Yes, as the title suggests, this week I have learned a few new things. One of which, was that I have been eating horse for the past 3 months and have been completely unaware of it this entire time. They have sausage here called salchichon. I’ve always thought that it was some kind of cow or pork product. Wrong! So wrong. This weekend while I was hanging out at a local beach town with my new Tico friends, I was informed that salchichon is in fact horse. On the one hand, I guess horse doesn’t taste so bad since I didn’t even know I was eating it. On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that I will never again pick salchichon as part of a meal. I’m not saying that I would never eat it again. If the context of the situation indicated that it would be more polite to take and consume a fine piece of horsemeat, then I would do it. It doesn’t mean that I would want to. I mean I already have a hard time looking at the pigs and cows when I come across them, I don’t need to feel guilty every time a horse walks by on the street. The strange thing is when I did find out that it was horsemeat and that they weren’t pulling my leg, my reaction was definitely surprised, yet somehow not really surprised enough. I feel like I’ve had enough culinary adventures here that I’ve become inured and no longer feel completely disgusted after eating something I would never ever have tried in the States. For those curious minds, I’ve eaten horsemeat (obviously), mondongo (soup made out of tripe (aka cow stomach)), and lengua (cow’s tongue).
Last Friday, I went to San Jose so that I could go to the Peace Corps office so that I could pick up a refill of Benadryl, more sunscreen, and bug spray. I take Benadryl every night to help me fight the reactions to the many mosquito bites I acquire everyday. It’s quite sad actually. Benadryl is what keeps me sane and not scratching all day everyday. I did forget to take it one night (I take it at night because it makes me drowsy) and the next morning it looked like I had chicken pox on my legs. It was horrible. Not only does it look unattractive, as has been pointed out to me on numerous occasions, but the itching is like some form of torture. It just doesn’t stop. The worst is when I can’t figure out which bite is actually the cause for such misery. I think it’s one and scratch a little, and the itching continues, so I move to a different one, nope, still itchy. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s all of them and to stop scratching when I can help it. They heal faster and look a whole lot better if I don’t touch them. I just lather on they hydrocortisone cream. Another sad fact, I’ve gone through a tube of hydrocortisone faster than a tube of toothpaste.
Anyway, after going to the office, I met up with a friend who also came into San Jose and hung out with her for the rest of the day. It was really nice and relaxing. It’s always nice to hang out with my PCV buddies, especially the ones in my group. We all have an understanding of each other and are basically going through the same things, just in different locations. So she and I talked for a while about our concerns, frustrations, and ideas for our sites. It was definitely reassuring to know that others are in the exact same position as I am. Also, it was just fun to hang out and not worry about being a Peace Corps Volunteer, watching what I have to say, what I’m doing. It was nice to get out of the fish bowl that is my community.
On Saturday, a lot of the volunteers in my group went to Limon to meet up for Rosie’s birthday. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go because I had to attend the birthday party for my host-niece that day. I must say that it was definitely interesting. I woke up fairly early for a Saturday to the sounds of everyone getting the house ready. The party was to take place at the house I live in because it has a patio for people to sit in. The party started at 12, and surprisingly almost everyone was there by 12:30. This is quite unusual for Ticos. They are people known for running late. They call it Tico Time. So, the party started and ended up being much like the baby shower that I had gone to the previous weekend. People sat around in the patio and ate food and talked for a bit. I thought that it was a bit strange that the kids also just sat there. I feel like at home whenever there’s a party with kids, especially a birthday party, they end up running wild and having fun. Not so much with this party.
Eventually they started the piñata and the kids seemed to enjoy that. Each kid got a turn to try and whack the little thing, but nobody actually broke it. I thought that was kind of weak considering they got to try without a blindfold and give it a go for as many turns as they wanted. I guess everyone in the States is far more competitive. Eventually my host-mom just grabbed the piñata and started throwing handfuls of candy at people’s heads. I’m not exaggerating. She was literally chucking handfuls of candy at people as they scrambled to grab some. After being pelted in the head a couple of times by hard candy (I wasn’t even interested in it. I was just sitting in my chair.) I decided that it’s much softer to toss the candy in the air in the center of the circle as opposed to flinging things at people’s faces that could potentially take an eye out. Add that to the list of cultural differences.
