Christmas a la tica

For my third consecutive year, I sadly spent Christmas away from my family and America. I’m a really, really big fan of Christmas, I love the music that fills the air, the hopeful and fun movies, egg nog, my mom’s delicious broccoli bread she makes every Christmas, unwrapping presents, secret Santa gift exchanges, tipsy caroling, and even I (not a fan of winter or the cold) enjoy the first few snowfalls of the year. I had no false hopes of seeing snow, eating any broccoli bread, or unwrapping presents (you generally have to give to receive-all my giving was via the Internet-sans wrapping paper). But, my Christmas a la tica (a la tica means, roughly, Costa Rican style) actually missed almost every one of the elements listed above. It got off to a good start when I joined the trainees in La Fila (the next town up the road from El Rosario) and we ended our last night of training by going around to each of the host families’ homes and doing our best not to slaughter a few Christmas carols. (Our lack of lyrics lists like we rocked in China really hurt.) We even rolled through the Twelve Days of Christmas at one house, kudos to Megon C. and Barton R. for knowing all twelve days. Being in the bell choir growing up didn’t help me learn to many lyrics, although I can hum any Christmas carol you throw my way.

Yet, when I got to my site, the Christmas season was decidedly uneventful. In Costa Rica, the summer/dry season vacation runs from December 15 to February 15 (roughly). So, Christmas is right at the beginning of summer vacation, so all the students and education staff are off work, and most companies give vacation for the week between Christmas and New Years (similar to the U.S. of A.). So, everyone should be around to engage in all sorts of Christmas festivities. From what I garnered, in Costa Rica these festivities include making and eating tamales and putting up Christmas lights. And not much else. I think that gifts are exchanged in some homes, and some homes also put up Christmas trees-generally smaller than the ones we sport in Uncle Sam Land, but my family didn’t do any of that.

What we did do, though, was enjoyable nonetheless. Two days before Christmas, my host dad’s brother came over, with his son and daughter, and each of their respective significant others. My host cousin, the female, was only fifteen and had a boyfriend that looked to be about my age, needless to say my host parents had all sorts of things to say after she left. The next day, another paternal cousin arrived; he was about my age, and works as a mechanic at Purdy Motors, the exclusive dealer of Toyotas in Costa Rica. He was very enjoyable to talk to, pretty interested in college life in America (I told him what was up), and we chatted plenty about cars/highways/driver’s licenses/etc. in the States. The uncle was pretty funny, rocked a black cowboy hat despite working and living in San Jose, and shared my host dad’s fairly crude humor.

As we should all do during the holidays, we ate often and well. We did keep it traditional and had tamales three or four times. They were all quite tasty, made even better with Salsa Lizano-Costa Rica’s do it all condiment. Other than that, we did three things: watched movies, watched El Chinamo/Los Toros-two special Costa Rican TV events that happen around Christmas/New Years, and visited relatives/friends. The movie selection was well, not, umm, exactly Christmas-y. I wasn’t on the movie selection committee, which included the cousins, significant others, and my host siblings. The following movies were played at the house, I chose to watch some, and passed on others-either because I had seen them or didn’t see much value in watching, you can make your own call. The Taking of Pelham 123, Up, Angels and Demons, American History X, The Avenger, and Grown Ups. What a Christmas-y selection, eh? El Chinamo, despite only being on once a year the two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Years, was anything but a Christmas special. The show consists of three main parts: a sand soccer tournament between teams made up of various Costa Rican ‘celebrities’, a karaoke/do you know the lyrics contest, and jokes by stand up comedians. It takes place in a big studio hall, with people at tables throughout the room making up the live studio audience. A lot of money is given out. It’s lots of lights and sounds and giving out money. It, like many medicines, is best served in small doses with large breaks in between. Los Toros will be discussed in the next post.

So, the only other Christmas (if we can say that) activity that we engaged in was to visit family and friends. The day after Christmas, we went to visit a friend of my host uncle’s. No one else really knew him or much about him, but he lived near us (the host uncle lives in San Jose) so we went. After we missed the turn off the highway and asked directions, we headed out of the small town of Cairo (not anything like the real one, from what I can imagine) and into the country. This is obvious not only by the scenery, but by the road’s progression from paved, to gravel, to gravel mixed with fieldstones, to mainly fieldstones and some mud, to mostly mud and some fieldstones. All but the first category include plenty of potholes. Well, now come to think of it, if it’s not a paved national highway there are still potholes. So, we slowly and bumpily made our way to the farm. It was an okay looking farm, it didn’t really have any good views, nor was it really well maintained-which is just fine, there are things (like farming aka makin’ cash to feed the family) that are more important than keeping the lawn intact and trees trimmed. The entire time there we hung around awkwardly and ate a meal without our hosts (they ate immediately after-as there wasn’t adequate seating). Our “Christmas meal” of rice, salad, yucca, and boiled chicken was, shock, about the same as a meal any other day of the year. The chicken was very good (about as local and fresh as you can get); I always love salad, am not a big fan of rice (I like the taste, don’t like its inefficiency in both production and delivering nutrients), and have decided that yucca is my answer when Ticos ask me what food I don’t like here. I have had some good yucca here-in cake and fried with some mayo/ketchup to dip it in. But unless it’s all sorts of fried or mixed with something, yucca is to me, incredibly bland and dry. As in the middle of a piece of yucca makes saltine crackers seem all sorts of moist. This is pure conjecture, but I have doubts that it serves any nutritional purpose besides loading me with already prevalent simple carbohydrates in my diet. Yes, you, bored reader, are right; the most exciting thing about this visit was my analysis of yucca. I mean, my host brother and cousin were watching a movie on a cell phone so I thought it appropriate to take a short siesta on the porch, and I did. And it was delightful.

Our second visit was a lot more fun, because, we had chicharrones and I got to see the area where my host mom grew up. To explain, the polar opposite of yucca on my Costa Rican food spectrum is the chicharron. Chicharrones are pork rinds, and the Costa Ricans do them up as well as they can be done up. They fry them just enough to make them crispy and moist on the outside, and perfectly tender on the inside. The trip out to the farm where my host mom had grown up was considerably more treacherous than that of the previous day, but as my host dad didn’t come, Olmitan, the cousin, drove. He was lots of fun on the mudded out roads leading to the farm, not taking his control of the treacherous roads seriously-which was the right attitude to take. We pretty much just hung out there as well, but as it was grandma’s house, it wasn’t awkward. I went on a journey with my host uncle (my host mom’s youngest brother-who co-runs the farm with grandpa), the fraternal uncle, and the cousin in to town to pick up some groceries and to sell some cheese. We intentionally ran into the cheese truck on the road into town, and he traded his cheese for a huge back of rice, bags of groceries, and some cash. This was a pretty sweet exchange to see, and apparently is common around there. The truck comes each week to buy up all the cheese and milk, and brings with it orders from the grocery store in town-which it trades for the cheese-thus saving the farmers a trip into town. While waiting for the grocery store to open, I actually ran into Chris and Tarah, a Peace Corps couple that works in the town. We chatted about our non-Christmas Christmases. After getting back I enjoyed even more chicharrones and a glass of beer with the uncles. With the beautiful views of the rolling hills, pastures, and forests along the Rio Sarapiqui, it was quite a pleasant trip out to grandma and grandpa’s house. Oh yeah, didn’t bring my camera. Sorry.