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Matthew Patay's
Note of the Month
November 2005
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Map and flag images provided by Graphic Maps
This month's featured note
is from the country of Paraguay.
The denomination is 100,000 Guaranies and the Standard Catalog of World Paper Money
(SCWPM) Number is P-New (this note was recently issued and is not yet contained
in the SCWPM).
The note is dated 2004.
(front)
The banknote is green and dark-green on multi-colored underprint.
San Roque Gonzalez de Santa-Cruz (born: 1576 - died: 1628), the first person
born in the Americas to be cannonized, is at right and whose portrait is also
used as the watermark.
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The following information
was obtained from:
Catholic Online
St. Roque Gonzalez de Santa-Cruz
(1576-1628, Feast Day: November 17)
The earliest beatified martyrs of America
are three Jesuits of Paraguay, and one of them was American-born.
Roque Gonzalez y de Santa-Cruz was the son of noble Spanish parents, and he came into this world at Asuncion, the capitol of Paraguay, in 1576. He was an unusually good and religious boy, and everybody took it for granted that young Roque would become a priest. He was in fact ordained, when he was twenty-three: but unwillingly, for he felt very strongly that he was unworthy of the priesthood. At once he began to take an interest in the Indians of Paraguay, seeking them out in remote places to preach to and instruct them in Christianity; and after ten years, to avoid ecclesiastical promotion and to get more opportunity for missionary work, he joined the Society of Jesus.
These were the days of the beginnings of the famous "reductions" of Paraguay, in the formation of which Father Roque Gonzalez played an important part. These remarkable institutions were settlements of Christian Indians run by the Jesuit missionaries, who looked on themselves, not like so many other Spaniards did as the conquerors and "bosses" of the Indians, but as the guardians and trustees of their welfare.
It was to bring about such a happy state of things that Father Roque labored for nearly twenty years, grappling patiently and without discouragement with hardships, dangers and reverses of all kinds, with intractable and fierce tribes and with the opposition of the European colonists. He threw himself heart and soul into the work. For three years he was in charge of the Reduction of St. Ignatius, the first of them, and then spent the rest of his life establishing others reductions, half a dozen in all, east of the Parana and Uruguay rivers; he was the first European known to have penetrated into some districts of South America.
In 1628, Father Roque was joined by two young Spanish Jesuits, Alonso (Alphonsus) Rodriguez and Juan (John)de Castillo, and together they founded a new reduction near the Ijuhi river, dedicated in honor of Our Lady's Assumption. Father Castillo was left in charge there, while the other two pushed on to Caaro (in the southern tip of what is now Brazil), where they established the All Saints' Reduction.
Here they were faced with the hostility of a powerful "medicine man", and at his instigation the Mission was soon attacked. Father Roque was getting ready to hang a small church bell when the raiding party arrived; one man stole up from behind and killed him with blows on the head from a tomahawk. Father Rodriguez heard the noise and, coming to the door of his hut to see what it was about, met the bloodstained savages who knocked him down. "What are you doing, my sons?" he exclaimed. But he was silenced by further blows. The wooden chapel was set on fire and the two bodies thrown into the flames. It was November 15, 1628. Two days later the Mission at Ijuhi was attacked; Father Castillo was seized and bound, barbarously beaten, and stoned to death.
The first steps toward the beatification of these missionaries were taken within six months of their martyrdom, by the writing down of evidence about what had happened. But these precious documents were lost. Then copies of the originals turned up in the Argentine, and in 1934, Rogue Gonzalez, Alonso Rodrigues and Juan de Castillo were solemnly declared Blessed. They were canonized in 1988 by Pope John Paul II. Their feast day is November 17th.
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(back)
Represa de Itaipú (Itaipú
Dam) is at left center.
The following information was obtained from:
Itaipú Dam
Text by: Joel Sampaio and Luiz A.N.
Silva
The Itaipú hydroelectric power plant is the largest development of its kind in operation in the world. Built from 1975 to 1991, in a binational development on the Paraná River, Itaipú represents the efforts and accomplishments of two neighboring countries, Brazil and Paraguay. The power plant's 18 generating units add up to a total production capacity of 12,600 MW (megawatts) and a reliable output of 75 million MWh a year. Itaipú's energy production has broken several records over the recent years, after the last generating unit was commissioned in 1991. The generation of 77.212.396 MWh a year in 1995 will again be surpassed in 1996, and the new record will be around the 80 million MWh a year mark.
The magnitude of the project can also be demonstrated by the fact that in 1995 Itaipú alone responded for 25% of the energy supply in Brazil and 78% in Paraguay. The power plant is also a major tourism attraction in the Foz do Iguaçú area, having received around 9 million visitors from 162 countries. The Brazilian city of Foz do Iguaçu, also home of the famous Iguaçú Falls, is located at the Western tip of Paraná State, right by the border with Paraguay and Argentina.
General Outline of the Project
The Itaipú hydroelectric power plant, located 14 kilometers North of the International Bridge linking the cities of Foz do Iguaçú, Brazil, and Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, consists of a series of various types of dams a total distance of 7,744 meters with a crest elevation of 225 meters. The Powerhouse is located at the toe of the main Dam, most of it on the river bed and the rest on the Diversion Channel. The nominal power of the plant is 12,600 MW, divided between 18 generating units of 700 MW each, 15 of which are located in the main Powerhouse and the remaining three on the Diversion Channel. The Spillway is located on the right bank, and it has 14 segmented sluice-gates with a total discharge rate of 62,200 cubic meters per second (twice that of the highest flood- level on record). The Concrete Main Dam is of the hollow gravity type and is connected to the Spillway by a concrete buttress-type Wing Dam which continues thereon as a small Card fill dike. On the left bank a Rock fill Dam is linked to the Main Dam and at the other end to an Earth fill Dam. In order to build the main dam wall and the Powerhouse, the river was diverted through a Diversion Channel on the left bank.
The volumes of construction in Itaipú are also impressive. The volume of iron and steel utilized in the Dam structure would be enough to build 380 Eiffel Towers, and the volume of concrete used in Itaipú represents 15 times the volume utilized to build the Channel Tunnel between France and England. Itaipú is one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World, according to a worldwide survey conducted by the American Society of civil Engineers (ASCE) and published in Dec. 1995 as a cover article of the North-American "Popular Mechanics". The article says that " To build [the Itaipú Dam], workers reenacted a labor of Hercules: they shifted the course of the seventh biggest river in the world (Paraná River, at the Brazil/Paraguay border) and removed more than 50 million tons of earth and rock." According to the magazine, "the true marvel of Itaipú, though, is its powerhouse ... a single building that puts out 12,600 megawatts -- enough to power most of California".
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For more information about Paraguay visit:
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