Karaoke Rockstars!!

As I mentioned earlier, my family and Costa Ricans in general loooove to sing karaoke. Walking through the streets of San Jose, you can find a karaoke bar on every other corner, and it is a staple activity at any town party. At my house we have a microphone, some huge speakers, and probably about15 different DVDs with songs to choose from. Our favorite evening activity is to all squeeze together on the couch, turn the volume up loud enough to broadcast ourselves to the entire mountain, and take turns belting it out for a good hour or more.

No matter how badly we sing, each performance is always met with applause, bravos and other exclamations like “que lindo” or “tiene un voz de oro” (how beautiful or you have a voice of gold). Most of the songs we have are older ones I’ve never heard, so I listen to Daisy and Gabelo rock out. They both have really good voices and karaoke is more like an art form than a pastime for them. Daisy especially likes slow sentimental love songs and Gabelo prefers the more peppy rancheros and drinking songs. I am pretty much limited to singing Juanes or Shakira, but every once in a while I’ll recognize something else.

My favorite karaoke moment was actually the first time we sang together, about 5 days after I’d moved in. We had the music up so loud that we couldn’t hear Gabelo’s son, daughter-in-law, and grandkids all pounding on our front door. By the time I glanced outside and caught their exasperated faces pressed up to the window, they’d been out there for a good 10 minutes. When they came in, Daisy and Ana Luisa, the daughter-in-law, went into the kitchen to get started on dinner. But Giovanni and his sons Alan (9) and Jason (5) plopped down on the couch to join in. The boys didn’t really know any of the songs but were determined to try. While their dad held the microphone and sang, they climbed on top of him and would randomly shout into the microphone whenever they thought they knew the words. Their best trio was a very dramatic song about nostalgia for home where the chorus is this agonizing cry that the boys especially loved to howl out: PUUUERTO LIMOOOOOOOOOOO-OON! Some other memorable performances included a translated version of Imagine which, to my dismay, totally changed the meaning of the song and Eternal Flame. I started Eternal Flame at their request (clearly I should sing it because it’s in English), but when I didn’t know it well enough to finish Giovanni had to take over- you can only imagine how amused I was.