The Permanent Mission of Joshie

My apologies to PMJ devotees for not blogging much lately. I suppose you could say it's the confluence of not having much to say and not saying it. That said, I can't help but notice that I'll be in Croatia in less than a month. Are the Hrvati ready for me? Am I?

I knew Ghandi was hardly going out on a limb.

Economic Left/Right: -7.62
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.15

Thanks to SCS for finding the Political Compass.

Waiting in line for coffee yesterday, I had the following exchange with the barista at the counter.

J: Hi there, could I have a small regular coffee, please?
B: Excuse me, are you an educator?
J: Well, I mean, certainly not officially.
B: Do you teach?
J: (laugh) No.
B: Tutor?
J: No.
B: But then you must research?
J: I suppose.
B: Your coffee is free.

And indeed it was, she wouldn't let me pay for it. Do I look like an educator? How rumpled does a person have to be to go through life without being accused of being an educator?

On an unrelated note, granted, I don't take the metro much these days, but I gather we've been spending a lot of money bolstering security and educating passengers to be aware of suspicious people and packages. Fine. That said, when I took to the metro on Friday with a mysterious box that just happened to contain a freshly-baked pecan pie, I was delighted to find my fellow passengers just assume: Oh! That sketchy guy over there must be transporting a pie. And indeed I was.

It seemed logicial enough: there I was when out of the blue a nice Bosnian girl decided to greet me in rather impressive (not to mention accentless) Bosnian. No, no, that won't do, it was yesterday and I was standing in line at Booey's awaiting some variation on Georgetown deliciousness. As it turns out, I suppose I was even reading a recent issue of Globus, everyone's favorite Croatian-language political weekly. I mention this because the Bosnian girl said, "Eh! Are you reading Serbo-Croatian?" To which I tartly replied, "Trying." It was around here that it dawned on me: I was woefully unprepared to use informal pronouns. I just don't find many South Slavs my own age around here.

"Why?" she sanely asked. Well, you know, I'm just practicing a bit, I'm leaving for Zagreb in a month. Really! Yes, I'll be working in the embassy. Your Croatian is great -- how long have you been studying? On and off my whole life, I suppose. That makes sense.

Now I mentioned the nice girl was Bosnian, so perhaps I should include that in the dialogue: Are you from the region? Yes, from Bosnia. Evo ga. Sve jasno.

I was so excited to find a conversation partner! I complained, It's so hard to find people in Washington to practice Croatian with. Oh there are lots, she said, lots of Bosnians at least, you just have to look for them. Do I run in those circles? She laughed. We chit-chatted for a bit, she apologized but said she had to run off, people were waiting for her outside. And then I was Bosnian-less once more.

Then this morning my teacher accosted me: where were you yesterday afternoon? How yesterday, I asked, pleased with my extremely Croatian ability to pretend not to understand even the most basic of questions. Yesterday! Would you like to tell me about anyone you met? How met? I asked, my game hardly getting old. A Bosnian girl? Oh yes, that, sure, yesterday afternoon I met a Bosnian girl. Oh? she said, for the first time unclear whether the story was mine or hers. Yes, I explained further, I was waiting in line at Booey's and a nice Bosnian girl came up and started talking to me. Do you know who that was? No, I don't, I replied, because I didn't -- in my haste to make my Croatian informal enough not to be off-putting and in my general confusion about the world around me, I didn't catch her name. It's my daughter! she said. Maybe I do run in those circles after all.

No nekoliko ljudi koji čitaju ovu straniu dnevno kaže ovakvo: ajde, genialce, piše da nećeš da ti netko naljeti tijekom tvojog boravka u Hrvatskoj, a pokazuješ tvoj stan na tvojoj vlastitoj internetovoj stranici! Logičino? Prva točka koju bih htio istaknuti je da netko čita SJI i to na hrvatskom. A druga stvar: iako bude moj život tamo potpuno tajan, rekao bih bolje da se ponosim ovim stanom nego se pokrijem.

Pitanje ostaje -- imam li prjijatelja? Pošteno sve manje.

Evo moje ulice u Zagrebu.



Behold Bogovičeva -- my future home in Croatia. My building's on the right side of this photo opposite the red awning -- a little hard to see, but you get the idea.



A little better here -- I'm on top of the Coca-Cola sign, again on the right side.

Many thanks to Dakota and Quixote for suggesting we rush to stuff ourselves in small boxes.



