These are confusing times for me, when every day yields solid evidence that I will rise to meteoric “success” as a writer, or be a complete bust, hitting the ground before I can build my wings, or, on most days, both.  

I was in Los Angeles this past weekend, where a great old friend, who has had a good spell of success in Hollywood, hosted a book release party for me at his gorgeous home overlooking seaside cliffs.  The place was filled with good people, people who have reached success in their own creative vocations, probably all faced with this same crossroad at some point in their lives and challenged to find their own equilibrium.  It got me to thinking. 

Where will I end up?  Penniless, insignificant, a failure - or even worse, overwhelmed with cowardice and abandoning my dreams?  Or will I reach my ultimate goal with my writing, reaching hundreds of thousands of hearts and minds with my message of hope and humanity?  Is it sheer naiveté to think that my writing can make the world a better place?  And at what point do I do things for money?  How much energy do I put into playing the game so I can promote my work (for we all sell out, it’s just a matter of how much and how often.)  Which parts of all of this craziness are true, and which parts just an illusion that my hand will pass through when I try to grasp it?   What matters?  

These are confusing times, indeed, but also unbelievable exciting days, quickened by the pulse of possibility, accompanied by the swirl of karma that I can actually see whisping before me, like sky writing.  This is when it’s still pure, and I’ve been given the gift to defend that.  Now is when it’s earned.  

The iconic British writer George Orwell wrote a book called “Why I Write.”  It’s not his best work, packed with political rantings difficult to hold in context for a reader in the next century and across the big pond, but I can still recognize that it’s his most personal work.  After reading that book, I know why George Orwell writes, why he rose too early every morning and slayed his dragons.  

But why do I write?  That is a question I ask myself as things are happening faster in my life.  The answer is my touchstone to what is real, my brass ring to reach for as I spin round and round, dizzy with the motion of it all, the lights blurring by.  

Thankfully, I don’t have to write a whole book on why I write like Orwell, but here’s what I came up with:

Looking for something fun to do in the New Haven area this Saturday, June 1?  Come on out to the book release party for 'South of Normal,' by Connecticut's own Norm Schriever, at Eli's on Whitney in Hamden.  Check out the book South of Normal, meet the author, and rock out to our favorite band, Mean Carlene!  

The event starts at 7 pm - 9 pm, when Mean Carlene will set up. 

Admission is free, and books will be sold at the event for $19.95.

Email Norm Schriever or call 916-548-6350 if you have questions.  

Last week, an Arizona mother of seven was detained in N, Mexico and thrown in jail, facing charges of smuggling marijuana.  Yanira Maldonado, 41, and her husband were taking a bus back from a funeral when stopped by military police outside of Hermosillo.  Everyone from the bus was herded into a small room and after a two-hour wait, the military came and told Gary Maldonado, her husband and also a US Citizen, that twelve pounds of marijuana had been found under his seat, but then they stated that the drugs were actually found under Yanira’s seat.  She was arrested and is being held in a jail in the border town of Nogeles.  

The family’s Mexican attorney arranged a $5,000 bribe for police and prison officials, but it was rejected, and Maldonado appeared before a judge today for the first time.  No verdict was issued as expected and she remains in custody, but witnesses continue to testify and the prosecutions case seems weak.  However, if the judge does not set her free she could be held for months until the trial.  

Gary and Yanira were in Mexico for an aunt’s funeral and riding a luxury bus liner that brought them from Phoenix because it seemed safer.  They claim they were the last ones on the bus and brought no luggage aboard, but placed their bags in the buses’ side compartment.  Gary wisely collected witness accounts on the scene after the military police arrested his wife.  The family claims they are being framed. 

Gary, now safely in the US, the Maldonado family, and even the office of state Senator Jeff Flake are closely monitoring the situation.
***

I recently published an account of a year I lived in Costa Rica, where a friend and US citizen was arrested for allegedly growing marijuana.  He was thrown into a rough prison alongside murders, big-time drug dealers, and cocaine traffickers, the only US citizen in a prison of 1,600 rough Central American prisoners.  I had to visit him almost every weekend, bringing home food, money, books, clothing, and communications from his family, his attorney, and the embassy.  Eventually accepted a plea bargain instead of trusting justice in a corrupt, inept court system.  He was sentenced to 5.4 years and still remains in prison, more than 2 years later.  If you want to read a first-hand account of what life in a Central American prison is like, and the complexities to the police and judicial systems there, I suggest reading South of Normal.  

I first met Lupe at a barbecue down in Stockton on one of the first spring days in 2007, the sky a crystal pale blue around the rebirth of green tree buds, so beautiful that it looked like an oil painting.  I was driving next to Jodi, Lupe’s big sister.  I had met Jodi at a work function a few months earlier, and we got along great and started dating.  At that time my life was in a whirlwind of activity – I was transitioning out of a failed mortgage company, starting a new business, starting law school, throwing charity fundraising parties, and had plenty of financial stress, like everyone else.  It seemed everything in my life that I had built so carefully was falling apart, like a kid who spends all day on a sandcastle just to have the high tide wash it away.  Jodi was someone I could talk to and a calming influence in my life.  She was very professional and accomplished, yet she grew up on the other side of the tracks in Stockton, and had to assume a lot of responsibility at a young age to keep her family together.  I liked that about her - that she was from humble beginnings.  It kept her grounded despite her material success, and I could just be myself and keep it real with her.

We drove down and I met the rest of her family. It seemed like she had about ten brothers (only 5) and I was warned that every one of them was meaner and tougher than the rest.  After checking me out a little bit they were cool, sensing that I wasn’t trying to big time anyone, but also could still handle myself and knew where I was.  The day turned out to be fun as we all joked around over while eating Carnitas and drinking cold beers.  I got to hear stories about how crazy they used to be back in the day and I got to meet Lupe.  It was only briefly – he was a hulking, muscular tough guy with dark features, half Mexican and half Filipino.  When we were introduced in the kitchen he just looked me over and grunted a quick hello, like “Who the hell is this preppy-ass white boy?”  But I found out that was his style – he was always a man of few words.

A few weeks went by hanging out with Jodi, but didn’t see her brothers again.   My schedule was nuts because of law school – every morning I would wake up at 4:30 am and study for 3 hours, then start my work day, then come back for another hour or two in the evening.  It was brutal trying to keep up with all of the reading that law school required and I already had a mountain of note cards littered with legal definitions just a few months in.  However I had confidence that if I stuck to my disciplined schedule I would make it.  My life was about structure and work, fitting everything into it’s own box, a carefully planned progression of paper and numbers. 

On April 28, 2007 Jodi called me late in the evening and, with panic in her voice, gave me some bad news.  The details were still sketchy, but apparently her brother had suffered a stroke.  He was in the Intensive Care Unity at St. Joseph’s hospital down in Stockton.  “Which brother?”  “Was he going to be OK?” I asked.  It was Lupe, and no one knew the details yet, but it was bad and he might not make it.

I offered to go to the hospital with her for moral support.  We drove down to Stockton into a massive medical complex that took twenty minutes just to park, and eventually found the ICU and were checked in.  We had to sterilize ourselves by scrubbing our hands and arms and putting on hospital gowns, plastic over our shoes, covers over our hair, and surgical masks.  I’ll let you know right now that hospitals freak me out.  Seeing people sick or in pain freaks me the hell out.  I can bleed all over the place and take a ton of pain myself and just laugh it off, but seeing someone else in bad shape really gets to me.  Lupe wasn’t in a room but in the middle of a big chamber with glass walls. He was on a bed surrounded by tubes, IV’s, electronic monitoring devices, and artificial breathing apparatus hooked up all over his body.  It looked like a giant white electronic octopus was taking him over.  His brothers, their wives, children, and a few cousins surrounded him.  It was my first time meeting a lot of them who hadn’t been at the BBQ.  I felt awkward sharing that situation with them, seeing them at one of their weakest, most pained and vulnerable times in their lives.  I didn’t know where to look – I didn’t want to stare at Lupe and I didn’t want to watch them while they cried, I didn’t want to be too chatty with them, but I wanted to show respect and offer my sympathy.  So I just nodded a lot and looked down, speaking in hushed tones.  But mostly I just held Jodi’s hand so she would know that I was there.

