The life of a voluntary castaway - a journalistic look into a week or so.

looks like rain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPW5nZ7G3xs - whadya know, i'm in the jungle in CR - 'course it looks like rain.  the rain here is different, though.  lots of overnight rain.  often in the afternoon.  and the evening.  non-breathing rubber boots that it's wise to upturn every time before putting one's feet into because of scorpions and such are put on and taken off numerous times daily.  sloppy sloshiness.  some fantastic bugs, spiders, and the ants.  oh my, so many.  small and large.  and the small are biters if they get disturbed.   red or black both seem like the fire ants of 'merican lore.



"it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one's existence--that which makes its truth, its meaning--its subtle and penetrating essence. It is impossible. We live, as we dream--alone."
- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness, Part 1




day 1 - transition day.  aren't they all for transients? ;)
hidden hole in painful tooth eventually fixed by Xavier; long seat jumping, painful process.  1 bus.  another bus.  walk a mile or so with about 100 pounds strapped on my person.  another bus.  the long one.  3 cute attractive girls - i have slight interest in talking to them.  they seem to feel likewise, even w/my fugly late 70's stache; i don't speak to them.  met at bus by a lovely man, well off-center, potentially dealing quite happily with parkinsons or retardation or something that needs no label.  the taxi driver Rob hailed for he and i.  he drives me to an ex-pat pub where i have a couple with rob and some other blokes.  we speak on english - i know this will be coming to an end soon.  errands for rob.  pack in.  dinner.  shower.  a little internet - last night for that, as the usb mobile net card is f'ed and works no more shortly after i'm done with it.


1st full day @ rancho -

washed many dishes - dinner and breakfast and maybe a few others.  cleaned perhaps the filthiest fridge/freezer i've ever seen.  fridge in a lock-up bodega with tools and other storage stuff - i take the initiative to clean it thouroughly; goes from lung disease warning worthy to breathable + i kill my 1st scorpion.  clean patio, stung by a bee or wasp in the process.  kitchen, and propane counter stove.  vined up tomoatoes - ruined a cpl, saved many.  digging 'n mixing dirt/composte.  covered squash leaves with it.  more digging in garden.  watered greenhouse plants at night - this now becomes my job morning and evening.  plant a few plants at secondary caretaker property - bebe's casa.  cut down a rack of bananas.  well needed shower.  journal.  bed.

2nd full day -

Breaky @ Frances/Alberto's casa.  fruit picking at their home - some for them, some for rob and i.  digging - lots - upturned much of the garden adjacent the greenhouse, tossed in composte and manure and mixed - later planted corn, squash, and peanuts, and beans there, and covered with leaves and deaded natural material.  rain came - lots of weeding in greenhouse, created irrigation run off, also.  helped rob for a bit with roof work on his bamboo home.  given name ocd today by rob.  dinner.  shower.  journal.  bed.

3rd full day -

awoke twice with orion and sirius in the northeast area of the early early morning sky - i welcome my buddies back into my life.  i find out later an ex was likely dreaming of me at that exact moment.  5:30 or so is new wake up time.  peaceful greenhouse morning chores.  breaky at frances y alberto's.  off to the coast - Uvita - w/Alberto y Rob, to a home Alberto watches over, to help set both suspension cables on a walking bridge - i meant to snap a picture or two, but when i had a camera there, i did not think of it.  feast at home with Ocean view.  Dominical.  walk the beach.  jump in ocean.  walk more.  climb rocks and follow crabs.  walk beach.  play in water.  lay out.  rinse.  lay out.  clouds.  walk into town. internet.  back to beach - watched some excellent surfing with the tide rolling in.  got on my horse to get back home.  walked.  hitched for a few miles.  walked.  hitched a couple more miles.  then walked up, then down, the mountain road heading from plantatillo to mi casa.  dinner.  shower.  then self mending of recent wounds - right thumb in ace bandage (began in orosi from doing, seemingly, nothing.  maybe the vast humidity entered my bone?), 2 toes wrapped together in duct tape sling, as i may have broke them months ago, and the pain is getting to me, and alcohol for various other affections.  including - TMI'ish warning (skip to next day if'n you desire) - a first and hopefully last ever experience - some alcohol on the head of my cock.  why, you say?  perhaps a partial design flaw in my board shorts, as well as continuous flapping back and forth as i walked the 5 or 10 miles today, left my dick in much pain the last hr of the walk.  i held it :)  it became swollen on the left tip 1/2. had some abrasions i discovered the next day.  pain mostly gone then.  after 3 full days, all was well.

