Witch's Brew

One of the traditions at Pueblo Ingles is the Queimada, a peculiar concoction of alcohol and incantation.  At 7pm on Monday night, we were invited to the grassy area next to the main lodge where the Program Director, Jason, and the Master of Ceremonies, Amelia, had set up a table and all of the necessary ingredients.  They explained that throughout all of the different weeks of Pueblo Ingles over the years, people have been presenting the Queimada (kay-madda) to all of the different participants.  All of the groups seemed to enjoy it and it made for the perfect opportunity to blend Spanish and English in an elaborate ceremony.

With great care, Amelia mixed the punch of Galician aguardente (a brandy from northern Spain) with sugar, cinnamon, orange peel, and coffee beans.  With all of alcohol that was in the bowl, she lit the brew on fire and it burned with a blue flame as she lifted it and poured it back again with a ladle.  Amelia and Jason explained how well everyone enjoyed the tradition but that we would need to invoke some witches to chant over the ¨cauldron¨.  Immediately, Laura, Montse, and Jill came out dressed in capes and witches hats, reciting the special words in Galician, Spanish, and English.  It was a rather drawn out and rude spell but it gave the drink the time to mix and meld.  Amelia and Jason put out the fire and then they served the strong, sweet concoction. 

The party continued with each country singing a song from their country and having a few laughs at their own expense.  The American contingent sang ¨You Are My Sunshine¨ before the other countries had their chance.  The revelry continued long into the night with a lot of drinks and jokes in the bar and out on the patio.

P.S.  It´s worth mentioning the story of actually writing this article for the blog.  It´s my lost-in-translation moment.  I was sitting here at the little table in the bar area of the main lodge of our La Alberca resort and I turned to Ricardo to ask him how to spell Queimada.  I didn´t know the word very well and I´m sure that I mangled the pronounciation in merely asking the question.   He was happy to oblige but being a vibrant 22-year-old, he didn´t quite hear what I was asking.  He asked me to clarify.  So I asked him again.  This time he got a look of shock on his face but being young, he was understanding that this American guy would want to learn some Spanish and he kindly obliged, carefully spelling it out with English letters.  So I typed it carefully, told the story, and saved the blog post so you all could read it.  A few hours later, I found that I had some time to edit the story.  I Googled the words that he told me so that I could confirm the ingredients included in the recipe... but was rather surprised that every result that came up from the search was full of vulgar references and impolite phrases!!!  What words did I post???  The Program Manager, Jason, clarified the situation while almost falling down in laughter.  Ricardo spelled out Que Mierda instead of Queimada, effectively teaching me ¨What The Fuck!¨ instead of the specific name of the alcoholic drink.  It got a lot of laughs when we explained the whole situation to the rest of the Spaniards and Anglos.  Everyone was quite amused with the fact that I had not only used this phrase as the main subject of my blog story but that I would also go ahead and Google the words...

Ricardo thinks that this is the best Lost-In-Translation story of the week and perhaps the whole year.  Anything to make our friends laugh a little, right?