Die Dragon, Die!!!

Last year, a friend told me about a book called Taming Your Dragons. It sounds silly, doesn’t it? The basic concept is that we have one dominant “dragon” that impedes us emotionally: greed, arrogance, self-deprecation, etc. I remained skeptical and uncertain about yet another self-help guru’s theory until I read the section on my particular monster and literally laughed out loud because of it’s searing accuracy. My dragon: impatience!! Clumsiness and proneness to break things, along with my morbid preoccupation with time and mortality were all summed in this sweet little diagnosis. But if ten months in Costa Rica hasn’t taught me how to tame this puppy, nothing will.

Because this is a possible week in Paradise. Last Wednesday, after seeing my roommate off for the second time (the week before her flight was cancelled and she was never informed), I decided to finally repair the air conditioner in my car. Months of sweaty service wasn’t sufficient motivation to drive an hour to Liberia and wait all day to have my car fixed, but a last ditch effort to increase it’s value before selling it finally did the trick. After a splendid six hours at FrioGama, I drove away with a functioning air conditioner. Oh was that all? Only six hours waiting at a car repair shop in 90 degree weather at 80% humidity? Gee, why did I ever put that off? But with the cool AC blowing in my face, it was vale la pena.

Unfortunately, five minutes down the road the cold air turned stale. U-turn. Re-enter. Repeat AC check. Replace fuse. Return home. Indulge in blasting freezing air at full speed. Two days later: no more AC. Yesterday drive back. Waste more hours. Wait for bad news: must come back soon and wait 8 hours. Bad words bad words bad words.

But what is that obnoxious expression about an ounce of prevention? I noticed the air in my tires were low, so I stopped on the way home to fill them. Oh no, Demon of Guanacaste, don’t you even think about giving me a flat tire! I’m one step ahead of you this time, you jerk.

Which brings us to this morning. Wake up, get ready to work. Discover internet is out. Pack up computer, get in car, discover flat. Get out of car, get in garbage truck with garbage collector men for free ride, go to local coffee shop. Suffer through very spotty internet. Invite self over to bible student’s office near coffee shop to test internet. More spotty suffering. Call taxi to retrieve self and find another wifi spot. Finish work and calm self with reality that new paycheck has just been created. Miss important phone calls because place that has wifi lacks cel phone reception. Take taxi home and resist temptation to drink a six pack of beer before meeting. Practice talk. Write blog. Shorten sentences so as not to test patience of readers. Pray fervently to sell car and return to greedycapitalistservemenowimpatient America, where my dragon, once again, can thrive and grow strong.

If you remain impatient while living here, implosion seems the only logical event that could follow. Which I haven’t done. Which perhaps means I’m just a wee bit more patient than when I left. Pura Vida baby. Tranquilo, tranquilo. Bah! Just hearing someone say tranquilo raises my blood pressure!

Incendies

Yeah, um...so you know how I drone on and on about car problems and RTV and slow drivers and flat tires? Well this one takes all. My friend Jake took his car to RTV last week and received a big fat F with a list of "grave" problems. Before heading to Panama for a week to renew his visa, he dropped the car off at a local mechanic in Huacas. Perfect! Frolic on the island of Bocas Del Toro while your car gets a triple bypass. Well, let's just say something went seriously wrong with the anesthesiologist. The other day at meeting for service we were told some shocking news: Jake's car caught on fire while at the auto shop. The mechanic claims that while he tried to move the lever to open the hood in order to put out the fire, it broke off in his hand. No bueno. No bueno at all. So this is what poor Jake will return to:













I hope he had a really, really, really good vacation. Anyone want to send over a bicycle?

Bob Dylan Said It Best

The times they are a-changin. The majority of people living here when I arrived have left or are leaving, one by one (well, actually they seem to be leaving in twos). It’s making me get a little sentimental about the friends I’ve made. Jeff and Carley Snethen, who lived here on and off for about two years, finally had to return to Oregon. They were the first to befriend me and help me find a car. Harumi and Ayano, the two bestest Japanese girls in the world, are leaving us on Tuesday, and I can’t believe I won’t be seeing them anymore and that we won’t be sweating in service together.



