Despido

September 25^th, 2012

Friday night my school hosted an event called El Despedido.  I was dictionarryless when my friends asked me if I wanted to go, which was actually a rare occurrence as my dictionary has become a constant companion, so trusting my luck and figuring that I was here to have new experiences, I jumped at the chance.  I later found out that 'despedido' translates to 'farewell'.  The big night turned out to be a dance type thing exclusively for Juniors and Seniors, essentially the equivalent to Prom.  I suppose its actually a stretch to ­call them the same thing.  I should say that the idea behind the events are essentially the same, but most of the similarities ended there.

The school bus was supposed to pick my cousins and I up around six, tico time of course, and getting to the bus however, proved to be an adventure all on its own.  I had been told to dress up a little, but my mom found both of the dresses that I brought to be to racy (too short)...  Luckily, the dress code for the dance here is nothing like what people wear to dances in the US and I was perfectly fine in jeans.  I did end up in high heals though.  I already have problems with tripping over invisible obstacles, but in heals that coordination is greatly reduced.  I'm not entirely sure what happened, but one moment I am sitting on the porch talking to my cousin (it was about 6:30), and all of the sudden she realizes that the bus has arrived so we have to run to the stop. To get to my house you turn off the main road and then onto this little dirt road which goes down a hill to my house, so not only was I trying to run to the stop in high heals, I was on an uneven dirt road, in the dark, and of course, it was raining.  I'm sure that it was amusing to watch, and although I was absolutely positive that I was about to face plant into the mud, I pride myself on staying on my feet!  The bus drove the normal bus rout picking up the rest of the kids and then finally dropped us at the local “Salon”, where basically all events around here happen.  It has a concrete floor, probability a little bit larger than a Basketball court, and like all other buildings in Costa Rica, is covered by a giant tin roof, but thats about all there is.  Its enclosed by walls about four feet tall and bars reaching the rest of the way up to the roof. 

We walked in to find that tables had been spread across half of the floor and we quickly pushed four together so that our class could all sit together.  They gave us a gigantic dinner of, wait for it... RICE AND BEANS!  Whats new?  They also gave us like five different types of meat and enough Coca Cola for the entire state of Texas.  (You can choose to interpret that however you choose ;) When people were finished eating they turned on some music and every one stared dancing.  Somehow everyone here is just an amazing dancer, and this served as yet another reminder to me that white girls can't dance... Or maybe just this one can't...  At one point toward the end some belly dancers showed up and the teachers handed out fun masks and kazoos.  Of course there was no way that we were going to be able to drink all of that Coke, so kids started throwing it in the air and at people which made for a rather sticky mess. Sometime around 11 people started singing some terrible karaoke, and by 11:15 we were back on the buses heading back home.