Finally the time came for the celebrant to open her presents. Let me state that this was a party for a 3-year-old. I got her a cheap version of a Magnadoodle because I figured it was a toy that 3 years olds could enjoy and would last a while. She ended up opening my present first. I was nervous because I figured my gift might be the worst because the quality of it wasn’t that great. As they started opening more gifts, I started to relax. Most people got her shampoos and soaps. Others got her some t-shirts. By the end, I realized I was the only one who got her a toy. Also, I realized the kids were starting to fight over it. I was really surprised that I was the only one who got a toy for a child’s birthday. No wonder the kids here don’t have that many things to play with. They don’t even get toys on their birthdays! Good thing to know for the future. Always bring a toy to children’s birthday parties and it will be a hit.
Eventually everyone went home, and then surprisingly around 7:00, people came back. This time people were carrying things that resembled different parts of a stereo system. I wasn’t really sure what was going on and was slightly disappointed because I was looking forward to going to bed early and getting some quality sleep. Well, that didn’t happen. All of a sudden the party started up again, except much livelier than it had been earlier. They started taking turns doing karaoke on a mic that much resembled a Magic Mic. If you’re of Filipino decent or have been known to come over to my house in high school, chances are you know what a Magic Mic is. I always think it’s hilarious at the end of the song, the program judges how well you did. This was kind of a harsh crowd. If you tried a song and you weren’t very good, they would take the mic away and let someone else pick a new song. Definitely did not encourage me try my hand. Also, I was pre-occupied with work or something in my room and became slightly anti-social. I know, I probably should have just gone out there and hung out, but my introverted ways continues in Costa Rica. I can only hang out in large crowds and listen/speak Spanish for so long before I get overwhelmed, feel like my brain wants to explode and want to be alone to recharge and relax.
The next day I went to one of the local beach towns with my Tico friends where I discovered that salchichon is made of horse and we walked around. Supposedly a lot of tourists like to go there, but I find that hard to believe since we went on a Sunday and I’m fairly certain I only saw a couple of white people there. There really wasn’t much to see in terms of tourism, but it was a good town to visit. They introduced me to this dessert called Churchils that are basically made of this red syrup called Kolita, of which I’m actually not a fan, some vanilla ice cream, condensed milk, and some powdered milk all put together in some ground ice. It sounds/looks like the Costa Rican version of a halo-halo if you know what that is. I’m not particularly fond of Kolita or powdered milk, but surprisingly when all those things are combined, it’s really not that bad. The sun was blazing that day though and I forgot to wear my sunscreen. I think I got a little burned because later that day, someone mentioned that I was looking a little bit red. Good thing we left early, because it would have gotten really hot. Also, there wasn’t much else to do after walking around for half an hour.
Other than that, I’ve just been working and trying to figure out how to make it Guanacaste to meet up with my Auntie Dinna in July. It’s starting to sneak up and I would feel a lot better knowing how to get there. It sounds like a simple task, making it from one place to another, oh but it is far from easy. I don’t really understand how people here travel anywhere without driving themselves. Firstly, bus schedules aren’t really the easiest to find, and when you do find one (luckily one of the other new PCV’s found a site that does it for you) it’s still rather confusing. Most places don’t have terminals, which means that you basically hop on and off the bus at the side of the road. These roads by the way have no signs. So what I’ve done in the past is basically harass the bus driver to ask how far it is to where I need to go. The last and only time I’ve done that was on the way to Tech Week and I was with my entire CYF group. Anyway, we’ll see if I find my way. I’m just going to pretend like I’m 5 and off on a treasure hunt.
So…that’s all the excitement I’ve got in my life for now. ¡Pura Vida!
No comments:
Post a Comment