The past few days in Uruguay have been mildly surreal, and at moments have left me wondering if somebody spiked my mate with LSD. It all started on Thursday evening at grupo de jóvenes. We were promised "una sorpresa" by Fafre after choir practice, and the surprise turned out to be food! Every so often, the group gets together to make dinner in addition to the usual mate-drinking, conversation/joking around, and spiritual reflection time. Kirsten, Johannes, Dorothea, and I helped make the most international batch of lemonade ever prepared - the work of people from three different continents went into the end result. It was a smidge stronge, but still got the job done.
That, however, was not the surreal part. THAT came when we moved up to the church sanctuary while the food finished cooking. The lights were off and a few candles were lit and spread out across the stage area, along with cushions. A boombox was playing a cd of jungle noises and tribal drumming. That was my first clue that this was not going to be a normal evening. After a few minutes of sitting around on the stage, the dancing started. We all got to our feet, and a few people started wildly dancing around the stage while making Indian noises - whoops, hollers, chants, etc. After a few moments of bewildered observation, Lucia grabbed me and pulled me into the midst of the dancing, which by that point had started to become a little more orderly - we all formed a sort-of conga line and stomped and jumped and the like, whooping and hollering continuing the whole time, even when we started to do this backwards. It felt like a cosmically-enlightened version of the bunny hop.
After a little bit, one of the guys in the group stopped the music and had us all sit or lie down on the stage and close our eyes. He guided us through a basic breathing exercise/tension-relieving exercise, and then asked us to start thinking about the day before, then tomorrow, then 3 months in the past, then 3 months in the future, then 10 years in the past, and so on. It was a really nice excercise, actually - I´d not stopped to think about who I was that far in the past for a long time. I remembered the day after school got out in 1997, the end of elementary school for me. I remembered reading Moby Dick out on the steps up to our new pool and deck, which had just been put in a few days prior. I also remembered how I didn´t part my hair back then, and that I had windshield-sized glasses. After the thought excercise was over, we had to pick a partner and talk about it. That was maybe a smidge more challenging for me than for most of the other people in the room, but I feel more confident in my castellano now than I did a month ago, or even a few weeks ago.
However, the moment of peace and clarity only lasted for that - a moment. Our attention was then drawn to Fafre and two other members of the group who were dressed like cavemen and grunting around a tent that had been made in the middle of the sanctuary. Fafre nearly killed himself tripping over a pew. We were, after a little bit of a show, brought into the tent, where we talked about Christian community, took the bread and wine, and sang. I´m a little self-conscious during the song-times at GdJ; I always want to sing, but I don´t necessarily know the songs, so I just sort of muddle along, to the occasional amusement of people like Karin who sit near me. Fortunately, we did sing a couple that I knew, including Nnung Yei Dah, to the delight of Kirsten and me. We then broke for dinner (at midnight), and thus was my Thursday.
Friday, however, continued the surreal trend. The morning passed fairly uneventfully, until lunchtime. The women´s group and the jóvenes were kicking their heels up to celebrate some birthdays, and it was PARTY TIME. There were alfajores (the world´s best cookie sandwiches - think sugar cookies stuffed with dulce de leche and coconut flakes), freshly-fried doughnuts, and a freaking INCREDIBLE cake - white layered cake with dulce de leche and merengue icing. That, while being out of the ordinary, was not the really surreal part. No, that would be the dancing.
Those who know me know that I only dance if I am either asked to dance by someone, or if I have perhaps been indulging in certain liquid refreshments. The former is how I ended up dancing to some hot Latin tunes, a little, on Friday, with some very nice Uruguayas who are old enough to be my mom. The first just sort of grabbed me and told me to "¡Bailá!," and I was in no position not to. She then, after a few minutes, handed me off to a short black woman with very short hair and facial features that somehow remind me of my high school AP history teacher. This one danced at my pace and level of ability ("Caucasian") for a few minutes, and then started laughing, yelled "¡AZÚCAR!" and kicked it into high gear, her dance-challenged American partner struggling to keep up. It was like dancing with Celia Cruz, except in no way, shape, or form necrophilic. The rest of the dance time passed fairly peacefully - the music teacher, Fabrizia, tried to teach me how to cumbia (we´re not all the way yet on that one), and I did a little of my normal standing around near the refreshments, looking like the dad who got suckered into volunteering to work at his kids´ prom.
After the dancing died down a little bit, I went off to get ready for the afternoon with the kids. That, too, was a little out of the ordinary thanks to the weather. There was a quite a little storm here yesterday, and it was dark as night for a good 20-30 minutes or so at 13.00. Since it was raining, we couldn´t do a whole lot, so we ended up watching 2 hours´worth of The Simpsons (en español) with the 12-15 kids who showed up.
The surreality seems to have passed, for now, with the storm, but it´s always good to know that my life here can be, and often is, just as random and droll as my life back home!
After the dancing
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