---

Sounds of metal scratching on the ground interrupted our conversation. We stopped talking abruptly and turned to look at an old man wearing an apron, raking leaves and litter just a few steps away. "He's a character", said Marcos.

The old man quickly moved from the pavement to the street, where tight rows of cars and their headlights could not prevent him from doing his job. His gray hair curved around his long, wrinkle face, on which permanent traits of time can be seen and felt. Nevertheless, every of his movements differed from what you thought you would observe from a silent street cleaner: he strode, his back stayed straight, his raking appeared appealingly decisive, and the way he just stepped in the line of coming cars, to reach for more litter, was full of indifference and confidence - as though it was something trivial.

"We see him here very often. He just stays around and helps people. Sometimes he cleans the street, like this. But if you need help, just come and ask him and he'll be truly happy to help you." Explained Marcos, putting aside our ongoing conversation about UPeace.

"Isn't he a street cleaner?"

"No,no. He just does it because he wants to."

"And not that he's homeless, either." He went on. "I often see him in early mornings, just some blocks away from here. He always wears clean clothes, brushed hair, holding roses..."

Our eyes followed his thin and tall figure, worming its way through the crowd of cars and smoke. "Does he live in the area?"

"Yeah. We just don't know exactly where."

"We should talk to him, you know."

"Oh, some did. He's kind of knowledgeable too, especially about capitals. If you tell him where you are from, he'll tell you what your country's capital is. Me, I have no idea what the capital of Vietnam is, but I know he does."

We looked again at the rows of red and yellow lights, tenfolds more crowded than usual because of an ongoing festival. "Where is he?"

The old man and his rake had disappeared somewhere in the commotion of engines and smoke.

"It's really hard for UPeace students to really make a change if they just stay for 1 year, I guess?" I asked as we wandered back to where we were before his appearance. "Every year, the new generation comes; and it takes time for them to rediscover the problem and to start everything over again. There's no passing on or continuation, and that way, it's hard to make any progress."

"I agree. And people have different levels of interest too. There's a professor who is really devoted to UPeace and making it better. But most of the people just want to live with it, because after one year, all this thing won't matter for them. And after all, this is not what they have expected. You don't really gain more than you could have - if yes, maybe it's just the reputation of United Nations."

"It's just a brand name, nothing more than that... or is it?"

"Nothing more than that. And we really had to question our education and knowledge when, in model UN, UWC students outdid all of us. And I mean, common, we are master students, and you are high school kids. Some of us even worked for the UN. But we weren't as good."

"Well," I raised my hand and felt the wind sweeping through its fingers, " things are the same everywhere, UWC has its own issues too. There are vision and reality, and there's the gap between them. Outsiders only see the ideal vision; insiders, on the other hand, live in reality. If you expect no gap at all, then you will surely be disappointed. The question is actually : what will you do about it? In that aspect, we may be in a more advantage situation than you are, since our classes are 2 years."

The image of the silent raking old man flashed back in my mind. "Things are the same everywhere", they really are. Not just UPeace or UWC students' and their schools, but individuals beliefs, like mine, were also under the same principles. There's vision of what we would like things to be - and believe that they would be one day - and there's reality. It always seemed to me that "the evil" - as Tendai liked to name it - had dominated the good. But once in a while, I encountered people like this old man, or the woman who got off the bus long before her destination just to show me the way here - and I was again assured that I was not believing for nothing.

---

We were back in the city when it started getting dark.

From inside the taxi, we looked around. People are everywhere, walking along the cemented pavements, beside tall and illuminated buildings. Feeling suffocated, I asked for the windows to be opened on both sides. The cold air slipped in, bringing along with it the feelings of the commotion outside. Neon lit signs flashed through the mirror in the upper right corner of the taxi, and that reminded me of how long it had been since I last seen a reflection of myself.

