I went to the beach.

Boatswain’s Log October 28^th.  

Yep. I took my Fall break with some friends (2 dudes, no women. Me, Craig, Kasey.) over to Dominical. This is a beach town on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. I spent 3 days at the beach getting a killer tan. Seriously. It’s good. We left Saturday morning and came back today.

 

We got there about 12:30 on Saturday after about 5 hours of bus travel. The road from San Jose to Quepos (embarkation central to the pacific coast) is nice, but from Queops to Dominical one has to suffer a 1.5 hour bus ride because of the unpaved dirt road. If it were paved I think it would last about 20 minutes. Well. We got there and found a tiny town. It had about one street and a market that was useful. We found lodging in a hostel called Tortilla Flats for 20$ a night. For three people. Clean rooms, a shower, and electricity. About 100 yards off the beach. We pooled resources and bought food as a team. Cereal and tortillas were staples of our adventure.

 

We hit the beach almost immediately. After being in busses for 5 hours (since 6AM), the pacific ocean sounded marvelous. Was it ever. I hadn’t had the opportunity to splash about in the biggest ocean in the world yet (despite my love for it. Longbeach, Washington has deadly riptides), but after doing so let me say a few things.

 

1) The ocean makes me feel small. In a good way. The waves are stronger and steadier than I could ever be and they never stop. Furthermore, there is no visible end to the ocean. All this to say, it is one of the few things in life that makes me feel tiny and I like it.

 

2) The water in the pacific is better than the carribean. It’s actually cool water. It is refreshing. However, the salt taste takes some getting used to.

 

3) There are lots of cute girls in the Pacific Ocean. I think I saw the most beautiful girl I have ever seen doing impressive things with a surf board (word for surfboard in Spanish = tabla).

 

4) In your face Char Beck. I can take good pictures too.

 

5) Dominical is rad.

 

I spent 2 of the three days talking, playing in the water and meeting interesting people. Kasey was a stick in the mud about meeting people the first day. I met a guy from Israel, people from Oregon, people who worked at the bar (no I didn’t drink, but I was tempted. Especially when the British couple we met offered us rum. That sounded really good. Integrity isn’t fun sometimes.), a guy named Steve who told us repeatedly the places where we should eat in San Jose and where “there was more pussy than we could shake a stick at”, and a British couple named Sherril and Jamie. The British couple were awesome. We randomly started talking to them and they were some of the most interesting people I have met. They work at a resort in the French alps 5 months out of the year and travel the rest of the time. They are extremely funny, like to share (we said yes to the pepsi, and a disappointing no to the rum after giving them Kasey’s map. Sherril told me that it was okay because “if you’ve got principles, you should stick to them.”), told us that saying “bloody” gets you mocked in England and shared all sorts of great perspectives on everything. Really, talking to them made me want to go to Europe and work in a resort to meet more people like them. There is a first time for everything.

 

Seriously, they cursed a lot, but their accents made it endearing. I wished they would have stayed longer. They were drinking the rum all the way through our 2 hour conversation and by the end they admitted to being drunk, however I just thought they were getting funnier the whole time. They just made more outlandish statements…If I hang out with drunk people in the future I hope they are as cool as they were. The only downside to the Brits was that they left the next morning without saying goodbye like I wanted them to…Great people live in Dominical. Some of them just for a bit. Others all their lives.

 

The third day at the beach was the day we decided to try our hand at surfing. Craig and I rented boards and hit the waves. I noticed immediately that fighting waves with a board is harder than when it is just you. Especially when the board hits your head or the fin cuts your shoulder…just hypothetically. I then noticed that surfing is hard. It involves swimming (cardio), lifting one’s body (upperbody strength), and balancing while standing (core and leg strength)  I fought the waves for a really long time and just as I was heading in when the owner of a surf shop told me I should take a lesson with his 10 foot 2 board. I was using a 9 foot 2 one before and he said that he had been worried that I might break it.

