On the edge of his routine

   There was only one line at the airport security entrance.  All the travelers were waiting patiently for their turn to take off their shoes and coats, to be scanned by the magnets.

   Then there were two lines.  Mason was sent to be the head of the new line and he marched forward without a second thought.  But sadly, when got to the sign that said “wait here,” he noticed that there were two lines but only one TSA agent to check passports.  Glancing at the gentleman behind him, he said “uh oh.”  The man reciprocated with a quizzical look, at once affirming Mason’s singular responsibility for the resolution of the problem and also acknowledging that there was indeed a time-sensitive decision to be made.

   Next, the agent called forward a man from the original line.  Mason glanced back again and said jokingly, “this line is purgatory.”  The man’s face told him that he didn’t agree.  The man clearly had plans later that night.

   “Next.”  Said the TSA agent.

   In one movement, Mason glanced left at the head of the original line to see a young man looking down at his documents and left the safety of his line to move forward toward the agent.

   The opportunity seized, he didn’t look back.  He said “Happy Holidays” to the agent but got no response.  He continued on, free of the responsibility.

   Soon after that, he did look back because he heard the agent raise his voice: “There is only one line!”  He paused as the travelers looked at each other, confused.

   One traveler spoke up, “but he sent us down this line….”

   “There is only one of us here, so there’s only one line,” the agent interrupted.  There was no room for discussion.

   As this was happening the young man who was looking his documents approached with his flat-billed hat and two-tone coat.  Mason became conscious of his own clothes, a wrinkled fleece pullover and sun worn pants.  The young man mumbled, still looking down at his documents in a careless sort of way.  His mumbling was clearly the beginnings of a conversation, an invitation to respond with whatever sort of comment Mason preferred.  The mumbling was not an informational message, but an invitation to dialogue.

   “Not looking good back there.”  Mason said.

   “Yeah.”  The young man said with a smile.  

   Mason knew so much about him already.  Before the dialogue even began the young man’s relaxed mumbling had put Mason at ease, disarmed him.  It was clear that he was a calm and confident guy, not bothered by small things, snags in a larger plan and he knew how to small talk.  Mason knew that he came from a culture where talking makes life more enjoyable, makes time pass faster, and keeps everyone from inventing negative thoughts to fill the silence in their heads.  This guy is not from Newark.  Mason thought.  He’s too nice, too genuine.

   Mason glanced down at the guy’s documents and saw 3:35pm.  Feeling like he needed to make up for his line jumping, or maybe he just liked the guy, Mason asked, “what time does your flight leave?”

The guy looked down quickly and in that moment Mason thought that they might both be on the same flight, and then he thought that they might both be the same age.

   “Four o’clock,” he said calmly.  “You?”

   It was three thirty-five.

   “I leave at six, you can go ahead man,” Mason said, putting a hand on the guy’s shoulder and letting him go ahead.

   This unexpected act was so well-received that after switching spots the young man offered his hand to Mason, looked him in the eye and they shook hands with equal strength.

   “Thanks man,” the young man said with a strong smile.

   “You never know…”  Mason mumbled, trying to say that maybe somewhere down the line today this act would have a butterfly effect and ripple so far that he would just barely make the flight, or find a cab, or miss getting hit by a car.  But really he just mumbled.  

   There was mumbling from both sides.  The conversation was essentially an exchange of tones and concepts, not words.

   Then some concrete ideas were exchanged.

   They approached the x-ray belt and the young man said, “Oh yeah, I’m back in America.  I gotta take my shoes off.”

   Mason pictured a lot of places in that moment, none of which were the place the guy had been.  “Where you…uh…where you been living?”

   “Oh, uh… Germany,”  he responded.

   “Ah, nice.”

   “Yeah, there they only make you take ‘em off if you got boots or like shoes with those big heels…”

   Mason nodded in approval and the young man went on to give a semi-detailed explanation of the process in Germany.  Then the guy said something that Mason didn’t hear well, but the words gave him the impression that the young man was finishing a term of service.

   “So yeah…I’m done,” he said.  “I’m a civilian again.”

