Dispatch Number 48 -Errant Thoughts VI

Greeks, Germans and Afghanistan
The German is good company, his Greek wife is a terror. A woman of anger, agitation and pettiness. A female powder keg in a petite body. She trembles with frustration when she talks about the weather. We meet them on the magical Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, a stunning coastal rain forest full of rare birds and mammals.

Her husband supports Americas attempted conquest of Afghanistan by working for the German government teaching Afghans how to be police. He thinks it is about human rights and the rights of women. A casual look at military bases in Afghanistan, the big ones, and their proximity to the soon to be built oil pipeline tells you it is about oil company rights. Afghanistan has defied foreign conquest for all 2,500 years of its recorded history. America wants to succeed where Alexander the Great, and numerous others, ultimately and ingloriously failed.

Coffee
I collect coffee from the region like I once collected red wine. I have seven or more different bags of coffee from countries throughout Central America. A traveler acquires interesting habits and comforts along the way.

On War
"...priests provide religious justification for wars of conquest..."
-Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel

Statistics
On walking.
"93% of all trips outside the home for any distance or purpose Americans get in their car. On average the total walking of the average American these days adds up to 1.4 miles per week. Barely 350 yards per day. Walking of all types- car to office, office to car, around the supermarket and malls. If you are hiking for twenty minutes you would cover the same distance an average American does in a week."
-Bill Bryson, A Walk in the Woods

Under a Shade Tree on a Hot Highway
A review of the mileage log revealed the following:

I have traveled an average of 25 miles per day in the last 14 months since crossing into Mexico in October 2008. That adds up to 10,500 miles driven covering six countries in Central America. Draw your own opinions about me, but I did meet a French couple doing the same journey and it took them twice as long to get this far. Their Spanish is much better than mine.

In 2007, I drove the United States in a Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution IX. It took nine months and 20,000 miles to get home.

Bad Honesty
Relatively speaking the brunette backpacker is attractive, but the poor thing has been cursed with awful legs. Awful. A twenty something from the waist up and a sixty-something from the waist down. Observation is brutal for everyone, including me. Those legs are nasty and belong on a retired motor home Mama.

Dostoevsky
"He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner."
-Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Coffee II
It was the best to go coffee I had ever had. Black water from a Styrofoam cup in a cramped seat of a small and fast river boat. The seduction of morning mist over glassy water, the sun weak, and a densely dark jungle with birds in dawn symphony. Coffee, me and no conversation -just the sound of water rushing by and the drone of the outboard motor.

Happy or Harmony?
It is not about being Happy. It is about being in Harmony with the self and the world that self lives in. This may not in turn bring about happiness or sadness. It is a question of contentment.

David
Casco Viejo, Panama