Don't Rain on Our Fiesta!

The thunder has been growling down from the sky for the last two hours, like some huge angry lion, with occasional hazy lightening flashes through dark clouds, followed by more rumbling until it’s virtually a continual sound, rising and falling with the distance. The rain continues to come down in a steady hum through the leaves. It’s a very “tropical” afternoon.

The normally placid Concho River

My mom relayed to me in great excitement this morning on the phone that in West Texas they had finally had a gully-washer of a storm, with the Concho River carrying dead trees, blue trash cans, Styrofoam cups and coolers and all manner of stuff downstream, as it rose along the banks that run by the Chamber of Commerce Visitor Center where she works. Total rainfall? According to the newspaper, about 1½ inches. Wowsa. Here in Costa Rica, I think we get more than that every afternoon lately. The rainy season seems to have moved in past veranillo, or little summer, when the weather dries up for a couple of weeks in July just in time for the kids’ summer break from school. Now we’re heading into the serious stuff that comes in September and October.

But the daily downpours don’t stop a fiesta, and since yesterday was Mother’s Day here in Costa Rica there were fiestas aplenty. I made my way to two of them, one Tico and one Gringo.

A few days ago my Tica housekeeper Cidia called and tried to communicate something to me about a fiesta for “Dia de Madre,” or Mother’s Day. I got that much. But the rest was … well, Spanish. Bad enough in person; impossible on the phone. So we finally agreed she’d have someone call back in English. When he did, I found that Cidia had paid for a ticket for me to come to a Mother’s Day dinner-dance at the community center behind the soccer field here in Barrio Los Angeles. When I learned that our friend Jeannette was coming as well, she and I made a plan to go together in her car in case of rain.

And of course, it was raining so off we went last evening, slogging our way through wet grass to the entrance of a long open hall with a stage at one end and a kitchen at the other, decorated in merry abandon with hundreds of red and white balloons, red hearts along the walls and red flowers on the tables. Loud music from the Latin band onstage was spilling out the windows as we parked and since Cidia’s table was in the front near the speakers, Jeannette and I suffered seriously numbed eardrums by the time we left.

But the only way to deal with loud music is to get up and dance. And dance we did. The entire crowd was women; the men were in the kitchen cooking, then serving us drinks and food. But the audience of women just ganged up on the dance floor and shook some booty, so to speak. It was a kick! One of the most enthusiastic dancers was a well-dressed grandmother who happily posed for my camera.

Cidia, in center, kickin' it!

Cidia's dancing shoes

Cidia, 2nd from right, and friends

Jeannette and the dancing grandma

After dinner of chicken, rice and salad, there was an apparently funny skit performed by four men, two dressed up as a mother and a daughter. I say “apparently” because Jeannette and I couldn’t follow the Spanish but the crowd would explode in laughter now and then. Finally, when the “daughter” turns up “pregnant” with her boyfriend, the “parents” go crazy but eventually forgive and all ended happily. The performers got a huge round of applause. When Jeannette and I finally left, Cidia and her friends gave me the carnation centerpiece, which now graces my coffee table. I’m honored that Cidia invited me. Hopefully, next year I’ll understand more Spanish!

Today was a fried chicken luncheon at Kay’s Gringo Postre, the gathering place for the Gringo community here in Atenas. With Layne in Oregon, it was just me in the taxi but once I got to Kay’s, there were lots of friends already seated and our buddy Marc was helping serve the food. After saying Hello to proprietors Kay and Tom, I found a seat by our friends Jackie and Neil, lately of Bend, Oregon. Although relative newcomers in town, the two have easily fit right in here in Atenas. We chatted about how they are enjoying life here and about other places to live in Costa Rica, all while being served a nice green salad, then a big plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans and a biscuit; iced cake for dessert. Buena comida! Good food! 

Brain-teasers at the Mall

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Today we decided to take a trip down the hill to the closest major shopping center, the Mall de Las Flores, or Mall of the Flowers. In our excursions around San Rafael on foot, we had gone into several small clothing boutiques but I had failed to find the cute, light-weight blouses and perhaps shorts that I wanted and precious few sombreros. My new baseball hat with San Francisco Fire Department emblazoned on it, a gift from Damian prior to our departure, just doesn’t seem quite right in this community; it makes me feel too much like the foreigner that I am. And tee-shirt fabric is pretty heavy for this warm and humid climate. Lesson learned: bring lighter-weight clothes.

