i finally picked up the pieces

of a facebook account i had started ages ago and never checked. it's a national obsession for a reason, i suppose, and has proved to be a good way of remembering the faces and names of fun people i've met on this trip.

of course i've found people that i thought i would never see again-- girls i drank schnapps with in a german hotel room when i was fifteen, a friend from arizona who shared his dried fish snacks and studied parapsychology with me so we could catch the ghosts we imagined in our houses.

but i was surprised to be contacted by one fred cutty, a person whose last name i never even knew but who managed to find me after almost 6 years...

i was in brazil. the '03 world social forum was over and i wasn't sure where to go next. i sat in the park with my backpack, eating my third 20 cent ice cream cone of the day, and two boys parked themselves on the bench next to me. their names were freddy ("fredge") and raul, local kids who had attended the forum for a lark. we chatted about the forum; they spoke portuguese and i spoke spanish and it somehow didn't even register that they were different languages.

they asked me what i was doing next, blah blah... "oh, stay with us!" they said. i thought about it. go home with two brazilian guys that live alone? hmmm... oh jana, they're 17. it will be fine. i went.

raul was cute, dark hair flopping in his eyes; relatives in california meant that his english was pretty good. he wanted to practice. freddy was quiet, taller. he spoke little english, which meant that raul's larger personality and louder mouth got most of the airtime. i cooked food for them, happy to use a kitchen after months of traveling. they talked about girls, ate like teenage boys.

i could tell they were excited to have a strange blond woman in the house. i wondered how they lived alone so young. "oh, my mom owns this place but she doesn't live here," said fred. "she comes here like once a year." they put me up in a bedroom off the hall. it had a dresser in it, not much else. a real bed was delicious. i slept in for the first time in months.

the boys had summer jobs. i spent the days wandering around porto alegre, finding bookstores and bars and eating lots of 20 cent ice creams. in the evenings we'd smoke pot, cook, laugh. fred showed me family pictures; i wondered again how his mother could leave him alone like this. we talked about home. he taught me the word "saudade," the most beautiful word for a weary traveler. "it is, you know, when you think of the beauty of your family, when you are sad and happy at the same time?" the dictionary translates it as "nostalgia," but what freddy was talking about doesn't have the association with antiquity, with heirlooms and childhood. saudade is like homesickness, but in a good way-- the way that it's so damn nice to miss somebody you love, because it proves to you just how much you need them in your life.

i was used to waking up alone in their house. my eyes opened when the door creaked open. someone is here. a dark shadow came in, pulled open drawers, pulled things out haphazardly, looking for-- jewels? money?
oh shit oh shit oh shit. someone's broken in, i'm alone in a brazilian apartment. oh shit. the shape pulled clothes out of drawers, threw them on the floor. i stayed absolutely still. maybe he won't see me. the light flicked on as the shape turned around...
she screamed. i sat up, pulling the sheet around my almost-nakedness. she started to talk excitedly in portuguese. oh my god, it's fred's MOM.
i began to explain myself in spanish. her face was confused as she tried to put together the pieces-- a naked bald girl speaking spanish with an american accent is sleeping in her BED?
of course, i was just as confused, and the details became obvious in flashes: this is his mom's BEDROOM, oh my god, she probably comes here all the TIME, they just wanted me to think they were COOL and had their own apartment...

"are you freddy's girlfriend?" she asked. "are you sleeping with my son?"
"oh, no, no, no..." i stammered. trying to explain myself. i was mortified. freddy, you're dead, i thought.
she gathered her things and left, apparently deciding i was harmless and not worth the time to figure out.

freddy and raul laughed til they cried when they heard my story.

tenho saudade, y'all. i'm almost home.

for now, yoga

has me in its exhausting and exhilarating grip.

i'm reading hafiz and zen stories and for the first time ever i can pay attention to them.

Ever since Happiness heard your name

It has been running through the streets

Trying to find you.

And several times in the last week,

God Himself has even come to my door-

Asking me for your address!

Once I said,

"God,

I thought You knew everything.

Why are You asking me

Where Your lovers live?"

And the Beloved replied,

Indeed, Hafiz, I do know Everything –

But it is fun playing dumb once in a while.

And I love intimate chat

And the warmth of your heart's fire.

hafiz is so brilliant and such a goof.

"uh, excuse me,"

i stammered weakly. "do you, uh, have a bathroom? i think i'm going to be sick."

"i don't have water," she shrugged. "i know you're not used to it, but you can be sick in the ditch. it's the costa rican way."

sigh. i was trying to avoid the ditch. a pale, stumbling gringa is spectacle enough without the added show of puking yellow bile between her knees ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD. i made it to the ditch and became a spectacle. dammit.

i was just trying to return this book. i'd been throwing up since four a.m. and the book that was supposed to last me all day was spent. i stumbled into the shop of the kind-of-nice lady and promptly fainted. groan. okay, this is not going well. i've walked five blocks, i can't make it home this way, this lady is supremely unconcerned with me DYING on her floor. i crawled to a chair. nope. on the floor again, head between my knees. better. much better.

drip. drip. drip. yikes. am i sweating that much? i looked at the drops rolling off my nose, at my pants darkening from wetness at my knees, thighs. gotta get out of here. my head was buzzing with confusion. my eyes couldn't focus.