Lupe didn’t look like the same guy I had met a few weeks before.  His skin was pale, almost green, and his eyes were deeply sunken.  His only signs of life corresponded with beeps and hisses of the machines that barely kept him alive.   

We went out into the waiting room.  Jodi and her family discussed the situation and tried to piece together what little medical information they had.  Lupe suffered from hypertension - very high blood pressure, which was an unfortunate family trait.  He didn’t always take his medications because they made him sluggish and weak, interfering with his physical work as a grocery manager on the night shift.  That Sunday night he was feeling feint, so he went to the emergency room.  The doctor that saw him checked him over and his blood pressure was an astronomical like 320/180 – the highest recorded blood pressure the paramedics have ever seen.  The doctor sent him home with orders to go see the vascular specialist in the morning.  Lupe went home and soon after collapsed and had a massive stroke.  The medical diagnosis was an aortic aneurysm – because of high blood pressure his heart couldn’t handle the stress of pumping blood to his body.  His heart literally exploded in his chest.  They rushed him back to the ER for an emergency procedure.  Six hours into what should have been a twelve-hour procedure Lupe lost oxygen to his brain, causing an Anoxic brain injury.  He also suffered from a L1 Incomplete spinal cord injury.  I’m still not sure if that was during the procedure, when he fell, or how that happened. 

They gave him less than a 10% of surviving.  IF he made it through the first few days they were really worried about the damage to his brain.  Lupe was 33 years old, a former football star and barroom brawler, weighed 215 lbs. of solid muscle, and could bicep curl a whopping 220 lbs.  He was the father of three children and his girlfriend was pregnant.     

The family took shifts sleeping on benches outside the ICU.  Though I didn’t know them all that well, I could tell that Jodi was stepping up as their leader and spokesperson.  She was educated, could talk to the doctors, and also organize the family.  There wasn’t much I could do - I offered to get a pillow out of the car, to grab them food from the cafeteria, I gave up my seat for someone.  And I could hold Jodi’s hand and let her rest her head on my shoulder as she caught five minutes of sleep, exhausted and drained from crying. 

The first days everyone was still operating on adrenaline and the shock of disbelief.  Jodi spent a lot of time in the ICU, driving the 90 minutes back and forth to Stockton to take care of her two teenage kids, her house, and her real estate business on no sleep.  Eventually Lupe’s condition stabilized, but that doesn’t mean it was good.  He was in a coma.  It took 22 machines to keep his heart pumping, his lungs filling with air, and to feed him.  Over the coming weeks the family took turns visiting him but somehow Jodi always ended up doing the most.  I went with her several times to visit Lupe.  Colorful crayon drawings of houses and trees and suns with “get well dad” and “feel better Uncle Lupe” started covering those glass walls.  A Raiders blanket lay over his feet. 

He didn’t look alive.  His body had started to wither.  I couldn’t imagine how a human being could survive that ordeal and go from being hooked up to all those machines to healthy again.  I didn’t think he was going to make it, but I kept my thoughts to myself because I had to remain positive for Jodi.  She was coordinating information with doctors and spending the most time at the hospital, even though the rest of her family lived close by in Stockton.  It was like a knife through my heart to see her in so much pain and having to go through this.

I was falling behind on my reading for Law School, but knew I could put my foot on the gas peddle when things calmed down to catch up.  But Lupe wasn’t doing well.   He was still in a coma with no signs of life.  The doctors said that he had no brain function at all, and someone insensitively used the word “vegetable.”  Jodi wouldn’t accept that and prayed for him to come back.  The weeks rolled into months, and we had a new hospital as the backdrop to this strange play.  More often than not our “dates” consisted of going to visit Lupe in the hospital, eating cafeteria food, and going home to pass out, exhausted and emotionally drained, before we could even hit the bed.  There wasn’t much I could do.  I felt out of control.  This wasn’t a situation I could work at, or fix.  But I kept showing up, and hugging her as close as I could. 

The doctors concluded that this catatonic state was permanent and he would never get better.  They encouraged the family to start discussing “letting him go.”  Their options were either to pull the plug on his breathing apparatus or stop utilizing his feeding tube and let him pass away naturally with the consequences.  Brutal options.  Jodi disagreed.  Contradicting millions of dollars of treatment, a team of accomplished surgeons with PHD’s, and decades of medical practices, this little feisty girl from Stockton said she saw something in his eyes.  Something that moved and was alive when she sat by his bed late at night and talked gently to him, her tears landing on his pale arm.  She swore she saw a glint of recognition.  Hope.  The doctors thought she was just being emotional.  Often times families can’t wrap their heads around letting go of a loved one and don’t make clear decisions.  Their analysis sounded cold and condescending, but I understood that that was there job.  I honestly thought it was probably the best thing to let him go. He’d been in a coma for months.  He was hooked up to so many tubes it was ridiculous, and the consensus from the doctors was that he was brain dead.  Jodi and her family were operating on no sleep and a whirlwind of emotions, making decisions on blind faith.  I did what I could: I showed up, I handed her a mask and gown, I bought her lasagna in the hospital cafeteria, I made her laugh with my stupid jokes, and I drove her home when she was too tired to see straight, when all the lights blurred together and looked like they were leading nowhere.   

The family did not pull the plug.  There was a lot of talk of faith and God’s will.  My silent opinion was that it wasn’t God’s will that Lupe was hooked up to 20 machines just to stay alive, and that there was no possibility of recovery and a good life.  I told a friend back home that if I was ever in that situation to definitely pull the plug.  But the family chose not to, and kept praying. 

Lupe remained in a coma but another problem emerged – bed sores.  I had no idea about this, but I guess one of the dangers to bed-ridden patients is getting bedsores, or Pressure Ulcers.  Think of a two hundred pound man who is completely immobile, who can’t even shift his position inches, laying there day and night, his weight is compounded onto exactly the same spot.  The medical staff can turn him as often as possible but mostly he needs to stay on his back.  The weight causes sores that start under the skin; particularly those areas that are bony, and just get worse as the pressure mounts.  They do not heal and become a medical nightmare.  Lupe developed Stage IV Pressure Ulcers– the largest, deepest, and most dangerous classification of bed sores, on his sacrum – right over his tailbone.   He literally had huge gaping holes in his skin, tissue and muscle that extended all the way down to bone. Freaking nasty, right?  Not only does it cause severe pain to the patient, but the bigger calamity is the risk of them getting infected.  Of course Lupe relieved himself, involuntarily, through a catheter and a diaper, so the chance of bacteria getting into this huge open wound and causing a fatal infection was great.   

Then something incredible happened: Lupe came out of the coma after four months.  Jodi was with him late one night at the hospital and he just woke up all of a sudden.  She ran out of the room in jubilation to tell the nurse, but the nurse didn’t believe her.  The nurse ran in and saw Lupe awake, and became just as jubilant, yelling “he’s waking up!” right back at Jodi.  It was a miracle.  The doctors had no explanation and scratched their heads and consulted their clipboards.  It was just a miracle. 

Over the next few days he progressed, showing more and more signs of life.  One night Jodi was sitting in the room with Lupe by herself and noticed a Catholic medal around his neck that hadn’t been there before.  “I wonder who gave him that?”  She asked aloud.  “My dad,” Lupe answered.  He had talked.   

But even though Lupe had miraculously emerged from his coma it didn’t mean he was out of the woods yet.  He was still recovering from an Aortic Aneurysm, an Anoxic Brain Injury, an L1 Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury, and Renal Failure.  He couldn’t move his legs – he was partially paralyzed from the spinal cord injury.  The doctors told him most likely he would never walk again.  Since he was kept alive by a feeding tube, he now had to learn to eat on his own again, retraining all of his muscles.  He also had been on artificial breathing apparatus in his trachea so he had to learn to breath again.  Both of those processes took about nine months.  But the bigger danger was still his bedsores, which had grown to an unbelievable size of 6 inches by 6 inches.

On January 20, 2008 Lupe left the hospital and was released to the home care of his big sister, Jodi.  Her fight had just begun.

