ASADO with the mafia

Last night I was invited to an Asado with a few of my colleagues at the house of Luis. Luis is the religion teacher at CPC, great guy, hilarious! He lives in the countryside of Cartagena in what is called Lo Abraco. My brother used to be the PE teacher at CPC so he was invited to come as well. I guess only a selected few get to go to Luis’ house, and these few call themselves the Mafia. So funny. So around 11 my brother and I were picked up by Genae, another colleague, when we opened the door to her car, 3 other colleagues were in the back and one up front. They looked at Hector and me, laughed and said get in! As we pilled in, face-to-face, Genae says, “Maris, this is Chilean style”. We were dying laughing the whole way there.

The campo was cold, but beautiful, the sky full of stars. My brother was in charge of attending the fire. We all gathered around and drank some wine, beer and pisco sours. We were having costera, my favorite food in chile. Its ribs, but better than any ribs I have eaten in my life. So juicy and tender. Around the fire we told stories and I was in very good company. That’s what I love about here, its such good times and good conversation. No one on their iphone, everyone just engaged in conversation. This would never happen in the states, when I think about iphones and the necessities of “America” it grosses me out. I come here and realize at times that with technology we have become reticent, no me gusta. I love not having a smartfone. The more I travel I begin to realize its the simple things that I prefer. The people here are all so content and have great attitudes. I don’t really know how to explain la gente here, but they are a beautiful kind.

We gathered around the table and ate and ate, sucked every piece of meat off that bone. After dinner Luis whipped out his guitar and started playing. Both him and Pablo (the music teacher) ripped. There’s something about the guitar that makes me weak, but in a good way, it’s amor. They played for hours and all of us joined in singing. Well ….not really I, except when they made me sing a Cat Stevens song. I loved how no one had shame, all singing together in harmony… real stuff. As the night proceeded they started to free style a bit and of course poked fun at me. Around 5am we decided that it was time to drive back to Cartagena. Another wonderful Asado.