And my roommate will be leaving at the end of this month! With everything changing, it takes work not to let my perspective shift as well. What am I gonna do without my friends? Another bummer is that a lot of the studies I was working hard to cultivate have become irregular or are MIA. When service is great here, it brings with it a definite sense of satisfaction; but when it wanes, it is really easy to think, What AM I doing here? It’s hotter than Gehenna and the mosquitos are back...get me outta here!

And this all makes me think of the Malavasi Family, because if it wasn’t for their stability, Huacas English wouldn’t stay afloat.



Lady and her four sons and their two wives moved here from San Jose several years ago, started a property management business, and started learning English. Every year they see possibly hundreds of people come and go, but they remain and keep things moving along. I’m sure they miss the climate of San Jose, their friends, and the diversions a city can offer, but they stay here to keep their lives simple and help out. Lately there’s been around 20 people at our meetings, which means this family makes up a third of our hall. It must be so interesting for them to see people that visited three years ago finally come back for a longer stay. So even though they're staying put, they're never standing still. And what’s pretty amazing is that just as it seems the hall is going to waste away, word comes that an entire new crop of people will be passing through. Welcome to the revolving door of Guanacaste!

Anyhow, Laura and I have been pounding the pavement and things are picking up again. I’ve got 60 days left to do everything in Costa Rica I wanted to but haven’t!

"Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled...
For the Times they are a-changin'"

Rules of Engagement

My old camera had a scratch on the lens, so it had to be replaced before my trip to hike the Inca Trail. I deliberated so much over which camera to buy that I actually purchased two in hopes that I could sell the one that didn’t make the cut in test runs. My Canon G12 was the winner. Every day she took stunning photos of the scenery during our four day, 43K hike, and every night I would sleep with the battery to keep it from draining. She even had videos of us dancing up the stairs to lift our spirits on Day 2, the most challenging day of the hike that involves a 1200 meter gain in elevation. When we finally caught our first glimpse of the ruins, we just couldn’t take enough photos. But, being physically exhausted from the rigorous hike and routine of waking up from anywhere between 3:30am to 6:00am, I may have been a little mentally challenged as well. I realized my great loss when our group met together to make a human pyramid: she was nowhere to be found. Did I let my sacred camera slip off my shoulder whilst sitting down to take a rest in an ancient corridor of Machu Picchu? Did someone cut the strap and sneak away, with me failing to notice? Did the Great Camera Demon decide that I would be his next victim? Even the footage from video cameras aimed at monitoring various locations in Machu Picchu didn’t contain the answer (although it was a creepy reminder that Big Brother is always watching!).

Did I cry like a baby after complete sleep deprivation and exhaustion at the loss of a brand new camera and a never to be repeated collection of photos? No way, of course not! [Drip, drip, drip, drip....salty splash]







In times of war, Rules of Engagement serve as guidelines: for example, it’s not ok to kill civilians or keep massacring an army that has accepted defeat. If memory serves me correct, during the Incan Empire, armies would stop fighting in order to gather their harvests. Well, thieves of the world, I would like to propose that you, too, ought to draft some Rules of Thievery, and they would go a little something like this:

Fine, take my camera, you horridselfishheartlessgreedy jerks, but give me back my memory card containing memories of a 43K hike to see the stunning ruins of Machu Picchu! Drop off the SD card at a designated safe zone!


Oh, and I’m blaming you for adding coveting and financial debt to my list of sins. If I hadn’t lost my camera, I would have probably never discovered that Wendy’s $1200 camera can capture shots like this:








I forgot all about SLR heaven. Great, now I feel like a one week old widow whose already fallen in love again. Sigh.

They Gave Me Fever!

I love experiencing things in foreign lands that are either unique to that culture or simply bizarre occurrences that might not happen elsewhere. Recently I’ve had two of these.

