Letter, April 5, 1976

Jan,

I see what you mean about entering a different time warp, even your letter was so fast-paced I had to read it over 3 times to fully digest it! I’m getting kind of restless, feeling that I should stop wasting my time here & start getting about the business of my future life. But Metalío gives me time to reflect & sort things out, and your letter helped show me I still need that. I better know exactly where I want to go before I re-enter that world, or the tide will get hold of me again and start washing me out to sea. So I’ll probably continue reading novels, playing with Physics from time to time, & trying to put together a viable life plan.

Jay & I skinned and cooked a rabbit shortly after I got back - with help from Susan, the goat lady. Susan used to raise & show goats like we did cows, & she knows lots about them. She reminds me of the average farm girl you might have met at State Fair when we went, very nice & quite pretty too. She & Jay are headed for Belize right now. I’ve got the place to myself until I head for Costa Rica the 9th.

Mom sent the pictures & I showed them to Jaime Olson. They came out great (all but one a half-drunk guy took!), and of course he liked them. He & Pilar always seem to take a good picture.

I got real tattooing pliers from the Ministry of Agriculture and went wild tattooing rabbits today! That huge brown female rabbit had about 11 babies last night! The goats are eating grass & weeds in the melon patch now. They don’t give them silage & they forbid me to milk them anymore. Grrrrr!

<Sofia thought I was awfully preoccupied when I left Costa Rica, & assumed it must be her fault.> I wrote her it was just tiredness & my thoughtful nature, but by her second letter (3 were waiting for me when I got back from Belize.) she had let it slide, so no big thing. She’s getting into her studies at the university now & she writes me things like I felt when first exposed to higher education. I hope & believe it will open up a whole new dimension of life for her, as I think it did for me. I feel a little like a parent, hoping my kid will derive the same insights from something which I did! The more she grows intellectually, the more I stand to benefit all the way around! And you know what a greedy macho {male} I am!

I wish you luck in cutting down on your smoking without breaking off from your friends. It’s tough. Among the guys I trained with in Costa Rica, drinking beer is a social necessity every time we get together - not that a little dope doesn’t float around too. It keeps me from doing heavy thinking when we get together, because we drink every afternoon & evening, and then my head’s not clear ‘til next day. I guess the majority of humanity is in the same rut - they’d rather not think too much.

I hope you can get it together to go to Belize or Costa Rica for August or January. Buena suerte {Good luck}, eh! Que tal el Español {How is your Spanish}?

Love,

Dean