   Mason nodded again, his body language expressing his understanding.  “Welcome back.”

   He chuckled as he took off his hat and jacket.  “Thanks, man.”

   There was a moment of silence, just five seconds or so, but they both wanted to keep talking.  They were both talkers, they liked to chat in airports.

   They checked out each other’s faces as they spoke, taking in all the gestures and features, creating some place to file all these things they were doing and talking about.  The young man moved through, but he had forgotten to take off his shoes, so he was sent back.  Mason received him with a laugh as he said, “even after all that talk about shoes, right?”

   When the bags came out on the other end, Mason’s bags were all there, but the young man’s bag was missing.  Mason spotted it next to the x-ray operator and realized that his act of goodness may not have had any affect at all in the short-term.  He felt a small sadness.

   “You’re bag’s over there with that guy, man,” Mason said.

   “Aww…, this is the last thing I need,” he said calmly.

   Mason had his things, his shoes were on, his belt was back on, but he didn’t want to go.  He lingered to see what would happen with his friend.  Maybe I will be able to help, he thought.  But he would not be able to help, he was in the way and he had to get into the terminal.  All he could do, and all he did, was say goodbye.

   “Alright, man.  You be good.  Good luck,” Mason said, extending his hand again to shake hands goodbye.  This was going to be another one of those meetings that Mason would decide to let drift away, because it was on the edge of his routine.  

   The young man extended his hand and shook Mason’s hand again.  They gave contented smiles and held eye contact for a moment as Mason walked away down toward his gate.

Panelaço

Last night while riding my bike in Graças I heard a "panelaço", a common form of protest in Brazil and some other parts of Latin America. A panelaço is the collective banging of pots and pans out windows during a speech broadcasted by unpopular politicians. Luckily I had my handy H2n.

Graças is a wealthy area of Recife and as a result is more likely than others to have citizens who are not happy with the PT (Partido dos Trabalhadores or "Worker's Party") due to recent corruption scandals and general discontent with the leadership of current President Dilma Rousseff.

The panelaço started when ex-president and founder of the PT, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (Lula), founder of the PT, came on television. The bangers of pots and pans were out to make as much noise as possible instead of hearing words from someone they considered dishonest and bad for the country.

Chime Purgatory

–Are you waiting for them to open?

–Yep.

–You as well?

–Yeah.

–Were you the first people here?

–No, these Japanese guys were here when I got here.

–Nobody else though? 

–I don't know, not that I saw.

–Have you been here before?– Juliana was trying to figure out what to expect when the doors opened an hour and a half later.

–Yeah, I was here in the airport last year at this exact office of the Polícia Federal to get my Carta de Trabalho, it was a total mess. A worker came out, and only gave out about ten numbers, the first people that got ‘em got ‘em. Total mess.

Juliana sighed, realizing her entire day might be spent here and we might accomplish nothing.

I looked around at the forty forlorn people who were also looking at each other, hoping that we wouldn't become enemies over the next few hours.  Having come two hours early, it seemed like we would at least get in the door, but getting in the door is no guarantee of success.  

In fact, it seems that more than half of the people that get through the door into one government agency or another here in Brazil end up without all the right documents, or they don't have them authenticated, or they are out of date, or in the wrong language.  And it seems like the Brazilian authorities have done their best to examine all the documents in the universe and choose to require the ones that are the most difficult to procure.

Juliana is a young Brazilian with little to no patience.  Unable to contain her inquisitiveness and overwhelmed by uncertainty, she started talking again to the red-haired fellow again who was Brazilian as far as I could tell.  I would later understand that the only people in this struggle truly were non-Brazilians.  

After a moment the man on our other side chimed in mentioning that he had some problems in the past with this agency.  He was a neurosurgeon from Guatemala who could only come one day a week because he was doing his residency at Restauração, the local trauma hospital.  At the mention of a Central American nation, the red-haired fellow then broke into a Spanish that was familiar to me, even more so when he mentioned that he was from Managua.  He and the Guatemalan broke into conversation and before I knew it we were talking in Spanish.  I was happy to use Spanish because I had a much better vocabulary for the injustices of bureaucracy than I did in Portuguese.  