Part 1: The Dreaded RTV
(pronounced re-te-ve, it took me half a year to realize it’s an acronym). It’s laughable and a bit pitiable to imagine someone in the States wanting to celebrate the passing a smog check (big deal!), but the passing of RTV, Costa Rica’s version of a smog check but on crack, made me want to throw a Quinceañera for my car (it just so happens to be a 96!). The process for me went a little something like this:
I made an on-line appointment, trying my best to translate, at one of the countries’ approved locations an hour from my house. My roommate Laura (bless her sweet little heart for going with me) and I showed up, looking lost and confused, and were instructed to wait in our car in a line that looked a little something like the opening day of a new ride at Disneyland. After two hours of sweating and inching forward, we drove through a skinny little building with men under the car, over the car, and in the car, examining as much as they could in as little time as possible. I’m not sure how they missed my two broken door handles, but after driving through I received my certificate: FAIL!!! I had a month to fix the problems, but really only two weeks before my trip to Peru. It took 10 days to receive my parts, which means that once again the day before a trip I was running around like a headless chicken: dropping off my car off, waiting to be informed that my mechanic is lame and couldn’t fix the problem, driving over an hour to a muffler shop in Nicoya to have a new mystery part installed, and by 4:30pm rolling into RTV for my reinspect and doing my best to appear as truly pathetic and helpless as I felt inside. But woohoo, mission accomplished! This time around, I passed. So if one day, anyone has to get their RTV, I recommend the following:

*Get a victim, I mean good friend, to join you
*Bring a six pack of a delicious beverage
*Bring some sort of musical accompaniment
*Grab a deck of cards
*Practice your best weepy eyes, just in case things go poorly

And by the way Costa Rica, how can you have such a fierce inspection every year and yet so many pieces of JUNK on the roads?????


Part 2: Yellow Fever
Travelers visiting countries where Yellow Fever exists must show proof of vaccination in order to return to Costa Rica even if they don’t visit high risk zones. The jab would have cost me $50 in CR, but I read that in Peru you can pay little if nothing. Hmm, just what I like to do on vacay - visit a hospital/clinic to get a shot. After hiking the Inca Trail, I asked around and was sent to a clinic known for vaccinating travelers. The very friendly man who spoke English informed me that there was currently a shortage of the vaccine, but I could wait for the shipment arriving tomorrow. Hmm, no dice, I had to get on a night bus. Can’t I just pay for the certificate and be a super shady traveler since I won’t actually be visiting the Amazon? Darn, that would be lying. But wait - apparently there is a secret stash of the vaccine for fiebre amarilla! For just a mere $40, I could have a 3 person medical staff show up at my hostel in an ambulance to give me the shot and wait with me for half an hour to make sure there’s no reaction because I’m neurotic. Excuse me, WHAT???? And, um, well, YES! So for half an hour, the four of us chatted about Peru, vaccines and their possible link to autism, Costa Rica, and the fact that their should be rules of engagement for thieves (more on this to come). At least I think that’s what we talked about. It was in Spanish, so for all I know I could have told them I’m an autistic thief from Costa Rica visiting Peru.

Memorial Mishaps

The Kingdom Hall here in Huacas is not very large, and in order to accommodate the large crowd expected for Memorial, Chris Spears had an excellent idea: find a way to televise the event for those seated outside. I'm not a teckie, but the plan went something like this: network two mac books, with the webcam of one aimed at the speaker, and the other hooked up to a projector aimed at the wall of the Hall where the outdoor seating would be arranged. The only part I needed to play was to make my computer available for the event.

Since our friend Ryan was giving the talk, my roommate Laura and I decided to attend the Spanish memorial as well as our own. Ryan told us that since the congregation was asked to take the outdoor seating and leave the Hall free for guests, we were invited to sit inside. It felt like a privilege to be seated in the second row, listening to a great memorial talk with such few distractions. Our friend done us proud. And to see the hall overflowing with students and visiting families was really encouraging.

But there was one teensy-weensy thing I forgot: my new screensaver mode. After a few minutes of non-use, photos from my personal albums alternate on the screen for a few seconds each. About two minutes after the memorial, my friend Elena (Chris's wife) came running through the hall, practically shoving Bible students out of her path, to inform me that a picture of my friend in a bathing suit had just been projected onto the wall of the Kingdom Hall. For once the expression "For the love of all that is holy" seemed appropriate. Because my friend and I attempting a mock photo shoot on the beaches of Costa Rica is anything but holy. And suddenly, all the weird, goofy, unattractive, private photos that don't even make the Facebook cut flashed through my mind. Humiliation/fear/nausea infiltrated my gut as I pondered which ones were currently being broadcast to a group of visitors. At the Hall. After the Memorial.