"here's your book," the lady said not-so-nicely. i took it and somehow, somehow stumbled out of there. i started saying a mantra, something along the lines of "home is close." the world spun at every step. i fell up the stairs and into my rented (thankfully single) room. good thing i am prepared and had a lined bucket waiting patiently.

i knew what was happening. everyone in granada had this virus, including jose luis and the baby, and i had been congratulating myself for two days on making it back to costa rica before the dreaded thing hit. now that it had, of course, i was seriously regretting leaving a comfortable family atmosphere for the backpacker trail and seen-it-all clerks. home is not close, jana. home is not close.

i feel fine now, mom. i did the right thing and stayed in bed for two days and ate only saltines and flat soda, two things you can find in abundance here.

the book was not that good, but perhaps it was the, uh, lack of focus. i switched to dickens and that helped me sleep, i guess.

this happened to me

last time i was traveling for a while. i'm starting to become overly distracted by the mechanics of language, of roots real or imagined*, and variations on the theme. the folks i've met here have given me a lot of material. i've taken to running into internet cafes to look up hawaiian slang (blake), gaelic spelling (niamh), and dutch regional variations (wouter). i've learned a lot of interesting tidbits, have been left with increasing number of questions (why o why o why does gaelic have so many vowel sounds spelled entirely with consonants?), and have become unable to communicate. sigh.

reading isn't even fun anymore. books have become like blueprints, and i focus only on the details. i'll read a whole book through and write down a bunch of words with funny roots, or things i can't translate into spanish, and forget the entire plot (menos mal, with the last few).

last time i was in this mood i started obsessively anagramming and writing palindromes. funny thing-- i checked myspace the other day for the first time in ages and found a message from a death-metal lover who wrote: "dear jana, i am glad you liked my palindrome so much you used it on your page! i am very flattered. i have written lots more if you would like to use them."

i was grumpy. english language palindromes are a finite set that increases very slowly with the creation of new words (ha. imagine using "serial monogamy" or "flash mob" in a palindrome.) you start in the middle, you work with words that don't have impossible combinations in the center... a palindrome artist should not accuse others of plagiarism because they, too, discovered that evil backwards is live.

in words, drown i.

i'll probably have to pay him royalties now.






*is "ruminate" connected to "ruminant"? is ruminating really chewing something over like a cow chewing its cud? the answer is yes, the question spurred by the hundreds of droop-eared, jowly cows that do seem to be philosophizing quietly.

how am i supposed

to eat this, i wondered, holding the bag gingerly. the plastic sack was lined with wet banana leaves and the stew inside was HOT. i began to pull apart the thick chunks of yuca, blowing on my fingers. yum.

i could barely move with everyone pressed close all around me, 100,000 or more wearing red and black, holding flags of the same color. the atmosphere was like the fourth of july, people milling around happily. kids were riding the ferris wheel and startling at the noise from fireworks that were underwhelming in bright afternoon sun. vendors pushed their way through the crowd, selling deep-fried tacos, plantain chips, sour, fresh cheese, tart lychee-like mamones, long flat strips of dulce de leche, sour mango with salt and lime, corn roasted until it was dry and chewy and could be pulled off the cob a few kernels at a time. others sold plastic bags of coca-cola and water, bright purple cactus fruit pithaya, brownish sludgy corn-and-chocolate pinolillo, bubbly chicha, and plastic bottles of guaro, the local firewater. still others hawked bracelets, bandanas, t-shirts, wide-brimmed hats, flags, patches, stickers-- all in combinations of red, black, and woodland camouflage. most of these last bore the calm silhouette of augusto sandino or, sometimes, the face of che guevara.

i kept an eye on oliver and fernando, who didn´t go far. the atmosphere was calm, but oliver had told me to bring nothing i couldn´t stand to lose. we each had a few pesos stowed in a sock or a wristband and didn´t carry cameras or backpacks. we watched as a little boy paused in front of us for a moment to riffle through the contents of a wallet, throwing family photographs, identifications, shopping lists on the ground. he kept the nicaraguan ID card and left the rest to the mud and a million feet.

there were a few americans. some were barefoot, wearing che gear, looking lost. a group of young women played with nicaraguan kids under the trees. a few young men drank and laughed, talking loudly in english.

the speeches began. it´s difficult to hear spanish through a microphone from a distance, but hugo chavez spoke at length. "the genie is out of the bottle in latin america," he said, "and no one can put him back in." he spoke about leftist presidents being elected all over central and south america and asked that washington and london respect the soveriegnty and rights of the people.

we left as it was getting dark. the atmosphere, though still one of celebration, had become a little more political and a lot more drunk.

i got on the bus and headed to the back. i found a spot to brace myself by a couple with a squalling infant. the frustrated father shoved the baby into my arms. "here, hold him." the child had bright blue eyes. "i´ll give him to you." he said, seeing my surprise. "go on, take him. he´s a gift," he joked. the baby kept screaming until i gave him back to his mother.

i have two choices,

go to the volcano island and climb a large mountain, or go to managua and celebrate the anniversary of the sandinista victory.

the mountain can wait a little longer. i´m wearing neutral black.

for those that speak spanish,

a little poem. written by oscar in the margin of his math test:

no lo lea profesora mari
mi amor
te quiero
te voy a decir una cosa mari
tus ojos son un lucero
que alumbra a mi basurero

ayi ba la otracosa....

it trails off.
oh MAN.
he´s 10.
hee hee.


edited to say no, he´s 11. but still.