Juliana however had put on a bit of a dejected face, realizing she was now the minority in her own city.  It begs the question of whether or not an airport really belongs to the culture of the city in which it is located.  After discussing food prices in Nicaragua, cultural tourism in Guatemala, and difficult big jet landings in Tegucigalpa, we came back to the topic of Brazilian bureaucracy.

It was now about thirty minutes until the door opened and I could barely stay in my seat with all the people walking up to the door to read the posted signs, and then back to their seats.  The act of going to read the signs was part of the unspoken process of putting your name on the figurative list, whether you knew it or not.  Unable to take it any longer, I spoke loudly enough to the red-haired Nicaraguan so that the Japanese men could here me.

–I think it’s time to make a line. – I stood up and all eyes in the waiting area moved to me. –Let’s make a line.

The Japanese men did not object, I anticipated this.  There was something of a mad rush to create the line and somehow I ended up behind some people who clearly arrived later than we had.  Two men from French Guiana were tall enough, serious enough, and black enough to dissuade anyone from negating their claim to have been there before anyone else.  There was a general tone of respect save for the French Guianese and we discussed arrival times with some measure of sympathy.  I started conversing with an older fellow from Portugal who mentioned that the clerk inside was his neighbor, so of course I asked for her name for later schmoozing.

–Sandra. – He said, and I gave him a wink.  We were in it together.  He complimented my Portuguese and I told him of my love for Lisboa, Sintra, and above all Algarve.

Finally, the doors opened and the worker was very curt with us.  She said there would only be ten spaces for unscheduled visitors.  I was the ninth person in line until another Japanese appeared, claiming to be part of the group ahead of me.  Deception not being a typical trait of the Japanese, I nodded approval.  Others were not so understanding.  I realized then that Sandra was, for everyone but the Portuguese and I, a ruthless representative of an overly bureaucratic state.  To us she was Sandra, neighbor and human, and that was enough to get us through the event.

Later on, inside the tiny room full of papers, stamps, staples and antiquated computers, I overheard something that was almost frighteningly in line with my expectations.  The Guatemalan neurosurgeon who works at Restauração was having quite a problem.  He had waited more than a year to renew his papers with the Federal Police and he was making a plea to not have to start the process anew.  Starting anew would an extra week and a few visits to sundry government offices.  That’s when I overheard the following conversation.

–I'm not approving your documents to be clear, but what a coincidence that you work in the same hospital where he is having surgery.  Could you check on him?  And I'll get your number?

It became apparent that she was talking about a family member who had went in for surgery recently, maybe last night, and they hadn't heard about his condition yet.  The absurdity of the situation was on display for everyone, but it seemed not to be a laughable matter, culturally speaking, so I remained quiet.

–Of course, I’ll see what I can do.  My number is 88 59 58 94.  Call on Friday.

–Much appreciated.

Minutes later he got flat out rejected and was told to go pay the fees at the agency down the street and wait 24 hours for the payment to go through.  I couldn’t help but think that he might shove his finger in that guy’s brain if he gets the chance.  I never saw him again after he stormed out the door.

----------------------------

The second stop of the day was the Receita Federal.  There I sat listening to the chime in the waiting room, a two-tone chime clearly attempting to imitate the type of waiting room that might precede St. Peter and his pearly gates.  There was the chime again.  A sneeze, a yawn, another chime.  Time slowed to the rhythm of the intermittent chimes. 

I wondered if I preferred the chimes, a sign of progress, to the uncertainty and madness earlier in the morning?  The possibility of total chaos and a potential fistfight?  I am still uncertain.  

There was much less to talk about in this waiting room on account of the chimes, no ambiguity, no frustration.  The masses were quelled.  Another chime.  And another.  I made three new friends at the airport and none in at the Receita Federal.  I started conversation with a Brazilian information technology specialist but as I asked his name his number came up on the screen and I was instantly a figure of his past.  I know him only as VTC 81.