The driver played a 50 cents CD, and wanting to or not, we were all drawn into the small LCD screen. My foot started tapping with the beats, and my hand with the bass drum patterns. I knew, one week was not something long enough for habits to be lost and feelings to dry out. But I was very well aware that I hadn't done this for a while - whereas before, I had listened to and played music every single day.

But maybe not 50 cents.

Sandwiched between my friends, listening to the music reluctantly, I shortly realized that the beats were quite exciting - overall, not that bad musically. But I couldn't like the lyrics, the images from the videos, and the materialistic lifestyle they constructed. Big houses and swimming pools. Cars and naked women. "You are just as cheap as you name yourself" - I thought. I knew that I shouldn't, and should just keep in mind that I was in no position to judge his lifestyle. But with all of this, he was leading a large portion of teenagers into false values, and showing their (somewhat egoistic) ambitions the wrong way of expressing and achieving them. I called it a crime. It affected not only a few people but a whole generation of mankind. A crime upon societies.

I found it hard to believe that just some hours ago, at a place just hundreds kilometers away, I had been in a totally different world. Not necessarily more respectable or desirable, just different. Better in some ways. Worse in some others.

It had been really good to be away for one week.

--------------------- In retrospect: Monday 4th, Feb ----------------------------

Sitting on the fishing boat, gazing at the water waving up and down, I recalled something back in elementary school. Once we were told to describe the sea, or a river; and most of us - after reading sample books or attending extra classes - wrote that it had shone with crystal sparks, waving as soft and graceful as a big velvet cloth. Despite the absolute domination of these extra classes and the obvious disadvantages of not attending them, I never took any during all my years in Vietnamese schools (I was too lazy to, perhaps, and felt satisfied with my own studying at home). As a matter of fact, I had never understood that comparison of the sea and the velvet cloth - until now, when I could observed the water surface moving rhythmically and harmonically as our boat passed. And it did shine under the intense tropical sun/heat.

At night, when looking up, we could all see the starry sky. Never before had I seen a night sky that clear and stars that bright, or had I felt a sense of freedom like tonight. Lying on the sand, listening to the peaceful sounds of the waving ocean, I thought about our astrophysics experiment some weeks ago - which didn't really succeed due to the clouds and the lights. I knew Ylva would love to see this sky, the constellations, and how they clearly move across.

Or just to experience the feeling of lying underneath such a sky, thinking that we were really a part of the universe.

--------------------- In retrospect: Tuesday 5th, Feb ----------------------------

I loved the smell inside the Vivero: the watery soil, the earthly scents, the green aroma of trees. And I hated sunblock, which I used for the first time in the morning - and would never again. I wouldn't mind sunburns, being no stranger to it. However, I realized that despite having been living in a coastal town, I understood nothing about the sea.

To my (unreasonable) surprise, this place resembled Vietnamese rural areas a lot. Not living directly there, but had experienced much of it, I could give an accurate comparison. The houses looked perfectly the same as those back in my country, with simple non-aesthetic wooden walls and sand-cemented gray floor. In the late afternoon, after finishing working, I helped with building the "room" (if you want to call it so) beside the kitchen ( with charcoal stoves - which I had not seen for many years). The process was pretty much familiar to me: we put sand with cements and water, mixing them in some ways, and Bomba - waiting inside - would use that mixture to cover the floor. I guessed once you had done a lot of it, work would become boring. But for Cesar, Paula and me - who was helping the boy (Gregorio) - we had fun doing it. Our amateur-ness might actually amused him. In the end, my clothes was full of gray stains, incredibly like those of those masons back home. Not that I complain, though.

There were a lot of coconuts around ( Robert had become obsessed with chopping them). We all drank the juice inside the coconut shell, and scraped the edible part with one piece of cut coconut skin. That reminded me of the very old days, when in my eyes, my grandfather's vineyard had still been fabulous and prosperous. Once in while, when my sister and I came, he would climb up a tall coconut tree nearby, let us drink the juice also this way and then give us a spoon. There was a small river just next to it as well.

