La Mosquitia

dear all,
hope you are well, I am fine and have not got the dementia yet. just. it has been an eventful week in the life of the el sprengiko so I will tell you about it now methinks. my placement ended well, on thursday a guy from the tribuna newspaper came to the radio station to take my photo for the entertainment section, I also had my photos published in honduras this week (an english speaking paper), did my radio show and was interviewed on the telly, all in the same day. I was very pleased with myself until I realised I was a complete media whore, whereupon I promptly broke down. that night I was taken out by my bosses at work, who watched me drink cocktails, took me to find a prostitute (and mercifully failed), helped me wake up an entire neighbourhood, took me to a club, twice, and watched me dance alone all night in an intoxicated state.
Friday was my last day which was also fun. I had cake at the radio station, was given a football shirt and a cap, and had a 16 year old girl come in and visit me who gave me a tape (which I later realised was 2 hours of my own voice- vile), a dirty friendship bracelet, and a weird poem she had written. I spent the whole show refusing to play requests and only playing whatever I wanted to play which made me very happy in an evil kind of way. that evening, after pausing briefly to run over a small boy (really really scary, think hes okay though, pretty lucky)
I went with a load of other volunteers to the british embassy party. wicked. as we entered to the theme of ´´on her majestys secret service‘´ I quickly scanned the scene, realising that in my dirty, creased and untucked shirt I was the one person, including the cocktail waitresses, who looked least like james bond, and grabbed a whiskey. I spent the rest of the night getting drunk on red wine and scotch, talking to a missionary about genetalia, and trying to pose as a meerkat in as many photos as possible with important people ( the best of which is a classic I have over the shoulder of the british ambassador) brilliant! made it home at 5.30, just in time to pack my bags and leave to go to la mosquitia, a particularly inaccesible area of honduras with no cars and little communications. on the bus up there I had my camera stolen, in particularly stupid circumstances too painful to go into. I told the driver, who stopped the bus, a man with a rifle got on, everyone else got off, and we started going through peoples bags, which was odd. incredibly, someone found my camera, soooooooo lucky, and we carried on.
The next day we managed to get a fishing boat to take us to la mosquitia, via the sea, and 4 hours of being eaten by sandflies later we were on our way. the trip was horrible, overnight, and me and the girl I am travelling with were given a bed, basically in the glove compartment of the boat, hot as hell in a glorified 5 man tomb (with seven men in). in the morning we tried to enter the lagoon, hit a sandbank and almost capsised. I was hit by the contents of a cupboard, a drawer, several large bags, and half of the carribbean which came in through the window. (the half that I had not previously swallowed while drowning around a boat in utila´) managing to not realise quite the magnitude of the situation, I spent the time I should have been spending praying or watching my life in fast replay trying to stop my bag from getting wet.
We eventually arrived at the lagoon town, 19 hours after setting off. nineteen hours! oh, the pain. despite the near drowning, the only item of mine that was even damp was my hat, which was both in the middle of my bag, and soaking. you could thus forgive my surprise when I awoke the following morning to find a small lake in our hotel room, swimming in which was most of my belongings. in fact about the only thing that wasnt wet was my swimming shorts. Nuts. the maid mopped the floor, muttered something about hurricane mitch (which happened 6 years ago and is still getting the blame for honduran incompetence) and gave us a towel (presumably to dry my dictionary so I could look up the word for refund).
The mosquitia itself was wicked. I saw a crocodile, and was so excited I almost wet myself in the process, although we spent most of the rest of the trip in various states of wetness so it perhaps wouldnt of mattered if I did. after the nightmare of the boat we decided to fly back to dry land, an experience in itself, and did so relatively hassle free until we arrived to be told that our credit cards had not been put on the plane. cue a 5 hour wait which was a complete farce, before, depressed, we headed to hitch home. which went badly, just as we were stood by the side of the road with it getting dark, it started raining again. by the time I was completely soaked, a litle boy came over from where he had been watching and gave me an umbrella. still, manged to make it to nicaragua, arriving here in leon last night after 2 days of travelling though I still have no nicaraguan currency which is fun. had better go, think I can sneak out without paying, love and affection
rico x

