Class 3C here at the University Settlement Adult Literacy Program recently wrote about some memorable trips they took. Read one below or click here to read more. Maybe you can get some good tips for traveling this summer. When you’re finished reading the story below, remember to take the quiz to test your comprehension.
Moonshine
Natalia Briceno
We were bored of the heat and tranquility of my city, so some of my friends and I decided go to go camping.
We all agreed to go somewhere near where we lived. We were under the floodgates of the dam “La Paloma,” a green place with many trees and a small river running down from the high Andes Mountain leading to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Due to the droughts of those years, the river had lost its strength and beauty.
So everyone prepared their camping supplies, food and water. My neighbor, one of my best friends from my childhood, prepared some sandwiches and bought fruit and water to carry. My cousin and her boyfriend also got everything for that Saturday afternoon. We were all to meet there, so we slowly began to gather our friends.
The men began to set up the tents; the women prepared the fire and meat to roast and at night perked up with a small battery-powered radio.
Illuminated by our campfire, sitting on the ground or on some old tree trunks, we realized that we were more people than we thought. Some sent word to their friends and these others. In the end we were more than fifteen people, from a group that started with seven.
The sky was spectacular! You could heard the run of the river and the night birds who wandered in the vegetation that night. And the smell of nature is always a pleasure to my senses. UUHHMM!
My grandfather Gabriel, a countryman all his life and passionate about mining, I remember him grinding stones to extract the gold. And also he had a plot where he cultivated grapes, avocados, peaches, figs, nuts, apples and others. It was beautiful especially because we were just steps from the river of Tulahen that for those years flowed generously.
Most of the time my cousins, my brothers and I went there every summer. I remember my grandfather secretly prepared his famous concoctions of grapes, and as a little girl at that time I was prohibited to drink. “It’s only for the biggest who can taste these delicacies!” he said.
We all laughed together that night with my friends. Some of them danced, others joked. And I remember some of them swimming in the river that night.
My cousin started to call everyone and yelling “Make a row, make a row!” He was carrying in his hand a special bottle of the concoction which only my grandfather knew how to prepare. Proud of him, I told everyone it had been prepared by my dear Grandfather Gabriel a long time ago; may he rest in peace! Everyone raised their glasses and we made a toast on his behalf and we drank his famous concoction.
What else? Don’t ask me, because I don’t remember.
