Corn Flakes and Garlic

This morning while munching Corn Flakes and sipping extremely sweet coffee (the helper, Anaya, serves the coffee presweetened with saccharin, ick!) an interesting topic was brought up. Garlic, alho. Apparently, not only does garlic smell and taste good it is also a great deterrent of the “evil eye”. People will construct shrines made of garlic and position them around the house at key points to ward of such evilness. I asked if people also use it to ward off vampires? Cosmo, our host, said yes, but mostly its used to chase away werewolves. From what Cosmo said, “country folks“, people who live farther into the jungle, believe in such folktales. Cosmo said with a smirk, “werewolves are a real threat to country folk“. I was left reflecting on Cosmo’s words. Cosmo is what we call a “self-made” man. He lived in the jungle with his three little sisters, mother and father until he was around 6-years-old. His father thought he would be able to provide a better life for his family if they were to move to the city. But after a few months, it was too hard for his father to get work, he had no city skills. Shortly after arriving in the city, the father fell ill with meningitis and died, leaving the mother with four small children helpless in the city. It’s a wonder why the mother didn‘t go back to the jungle. Maybe she had no means to get them back to where they came from... Lucky for Cosmo, he was able to attend public schools in the city for free. He subsequently did very well on this college entrance exams. If you pass the entrance exam, then the government will pay for your college education. He is now the district attorney for Rio Branco. So for him mock "country” folks falls very close to home, for he teetered on that line for a number of years…