The codes and numbers kept flashing: CFF 61, VTX 104, VF14, VCB 17.  Another chime. VNJ 42.  Another chime, VCA 20.  The woman next to me sneezed again but no one gave her blessings.  The risk is too great.  Even an instant is enough to miss your number and be transfixed in chime purgatory.

VTC 82.

VNJ 43.

VCB 18.

CCF 40…

A Memory Fading

I'll start by traveling a few months back in time.  It's fitting that in time-traveling, the place we're traveling to is a timeless one, where the days don't seem to be connected one to the other, where children and their parents seem locked in that relationship forever, and of course, where I felt so heavily on my being the undeniable presence of the now.  Time, in this place, was once again a construct for me, and one without much utility.

The place was a town called Orta.  Cradled between the curvaceous foothills of the Italian Alps, it has a lake so blue that everyone in the city seems to carry something of it in their eyes.  It is a deep, dark blue, but the bottom of the lake can easily be seen at even fifteen meters of depth.  The clarity of the water is unrivaled in my life of late.  The town of Orta, for it is a town more than a city, and the Lago di Orta sit in the far northwestern province of Novara.  It is a tiny province full of vineyards and small farms.  Novara's capital of the same name is accessible by car or by regional train from Milan.  You won't be surprised to know that generally speaking the Milanese are not fond of these regional trains, and the train schedules are set in a way that requires an often lengthy transfer in Novara if one is to catch the even smaller (though more comfortable and calm) train north to the tiny Orta-Miasino station.  It was, therefore, to my great delight that anyone smelling even remotely of Milan was not to be found north of Novara.

Regional train, serious conversations departing Milan.

The true name of the town for many centuries has been Orta San Giulio.  One gets the impression that all the frazioni, hamlets, that exist around Orta as one ascends the hill have been there forever.  Tiny Legro with its vineyards and pigpens; Corconio to the south seemingly angry at the lake for some past injustice, and the many villages of Imola along the road to Gozzano.  Each town could be nowhere else in this world - for just over any nearby hill it would be a different town altogether.

And what of the nature of the town?  Does not a town draw heavily from the people it nourishes?  Yes, of course, and no.  Orta cares not from which century its visitors come, from which distant lands or which languages they speak; it cares only to receive them as an old mother opens her home to her lost and dispirited child.  Orta is a brook filled with timeless water, and there is plenty of it for all to drink.  Sure, most of the tourists are slow-moving and old.  And the young tourists grow bored with the silence of the lake, its stillness and calm.  They can't stand to believe that the mountains and the lake have agreed to each other's terms so wholeheartedly!  And the wandering man (especially when young) will flee when he is too long near such flawless love between to beings, he will flee to find it on his own terms.

I have, until now, left out the two most iconic and powerful energies in Orta San Giulio.  They have both shaped and reshaped its thousands of years of human history, captivated the hundreds of generations of humans - and more than once brought them to tears.

I'll mention first the tiny mass of rock in the middle of the lake, the Isola San Giulio.  It is a small island about three hundred meters long and one hundred and fifty meters wide.  Sitting there, in the middle of the lake only a thousand meters or so from the docks in Orta San Giulio, the island asks questions, begs attention, but quietly and without presumption.  Who is San Giulio, you ask?  He was the patron Saint of Novara, Saint Julius.  It is said that Julius and his brother Julian were sent from Rome by Theodosius I to destroy pagan altars, and to build churches.  They built many.  His brother Julian is buried in the ninety-ninth chapel they built, in nearby Gozzano.  Many small chapels have been built on the island over the centuries, and now buildings cover it entirely.  Famously, the Basilica di San Giulio, the hundredth church built by the brothers, is in the center of the island today.

