Tip tip tippperr patter pat, plonk, splat spatter splotch, kiplonk, kerponk, whisper, sisper, tiffer, tap, drifter, driffer, titter, tat
These are the sounds of a rainy Costa Rican Sunday on roofs of plastic, tin, and ceramic.
Jauquin and I had started working on the mosaics that we were commissioned to make at the school, when our efforts were abated by the never ending appearance of the rain. It was quite a glorious morning, but unfortunatley we did not get up early enough due to going out until 1:30 am the night before in San Jose. I did wake up with the sun as usual and did my daily walk around the block with Adso, As we turned the corner what struck me suddenly was the clarity and closeness of the mountains. Usually they are all fogged and rained over, this morning they rose in a brilliance that saddened me to realize how unaccessable they were due to our not having a car. We do have access to some, but limited.
We had had quite a cultural evening. first we attended a Moliere play translated into spanish as Las Mujeres Sabias. The interesting part about the direction was that the women were all played by men dressed as women. Of course I could not get all of Molier’s subtlties of the language, but I was able to get the main idea of the story. We then headed off to a local cafe where Juaquin will be showing his photographs and there we saw a young woman give a monologue by a local playwrite. Again I was able to get most of the idea about a girl having a baby out of wed lock, then raising the child by telling it stories of women raising their baby girls. Watching the plays were probably easier for me to understand than actually talking in conversation because the actors pronounce the language more clearly.
After a snack, we then headed over to Detour a new disco. Something I never do is enter such a place where the women are dressed wearing barely anything, a man in leather shorts and a cowboy hat and boots dancing on a platform, lights flashing in all directions, techno music pounding through your body like a second heart beat, sweating dripping bodies rubbing against
you on the dance floor gaping up at the girl in a bikini twirling flashing lights in her hands as if guiding the crowd to land just below her feet. The funniest part was when I saw the giant Absolute Vodka bottle that had been produced by the plexiglass company that I am currently working with for my frames.
Patter patter, plop drop dropping dripping tipping, running.
Take care my friends and enjoy, tonight we are off to the theater for a Dance performance. A most interesting event has occured here. Last night a journalist introduced the play by dedicating it to a radio host who had been murdered that day for proving his freedom of speech. This is the first occurence of such a a vengeful murder in Costa Rica. This morning there was a great gathering of people in his memory in the center of San Jose. Apparently he was very critical of a popular priest here who has a lot of
media attention against such issues as gays, abortion, and the like. What this radio host did was make public that this priest had been found hanging out with a young gay man in a not so respectable part of the city, thus compromising his trustworthiness. The community with which Juaquin is a part are all very disturbed by this event, his cousin went to the rally, and he is off at his parents house watching the news about it all.
So for the most stable country in Central America without an army the artistic, culturally minded, and sexually questioning people here are quite on edge at the moment.
Should be interesting what some of the conversations might be like at the dance.