I couldn’t believe that they were going to release Lupe to Jodi’s care.  It’s not that she wasn’t capable, but she was only one person – a 95 lbs. small woman with no nurses, in home support or medical training, to take over his 24-hour medical needs.  I thought it made sense for him to be in Stockton, where his children were, where his three brothers and their wives and cousins all lived within a 10-mile radius, but no one else was enthused about taking him on.  Jodi cheerily volunteered.  Her only focus was looking out for what was best for Lupe and she knew she would give him the best care out of anyone.  We furiously made preparations in for his arrival, taking the doors off of his downstairs bedroom and bathroom so his wheelchair would fit through the openings, hanging curtains so he would still have privacy.  We readied his room with a custom medical bed with bars on the sides so he couldn’t roll out.  I gave him some nice furniture from my place and we hung big whiteboard with positive messages and all of the pictures from his kids, family, and old friends.  Of course Raiders posters and paraphernalia adorned the room.  We tried to make it look as cheery and comfortable as possible.    

On a cold, rainy day in January an ambulance dropped him off.  Then they left.  In retrospect it’s insane that they would just release someone in that condition – the liability is crazy, the potential for something to go wrong, and they entrusted one person with no medical training to replace the care of about five nurses and medical staff.  But I learned quickly that’s how it goes once your insurance runs out. 

I was so scared.  I didn’t see how this was possible for Jodi.  Lupe was so fragile when she first got him home.  He was in so much pain, and any little thing you did could hurt him, upset his wounds, or cause him crashing to the floor.  He had absolutely no strength or coordination in his body, his muscles atrophied from four months in a coma, and was still paralyzed from about the waist down.  How the hell was Jodi going to pick him up?

Lupe was given a wheelchair and a board, almost like a polished wooden skateboard deck, that we were supposed to use to transport him from bed to wheelchair to car seat.  The first time we tried to use it right when he got home, we lost control of him and he crumpled to the floor in agony.  Everyone was so frightened we were all crying or close to it.  I’ve never seen a human being so vulnerable and weak – like a 200 lbs. premature baby.  Finally we got him into the bed and settled.  The first night was rough.  Lupe had to be turned every 30 minutes to relieve the pressure on his bedsores, crucial for the daunting healing process.  Of course he couldn’t even move an inch by himself, so we would have to hold one side of his bed sheets and pull them as hard as we could to safely shift his body into a new position.  Jodi literally had to set her clock and wake up every 30 minutes during the nights to move him and check on him.  How the hell is one person supposed to do that?  She got it done without excuses or complaints – she saw it as a huge blessing that her brother was still alive, and his existence was the best gift she’d ever received.  We took shifts: Jodi, her son T, and I, everyone chipping in as much as possible.  It was exhausting but we got through it. 

Keeping Lupe clean, trying to keep feces out of that bedsore so it wouldn’t get infected, was crucial to his survival.  He also needed to be turned regularly, and often was overcome with pain and needed medications.  He couldn’t talk above a whisper and wasn’t strong enough to use a phone or a bell or anything so we had a big problem – how was Lupe going to get our attention when he needed something, especially during the nights when everyone was trying to get half an hour of sleep.  We thought and thought but couldn’t come up with a solution.  Then it hit me – I ran out the door and told them I’d be back soon.  I went to Home Depot and the Walgreens on the corner and came back to assemble my invention.  I bought a wireless doorbell set, which sent a signal remotely from a little standard doorbell button to a bigger receiver that made the noise.  I bought a cheap plastic watch and took the guts off, leaving the band and a flat base.  With glue and electrical tape I affixed the doorbell button to the watch.  We tried it out, the receiver in the upstairs bedroom and Lupe downstairs, and it worked perfectly.  Lupe could now wear the button on his wrist like a watch, or attach it to the bars on his bed, and was strong enough to push the button.  Well that doorbell went off every ten minutes!  We laugh about it now, but we were like Pavlov’s dogs, jumping up out of bed, jarred into action by a doorbell, running down to help him without fully being awake, and half the time he hit it by accident!  But it felt great that finally I could do something to help Jodi and Lupe.

Over the next months Jodi kept up this inhuman schedule.  Lupe’s progress was slow, and not linear.  He had many setbacks that were often life threatening.  Over the course of his care he spent time in 4 different hospitals: St. Josephs, UC Davis, Kindred, and Mercy Folsom.  He had 26 emergency room visits, most of which included admission into the Intensive Care Unit.  He was on 21 different medications.  He had appointments with Neurologists, Urologists, Psychiatrists, Vascular Surgeons, Cardiologists, Internal Medicine, Speech Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Physical Therapists, Ophthalmologists, and Nephrologists.  He went to see each doctor monthly and to rehabilitation therapy three times a week.  Only one kidney was functioning so he required renal dialysis 3 times per week for 6 months, and trachea weaning for 6 months.   His bedsore healed very slowly, almost imperceptibly, Jodi measuring the opening of the sore with a metric ruler every week and recording the tiny progress.  He still had to be turned every 30 to 60 minutes around the clock.  His diapers needed to be changed a couple of times a day.  His catheter had to be drained.  He needed to be bathed with sponges in bed, and later wheeled into the bathroom.  Just as daunting was the paperwork.  Jodi had to wrestle with about 10 different agencies, state medical funds, hospitals, doctors, insurance companies, and medical supply organizations, all of which kept her on hold, contradicted each other, and had a miserable attitude about doing their job correctly.  Each new doctor, each new ER visit required a briefing on his complete medical history.  If they had waited for the paperwork to come from the last doctor he never would have received any care, so she took to carrying around a complete and organized set of his medical records.  I remember her standing in so many white hallways under florescent lights briefing the doctors and nurses on his condition.  They were amazed, many of them assuming that she was a nurse.  A few times they even asked her to perform minor medical procedures on him before finding out she was just a caring sister, not a trained medical professional!  I was proud.             

The rest of the family showed up less and less.  Jodi had 4 other brothers and they had spouses, but for some reason the daily brunt of visitation and work fell almost solely on her.  Lupe had a twin brother that lived 10 minutes away but never visited nor was involved.  The rest of the family still wanted control over medical decisions, records, finances, etc. but almost never came to see him.  Jodi tried to formulate a schedule for visitation but they would always come up with a bullshit excuse, flake, or be extremely late.  I’m still angry about that; not that it’s my business to interfere, but I saw the impact that the lack of commitment by the family had on her.  She was left with everything.  It was completely chicken shit on their part, and I would tell them that to their faces.  Everyone talked about God’s will and keeping him alive and then disappeared when the sacrifices needed to be made to back up that decision.  Here I was, a virtual stranger to the family that only met Lupe ONCE, and I was spending more time with him and was more involved with his medical care then even his own flesh and blood.  If everyone had just visited once a week, or once every month even, and given her even a few precious hours off, life would have been so much smoother and easier for her.

To her testament she wouldn’t make excuses or let Lupe’s care lapse.  She just took it all on herself and her efforts were Herculean.  She was literally running almost twenty four hours a day between his care, cleaning up his bowel movements, washing him, making sure he got medications, turning him over, transporting him into the car to doctors appointments and rehabilitation, communicating with doctors, taking care of his finances, and dealing with petty bullshit fighting and excuses by his family. And oh, by the way, she still had to take care of two teenagers – T, who was an absolutely angel in helping his mom with Lupe, and Alyssa – a wonderful person herself, and work a real estate business in the worst market since the Great Depression to put food on the table.  Have you ever heard of a mother, so overcome with emotion and adrenaline from seeing a loved one pinned beneath a burning car, that she lifts the car right off of them?  Well Jodi lifted that car off of Lupe every day for two years, that is the only way I can describe her strength.

I was still working full time and in law school.  I was so sleepy that I couldn’t even see straight, and I’m sure I didn’t retain much of what I read every morning.  Even though the schedule was brutal I didn’t mind because at least what I was doing – to help Lupe and support Jodi as much as possible - was important.  Maybe it was the most important thing I’ve ever done.  Life was difficult but it had meaning, an ultimate purpose, and it made me appreciate all of the little things and blessing I took for granted.  It wasn’t so bad because we had each other, and we got through the hard times and bad news and sleepless nights and enough tears to fill an ocean together. 

