Journal, June 12, 1976 AM

It’s Saturday and I plan to spend most of it right here in the house. I bought my Tica Bus ticket for Costa Rica yesterday (90 Colones) so I have very little money left to spend for the rest of this month. The {Peace Corps} Volunteer conference should save me though. It runs from the 15th to the 18th, and means free food all those days. If I just don’t blow all I save drinking beer with Jaime {Olson} Sunday & Monday nights!

I covered most of yesterday in my long entry which I finally finished in Chico’s {Rodriguez} office. I then did a little bit of shopping, getting a pen among other things. I bought my ticket to Costa Rica, of course, for July 2nd, so I’m about ready to go down there. I hope to be able to spend a few days at Jaime’s site before we go down this time.

I scanned the newspapers last night, so I’m back up-to-date, a little bit, on the presidential race. Jimmy Carter has 1260 of the 1505 votes he needs for the nomination, and it looks like he’ll have no trouble getting the rest. I expect I’ll vote for him in November. There are several qualities I like in him. He’s an outsider as far as Washington is concerned. He has proved his administrative ability as Governor of Georgia. He’s a fiscal conservative. He seems to be a fair-dealing pragmatist on racial matters, something we’ve yet to try on a federal level, it’s been either liberal platitudes or barely disguised reactionary rhetoric! And he has gained the trust of black leaders , at least in his own region. He also speaks Spanish, and his mother was a PCV {Peace Corps Volunteer}. Can we hope for a more imaginative Latin American policy? At the very least his election would mean an administrative shakeup since he’ll be new in town!

<I got a letter from Sofia yesterday.> She says she was really sick for a while, but now only her nerves bother her. I haven’t written my second letter to her yet this week - today. I have to write something spicier to see if I can get a reaction out of her. Her letter was pretty dry & trite this time!