Isola San Giulio, Orta San Giulio, Italia

From the island you might be so overtaken by the calmness of the blue waters, the curiosity of the small birds, and the distant snow-capp'd peaks of the Swiss Alps to realize that across the lake, a few hundred meters above the city of Orta, there is a holy place hidden in the trees.  The hill itself has a name with as much gravity as the place itself: Sacro Monte.  They say Nietzsche visited with a young woman in May of 1882, may or may not have kissed her, and was then heartbroken for months when she turned out to be..."not that interested."  Such is the fate of great men, I suppose.  The Sacro Monte possesses a blithe energy like nothing I've felt before.  The freshness of the air, the calm and quiet.  While it had me under its spell I was content to spend the rest of my life there.

I'll tell you more about it through a tale of a  evening "adventure" I had.  After having already visited these sacred places earlier the same day, I noticed a few bikes for use at the agrotourism hotel where I was put up with a friend.  My soul was restless for some destinationless wandering so I chose a bike and took off.  Fifteen hundred meters down the road I got a flat tire, laughed heartily, and cruised back to the hostel for a replacement.  I was very close to just staying in for the evening, giving up and blaming the heat for my failure.  But, the lovely receptionist, upon hearing my story of false beginnings and seeing the beads of sweat pouring down my face felt responsible in some way.  She did her best to help in a hands-on way when she would likely have been most useful as moral support, but together we pumped up another bike's tires.  I assured her that it was no wrong-doing on her part and that her establishment's name would not be tarnished and set off down the road with renewed energy!

The road curved aggressively, snaking its way down toward the lake, my tentative destination.  At the roundabout I had no time to pause and think, and before I knew it I was headed past the road to the lake and up toward Sacro Monte again!  Yes, of course!  It felt so natural!  The decision would lead me up a thousand meters or so of steep, curved switchbacks - a formidable hill climb for my undersized bicycle (or oversized rider?).  My muscles were loose in the 34°C air and I surged up the hill in the half the expected time, breathing double as hard, and entirely alone on the road to this hidden World Heritage site.  All the tourists had long drifted home, or to the lakeside for an evening meal.

The evening faded slowly; it was getting late but there was still plenty of sunlight left.  The sun was hidden behind trees but the sunlight was still all around me.  If there has ever been a great truth made metaphor, its that just because you can't see the sun, doesn't mean it's not there.

But alas!  I was not exactly a tourist; I was, and still am for the moment, a wanderer.  My restlessness, so befuddling to some friends and family, was really a desire to explore, for solitary exploration, for alone time, yes, but more so for intuitive wandering in the way that can only be done alone.  "Sounds like quite the adventure," comes the refrain from city folk - yes, but for me an adventure is about traveling with others.  This, instead, was wandering.  Aimless, free, and untethered.

As I reached the top, a middle-aged woman waited in her car in the parking lot.  Her face betrayed her desire to leave the Sacro Monte, she was waiting for someone (or something...God knows what).  In that moment she existed as everything I was not and might never be.  She looked upon me with some mixture of fear and distrust; surely, the sweaty beast that I was terrified or disgusted her on some level.

- Buona cera, Senhora - I said happily (too happily, she thought.)
- Cerá - she responded warily.

I blew past her and the climb was finished!  Sweet victory!  The blood rushing through my limbs seemed to return to my heart and head as I left my bike and walked up to the second oldest of the twenty-one 16th and 17th century chapels that characterize the Mount.  Each chapel has a unique character, and painted in the mannerist style each contains a unique scene from the life of Saint Francis of Assisi.  The Mount is unique in being dedicated to a saint and not just to boring old Jesus or the Madonna, and I appreciate it as a more honest place for just that reason.  

To enjoy the chapels for a few hours one follows a spiral pattern, Chapel I to Chapel II, Chapel III and so on.  It is a place of sacred energy for all who visit, though sacred for the child comes in the form of picnic snacks and the way his soccer ball wants to hide in the tall grass, and for older ones in the way each breath and each spoken word vibrates in the walls of each tiny chapel.  I approached a retaining wall at the top of the hill and looked out over the water.  Then I took a few more steps to see past the trees and brought into clear view that other sacred place out in the middle of Lago di Orta.  The Isola San Giulio.

