The Drink

A common theme in my life overseas has been alcohol, of course.   Not the misuse of it, but rather the experience of it.  My motto has always been along the "when in Rome" line.
Guatemala had a cane alcohol that they called guaro where we were living.  It is very strong and not that tasty, if you ask me. 
"Most fiestas are powered by liberal consumption of alcohol, mainly boj (also known as guaro or venado). Guaro is "white lightning" and is made from fermented and distilled sugar cane. Its quality varies greatly with the better brands being quite agreeable but invariably strong. It consumed straight from the bottle or mixed with anything available. Like vodka, it mixes well with anything."
http://www.mayaparadise.com/fiestas/fiestas.htm
We didn't consume very much of the stuff when we were living in Ixtahuacan Chiquito, but we did witness its effects on others.  There was a serious alcoholism problem in the community where we were living, and we would often see men staggering around late at night with jugs of the stuff in their hands.  The community had "banned" alcohol, but it was more of a verbal commitment than anything else, and nothing was ever done to those who consumed it.  The results of a late night binge were usually evident on the faces of the women who lived with these men in the morning.  Spousal abuse went hand in hand with drinking, and no one said or did anything about it.
Kyrgyzstan was an interesting mix of soviet and Kyrgyz traditions when it came to the drink.  The Russians had brought with them their cure-all for everything, of course... vodka!  I grew to love and appreciate this drink over the two years that we spent in Bishkek.  I remember eating a very raw piece of chicken one night at a pub.  It was dark and, by the time I realized that my food was not cooked, I had already consumed over half of it.  I looked at Grigory (my Georgian friend) and he looked back and told me to wait for him.  He came back from the bar with two shots of vodka.  He motioned for me to drink them back.  I didn't believe him, but I figured it couldn't hurt, so I downed them both.  All I can say is that he was right! Vodka is strong, and it kills ALL bacteria in your stomach.  It also works well on a sore throat.  The Kyrgyz use is for everything, which I found quite hilarious.
Outside of the capital, the drink of choice is kumis - a fermented mare's milk that the nomadic Kyrgyz people have made and consumed for centuries.  This goes down in my books as the single most disgusting gastronomic experience of my life.  I am pretty brave when it comes to trying new things, especially when honour is at stake, but I nearly lost my stomach over this one.  The rancid smell of fermenting milk hit my nose before I could even get the liquid to my mouth.  I should have plugged my nose the first time around, but I thought it would be rude.  We were guests in a nomadic tribe's home for the week, so we really had no choice but to drink the stuff down so as not to offend.  I managed to get a sip into my stomach, but there was no way I was getting the rest of it down.  I smiled politely and put the cup down.  As soon as our hostess slipped out of the yurt to get some food, I thrust the cup towards Matt and reminded him of the favour he owed me for the time I ate his smoked mountain pig in Guatemala.  Smart girl.  He helped me out.
We didn't live long enough in Angola to get to know their local alcohol very well.  We did, however, learn to love caipirinhas, made with cachaca.  There is also the caipiroshka, which is the same thing but with vodka instead.  This became my preferred drink in Luanda, especially on a hot day on the beach.  It is basically a ton of lime combined with hard liquor.  A spiked lemonade, if you will.  The other drink that I started to love in Africa was gin and tonic.  Someone told me that there was something in this drink that helped to prevent malaria, so I made it my personal goal to drink as much of it as possible.  Urban legend perhaps, but I didn't set out to prove anyone wrong.
Switzerland saw us drinking Swiss wine, which is practically unknown around the world because it is made and consumed locally.  Not bad, as far as inexpensive wines go, and fairly tasty when consumed with cheese.  That is the idea, of course, to accompany the wine with fondue or raclette or roesti.  Yum.  We lived in a small village called Luins, just outside of Geneva, in the middle of vineyards. There were about six family-run wineries in our village, and this was the situation in all the villages dotting the countryside.  We would often go and sample wines on weekends, and buy from the local family-run businesses.  We were sure to bring some of it home to Canada for family to test and approve.  It really is amazing that almost all of the wine produced in Switzerland is consumed within its own borders.  Survival mechanism, I guess.  What else do you do when you are competing with neighbours like France?
Our most recent experience has been here in Colombia.  The alcohol of choice here? Aguardiente, of course.  A sambuca-like, licorice-flavoured alcohol that burns going down.  Its sole purpose is to make you drunk, and to do so very quickly.  The culture here in small towns is quite silly - a group of people will drink outside of a small corner shop with plastic cups; all of them hovering around a bottle of the stuff.  It is either aguardiente or beer.  Beer is cheaper, of course, so it tends to be more popular outside of major city centres.  Major holidays are drinking days, and they have about twenty of those, so you can imagine how regularly people get drunk.  There will be piles and piles of beer bottles on the streets the morning after a "puente", or long weekend.  At least they know how to let loose, eh?
Alcohol is universal, that's for sure.  Every country finds their own mix and it sticks.  I guess, coming from Canada, I never really thought about having only one drink to represent a place.  We are exposed to a whole range of the stuff due to the multicultural nature of our country.  I guess my mix will be a bit of this and a bit of that.
92 days to go, by the way... and loving every minute of it!