Ahh, mornings

We were sitting in a plaza overlooking three different churches during morning rush hour. The light on the stucco walls was orange, yellow, pinks and greys. We sat in the sun as it was cold if you weren’t in it and watched as people came and went, buying drinks and tamales from a stand nearby. I could see the steam coming from the hot drinks they bought. My curiosity finally got the best of me and I had to buy one.
I approached the cart and did what I usually do which is observe what other people are buying and try to figure out what it is. The woman in front of me bought a black drink in a clear plastic cup. I asked her in Spanish if it was sweet. She said yes and walked away without anymore information offered. I told the woman behind the cart I wanted the same. I asked her if it was from frijoles wherein she laughed at me. She tells me it is “near chocolate”. Embarrassed, I then have to explain that in Guatemala they drink the juice from black beans mixed with sugar and milk. She laughed and said, no aqui, not here.
I returned to Shannon with my black steaming hot drink. When I say black, I mean black, not dark brown coffee color, but black like tar. Thick black, like tar. I took a sip and immediately didn’t like it. It was corn, thick corn liquid with probably a little chocolate added and sugar. Mayans are freaks for corn. I tried to cough it down but it was overpowering and I could not make any headway on it. I left it on a nearby garbage can hoping that one of the many local people without resources would find it much to their surprise and hopefully, delight.
I returned to the cart, ready for a new discovery that would hopefully be a little more pleasant to my early morning palette. I asked the woman what each drink is wherein she quite kindly showed me hot chocolate (with corn), hot milk with rice and my favorite, a caramel flavored milk. I ordered the caramel drink which we decided tasted like a pastry in a cup. It was fantastic. I’m sure it had some more of the corn tar in it but the caramel flavor was lovely mixed in it.
During this time in the plaza, there were many people setting up easels to catch the early sun on the churches. They stared through their hands, trying to find the best boundaries for their canvas. There were students rushing off to classes, people catching buses to work and old men and women, warming their bodies with hot drinks and early sunlight. The men were wearing cowboy hats, button down shirts and jeans with belts. The women wore long skirts with black socks and shoes, aprons and large shawls around their heads and shoulders. Their skin was dark brown and leathery with braids down their backs and gold filigree earrings.
One particular woman sitting near us had quite an intericate tamale chocolate drink situation going on. She opened her morning tamale and then proceeded to slowly pick it into pieces and feed it to the pigeons. She carefully peeled every bit of corn from the husk for the gathering group of birds. She took her time drinking her hot chocolate looking as if she quite enjoyed every sip. She noticed nobody around her except the birds and she herself concentrated solely on her own tasks.
When she reached the bottom of her cup, she began to pour small amounts of it into the palm of her hand and drink from it as if it was a spoon. We could only guess that she either wanted to prolong the drink experience or sift through something sitting on the bottom of the cup. I tried to picture myself at a coffee shop in Portland pouring bits of tea into the palm of my hand and then slurping it up slowly, while people watched. It would be fun to do, just to mess with people.
Eventually we left the plaza and went onto another plaza to watch teenagers in courtship, newspaper salespeople yell out the latest headlines and men sell ice cream flavors like mango and lime. We spent the morning like this, wandering the cobblestone streets, sitting in plazas and enjoying the day to day activities as simple as a warm cup of corn tar Joe.