The light from the sun, visible now from atop the Mount, fell on me softly through the pine trees for a few minutes.  I sat on the wall, letting my legs dangle.  As my breathing slowed and things fell into focus, the earth turned slowly and moved the mountains between my eyes and the sun.  I thought about all the suns of my life, all the people who were as suns to me, that have since been taken out of view by forces greater than my own.  I came to make peace with that for just a moment, and then for eternity.

My back was tired from the ride and I sat up straight, allowing my lungs to take a deep breath of breaths, the light of the sun, gone but still present, made the air thick in my lungs.  A young couple, only a few dozen Springs old, wandered up and silently greeted me, taking a few photos.  We breathed in the lovely, hazy evening light together, yet individually as well, above all as individuals.  The couple drifted away slowly and made kind gestures to acknowledge what we had shared.  I wonder, as I relive this story so often, if they remember and appreciate me as I do them.

The next moment had been waiting for me for all the while, for my whole life perhaps.  All the mountains, forests, ripples on the lake below, and all the tiny human structures came into divine focus, and I breathed a timeless breath - the same breath that thousands of poets and priests, farmboys and milkmaids, saints and thugs have breathed.  My senses and the lakescene forgot about the game of duality and a sensation arose that I had been missing for ages!  It was just that my wanderings had not been free enough to bring it about until that very moment!  

As the next rippling breath vibrated in my lungs, an unexpected mystery rattled my whole being.  Without warning, the ancient churchbells no more than forty feet behind me rang with praeternatural intensity.  The air shook, the mountains were blurred and indefinite, the whole world was no longer fixed.  I was nearly shaken from the rock wall down to the grassy knoll forty feet below!  But as the vibrations dissipated slowly, the earth became solid once again, past and future fell back into place, and I breathed a calm breath of relief, the kind that only comes after such a fright.

That space was odd and it was unforgettably mine, and I desired to share it with no one and with everyone.  But who could understand it as I did then?  Appreciate it as I do?  Even what I have of it is a memory fading.

I gathered my bike, my bag, and my thoughts and rolled slowly down the steep path, applying the brakes liberally and occasionally stopping to give their hot surfaces a moment to breathe as well.  Upon reaching the roundabout again, the only plan that could have ever been kept me leaning left and continuing down the road, not home, but to the lake.  It seemed so obvious that the heat and love and energy of the Mount had to be taken to the lake.  I went back to a lakeside spot where I had relaxed earlier in the day.  When I arrived, there was only a solitary couple in a space which held hundreds of swimmers and sunbathers, mostly youths and families.  I suppose, after all, that life is mostly full of youths, and families.  There is really no room for us wanderers in any one place for long.  We have left youth behind and family is but a dream.

Earlier in the day on the shores of Lago di Orta, Orta San Giulio, Italia.

The large trees continued providing shade right along the bank as they had for decades, and the water in the ground seeped slowly toward the lake underneath the grass where I threw down my shirt and shorts.  Those same forces carried me toward the water, slow steps, mindful of the various shapes of rocks mixed with sand.  I looked down the curved shoreline at the last families of campers gathering their things and their small, sun-reddened children.  It was a late Spring evening in the southern foothills of the Alps, eight o'clock and most families were preparing dinner or resting after a long, hot day on the lake.

I found myself to be the only person in the water.  Slowing my entry at waist height I began to consider if all the other potential swimmers knew of some danger endemic to the evening at this particular lake.  I determined large fish and and a rapidly cooling surface temperature to be the only present dangers, and being a strong swimmer I would bring my own heat to the water.  Several male ducks paddled along, clearing a path for me to swim out into the deep, cold, ancient glacial lake.  I swam fast, then slow, front crawl, sidestroke and corkscrew.  The water was crisp and cold, refreshing in every way and after about one hundred meters of swimming away from shore, I turned over for my first backstroke.  

As I gazed back toward land, there, up on the mountainside above a small, glowing, pale-red church rose my old friend, my lover, the sweet moon.  I'll save you the background on my fascinating love affair with the moon, but suffice it to say that she is as near to a God as I have ever known.  Forgetting my surroundings and the physics of buoyancy, I sank into that familiar trance into which the moon often draws me, and sank for a moment below the water.  I surfaced and swam out farther and farther with childish gusto and vitality.  The farther I swam the more magnificent and luminescent I found her to be.