How DO I manage these things?!!

P.S. I am sorry Jess Flanagan. Good thing you look GREAT in a bathing suit!

P.S.S. Imagine if this doozy popped up. The most heinous self-image to date. Zoolander meets Colombo meets Grey Poupon. I can humiliate myself no further than this for your personal enjoyment. Laura made me do it. Enjoy.

Live Trees, Dead Toads, and Freaky Fires

These trees are so beautiful and only blossom during the summer here; they really stand out since nearly all else is dying.

Here's a few versions of my favorite tree taken with my new Canon G12 (plug):

With color select:


Just a little vivid:



Super vivid:



And here's a special perk about the dry season - if 100 degrees isn't hot enough for you, you can always pull over off the side of the road to warm your hands or roast marshmallows in the frequent controlled burns that look like renegade fires:


I really don't understand how all of Guanacaste hasn't burned down. California, you should take some notes.

But be sure not to step on these when crossing the road:

Cooking Up Trouble

Since one can only stomach so much Gallo Pinto, I discovered this new recipe and love it!

Satueed Chicken with Sweet Potatoes and Pears (here's my version):

Sautee a few chicken breasts (salted and peppered) with just a wee bit of oil over medium heat. Get the chicken nice and brown but don't get the heat too high because you won't be wantin any burned bits in the pan. Once the chicken is cooked, remove it and add a peeled cubed sweet potato in the pan with about 1/2 cup of water and cook for 6 minutes, stirring when needed. Then add a peeled, cubed pear and cook for another 5 minutes or so, adding water as necessary (up to another 1/2 cup). When finished, add about 1 tsp Dijon mustard and 1.5 tsp red wine vinegar. Stir it up and sprinkle it with some italian seasoning, place it on top of the chicken and enjoy. It's Delish and super easy. So far all my friends like it...unless they're lying to me!

Sliding Doors

A couple of Sunday's back, there was an experience about a woman named Roxana. She went to the convention even though her boss threatened to fire her. And fire her he did, but while walking home she found a new job that paid almost double, and in the course of time brought five people from that job into the truth. I kept thinking about all she would have missed out on if she hadn't taken that leap of faith. But of course she would have never known, which is a bit of a haunting thought. This isn't Sliding Doors: we don't get to see glimpses of the outcomes of chances we didn't take. For some people, faith - whether it's faith in God or in the goodness of life - comes easy. I'd say on average, I'm not one of those people. This year, as it turns out, has been one of the most rewarding, but I nearly let fear of loneliness keep me from it, which is ironic considering that I've had roommates coming out of my ears.

Anyhow, gettin preachy ain't my thing, but I have a new appreciation for taking chances and overcoming whatever obstacles get in our path. While I don't espouse the personal choices of this author (rest assured, those of you who may be haters), I do love this particular quote:

"...I've come to believe that there exists in the universe something I call "The Physics of The Quest" ... And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this: "If you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared - most of all - to face (and forgive) some very difficult realities about yourself....then truth will not be withheld from you."

For the quest that most of us are on, those physics aren't such a mystery, but sometimes we still need a push to just go for it. So here's my push.

Fleet Foxes, you are amazing!!

Just hear this song for the first time today, and the lyrics captured a bit of what I was trying to say...

My Country, Tis of Me

America, you must know by now, you're ridiculously easy to make fun. How do you manage it? What with your strip mall suburbias, fast food fatties, embarrassingly quotable presidents, and a populous that doesn't know the difference between a Swiss and a Swede, you're just asking for it. But I have defended you a time or two, to the scoffers, or ex-pats, or people as obnoxious as I was in my twenties who think that ragging on you is as counter-culture as going Vegan. And here's a little secret just between us: I'm not completely on board with that whole Pura Vida thing. I like a little chaos and impurity in my life, which may explain my love for Buenos Aires. Sorry, I don't mean to make you jealous. I love my extra hot two pump mochas, the sales rack at Anthropoligie that warps my perception of value, the sand moving tractors that make the beaches enjoyable to walk on at any tide, and wearing sweaters in summer because we control the weather, the weather doesn't control us. And the whole business of civil liberties and freedom of religion and all that - at least you allow us our minds. Or rather, you allow us the perception of our minds and then hijack them covertly through your media moguls because we're foolish enough to allow it.

