The Wayfaring Frog

Moving back to Switzerland

2010-04-22T05:00:00.006+08:00

As the few of you who read the drivel I post on here will likely guess, there’s still some more Morocco stories to come. In fact, I have another 15 odd pages of tiny scrawly handwriting to type in and edit for your pleasure. But fear not, it will come. With pictures.

But in other news, I can happily announce that I have been back in Switzerland for a week or so now. There are both positives and negatives to this, and for fairness’ sake, I will list both.

Negatives:
- Switzerland is about as exciting as visiting your grandmother. Everything is fine, but strangely formal and people pinch your cheeks and coo and such, but you kind of wish you could be off somewhere else, even while you guess you’re glad you’re there.
- I live in a room—again—slightly larger than your average shoe box, with little possibility to escape and move into a real-person apartment.
- The cost of pretty much everything here could buy you a full meal and a nice hotel room in most countries I’ve been in lately.
- I’m sure pretentiousness is an additive to most food products and likely the water supply here. Everyone earns more than me and has a better job, and half of them aren’t too shy in sharing that—excepting my friends, of course—but the general atmosphere could be packaged and sold in small bottles as “snob genevoise.”
- An over-abundance of old women with bad dye jobs, fancy cars and/or fur coats, and small dogs. But that’s almost a positive, since it’s funny.
- Getting everything fixed / reorganized / reconnected / straightened out. Phone doesn’t work. Internet doesn’t work. Bike doesn’t work. Bank card doesn’t exist. Residence permit doesn’t exist. Etc. etc.
- Having to fight with the administration for everything. Bureaucracy is everywhere, and particularly the dreaded OCP, the Office Cantonal de la Population (i.e. the “Foreigner’s office” or your national equivalent) trusted with granting residence permits to unlucky foreigners. After my various experiences in Southeast Asia, and with, unsurprisingly, lots of friends who travel, I have learned that visas and formal regulations are no laughing matter.

A word, then, to the various of you—not that these people actually read this blog—who email me about living, studying, working, traveling, etc. abroad: don’t fuck around with residence restrictions, and put some effort into understanding immigration laws and foreigners’ rights and duties. Is there a difference if you enter overland or by air (in Thailand, Laos, and Singapore, yes; EU, no), can you renew your residence permit or visa, on a visa run if necessary (SE Asia besies Vietnam), or are you essentially screwed (the EU?)? Can you get out of a problem by paying? I say, and I emphasize this: Just because you want to live/work/study/whatever abroad, doesn’t mean you will be able to, particularly if you're organizing it on your own. Many countries have seemingly silly and unnecessary laws restricting foreigners, most egregiously the United States, who finds it amusing, perversely appropriate and not at all scarring to deeply interrogate whomever they feel like, besides profiling anyone of Arab descent or of funny skin tint, such as the deeply sketchy species of young Europeans visiting the love interest they met on their last exchange. But these laws are no lauging matter: you mess up in the wrong way, and you may lose the ability to ever visit a particular country again. You may be subject to fines (as I was in Indonesia for overstaying), or lashes (ostensibly in Singapore. I’ll let you know once I try it), or deportation (US anyone?). I’ve heard stories of Spanish people staying illegally in the US and traveling in- and out via Mexico, of outrageous fines in SE Asia, or a dual Canadian-Dutch citizen friend who was only able to successfully leave the EU on the Dutch passport because a Canadian one only grants you three months, and all kinds of things people do to be allowed to stay legally. Living in Switzerland, for those of you who have not had the pleasure of dealing with the incredibly complicated and not particularly foreigner-friendly Swiss bureaucracy, involves a stack of about twenty documents, including your resumé, a letter (in one of their official languages, none of which is English) stating what you’re doing and why, proof of financial means and/or a job contract, copies of transcripts and certificates (depending on what kind of permit), eventually proof of health insurance, sometimes a Swiss person who will sign for you…

Positives:
- Everything works. Buses, trains, office hours, stores, whatever you want, it works predictably and efficiently.
- Sit-down toilets and hot showers. (Insert comment about me being posh here) These are things I can and do certainly do without. I adjust well to hardship, at least at this stage because I am young and poor and have no standards, so it doesn’t actually cause a problem that I hadn’t had a hot shower in weeks (months?), and such showers as I had mostly consisted of a bucket of tepid water. I can also acclimate to squat toilets and all that jazz, but don’t pretend you don’t enjoy these comforts—as much as I am sure you can live without them—when you have the opportunity or when you come back home. As with Singapore, Switzerland has reliable sit-down toilets and hot showers, but that is still “new” enough to be a luxury.
- Crisp evening air. Having not been much under 25 or even 35 degrees Celsius for awhile, I appreciate cool evenings and sleeping under heavier blankets, a particular delight taken from my childhood in the frigid Rocky mountains and a welcome change from sweaty nights of no sleep because the power--and your pathetic litte fan--cut off at 10 pm and it's blistering hot.
- Running again. Aside from the somewhat depressing fact that pretty much everyone I know here is training for the (half) marathon (insert instant inferiority complex), I am now running the slowest 5 k of my life, recovering both from ankle surgery last year and a solid bout of laziness inspired by cheap Asian food and constant over-30-degree temperatures, in about the same amount of time it used to take me to run 9 k. But oh well, I am running again, and thoroughly enjoy the smell of the fresh grass, the sight of the river, the flowers, and the overweight people with small dogs which all grace my usual running route.
- No longer meeting new people all the frigging time. I wanted to print up cards (“My name is …. , I do …, I live …, and I am traveling …”) to hand out and spare myself the effort. Traveling alone does not mean that you are alone, but rather that you have new people every day. Here I am happy to see familiar faces, and to catch up. I felt slightly like an alien at first, or at an awkward family / school reunion when you meet people you don’t really know and haven’t seen for a long time and they ask how it’s going and you kind of go, “uh…, welllllll, I went off and joined the circus and then got married to a Kazakhstani and then got famous as a bareknuckle-transvestite-fighter in Botswana….” And the other person kind of nods and says something noncommittal (“Ah yes, Kazakhstan, good times,”) and no one knows how to bridge the gap of several months/years. But you talk a bit, and the stories come out, and it is all good. I have to say that “my” Geneva people are some of the most awesome people I’ve met, and most of them have amazing stories of their own to tell, from slums in Kenya to bus accidents in Egypt, having the roof of their apartment collapse in Berlin, local transport in Ecuador or what have you. So there’s not much or any of the “one-upsmanship” that many people either add to travel stories (“this one time we were in Mexico and we were attacked by a monkey!” and the other person replies with, “this one time where we were trekking through virgin forest, avoiding the landmines in northern Laos, we spent five days on a monkey farm, teaching them to write Shakespeare and drive cars…” etc.) or that non-travellers think that we travelers intentionally add to our stories, as if it were a kind of condiment. No, the point of the story is not “this one time in Kenya,” but rather the story itself, and stop getting so hung up on the Kenya part.
- The fact that my move was relatively unproblematic. Moving to another country is always a pain: you need a lot of papers and documents and permissions (see above), but you have to get ahold of lodging, food, phone, internet, and transportation services, and you may not know where all of these come from or how to access them. Thankfully, as far as most of this was concerned, this move went relatively easy, both because I already know Switzerland and Geneva, and also because there was no language barrier (yes, let me see you try to figure out how not to get screwed buying a sim card if you speak no Arabic in Egypt. It's fun, let me tell you) - and I have friends who helped me out. Short summary, it more or less went well, and better than usual. Moving back is definitely easier than moving away (but I guess less exciting)
- Living in a country where the language is an exciting extra facet: my French can use improvement, and while day to day stuff is no problem, I see countless opportunities to expand and improve. Other countries (i.e. most of Europe) either speaks excellent English (also Singapore, much of Morocco), or spoke a language I wasn't even trying to nor had hopes of learning (much the rest of SE Asia). And learning a new language is one of my favorite parts of living abroad (plus the continued opportunity to speak the old languages. Try that in the US).
- The fact that the first round of my bureaucratic fight went pretty well. I managed to get someone nice AND competent, who said more or less was in order. I do not count my chickens, goats, small children, mutant aliens or anything else until it hatches, but at least I haven’t yet encountered problems (i.e. having to get a new visa from somewhere before I can apply for a residence permit, which was a distinct possibility) at this stage.
- Being able to go to bed before midnight, and not having the feeling you’re missing the “nightlife” (get real, it’s Wednesday).

And with that: good night.

Marruecos part 1: Madrid - Granada - Chefchaouen

2010-04-20T03:33:00.008+08:00

Viva España: Madrid to Grenada to Algeciras

The whole point of taking the evening bus was so that A. could go to class, but she didn’t and we were still almost late. We had enough food to feed a small village in Africa plus the first day of a moderately-sized Indian wedding party. We proceeded to Granada without incident, except for the part of not being able to locate the Bolsilla de Santa Paula: particularly because it was a street and not actually a saint’s pocket.

Still rubbing the sleep from our eyes and arguing cantankerously about stopping for breakfast, we find a bus stop well populated by Asian tourists that we assumed it would take us to the Alhambra, but we and they were wrong, and it didn’t. I clutched my coffee like a dying person clutches the last piece of chocolate cake thinking happy coffee thoughts as we joined the ticket lines after the short ride up the hill. At 8h20 the lady sold us tickets for the 8h30 entry to the palace, and we galloped off over the cobblestones, dodging elderly tourists like walker-wielding obstacles.

View over Granada from the Alhambra

In barely two and a half hours we’d finished the Alhambra complex, palaces, gardens and all. It helped we were early, it helped we’d declined the audio guides, and it helped that the weather wasn’t too inviting, and that we were also not trailing small children. Still the Alhambra is gorgeous. It’s Moorish architecture, full of vaulted ceilings, mosaics, carvings and the beautiful arches that swept gracefully over fountained courtyards. If I’m ever rich and famous I’ll buy me a castle like that. Somehow, we imagined it would be huge instead of just big. It could have been Tuscany, for all we could tell. Perhaps we took the wrong bus?

Confronted with hedges the size of moving trucks, it’s easy to see the appeal. It’s like being a kid again, playing hide and seek among the labyrinthian trees. Imagine a hundred years ago, these hedges, these gardens. Orange trees and pomegranate trees are interspersed with flowers and hedges. A lumbering tour group of the newly wed, overfed and nearly dead obstruct the path, and we duck around the corner, and I admire a handsome Italian framed against the foliage – and soon we are free. There is a window in the gardens, set high in one of the many terraces and flanked by columns. From here, as from many places in the Alhambra, you can see the city spread gently across the hilltops. In the distance, the Sierra Nevadas; on the hill, a church; in between, pueblos blancos and new, ugly apartment blocks.

