Guaro

As I am coming to the end of my eighth week, I've realized my time here has absolutely flown by.

Last weekend, my host dad invited me and one of his old friends, Nena, to go watch a guy he knows "saca guaro", or make moonshine liquor. We had to drive a little while in some hills and then climb down to a little spot of land where he had, and I have always wanted to describe something as this, a lean-to set up along with his supplies for making the guaro. It's made from sugar cane sugar, which is a deep brown, and boils in a large barrel where the vapor then runs through a tube and passes through another barrel. A hose runs fresh mountain water into this second barrel, which cools the hot vapor passing through the tube. The tube then drips the cooled guaro into a little bucket or whatever container you want.

We grilled sausages and ate them with tortillas and pico de gallo, and the man making the guaro invited us back to his house where he gave me two out of print colones bills- one for 5 colones and another for 50. He also gave me 3 tomatoes. The guaro he makes probably runs around 60-70 proof or more, and is crystal clear pure but goes down like fire.

I have gone out a few times with a few friends I've made, including a casino, two karaokes, various bars, one of which is called "Longhorns" and is run by the US restaurant chain "Abuelo's" I think, and a club called Tragaldabas that will suck you dry of all money.

In the past few days, the 5 yr. old girl at Casa Luz has asked me to help her learn to count. She just started kindergarten a month or so ago, but asked me what "numbers" A, B, and C were, so obviously reading hasn't been part of her curriculum yet. She can now count to 10 without faltering, but gets caught up on the "dieciseis, diecisiet, dieciocho, diecinueve...." numbers, though she has just about solidified "once-catorce".

New travel plans are that I will leave here a week early to avoid that 90+ day problem and attend a family wedding, so this weekend I will accompany my host family on a whale tour type of thing near the Panama border. It's run by a friend of theirs who doesn't charge much because he does it for fun, and lost both his arms in an accident a long while ago. The Mexico v. Costa Rica game on Saturday almost tripped us up since it cannot be missed, but we'll find a way.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays I still help out the Casa Luz cook, in the kitchen. She is super strong and interesting, talks fast and teaches well but plays this god-awful, excuse the pun, religious music that a lot of the time sounds like an Evangelical talk show with crying woman calling in and talking about God and then the host saying something like, "You are a princess, repeat me you are a princess, God loves you and only does good things for you, ..." and then the woman sobs, "I am a princess of the angels". Last Monday, a Protestant youth group from Alabama came to give a skit about God. I'm sorry if this offends anyone, but how convincing is a whole skit in broken gringo-Spanish where literally every line is "God is powerful and just". This denies every basic critical thinking strategy of providing justification, evidence, a logical argument. If I were a teenage mother coming from a history of abuse or whatever, a 10 yr. old white kid saying "Dios es poderoso y grande" would not do the trick for me. But they were very nice and a woman asked me "Where did you learn to speak English?", which made me hopeful for the slightly improved quality of my Spanish.

I will try to put up pictures next week of this tour. Much love.