sha, la, la, la, la anthony: for most people, paraguay is an empty space on the map of latin america. a country of only six million, where a vast percentage of the land is steamy hot jungle, or a huge scrub desert known simply as the chaco. only a few large cities offer a respite from the oppressive heat. a thousand miles upriver from
good meal. so, this was the house of, or, one of the houses of the notorious madame lynch. guido: right. exactly. anthony: journalist, poet, and author guido rodriguez alcala has written books on paraguay s history. now, who exactly was madame lynch? a murky background would you say? guido: there s a lot of talk about that. anthony: right. guido: somebody say she was a great woman or that she was a very evil one. anthony: she came over on the famous trip from france. guido: right. anthony: succeeding de francia in 1840s lopez senior reversed many of paraguay s isolationist policies. he invited foreigners to settle here and built one of south america s first railways. its steam engines taken out of service only a few years ago. and he sent his son, francisco solano lópez, to europe. anthony: in his mission, his
peter: bife koygua. it s arroz, rice, with fried beef, with an egg on top. anthony: oh, done. i m there. good. peter: and there is a soup whose name is bori bori, that s very, very old paraguayan stuff. little corn balls. anthony: whoa, that looks good. it looks very good. peter: ah, yeah. anthony: that s good, man. i m trying to make some sense of this country. you ve lived here how long? peter: 22 years. anthony: why d you come here in the first place? peter: i was born in east germany, and east germany, that meant you will never go out. anthony: mm-hmm. peter: yeah, and then in 89, the wall break down and said, wow! you will go! anthony: i haven t seen anything of this country yet. but what i read was, the world s backwater, filled with bombed-out banks that have been
brazil. anthony: of brazil, that s right, yeah. he was refused in very unflattering terms. thanks presumably, to lopez jr. s expansionist ambitions, he dragged paraguay into the triple alliance war. he essentially challenged all three neighbors. pedro: brazil, argentina, and uruguay. anthony: to war. this doesn t seem like a good idea. pedro: ah, yeah. anthony: right. in what would become the bloodiest war in latin america s history, hundreds of thousands of paraguayans died. when lopez ran out of adults, he sent children into the field dressed only in rags, armed with sticks painted to look like guns. guido: my great-grandfather was a ten year-old boy and he was dressed like a girl because otherwise he was going to be enrolled in the army. anthony: lopez, eventually, he was hunted down. madame lynch survived. guido: yes. she survived. anthony: but with her money? i mean, she was allowed to keep her possessions? guido: yes.
peter: he showed madame lynch to his father, and his father was upset. so she was put aside, and, uh anthony: kept as a mistress. peter: and that was the way paraguayan society tried to treat her, and she wanted to be treated as the anthony: princess. peter: yes. anthony: tell me about madame lynch s famous boat trip. on one of her more notorious ventures as hostess, madame lynch organized a grand outing to the new french colony at nouveau bordeaux. she invited all of society to join her. historian: right. anthony: a magnificent river steamer was engaged for the party. guido: and, well, there were some tensions between the paraguayan ladies and madame lynch. anthony: once on board, as the story goes, those mean bitches treated their hostess like so much trash.