We spent the afternoon staggering from tapas bar to tapas bar. At one point, lost, looking the map, the stranger who stopped to help turned out to be none other than a childhood acquaintance. Small frigging world.

We sat on the bench in the sun. We’d just received complete and through advice on “Au Maroc” from the energetic Frenchman at the creperie on plaza de la universitad. The other half of the bench was occupied by a young Spanish guy, a future teacher looking (as of yet unsuccessfully) for a job, with friendly eyes and floppy hair, who wanted to know just why one needed the interrogative ‘do’ for the question ‘do you understand?’ and not just ‘you understand?’

I wonder how much a tapas bar represents the normal population – or what demographic thereof – in Grenada or elsewhere. It’s an undeniably social outing, but one which doesn’t perforce replace family togetherness.

Our attempt to get to Algeciras was doomed from the start. Direct bus, full. So we had tostadas and went for Málaga. Next bus was full, so we whiled away the time in an internet café where A. made friends with the shaved-headed Serbian involved in shady business in Barcelona. Finally, after a brief but notable delay near Algecrias, caused by the apparent but un-evident breakdown of our bus five minutes from the bus station, during which one grandmother complained incessantly, we followed a Moroccan couple and three Walesian hitchhikers (…into the bar, and the bartender asked, “what is this, some kind of a joke?”) to find all the ferries delayed. Thus: a nice night in the enchanting and beautiful little port town of Algeciras (read: it’s a shoddy dump with sketchy people. We stayed in.)

Entrée au Maroc

We decided to head to and through Ceuta—the Spanish enclave—rather than Tangiers, to save ourselves some time and the hassle. The ferry embarkment proceeded without problem, and we spent much of the ride taking the micky out of other passengers, with the desperate hope that none of them spoke German – but these were Americans, so I doubt it. Americans, as is widely known, do not learn foreign languages.

“The bus to the border is the Number 7. It costs 75 cents.” With our packs on our backs, looking somewhat muddled and confused, a man standing behind us interrupted our thoughts. Not only did this man know everyting there was to know about the bus and the border, he even took us to a money changer and deposited us at the bus station. “Remember: Number 7. You see number 9, you don’t go. You see number 7, you go.”

Ceuta, the Spanish enclave carved out of Morocco, is understandably a mixture of Spain/Europe and Morocco/North Africa. Distinctly Mediterranean, rougher around the edges, but with far more flair than Algeciras. The people look north African, the cars are Spanish., and across from the bus stop are the remnants of the old fortress: imposing battlements jutting out of the blue water. A construction worker dangling into the canal waved as he saw me taking pictures.

The border: the end of the line and we all pile out. Everyone’s on foot, most people don’t have baggage and anyways we’re pretty much the only northern European-looking people there It’s several hundred yards/meters to and through the border. A tall fence blocks off the ocean; to our right, the hillside. Cars and lorries are variously parked along rough lanes of concrete barriers. A chain link fence sometimes cordons off the pedestrians from the cars, and we trudge along behind large headscarved women and packs of young men. As our “guide” from before described it, we were “walking from Europe to Africa.”

Apparently pedestrians and cars were checked at the same guardposts, but there didn’t seem to be anything approaching a queue or any kind of order. Only once we were forced to go through a little gate to the side. The actual stampring process was uncomplicated but took awhile, seeing as how they were likely using the same computer system for the last hundred and twenty years. Two bored-looking functionaries with large moustaches like small furry animals and some kind of stinky incence typed mysterious numbers into a computer system apparently running DOS. Stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp, and ma salaama! A further bored-looking guard wanted to see in my bag, but came disinterested after he heard I spoke French. “Vouz avez des armes?” he asked me. Do I have weapons? Do they ask this question to everyone, or only 20-something female white backpackers?

Taxi to Tétouan cost 120 DH, prix fixé. Our driver had blue eyes and spoke Spanish, but wore the Arab striped kaftan and deposited us at the bus station with little commentary. Tétouan was not the sleepy little town I’d imagined, but rather a big, sprawling thing, outgrowing its borders like a giant jam smear. As soon as we entered the station, we were accosted by an ostensible employee with no teeth who pretended to be insulted that we were anything but thrilled with him forcing his ‘help’ on us, and helpfully interrupting our consultation in every possible language he knew. Anyways, it was noon, and apparently the next bus was at three (a likely storey, but okay), but he disappeared and magically reappeared with three Frenchies (were they on special, buy one get two free?) with whom we shared the taxi.

They negotiated the fare (40 DH per person, and we split the cost of the sixth seat), and squeezed into the back. “En effet, la sixième place, où est-elle?” I asked, as A. was practically sitting in my lap. Our “guide” wanted backsheesh, but I let the French guy argue with him and contented myself with sucking my gut in and trying to make my hips smaller to accommodate everyone. The ride was spectacular: rolling hillsides, farms, fields and animals, and with a chain of fog-covered mountains to our perpetual left. Little villages dotted the landscape here and there, and it was all as pastoral and bucolic as a 16th century Dutch painting. The driver drove like his car was on fire AND someone was trying to steal his bobblehead, dodging lorries and busses as if in a slalom. I contemplated the screw—what remained of the door lock—the missing door latch and the screwdriver jammed in apparently to keep the window from falling down, and wandered if anything was keeping the door shut as we were thrown around the corners and I against the door.

Chefchaouen is apparently the weed capital of Morocco, and as soon as we get out of the cab someone was already pushing. We declined and trotted off after the Frenchies. Their hotel was nice but full; the one next door was confusingly priced: 50 DH/person for a shared private room or 70 DH per person for a bed in a dorm, and had only one room for one night but could maybe let us sleep on the roof. No, thank you. So we ended up at the hotel we had wanted to go anyways, where the quixotic owner insisted on his broken German and we on our respective Spanish and French, which he spoke considerably better.

A doorway in Chefchaouen

Apparently the square around the castle thing is a giant tourist trap. We’d heard about a couple of recommended restaurants, but the directios were useless so we wandered out of the square to find something, anything – and ended up at the recommended restaurant anyways! There we met three girls from the Basque country in Spain, and after lunch we migrated for tea and coffee, with a mixed Spanish/English/German discussion on pretty much everything.

Besides the marijuana, Chefchaouen is renowned for its beautiful blue medina. The walls, the stairs, everything is painted a stunning and varying shade of cobalt and azure blue, so after sending off Las Españolas we wandered about until we found some shoes and some picnic snacks for dinner.

I guess you could say I didn’t get much out of the first / only full day in Chefchaouen: right away I was hit with a fantastic bout of Funny Tummy / Touristas / whatever you want to call it, and was as feeble as your grandmother without her walker. It didn’t help that someone yelling in Russian, which subsided briefly after I pounded on the wall with my fist, interrupted both the night before and the early morning. Honestly.

Anyways, the whole “being sick” thing resulted in me looking as if someone were pulling my teeth without anesthetic while I turned a lovely shade of green. It was like high school biology all over again. I got to schlep myself up and down the medina, culminating in the crowning moment when I “redecorated” the pavestones in front of the café. Being sick, at least this kind of sick, is like walking around with a very heavy blanket. Everything is a huge effort, and sometimes the edges get fuzzy. It could have been the dates, or the olives, or more likely just a random fluke. I’d made it through most of Asia with no problem, so I guess it was my turn.

We met Las Españolas for lunch and tea, which means they had lunch and I had nothing, looking about as green as my mint tea. We took our tea at the smaller plaza within the medina. From somewhere, loud Arabic pop music was blaring, and somewhere behind us, a backgammon or cards game progressed loudly, eagerly followed by a crowd of young men. We sat outside on the square in the sun with the other tourists (as a side note, that’s a good way to spot a tourist at a hundred yards: tourists sit in the sun, locals in the shade), including a pack of Argentineans who communicated with walkie talkie and insisted on filming strange things. Everywhere young men. The plaza was picturesque and almost empty. The young guy seated on the step stood out starkly against the whitewashed walls, and we sipped our over-sweetened mint tea.

As expected, I slept away the afternoon, and the evening, and well into the next day like a drugged puppy at the pet store. How to tell I’m sick: I sleep for fifteen hours straight. However, this is a poor diagnostic tool as this feat is nothing special for your average university student. Because Las Españolas had helpfully fetched our bus tickets the night before, we had time to meet for breakfast before heading to the gare routière.

Up behind the medina, through twisting alleys where the day before we had seen three tiny newborn kittens, carefully watched over by several respectively tiny children (“ils sont nos chats!”), up behind the tourist shops I suppose the residents live, though it’s hard to tell if the place isn’t simply one giant tourist bazaar. Signs of inhabitants exist; there are alleys with no tourists, some smelling of dank water, but most or all as lovely; and by the river, a dozen women stand bent over buckets doing their laundry at the metal stands built for this purpose on the banks. They ostensibly have washing machines at home, but as water is so expensive, they prefer to do the washing there.

Another typical Chefchaouen shot

Tales of Timor-Leste - Part 3

2010-03-13T13:36:00.004+08:00

Going East: Dili --> Baucau --> Com --> Walu Beach --> Com --> Dili

Early Monday morning (meaning: noon) we headed out on a five-day tour of Timor, armed with our much beloved white diesel tank, nine litres of water, various kinds of food and drink calculated to last a day or so, a minisucle map of Timor-Leste in our guidebook, and some vague recommendations of where to go and what to do.

The drive out of Dili is the same we had taken to the beach a few days earlier: after heading towards Jesus, you pass the “strip” of beach restaurants, wave happily at the Bangladeshi UN soldiers in dashing beige and robin’s-egg-blue camouflage uniforms guarding Ramos Horta’s house (though I can’t imagine what landscape they wanted to blend into with those babies), put your car in first gear to inch up the steep slope behind several massive trucks covered in people like a giant human chia pet, and you’re on your way. It’s got to be one of the more beautiful drives I’ve done in a very long time: a winding narrow road is cut into the hillside, threading its way through emerald hills. Above, the mountains are shrouded in mists; below, the ocean glistens off to the horizon in the deepest blue. White beaches are visible here and there, and the traffic isn’t heavy. I’m driving the first leg, which means that, per our agreement, I’ll likely only be able to appreciate the scenery on the way back, as this time I am so concentrated on the road that every second I take to steal a glimpse at this astounding beauty is the one second likely to lead me into a pothole at speed, or be the one second I find a massive truck barreling down at me. The road is pretty good, but a perfect surface can easily become a massive hole, a complete missing section, or the tricky gaps which seem to lurk in the shadows. Holes in the shadows are almost impossible to see unless you’re barely moving. Then there is oncoming traffic, goats, cows, chickens, and water buffalo on the road. It’s an obstacle course in some areas and a breeze in others. I drive only as fast as I can see, which hits a maximum of 80 kph, mostly hunched over the steering wheel to peer under the tinted section which I suspect was intended to supplant sunglasses, but mostly just obstructs our vision.

