A Toda Maquina

So, Julia L. from Greensboro, NC, (another trainee in my training community), and her host sister, Elena, came over to my host family’s house one night in the second week of our service. I was eating dinner and only paid mild attention to the conversation, but it sounded like they (Elena much more than Julia) wanted me and my host mom (Xinia) to accompany them to a TV show. Elena claimed to have some extra tickets her friend had given her; so I didn’t see why she wanted my host mom and me to go. Well, as it turns out, I’m fairly sure that the “extra tickets” were just a front, and she really needed my host mom to get us into the show. It turns out that one of my host mom’s sons, Cristopher, has a marinovia (translate for meaning: live in girlfriend/life partner) whose daughter is the hostess of said show. I’d say host brother, but he doesn’t live at the house, so he’s really more like the host mom’s son. Yes, if you’re doing the math right, his live in girlfriend is maybe 25 years older than him, so that her daughter is his age…but let’s just say that my host family isn’t quite ‘typical.’ This TV show is A Toda Maquina, which can really just be translated as Super Variety Show. And oh what a show it was.

So, well, I said yes, the tickets were arranged and we headed out on the bus early on a Sunday morning, switched to another bus in San Jose, and then walked right past the brand new National Stadium, built by the Chinese (I haven’t quite figured out if the Costa Ricans think this is a good thing, but they always say it when mentioning the stadium). I generally think that if the Costa Ricans want anything done in any sort of timely manner, they’d probably better call the Chinese. Oh, I got yelled at by my host mom and Elena for commenting that the stadium was neither very big nor impressive. Apparently I’m supposed to lie about something that wasn’t a whole lot bigger, and less impressive architecturally than my high school’s stadium. Also, the aforementioned ‘we’ also included Julia’s neighbor, Yansi and Yansi’s daughter Fraychel. Who said you had to choose between Francine and Rachel when naming your daughter? We get to the building and get in line. As I later found out, if you dress up to dance and arrive early to line up, you can compete in one of the many couples dancing competitions during the show. There were also some people with dogs in line-doing the same thing for the stupid pet tricks portion. And, let’s just say that I’ve seen friend’s hunting dogs do significantly more and better tricks than the dog that won. Many people in line had brought snacks, and if not, there were some vendors mingling about the line offering up chips and fried plantains. Thankfully, I brought my Kindle (shameless plug) as we were in line for over an hour.

Apparently you don’t really need tickets, as my host mom just said something to the lady with the list of names, and we went in. Once we got inside, I realized I almost preferred the line. I’ll be sensitive and say that one must not be too burdened with intelligence to follow the humor and quiz games that transpire on A Toda Maquina. Without doing any thinking or processing one could be entertained by dancing by girls not dressed for winter, dancing competitions between older couples with various levels of skill, spelling contest, guess the liar contest, stupid pet tricks, break dancing, reading of posts on the A Toda Maquina Facebook page, dancing by women not dressed for winter and men dressed as if Prince was still a pop icon, a life size spider web climbing race (Yansi competed!), and a bunch of stuff I have forgotten because it was forgettable. For me, besides the brunette prize presentation girl (cash prizes are handed out during the show to activity winners), the most interesting thing was watching the cameramen move around to get the best shots. Was watching the cameramen a sign that the show wasn’t for me?

If it doesn’t seem like being immersed in A Toda Maquina for all of its three hours was peaches and cream for me, there is a reason besides the show’s content (although I’m not absolving the show). Pressed right next to me were a woman and her two kids. With whistles. I knew I didn’t like her from the beginning, for one prejudicial reason and one more legitimate one. The former, she, like many of her fellow female citizens, has apparently not been made aware that wearing tight fitting clothing that shows a little skin becomes less and less attractive as a woman’s BMI trends upwards from 26. The second reason I didn’t like her was because her kids were quite impolite. They were old enough to know how and when to say excuse me, sorry, etc. but not old enough for it not still be mainly her fault. And they had gosh darn whistles. Gosh. Darn. Whistles. For three gosh darn hours. At first it was kind of funny, how excited they got over what seemed to me a mindless assortment of lights, sounds, and uninspired dancing. After thirty minutes I wanted to pull the godforsaken whistles out of their mouths and throw them onstage. After an hour more I was clenching my fists, staring at the ground and breathing deeply. With an hour left I started looking at my watch every other minute counting the minutes left until this hell in Costa Rica was over. I also began mean mugging the heck out of them every time they blew their whistle at football match volumes. With twenty minutes left, it again became funny and I kept glancing at Julia whenever I surmised a whistle was coming up. Many of the people nearby looked incredibly annoyed, and I can only imagine I did too (hiding my emotions is not a strong trait) as I was the person whose ears were closest to the abomination. Although, sitting next to them did afford me a few chances to get in the audience shots-when was the last time you were nationally televised in a foreign country? Snap!

For both my host mom and Elena, this was not their first time watching A Toda Maquina live in the studio. The ability to view a live taping of this show is a cultural difference I cannot understand, nor plan on adapting.