The bus was crowded today, even in San Rafael, so Layne and I were forced to take seats apart for the first leg of the trip. As still more people got onboard, many ended up standing, holding on to seatbacks and rails through the bumpy ride to downtown Heredia. But eventually we reached the last stop where everyone got off to either change buses or walk to their destinations. We opted instead for a cab and for about $1.50, we soon arrived at the entrance to the mall.

Now this is a real mall, American-style! Two floors, four wings, each capped off at the end by a major department store and your basic food court, with KFC, McDonalds, Subway, Quizno, pizza, hamburgers, Chinese buffets and more. Nicer restaurants were situated near the entrance but Layne is pretty attached to those $5 Subway tuna sandwiches. Split in half, it’s a cheap and tasty lunch.

The biggest challenge for us continues to be communication. After the “Buenas,” and maybe a “Como esta’,” I’m sometimes hard-pressed to make my wishes known. Occasionally, in our shopping today I resorted to “solamente miranda,” my effort at “only looking,” although I’m far from confident that is the correct form. Still, most clerks seemed to understand and smiled with sympathy at us poor illiterate Gringos. In our first few stops at clothing boutiques, we were aghast at the high prices. Goodness, we might as well be in the States! Little sleeveless tops, gathered at the shoulder or V-necked were upward of $22, more than I had planned to spend on such a minimal piece of fabric!

At last we came upon a shop announcing a 40%-off sale; ah, more my speed. There was a very cute top in the sale rack, just what I wanted. But I was pretty sure the Medium on the hanger would not fit my… uh, shall we say, more Rubenesque form. But I managed to ask the friendly young sales clerk if “Tiene una grande?” which she brought out from the back. Costa Rican women are on average much smaller than most Americans so even the Large was a bit snug across my ample bosom. But it was attractive and perhaps I’ll lose a few pounds, right? So about $12 later it was mine.

On we went, amazed at the vast array of shops. To our delight, there was even an Apple

authorized dealership. We stopped in and had the good luck to find an English-speaking clerk who assured us they do repairs on Macs, an important feature for us if we decide to live here permanently since we both work on MacBooks. Although priced a little higher than online (and of course, much higher than Layne’s recent reconditioned purchase), the computer prices were still well in line with the average cost of a Mac in the States.

At our lunch break, Layne glanced up and noticed a Hallmark shop. Now you must realize that Layne has been totally occupied for hours on end, completely obsessed, you might say, with the book he is writing. So he rarely gets bored. I, on the other hand, don’t handle idleness very well and although we’ve borrowed a few good books from our hotel here, I have suffered through hours of boredom. But I love to do puzzles! So we headed for Hallmark, confident they would have jigsaw puzzles in stock. But how do you say “jigsaw puzzle” in Spanish? I looked in my Palm Pilot but only came up with “puzzle.” Now that’s helpful! Although the small Hallmark store had nothing to offer, the woman clerk seemed to understand our desire and gave us directions, embellished by hand-signals, to a store she thought might carry them. It’s a big mall, however, and we wandered up and down hallways until at last, we came to a large children’s store. This must be it, we thought.

But again, how to ask for it? The clerks behind the counter seemed completely at a loss as to what we wanted: Puzzle, Jigsaw, pequeno pieces. We laughed, we sighed, we finally left empty-handed and headed for the exit. But like most malls, there was a booth near the entrance selling DVDs or some such. So again we stopped and tried to convey our wishes to the worker there. The guard posted nearby came over to see if he could assist these desperate Gringos.

At this point, Layne got creative, indeed brilliant, since pictures speak louder than my poor Spanish. He asked her for a pen and drew some blob-like shapes on a piece of paper to represent puzzle pieces and showed it to them both. This seemed to do the trick! The guard nodded knowingly for us to follow him as he guided us back to the same children’s mega-store. The clerks there smiled broadly to see us return while the guard explained to them what we were looking for. Only then did I realize that I had been using Spanish-to-English in the Palm, rather than English-to-Spanish! Duh! No wonder it kept offering nothing but “puzzle” as a translation for “puzzle!” After a quick chat with the clerks, the guard pointed us toward the games section of the store and as we roamed down that aisle, there they were! From 300 to 2000 piece puzzles in all sorts of colorful images.

Who would guess that the word for jigsaw puzzle is “rompecabezas” - which means, according to my Palm, brain-teaser! And when you think about it, that’s exactly what they are. It also fits today’s search: a rompecabeza, for sure!