But, the problem is, those questions are going through my mind again - you know, those questions. Is my life meaningful? Should I update my profile? What is my career trajectory? Could I ever contribute to a This American Life episode? Will I ever be published? Could I ever be wickedly famous like my *sister* Coco Rocha (kidding!)? Have I completely lost touch with the Indie music scene? What should I budget for aging gracefully? For some reason, the level of me discontent is on high alert here. And when you're sweating profusely in the deserts of PuraVidaVille, you haven't got time for these questions. So it's been great visiting you, driving egregiously fast on your freeways, visiting your cinemas, and walking safely on your streets, but you're doing my head in already, so back off!



Recommended Reading (if interested in the topic of this rant):
The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement
The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less
Stuff White People Like: A Definitive Guide to the Unique Taste of Millions

They Heard About My Sweet Cheeks

...but got the directions slightly wrong. Another mystery insect-creature came to do his vile work while I was standing at a door with four men [more on this to come]. Feeling a stabbing pain in a most inconvenient location, I paused - breathed - waited - and then screamed! And then ran around to the back of a shed to try and do some investigatory research. As usual, the damage didn't show up until about two days later. And here it is. The only photo I will actually post, do to the bizarre location of the attack.





Today it's gone from looking like an egg to a bright pink mound.


Was it a wasp? A spider? A bee? No idea, but I'm pretty sure it's a conspiracy. Creatures versus Contos. And I'm obviously losing!

Everything Is Illuminated

A strange thing about the dry season here: even the leaves of the trees suffer. Over the course of five months, they accumulate a thick layer of dust until finally the first rains of the season wash them free of their burden, their dirty souvenir of summer. That same dust cakes the dashboards of your car, sinks into the air vents, the control panels, and whatever crevice it can find, including your pores and fine lines. You smell it, you taste it, and you better get good with it because, even though everywhere, it's going nowhere.

When I previously lamented about my lack of beach-walking partners, there was one thing I didn't realize: this place I live in is a bit bipolar. The difference between low (rainy) season and high (dry) season is extreme. While the verdant land dries into a spectrum of yellows and browns, the snow birds flock from all the great lakes and those 40-below states. Suddenly our small group of 25-35 more than doubles to 75. And when it comes to a social life here, it's feast or famine, and if you've a tinge of introversion, prepare for social indigestion (imagine the equivalent of ending a fast by eating two in-n-out burgers and fries in one sitting). I went from having no roommate and a very limited though fabulous group to spending literally 622 hours in a row (that's 26 days minus a two hour separation when I missed meeting) with my new roommate, Kady Hexum. [*digression: that Kady and I have spent the last 3.5 months all up in each other's business with only approximately 2.5 conflicts may in fact be our greatest accomplishment to date*] Meanwhile our hall was bursting at the seams with loads of cool people who'd come down to preach and beach. But keeping track of them was another matter. Those friends I'd spent the majority of my time with during the lull I barely saw (and still barely see) because..well, I guess because there's only so many cars to go around and there's a whole lot of us. I know, I know, this doesn't really sound like a problem, but when it's 95 degrees and you're sweaty-filthy-crusty-tired and there's seven people crammed into a Tracker and you're driving around the insufferable one way streets of Santa Cruz looking for a lost sheep of Guanacaste but you've forget the landmark, and you can't even yell Kady! because now there's a Kady and a Katie, it may be a challenge for some. Ok fine, for me, because I'm stressy like that.

But then: a full moon. I was tired and wanting an evening of hibernation, but Katie and Jon wanted to walk on the beach, and how could I say no after blogging my woeful tale of solitude? We started at Brasilito, a black sand beach, and worked our way over to Conchal, a beach made up made of a multitude of broken shells. I'll never do this night justice, I've never seen another like it, and I hate that I can't convey it properly. It was ethereal, the way the moon reflected off the shells and the foam of the water: so bright, as if we were walking on the moon itself, or some other planet not our own. But for me, the most incredible visual aspect was the way the moonlight reflected off the leaves of the trees. That vile dust coating the leaves in daytime turned itself into something bewitching, something you'd willingly tolerate for all those months just for this. This view, as if through infrared goggles. We gawked nearly every step of the way and lay in the sand for hours just to make the night last longer. And you know those trying people who like to find meaning in everything? Ah yes, well I'm one of them, and I couldn't help but see those leaves as a metaphor for life's challenges [fill in metaphor here]. It was strange to think I could have missed that night, and I wondered how many such nights I've already missed, and what I could do to make sure I don't miss more.