Looking at the piece of coconut skin in my cement stained hand, I guessed that my standards of cleanness had changed a lot.

After dinner, some of us sat down for some music - that means we sat down and sing. Sometimes I played the harmonica, which had been bought from school. Easily portable. Musically good. Not even a bit less festive.

I would buy a chromatic one as soon as I had chance.

Later in the evening, Meyling and I sat on the beach again, with Ariel and Rasty (the dog) about 30m away. The dogs' eyes scarily shone in the dark. Perhaps the dark sea was supposed to be scary as well - Meyling said it was indeed. When she was smaller, she lived just right next to the sea, and her parents always told her tales about some monsters from out there, who would abduct and carry her into the sea at night if she didn't behave. I suddenly recalled once when darkness could make me hide deep under my blanket on my bed, with my eyes closed. It had been a while. From whenever, I had developed a liking for the dark and almost taken it for granted that no one at my age would be afraid of it anymore. But I guessed I was wrong.

I really loved the sound of the ocean. I could sit still on the sand like this for hours, just to listen to it and smell the saltiness. Underneath the starry sky.

--------------------- In retrospect: Wednesday 6th, Feb ----------------------------

We found a swing next to the Vivero, which was actually a trunk hanged on a branch by some kind of firm white cloth, hovered on the lake. Being the first one to try it, I had a slightly thought that it hadn't been firm enough and would fall down into the water. But no such thing happened, and in reward, the feeling of swinging on the water surface was amazing. Despite my yelling and screaming, Ariel pushed me so hard that the swing was almost horizontal. It unbelievably brought a lot of fun - you could never thought it would.

In the afternoon, I borrowed the cook's bicycle and rode south, along the road. This place was a piece of land, lying between the sea and the river (water was taken underground), and only one road ran through it - you couldn't be lost. After about 3 or 4 km, I ran into a space where they kept turtle's eggs. Sand covered the way there, preventing me from going cycling further. A small boy of about 7-8 years old stood timidly until I started the conversation. His name was Andrey.

Andrey accompanied me back the way I came, even showed me the way along the beach to avoid the aggressive dogs at La Tortuga Feliz. We ran into an old man whom I met at our place two days ago, when we were learning about the turtles. He spoke acceptable English and Dutch, and introduced himself as Koki. Somehow, I decided to go with them back to Andrey's house, where I met some other local guides, including Miguel, who also presented at our place on the same day as Koki did. They all remembered me. I did not fully understand them, because of my limited Spanish, but to that they were incredibly friendly and warm. Andrey - the little boy - signaled me to the back of the house where there were some pigs kept in almost open space. He told me to touch one. He must have thought that I had hardly seen them before and thus talked so excitedly. As I had said, this place didn't have that many differences from where I once used to be; but I didn't know whether I should tell him that. I appreciated his eagerness and friendliness so much, and I was not sure if I should let him keep his imagination of the world outside his or just say as I would about me.

"Puedes leer?" (Can you read?). He shook his head.

I wrote his name on the sand. "Te escribiré despues que llegamos a nuestro colegio. Tienes que me responder, de acuerdo?" (I'll write to you once we're back in the college. You have to reply to me, agree?)

"Si." (Yes)

"Pero tú mismo escribes. Aprenderás, si?" (But you yourself write. You'll learn, won't you?)

I hoped he remembered.

Leaving Miguel's place, I went with Koki to his "house". It lay next to the river, on one of the coconut farm lands, a large number of which were his (hence the name Koki). Daniel, an Italian computer programmer who lived in the same place with us (at Roberto Solado's) was also there. I got a Papi (orange coconut).

