Excerpts from the Peanut Gallery

There are worse things than visa requirements

While I am still having a hard time grasping the fact that it is already March (“I’m sorry February, what was that you said? I didn’t catch a thing”) I am on the other hand counting down the minutes until five and this day is over. Its not that I do not have a boat-load to be working on, oh yes I do, and it is not like I have worked my little tush off this week, because let’s be serious, I haven’t even been in the country, but somehow, in some mystical way- my biological weekend clock is ticking, getting impatient, screaming for the door on this office to be flung open so I can run out with my hands waving wildly in the air. It’s frenzy! It’s extravaganza! It’s insanity! It’s fritanga night. I am, in a word, antsy. But I will not give in. I will instead distract myself: I will play one round of traveller IQ- no, not that, it only makes me more frustrated- how am I tenth of all my friends!? TENTH?? I’m going for a walk- but where?? Fine, the bathroom, I may as well… well that was not nearly as satisfying as I had thought it would be. Drink more water, drink!

This little outburst has been brought to you by: the weeks of Feb. 24^th to March 7^th 2008. There is something impatient in me, and I think this is part of this season’s life lesson. You ever feel like you are in the middle of a fairly notable time of your life and you should be learning something important, but… uhhh nope, nothing?

I’ve been feeling this, contemplating this, praying over this, mulling it over with endless cups of coffee and the sounds of Maná, Adele, U2 and now Shakira - don’t even try to judge me. Then it all came unravelled this week:

It seems like my life is one big lesson in peace. What a funny concept for life eh? Of all the things- of all the fruit. I can think of so many periods in my life where it was one facet or another of Peace that I needed to start grasping, scratching, seeing, living. Apparently I wasn’t done.

Last week I was a stress-case. Why you ask? It’s really a conglomeration of issues. First: because I had to go to Costa Rica. Yes that’s right, had to. My visa was up. Of course, being the only one of my friends not to leave at Christmas, I couldn’t renew it in country this time.

Let’s just say that there are far worse places to be sent to renew one’s visa. I have included an abbreviated list here:

- The Republic of Molossia – it’s in Nevada

- Ohio- I don’t think I’d much care for it, but I could be gravely mistaken.

- Compton- I’d get capped.

- Iraq- “oh but I hear Mosul is lovely this time of year!”

- Churchill, Manitoba

- Chuck-E-Cheez

- Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, the World’s Coldest Capital City

I got a little stressed. Because I had to leave. And I had never been to Costa Rica before. And I didn’t really know where to go or how to get there- I think the latter may be intrinsically tied to the former.

But before I get ahead of myself, let me say, in my defence- last week was a bad week for more than just the curse of the Tica trip.

First, Silvio Rodriguez came to town. You don’t know Silvio Rodriguez unless you are a) socialist and/or b) Latin American (generally it is ‘and’ and not ‘or’). And while I pride myself on at least know who Che is, I didn’t know this “Silvio” character. But apparently he is kind of a big deal around here. He sings revolutionary music, is Cuban and is, ahem, “the man” in any Latin socialist country- viva la revolucion. That’s about all you need to know for now. Of course, everyone wanted to go- even us Cheles, because it is a cultural event, and we are supposed to go to every cultural event possible so that we can say that we have been open-minded and assimilated as much as possible in a culturally-sensitive, -respectful and -observant way.

Except that all the Cheles who wanted to go lived in Matagalpa- a good two and a half hours from anywhere that sold tickets. So being the contact “on the ground” in Managua, I went to Tip-Top (the Nica national fast food chain- yes that bastion of home-grown consumer-driven capitalism selling tickets for a ‘communist’ concert) at three different locations and four different times. By the time this show rolled around on Sunday, if Silvio HIMSELF had called me wanting me to pick up his ticket, I would have told him to go take his habaneras and place them where the sol does not care to shine.

Moreover: In that my job has been largely self-directed, I decided now would be a good time to push it into hyper-speed, in light of a few changes that will be taking place in my position in one month (no longer paid to take pictures- well it was fun while it lasted). So I was about to pull out my hair with self-imposed deadlines. It does add a bit of fun though if you really believe that you are going to fire yourself if you miss one.