i'm putting in long days - 12 hrs of labor when working.  and my "off" day walk strenuous.  i wear no watch.  with no 'net, and being too exhausted to do any writing, i'm not using my computer.  feels like i've been here for at least a week.

4th full day -

little digging and replanting.  helped trim wood with power tools.  sanding and staining loose boards and the unfinished upstairs support beams that have been weather exposed.  i shave my thighs/ass before showering - major break out from all the sweating and w/out quality body venting.  smoke w/rob, drinks, dinner.  pleasant tangential convo for awhile.  i openly question/call his recollection of history wrong, and he flips; he wants my throat.  he retires, i write.

5th full day -

rob in san isidro all day.  varnished wood from previous day.  pruned tomotoes.  walk to bebe's, dip in waterfall, lay out on dry rocks - calming, as i am caught up in thinking on previous night's blow-up and my feelings on it, a lot...much of the day.  sanded planks.  called it an earlier quit time - maybe 4 or 5.  very little sweating from legs - acne gone down considerably.  shower and light leftover dinner.  put pen to my newly received paper copy of my book and went to town.  right on cue, i went to town on a few nails, too.  exhausting from all of it after a bit - sleep.

6th full day here, 1 week here.

rob here and gone to frances' first thing, passing me by.  i make coffee and breaky and wake slower alone.  i do last days journal entry.  rob back, we walk grounds together - feed fish in ponds, dig up and inspect yuca and taro, and i'm made aware of a different pinapple garden that may be with fruit!  pleasant interactions - maybe a rehash and closure conversation won't be needed.  i dig up some ground and plant yuca starts.  then, primarily, i sand long planks to be used as ceiling/floor for the 2nd/3rd floor, for 9 hours.  i make a full body, core, flowing, meditative workout out of it.  also, 1 hour or so spent sweating away with rob as we fit and tightened new bits that did not want to fit right onto their eventual new home - a 750 liter tank for the outdoor solar shower.  i had decided during my sanding trance to better acclimate myself to this environment - before showering, i sand my full uppen body.  i'm left basically with head hair, my winning stache, and small hair bits + plus many cuts and bug bites all over, and it feels great.  dinner.  then a show and tell and eat experience with rob on natural peanut butter and banana ice cream making.  journal.

tmi warning - 7th full night here -  1st masturbation.  nice closed-eye dream.

7th full day -

Rob had set me up, and poorly communicated to me, that i'd be working as a peone, with the neighbor ana.  there, i macheted branches with sour oranges, cleaned deadness off a starfruit tree, and bagged fruit from both.  i trimmed much tall grass con ana.  she fed me well.  then, she, rob, and i trek to a far field on her few hectacres, where we collected loads or oranges from a sweet orange tree.  rob off somewhere.  i call mom I-:) then i smoke, make a lil afternoon cafe, pop on my glasses, face mask, and his ipod, gather my journal for muy importante thoughts, then sand exposed support boards on 2 further sides of the third floor, as well as the tops of the bamboo walls and other wooden bits that would soon be covered over.  a continued mantra this day and the last is, "be the calm center you want to see in the world, be the calm center of the world."  meanwhile i'm listening to radical tunes like "when the music's over," and "the end." and much jimmy cliff, a reak 1st for me, and i likey.  i walk lucy.  we've bonded, i think.  rob back.  we go over what i've worked on.  shower.  prior to dinner, we talk.

