Ariel Mazarg nos explica la mateada en inglés
También da clases de idioma inglés; contactate con él por Facebook: Ariel Maza

Let´s have some mate. Mate is not a drink. Well, it is. It is liquid and comes in through the mouth. But it´s not a drink. In this country no one drinks mate when thirsty.

It´s rather a custom. It´s right the opposite of television: makes you chat when being next to someone, and makes you think when being alone.

When someone drops by, the first thing to say is –hello- and the second -want some mate?- This goes on in every home. Among rich and among poors. Among women and among men. At geriatric hospitals and among teenagers at school.

It´s the only thing that parents and sons share without argument. In winter or in summer, with good, with evil.When you have a child and you give him mate as he asks you to. You give him a slightly warm one with much sugar; then he feels he´s grown.

You feel so much pride inside when a little part of your own blood takes up sucking mate.

Your heart enlarges out.

Later then , through the years, they will choose if bitter or sweet, hot or cold, with orange peel, with extra herbs or with lemon drops.

When you meet someone for the first time, you ask him: Bitter or sweet? And the answer is - the way you make it -.

All the computer keyboards in Argentina, are fully covered by herbs spread.

Mate herbs is the only thing that is never missing at any home, never. In crisis times, with inflation, with starvation, in dictatorship, in democracy, with any of our eternal curses or diseases.

And if someday you run out of the herbs, there´s always a neighbour and gives you some.

The herbs are never denied to anyone.

This is the only country in the world where the decision of turning from child to grown up man occurs in only one day. It´s not about long pants, circumcision, university or leaving home. Here we become grown up the day on which we are in the need of having our first mates on our own, alone.

Not by chance, not at all.The day on which a child set the water on the fire and has its first mate when no one else is home, in that single minute, has found out his soul.

Simply, mate is nothing but a demonstration of values. The respect for the times to talk and to listen. As one talks the other serves mate. It´s the honesty to say – stop! Change the herbs! It means friendship in a moment.

Sensitivity to boiled water. It is boasting about who serves it better. It is the generosity of giving till the end. It´s the hospitality to invite.The obligation of saying -thank you- at least once a day.It´s the ethical, honest and loyal attitude of doing nothing but to share.

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