A few weeks ago, I was soundly sleeping when my host-dad started banging on my door at 5:00 in the morning. It is very rare for him to do this, so I was a bit startled and thought something might be wrong. I hurriedly lifted the veil of the sanctuary that is my mosquito net, and stumbled to the door to open it. My host-dad was standing there in his best clothes and with a huge smile on his face.
¨Do you want to go to a funeral?¨, He asked.
¨Ummm.......sure.¨, I lied.
Apparently, an elderly woman in our town had just passed away the day before, and she was to be buried at 7:00 in the town cemetary. In the U.S., I feel like funerals are more of a private affair, but here in the small towns in Costa Rica, EVERYONE goes.
There was a long procession from the Evangelical church to the top of the mountain which is where our cemetary is located. All the men in the town were taking turns carrying the coffin which was covered in this beige material that very much resembles shag carpeting. There is also a window on the top of the coffin that can be opened to view the face.
After the funeral, I ran into my counterpart on my way back home. He informed me that the night before, a man from the circus had woken him at 10p.m. and asked if they could set up shop in my town for two nights. He agreed of course, and that night I went with my family to see ¨Chicarron y sus estrellas¨ en vivo!!!
Now, I´m sure when you think of a circus, you think of lions, freaks, and motorcycles riding around in those crazy steel balls. Well, this ¨circus¨ had to fit in a van the size of a tiny UHaul truck! They did, however, have room enough for an indigenous man who could juggle things with his feet...well more or less. He started with this giant wooden spool that he dropped three or four times in the course of 5 minutes. After this fiasco, they decided to stick four ruler sized sticks on each side and LIGHT THEM ON FIRE! At this point, I began fearing for my life and the lives of all the children trapped with me in what could be called any fire marshall´s nightmare of a common meeting place. Of course, he dropped the flaming spool several times as well, and a few small fires had to be put out, but it was all in the name of circus fun.
The next and final act was ¨Gerry¨ the dancing poodle who, for some reason I couldn´t quite put my finger on, looked a bit strange and was very reluctant to dance, or do any of the other tricks most circus animals devote their lives to. For his final trick, they brought out a minature obstacle course for Gerry to run through. This included a tiny slide, a bridge, several staircases and finally a 2 foot jump through a hoop. Gerry ran the course surprisingly well, but when he neared the final jump he stopped dead in his tracks and began shaking a bit. It was here that the horror of full realization hit me like a giant wooden spool that I´d been juggling with my feet: Gerry looked strange because he didn´t have any hair on the underside of his body. They were going to LIGHT THE HOOP ON FIRE!!! GERRY NOOOOOOOOOO!!! Sure enough, one of the performers came out with some lighter fluid and a pack of matches and set the hoop ablaze while literally pushing Gerry to the edge of his platform to jump. Shockingly, and like a true champion, Gerry leapt through the air with the grace and courage of a young Amelia Earheart, only narrowly avoiding burning off what little remaining hair he had on the lower half of his pink body.
As we were walking home, I was thinking, ¨This is probably the only time in my life I will be able to say that I´ve been to a funeral and a circus in the same day¨.