On the road

The coastal road is interspersed with stretches directed inward, through dusty villages, banana trees and mangrove swamps supposedly hiding crocodiles. We climb and sink, like giant breaths gaining and losing altitude. For ten kilometers the road is an arrow: straight and smooth. Shortly afterwards it becomes linguini noodle, thin and twisted, and we become James Bond’s martini: shaken, not stirred.

Somewhere before Baucau (130 km from Dili), we notice the engine is acting weird. Occasionally the power steering goes out, usually around steep corners. Shortly thereafter, this loss of power steering is accompanied by three idiot lights of unknown meaning and various colors. At least it’s not the oil light, but they remain a mystery. A kind of rattling commences at some point, followed later by a high-pitched whine, almost as if our horn were stuck (think Little Miss Sunshine). We call home and try to limp on into Baucau, which we are able to without further incident and only moderately worsening symptoms, where we are supposed to be looking for the workshop of the Bishop of the Diocese. Since we have zero Tetum abilities, we cruise around a bit cluelessly, our car rattling along, taking a few moments to sit and contemplate and plot our further progress. We turn to Peace Dividend Trust, an NGO who makes it its business to know everyone’s business-es, that is. They compile business directories and also provide matching services, so if you need 100 kg of soybeans in Los Palos or a goat in Viqueque, you can call them and they will find someone who has that. More pertinent for us, they know who does or sells what in Baucau, and they will either know our shop or know a different one, so we find their office on the main drag and they helpfully provide us with directions to a guesthouse and an informative map.

Despite the map and everyone’s best intentions, we never end up finding the workshop of the Diocese, instead landing at a shop of a tiny but competent man. M. explained our problem in Portuñol, and thankfully the symptoms were easily evident upon the mechanic giving our ride a go himself. He climbed barefoot up onto the bumper and more or less completely into the engine compartment, where he sets about busily dismantling something. M. goes in search of a cola and I ensconce myself in the trunk, waving at schoolkids as they pass and hoping nothing serious is the matter. Finally, the guy comes grinning back to us, holding up what is quite evidently a broken screw, which he had fished out of the depths of our engine compartment; somehow, he had known where to look. His enthusiastic dismemberment and reconstruction of or enginy bits cost the grand total of eleven dollars, the amount a white person would reasonably spend on a meal in Dili. Our host said we were gouged. Oh well.

Glad to get that checked off our list. Driving away, it was clear that the problems with the power steering, the rattling and the idiot lights had been alleviated, so we settled down for dinner and bed. Early in the morning we headed down to the beach in Baucau, which is not in Baucau but rather quite a bit outside and below it. There was, of course, barely a soul as we got down there, and we spent a good bit of time splashing around in the clear waters. Driving back up the hill, however, we were confronted again with the persistent whine from the day before. Thankfully we’re still in Baucau and can go see our mini mechanic if need be. We park the car in front of the house and lift the hood experimentally, leaving the engine running, but it’s hard to tell where the sound is coming from. But after we killed the engine we realized the whistling was coming from the radiator, and after we let it cool off we were able to refill the poor thing, which desperately needed it, and were able to be on our way, and the whistling was n’er to be heard again.

From the terrace of our little café where we had brunch, we had a good view over the old town of Baucau. Much built by the Portuguese, Baucau bosts a long street lined with shops, cafés and a market, upon which our mechanic and our café were both located. On one side is the former Mercado Municipal, a giant construction in (I guess) sort of neo Romanesque style, reminding me of the tomb of the unknown soldier in Rome, but much much smaller. And also, sadly, burned and dilapidated; the structure, cutting a handsome silhouette and gracing the cover of our map, had seen better days. Below the Mercado were the former gardens and their former fountains, and all of this a bittersweet memory of other days, yet beautiful still.

From Baucau we headed out to Com, which is pretty much the end of the road. It’s a hamlet boasting a handful of guesthouses and a giant shiny resort with overpriced rooms but (thankfully) cold beer. I hope the place fills on weekends, because we were the only white people there. We settled on one little guesthouse boasting a two-room bungalow (of which we had one), a broad porch with several chairs, and a location directly at the water. Hordes of screaming kids were perched like birds on a wire on a big driftwood log, and the occasional family of pigs would wander by on the beach. Fishers came and went. As soon as I went in the water I was surrounded by a pack of little girls, Agnès, Angelina, Maria, Dora. They take turns trying out my snorkel (failing utterly to grasp the concept, instead diving too deep and filling the snorkel with water), asking me questions in Tetum. We counted to ten in English together. Whatever I did or said, they did or said.

In the evening, sitting at the seawall and reading, they came again. They’d been enthralled by M., spending a good half hour hiding behind the fence, watching his every move and giggling furiously every time he glanced in their direction. Shyly they gave him a giant shell as a gift. Recognizing one of the little girls from before I played the pied piper, walking in patterns or along the wall with a string of little girls in my wake. They serenaded me with songs and generally had a good time.

The next morning we headed out to the beach behind Tutuala, which involved taking the coastal road up into the hills beyond Com. It looked like a road that went absolutely nowhere, but in a land with so few roads, the fact that one existed meant that something had to be on the other end. We were less sure, however, when the paved track gave out and left us with a muddy two-track seemingly leading into more nothing than before. We passed a couple of the traditional houses, narrow and on stilts, almost like a tree house in size and form. We couldn’t figure out how anyone got into them. The roofs carried a necklace of shells; it seemed like the houses themselves were like tall sentinels, not necessarily sentient but nevertheless present.

A traditional house

“You remember how to change a tire?” M. asks me. Somewhere between Lospalos and Tutuala, a gentle fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap told us we had a flat, so we pulled over in the middle of the village and set about finding the tire iron, the jack and the handle. We get the spare off the back, but as soon as we make a go for jacking up the car, the entire village, it seemed, had assembled, and a few of the stout and stalwart young guys appropriated our tools and set about changing the tire. First the jack wasn’t sufficient to get the car up high enough, leading to a creative construction involving beams of wood and rocks to support the undercarriage enough for them to figure out how to jack it up higher. Removing the lug nuts was also not simple, and at first they were turning in the wrong direction, but soon all was sorted out and fixed, with an entire assembly of small kids watching the process. When we looked like we might be getting out money or something to thank them with, the “leader” held up his hand, saying only, “no” and shooing us on our way.

Tutuala is a tiny town perched on a hillside, overlooking the sea. On top of the hill, where we thought the road continued on down to the beach, we instead found a kind of villa. It looked abandoned, and the outbuildings were actually abandoned, giving the place a haunted feel. Dilapidated gardens spoke of better times, and tethered horses grazed where once there was topiary. Why did no one live here? Who owned this place? It had, with no exaggeration, a million-dollar view: behind, the tree-covered hills and mist-covered mountains; before, in 270-degree panorama, views of the sea and distant Indonesian islands. Not that Timor-Leste really needs rich foreigners, but the spot was perfect for a luxury villa, and easily reachable if one adds a helipad.

With the strong sense that we could count on the locals in case of any further problems, we set off to Walu beach. The only problems with counting on this aid were the twin facts that (a) we were driving out of civilization into an even more sparsely inhabited area, meaning the odds of someone running across us was slim, and (b) we had just used our only spare tire, which belonged to the few remedies available to our immediate disposal. And to top it off, the “road” down to Walu beach should not be called a road. It’s basically a strip lacking in trees and undergrowth, hugely rutted and covered in rocks. It’s even slower going than the road to Hatubilico, and at 8km, it took us a jolting good half hour to cover the distance, and all the while as we are bouncing up and down so much that you’d want to cling to the “oh shit handles,” (as my family affectionately terms the handles in the car) to avoid concussing your head on the ceiling. It’s hard to give an adequate report of how terrible this road is. Some people have reportedly gotten out and walked because they couldn’t handle the ride up or down. The last stretch was relatively smooth and straight, which I enthusiastically bounced down before coming to a complete halt before the tree which had fallen across the road, blocking it completely. Someone had helpfully beat back the undergrowth enough that we could drive around the tree, but no one had bothered—or had wanted—to cut the tree itself.

Down to the good stuff: Walu beach. Imagine white sands four or five meters deep, picturesque rocks jutting out of deep blue and turquoise water, cliffs or rocks or shoreline gracing the edge. Close your eyes and really imagine it. Then take a look at the pictures and realize it isn’t just hyperbole. It was beautiful, spotless, untouched—and empty. Paradise for us alone. We found our “eco-resort,” which, contrary to our expectations, did promise to be able to feed us, and made off for the beach. M. took a nap so I was on my own for a bit, splashing about in the surf before finding a suitable rock to lizard on. Somewhere off to my left, a big darkish thing was in the water a few meters from the shore, which I initially assumed to be a log—until it moved. I was too far away to really see properly what it was, but I had heard quite a bit about Timorese crocodiles, of which there are both salt- and freshwater varieties, so I wasn’t too keen on finding out what it was. When M. eventually showed up and went for a walk, his first order of business was taking a closer look at our moving log. So he sets off down the beach, and I watch. When he gets somewhat near to whatever it is, he quickly turns around and begins jogging back, looking over his shoulder every now and then. What IS that thing?

An ox.

There was an ox, or a water buffalo or however you want to call it, wallowing in the cool waters near the shore. A perfect beach, and the only bather is an ox.

Walu beach near Tutuala

It turns out that the eco-resort, or this area in particular, also boasts a few lovely and huge caves, so after breakfast the next morning we arrange to go visit them. Accompanied by our two machete-wielding guides, we reach the mouth of the cave after a brief climb, and they ask me for a dollar, which they place at the entrance. The caves are almost invisible from afar, appearing as cliff faces more than anything. The flora in this area consist of trees, low, scrubby bushes, but not a lot of thick growth. Still, it’s good there’s a trail there, which was not always easy to see amid the dead leaves. The caves themselves were a good three meters or more at the entrance, opening up in the back to five or six meters in height. Near the cave mouth are some petroglyphs dating back at least 500 years. Heading into the main cavern with a weak torch, I was able to illuminate only my next step and not much more. Every time I swept my feeble beam across the ceiling, a kind of trembling followed the path of the beam, and the air seemed to vibrate with the bats disturbed by the light.

The road back to Com seemed to take half the time of the road there, but that seemed to be the norm on our trip. We stayed one last night in Com and left early the next morning to return to Dili. Our wheels were still on, our engine still running, and the scenery still beautiful.