One Saturday that spring we were at Jodi’s house and she had her family there for a rare visit.  Instead of helping relieve her burden, the few times her family did visit or want to help, it turned into more work for her.  They expected to be fed and they didn’t know most of the basics procedures and schedules for his care. Then she had to worry about them being late or flaking last minute and cleaning up after a house full of people after they left.  I was sitting on the couch in the other room and took out my Law School books. I had fallen further behind that week and had about six hours of reading that day just to catch up.  Kids were running around and screaming, babies crying, family members coming in and out, Lupe’s doorbell watch ringing, and Jodi was in the midst of it all trying to hold it together and be there for everyone.  I opened an 800-page tome on Tort Law and just stared at it.  I decided right then and there that I was going to quit law school, that it was impossible for me to have the time and focus to study AND help her out with her brother.  I would have to choose one or the other, and I chose Jodi and Lupe.  I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone that’s the reason I quit law school, but it’s a decision I have never once regretted.  Oh – and there was homemade Carnitas cooking in the kitchen and I wanted a piece of that action instead of studying!

I can’t lie and say that I had a huge warm friendship with Lupe.  He was always very quiet, gruff and soft spoken, even when he was healthy, and due to his medical condition his voice was barely a deep mumble.  Most of the time he didn’t talk or I didn’t understand a word he was saying.  Maybe I was always that preppy white kid at the barbecue that was dating his big sister, and like a good little brother he had to be skeptical of me.  It always felt a little awkward for me, but I tried to make small talk and kid around with him anyways.  The way I saw it, actions spoke louder than words and I considered him a friend.  I hope he realized that I was trying to help him and be there for his sister and her kids.  I always tried to do the little things to contribute – like making Jodi laugh, helping her with work, helping her get Lupe into the car, and picking up Famous Burger or pizza for Jodi, Lupe, and the kids.  Back in the day when I was painting houses I worked for an artist for the Wolverine comic books, Ron Garney if memory serves, a cool guy.  As a thank you present after I painted his house he gave me an original Wolverine storyboard that was penciled and shaded but not colored, and autographed it to me.  It was very rare and valuable and remained one of my prized possessions.  I found out that Lupe loved Wolverine also, so I got it framed and gave it to him, adding my own talking bubble of Wolverine saying “Get better Lupe – and then let’s kick some ass!”  

We made the best of it.  Other than the ridiculous schedule and lack of sleep there were two things that were most arduous on a day-to-day basis: the first was getting him transported.  We became experts in using that board – one end would be wedged under Lupe’s rump, the other end sitting firmly on the wheelchair.  Slowly but surely we would pick him up under his arms and scoot him as gently as possible across the board until he was safely to his destination, and then we would remove it.  Getting him up the board – from the lower car seat up to the wheelchair, was especially hard.  At times Jodi had to do it herself on pure adrenaline, but soon we got the drill down, and could take the collapsible wheelchair out of the trunk, set it up, get him in it, putting his limp legs in the leg rests, unlock the brakes, and be ready to go in a few minutes, like a Nascar crew at a pit stop.  As he got more strength Lupe could help shuffle himself with his arms.     

The other danger was his catheter.  That fucking catheter.  At first Lupe had a catheter that extended from his penis called a Foley catheter, and it worked great.  But the Foley wasn’t meant for permanent use so they performed a procedure where they inserted a Super Pubic Catheter – one that ran into the penis then up through his insides with the tube coming out of an incision in his stomach, draining into a plastic bag that was strapped to the side of his leg and easily concealed by his track suit pants.  At least five times a day it had to be emptied.   It turned into a nightmare, prompting Jodi to joke that the Super Pubic Catheter wasn’t that super.  It would constantly cause bad urinary track infections because it’s the body’s natural reaction to reject a foreign object.  Since he had renal failure Lupe only had one functioning kidney, making it hard for his body to flush everything properly.  The catheter would get clogged or infected and all of the waste built up in the body and the toxins started making him dangerously ill.  He would develop a fever and his skin would turn a pale yellow color.  When this happened there was absolutely nothing Jodi could do except rush him to the Emergency Room.  I swear it seemed like twice a week that damn thing would malfunction and she’d be in the ER, which always entailed a 6-10 hour odyssey of waiting, waiting, waiting some more, and then being frustrated as the doctors needed to be briefed and lackadaisically worked the problem.  There was never any improvement or solutions – it would work for a while then he’d get an infection again and she would be back in the ER.  Poor Lupe.  How he endured this I have no idea.  He didn’t talk much about how miserable he was, but some times he’d just break down and start crying uncontrollably.  It broke my heart and what the hell can you say at a time like that?  “It’s OK?”  “Don’t worry, it will be fine?”  I can’t even begin to fathom the pain and depression he went through.  There were times I’m sure when he wished he hadn’t lived, and I often silently wondered if he was better off living in this condition.  But then at the kitchen table someone would tell a funny story about him - when he was young and crazy and beat someone up, or the knucklehead things his brothers used to do - and Lupe would laugh so hard that he shook with joy and couldn’t stop, and for a brief moment it was fucking beautiful and all worth it.

The months went by and somehow Jodi and Lupe survived this all.  Jodi’s son, T (a nickname) stepped up like crazy and was a huge help.  He was only 17, and at a time when he should be out chasing girls and thinking of high school parties, he loyally stuck by his Uncle Lupe’s side, changed his diaper and catheter, and helped his mom, taking on more responsibility than most grown men I know.  His character really shown through and I have mad respect for him.  

I was converting my garage into a spare bedroom and bathroom at my house, and set it up so that the doors and bathroom were wide enough for Lupe’s wheelchair.  I was getting concrete poured for an outdoor patio and bar and we set up a wheelchair ramp just for him.  Jodi and Lupe would come over and we could set him up on the big, comfortable daybed in that back room watching TV and resting.  Then Jodi could get a moment’s sleep knowing he was ok.  I think it was cool for Lupe and Jodi to get out of the house and not feel so trapped by the situation.  I would order Chinese food and he would roll his wheelchair right up to the table and we’d all hang out and talk about how bad the Raiders sucked that year. 

Lupe’s progress was stumbling and slow, but then all of a sudden he’d be able to do something unexpected, or hit a landmark that made us realize that he was getting better.   With time he could brush his own teeth, scoot himself up and down the wheelchair ramp by himself, and start working out with light weights again.  I always joked with him that there was going to be a day real soon when he could lift more than I could again!  He was eating like a horse and getting bigger and stronger, shoveling food into his mouth as we laughed at how much he spilled onto his shirt and lap.  

This isn’t a perfect story, a fairytale where everyone lives happily ever after.  Lupe will still be seriously disabled, partial paralyzed with some brain impairment and using a catheter for the rest of his life.  There was a lot of resentment and anger with the family.  Eventually Jodi and I stopped dating and there was a short period of estrangement before we settled into being very great friends.  Considering the pressure and stress we were both under it’s amazing we lasted as long as we did.  But in some ways I’m closer to her now than ever before, and maybe my purpose was to be there for her during Lupe’s recovery.  Everyone had their low points and breakdowns, just like real life will throw at you sometimes, but I still feel I was part of something beautiful.  I felt something more deeply than ever before: what it is to give and receive unconditional love, what it is to be a good human being, a divine purpose.  We were alchemists, turning tears into tears of joy and fighting to survive another day.  I was witness to a miracle

I saw a picture of Lupe the other day.  It was on Facebook.  He was taking steps with the aid of a walker.  Let me say it again – he was taking steps.   I think about that pale man I first saw in a coma, somewhere in between life and death, and I am still overcome with the amazement of how far he’s come.  After a long haul he can now get in and out of bed and his wheelchair by himself, without needing a board.  He can dress himself completely, bath and groom himself, and be left alone in the house or use the kitchen.  He will be around to see his children grow up, and his girlfriend had a healthy baby boy for him to hold.  Next January he’s planning to move down to an assisted living facility in Stockton, closer to the rest of his family.  His Raiders even had a decent season – and THAT is certainly a miracle!

I was on the phone with Jodi the other day and we were chatting about all we had been through and how far Lupe’s progressed.  It was nice.  She was silent for a moment, and then sincerely thanked me for helping him.  Tears welled up in my eyes, emotion choking my throat as I tried to speak.  I thought about how I was a better human being for knowing Lupe, and for knowing her.  I realized that life isn't about the good times, or the bad times, but the people who are in it with you along the way.  I gathered my composure and let her in on what I had finally figured out: “Lupe’s helped me a lot more then I’ve helped him.”

***

"I'm thinking about moving to Costa Rica," are words I hear every day, through emails, Facebook messages, and from people who have read my book about life as an expat in that country.  More and more, people in the U.S. and Canada are contemplating cashing in their chips and moving down to the Central American tropical paradise for "pura vida," - the pure life.  

