Ocho Rios – Nov 24

As we immerse ourselves in the Real of reality, we surrender to chance and exterior forces. The one factor that is wholly absent from my preparatory calculations is the last dimension in human history, which still harbours a trace of the metaphysical – this factor goes by the name WEATHER! I curse the fact that I wasted my last credits with the absent God by praying for – and getting - another goal in the ’96 Odense UEFA qualifier against Real Madrid - a goal that put OB through to the second round.
Just-turned-European ‘Buggy-Up’ found a boat in Ocho Rios, which might take us Friday around midnight – the distance is about 90 miles. The price has now gone up to $4000 and the captain didn’t seem happy by our appearance. As always, when you find yourself close to a geopolitical hotspot the paranoid imagination is the preferred frame of mind. Most Jamaicans either think that I’m a missionary or a spy – a spy in a suit carrying the flag of his home country – sort of like an overcover agent…

Norman, the captain of the powerboat ‘Pocket Change’, is suspicious of our ‘real intentions’ and scared by the very real prospect of getting his boat confiscated by either the Cuban or – less likely – the American Coast Guard. But still I consider the $4000 to be sufficient for soothing Norman’s uneasiness. Apart from the colossal factor of contingency, our main worry has now shifted to the weather forecast. It is rather windy and the cross is not possible with present weather conditions. This all means that we’ve reached the apex of the parabola of this mission. I have now decided to stake everything on the deal with Norman – and the weather. We have been put up in the Ocean Sands Beach Hotel with a nice terrace adjacent to the beach with a clear view of the sea and Cuba out there to the north beyond the horizon.

Worrying about the weather, I was unable to sleep and sat halfway through the night on the terrace watching the wind in the palms, anxiously listening to the surf, trying to discern a change in the weather. Will it break? Will Europe be delivered?

Yesterday, was a happy day of transit. Everyone elated. All confident that everything will go well and Guantanamo Bay liberated by Monday. I’m telling everyone that they are Europeans, that I regard this as my home country and I invite them all to go and settle on the European mainland. I have now gotten my very own Jamaican nickname ‘Preacher’. Much to the point of these activities.

On our way across the island I inspected some European projects and Saw That They Were Good. I enhanced an European installation during a minor intervention at a banana plantation, getting on the box, flying the flag, playing Beethoven, and giving a speech to the assembled workers about Europe, offering to include them all in a European world order, concluding by pronouncing all present to be European. We meet no hostility towards this idea and the natives are all quite fond of the thought of them going to the mainland to settle and vice versa.

Herzen sees that it is good

Preparing the act of European shamanism

Herzen discussing Banana market regulation with a native
banana farmer who turned European by the shamanistic ritual