Tales of Timor-Leste - Part 2

2010-03-07T17:11:00.003+08:00

Maubisse, Mt Ramelau and Hatubilico

I’m not sure whose idea it was to have the road zig zag up the mountain. Almost immediately past the market in DIli, past the other market and the mikrolet loading station, the road climbs steeply into the hill, clinging to the corners as if hanging on for dear life. It’s a “good road”, meaning, the potholes don’t come all that often, the road is ostensibly sealed, and you can, at most times, fit two cars for dual-directional traffic. Notwithstanding, the space between two cars and the respective edges of the road isn’t significant, and it’s a bit of a nerve-wracking endeavor. The road climbs and climbs and climbs, hairpinning back and forth above Dili. On each side, accessible from staircase-like little steps or trails, are houses and even the occasional palatial building. Mikrolets, buses, trucks of all kinds, 4x4s, and even the occasional taxi venture up this road into the mountains of Maubisse; below, Dili in all its grubby glory stretches along the waterfront in both directions ending at the Jesus statue in the East, and with the wisps of Autauro visible in the distance. It doesn’t take long before the city becomes a distant view, and the vistas are more green hills, forests, and little streams running along the waterway.

Our endless ascent in view of the city eventually becomes only little thatched buildings and rice padies, with cattle and increasingly horses visible in the muddy fields and paddies. Goats, children, dogs, and chickens line or, alternately block the road, but almost nothing looks like something you might term a settlement. Occasionally, roadside stands would sell a few vegetables or bananas or the ubiquitous greens, or litres of gasoline in old water bottles. Sometimes, the road would disappear entirely, to be replaced by a muddy, rocky stretch with massive potholes. Almost worse were the sections where a narrow strip of pavement continued through the rough patch, with the respective potholes dropping off deeply to each side. There is no good path through it and it’s a bumpy ride either way. At one stretch, a group of youths had placed some branches on part of the road, and waved us aside; when we stopped, the one of them peered into the window. He had on a baseball cap perched high on his head, or maybe not, and a pair of jeans; he grinned. “Money,” he said. We didn’t really understand. “Money, one dollar?” he continued hopefully. “No, I’m sorry,” we replied, and continued. I couldn’t tell if they were shaking down the road on principle, or if they were just opportunists seeing a pair of Malei (foreigner). Traffic became more sparse, which was a relief, as the potholes often forced one or the other lane into oncoming traffic, most curves were blind and the trucks seemed improbably large for the road. People walk along the roads, and when school lets out, the trickle of pedestrians becomes a steady stream of schoolchildren. On the road before Maubisse, we suddenly found a truck coming around the corner in our lane; in the truck’s lane, a line of schoolgirls dived screaming into the ditch as the truck sped past. If they hadn’t jumped, they’d have been hit.

Maubisse was the first thing you might call a town that we had seen, discounting Ainaro (which one shouldn’t, but Maubisse is considerably bigger); it had a church, whitewashed and solemn among the hills. The air was cooler, blowing in from somewhere higher up and bringing mist, moisture and the chill of the mountains; after the almost oppressive heat if Dili, I relished the goosbumps and the beads of moisture on my arm. Guesthouses ringed the church, boasting beautiful gardens and the quiet serneity of a place—from my perspective, at least—far away from anywhere. A crowd of kids collected around us, posing for photographs, and waiting eagely for their chance to see their faces in the tiny screen of the digital camera.

From the church, a winding road heads down to towards the marketplace, dropping violently, as if the pavement were rippled, giving us place to park amidst the several stalls selling veggies and bananas. We head towards the “only” restaurant in Maubisse, recommended in garbled portuñol by the old man at the guesthouse. It’s behind the market stalls, dimly lit and containing a few tables and plastic chairs. Before the window, a row of women sit, chewing betel and selling their wares. We sit next to this window, and only a few inches away but separated by the pane of glass is an old man, with wild eyes and wild hair. He waves, saying something in Tetum. I wave back, but he persists, waving wildly. I don’t know what he wants and can’t find it out, so I preoccupy myself with my coffee and ignore him and the curious stares of the market women.

About five kilometers beyond Maubisse, the road to Hatubilico splits off from the main street, and we look back on the road from Dili as a happy memory. This road, insofar as you can call it such, was more or less flattened collection of stones, sending us bouncing and jolting along up and down and around. Sick of slipping and scrambling I put on the four wheeled drive, and the remaining eighteen kilometers more or less proceed in first and second gear, taking over an hour. The hills fell away to either side in verdant green. On the corners, a waterfall or stream trickled down across the rocks and into the distance. Occasionally, a traditional hut would appear out of the mist, clinging to a hillside, forlorn amid a backdrop of white, only to disappear again. We could have been in the middle of nowhere; near and far there were nothing, not even houses the last few kilometers. An old woman and a small boy were carrying heavy sacks, heading into the mist, and the kid flagged us down. We cleaned out the back seat and they pileed in. The old woman is wrapped in a tais, traditional skirt, her head wrapped in another cloth, with lips stained crimson from betel juice. The kid hung on the back of my seat with giant eyes, staring with excitement at the rumbling brumbling diesel motor pulling us along the mists. We stop at the next cluster of houses and let them back out; as soon as we are stopped, the entire youth population of the hamlet piles out and surrounds our car, calling out in Tetum, grinning and whooping wildly. We wave goodbye and continue on.

They say the temperature drops with the sun; it also drops with altitude, and the air turned chillier the higher we went. A couple of times we stopped by passerby and asked “Hatubilico?” Always, they waved us on. We reached the town, wondering how we would ever find our guesthouse, our pousada, when we saw the giant yellow structure with a sign to that effect. It was in the “middle” of town, past the small cemetery of concrete crosses huddled on a flowered knoll and across from a shrine set high into the hillside and accessible from a set of irregular concrete stairs shrouded in flowers. We parked. We knocked. We wandered around, peered in the windows, knocked again, tried all the door handles, and still no one. Eventually two younger guys wandered by, and after we managed to explain what we wanted, one of them jogged off down the road, returning with a pair of keys.

“We found the Shire,” M. said, referring to the land of the hobbits in Lord of the Rings. We had found a town with no tourists, no restaurant, no café, no post office, and no electricity. We followed the one path down towards the cemetery, looking out over the valley and the mountains beyond. Next to the cemetery, an older guy was digging around in a flower or vegetable bed, looking at us with some measure of suspicion. A pony tethered nearby let me stroke its nose, though the halter had rubbed its face bloody it was still friendly. On the other side of town, rolling down from the mountains and set in a giant green carpet adorned with rocks was a little stream, which passed under a stone bridge to continue down into the valley. Wildflowers were everywhere, and only the occasional crosses set into the side of the road—and the frequent cemeteries—gave hint of a haunted past.

On the road we ran across César, the son of the pousada-owner, who agreed to guide us up Mt Ramelau—we’d meet at 4 AM—and told us his mum would cook us dinner at nine; the dinner, as it turned out, arrived on its own about 7:30, carried by a small procession of little kids. The pousada itself was a solid structure, newly painted a bright yellow, and featuring many small rooms with many small beds. Communal toilets and showers downstairs. A big room at the end of the hall offered an impressive view out over the valley, boasting a table, a set of chairs, several low couches and, surprisingly, several treadle-powered sewing machines made in china. The funny thing about the big room with the sewing machines is that nothing matched. There were at least two different patterns of wallpaper, both yellow, and a different pattern on the ceiling. The ceiling itself wasn’t straight, and nor were the several columns parallel or perpendicular to each other, the walls, or the ceiling. We ate our dinner of cabbage, potatoes, meat of some kind, and rice with a certain relish, prepared our things, and went to bed.

At 3:45 our alarm went off, and we groggily got up, got dressed, and got packed. The moon was mostly full and we could see without a light, so we spent a good bit of time gazing over the moonlit valley, attempting unsuccessfully to take pictures of said moonlit valley (as you can imagine, the pictures were predictably just black), and eventually going back to bed as 4:30 rolled around and César still wasn’t there.

Sometime around 6:30 I awoke to someone looking in our door (which I thought we had locked), knocking and demanding insistently we get up and go: César had arrived. Apparently 4:00 means 6:30 around here, or our mixed portuñol-English-(his)Tetum had led to a misunderstanding. M. gave me the keys and wedged himself in the back, as César directed me and the car up the steep and steepening hill. The road lurched up into a green meadow in the pre-dawn, the road curving suddenly around almost imperceptible corners, and I desperately hope my sleep-fogged brain reacts sufficiently. At one stretch the wheels don’t grip, and despite the fourwheel drive the car begins sliding left with each attempt. I finally roll back a bit and give it another go, hoping to get enough momentum to make it up. Coming around another curve, I see with dismay what looks to be a washed-out corner—not too uncommon—looking like a dangerous bridge which I am convinced will crumble under my car. César gets out and guides me slowly around the left-hand corner; my right bumper is almost brushing the rock face. We make it.

We make it up to the meadow, scaring off the few grazing horses at our approach, and begin the climb up a set of incongruous stone steps. For my part, several months of good food and no sports have taken their toll, and I find the hike a challenge, though the path itself is neither particularly tricky nor particularly steep, and I need a lot of breaks. César bounded up like a mountain goat and even M. was soon out of sight up the hill, but my legs wouldn’t get me up any faster.

The valley fell around us like a set of green curtains. Trees, and trunks of former trees scattered the hillside. We could see for practically forever, and everything was a brilliant, emerald green. Little wispy clouds floated by, hinting at fog to come. Towards the top, an abandoned hut stood forlornly amid several wooden crosses; I didn’t dare ask what had happened here, but César did tell me the crosses were grave markers. There were several along the path. At the point I wanted to send the others off, so they wouldn’t have to constantly wait for me, they pointed to the crest of our hill—which I was sure was just the next of several ridges—saying “that’s the top”.

And the top it was. Unfortunately, for all we saw at that point, it could have been a statue of the Virgin Mary set in or on a cloud; the mist, by now, had rolled in and completely obscured the view. We sat on the top, and we could have been sitting on the edge of the world. Beyond us was nothing; the ground fell sharply away below us, but even after five meters the view became a milky white. Nothing. But as we sat, munched our rolls, drank our water and caught our breath, for a few seconds at a time the mist cleared and we were granted glimpses of the incredible valley so very far below.

Our descent, predictably, took almost no time, and soon we were back at the pousada, consuming our breakfast—coffee and rolls had been left for us—as an old woman with a betel-mouth wandered in and out, tested the sewing machines and grinned furiously every time I looked at her. A betel-mouth looks as if she had recently bitten a live animal or moonlighted as a guest star in a vampire movie—it’s all a bit disconcerting to be viewing over breakfast. We tried to find someone to pay for the rooms, eventually driving down to their house and finding the same old woman. M. paid her for the room but, as we discovered most of the 18 kilometers later, as she forgot to ask for the keys and he forgot to give them, we had taken the keys with us.

