Journal, September 12, 1976 AM (Sunday)

I’m putting nose to grindstone today. I have to finish revising and typing up a Spanish copy of the study I did for the Atiocoyo Irrigation project folks in San Isidro. I’m finding out just how bad the translation Rosario, the secretary, and I did is! Actually, sometimes she translates sentences accurately, even imaginatively, but other times it’s clear she didn’t understand what I wrote in English at all(!), and of course she wasn’t well versed in the technical language of sociology. I’ve always hated going back over my work too, because I always find myself dissatisfied with it and wanting to revamp it completely! For example: ‘I sure phrased that weird!’ or ‘Why in God’s name did I waste so much time belaboring that minor point!’ I only got through 7 of 25 original pages yesterday, and then there are 11 pages of tables!

I was repeatedly distracted though. I was up in the volunteer room at Peace Corps Office, and this older man who teaches chemistry at the university fairly accosted me verbally. He really needed someone to bounce his opinions off (and really his ideas were well formulated and in general backed by experience & informal research), and there I was - always the good listener. I even had lunch at Mc Donald’s with him & his wife.

I got into another round with John Newton (#1 Peace Corps orator and political analyst) and Steve Hays. John says Romero’s (General Humberto Romero is the official party’s candidate for next year’s presidential election) brother-in-law is the new head of the Atiocoyo Irrigation District, and that he says Romero didn’t want to be president, he was forced into it, but that when elected (unless there’s a coup or some other horseplay he will be!) he will push on with the transformación agraria {agrarian transformation or land reform}. I was glad to hear it. Rumors have been floating around to the effect that Romero was against the agrarian reform law and the big first agrarian reform district.

<Sofia, you are gentle on my mind this morning.> I feel like I’ve found the one I can’t let go. Now if I just don’t blow it some way. That letter of hers was a hunk of granite - solid, heavy, firm. She’s an intelligent, alert person who has chosen me freely, and all I have to do is show her I’m willing to carry it through too - no games, no bullshit, just two people with compatible personalities and goals, and a special little feeling of “rightness.”