A couple

1) A friend of mine from Uganda told me that I needed to stop telling people about his new girlfriend. He was very angry at me for saying something about it, and he grabbed me by the arm and threatened me in my ear.

2) My mother and I went to some street fair and I got my second piercing in my ear, and I spent a lot of time looking for an earring I wanted to buy in what was a very complicated bag the street vendor had. Later I found out a family member had committed suicide after watching an attempted suicide on the latest episode of House. He broke his arm next to a fireplace and let himself burn to death.

High School and Costa Rica

I seem to have some unresolved feelings about high school that are apparently mixed in with my current experiences in Costa Rica. Last night I oddly dreamt of being back on my high school basketball team, and it was my senior year so we were going to take part in some sort of traditional "last dinner" that I honestly didn't want to attend because it was at my coach's house, and I really didn't like my coach or my team that much. Additionally, I was sort of upset about the way the coaches had been working our butts off even though season was over, and we were graduating soon. I remember we had a short meeting after practice to discuss the dinner and we had to commit, and I disctinctly remember thinking, well "it's a free meal, I guess." So that night I showed up to the dinner and I was seated next to Lauren, a girl who actually didn't even go to my school but that is in my study abroad program here in Costa Rica. I remember chatting with her a little bit but then getting on the subject of homework because I was not as good as she at identifying plants, so I kept asking her questions and she eventually became severely annoyed by me and told me I needed to read the book. That is about all I remember.

Under Attack

A couple of nights ago I dreamt, not surprisingly, about the group of people I spend every day of this program with. In this dream, however, we were located in Durham on Duke’s campus when we received warnings from the government that the U.S. was going to be bombed, beginning with the east coast. At this point, the program immediately made arrangements and we were evacuated to a house on a farm in California. I remember we took a bus over and there was a general sense of impending doom and the instability of the future. In the process of evacuation I forgot to call my house at home and let them know what was happening. I called my mother from my cell phone as soon as I remembered but the lines were completely jammed, and then my phone died. When we arrived on the farm in California we were greeted by an older woman who owned the house. She was trying to put on a smile and welcome us into her home with as much hospitality as she could muster, but even she couldn’t hide the despair in her smile as we walked into her house. We spent the day eating her homemade food and she tried to keep us occupied by making crafts. At some point my friend in the program reminded me that I should probably call my mother and I did. I told her where we were, told her we were OK, and oddly enough my mom seemed incredibly despondent. All I got from her were curt answers like “yes” and “OK then” and she seemed to have completely lost any emotion as her way of coping with what was going on. I got off the phone and finally began to feel horrible, even though up until that point I had been trying to laugh things off and be the joker in the group. It was interesting to see the different ways people were dealing with the panic – at some point we went to a theme park near the farm run by a family that had decided to continue living as if everything was fine, and they opened up the park and were charging half price for the entrance. We tried to enjoy the rides but we were not able to rid ourselves of the tremendous anxiety. The dream ended there, stuck wondering how it would all turn out.

Riots, Family

Two nights ago I spent the last 2 hours of my day before falling asleep using my computer and listening to the Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack. Consequently, I dreamt about riots at Duke much like the riots scene of the movie. It was interesting, and scary. It was not clear what the riots were about, but I spent most of the dream running from place to place trying to avoid either side of whatever was going on. I ended up in a room where and unidentified Indian student was directing the mass production of posters promoting peace (as part of DUU's response to the riots).

One night ago I dreamt that I was in Peru, perhaps studying abroad, and my aunt was going to give a lecture at a local university on pharmacology. My cousins were going to go listen too so I thought I would join them. I went there via a van my cousins and I took, and spoke to a male student sitting next to me once I got there and told him I was from the U.S.

Not that exciting, I suppose.

Welcome to my Home

Last night, the group in my study abroad program and I went out for dinner in San Jose. We went to a Peruvian Restaurant, INKA Grill, and needless to say, it was amazing. The food was great, I had some of my favorite dishes, and I initiated a bunch of my new friends into this incredible cuisine.

In the process, I definitely felt somewhat in charge for making the experience great for what some people was their first dabbling in Peruvian cuisine. Thus, I did feel a general "host" feeling.

Hence I am not surprised that my dream last night involved me taking all of my study abroad group to my house – except in my dream, I was hosting them at my house in the U.S. I remember helping my mother prepare dinner for everyone, and then figuring out ways to keep everyone entertained. People wanted to go to a Country music hall and sing karaoke, so I suggested a karaoke place (that does not actually exist in reality) that I was familiar with in my town. That was the general plot of my dream.