Drinking mate*

Ginny is teaching me to drink mate.* Once and for all. Mate is a traditional hot herbal drink drunk ceremoniously throughout South America, and very heavily, characteristically, by the Argentines. It is more ritual than beverage, passed around with a silver bombilla in a small gourd by a servador(a) who is also responsible for replenishing the hot (but not boiling!) water in the bowl as it makes its way from person to person. I saw the mate being passed for the first time on a bus in El Chalten. The driver was drinking it with his driving partner who kept passing the mate between them.  When I finally got my own first taste of it in Ushuai, it was bitter and almost burned my tongue through the bombilla.

Mate is definitely an acquired taste. Children learn to drink it with a bit of sugar or honey mixed in. Ginny says it took her almost a year to get into it.  But to be Argentine - especially in el campo where she has spent most of her past 25 years here working and living with the gauchos on her estancia - is to love and appreciate the mate. Beyond its plentiful nutritional qualities, mate is about the comraderie or when you drink it alone and the mood is right, the spiritual, peaceful aspect of it. As an artist, Ginny says it can also serve as a gateway to your creativity, if you are inclined that way to begin with. Or if you are a gaucho, mate can help to enhance your strength and endurance in the field.

This morning, after showing me how to prepare the mate, Ginny said a Native American prayer honoring the Four Directions: east, south, west, then north. Ginny also added a prayer to the above beings and to the inner core of the mother earth, the pachamama.  Lastly, she said a prayer to her body, thanking it and telling it that she loves it and believes in it. Then we drank the mate.  Under Ginny's tutelage, I think I might be learning to get into it too.

PS You can read up on the mate and see a picture of the gourd should you desire at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mate_(beverage)

*Mate is properly spelled with an accent mark on the "e" which, unfortunately, I can't perform on this here lousy blogger dashboard. So please note it's not pronounced "mate" as in "checkmate." Gracias!