Día de Acción de Gracias

I recently went to a hotel in southern Paraguay (near Encarnacion) to celebrate Thanksgiving with over a hundred other Peace Corps volunteers. We stayed at the beautiful Hotel Tirol, a German run establishment nestled in forested hills, where we swam, ate, and talked English. The hotel is located only a few miles from the Jesuit ruin site Trinidad and I took the opportunity to check out the site with a group of friends one morning. If you haven´t yet seen the movie The Mission check it out and watch it. In the early 1700s the Jesuits organized the Guaraní people to build large reductions where they had shelter, were educated in Catholocism and were protected from the rampant slave traders. The use of native labor under a concentrated leadership actually proved to be an economically successful model that allowed 4000 people to live at the site called Trinidad. Jesuits were expelled from the Americas in 1767 and the reductions have since been deteriorating into their current state. Trindidad is actually a UNESCO World Heratige site; the grounds were remarkably well kept and we hired a very knowledgable guide to tell us about the site.