And then, there were the applications. I despise applications. Loathe them. Hate them with the fire of a thousand suns. You see in a few months here, I will stop practising development and resume postulating about it. Grad School. Two little words, one big bill. I thought I was done with applications and references and transcripts- all of which I coordinated from Nicaragua, the country that failed to deliver Romalie’s cookies, numerous letters and who’s internet connection speed is about where NASA was in 1962. Its no small task you see. Sweet relief that it was over! But oh, ho ho, was I mistaken- its one thing to GET INTO a school. It’s another thing to get someone ELSE to pay for it. You know you are really smooth though if you can get the school itself to pay your way. Apparently they do that! It’s called a fellowship. What!? And I thought this was a secular school! But apparently they weren’t talking about Christian Café time. Hence, more applications. I’m no fellow, but I sure like ships, so I suppose it’s worth a try.

So, yes I was stressed. And can I tell you about this concert? Sunday night rolls around and anywhere form 12-20 people descend on my house- I am fine with that, I like people coming to my house. But when our 12-20 melds into the crowd of approximately 894,672 of Silvio’s biggest fans, the evening gets a little hairy. I have NEVER EVER been in a crowd where I actually feared for my life.

I didn’t fear for my life in this one either. But I seriously considered doing it, seeing as I was not actually moving my feet along- but instead just being carried- yes, carried by the people who were pressed up against me, there was no way to turn around, there was no way out, if you fell you would be dead. It’s kinda like rock climbing without a harness. The only way is forward.

Well that was fun. Some more misadventures ensued (including tales such as: “Kiki gets caught trying to go into the VIP section after the rest manage to loose the fuzz;” and “Silvio the Ant and his magical panflute.”). I was sent to the back, with a friend. The music, let’s remember is ‘revolutionary acoustic guitar.’ This is what you would hear in a hazy, smoke-filled bar in Buenos Aires, or better yet, around a campfire hidden in the highlands waiting for the contras. So the field packed with hundreds of people who are clearly paying great attention was not working out so much.

I understand that this man is wildly popular, and I have no problems against the large crowd, but I do think it’s a little ironic that a socialist revolutionary would have a ‘VIP’ section to his concert. I’m just sayin.’ One man in line behind us commented: ‘todos son iguales, solo es que hay algunos que son MAS iguales que otros!’ –Everyone is equal, it’s just that there are some who are more equal than others! Right then. Keith says that Nicaragua has a major earthquake or revolution roughly every 30 years, and we are due for either soon. I’m packing an earthquake kit first, that’s for sure.

So I realize that my attitude throughout the week was one of any range of emotions as represented by the following facial and body expressions:

- The Tegelberg Glare: The Tegelberg is thinking of ripping your arms off and beating you with the bloody end.

- The Tegelberg Stone-face: Not to be confused with the glare, while very similar; he/she is merely thinking of something mildly pleasant, unrelated to the task at hand, inconsequential or golf. I cannot say I have ever thought of golf, but know that the original Stone-face was created on many golf-pondering occasions. It should be noted that this is widely confused for the former and far more ubiquitous- as evidenced by the low number of war-amps in the world today.

- Anxiety

- Increased intake of coffee, that sweet, soothing, dear old friend

- Frenzy/Shaking- no wait- that was from the copious amounts of coffee.

- Concentration

- Hair-pulling

- Nervous-ticks

- Frequent use of washrooms

- “Enhnnn….-ing” and other forms of throat-based whining.

- Violent typing- the K key is still a little bruised, but she’ll be a’right

So the point of all this? Yes I will wrap it up here: Peace. I think this is supposed to be the jewel in my life. Its like this giant uncut diamond. And this time someone turned it upside down and I am seeing a completely new facet of it- so much so that I am not sure I was looking at the same rock it was cut from. It wasn’t anxiety this time, it was stress- stress that caused some pain for others. Oh. Oh wait. It’s never done that before. I guess I am learning to be more tranquila. Things turned out alright, and in the mean time you stumbled upon some breathtaking new views.

posted by Kiki @ 8:43 a.m.