Sometime past one of the last groups of houses, we were suddenly surrounded by a mob of kids yelling “photo! Photo! Photo!” Not really wanting to stop and not sure what they wanted we continued. But the mob didn’t give up, and soon we had an entire flock of children running after our car, shouting and screaming. Several of them made it at least a kilometer or two, which of course gives you some indication of how fast we were going that they could even keep up. Here and there we passed villagers transporting various goods with ponies; the ponies, for their part, were not particularly excited about the passing car but we managed not to set off any major wrecks or scare off anyone’s pony. After the eighteen kilometers of rocks and potholes, the main road—with its crazy traffic, trucks, mikrolets, potholes and missing bits—seemed like an Autobahn in comparison and we set off happily.

Sometime after Maubisse I took over the wheel, and of course, promptly the sky fell in and we found ourselves inching through a deluge. The road is narrow and set very closely to the hillside, and there is nothing that one might confuse with a ditch, a culvert, or any other means of dealing with rain; the result of this, of course, was a waterfall streaming onto the road at every corner. The potholes became small lakes, which one could never tell if they were potholes or puddles. Rocks and shrubbery were washed into the road, and as we continued, we had the impression that more of the corners and edges of the street had crumbled since we passed the first time. Even stopping the car and waiting for the deluge to pass didn’t seem to help, so we continued. As a highlight, however, were the stretches where the road was completely missing, to be replaced by muddy troughs where the wheels had passed, which by this time had filled with water. Ready, set, go! M. hit the accelerator and we went skidding through the mud, splashing up water on over the roof and generally enjoying ourselves immensely. Mit Gewalt geht’s. Finally, finally, after what seemed an eternal number of hairpin turns, we made it back to Dili as the rain cleared.

Tales of Timor-Leste - Part 1

2010-03-03T16:42:00.001+08:00

Part 1 - Touchdown in Dili

We arrived in Dili on the morning flight from Singapore, looking curiously at our fellow passangers—many of whom turned out to be Cuban doctors—and endlessly curious at what this country would bring. We waited for our visas, looking with wide eyes at the UN police, somehow excited that they came from different countries yet were somehow here; and everyone on the plane, it seemed, had something to do here. Only a few of them looked like they could be holidaymakers or tourists. We chatted about skiing in Switzerland with the South African in line for the visa in front of us, but without asking what brought him here. Visas are available to pretty much anyone on arrival for US$30, and each person’s name, passport number, and other information is entered by hand into a large ledger book, whereupon the visa itself—a large stamp with blanks to be filled in by the actual immigration officer—is issued. We retrieved our bags and found Juvenal, “Juvy,” our host’s driver, and set off through Dili.

My first impressions of Dili is that it is unlike anything I’ve seen so far. The people selling fruits and vegetables on the side of the road were familiar, but the general state of things were more reminiscent of pictures I’d seen of African villages than of anything I’d seen so far in SE Asia. A few burned-out or destroyed buildings were to be seen, here and there, a marked contrast to the Palacio da Governo (or however it’s called)—still splendid, despite being a historic Portuguese colonial building in a country with a rough history—and the done-up waterfront promenade, full of people out for walks and cuddling couples. A giant zig zag of one-way streets, though I was soon lost on the many corners and turns we had taken from the airport, the city is actually quite small and not too difficult to navigate. One stretch of road seemed to be a giant open-air market, congested with taxis and motorbikes and everyone on the streets, hauling around produce and hawking water and gasoline.

Our host lives on the south side of town, in buildings set amid leafy gardens—a mini jungle—and featuring a large terrace with large bamboo furniture. We’re shown our little bamboo-hut, a simple two-room affair offering all the comforts we need and a mosquito net to boot; the (bucket) bath is just around the corner. We’re given the keys to a little blue SUV with which we immediately and enthusiastically fell in love, and we set off, armed with the map in the Lonely Planet, to tour around Dili. The one-way streets are confusing, driving on the left is confusing, and watching out for kids, pedestrians, carts, motorcycles, people who suddenly stop, change lanes or do much of anything suddenly and/or without signaling, and the traffic lights we almost never see complicates the driving a bit, but we each take a turn and are soon on our way, with only minor detours (and a complicated reverse movement). The good thing about driving, though, is if you do something relatively “crazy,” i.e. stop suddenly, decide you really wanted to turn and so skip across several lanes to do so, or reverse by backing into traffic and blocking both directions, traffic adjusts, you’re not honked at angrily or glared at by the police, because everyone is doing the same thing.

Another point of mention is the continued presence of the UN, who, it seems, spend all of their time and likely inordinate quantities of gasoline driving about the city. Every fifteen seconds you see another UN vehicle, most of them “Polis”. Sometimes it’s just the U or just the N (as the other letter has fallen off). Perhaps they get awards for how many times they can drive every street in Dili in one hour, but at least none of this all even looks halfway serious.

We park at the promenade, walking past the fruit and the fish markets, seeing groups of young Timorese in school uniforms just hanging out, sitting around and chatting; here, it’s mostly separated by gender, though one young pair is visible strolling along the sand and another young pair—as a grinning boy hinted—was hiding in the bushes. A lot of people were just hanging around, watching the football game or just sitting, and empty bottles and wrappers littered the low grass and weeds. A falling-down statue paid homage, I assume, to independence, but the words were faded and grass was beginning to sprout from between the pavestones. The heat was oppressive and we moved sluggishly, sweating profusely; athletic-looking types jogged up and down the promenade and performed painful-looking contortions.

We drove up to see Jesus, perched high on a hill on the East side of town, built by the Indonesians a symbolic 27 metres tall, to represent Timor-Leste as Indonesia’s 27th province. It’s a nice (read: sweaty) hike up there, but the views are stunning, and the white sandy beach on the back side looks promising, curving along the inside of the cove and shimmering promises of white sand and solitude. The mountains stretch up above, here a deep, vibrant green, almost glowing. Sitting up on a hilltop and looking out to sea is like watching the stars – it gives a prescient sense of one’s own insignificance.

Juvy picked out our dinner, a massive Tuna fish the length of his arm and surely destined to feed another ten or fifteen people, plus chicken and chips and rice and vegetables – yet somehow, despite massive quantities of food we did them justice. The restaurant was directly on the water, graced by a gentle breeze as we perched on moveable furniture. Dili seems to be a very small world, so it was almost unsurprising to run into people our host knew, and only slightly more surprising to run into one of the few people with whom I’d made contact. It’s a city of 300,000, of which only a portion (though a noticeable one) are foreigners, so it’s not surprising that everyone knows everyone.

Our first full day out on our own sent us on a few errands before we headed out for the beautiful coastal road towards Liquiçia (pronounced, I think, LI-ki-sah). The road is a narrow two lanes, barely wide enough for dual directional traffic, and crumbling a bit at the edges like a bit of toast. Leaving town it winds its way along at the base of the hills, passing properties owned by oil companies and something which looks like a factory or manufacturing area, sprouting ugly steel out of the flat ground like metal insects; heavy trucks carry the product on down the road. But shortly thereafter the scenery gives way to little thatched bamboo huts sprinkled among the grassy shores, more or less with the look that most tropical beach resorts try—and fail—to imitate. We see little houses or structures rising out of mounds of earth, like meter-tall anthills sprouting a wooden and thatched canopy. Are these houses? My guess is some kind of underground storage, but perched not much above the water table, that doesn’t seem likely. After a straight stretch, misleadingly enticing us to believe we could go faster—this when we still believed the challenge of the road was its curves, and before we learned better—we were surprised to see the cars in front of us at a standstill; they’d stopped to negotiate a particularly tricky pothole.

Pothole. If the name originated because the holes were the size of pots, the Timorese variety needs to be called bathtubholes. Sometimes there was even more hole than road, and sometimes even then there wasn’t even enough shoulder to avoid the damage and we had to ease the car in and hope nothing on our undercarriage got stuck. It’s not that you have to slow down for rough patches, you have to come to a full stop and inch your way across. An added obstacle to driving is relatively small, usually black, brown, grey, or mottled colored, and tends to wander over the pavement, sometimes halting in the middle, with an apparent supreme indifference to death on four wheels bearing down on it: goats on the road.

We reached Liquiçia, deciding to go on to Maubere, porque no? As we trundled on our merry way, a bit of tantalizing beach caught our attention, and we determined that it was absolutely necessary we test out said beach for general swimability and because we were sweating, almost literally, buckets. Of course, as any little girl who plays soccer knows, changing in public without being arrested for indecent exposure is not problematic but looks ridiculous, so by the time we had each made it into our swimsuits we had attracted a noticeable crowd. And upon discovering that (a) a dip was sufficient and (b) the current was strong such that we left it at that and changed back into our civvies, the entire shade shelter near our car was filled with two dozen grinning faces watching our every move.

On the road again. We made it to Maubere, we made it past Maubere, and eventually turned around to have a gander at the Portuguese fort on our way back to Liquiçia, where we stoped for Nasi and veggies, and coffee. Squinting in to the sun and already sweating profusely, we wanted to have a look in, and take pictures of, the town of Liquiçia. Eleven years ago, in April1999, when over two thousand internally displaced were taking shelter in the church in Liquicia, members of various armed militia, with either overt or tacit cooperation with Indonesian military and police, attacked the church.

“They started to shoot everyone. Men whom they found outside the Parish house were hacked down. The militia members were accompanied by Kodim troops and the Brimob elements. They entered the residence of the church and they started to kill people with machetes and shoot people in the house. At the time there were still women, children and men in the complex. They started to kill the men ﬁrst because they were closer to the door. The men had pushed the women and children to the back.”

Brimob troops assisted in the attack by throwing tear gas into the parish house, forcing the refugees to come out. As they ran from the church, they were hacked with machetes and knives, or shot. Pastor Rafael’s account continues:

“I saw the Brimob members break the parish house window and throw tear gas repeatedly into the Parish house until those who were sheltering inside ran out because they could not stand their eyes hurting. As the community ran out of the Parish house the Militia started to kill the men, but they did not kill the women and children. The children and women were allowed to leave the complex, whereas the men were hacked down.”

From the Robinson report, p.194, from the deposition of Pastor Rafael dos Santos.

The exact number of casualties is not known, as the bodies were taken away and dumped or buried in unknown locations, but many sources place the figure at between 30 and 60. Everywhere I go I hear ghosts. I didn’t ever know these peoples, but I have read many of their stories and the feeling of walking on hallowed ground stays with me as I walk the dusty streets. The place has a desolate, almost abandoned air; it doesn’t seem like anyone actually lives here, and there is barely a soul to be seen near and far. A row of buildings forlornly stretches up the hill, but we head instead towards the broken-down football pitch and what might once have been a playground for children. There are no children, and cows graze on it now. We take pictures of some baby goats in the gutter next to the street, and a few of the almost deserted-looking place. A few old villas hint at better times long gone, a few rolls of barbed wire here and there hint at darker times not too distant, but none of it holds many hints as to what the future might hold.

