Shedding Skin, Shedding Lives

Two nights ago, a mixed group of staff and volunteers went to a beach bar before curfew. There was a storm alert that showed us right on the red range and I was kind of a little tired. So, I stayed back and had a chat with my wife over the phone after dinner. Not little after, I passed out in bed straight into the morning.  I was amazed at 7am to find puddles all the way up to the outdoor showers. From the looks of this coming video that the guys shot at the bar, there was quite a storm out there. To me, that is honestly where the story about the storm ended. Last night after meet-up, however, a team leader announced a new group being scheduled for today. "A tornado hit pretty bad on the coast line, so we will be going out to do a little clean up tomorrow." I signed up on the spot. It turns out that, while I was sleeping like a baby and others were dancing and drinking for a little bit, not far out some others were facing what will perhaps be the most sho...

Day 1 - Which is not to say my job started today nor that I will be blogging every single day I will be here. Day zero counts.   And that was yesterday, when I arrived at the All Hands and Hearts (AHAH) base in Rockport, TX. I finally found out I will be using a porta potty out of the 3 available and a shower out of the 5 that spread across two trailers. The wind keeps rocking those plastic bathrooms out to the side of the missionary church I will be calling home for the next two and a half weeks.  My first impression? A huge metal barn out on the parking lot with half its roof gone. The other half keeps hanging over a restricted area. Last night, I walked into what will be our common sleeping area to find a bunk-bed version of Rocking J's, the popular youth beach hostel in the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. 20 bunk beds spread over three rows take up an entire room. All sorts of colors jump out at me. There are towels, blankets, sleeping bags, suitcases an...

Boston Logan on my way to Corpus Christi. That's somewhere close to the Mexican border on the East Coast side of Texas. I hear the lows are mid sixties with mid eighties on the high side. I do not know that I am exactly sad of leaving Boston's cold weather behind. This will be the closer I will get to Costa Rican humidity in a long time. I am heading out to a hurricane response program as a part of their volunteer force. All Hands and Hearts is the name of the organization. The name sounds quite accurate to me as those are exactly the main things I am bringing. My bag is an imaginably unsuitable combination of shorts and tank-tops. The only treasure I bear are a pair of working boots and a borrowed fleece cover for who knows what kind of surface situation on which I will be laying for overnight bed rest. I do not think I need to know much more other than this. Harvey hit Texas back in August through September 2017 as a hurricane 4. Aside from Katrina, Harvey has bee...

Aquí le dejo el enlace: Noticia Audios Restauración Nacional No me lea a mí; lea eso. No sólo lea, escuche esos audios. Anoche no pude dormir. Pasé 40 minutos mirando el cielorraso. Amaría tener una o dos personas simpatizantes con Fabricio Alvarado con quienes dialogar. Inclusive grabar un video sobre nuestras diversas posturas para tratar de comprender qué es lo que está pasando. Pero ahora es innecesario, casi. Lo que yo veo con esto es un ataque clarísimo a los pilares sobre los cuales se monta una democracia. ¿Por qué? ¿No hay un candidato pasándose leyes por el rabo cuando pide a pastores que pidan votos a sus feligreses? ¿No hay un tribunal de elecciones aparentemente incapaz o indispuesto a parar un claro anillo de trabajo en donde la fe de las personas (es decir, su religión) se está usando para conseguir no sólo votos, sino dinero para campaña política? No son pajas; las encuestas claramente dicen que es un 70% de evangélicos los que han votado por Fabricio. Si un ente...

Se llamaba The White Card. Es una obra escrita por Claudia Rankine, quien es la misma autora del libro Citizen. La dirigió Diane Paulus bajo la dramaturgia de P. Carl. ¿Le suenan absolutamente desconocidos todos esos nombres? Para mí también lo eran, hasta que leí Citizen y tuve una mejor idea de la línea de Rankine. Desde un punto de vista literario, el libro Citizen aborda de manera efectiva la temática del racismo hacia la población negra de los Estados Unidos a raíz de los eventos más llamativos en las últimas dos décadas. Es un libro extremadamente rápido de leer, con textos tan cortos como un párrafo de 5 líneas, por ejemplo. Aquí se los dejo, por cualquier cosa: Citizen Libro en PDF El libro se vincula a imágenes de diverses artistas visuales y forma parte de un proyecto más grande que su publicación. Como tal, se han creado eventos de lectura sobre el libro, pero también esta obra. Bautizada a nombre de Rankine, la obra realmente lleva un trabajo de dramaturgia paralelo po...

Esto no es un escrito sobre la desilusión personal como parte que formo de la comunidad LGBTQI ante las repercusiones de la candidatura presidencial de Fabricio Alvarado. Debería y podría serlo, pero no será sólo eso. Durante 34 años salí a lo sumo un mes o dos a la vez de Costa Rica. Viví en las montañas de Guadalupe en un lugar a quien muchos les da pena llamar por su nombre. Mata de Plátano rápidamente se bautizó El Carmen. Conforme iba creciendo mi cuerpo, también crecía mi barrio. Lentamente los dos. Pasamos de una calle de lastre sin transporte público a una carretera nueva y debidamente marcada gracias a los fondos públicos que alocó cierto candidato presidencial para poder acceder a su finca personal de manera decente. Al menos eso es lo que dicen. Foto de Jose Meza en Panoramio.com descargada 3.23.2018 de Tripmondo.com. (Así funciona este mundo ahora) Así, yo crecí entre ríos y riachuelos; entre vacas, mozotes y carreras de caballos. También crecí en medio de un Rohrm...

Healing writing, I could call it. The lack of euphony of it makes it unsuitable. The infinitive feels equally so and "heal to write" makes it complicated. There is something to the brick walls that make up houses around Cambridge and downtown Boston that make them awfully appealing to me. They soothe me. I have been walking non-stop lately. I have been walking for about 11 months now. I have no idea when this will stop. I feel it coming to an end, but somehow it is not quite done. There is so much I need to shed. For as much as we have relocated to Boston, apparently, I cannot get myself to feeling entirely here. Have I hoarded beyond the physicality of me? Could I be facing a blind difficulty to let go of what has been this far? How much of my questioning is senseless? We have automated thought. Mental activity has been esteemed so high it has overreacted. Anyone would say restless thinking is bound to conclude somewhere enlightening. Philosophy. What happens wh...