sometimes I think about stuff.

Boatswain’s Log September 19^th.  Random thoughts.

 

My host brothers are packing for their journey to the church outing tomorrow morning. It’s part of this leadership program called “300”, I doubt that it has anything to do with the film. If it does I probably should have bought them extra swords. I also doubt that it would function as a church event with all the bloodshed and strange almost naked dancing women.

 

I too strike out tomorrow morning, for Volcan Irazu. My traveling companions and I had hoped to make it solely a man-adventure, but a squad of girls tagged along anyhow. We will be sure to ditch them somehow…and take sweet manly photos. Trevor (the assistant director) told us to bring jackets because it gets cold. I asked him how cold because people say it is cold here when it is about 60 degrees. He responded with “gringo cold”. I will bring a sweatshirt.

 

Speaking of clothes, my mom told me that my clothes won’t cut it for Nicaragua. Apparently it is going to be like Limon was, but for 2 weeks. For those of you who don’t remember: I got really sweaty in Limon with the heat and humidity. Looks like sweat-fest 2008 is happening in Nicaragua. You can come if you fancy the journey…except that you probably can’t come even if you get here. So never mind.

 

Costa Rican television is silly. I think I have mentioned it before, but let me reiterate. It is still silly. First of all it is boob city. Really. Everyone (the women) is rocking huge amounts of cleavage. I think it is a tad excessive. Especially the Tica that is in Latin American Idol. She is on the TV every five seconds with memos at the bottom of the screen that give us the number to vote while saying in Spanish “remember to support her.” While she is on TV here boobs are there too. Same with news specials that have to do with the internet. Models with little clothing, just chillin’ on the TV. Those things wouldn’t work in the US. Very strange.

 

The other silly part of Costa Rican TV is that everyone watches telenovelas. Especially my family. My brothers and my dad when he is home watch the afternoon novellas with great interest. I watched for a bit with my brothers the other day…There was this one guy who reminded me of Tony Hadju (or Toombo for those firwood folks) that was in love with this strange woman who somehow was the focus of the series. I don’t know what is so great about her. She is going to marry this other dude who yet another (far cuter) girl is in love with. Crazy. Furthermore this goofy guy in a scarf scored a date with a cute girl at his work despite the fact that he almost screwed it up twice. I gotta buy me a scarf. I have one in the states, but maybe they’re classy here too. There was lots of dramatic anger and very modern set furniture. Really odd angular couches.

 

I read a book of Che Guevara’s discourses today. It turns out that I really can’t support the man’s ideology when it comes to guerilla war. He doesn’t even try to maintain a stance of at the very least kindness. He in fact cited the fact that guerillas need to become “cold, killing machines”. Not making it up. Furthermore he also said that peaceful action works, but then made the statement that in Latin America there’s no room for it. He is a strange and deluded man who in the midst of his poor and violent choices served as a great diplomat for Cuba. The man was very direct about the US’ role in Latin America and seemed to guess the intent of loans made to Latin America early in the 60’s before most of the ish hit the fan. Still, all those people who wear Che shirts better know what they are standing for before they put it on. I was further frustrated by a flippant use of a quote of his in an article we had to read by Leonardo Boff. The quote was in regard to freedom, Che said “ I will only be truly free when the last human being has also won freedom.” The sentiment is very moving, however I dunno that one can effectively use Che in an article about liberation in a spiritual sense that manifests itself in action. The quote serves to underline Boff’s point about what it means to be a human in the context of humanity as a whole, but the sorts of freedoms we are talking about are very very different. Leonardo Boff and Che’s ideas of freedoms are almost guaranteed to be different. Is it okay to use a quote from someone you cannot agree with that merely sounds good in the context of your article? If I used a quote from Stalin would people be likely to give me credit no matter how good it sounded? Not that Che and Stalin are the same, but hopefully you get the idea…

 

My mom gave me this really spicy Chile pepper today. It was tiny, but resembled burning my entire mouth with something that tasted very good. Neato gang.

 

I bought this book for about a dollar today called “El Salvador: Iglesia Profetica y cambio social.” Which means El Salvador: Profetic church and Social change. I know that I said I wouldn’t buy any more books until I finish the stack I am building in my room, but this was 600 colones and in Spanish and it looks really really interesting. I probably won’t have time to finish reading it, but oh well. My friend Craig (yep, he’s not Costa Rican) and I went to this churchy building that had a cool library/bookstore in an effort to chat with a theologian. No such theologian existed. He was out of the country. Craig is a cool guy to have as a friend. He is also a verbal processor and thus we have good conversation.

 

I talked to Javier and the folks from my program today about what project I was gon’ be selected to do. They basically had their minds made up on an organic farm in Guanacaste, but I told them they should consider letting me do something with kids as another option. I think that I am going to learn more from little Costa Rican kiddos than from bitter people who work in farms who don’t like Christians. Still, I put my thought in there and left it up to them. It was their decision to begin with. Whatever they go with I guess. Jesus will have me do what He wants. Not in a Calvinistic perspective, I just plan to pray for it so that it works that way.

 

While I waited for the chance to talk to Javier, Craig and I got to talking about the article we have to read. A girl named Rachel from Craig’s school (Wheaton college) interjected this lovely thought about what we were talking about and said that she had read a Desmond Tutu book. I was impressed. I guess there are some people that in the process of not talking to them you write off as: standard cute but not-so-interesting girl from Christian school. Then a few of those people say things that make you wish you had just left off guessing who they are until you got a chance to talk to them. Lesson learned…mostly.

 

I remembered something that Otton Solis said that I had forgotten. He was talking about Venezuela and Bolivia and why there were these crazy almost dictator sorts. He said that “why?” wasn’t a question folks asked at all about why they exist. His opinion that I agree with is that these people are elected by a desperate populace that has had increasingly been effected by US economic policy. He cited the almost election of the guy who lost by about 4% in Mexico. He said that he was like Hugo Chavez and that Mexico is the only country to have had a Free Trade agreement for 14 years. Something to the tune of 1.6 million small farms disappeared and there isw crazy levels of violence. Especially in Chiapas. He said that if the US isn’t careful with its foreign policy there might be someone like that in Costa Rica some day. He specifically said that this statement was not a threat, but more of a matter of fact. He further noted that Venezuela just got russia’s long-distance bombers put in their country to counter US missile thingers Eastern Europe. I really hope this guy gets to be president of Costa Rica. He’s money.

 

Oh, I mentioned being a high school teacher or a senator last time. I think those are probably the things I would like to do. I might be wrong and whatever the case may be they are a long way off, but nonetheless…I was thinking…I could be Mayor of Bellingham some day…now that would be fun…right?