Java tales - Jogja part II

2010-01-26T18:31:00.006+08:00

Vignettes

We were seated on little plastic stools, huddled around the uneven light thrown by a propane lantern. I can’t even see what I’m eating, and except for my friend’s prudent admonition to watch out for the chilis, it doesn’t much matter exactly which morsel I choose. The dish is Gudeg, jackfruit cooked with plum sugar and chili, accompanied by the perpetual tempeh, tofu, rice, and unidentifiable vegetables. This is the only place that serves gudeg hot and spicy, I’m told, and it’s only open after midnight, which is why we are here on our little hockers, and it’s delicious.

We’re sitting at a little table in the corner, the three of us, my host, her friend and I. The place is called Boshe, and it’s a nightclub somewhere, for which we have donned the obligatory heels and mascara. We ordered a pitcher of beer and had a good view of the band. They were pretty good and pretty active, managing coordinated dances in heels to go with their covers of various pop hits, but still not too many people were dancing. Then the DJ started in, and I kind of expected it to fade into a typical club evening, standard hits, same kind of scene as everywhere else. But no, this club, in addition to its hyperactive band also had three ladies I think aspiring to be exotic dancers. The three were dressed in leggings, heels, and I guess you could call it a bustier. Basically, the women were each wearing a pair of metal cones. I’m pretty sure the left boob got good reception of Al Jazeera and the right one of CNN. Anyways, the girls were trying hard but came off as more frenetic than sensual, one of them so enthusiastic I thought she was getting extra points for flinging her extremities and assets twice as fast as the beat. They danced a number or two, went for a costume change, and came back in stockings and dessous. Hi-la-ri-ous: their counterpart, dancing away in the crowed, was another conversation piece altogether. Dressed head to toe in black, dangling chains and wearing a massive mask/facepiece ending in a pair of giant horns, balanced on half-meter stilts, it was if a bizarre alien were dancing in the back of the room, jerkily. Reminded me of the scene in Star Wars (the new version, I think) where they’re all in some bar with all the aliens…

“Excuse-me-can-I-please-take-a-photo-with-you?” the little girl asked, reading shyly from a piece of paper. We’re at Borobudur, the largest Buddhist temple (in the world, says Wikipedia), and it seems like everyone, their grandmother, and their pet goldfish wants a picture of me. Yes, it’s because I’m so beautiful and charming that they think I’m a runaway supermodel. Just kidding. I seem to be pretty much the only white person here, and I’m pretty sure that’s my only qualification, but I’m getting school kids, families, women, men, pretty much anyone asking for a picture. I’m not sure why they want me on their vacation pictures, but if they bother to make the effort to ask, it’s all the same to me….

Once again I am clinging to the back of a motorbike, but this time, instead of a busy highway, we are heading up a steep incline on what in the West would be a one-lane road, but here serves dual-directional traffic. The poor bike labours up the hill, and understandably so. The grade is impressive, and even more so the small file of people bent over almost horizontally from the load they were carrying; they looked like pandan leaves but could have been anything. We pass terraced hillsides and small villages, we work our way through herds of schoolchildren and chickens, and after a twisty, muddy path, we arrive at our destination. It’s secluded in an alcove, protected by cliffs on both sides, buffeted by huge and crashing waves which slowly undercut the rock, leaving almost caves in the hillside. We explore the beach, venturing along the coast and scrambling over, under and through the sharp rocks. It’s a mixture of bouldering, caving, and wading through the water and the waves which soak us to the waist despite our best efforts. We work our way back, finding a perch from which to contemplate eternity. Another “beach” is merely the side of the cliff into which a staircase is cut, providing another excellent view both of the bay and of the hindu shrine cut into the hillside. The last beach is filled with fishing boats, narrow, outrigger boats which were responsible for our lunch, prepared for us as we sat on the beach and watched the little white crabs scuttle to and fro.

It turns out several of the beaches near Jogja have black sand, beautiful black sand stretching in both directions and pretty much covered by holidaymakers. There are horse-drawn buggies tearing up and down the surf, kids playing in the mud, families on mats provided by enterprising individuals selling roast corn, cold drinks, food, or flipflops, and no one seems daunted by the incipient rain. It’s growing dark off the coast, as we walk along the water, contemplating the almost pressing atmosphere and trying somehow to capture the mood on camera. And at some point we notice, like two fingers of a hand, little funnel clouds stretching downwards towards the water; still on the edge of the storm, they disappear, and we head back towards where our car is parked in case the storm moves in. We’re seated on one of these mats, enjoying our roast corn – after I thought I couldn’t eat any more following our fabulous dinner of barbecued fish fresh from the boat which we had enjoyed at the last beach – when we see the larger finger funneling towards the water. We can see the clouds rotating, see where the waterspout is beginning to form at the bottom and we are transfixed, trying our hardest to capture it on camera. As the little twister dissipates the storm rolls in, and the beach clears as if by magic, little mats are rolled up, trolley and horse carts pushed away, kids gathered and shooed towards the car.

Photo by Debby, who is much better at taking twister pictures than I am

On the way back we stop at a Javanese church, different, apparently, than other churches in Indonesia, itself a predominantly Muslim country. The nave itself is an open-air pagoda with a wide and relatively flat roof sheltering the pews and the altar; there is no one there when we approach. We proceed towards the back, where the sound of gongs, xylophones, and other instruments mingle with the chorus of voices singing songs of which I recognize neither the words nor the melodies; even the tonalities are foreign and eerie to me. The musicians and chorus are to one side, and between their shelter and the church there is a small, elevated stone temple, in front of which several people sit in rows. One by one they cross themselves, climb the stairs, kneel, pray, and retreat again from a statue bearing the face of Jesus and the body of a Buddha, perhaps a feature of the unique flavor of religions in these parts, a delicate mélange of various traditions and practices under the umbrella of a particular faith. We watch in silence, we attempt to photograph, and we ourselves retreat.

Photo also from Debby.

Solo, Sultans, and siomay - Jogja part I

2010-01-26T16:04:00.009+08:00

I have to admit it, I always feel some trepidation when traveling to a new place, and even more so on my own. I have very rarely had extremely stressful or problematic travel experiences, but somehow, just having someone else around seems to lighten my mental load considerably, as we together figure out just how one gets to where we’re going. I also know that any place I have been before, pretty much without exception, is a place I would be perfectly happy going to alone; therefore, the issue isn’t being alone, it’s the unfamiliarity, for which there is an easy remedy: go.

In Java, unless it’s soup, you eat it with your hands. Or rather your hand, your right one, which you wash first in a bowl of water before picking apart your fish, mixing it with the spicy chili sambal and rice, and somehow managing to get a portion into your mouth without dropping it in your lap. I’d learned the art of one-handed sticky-rice-eating in Thailand, involving a hard ball of rice and just your thumb to pick up additional pieces, but here the rice isn’t sticky, and you need your whole hand. I suppose they could have found cutlery for me, but that would have ruined half the fun. I’m already the gringa/farang/ang mo/foreigner there, but I’m not about to be the only one using silverware.

So I went. I made it through immigration, delighted at an option of a 7-day visa for my one-week stay in Indonesia, which fit perfectly with the US$10 I had changed before I left Singapore (I had, of course, forgotten to bring along any of my US currency this time around). Except I realize upon receiving my visa that it’s valid for 7 days (duh), but that my stay, leaving one Tuesday and returning the next Tuesday, comprised 8 days, making me overstay one day. But I decided to deal with that later, and instead made my way into town, by means of a comfortable, fixed-price taxi. Maybe Egypt scarred me a little bit, but I have a residual reluctance to deal with taxi drivers in foreign countries, as tourists are favorite victims of taxi scams, and you are, in the end, in their car – something which itself can be dangerous in some places. But not in Yogya, and not in bright daylight, and we managed to find my host’s house without incident, where I was firmly and heartily welcomed.

N. and her family live in a typical Javanese house on the west side of town; a house of tiled floors and three bedrooms that I could see, a shared bathroom, a living room (the home of the pet turtle swimming aimlessly in the fishbowl), and a giant kitchen; N.’s mum baked cookies and biscuits as her business. N. generously gave up her room to me and the other Couchsurfer who would be coming the following day, and because she had some work to finish that afternoon, I was dropped off at Malioboro street to meet a friend of a friend from Singapore, and her friend, and it turns out that N. and one of the girls had met before and both had mutual friends. They swept me off to a late lunch of barbecueued fish (a whole fish, just for me, skin crystallized to crispy perfection, with sambal, costing a whole $2.30 including our three lemonades), and after a variety of stops including a grocery store for water and sunscreen, picking up L.’s laundry and waiting for V. at A.’s place, one of the many boarding houses arranged for students from outside Yogya, separated by gender, where L. had been staying, L. left for the train and V. took me off to a friend’s place, where there was to be a dinner.

We rode off into the proverbial sunset on V.’s motorbike, and I realized how much I liked the feel of the wind in my hair and the exhilarating bustle of traffic, which is a pulsing tangle of motorbikes, lorries, bicycles, pushcarts, pedal carts, horse carriages, and pretty much any thing else mobile or with wheels; lanes are taken as guidelines at best, and the most efficient strategy to turn left/right/around is basically to force your way slowly into traffic—blocking both lanes if need be—until the others are forced to let you through; motorbikes happily whiz by on either side and in between. I quickly discovered my favorite part of Yogya to drive through: on both sides of one of the rivers/canals, stone houses were set up and down the steep hillside, as if in a medieval European village. I hear it won prizes as an architechtural answer to what would otherwise be a slum, but I neither took pictures of it nor did I find out exactly what it was called. My googling suggests it might be called Kampung Kali Chode.

So, the dinner. We spent a lot of time going in circles in the rain, finding a whole bunch of people, none of whom had ever heard of the street were looking for, and a bunch of gas stations which didn’t sell beer, and after getting completely soaked and particularly lost, we had to call in for rescue, where we were greeted with warm clothes and the smell of cooking food. Now, I’ve maybe met three Hungarians ever outside of Hungary, but here I show up at this party and all of the sudden there are three of them, in Yogya! Added to the mix were three Malagasy/French (I don’t think I had ever even met a Malagasy before, and again, here were three!), and of course a compliment of Indonesians. The boys were busy on the balcony, cooking up tempeh, roast eggplant, chicken, and some kind of dish with green bits; those of us inside were responsible for the musical entertainment, consisting of a singalong to acoustic and electric guitars accompanied by drums. Cognizant that I am staying at someone’s house, though, we beat our retreat before midnight, and I fell asleep to the sound of the lizards on the wall.

We hear the blaring of horns behind us, and we have barely enough time to look behind and/or swerve to the side, as far as possible, before the bus swoops by in a gust of wind and splatter of mud.

