The Day after thanksgiving.

Boatswain’s Log November 28^th.

^{I returned several days ago to San Jose. This will be my last entry until after Cuba, which starts tomorrow afternoon. We leave LASP at 3:30PM. I will get there at about 2:30ish.}

I returned via the bus from Alajuela at about 11AM on Wednesday. The bus ride lasted 6 hours or so. Saying goodbye seemed a good deal harder for my host family than it was for me. I felt somewhat heartless as I got on the bus heading to start the process of going home, but at the same time I came to a conclusion. I really like my host family out in Aguas Claras. They are wonderful people who are very kind and hardworking. I did not like my work. It was really hard and I did not enjoy it, not because it was hard…mostly because I was so lonely out in the field for so long alone with my thoughts which is bad for me. I was excited to be leaving and while I would miss my host family I also knew that I would not miss my job and also that I was really glad to be 2 weeks away from being home. I don’t know if that makes me really dumb or that I didn’t do the experience right, but I can only have the experience that I had. Andrew Brauer and I got back and I headed home for lunch and then to an internet cafÈ.

That night my friend Jose (a guy who works at the Spanish institute we went to) and I went out and got dinner at a nice asian food restaurant. We hung out and talked in Spanish for the better part of 2-3 hours. It was pretty awesome. He paid for dinner, I was ready to pay, but he insisted so I didn’t argue. That was a blessing. Then it was bed time.

Yesterday was the day when all us kids got back together to discuss our time out in the fields. I found that there were lots of people with great experiences and others with hard experiences. When it came to be my turn I started verbally processing my experience, and what came out was all the negative things. It isn’t to say that only hard things happened, but at the same time all the wonderful and fun things (learning how to drive a motorcycle, etc…)were put in context of the hard things (work). I guess that the time I had there was more challenging and hard than it was fun and easy. Now, after several days of enough sleep and fixin to go to Cuba I find myself feeling sturdier in body, mind, and spirit. That isn’t to say that I am without problems, I just know that I can handle the problems that exist with Jesus’ help.

We watched a few documentaries on Cuba (which made me pumped to go and made me think that Castro isn’t the worst man that has existed, as the US government claims), then we started our orientation.

Firstly, we were told, Cuba is expensive. You can only change US dollars into money specifically for foreigners called “cucs” (pronounced “kooks”). 1 cuc = .80 dollars. So no matter how much money you bring, you only wind up having 80% of that money. Not to worry. A bottle of rum is only about 6$.

Secondly, we get to go to one of the best beaches in Cuba. Huge hurray from deep within my soul.

Thirdly, there is no US embassy there. Only an office of US interests. A pointed statement was made (at me) to mind my manners there and not be intellectually aggressive like I was in the US embassy in Costa Rica. I got the hint.

So overall, I am pretty excited. We are supposed to get several nights where we can go out and do whatever we want for as long as we want. Awesome, but it really makes me want to buy a cigar and smoke it while drinking a mojito…lifestyle expectations face their worst challenge in my experience. I really want to still do what I said that I would do, but it is harder to want to do that in a country that I will probably never get to visit again. Not to mention the fact that few other people are doing what I am doing. I feel like integrity will win out, but will it just make me feel stupid for not taking the chance to be in Cuba like the Cubans? Or will it have some sort of reward beyond that? I know that it is entirely respectable (despite people who state otherwise) and that if someone has principles they ought to stick to them. So I guess that is what I will end up doing. However, if Fidel Castro offers me a cigar I will be severely tempted.

Moving on. Last night was thanksgiving (as y’all know) and some of us went out to celebrate. We went to find some chicken restaurant in Guadalupe because chicken is as close to turkey as you can get without spending a lot of money. We ended up going to this karaoke bar and hung out. Bethany from Canada came, so did her friend Jessica. Andrew Brauer, Andrew Hayes, and Craig came too. It was really fun. I had fajitas and made the standard sketchy jokes about fajitas. Shoutout to Michael Dallas Miller. It was my first thanksgiving not at home, and I celebrated it with some great people singing songs to drunk Costa Ricans who were vigorous dancers (according to Bethany who awkwardly accepted semi-drunken offers to dance). That is one for the books. We did that circle of saying what we are thankful for. It reminded me of home, so I proposed a toast in a very Frank Handy manner. Unlike toasts at my house, our toasts in the karaoke bar didn’t last an overly long time.

Afterwards, We looked at a Christmas shop and walked back to Sabanilla from Guadalupe, quite far for a tired lad like I was but we made it anyway.

It was the first time I have had the chance to discuss the last article we read in-depth with other people. Remember that one? I do. I realized two things while talking:

A) I am not really troubled by the violence of God that man author talked about. I don’t know why, and maybe I should be…but I find myself surprisingly comfortable with Jesus no matter what happens in bible that I don’t understand.

B) I don’t value my ability to think as much as my ability to pray. Instead of thinking about how to reconcile the problem I had, I prayed about it. Today, unlike quite a few days I find myself for the moment in a state of not being worried about doubting. I prayed for that. Other people mentioned that they couldn’t do what I did. They couldn’t pray in spite of themselves. I suppose that might be something good. Others might not say so, but I don’t agree with everyone.

I went to bed, and my bed in the middle of the night listed at a strange angle. It seemed that while I was away during the day my host mom had tried to put little bed pegs on, they didn’t work because I squirm a lot while sleeping.

Today I changed colones into dollars. I had planned on getting dollars from the ATM like the people at the back said I could, but they lied. So I had a large stack of Colones that are useless in Cuba, so I had to traipse all the way to LASP, get my passport, go all the way back to the bank, change the money, and then go all the way to LASP again. Frick. Incompetence of the bank employees makes me get all irritable.

After spending a while at LASP chatting with some friends and using free internet I came back to the house and made spaggetti with garlic bread for my host family. They liked it. It wasn’t too hard to make. Neato gang.

I also completed my own little no-shave November today. I shaved the large beard I was growing because tonight I am going to hear the national symphony play at the national theatre in downtown San Jose. I am quite pumped about the whole endeavor. It is cheap, I like classical music, and it is a good reason to go into the theatre. You know. Music and all that. The girls who are going are getting fancy, and while I entertained the idea of just having a mustache…I decided that that would be a fools’ errand and shaved it off. I got some video and a good photo of it though.

I will be trying to do the rest of my Christmas shopping in Cuba, so hopefully I can get some of you a knickknack. I am getting increasingly excited to see and talk with all of you. In class we talked a bit about reverse culture-shock. I may have that at some point, this is entirely possible, but I am still really pumped to be going home soon. I hope you all bear with me if things get challenging for me. I don’t expect them to, but I didn’t expect most of what I thought about and dealt with here so I doubt home will be different.

I am also MCing the LASP talent show at the end of the journey in Miami with my friends Chelsea and Ryan. That will be a hoot. I got nominated to do so. I doubt that STUB at SPU will extend me the same offer. I turned down their offer last year for me to host date auction because date auction is stupid and I wanted to hold out for what I really wanted: to host talent show. They got bitter (except for Kile “I kick ass” Petersen) and so I got to do neither. Someone from their team last year is in charge now…oh well. Maybe she isn’t bitter anymore?

This is Chauncey Handy, leaving Costa Rica tomorrow. Signing off. I am leaving on a jet plane…don’t know when I’ll be back again.