I must have swum five hundred meters out into the lake, stillness all around me and the rising moon to the southeast, when a deep cold seemed to start to pull at my legs.  I was instantly taken back to Hermann Hesse's stories where blissful bathing protagonists end their tales and lose their lives during early morning dips in serene, cold alpine lakes.  I would not be that sort of protagonist, I resolved, and reluctantly swam toward the shore.  

As the water got shallower around me, I slowed my pace, death no longer tugging at my toes.  I found myself near a group of ducklings - the cutest of things - half of whom, unaware of my presence, continued passing by, and the other half following their mother more closely as she gazed at me with wary but confident eyes.  I made movements to herd the stragglers toward their guide and made my way to the shore, but at that moment, from the bushes where the ducklings were foraging sprang a tiny garter snake!  What a fright!  I was startled in that primitive part of my brain dedicated to the fear of snakes and spiders and I made quick strokes to let it swim by as well.  I gazed back to see if the ducks had borne witness, but they were already gone, on their way to a place to rest safely and comfortably for the evening.

My creature friends gone, I was alone in a few feet of water, gazing through the liquid crystal down at the arabesque of rocks below.  I saw the sheen of a thousand stones lying happily together.  They were crystalline as well, full of energy, part of the mountains just as much as they were part of the lake.  I found a few that would be worthy gifts for faraway friends and stashed them in my back pocket.

I exited the water and then turned about for one last look.  A thick haze was now visible as the lights of the setting sun and the rising moon comingled.  The lake drew a darkness from below and I was glad to be on the sun-warmed shore.  The mountains in the distance and the impossibly high peaks behind them took on a bluish color, ready for a good nights sleep.  I took in the scene in a way that one can only do when he may never see something again.  I smiled, breathed a full and intentional breath, and mounted my sturdy, undersized bicycle to ride home.

More photos from Orta here.

Dias de Luto, Dias de Gloria

  They're back in my mind today.  Those crazy Brazilian kids, their crazy translations: "Mason, you have beautiful hair - please don't wear caps."  Their crazy pop songs from Brazil and their corresponding dance moves.  Just when you think you're getting serious about your life, when you think you're getting old - kids come along to remind you that nothing has changed.

The whole group at Boston College

Socializing during free time

Learning about American food

My group!  Group 9 Forever!

Luiz, a fellow mountain biker and hooligan

Gabriel e Pedro, very bright kids - made my every effort worth it

Last minute lessons...

  They're back in my mind because they sent me a few of their favorite songs.  One is called "dias de luto, dias de gloria", it's really a beautiful song.  They told me that capital E everyone knows the song, and that they can all sing most of the lyrics.  Immediately, some of those songs from my youth pop into my mind.  I'm amazed at a young person's ability to learn so many strings of words by heart.  These songs are very important to understanding a culture, there is a reason they are known by everyone.

  I was going to make some awesome comparisons to particular songs, but I am really not that good at pop culture - unless of course you ask me to sing "Jack and Diane" or "Mirrors".
  So they're gone now, pretty far away - a few thousand miles.  They were here for two weeks, sixty or so Brazilian middle school kids.  I was lucky enough to get hired on as a mentor and to spend every day, 12-8pm with them for fifteen days.  There was a lot of things that stand out:

  I know most of that song by heart.  I had never seen the video before I posted it right here.  And I am beginning to understand the lyrics better so I like the song less and less.  But the smiles of the kids singing it don't get any less amazing.  It's really easy to take kids up as little brothers and sisters.  The affection is mutual, the mentors and I loved spending time with them and they with us.  Every moment was a new joke, or a and hilarious misunderstanding.

  The camp was a leadership and science camp.  But most of the lessons in leadership were learned through osmosis.  Once again, like my experience in the Peace Corps, with my many little siblings adopted from families where siblings abound, I found myself examining my every word and behavior to see if I wanted to see it spoken or reenacted ten minutes later.  And who knows which lessons will be the most lasting for them, likely not the ones that I gave intentionally.