 "I want to move down to Costa Rica to live and get residency, buy a house, and open a business," is the most common agenda, but their life-plan isn't well thought out after that, or just based on Internet research and rumors.  I see a lot of people rushing into their big move, spurred on by visions of a stress-free, easy life on the beach. Their experience can either truly be "living the dream," or a complete nightmare, based on what happens next.  

So what advice do I have for them?  Let's break down that plan:

1.  I want to move to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica truly is one of the most beautiful places on earth, but check out Nicaragua and Panama as well.  Why?  There are pro's and con's to each:  Nicaragua is MUCH cheaper and the surfing is still great, while Panama makes it much easier to be an expat, buy a car, and open a business.  Costa Rica, and tourist areas specifically, has gotten increasingly expensive in the last five years, and in may areas is just as costly as living in a major city in the U.S.!  

2.  I want to establish residency.
Establishing residency in Costa Rica can be an expensive and timely proposition (unless you marry a Tica!)  So don't worry about residency just yet - the country will grant you a 90 day tourist visa, so all you have to do is leave the country for a few days - or a few hours - after that (called the Border Shuffle), and come right back in on a new visa.  You can still get a driver's license and function just fine without residency, while keeping your options open.  Take your time and make sure it's where you want to be before establishing residency.

3. I want to live there permanently.
I recommend visiting for prolonged periods of time, first, to get to know the country, the different towns, the people, and the culture, before you commit to it.  Start out with a month or two and go from there.  If you really want to see what it's like go during their rainy season/low tourist season.  Don't treat your visit like a vacation by just partying and sitting by the pool in the main tourist areas - instead, meet as many locals and expats who live there as possible, and explore different parts of the country.  No matter how beautiful Costa Rica may be, it's always good to get back Stateside for a little bit every year to "recharge the batteries" by seeing family, friends, enjoying cooler weather, etc.  The best schedule I can imagine is splitting the year between Central America and the U.S., but that's just me.  

4. I want to buy real estate.
Err on the side of caution with buying real estate in Costa Rica, or any country.  That's good advice for someone in the U.S., as well if they don't know the local market very well.  To complicate things there can be issues with holding title, getting loans, etc. and it's undeniable that there are pockets of ridiculously over-priced condominiums and projects plagued by HOA issues.  Wait at LEAST a year before you even think about buying real estate.  You can always find a nice, inexpensive place to rent, giving yourself time to learn the ropes.

5. I want to open a business.
Be careful.  Too many people who want to move down to Costa Rica and open a business invest their life savings in it, only to become stress-cases and lose all of their money.  Sometimes you need a Costa Rican (Tico) on the paperwork for an official business, which could further complicate things.  You need to see what it's like in the low season, too, before making accurate projections on profitability.  If you are going to try and work in Costa Rica, make sure its low risk and doesnt cost much: you can usually be a teacher,  Realtor, or work in tourism down there.  There are also plenty of options for working virtually, no matter where you are.  

***

Of course every situation is different - if you have a million dollars you certainly won't have the same concerns as someone with no savings who needs to get established and start working immediately.  Medical considerations, safety, and what kind of climate you enjoy most (beach vs. mountains) also factor in.

I have a ton more advice for you, but the best thing you can do is take your time and be conservative: check out a lot of places before committing to one, keep your cash someplace safe, don't rush into residency, buying a house, or starting a business, keep working abroad to replenish your funds, and perhaps come back to the U.S. to recharge your batteries a few months every year.  This plan will yield you the least amount of risk and stress, and keep things flexible and fun.  The rest will work itself out based on what makes sense and feels right!

Hit me up if you need any advice or have questions - I'd love to help!

Norm :-)
Tamarindo, Costa Rica, surf, ski, snowboard, diving, pura vida, Central America, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, Amazon best seller, travel, adventure, backpack, hiking, sharks, Endless Summer, Robert August, memoir, fitness journey, globetrotting, perfect beach, paradise, spring break, expat, live abroad, work abroad, summer reading, around the world, great read, humor, laugh out loud

Because sometimes you have to offend 1 billion Chinese people, 65 million Frenchmen, Jerry Lewis, midgets, the ASPCA, vegetarians, change your last name to "Beaver," publicly confess to involuntary abstinence, eat some vanilla pudding, make fun of your own penis, and give a pig earrings, just to get through the day.

There was a French lady living in Tamarindo who kept nine terriers and a pig as pets. The pig had its ears pierced for some strange reason. It was the queen of the litter and the terriers circled around her, snarling viciously at anyone who got too close. Those fuzzy brown terriers couldn’t have been more than eight pounds each, but man they were nasty. Every day the French woman walked them on the beach.

I passed them when I jogged on the beach. I tried to make a wide berth but for some reason they hated me. Maybe they could smell fear, or tell that I was American and didn’t think Jerry Lewis was all that funny? Perhaps they could sense that I loved bacon, I’m not sure, but all at once those nine little fuckers charged, showing their teeth and barking.

“Eeeeeyyyyattts!” I screamed, picking up the pace of my run. But they closed in and blocked my escape, snapping at my heels.

“Get back, you evil beasts!” I yelled. But these weren’t your Grandma’s poodles; those little mutated Ewoks were trained killers. I looked over to the woman for help, but she just stood there. How do you say, “Call off your nine psycho terriers, you horribly irresponsible woman!” in French?

“Hey! Little help over here!” I yelled to her, pointing at the carnage unfolding around me. But she just lit up a cigarette and stared off toward the sunset.

So I zigzagged up and down the beach with all nine of them giving chase, jumping around and waving my arms wildly like I was trying to cross a pit of hot coals. One terrier lunged at my testicles but missed. The other Ticos on the beach laughed hysterically, bent over holding their knees, but no one offered to help. So what if the little hairballs had pink collars—didn’t they understand that this was a real emergency?

The leader of the terrier gang growled and took a step toward me. It was fourth and long, and coach was calling for a punt. I lined up...here comes the snap...laces out...I stepped into it and.... pulled back at the last moment because I didn’t have the heart to kick him. I whiffed into bright blue air and went tumbling down. This would end badly, I thought. I was defenseless; surely they would rip me to shreds. Everything went dark.

I had so many questions for the lady. Maybe I could ask her once I was well enough to have visitors at the hospital, after the plastic surgeons pieced together what was left of my face. Of course I’d be in traction and a full body cast, the majority of damage to my man-junk region where the terriers were like little seek-and-destroy missiles. The French lady would visit me and put a box of truffles and an “I’m Sorry My Terriers Ate Your Penis” Hallmark card on my bed stand.

“Iiiiiii cwannnnt eat solwid fwood yet,” I’d say, sipping my vanilla pudding through a straw. It was exhausting to speak. I was tired, so tired, but I had so much to ask her.

I took out my dry erase board and wrote in green marker: “Why earrings on the pig? And why the little fake diamond studs? Why not those Indian feather things that are in style?” And oh, there was one more small thing since we were having a nice pleasant conversation via dry erase board: “WHY THE FUCK DID YOU LET YOUR NINE TERRIERS MAUL ME ON THE BEACH? For the love of all that is holy...WHYYYYYYYYYY???!!!”

The machines that were hooked up to me would start beeping as my body went into convulsions. The nurses would run in. “We’re losing him. Plug in those round things that look like the Perfect Pushup and get ready to jumpstart his heart. And give me 5,000 cc’s of that fancy medical talk shit and prepare him for surgery.”

They’d turn to the French woman. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to leave. Your husband needs emergency surgery for a penis transplant,” they’d tell her. “It’s risky, and there are numerous better options, but it’s up to you.”

“Oh mon dieu pas, this man no is me husband,” she’d say as she lit up a long-filtered cigarette with her white gloves, blowing smoke in the general direction of my breathing tube. “But I will sign zee form, oui oui?”

And she did.

“Mr. Scheeder, can you hear me?” the nurse would ask. “Shhhhweeber,” I’d say, trying to pronounce it right but the facial injuries and vanilla pudding getting in the way.

“What’s that, Shweeber? How’s that?”

“Sbweeber!” I’d moan.

“Fine then, Mr. Beaver, I have a very important medical question for you. The surgeon needs to know, how many times have you been sexually active—with your current penis—in the last six months?”