Koki was a short, somewhat fat, very dark skinned, long gray haired, old man. When younger (many many years ago), he worked on a ship which delivered exported coconuts to different countries. For that he went to The Philippines many times, from where the coming coconuts were moved to other countries around, including Vietnam. I was not sure about this though... (do we really need to import coconut in Vietnam...? )

We talked a little bit, about Italy, Asia/ Vietnam, and things in this place. (As always, food set up surprise and interesting discussion.) Koki said that although we were next to the sea, the underground and river water was sweet. Once, however, in 1991, the water became salty because of an earthquake which caused a "small" tsunami. And it had remained like that for the next 5 years. During that time, all the used waters had been taken from coconuts - most of the time when the coconuts were young and the water had not yet to become sweet.

In the evening, a group of us walked on the beach (in the radius of 2km) to look for turtles and eggs, but didn't see any. Since we must not scare the turtles, no flashlights were allowed on. It took a while to get use to the darkness, but after being able distinguish objects and trunks from the sand, I somehow found walking like that therapeutic. The sounds of the waves were amplified as the tide went up (sometimes there were hardly any space for walking). It was like being in another world.

Sands fell off into piles when i threw my shoes down the bathroom floor. Who knew, perhaps I loved being dirty.

--------------------- In retrospect: Thursday 7th, Feb ----------------------------

Not until the afternoon, when I had asked about the date did we (Yiran, Robert and I) suddenly remembered that it was Lunar New Year today.

Every lunch, I felt like a vegetarian. Rice, beans, potatoes - not that I complained, though. At school I almost never ate beans and potatoes, and I just didn't know that they could be as good.

After working in the morning, I joined Daniel in polishing the bamboo tubes, which later would be used as mangers for the chickens. Then we (Daniel and I) wanted to go fishing, but the boat's motor just decided not to work (normally it did). We managed to go about 30m before it stopped - after which we had to row back. Bomba then went back to building the "room" beside the kitchen - now in the process of hammering pieces of wood to form walls. I asked him to saw another bamboo tube, chopped into two, and started polishing them. That kept me busy until dinner, after dinner, when lying on the beach with Ariel (but it was so cloudy today that stars couldn't be seen), and during the whole evening.

The other groups wasn't lucky with the patron either.

--------------------- In retrospect: Friday 8th, Feb ----------------------------

At first, Bomba seemed to be the unfriendly kind of man. He was pretty old too, but, unlike Koki, tall, very short haired. Really dark skinned. His face always looked like he was angry about something. I couldn't understand all he said, again because of Spanish, but through his words he appeared to me much warmer and more caring than he seemed to be.

He fished in the river, and at sea as well when the waves became less vigorous. Everyday, he walked along the beach for four hours, until 12, for the turtles, then went to sleep and rose at 4. Four hours sleeping everyday. We would get used to it for a while, he said.

This morning, Ariel woke Meyling and me up early for the sun rise. But the weather didn't seem to support us. It had been raining during the night, and the sand was wet. Dark clouds loomed at the horizon, gray and blurry. I recalled the article about the fishermen at Da Nang who had stayed with the ocean forever, leaving their wives and kids. Sea, sea. Out there, are you taking more lives and leaving more in vain?

I carried Robert's professional camera around, taking pictures of things in the early morning. The dews on the leaves. The spider webs. The illuminating clouds. The glittering sand.

A family of monkeys jumped from branches to branches.

The rest of the morning, I continued polishing and painting the bamboo half-tubes. One for Daniel, one for Koki, one for Bomba. Bomba seemed to be indifferent as always when I gave it to him, but as he saw my drawing of the fisherman sitting on a board on a river, he smiled. I always thought that he should smile much more, he looked really nice when he did.

Smell of water hovered around the air. And so we left.

On the way, sitting at the pizza stand, I heard Cesar saying that we had to pay $15 per day per person to be there. At first it seemed to be ridiculous - you shouldn't pay for volunteering. But on second thought, I realized that it was just reasonable. We used up water, electricity, and food, during our staying there. That was not to say Roberto had to pick us up and see us off; and being where they were, the costs of delivering rice and beans, and other necessities there were surely significant. After all, that place was not somewhere you stayed just because you wanted to earn a living, but because you cared about nature, the conservation, the turtles, and whatever else you could name.