  But most importantly, music has become a new form of dialogue for keeping in touch with my mentees, my little brothers and sisters.  As a good friend, Stephen, once said: Music started this conversation so let's use music to keep it going.  Several of my best friends and I exchange many more songs per month than words.  When a song rings true for me, I just have to share it.  So here's a few of the songs that are ringing really true for me right now - given to me by kids, just starting to understand friendship and family - and adolescents, understanding those things in a way that I have long forgotten:

This song is amazing.

This song was described to me as the "Piano Man" or "Bohemian Rhapsody" in that everyone can sing every single word, especially if it's in a group.

This is the wierdest post ever - blame Gabby.  Hope you liked it.

Here are more ridiculous songs that these kids love:

This next one is a genre called funk, look it up online if you wanna see how it's danced...

Rural Community Development Program

  The RCD program’s success can be gauged among Costa Ricans in many ways. Perhaps the most compelling among them is the impression that volunteers leave on their community members.  These range from coworkers to students, community leaders to the youngest of children.

  There is something to be said about the phenomenon wherein the further one travels from the largest cities, that is, the deeper into rural areas, the greater the affection with which volunteers are remembered.  

  This affection can be partly attributed to novelty.  Unlike regional capitals, rural towns rarely see a U.S. American spend two years alongside them as a committed member of the community.  

  However, more notably, these rural volunteers often integrate along an exponential curve.  Where a semi-urban volunteer might struggle to find connection due to the nature of city life, RCD volunteers become townspeople faster than coffee and picadillos can be readied.

  RCD volunteers have always joined communities with abandon.  They become entrusted with all of the community’s inquietudes, all of its joys and nearly all of its relationships.  True chameleons, they are remembered as being part of the town’s grander cause to overcome hardship.  Sometimes the memory of an ebullient volunteer is for a community member the most vivid and positive image of the town’s hope.  

  Volunteers provide a unique reflective experience for the community.  They reproduce the town’s essential character with an exactitude that only an outsider can achieve.  As the saying goes, the town members come to know that the community’s character and its fate are two words for the same idea.  RCD volunteers have influenced this process positively for decades and the result has been praiseworthy.  

  It seems that hope often wanes harder in rural towns, burdened as they are with longstanding family discord and antipodal perspectives on community issues.  Volunteers are rarely if ever able to overcome such antipathies and they often, in fact, give into them during integration.  Such difficulties must be accepted to be overcome and, usually around mid-service, volunteers break free of these fatalistic mentalities, and are famous for bringing other community members out of the darkness with them.

  Those children, educators, women and men, become the legacy of Costa Rica’s RCD program.  They press on with myriad skills and attitudes imparted through workshops, classes and countless informal (practical and psychological) motivational conversations.  

  Many staff members and volunteers believe that the Peace Corps should continue, as it has since its inception, dedicating itself more to cultural exchange, friendship, and peace than to skills-transfer or infrastructural initiatives.  Accordingly, and with no intention of downplaying the tremendous successes of the latter, the RCD program will be remembered more fondly than any other program in recent history for its intercultural successes, for its peacemaking and its friendships.

  It can be said that youth in rural Costa Rican towns develop a sense of respect toward teachers, elders, and mentors that often seems absent in urban areas.  Volunteers are simultaneously overwhelmed by and grateful for this incredible quality of rural youth.  It has given the generations of volunteers the ability to be mentors to hundreds if not thousands of children and adolescents in a unique way.  This closeness with youth is a hallmark of the RCD project, not by force due to its project framework, but due to the nature of working and living with rural peoples. 

  Notwithstanding, the RCD project’s impact often shines brighter than many others thanks to its infrastructural project successes.  This is largely because of its volunteers' ability to influence the people of a community through kind actions and thoughtful behavior.  A lasting impression of the best humans that the United States has to offer will remain long after the last RCD volunteer boards her plane home.