“With ah feemawle or my swell?”

“Yes, Mr. Beaver, with a female.”

“Inwooding dast weekwend?”

“Yes. Including last weekend.” She took out her chart and her pen and waited patiently. I tried counting on my fingers, but I only had one big nub of a cast, so I tallied the figures in my head, carrying the one, and came up with what I thought was a semi-accurate number.

“Theeeerooowwww.”

“Oh my, Mr. Beaver, did you just say ZERO?”

“Dwelllllll, gib oh thane?”

“Wow, never seen that before. Okay, zero it is,” she said and wrote it down on her chart with raised eyebrows.

“Ighh whas twaking a bwreak end thworking on mythelf!” I said.

“Uh huh, sure you were. Now just calm down.” She put the clipboard aside. “We’ve been trying to match you up with a suitable penis donor for the last two months but haven’t had any luck. We need to match up the size and shape of your member exactly if it has any chance of functioning again. It’s been a long, hard ...errr it’s been a difficult task.”

“Naht many pweople died?” I asked.

“Oh no, Mr. Beaver, we’ve had plenty of potential donors. Tons of them, actually. Just last week we had two Irishmen, a midget who died in a circus accident, and an adolescent Reggaton singer come through here, but they were all too large. But the good news is that we think we found a suitable donor for you!”

“An Iwishman was foo bwig?!! Are u shurre?”

“Yes, yes but we had a miracle last night. A ten-year-old Chinese boy died in a terrible scooter accident. Everything caught on fire. It was nasty business — his violin and his penis were the only things left intact. Congratulations, Mr. Beaver, you are going to have Wu Fat’s penis!”

She opened a cooler next to the bed and there it sat, on ice in the middle of a bunch of vanilla pudding snack packs.

“Ughhhhhhh, whad dud pbuck!” I’d say.

Then it got really weird. The nurse ripped off her blouse and jumped on top me.

“Ohhh, Mr. Beaver, I can’t control myself anymore.” She licked my face. What the hell was going on?

“Oh, mon petit amoureux.” The French lady started licking my face, too. “Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir?” They both were really going for it. Damn, they had some bad breath...

I came back to consciousness on the beach with a bunch of wagging terriers licking my face. The French lady stood above me, flicking her ashes.

“Monsieur, are you okay?’ she said.

“Phhht phhht!” I spit out the dog saliva and pushed them away. “Whad whappened? I mean, what happened?”

“My doggies wanted to play. You ran and fell down and hit your head,” she said. “Then you kept saying something about a Chinese boy’s penis.”

“Dammit, you horrible frog woman, keep those rotten beasts on a leash! They could really hurt someone!” I got up and brushed the sand off myself and stumbled up the beach. “And leave poor Wu Fat out of this!” I cried. “That poor little bastard has been through enough!”

“C’est la vie.” She shrugged and lit up another cigarette and kept on walking down the beach with her nine terriers and a pig with an earring. I went in the other direction.

-From the chapter "Poor Little Wu Fat" in South of Normal.Tamarindo, Costa Rica, surf, ski, snowboard, diving, pura vida, Central America, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, Amazon best seller, travel, adventure, backpack, hiking, sharks, Endless Summer, Robert August, memoir, fitness journey, globetrotting, perfect beach, paradise, spring break, expat, live abroad, work abroad, summer reading, around the world, great read, humor, laugh out loud

Cairo, Egypt, April 2000

I shot up with a start, soaked with sweat and completely lost with the vertigo that a deep sleep had brought me.  I had no idea where I was.  Actually, I had no idea where I was, no idea when it was, and no idea who I was.  It was a horrible feeling, and I was still breathing heavily as my half-asleep mind spun in panic to try and lock onto some detail of my life, but I could not.  

I was in a dark room with the curtains drawn, the busy workaday noise of diesel trucks and motorcycles drifting in from the street outside.  It was oppressively hot, the only breeze in the room coming from a wobbly ceiling fan.  I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus, but I still felt like I was falling down an elevator shaft, desperately trying to grab hold of something to slow my fall.  Was I in the South Islands of the Philippines?  No wait, in Chang Mai?  No, I’m pretty sure that was last week.   That meant I had to be Bangkok, right?  But I had been in Bangkok twice already, so that couldn’t be it.  

I swung my legs off of the creaky bed and put my feet on the floor.  I couldn’t even remember the date or be sure of what month it was; maybe it was March?  Or February?  I wrestled to pull off my shirt, but it stuck to me because it was so wet with sweat, and then I threw it on the green tile floor.  I had been traveling way too long — it felt like wherever I went I left a piece of me, and pretty soon there would be nothing left if I wasn’t careful.  I rifled through the drawer on the cheap nightstand by the bed.  There was a menu and a letter in some language I could not decipher, a book that looked like a Bible or a Koran — I couldn’t tell which — that I pushed to the side, and a pad of stationery.  It listed the information for the hotel on the header: the Nuweiba Hotel in Cairo.  Damn, I was in Egypt — I hadn’t even been close.  In that dizzying kaleidoscope of my year backpacking around the world, I’d seen and heard and felt so much — maybe more than any one person was meant to in such a short time — that my psyche couldn’t keep up and process it all, but at the same time my spirit was vaulted to heights that I never imagined possible.  What dream was this — what dream of a life that I was walking in?  There was something I was missing, but I couldn’t quite wrap my head around it.  

A few days later I took a train from Cairo down to Aswan, near the Sudanese border.  Traveling within Egypt was always a tricky endeavor: I was advised not to take the train, nor sit near the windows, because militant Islamic fundamentalists would often take pot shots at the tourists, hiding in the sand dunes with rifles and causally sniping.  Then again, taking a car ride between cities was even more dangerous.  Egypt has the highest rate of road fatalities in the world and they drive like absolute maniacs, literally speeding up and swerving to try to hit pedestrians.  They could care less about lanes and stoplights or even going the correct direction down the street, instead cursing and honking and jamming five lanes of traffic into a two-lane road, running smaller vehicles, donkey carts, and old ladies carrying firewood off into the ditches.  So when I had to get down to Aswan I thought my odds of survival were better in a window seat on the train.  We were scheduled to depart at 6 a.m. but I was there early, just in case they scammed me with a fake ticket again.  I carried an oversized backpack that held all of my possessions in the world: a few pairs of clothes, notebooks bursting with my words, and souvenirs like Turkish rugs and jade statues.  As dawn broke on the train platform, columns of light marched over the dusty skyline, armies sent to warm the earth and send steam rising from the cold metal train cars.  One by one, the train windows were illuminated with reds, pinks, and yellows reflected from the sunlight.  The track was mostly deserted except for a few vendors selling steaming bread out of covered baskets and a sleepy conductor; it was surprisingly quiet for such a chaotic, bustling city.  

I felt someone’s presence behind me.  I half-turned and noticed a child huddled in the shadows behind a concrete column ten yards down the train platform, peeking out at me.  He was shrouded in darkness so I couldn’t make out the details of his form, but he was staring curiously at me while still trying to remain hidden.  Since he was my only company on the train tracks and I had time to kill, I figured I’d make him feel welcome, so I turned around to face him and smiled.  He jumped further back into the shadows, afraid at first, but then I gave him the thumbs up sign so he knew I was saying hi to him and that it was safe to come out.  He hesitantly stepped into the sunlight.  My companion looked to be around 8 years old, though it was hard to tell because he was so filthy and malnourished; he might have been 13 for all I knew.  He wore layers of dirty rags covered with train soot and black shoes that were falling apart.  I looked closer and saw that his skin was dried and diseased, covered in scales that plagued most of his body, including his face.  Even on his nose the skin was cracked and permanently marred.  His fingers were withered and raw with red sores where they weren’t covered with dirt.

At first his appearance shocked me, but then I made sure to smile at him again to make him feel comfortable.  He’d probably never seen a foreigner or even a white person before, something I found surprisingly often when I trekked through remote parts of Asia or the Middle East and the jubilant kids would run up and touch the blonde hair on my arms.  He stared up at me with big black eyes, taking in every detail.  This boy was obviously a street kid with no roof over his head, no one to look out for him, and not enough to eat.  The thought occurred to me that maybe he lived somewhere near these tracks and got his food by rummaging through the garbage cans and others’ waste at the train station.   Of course, I’d seen plenty of street kids over my last year of traveling; in fact, I’d seen much worse — people dying right in front of my eyes — but there was something different about this kid, something warm and alive in his eyes that registered much more than just the pain I expected.   