what i know of Rob so far interlude - heavy british accent.  49, looks perhaps 40.  maybe 6'2'' and skinny fit.  shaved head (used to be long hair until the bald spot appeared).  began being a transient about a decade ago.  bought property here about 8 years back.  cross between a surly jason statham and malkovich malkovich malkovich.  indeed, if you worked at summit achievement and knew brian steel, he's got brian's sure of himself, i know i'm right and that's that laugh, which he uses mainly to close his many monologues.  rob, i've noticed, despises being wrong, maybe is deathly afraid of appearing wrong, or not right, as well as proper, even though he's a near total dick with his smug "i've told you once and that'll be all there is of that" way.  and now back to the journal...

difficulties communicating straight away.  he opens conversation by saying he's had doubts and wondering if he's wasting his time with me.  i look to relate by explaining that i had crossed that thought process during some of my sanding, and decided it's not a waste, regardless of what ends up happening in my position here. i think he may have felt hurt hearing me say that.  and, regardless, i later process that conversation to him, seemingly, is supposed to be one way.  and he hates being contradicted in his absolutes.  so when he says he thinks i'm not catching on much, for like the 20th time, which i "need to hear," in a not-so-nice way, i want to explain that much can be put on the teacher, he, the wanna-be unquestioned master, and his teaching style swarming with wasteful prideful energy - he hates waste.  i merely say i think a lot comes back to him.  he gets nasty.  kicks me off the property.  calls me mad.  yells that i'm, looking to escape the world. hmmm.  i remain the calm center of the universe despite him inches from my face telling me to fuck off and other such lovlies.  i talk on a personal level.  he doesn't even know he's now following my path.  he doesn't apologize, but he does shout a little less loudly that he feels terrible for yelling.  he states that he may eventually pay me for the work i do on his property.  and i'm the mad one!  i wonder later about him reflecting himself when yelling at me and wondering about what he's "escaping" from in the world.  he does have to full soundtrack to Brokeback Mountain.  and he recognized my rufus wainwright straight away.  granted he has a local lady friend, but that really only means he has a local lady friend.  hmmm.  we eat separately.  i put my hand out to shake his hand before he's off to his place and say, "i want you to know i appreciate what you do."  and i need not inform him all that that means.  journal.  then i watch a portion of The Great Dictator as a partial means of escapism entertainment, and i love it.

8th full day -

wake for a lovely sunrise out of my camper window.  chores.  breaky at frances'  then trabajo there, tambien.  I pick their peanut garden and upturn the ground.  my hands are now wrecked with cuts and scratches.  a more proper meal.  pull off the peanuts and wash 'em.  w/alberto, i set a new pig cage for a massive piggy mama.  i upturn another garden.  they hand me a full plucked chicked.  we plan for me to come back and work next lunes - monday.  i walk my way to ana's to see if she wanted more work.  she does.  i rake, help others dispose of a new downed tree, rake all that up, and dispose.  yard clean.  eat more.  off to home/rob's.  chores.  1st shower in the solar shower.  it's not warm in the slightest.  whatev.  rob hands me some citronella grass before departing - an olive branch for him?  smells like it.  i cut some supposed bug repellent branches and set them in the camper and out to dry.  a magnificent sunset.  i stand and watch for 10 min or so, then sit, stare, and breathe it in for about an hr.  i then finish the Chaplin movie with some rum and freshly squeezed jugo.  i type out this entry so that we i get into town on saturday as i plan, i need not spend it typing a blog, but rather communication with friends and family and appreciating the little city in find myself in.

lot n lots to love here.  rob has a plane ticket to leave on the 13th.  intensive daily labor will not be the name of the game in that then.  much more calls me, from the warmest ocean water i may ever step in, to my book and the promise in it.

day 9 - rob informs me he has bought more time from his work in the US and will remain here about another week or so...