Part 4 - Pop Culture and Culture Shock
After a long day at the work site, we'd climb aboard Mau's bus and Wadel would pass back packages of Costa Rican snacks. The unanimous favorite was a brand of cookies called "Chiky." Something about their chocolatey awesomeness got us all hooked! They need to start stocking them at Ralph's.
Our daily commute averaged about 2 hours each way, so the staff in the front of the bus would converse in Spanish or take a snooze. Filomena and I would chat or watch for wildlife out the window, and Gabriel would pop in his headphones for some alone time. Now the kids in the back of the bus… well, it must have been all the Lizano or Imperial or something, but they were pretty lively! One evening they started up a game of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon,” and when they found out Sheldon had watched pretty much every movie ever made, it morphed into “Six Degrees of Any Actor.” I think at one point they managed to connect Dan Aykroyd to Natalie Portman.
I think it’s little things like road trip games and iPod swapping that helped to bring our little group together so quickly. In a completely foreign place, we searched for common elements of our California lives and latched onto them - Hollywood, video games, music, it seemed pop culture was easy to share and understand. We had dance-in-your-seat sessions with classic rock and J-Lo, and chilled out to the sounds of Goldfrapp and Coldplay. Sheldon, Wadel and I debated whether Lawrence of Arabia was better than Dr. Zhivago. At night we'd break out flashlights and turn the bus into a hopping club, with DJ Mau blasting Spanish covers of popular U.S. artists.
On the fourth day of the trip, we met at Porfilia’s place for a cross-culture picnic. Our group brought hamburgers and hotdogs to barbecue, and Porfilia showed us how to make our own empanadas by grinding corn for tortillas, stuffing them and frying them up.
We were surprised that most of the locals had never had a hamburger or hot dog before. Jackson decided to have one of each, PLUS an empanada! I think we gave the little guy a pretty bad stomachache.
After the meal we took turns talking about what we did for work, and what sorts of activities we enjoyed. One of the locals named Yorleni said she liked to make butterfly magnets out of aluminum cans. We asked if she had any to sell, and she promised to bring some. Most of the kids loved to play soccer, and they would get a chance to prove it soon…