 

He made me a killer deal and so I got my first surfing lesson for 20$ with board and instructor included for about 1.5 hours. The result was awesome. The Costa Rican man named Ronnie who had been competing since he was 12 in international competitions gave me the lowdown on how to surf. Out in the second break the waves get scarier, but they are also better to ride. I got owned for awhile before I got used to it. He coached me through it and my last attempt I rode a wave all the way in to shore. Standing up. Note: Surfing is really cool and more fun when you know what you are doing. I went to bed that night really early, because I had been surfing (or learning to surf) for about 6 hours. I was a tanned wreck of a man.

 

I came up with a fun analogy about surfing and Jesus while I was learning. Learning to surf is like a relationship with Jesus. There are waves in the process that never stop. Some waves are bigger than you, some aren’t. Some you go over, some you go under. You learn how to respond to different waves. There is someone helping you (if you ask for a lesson) the whole time. Eventually you get good enough to stand on the board and use the waves for the fun they were probably made for…surfing.

 

It’s like in life. There are hard things (waves) that come all the time. You learn to handle them in the process of surfing (relationship with Jesus). You have an instructor who is a world-class surfer (analogous to Jesus). It takes time to learn how to surf/have relationship with Jesus in a manner that isn’t just frustrating. At first you get owned by the waves. Eventually you learn to use the board on the waves (walk with Jesus). Then you can do tricks if you want (miracles?) or you can just surf (walk with the Lord) as much as possible…because believe me you want to. Both surfing and a relationship with Jesus are amazing.

 

Okay. I know that this might have holes in it, but it made me really happy to have a fun analogy that made the hard process of this relationship with Christ easier to grasp. Surfing is a process, so is relationship with Jesus. Sometimes you do better than other times, but you don’t quit because it is really great. Yeah…That’ll do.

 

Anyhow, after surfing we got dinner at the bar. Tasty. And then we went to bed. I went to bed much earlier than the other dudes.

 

Today we started the day without breakfast waiting for the bus back to Quepos which took too long. We got to Quepos and got food and then hopped another bus to San Jose. We sat in the back of the bus. Little did I know, but I think this meant I was sitting right near the exhaust thinger. I started the day with a sniffly nose and tired body and somehow managed a headache (which I think was from dehydration, my host mom in her “I know everything” manner assured me it was from not eating breakfast) which became a migraine. So by the end of the bus ride I had to throw up. The last half hour was me fighting the urge to vomit out the window. I held it (by the grace of God) until we got to the bus station…where I promptly vomited in the street. As though I had been drinking. I really hadn’t been drinking, so this made me feel odd and stupid. Just the unfortunate sick fool instead of the stupid drunk fool. A taxi driver and Craig and Kasey helped me out and I got home in one piece. I am doing much better now.

 

Upon getting home I washed the vomit from my chacos and feet and then tried to sleep. Eventually my host mom asked me why all my clothes were dirty when I came back from Nicaragua. Why didn’t I have any clean clothes? Did I forget to give my clothes to the host family to wash? She thought so. She knows everything soooo well. Well. The reason all my clothes were dirty was because…Surprise! I sweat through shirts in Nicaragua in about a half hour. My host mom in Nicaragua actually washed my clothes twice. I am just a sweaty human being who took advantage of that second wash to wear clean clothes every day possible. Apparently that just put my mom off. I tried to explain that, however my host mom adamantly asserted that I must not have given the clothes to my host mom in Nicaragua despite my statements to the contrary. Deep breath. Exhale. This is me ready to leave this house, but sad because it means less time with my host brothers who are legit.

 

On to Nicaragua. Day 2.

 

 

Day 2: We started the second day by heading out to our first interesting experience. We went to a community of people parked in front of the president’s office (or mostly). They lived in tents and had been there for about 16 months, but they have been doing this for 17 years. They were people who were affected by Nemagon. This is a chemical that a variety of  banana companies (Chiquita, dole, del monte) used in the 70’s in Nicaragua. 20 years after the chemical had been banned in the US. The people working in the fields had direct exposure to this for a long time and as a result they are really sick, lots of them have died. They currently live in a piece of land in Managua without sufficient resources, in tents to get their point across. They have been there a long time. Them, their families, their annoying birds all trying to get the government to lend them a hand in surviving and getting a very justified lawsuit through against these companies. Apparently the Daniel Ortega (president) administration is the only on that has helped with food and some legal aid. This same administration has disappeared 510 million dollars in aid, and pays people to stand in the rotunda waving flags with signs that say “love is stronger than hate” to try and counter the very negative outlook lots of people have towards D.Ort.