That said, I find little objectionable with the label "mastermind." In my official State test, I came up as INFJ, which I think fits much better. Borrowing from TypeLogic:

"Beneath the quiet exterior, INFJs hold deep convictions about the weightier matters of life. Those who are activists -- INFJs gravitate toward such a role -- are there for the cause, not for personal glory or political power. INFJs are champions of the oppressed and downtrodden. They often are found in the wake of an emergency, rescuing those who are in acute distress. INFJs may fantasize about getting revenge on those who victimize the defenseless. The concept of 'poetic justice' is appealing to the INFJ. Accurately suspicious about others' motives, INFJs are not easily led. These are the people that you can rarely fool any of the time. Though affable and sympathetic to most, INFJs are selective about their friends . Such a friendship is a symbiotic bond that transcends mere words. INFJs have a knack for fluency in language and facility in communication. In addition, nonverbal sensitivity enables the INFJ to know and be known by others intimately. Writing, counseling, public service and even politics are areas where INFJs frequently find their niche. "

Martin Van Buren and Martin Luther King, Jr. were INFJs. As were Mother Theresa and Jimmy Carter. Not to mention Chaucer, Goethe, and Angela Lansbury. And Joshie. Quoth Aunt Rae, "Like Chaucer, you do not distinguish between your active and passive vocabularies." Apparently, but the similarities hardly stop there.

Finally I have a way of communicating with the masses: an online esperantsko-hrvatski rječnik. Or, to you Esperanto speakers, an esperanta-kroata vortaro.

You want me to blog about Costa Rica. You want me to explain (needlessly) why I woke up yesterday morning only to find I am molting -- an extra (extra?) set of skin still clung to my sheets. You want me to dazzle you with tales of the Pacific, which, as we know, has no memory. You want me to, but as soon as I do you will be mad. And rightly so.

Some who tell the tale make it their business to understate my pique and poise and to gloss over my brushes with large mammals as if they didn't happen. It's up to you, dear reader, to connect the dots to learn the true tale of heroism that was Joshie goes to Costa Rica.

We flew from Dulles to San Jose, overnighted at an inn frequently by men-on-the-run and girls from the Del Ray, woke early the next morning and rented a car to drive 300km northwest of the capital to the arid province of Guanacaste. Of San Jose, I'll say this: it was every inch a Central American city. Pundits will look at this and ask, "But you've never been to another Central American city, right?" That's why I take my message straight to the people. So Guanacaste. At a convenient 9'N, Costa Rica has a dry season from mid-December through mid-April, during which time 430,000 American tourists flock annually to the warm, white sand beaches of the mid-Pacific. Dry, as it turns out, really depends on the part of the country you visit. While Guanacaste (capital Liberia, 40,000 friends and more than a few helpful pharmacists) was indeed dry (read: banana-less), the rain forests of the interior were, well, rainy.

Righto. We arrived at the Playa Hermosa on Friday afternoon and immediately began living the Portugese millionaire lifestyle we deserve, lounging in hammocks tied to palm trees as the Pacific breeze rustled by and attentively and uber-friendly Ticos gently filled our hands with glasses of coconut juice. At one point, I realized I had taken three naps before noon. I later realized it's impossible to calculate how far away the horizon is. Without a tape measure, of course. SCS and I ate tasty fish like it was our job, which, for those few days, it was.

On Sunday, our course turned inland, across the continental divide and into the mountains around the Volcano Arenal, the largest and most active volcano in Central America. While cloud cover prevented us from seeing the summit, we cheated death (sting? gee-bawh!) driving at night in fog that afforded perhaps 18 inches of visibility. Fortunately, fellow motorists leapfrogged with us so we didn't have to lead the whole way. Humanity at the most opportune moment. We put down in Alajuela for the night, the second largest city and from what we can tell the staging area for most of Costa Ricas 16-year-old street gangs. Did we cause a street war? No, we probably did not cause a street war. Would having not spent the night in Alajuela have helped to defuse the conflict? A harder question to answer.

Several observations about our American neighbors:

(1) In some ways, Costa Rica was better developed that most of the US. Take for example reflectors in the highway. So civilized! But on the other hand, they also had intersections with traffic lights and stop signs. It's fine when the traffic light is red and there's a stop sign, but a tad more ambiguous when the traffic light is green. Also, as more and more people drive in Costa Rica they might want to consider entry ramps. Not to be picky.

(2) Being next to Nicaragua may be humbling, but being next to Panama can only be thought-provoking. How can you go through life being just 11 hours from Managua? These people have will power in ways South-Beachers-of-the-world-united will never understand.

(3) We survived. Let's not underestimate that one. We drove through some of the worst fog I've ever seen, I repeatedly made illegal turns sometimes down one-way streets, I drove for goodness' sake. We acted out more ailments for Tico pharmacists than I will likely admit. We even managed to find that perennial favor casino game flip flip, flip flip, you lose in Coco. Survived. Indeed.

Upon returning home, I headed Whole Foods-ward (of course). On the way out I stopped for a JJ Aloha Pineapple to ease my transition back to the dreariness. I consider this a temporary exile.