After a hearty breakfast of Indonesian porridge – it tasted vaguely of coconut and pumpkin, seemed to be kind of a thick semolina or flour pudding kind of thing, with some indiscernible red gelatinous fruits on top. I have no idea what it was, but it was delicious – we headed off on our first expedition, N. and I. We went to Solo, which, at about 60 km from Yogya, is about an hour and a half on a motorbike. And the stretch, as I read later, is one of the more dangerous roads in Java. It’s a busy thoroughfare, two lanes each direction, of which the “slow” lane is mostly inhabited by the motorbikes, and the “fast” lane by lorries and busses, who, horns screaming, bear down on the traffic in front of them and send everyone scattering to the side. We were almost run off the road at one point, and on this stretch, there isn’t a lot of shoulder. But we made it alive, sore butts and all, to Solo, a smaller, quieter version of Yogya, hosting not one, but two Sultan’s palaces which are still inhabited by the current King and family, although these no longer hold political power—compared to Yogya, which is still actively ruled by its Sultanate. We toured the palaces and finished with a yummy lunch of… something… consisting of tofu cubes, egg, noodles, cabbage, tempeh (?), and a sweetish sauce to the blare of Indonesian comedy shows on TV before hitting the road back. Of course, the road back was just as much fun as the road there, except soggy and rainy.

Water palace

That evening, my “roommate” arrived, named after a French Impressionist painter and herself with impressive tattoos, coming from a month in Bali and moving on soon to Jakarta, Singapore, and elsewhere. She spent the next day on her own, heading for the silver markets and the shopping street, and we made our way into Yogya proper for some sightseeing – this time Yogya’s Sultan’s palace, the water palace, and the underground mosque. The underground mosque was, for me, the highlight of the “sightseeing” places we visited – it was just so cool and mysterious, it felt like a mix of Indiana Jones (where he’s in the temple in Petra, kind of) and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Pity some of the building was damaged by the earthquake. It’s a popular spot for wedding photographs, and understandably so.

The underground mosque

Lunch was something called Siomay, fish dumplings, eggs, cabbage, and other things of choice served with spicy peanut sauce and a mango smoothee. And due to my inevitable fatigue and concurrent addiction to coffee, we set off for what has to be the coolest café ever. It’s not much more than a set of benches and little street food stalls on the side of a bridge overlooking the train station, but it served the most unique coffee I’ve ever had – coffee with a piece of charcoal served in it. The charcoal, I’m told, does something special to the caffeine and the taste, but is mostly something to avoid while drinking, as those things are pretty bleeding hot. That evening, N. took us to her “hang out spot”, somewhere far away on the other side of town, consisting of a bunch of low tables under little shelters by a river, where one can order coffee, food, and smoke shisha; I had my coffee and my fried bananas with chocolate.

The Siomay place

Friday morning I found myself on a bus to Prambanan, the large Hindu temple(s) outside of town with J., an Indonesian from East Kalimantan studying in Malacca, Malaysia, on holiday in Yogya. We felt that it was obligatory to go to the temples, and so we went, I with my little broken camera and his giant one. The place had about a fifth of the tourists of Angkor Wat, mostly Indonesian tourists, though from our vantage point of one of the minor temples, we were able to observe, with barely restrained hilarity, a group of Japanese tourists who appeared to be wearing more or less anything they could find on their heads to shield them from the sun; the women looked colorful and extravagant with their shawls, but the clear winner was the gentleman in shorts, sandals with socks, and a t-shirt wearing a scarf across most of his face and wrapped around his head. He looked like Lawrence of Arabia meets Tom Cruise from Risky Business. We also managed to spend a good half hour amusing ourselves, J. and I, closely followed by our laughing audience, by trying to take the perfect jumping picture in front of Prambanan. This is not as easy as it looks if you’re doing it on a timer and not a multiple-shot exposure, so each time we ran over to the same spot, tried to time the jump precisely, ran back to look at it, and started over again.

The tourists

There is some kind of traditional game in Yogya, often for the tourists but also for locals, which involves being blindfolded and trying to walk between two trees about ten metres (30 feet) apart; it is said if you make it, you get your wish. Sounds easy? Somehow walking in a straight line through a gap is harder than it sounds. Legend has it that there’s something about the trees that ‘deflects’ these attempts to cross through, and in my two tries and J.’s one neither of us made it.

Coffee with charcoal

la cucaracha

2009-12-26T14:45:00.000+08:00

Maybe I’m not cut out for the tropics. The thought has occurred to me, continues to occur to me every time I’m in my kitchen. It’s hard to have all fronts covered at once; standing at the sink is a poor choice, near, as it is, to their evil lair, and I expect at any point an attack from below. I don’t want to sit at the table to eat, I know they’re also in the living room – seeing as how I have found several dead ones under the couches – and so I eat my salad from the mixing bowl, shoveling it hastily into my mouth while rotating steadily, aware I’m unprotected and preparing for the assault. The sink is where things need to get done – washed, prepared, filled – and is therefore unavoidable, and still I continue to cast a nervous eye on the hole from which they will, sooner or later, emerge. This morning, of course, I’m making tea and buttering my bread or whatnot glancing, as I always do, repeatedly towards the corner, not actually one, but two (two!) live ones crawling over the pandan leaves (which someone told me keeps them away as they ostensibly hate the stuff – lies! All lies!) and onto my otherwise spotless floor. All I can do is hastily grab the bug spray as my only defense, knowing they otherwise have no compunctions in coming for my foot, and wondering how much I will either inhale or accidentally spray on my food. I aim and fire, and it scuttles away towards the corner from whence it came, and I can only grab my tea and beat a hasty retreat. I can’t kill the fuckers, I just can’t step on them – not for lack of wanting them dead – but I just can’t squish anything that large. I’m still grossed out by – but am getting better at nevertheless removing – the dead ones, but the live ones I just can’t do. I’m terrified of my kitchen, I won’t hang out in the living room, and I am tired of (frequently) scraping dead and half-eaten cockroaches from the floor. Again. FML.

For example.

2009-11-22T21:31:00.001+08:00

There’s a hole In the internet. In case you’re worried, it is a rather small hole in a specific location, and you are unlikely to be affected; specifically, it is located on the 10th floor of our building and most likely limited to my apartment, reappearing in fluctuations of about 10 minute intervals. I am trying to distract myself from studying, you see, and the internet’s capriciousness causes me to direct my attention elsewhere.

People ask why I don’t write much. Here, or in email. Since I don’t actually do much of anything interesting these few days (I have spent much of the last two weekends and all of the intervening days in the university, “studying” for exams or at least trying hard to pretend). But good stories come from anywhere and everywhere, so I will do my best to sift out the good bits from the last few weeks.

For example. Being at the university a lot can have unfortunate side effects. Besides making you all pale and pasty looking from lack of sunlight, it can lead to a sense of disjointedness and, in fact, utter confusion as to whether one is actually at home or at school. Hence it is not uncommon to make your way into the study room early on a bright and sunny morn to see a pair of socks sticking out from under a table. Either someone is dead or sleeping, and you almost hope for the former because at least that way you can turn on the lights and create a ruckus. Alas, the misfortunate individual blinks up at you groggily, pushing aside the beach towel and the extra shirts. I almost expect to see “will work for food” scrawled on a sign next to them; no luck, it’s a packet of readings. I’d almost think it was a homeless shelter except for the fact that you need a key card to get in. Some people spend several nights in a row there. In most cases, the point isn’t to sleep at the university, the point is to not sleep at the university because you’ve got something to get done and 12 hours to do it in. Start research at 8 pm, start writing by 4 AM, turn in by noon. It is, in fact, possible. Some of the repeat offenders claim they “do not have time to go home”; yet it is often these individuals one finds sleeping at every opportunity. It’s like a narcoleptic convention: every room is filled with open mouths or heads down on the desks, or there’s someone under the tables just waiting to be stepped on.

For example. I saw a lady the other night at the bus station walking her cat. There she was, heading to the bus, clucking at the gray kitty with the crooked tail (why do they all have crooked tails?). And then I realized she wasn’t walking the cat, she was being pursued by it, and the lady was showing obvious signs of discomfort at the fact that the tabby was relentlessly pursuing it. I tried to shoo the cat away for the poor woman’s sake but the cat was not to be dissuaded, nor was it to be persuaded to play with my headphones instead of following the poor woman. Alas. She tried to climb up on to the metal fence to escape the kitty. The cat eventually wandered off to go bug some other people, to her visible relief.

For example. Three things I think should be shared with the world at large, and in particular the miniscule portion of who might stumble across this:

Verve photo - These are some amazing pictures by some amazing photojournalists. This is the epitome, the epitome, I tell you, of the phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words.”

Beyond Boba Fett - This is another example of “a picture is worth a thousand words,” except it’s a lot more hilarious to imagine whaat the “thousand words” for each of these guys would be. Relatedly, the Daily Mail (ever admired for its journalistic integrity, but in this case spot on) describes the site in its article “A Stormtrooper’s Day Off”

I saw the movie Once last night (I know, about three years behind everyone else). But it is FaNtAsTiC. It’s a story of two musicians in Dublin, one a vacuum repairman and the other a young mother from the Czech Republic, who find each other and their music. It’s not (really) a sappy love story, but I’m not sure what it is. But, but, but, but, the music is haunting, menoncholy, and stunningly beautiful. I would post a link but it likely won’t work in your country. Search for “When Your Mind’s Made Up” and “ONCE” on Youtube, you’ll find it. And you won’t regret it.

For example. I went to a Swiss Barbecue last night, brought along by a friend. So many white people! Swiss people, doing Swiss things, speaking Swiss to kids who also only speak Swiss, acting all Swissy and having all kinds of a good time. My search for a Gabel almost failed miserably because I had happened upon the (seemingly) sole non-German (or non-Swiss, to be fair)-speaker at the whole thing. You would think, to be safe, that I would have been more successful in English, but she wasn’t familiar with ‘fork’ either so we eventually settled on ‘fourchette’. Just give me my plastic silverware goddamit I want to eat my salad of imported Feta and olives. Actually, the point I was trying to make, besides the fact that I felt mildly affronted at the appropriation of an American tradition (hamburger grilling) at a “swiss” BBQ (as if we had invented BBQs to start with, and as if we as Americans weren’t busy anyways happily appropriating others’ cuisine and re-naming it to suit our factually incorrect and altogether inappropriate bigoted nationalism, à la Freedom Fries) (and I was also just kidding at being affronted), was that I found (a) the multitude of white people, (b) the age/life gap (most were families with kids living in family houses and doing family things, altogether too bourgeoisie for my shoestring, transient student self) startling. Nevertheless, I think it’s funny that this aspect of Swiss life (here I only assume it’s Swiss life; but it closely resembles various aspects of German life and Western life in General, reminiscent as it was of American 4th of July celebrations) has replicated itself here, in “such” a different place. It was familiar and strange all at once. But the veggie burgers were good, and I dug into the salad as a starving person would.