There was an empty soda can on the track near my feet.  I nudged it a few times with my sneaker like I was dribbling a soccer ball.  He looked up, intrigued.  I kicked the can in his direction and a huge smile broke out on his face as he realized I was playing soccer and including him in my game.  He stepped closer and kicked it back to me.  We kicked the can back and forth a few times, both chuckling at how quickly our new friendship had formed.  I said my name in English and then said a few words in Arabic.   He tried to respond, but when he opened his mouth only a grunt came out, even as he strained his throat muscles.  It seemed like he was also mute.  Damn, that’s rough.

A chill from the morning air overcame me, so I zipped up my fleece jacket.  Was he cold?  If so he didn’t show it, even though he was only wearing flimsy rags that were falling apart, the remnants of a matching sweat suit that was so yellowed with age I couldn’t even tell what color it originally was.  I noticed that on his sweatshirt were printed the words “The Best Quality” — now if that ain’t irony I don’t know what is.  

Since he couldn’t talk, I held out my hand for him to give me five.  He didn’t know what I was doing at first, and then his face lit up when he realized that I wanted him to slap my palm.  I bet that this kid was used to no one wanting to touch him or go near him because of his skin disease.  He probably had no one to hug him, and that thought broke my heart.  He had no chance to live a normal life: He would never be safe, never be well-fed, never be able to sleep indoors, never get an education, never know what it feels like to be loved and have family around him, and get married and raise children.  No matter what this kid did he was destined for a short life of pain, misery, and suffering.  Yet it was by no choice of his own — his only crime was being born at the wrong place in the wrong situation to the wrong people.  But even with all of these disabilities and detriments he was a smiling, good-natured soul, expecting absolutely nothing out of life but enjoying any little scrap of mercy it threw at him.

I felt ashamed that I didn’t appreciate my own life sometimes.  How dare I complain, feel sad, get stressed — I mean, what the hell in the grand scheme of things did I really have to worry about?  I sometimes felt that I had it hard, yet in my cakewalk life I had every advantage and opportunity, and very little of it was earned.  I suddenly felt guilty about my own hypocrisy; sure, I was traveling and witnessing all of this stuff, but what was I actually doing to make it better?  I watched him dribble the soccer ball around an invisible defender and then kick it to his new teammate.  Why wasn’t I the homeless one — mute and eating out of a garbage can?  Why was I instead a tourist to his misfortune, on my own grand adventure but able to head back to comfort and luxury after this year?  What separated the two of us?  Why were we different?  Luck.  Bad friggin’ luck.

It frightened me, and enraged me to my core how unfair life was.  And this was just one kid on one train track in one Third World city — imagine how many billions of others were out there who were suffering and needed help.  There was so much sadness in the world that you could get lost in it if you weren’t careful.  How were we ever expected to overcome it?  Was there enough light in the dawn to warm such endless and drowning darkness?

I motioned the kid closer and handed him a $1 bill.  It didn’t seem like enough.  I handed him a $10 bill.  His face showed disbelief, and his big, ancient eyes registered a gratitude I’d never seen before, nor since.  He looked around to make sure no one else was watching so he wouldn’t be robbed once we parted, took the money in his small, shriveled hands, and tucked it safely under his sweatshirt.  If possible, his smile got even bigger, but he was not focused on the money — he had found something kind in my face and that was most comforting to him.  Fuck it — I handed him a $20 bill, the last money I had with me, and closed my wallet.  Thirty-one U.S. dollars could probably feed a kid like this for six months.  He was now the richest urchin in the slums of Cairo, the king of his train platform.

It still wasn’t enough — these small tokens, though greatly appreciated, didn’t even come close to what I felt for him.  I motioned for him to hold on and went into my bag, rummaging around until I fished my best pair of gray Nike basketball shorts and my favorite T-shirt and handed them to him.  He proudly put them on over his rags.  They were so big on him that he looked like a child playing dress-up in his dad’s clothes.  He admired his reflection in the train window, proud of his new wardrobe like he was the luckiest kid alive.    

My train pulled up and the conductor whistled for everyone to board.  We looked at each other and smiled.  There was an understanding that we would never see each other again; our worlds couldn’t have been further apart, but in some transcendent way in our kinship we’d fought the darkness together and done well, even for one small, fleeting moment.  I walked onto the shiny train that reflected the new sky like the windows were on fire.  I found my seat and plopped down and in a few moments the engines whirred to life and we started inching along the track.  

I didn’t want to go; I didn’t want to leave him, and something had changed in me.  I’d been all over the world that year, registering about 70,000 miles over six continents; I’d seen ancient wonders of the world and majestic vistas that would steal your breath, witnessed people worshiping at 2,000-year-old temples and walked in the same footsteps as mankind’s most famous explorers, but somehow, inexplicably, there on that dirty train platform with a little street kid, I had found what I was looking for: I had found my purpose.  It finally clicked what I was supposed to do with all that meaning I had been carrying inside of me: I would be his voice.  I would make sure that he was heard, that the world knew that he took breath.  I would be the one to fight for his place in eternity because he could not, and I’d be the voice of all the underdogs — the weak, the forgotten, the scarred and stained — who ask for nothing but someone to tally their existence.  That’s what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.  

The train started to pick up speed and I looked back for him one last time and saw that he was looking for me, too.  He waved and a huge smile bloomed on his wrinkled, dirty face.  As we rolled on I watched him grow smaller, but before it all faded away I could make out a street urchin turn and walk on down the platform back into the ruins of Cairo, kicking a soda can.  I stared at the seat in front of me for a long time, just listening to the comforting “gilickety-clack” of the train heading on down the line, and for the first time I started thinking about going back to a place called “home.” 
 Tamarindo, Costa Rica, surf, ski, snowboard, diving, pura vida, Central America, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, Amazon best seller, travel, adventure, backpack, hiking, sharks, Endless Summer, Robert August, memoir, fitness journey, globetrotting, perfect beach, paradise, spring break, expat, live abroad, work abroad, summer reading, around the world, great read, humor, laugh out loud, South of Normal, Pushups in the Prayer Room

Last week it was widely reported that President Barack Obama visited Costa Rica, touching down long enough to meet with President Laura Chinchilla about “reinforcing the deep cultural, familial, and economic ties” with the country, inciting both leers and thankful applause from Ticos (Costa Rican nationals)

Together, they emphasized partnering to modernize Costa Rica’s economy, promote fair trade, and attract investments.  But there was something that was left unsaid, an unspoken agenda not picked up on the microphones or documented by reporters: violence from the drug trade that has ravaged Mexico and Central America has started to infect Costa Rica.  

It’s not the first time we’ve been concerned - back in 2011 the U.S. deployed the USS Makin Island, 46 Coast Guard ships, 42 helicopters, and 4,000 sailors to Costa Rica, a geo-political chess move that had left a lot of people scratching their heads as to why we'd give tens of millions in aid money and amass a troop presence in this sunny, politically stable, but diminutive, Central American country.  The official cause for troop deployment was to help that government's effort to control the transit of drugs into their borders.

I lived in Tamarindo, Costa Rica for a year as I was writing a book and found it to be a charming, tranquillo village on the Pacific where surfboards outnumber cars, with good-hearted, smiling people.  But there is a shadowy side to paradise, the game-behind the game that tourists never glimpse and gets almost no international attention.  Until now.

About 1.5 million tourists and expatriates come to Costa Rica ever year to enjoy plenty of sun, sea and lush jungle, returning to the U.S. with nothing but glowing platitudes about their time in paradise. Costa Rica of only 4 million people that's as big as Vermont and New Hampshire together, who takes up only .03 percent of the landmass on the globe but enjoys over 5 percent of its biodiversity.  Located between Panama to the south and Nicaragua to the north, it's often lauded as a tourist haven and socially progressive nation with a stable constitution, no army since 1949, and a high literacy rate.  It also happens to be one of the biggest drug transit nations in the world -- maybe THE biggest.