 

Why do they have beef with him? Well, he cuts out the possibility for third parties in elections. He disappears aid. He is the party of the revolution and doesn’t really help the state of his country. All that and there is a general sense of agreement that he will amend the constitution to make himself able to be elected again, the word dictatorship is used frequently. Boo on that.

 

After our time with the Nemagon community…which was a harsh reality to see. We went to a park in Managua. We could see the whole city. There was an earthquake there in 1972 and the old dictator used all the relief money that was supposed to rebuild the city to line his pockets. Thus, the city of Managua is filled with trees…but has no downtown. The park we went to is the same park that used to have the national palace. A hero of Nicaragua (Agosto cesar Sandino) was assassinated in this park by the first of the three Somoza dictators following Sandino’s victorious war to get the US marines out of the country. So, they have a big silhouette of him there with a poem in his honor on a big white piece of marble. He signifies dignity of the Nicaraguan people.

 

As we drove through Managua it became very obvious that Daniel Ortega wastes significant amounts of cash to make ginormous signs with his face that say “vamos por mas victorias!” or “we are going for more victories”. Sigh. That’s an interesting call for someone whose nation has 70% of its people below the poverty line.

 

We went to a church that was filled with murals of the revolution and the history of Nicaragua. The oppressor (a constant them) was portrayed as a twisted form of semi-human. Sometimes a monster. Other times a macabre rendition of a human being. Heroes of the revolution were men of honor with flags in their hands and honorable looks of determination on their faces. In general, while the murals were beautiful I was frustrated by them being in a church. Firstly, the murals made the oppressor out to be an inhuman beast. The oppressor was essentially beyond all hope for redemption. Not a true part of what we understand to be true as Christians. No one is beyond all hope. Everyone has a bit of humanity in them, even if they have done their best to kill it. Secondly, the violence of the oppressor was talked about by the tour lady as evil. Their use of arms was wrong, their killing was bad. However, the killing of the revolution was okay. This death was justified. It didn’t make any sense. What makes the death of a national guardsman or a FSLN guerilla different? They both had families, they both were made in the image of God. The deaths of both these people ought to have been mourned by the church, instead one death was justified while the other was put on a pedestal as an example of suffering…I have difficulty with that. Death is death isn’t it? I think so.

 

One last thing, the woman said that they couldn’t connect with the standard bloodied crucifix Christ. I think it was because He was white. So they muralled their own in a way they could understand. That is absurd and their muralled Christ didn’t seem to get the point of the death on the cross across. When an oppressed people group cannot connect with Christ on the cross who was killed by the forces of darkness in a very similar way to their own people…then something has gone awry. I don’t care if they have to make Christ brown to connect with Him, He was and is brown. It will be okay if you put an accurate Christ on the cross.

 

We then went to the MCC or Mennonite Central Committee in Nicaragua. Another reason why I want to work for them. They are really cool. Still. Moreso after visiting them. Super neato. Got me all pumped up.

 

Then we went to the National plaza with monuments to just about everything. The Sandinista victory was celebrated in the plaza. The old cathedral from before the earthquake in 72, the old presidential palace, and monuments to famous poet Ruben Dario (he is really good) and Carlos Fonseca (leader of the Sandinistas until his death) are all there. Interesting fact. There are huge signs there like the sort I was talking about earlier…but bigger. Also, they built a new presidential palace/government building. It’s called the house of peoples or something along those lines (casa de pueblos). About 200 meters to the left of its new fanciness there is raw sewage in the street. Welcome to Nicaragua.

 

Then we went to the national Cathedral. That building is beautiful, warm (like all of Nicaragua), and a great place to pray. There was a full moon. Probably the only one that I will see in Nicaragua ever. But, you never know.

 

Then we went back to the compound. We got families the next day….oooooh. Excitement builds.