But before I leave off waxing philosophical, let me tell you how the night ended: with us, like giddy children, driving back home, and Jon, the driver, slightly distracted and not noticing the ant eater (yes, ant eater) trying to cross the road. He swerved, the car squeeled out of control, we almost died (not really), and that stupid animal was just fine. Scientists better discover some cure for a rare disease within the DNA of that stinking animal for what it nearly cost us (perhaps you had to be there, the joke was very funny at the time).

PS ant-eater: you are not doing a very good job because there's ants all over the place!!!

See the Pretty Girl in that Mirror There (What Mirror? Where??)

Since deciding to hike Machu Picchu in May of this year, Kady and I realized we needed to find a local place to test out our hiking boots and our (un)fitness levels. We finally went on our first excursion to Rincon de la Vieja a few weeks ago with Harumi, Ayano, and Rachel. Heading out the door extra early with our lunches and swimsuits, we pushed ourselves for several hours to get to the beautiful Cataratas, where we dined and then swam against the currents for our chance to be inundated by the falls. The scenery was wonderfully varied: at times we were underneath forest overhang, and at others we were walking through the desert-like valley of the volcano. The trees undergoing a slow demise from their strangler fig parasitic partners were my favorite.












So when we headed back to Rincon a week later, we knew what to expect: beautiful surroundings, a bit too much sun, and a challenging hike.





That's it, right? Wrong! What we didn't anticipate was that taking a different trail would lead us not only to volcanic mud pots and hot springs, but also to a plague of nasty, biting, black flies that were completely unfazed by multiple layers of OFF! Deet equals Treat to these suckers, who feasted on seconds and thirds. Toward the end of the day I felt the strangest sensation, as if one of the flies had entered deep inside the tissue of my nose. Gross, right? But no need to be paranoid - it's just a fly. By the end of the hour long ride home, Ted, Niel, Kady, and I were starting to understand just how badly these little bastards' bites were going to itch.





Just in time for the upcoming circuit assembly, I woke up with a gorgeous little surprise the following morning:








Yep, my nose was double it's normal width, and my left eyelid was puffed up like a dead puffer fish. Apparently one of those flies was rather adept at navigating nasal canals. Wooweee, ain't I sexy?? But wait, maybe this could work to my advantage. Stay positive. Perhaps the bulbous-nose, bloated-lid look is attractive in central american cultures? Coat it with some shimmery green shadow and toad it up? Not a chance. And let's forget about the Discovery Show my dad saw about flies that lay larvae in human flesh until worms start bursting out of the skin. That.can't.happen.to.me.

That same morning came reports that some in our group had ticks lodged in areas they just had no business in. Extractions were successfully performed. Well, at least I didn't have blood sucking ticks gorging on my nether-regions as well as having a bloated eye.

Three days later, while walking back to my seat during the assembly, I asked a local sister to check out a scratch I felt on my back. All business, she pulled me off to a corner, muttered something under her breath, and yanked quickly. In the palm of her hand lay Fatty-McFatty; she dropped it to the ground and her son squished the tick under his shoe, leaving a thick trail of my blood on the concrete.

She opened her arms wide, and with a huge smile on her face said, "Welcome to Costa Rica!"

