I don't know if I'll go on with this after the first chapter. I might chip at it once and a while. I guess I will continue it at least once, since I added a cliffhanger.

June 12 –

I set out tomorrow for Guatemala. I will go to the airport tonight and catch the 2:15am flight to Guatemala City. Mikey has been packing and repacking my things, so I'm certain that I'll forget something. Thankfully, I can only take one small bag. I feel burdened when travel with anything at all. It's all I can do to keep track of myself.

Raph is plying me with bug spray. He seems to regard the jungle as nothing but a bed of bugs. I am trying all I can to stay patient with him. I'm going to help people and hone my skills, not to sit out on the beach covered in bug spray and tanning oils.

April has persuaded me to keep a journal. She kept one extensively during the early years of our acquaintance and it was lost "tragically" when her apartment was destroyed after I was…

Anyway, it will be good for me to work on recording my thoughts. I will be able to track my progress. It is harder to see things in retrospect, I believe. I am often accused of distorting the past to my own liking and I hope that it isn't so.

Don has asked me to bring back any interesting biological specimens that I find. I will help him if I am able, but I cannot foresee any feasible methods of transport.

My father has given me his last words of advice. I am so humbled that he is sending me on this important mission. That he trusts me that much. We meditated together for a few hours tonight. I will miss that very much and his tea and incense. He gave me a few sticks to keep me company.

I have a splitting headache. Raph convinced me against my better judgment to drink Sake with him. I never learn. We ended up… well never mind what we ended up doing. We should not have done it and I hope that it was not caught on any security feeds.

June 14 –

I have arrived in Guatemala.

Worried for most of the trip about Raph. I told him that while he is not left in charge, he has more responsibility over the others now that I'm gone. I told him to watch his temper and his mouth and that I won't be there to save his shell if he gets out of line. He said some rather exotic things I should do to myself. That was our goodbye. I wish I had held my tongue and told him I would miss him. There is nobody around here to get me drunk on Sake. Maybe Corona. They seem to love the stuff.

It is hot and wet here. The air smells different. As the plane landed, which I hate because I'm not used to the air pressure changes and whenever the plane shifted slightly I knew I would die, I was nearly crushed by some shifting cargo. The turbulence was truly frightening. Thankfully, I'm agile.

I waited and hid until the cargo had been unloaded and then let myself out when they were refueling. This was dangerous because it was daytime. I have a watch and have reset it for the time zone. Don told me the time change before I left. What will I do without him? I feel like I left my brain back home.

June 16 –

I will write now that I have gathered myself a little. I had no direction or purpose and decided that the best thing to do was to head to the mountains. See the terrain.

I'm sitting in a truck, covered in a blanket that I dug out of a dumpster in the city and I'm riding with some livestock in the back of a truck to the mountains. It's all I can do to concentrate on the road and to learn the names on the signs. I am studying my Spanish dictionary and I know enough Spanish to save my life, but not much more than that. I wonder if I speak Spanish with a Japanese accent.

If only I had thought to bring a camera. I would love to send these views to Mikey. He loves pictures and beauty and he would love these green covered mountains. The sky seems so low here and the clouds are puffy and flowery. That sounds a little lame, but it's the only way I can think to…

There is a far away rain cloud letting loose rain into a mountain valley. That is beautiful.

The animals smell bad and I'll be glad to get away from them.

June 19 –

I'm now settled into a rocky recess outside a small village outside Guatemala City up in the mountains.

How am I supposed to keep warm when it rains every minute? The mountains are not nearly as warm as the lowland jungles and I feel that it was a mistake coming this far up in elevation without proper supplies. I have set up my hammock and spend most of my time lying there in my blankets trying to stay warm.

Also trying to keep the bugs away. I found several slugs on my feet when I walked from the stream. Maybe Raph was right in his thoughts about the bug spray.

Since this journal is for my own eyes only, I will confess. I cried miserably the first night. It was so dark and quiet. It was actually noisy, but the noises were not the noises I'm used to. No cars or people or subway or brothers or father or April or Casey. Just animals and trees and water dripping all around me and bugs. Buzzing. I felt like a little child, lost in the wilderness.

But I'm feeling better about the situation now. I will adapt. That is why I'm here after all. I feel an urge to hibernate here in my cocoon, but I must venture down to the village. Keep an eye out. I must find some food soon, also.

I am hoping that I can make some basic monetary exchanges in my poncho. I hope that no one will notice or look too hard. But strangers may be more noticeable in a small town.

Holy crap! That's the biggest cockroach I've ever seen! I need to find a box and mail it to Raph.

June 21 –

Sent the mutant cockroach along with my first letter. I think the villagers have no sense of curiosity or else they don't really care that a giant green mutant just used their post office. I got some food from the storeroom at the general store and left money behind. It was my last American money, but I know for a fact that they can change it.

Tomorrow I will try to fish for my dinner. How will I eat it? That damn rain won't stop.

June 21 pm –

Feeling rather sick.

June 21 pm –

Feeling extremely sick. Going to bed.

Up again now. Taking trip to the facilities.

What do they say about not drinking the water?

I have a bite mark on my arm. Must be from a bug.

Trying to sleep now.

July 8 –

Well… You can't say it was a vacation until you had your first near death experience. At least on my vacations.