Then he asked if they could come in, and I really began to get nervous – one part of me was thinking “that’s not ok, they don’t have a warrant, I didn’t do anything” while I could hear another part of my mind saying “are you CRAZY? Who cares if it’s legal or not? If you say anything other than ‘Yes, of course’ you’ll really be in for it!”

I said “of course, come in” and stood aside as one after the other the policemen came through the gate. As each one stepped up over the threshold and into the yard he said ‘con permiso’ – literally ‘with permission’, but more like ‘excuse me’. They were all exceedingly polite. One went in the open front door and through the house to the back patio, circling back around the side; another climbed up the guava tree next to the wall separating our house from the neighbor’s and jumped over, followed by another couple of police. As soon as they did that I felt a bit better – it became clear they hadn’t been able to get into the house from the sidewalk so they decided to come in through our yard. The whole time I stood by the gate, waiting. In just a few minutes they were all back over the fence, and as they left the yard one by one they each said “thank you”, “have a nice day”, “thank you”, “see you later”. It felt very surreal to be standing there saying goodbye to each one as he went. The detective was last; he shook my hand, thanked me, and left.

I calmly shut the gate, locked the padlock, and made myself walk slowly back into the house to call Alvaro. He was home in what seemed like mere minutes, and after hearing the story, he knew why the police had been there – the vacant house next door to ours was owned by Hermes Rafael Saguier, a legislator who would eventually be arrested in connection with the coup attempt. The police never returned to the house next door. A few days later some of Mr. Saguier’s family members came by and took some belongings out of the house, including a computer hard drive that I always wondered about later. The big hole that was blasted in the façade of the congress building took years to be repaired, but the president did manage to serve out his full term without being overthrown, impeached, assassinated, or arrested. His luck ran out in 2006, when he was sentenced to eight years in prison for embezzlement and fraud.