So last week Frank had this momentary desire to "go native" and learn how to drink Mate.
We've been here a total of what...6 weeks, and the number of times I've been invited to drink mate by a porteño is well, zilch. Ouch. How can that be that me, the participatory anthropologist who prides herself on not just visiting but living a culture, has not a single Argentine friend who has initiated us into this most sacred of traditions? Who are these so-called locals we call friends? Wow, maybe the concept of "friendship" in our new world is different that what I'm used to.
Perhaps Frank was also feeling kind of lame that neither one of us has ever been properly introduced to the whole mate thing so one day he came home with a mate gourd and a bombilla. I scoffed. What on earth would we do with that? I put it in the snazzy light up cabinet with all of the guide books like it was a trophy and I thought it looked kind of cool.
But he was determined and the next day bought two different kinds of yerba at the grocery store and as soon as we got home he fired up the tea kettle.
Now, just in case you are, like I was until about a week ago, pathetically unaware of the complexity of the mate ritual, do yourself a favor and read this cheat sheet:
http://www.miyerbamate.com/content/Yerba+Mate+the+history+of+this+dietary+aid.htm

Keep in mind that is the short version, it is so much more complicated than that. But since we had no one to show us the mate ropes, we were left to our own devices. Boil some water, throw it in the gourd, suck through the straw. Hmmm, nice happy subtle buzz. It wasn't until our Peruvian electrician nearly fainted with horror as he watched me pour boiling water onto the yerba that we started to learn how intricate this process was. Having since been (somewhat) properly schooled by other kind souls, I think I gotten the hang of it. And now I'm almost at the point where I prefer the tingly ebb and flow of the mate buzz to the crushing wave of coffee addiction.
But it is just tonight that I have grasped the concept that yerba mate does in fact have caffeine too. Maybe not as much as coffee, but as I sit here mindlessly web-surfing at 4:30 am, awake and alert, damned if it hasn't completely killed any possibility of me getting my much-needed beauty sleep.
At least Frank will be happy that I FINALLY posted.
And in the meantime I can contemplate how to make some friends to invite over for a mate round. Someday...