"Fights Without, Fears Within"

When it comes to meeting attendance, we all have hurdles to get past. Maybe it's needing to turn down work and disappoint our boss. Maybe it's leaving behind family that won't be joining us. Maybe it's getting past exhaustion. Or perhaps, in some distant land, in a Kingdom Hall far, far away, it's something else entirely: a terrorist that comes into the Kingdom Hall with the sole purpose of frightening all those in attendance. Generally he comes in and goes directly to the speaker's podium. But when an attendant rushes to the rescue, he chooses his next victim from the audience. He hurls himself into the air, and where he lands is anyone's guess. Sometimes, during a suicidal mission, he even hurls himself toward the fan, only to be smacked down on some innocent below. You may try to convince yourself you're ready for him: you inhale, hold your breath, close your eyes and cling to the armrests in preparation. But when you feel the thud on your shoulder, and those clawed nasty feet cling to your clothes, he has won a victory. Because at that moment, there's a screamer in the hall, and it is you.

Last week it happened this way. One flew towards the speaker, and our hero Adolfo flung him outside. But then, two more of his nasty friends were creeping towards the front row. Towards ME. And the biggest of the two, oh, he was obviously experienced at this form of terror, because while his partner in crime distracted Adolfo, he ran directly underneath my seat between my legs, and I, like a panicked fool, lifted my legs into the air, and let out a muffled scream from the front row. After the ensuing commotion, confusion, and surrounding laughter, I put my feet down and relaxed. Oh but no, he wasn't finished terrorizing; within seconds I felt a large weight against my foot, and at that moment, during a talk I am sorry to say I have no recollection of, instead of waiting for help, I got up and ran straight out of the Kingdom Hall.







This, my friends, is the monster we must face here in Costa Rica. At times he even tries to sit among us for the nefarious purpose of gaining secret information. Look as he even tries to raise his hand to comment. But we are wise to him. We will continue to fight against him.

Tick Tock Tedium

Any one who knows me well knows that at times I get a bit stir crazy. Restless. Fidgety. Spastic. Bored. Sort of like a dog that needs to be walked a lot or it starts misbehaving. Anyhow, that's how I was feeling last night. The thing is, here it gets dark at the same time every single night, year round, day in, day out. The sun starts setting around 5:30pm, and afterwards, you have hours of darkness. How about a walk on the beach? Not safe solo, and not as easy as you'd think to get a partner. How about a movie? No theatre (unless you count the room that seats about 20 and shows rentals on a projector, which I refuse to). Bowling? Not unless you consider throwing toads at howler monkeys hanging from trees a form of the sport.



Our recent game of Squish the Scorpion in the Studio is most diverting, but it only takes so long to kill em and flush em.









Of course, there's the cul-de-sac of Tamarindo, with it's collection of seedy sports bars and over-priced restaurants, but most of the friends are on a tight budget, and fine dining is generally out of the question. How about cards? Always disliked them up until now, but playing a game of cards or dominos with friends is something I've grown to appreciate.

Of all the challenges so far, this is the greatest. Car problems, critter encounters, sweltering heat, mountain size mosquito bites? Whatevs; I'll get over them. Too many nights in the house? Loca en la cabeza. Oh how I long for the pubs of San Diego and the Carlsbad sea wall like the Israelites longed for leeks and watermelons. Don't get me wrong, the nights of home cooking, relaxing, and being content with fewer distractions has done me a world of good. But last night I reached my max, and though it was unwise, I couldn't resist an evening drive and a walk on the beach. The stars here at night: incredible. To see the opaline waves, the silhouette of palm trees, and the milky way amidst an explosion of stars is, to say the least, awe inspiring (What does it all mean? What does it all MEAN?!?). I returned home, feeling a little scared and sad, wondering just how long I'll last without my closest friends and fondest diversions, and wondering if I should hire a body guard to accompany me on late night walks on the beach.

But today the ministry compensated for the challenges. The people you meet here, the stories they share with you about their lives, and their willingness to study - it really does make you see how people are "skinned and thrown about, like sheep without a shepherd." Teenagers with best friends dying of cancer. Young girls whose fathers abandoned them; whose mothers abandoned them; whose brothers died in accidents. And it is such a pleasure to be able to offer them a little bit of consolation and truth and perspective. We can't make their problems disappear, but we can give them our friendship and our time, and most valuable of all, the truth (and of course, give them Bible teach books for free, unlike a church in Santa Cruz that was selling them!!!). I was able to conduct three really good studies today, and the friend I brought with me somehow knew just what to say to offer compassionate counsel and consolation. So I don't know for how long I'll be able to stave off the stir crazy, but here's to another day.