With all that thoughts, I finally arrived in the city again.

---

Wednesday, when I stepped into English class, Melody was talking to the early-comers about one of her previous school, a Christian school in Hongkong. I'm not sure how the story was brought about, but she mentioned a question that some teachers back there were probably asked: so they were there because they cared about education and wanted to dedicate their little service (to God or not). Then why were they teaching all rich kids and receiving really high salary for it?

And there was a response from one of the teachers, who spent many years in India. She (that teacher) said she had loved, and enjoyed, teaching all the poor Indian girls, seeing them growing up and telling them about all the unjust that Indian society had imposed on them because of their gender. And most important, she had taught them to fight against it, to strive for a better future. Maybe these girl would grown up and lived well in the society, would have a good career, a good family. A good life. She had taught them to change their own lives.

But there in that school, she got to teach and have impact on the kids that would change the world. These kids had not only the power to change their own lives, but to change the world.

The idea, I think, is that both poorness and richness shouldn't be prejudices, neither do we have to turn our backs against the so-called corrupted and extend our hands to the oppressed to show that our care. It's our goals that matter, and we should act accordingly. We want to make changes in a large scale, we work with these powerful people. These rich and educated kids, they will grow up to be doctors, lawyers, human right activists... They will grow up with power in their hands. And one of these things which we can do is to tell them what to do with that power - to lead them into the right way.

It's the same idea as that which I have thought of quite long ago, after Model United Nations: to look down on something because and to go away from it means that we can no longer make any impact on it. Say, this is a system, or an organization. Despite of its ideal vision, it's not doing anything. It's corrupted. But actually, when thinking of it, that's exactly the reason why we should be there.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Thursday night, and I've just come back from the Blues Concert - hosted inside my school, given by Graham Guest (blues pianist), Ken's friend from Alberta. It was great (not to say that this was the first time I'd got to see Ken's real performances with his saxophone). Graham Guest was an amazing pianist - he looked like a musician, and performed like a real great musician (if not to mention the fact that he really is one). But after great moments, people think. So did I. And I felt scared.

I talked to Guest, but it didn't go anywhere beyond introduction and compliments. Not that I didn't want to talk - just didn't know what to say. Or, I had so much to say that I didn't know where to begin. As the concert ended, it started to get overwhelming. I suddenly became so unsure of what I was doing, and doubted whether one day I would be somewhere close to be as good.

Carey talked to me about his son, who was also a musician (a bassist I think). Similarly, one day, after watching someone's performance, he was really down. He thought that all he had been doing was pointless, and then he couldn't play music for a while. He just couldn't. But eventually things came back to normal. I guessed he just had forget all and go for it, or just live with it.

It's like, well, a big fish in a small pond who suddenly gets lost to the sea and becomes a small fish in a big pond.

I don't think I'm good enough to suddenly not be able to play something - but yeah, I feel kind of depressed. Excited, but depressed as well. And overwhelmed. It's a hard feeling to describe.

We'll see.

-------------------------------------------------------------

Next week from Monday to Saturday, I'll go for project week at Pancuare - one of these famous parks all around Costa Rica, a (so-called) jungle, a nice place not that far from the beach. Unlike last year in Monte Verde, which was a rain forest, Pancuare is dry and much warmer. There will be no electricity, and this time here in Costa Rica, it often gets dark at half past 6. The plan is that we will work on the jungle during the day (what exactly is yet to be known), and spend early mornings (at 3 or 4) walking around the beach and help the turtles. I can't be more excited to be away from school and all the burly-hurly - or any trait of civilization, as a matter of fact - and do something different.

Not that I don't like school, though. I love being busy or being an all-nighter. However, sometimes changes are just needed.