the life of a famous DJ

Dear all,
I hope you are well, I am fine and have not got the leprosy yet.
to be honest things are a weird sort of normal here at the moment so I wont bore you with any more tales of the unexpected.
however, I am still djing and thus would like to brag about how popular I am.
I basically spend my afternoons playing cool music and taking phone calls from teenage girls, who do a variety of things over the phone at me. one girl keeps reciting poetry she has written about me which is fun in a fatal attraction kind of way. I also get sung at quite often and also people saying all kinds of strange things and then hanging up on me. brilliant.
I am, however, really really sick of britney spears, and take every opportunity to tell whoever I meet about this.
a couple of weekends ago I went to the beach for the first time since being here (even somehow missing out during my 6 day stay on a caribbean island) and last weekend I went down south to a glorified oven because I was getting sweat withdrawal symptoms. yesterday we went to a water park thing which turned out to be a paved puddle and a zoo whose entire animal population consisted of 4 pigeons, 3 parrots, 2 squirrels and a rabbit in a birdcage. I have more wildlife at the house (most of which is in the shower)
apart fro this excitement I have spent the past couple of weeks in various states of insanity, brought on by my diet of incomprihensible meat, unintelligible veg, cheap beer and lariam. strangely though, I am having my best time here, which is a little sad as I am leaving in a week, though about time as the guys at work keep going for my groin (in a completely heterosexual manner of course) which is scarier than boscombe.
another thing I am really not going to miss is hearing my name roughly every 3.6 seconds, usually followed by the word `gay` or simply an affectionate if unwanted hand.
well.
I think ive said enough.
over and out
rico x

wicky wicky wah

dear all,
I hope you are well, I am fine and have not got the syphilis yet. (incidentally I have not got the clap either, but thought id vary it a little to spice up the email).
so. I now have my own radio show, weekdays from 2 til 6 (though I have not yet managed to arrive before 3.15 yet, for a variety of uninteresting reasons). I have even made up my jingle, which goes like this ´´dj richard sprenger from inglaterra, live in the mix from 2 until 6´´. genius. I am actually an appauling dj, but really enjoy it, and they like my show because of my interesting accent (my accent is many things, but interesting it is not.) I get to play any music I like but I also take requests (usually britney) when I can understand what they are asking for. last week I got a bit of a shock when my computer froze and I had to talk for ten minutes without music. I managed to say ummm about 40000 times, sing a spanish song, and take a phone call from my boss at the tv station, who promptly told me I was an asshole. incidentally, the song that was playing when the computer froze was god put a smile on your face. which I read nothing into whatsoever. most of the people who phone in are really nice, saying how much they enjoy the show etc, one girl phoned in asking if I was from cork (of all the places I am not from, cork is the one place I am most not from) cork! why cork? I also had an abuse call the other day from a guy who slated my english accent saying it wasnt very realistic. I didnt play his request out of malicious spite. also live on air the other day I accidentally chatted up a 13 year old girl. oops.
on hallowween the other night me and a bunch of volunteers went out and got really drunk. I didnt have a costume so put on my white shirt and went as a sacrificial virgin. later that night I got covered in pink blood by darth maul. typical. I looked like a scene from carrie.
the hour to win was a little dull last week, I think it has lost its bite. though the anorexic cowgirl did manage to raise a smile by coming ironically dressed as a trifle.
oh, last night I went out with 9 girls.
we went to see a film at a cafe, which was italian with spanish subtitles. I have absolutely no idea what it was about, but could describe, in great detail, what my chair looked like. I spent nearly 2 hours desparate for a piss too. 2 hours! my bladder has subsequently disintigrated.
I also had the weirdest taxi ride of my life the other day, at one point we were driving on the wrong side of the wrong road in the wrong direction. we also stopped for petrol, to ask the way (not uncommon) and almost crashed into a tree. the driver failed to know where we were going, where the main road of the city was, and where the central park was. the trip took 30 minutes and could have been crawled in 25. slower than a ben cheng.
oh, I have also met a posh lesbian called siobhan sparks-macnamara! brilliant.
lots of other things also happened this week, such as colin powell visiting, but I wasnt there.
right. thatll do for now methinks, any requests for songs, give me a call on 221 0886, keep it here, keep it real, 100.7fm, this, is dee jay.
rico.