An avalanche of cocaine flows into Costa Rica's borders from nearby Colombia, and, to a lesser extent, Panama, infiltrating the hundreds of miles of coastline on both the Pacific and Caribbean coasts of the country.  It's estimated that 90 percent of the cocaine that ends up in the United States originates in Colombia and moves up this route -- by sea into Costa Rica, north into Nicaragua at the border at Peñas Blancas and up the Pan American Highway, or by sea up the chain of Central American countries, and then into Mexico, where the price jumps steeply in cartel hands before worm holing its way across the border into the U.S.

Of course the Costa Rican authorities try to stop it, but in a country that doesn't even have an army and the average police officer makes about $400 a month, it's truly a David and Goliath prospect.  Costa Rican President Laura Chinchilla's has vowed to deal with the problem by doubling the police force, increasing enforcement, and building more prisons, but that's on the scale of adding a second fly swatter to deal with a plague of locusts.  They still only have 10,000 prisoners in the whole country (compared to three million in the U.S.) and are ridiculously out-manned, out-spent, and out-gunned by the drug traffickers.  

Although well-intentioned, to date these measures haven't been effective in slowing down the unfathomable supply of cocaine that enters their country by speedboat, fishing boat, charter plane, packed inside truck tires, in the stomachs of human drug mules, hidden inside dolls, furniture, diapers, hollowed-out bibles, disguised as humanitarian aid, and everywhere else you can imagine. It's stored in clandestine warehouses, gutted buildings, and factories where it gets "stepped on" and repackaged for distribution.

They even transport it in wooden submarines.

Wooden submarines were first detected by law enforcement around 1993. Technically they're not submarines but semi-submersibles because they don't actually dive, but cruise along just under the water's surface. The very top of the cockpit or exhaust pipes rise above the water to access breathable air. These "narco subs" are built in clandestine shipyards hidden in the jungle, each one taking two million dollars and a year to construct. They're nearly undetectable by radar, sonar, infrared systems, or patrolling aircrafts. Most of them are handmade with wood and fiberglass, reaching 60 feet long end to end. They move pretty slowly -- about seven to eleven miles per hour, powered by underwater diesel outboard motors and manned by a crew of four. They have fancy GPS systems but no bathroom. Each wooden submarine can transport up to ten tons of cocaine at a time. 

Whether on a speedboat or a wooden submarine, the cocaína is vacuum-sealed and dropped off in the open ocean floating in 50 gallon drums with electronic location transmitters, later to be scooped out of inlets, marshes, and estuaries by local runners in fishing boats. Believe it or not the worst occupational hazard for those pick-up men isn't cops or bullets, but crocodiles. Costa Rica has a huge croc population along its wild coast and drug runners jumping in and out of the water at night serve as a tasty snack.

But when there's a will, and a profit to be made, there's a way.  The financial windfall of transporting cocaine into Costa Rica, and north up the distribution pipeline, is staggering: a kilo of cocaine that goes for about $1,700 in Columbia might be worth $23,000 once it hits the streets of the United States, cut down to 20-40 percent purity.

Most of us can only see this problem from a 10,000 foot high perspective, but I had particular insight into the drug trade in Costa Rica for another reason: unfortunately, an old friend of mine from Canada was caught and arrested growing marijuana and thrown in jail.  During the year I lived there he was locked up in the prison in the small city of Liberia in Guanacaste Province, only an hour from Tamarindo, as he awaited sentencing.  

He had no family and few friends in the country, so I was the only one left to take care of him.  Almost every weekend I had to visit him in prison to bring him clothing, toiletries, books, money, messages from his attorney and family, and food (they only gave the prisoners about 800 calories a day, most of which is in rice and beans and hot dog buns).  He was the only gringo in jail -- 1,600 prisoners and him, and when I visited I was the only Americano in attendance, too.  There was no safe visiting area for us, no well-guarded room with glass partitions and phones to communicate, they just locked us in with the prisoners for those visiting hours, in their beehive of cells in general population. Before going in I'd surrender my passport and get a stamp on  my arm, so they'd know I wasn't a prisoner and be allowed to leave.

"Don't sweat off that stamp or you won't get out," the prison guards told me, and I still don't know if they were kidding or being serious, but that only made me sweat more.

My friend was locked up with murderers and big time traffickers, thieves and petty street dealers, as well as middleman transporters who were just trying to feed their impoverished families.  There was no segregation of prisoners for minimum or maximum security, gang affiliation, or based on mental illness.  I regularly interacted with Columbians, Ticos, Guatemalans, Hondurans, and Mexican cartel, all locked in there together, 70 prisoners per cell built for 25, many of them sleeping on the floor.  For those hours every weekend I got a first-class education in the nuts and bolts of the Central American drug trade like few other United States citizens ever have. 

Eventually my friend got sentenced to 5 years for a small time marijuana infraction.  He's endured riots, prisoner attacks, abuse by prison guards, and witnessed a spectrum of craziness that Hollywood couldn't even make up as the wildest fiction.  But he's also seen some mercy, a ray of grace in the place you'd least expect it, good people mixed in with all of that razor wire and cold concrete, and so far he's stayed safe.  I pray for his safe release soon.

All of this may sound horrifying, and lead you to the ultimate question "Does the drug trade make it dangerous in Costa Rica?"  The answer is complex, but for the most part I'd say "no."  Most of the problems are between rival factions involved in the drug trade, not innocent visitors.  The ecosystem has a delicate equilibrium and these problems aren't even visible in the light of day.  If a tourist exercises a little bit of common sense and stays clear of illegal elements, and especially drugs, they will be perfectly safe. Sure, there's crime and theft in Costa Rica, but that can be said of any city in the United States, as well. For now the country of pura vida -- pure life, is still one of the most beautiful places on earth, with friendly, sweet people, and tourists will continue to enjoy unforgettable vacations.

I have no interest in politics and it's not my place to judge anyone, from any country.  I am certainly not qualified to make a statement about the three-decade long U.S. drug war in Central American and South America, but now maybe you will understand the true message behind the sound bytes about fostering partnerships and economic development.  

Email me if you'd like any advice about Costa Rica, traveling abroad, or want to check out the Amazon best-selling book, South of Normal.

Check out 25 crazy facts about Costa Rica! Tamarindo, Costa Rica, surf, ski, snowboard, diving, pura vida, Central America, Nicaragua, San Juan del Sur, Amazon best seller, travel, adventure, backpack, hiking, sharks, Endless Summer, Robert August, memoir, fitness journey, globetrotting, perfect beach, paradise, spring break, expat, live abroad, work abroad, summer reading, around the world, great read, humor, laugh out loud, South of Normal, Pushups in the Prayer Room

As we all know too well, on December 14th, 2012, a gunman entered the Sandy Hook elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut.  What happened next changed our lives forever, shattering the fragile porcelain of out children’s innocence.  There has been enough written about the tragedy already, from news stories to survivor accounts to unfathomable acts of bravery by the teachers, so I’m not here to talk about that.


My teacher, Mrs. Costello

was standing by my desk…


I’m the proud uncle of three children who live in Newtown and go to school there.  My sister’s children, Maddie, Colin, and Ryan, are my world, so when I got text messages and then phone calls and then turned on the news that morning, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what I saw.  I rushed down there in time to see them get off the bus safely, and as an uncle my instinct was to wrap myself around them like armor, to make sure nothing would every happen to them again.  But there were empty seats on the bus that day, so I can’t even fathom what a mother feels - all of the mothers in Newtown.  And those who have lost?  It’s too much to talk about.    
 

her face was like a flower,


Five months later and we’ve seen a sun beam of healing through the clouds, thunderstorms of controversy and heated debates, and another tragedy in Boston that diverts our national attention.  Some people in Newtown have pieced together those porcelain shards as best they can, while others will forever be stuck in that day.  But that’s not for me to talk about.   


in a meadow that was only filled


What I do want to share with you is a poem my ten-year old niece, Madeline, or ‘my little blonde Rasta girl,’ as I call her, wrote about her teacher, Mrs. Costello.  It is, perhaps, the single most beautiful and powerful thing I have ever read. 


with trees.    


I am a professional writer yet I will never come close to emulating Maddie’s poem, the purity of human emotion a child sees when she looks up at her teacher’s face and sees her hero, her armor when we can’t be there, the protector of her innocence – flowers, in a meadow that’s only filled with trees.  

So what I really want to say to all of the teachers out there is, from the bottom of my heart:

thank you to the flowers. 


-Norm Schriever