For example. I’m moving out (again) next weekend. Since I don’t own much, moving must be easy, you think. You would think, wouldn’t you? Alas, a plethora of small and almost unidentifiable objects have crept into my possession, such that I suddenly seem to own 50% more than when I came here, without having bought much in the way of “useless crap”. Seeing how I move to another country or continent every few months, I just don’t BUY that kind of stuff – so where does it come from?? I have a penchant for adopting lost books and buying small souveniers (particularly earrings). But that still won’t explain all this stuff – I am eternally convinced I have nothing to wear, having worn the same stuff day in, day out for the last four months, but at the same time I have all kinds of things that will take up all kinds of space. I personally think my belongings procreate in the dark.

Templing in Cambodia - part I

2009-10-29T12:43:00.006+08:00

“May I ask you a question?” my roommate asked, as I stared at him bleary-eyed and uncomprehending. I’m still on autopilot, desperately trying to function while waiting for my brain to boot up. I grunt something affirmative. He strides to the fridge, yanking open the freezer door to reveal something fabric-y and blue in the back left corner. “Whose coat is that?” I look sheepish. “…and the better question, WHY is it in the freezer??”

Um, yeah. So about that……

I’m hunched unhappily in the corner, as once again I have failed to grasp that I need winter clothing in Asia to counter the frigging air conditioning. I feel like a small, disgruntled animal huddled on my half of the bench, “sleeping”, if that’s what you call being horizontal at 3 AM with your eyes closed. But since I’m shivering there is no sleep, so instead I am lying there and thinking happy thoughts of coffee and mattresses. The bench pokes me in the side, in the back, wherever, so I give up and move to the floor. I’m wearing everything I’ve got, more or less, using my sarong as a blanket and my raincoat as a jacket. As it is not currently raining in the airport, my poor jacket is not particularly effective.

Departure lounges—i.e. couches—are only available to those lucky souls with boarding cards, which we do not have, and so we are forced to spend the happy hours from 2 until 4 AM cold in the corner. “White nights” are always terrible, as the lack of intervening sleep means that it’s all just one super duper unending long day.

Cambodian immigraion is thorough. Arrival card, departure card, health form, customs form, visa application. I know my passport number now by heart, scribble it everywhere, claim not to have foreign currency or swine flu and queue up for the apparently extensive visa process. They employ about fifteen people: one to take the passport, one to open it, one to look at it, one to look at the forms, one to compare the forms to the passport, one to take your money, one to stamp the form, one to stamp the passport, one to stick in the visa, one to stamp it, one to hand it back. Yay for countries with low wages. Somehow we manage to be pretty much the very last people in line at immigration and thus the last people out, where we are greeted by a mob of drivers looking hopeful and holding signs with various names. We are neither Ms Melissa nor Ms Bzewski or whatever else was there, but we did manage to locate the youngish fellow with my friend’s name on his sign. Somewhere since exiting the plane (directly on the tarmac) the sky has fallen in, and a few fat drops turn into an apocalyptic downpour: the world, in fact, might actually be ending if this storm is any judge. The parking lot has turned into a lake and the rain seems to be falling sideways in sheets. Our driver dashes across the parking lot, already completely soaked. We expect him to come back with a car, but to our dismay we see him leaping about in a plastic poncho, trying to secure the side panels on and dry out the inside of his poor tuk tuk.

The ride has to have been one of the more miserable ones we’ve undergone – though considerably more comfortable for us than for our driver. Despite the plastic panels we were still steadily getting soaked. Strong winds buffeted the little trailer. I wondered if we would end up in a ditch some point, and the massive (and very close) lightning made me wonder if a tuk tuk would function as a faraday cage the same way a car does. I grew up in an area with lots of and quite dangerous lightning, and we learned how to tell how far away the lightning is by counting the number of seconds between the flash and the boom. As the speed of sound lags the speed of light, you can calculate that every three seconds is about a kilometer away, and every five seconds a mile. Considering that lightning can easily strike anywhere in a 2-mile (3.2 km) radius, anything less than 10 seconds is both close and dangerous lightning. This was what we like to call 1-second-lightning.

Nevertheless, we made it alive to our guesthouse, a comfortable and well-appointed little place between downtown and Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, serving hot breakfast (mmmm, omlette, yummmm), halfway drinkable coffee, and banana milkshakes. Still recovering from our drive and our night at the airport—I for my part guzzling coffee—we could happily have stayed half the morning there had our airport pickup driver not approached us and suggested we make our way to the temples. Visiting the temples requires some means of transportation: you rent a bike, or most likely, a tuk tuk and driver for the day, who will take you from place to place. Our driver proposed a 3-day tour and a fair price, so we set off.

Liberally quoted from Wikipedia:

The temples of the Angkor area number over one thousand, ranging in scale from nondescript piles of brick rubble scattered through rice fields to the magnificent Angkor Wat, said to be the world's largest single religious monument. Many of the temples at Angkor have been restored, and together they comprise the most significant site of Khmer architecture and have been designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. Visitor numbers approach two million annually.

Angkor wat itself was built for the king Suryavarman II in the early 12th century as his state temple and capital city. As the best-preserved temple at the site, it is the only one to have remained a significant religious centre since its foundation—first Hindu, dedicated to Vishnu, then Buddhist. The temple is the epitome of the high classical style of Khmer architecture. Another famous temple is the temple of Bayon, whose distinctive feature is “the multitude of serene and massive stone faces on the many towers which jut out from the upper terrace and cluster around its central peak. The temple is known also for two impressive sets of bas-reliefs, which present an unusual combination of mythological, historical, and mundane scenes.

Interested parties can follow the history of the period, but the main point is that Angkor was the capital for several centuries, excepting about a hundred years at one point, and that the era spans periods of alternate Hindu and Buddhist dominance. Some temples belong to one faith, others to the other, and some have been converted. Some temples are mountain-temple style, with concentric stacked levels leading to an upper area with multiple shrines; others are more laterally constructed; others are a combination. Based on the style of the columns, the lintels, and the decoration, the temples can be dated to various reigns. Some temples are constructed of brick, others of sandstone, others of limestone.

We started off with the littler temples, which offered the opportunity of clambering about more or less solitary, with perhaps one or two other sweating and red faces visible. The first temple-mount we visited offered supreme views of the bucolic countryside: many people live and work inside the park, raising cattle, cultivating rice, and operating the massive syndicates supplying tourist goods to the little children who hawk them at any opportunity.

In fact, the recurrant theme of our visit was the following: we arrive at any temple in our tuk tuk. Our driver explains which temple it is and where he will wait; meanwhile, an entire pack of women and small children have descended upon us. “Hey lady! You want cold drink? You want scarves? I have lots of colors? Hey lady! Ladyyyyyyyyy! Buy from meeeeeeeeeee!” Tiny children proffer postcards and reed-bracelets, respectively 10 for 1 USD, and they dog our heels like a pack of hungry Chihuahuas. We ignore them and proceed, but they persist: “when you come back, you buy? If you buy, you buy from me!” We suspect this latter promise means something different to them than to us; as we are not buying, it is easy to promise that if we were to buy, we would do so from them. I also met one little girl who could rattle off the same spiel in alternating French and English. Some of the kids will ask where we’re from. One of them, upon hearing I’m American, replied “CapitalWashingtonDCpopulationthreehundredandsixtymillion”. I wanted to test them: “What is the capital of Spain?” I ask, and immediately comes the response: “Madrid!” while another child chants in the background: “Valencia, Barcelona, Bilbao, Malaga, Sevilla….” Ok, let’s think. A hard one: “what is the capital of Latvia?” They seem stumped, then one: “ Riga!” The children don’t learn this in school, they learn it from the tourists. At least they go to school in the morning, even if they are out selling in the afternoon. As soon as you start to talk to them, they drop their schpiel and actually talk to you; still, perhaps I’m cynical, but I fear even this apparent openness is a tactic to win “friends”: all of the sudden, they switch back to “ladyyyyyy! Buy from meeeeeeee!” which followed us everywhere.

One of my favorite temples was a ruined “jungle temple”: a flat-built temple, mostly falling down, and trees growing out of portions of it. And best of all: no one else in sight. The temple itself was huge, with room after room after room, flanked by galleries reminiscent of roman architecture, and beautiful carvings. The temple at Bayon was also magnificent, but full of tourists. Our sunset view turned out to include several hundred other tourists, but was nevertheless beautiful.

Cambodia seems obviously poorer than Thailand, with an obvious lack of 40- and 50-year olds, a multitude of children, and a dearth of future opportunities. Our driver, a guy a little younger than I am, told us that even if you can pay the fees to go to university, there’s no work; sentiments echoed by another guy I met who was looking for work in Dubai or elsewhere in the Gulf. Anywhere where there’s work.

The night markets and old market proved a pleasant change from the aggressive hawkers at the temples; they would come to you only of you expressed obvious interest in their wares, rather than trying to drag you into their shop. They would bargain but with a smile, and if you remember how much you would pay for the same stuff in the US or Europe, you’ll come away satisfied. Cambodia runs a parallel economy: both dollars and real are accepted at more or less the same exchange rate; but the influx of tourists has created tourist prices and a tourist economy separate from that which the locals pay. An excellent curry with rice will cost about $4 in a white-linen restaurant but so will standard “fried noodles with vegetables” or “fried noodles with meat” at the ubiquitous restaurants in the park; the same meal would cost about a fifty cents if you could manage to eat it “on the street”. So where $4 is less than you pay at home, just knowing that they are gouging you sometimes takes away from your appetite. The price-value relationship, therefore, is entirely subjective.

Our last night in Siem Reap, we went to a massive, and I mean massive concert. Cambodia’s “Number 1 singer” was playing in an open-air extravaganza. We rolled in late, which meant that we spent at least half an hour “rolling” in wall-to-wall motorcycles inching forward. Trying to get a tuk tuk through that was an exercise in patience and creativity; traffic congestion was exacerbated by all the people who had despaired of ever getting further and who had parked more or less where they were. Still, we edged the tuk tuk up to where we could at least hear and kinda see the concert, so if worst came to worst we could stay there. We wanted to stay together as a group, so leaving S. with his bike and us girls forging off on our own was out of the question – how would we ever find him again? Still, he parked, and we edged our way into the foray. The place was decked out as if at an amusement park, complete with Ferris wheel and food stalls everywhere. The balloon toss game was apparently also popular, as stalls for that lined the roadway for several hundred yards. B. tried some kind of meat on a stick, and all of us had boiled eggs which had been injected with some kind of pepper sauce (quite excellent) and sugarcane juice, plus traditional merengue pastries similar to those I knew in Thailand, consisting of a thin crepe-like batter cooked into small pancakes, spread with sugared egg white and cooked till crispy. We also acquired a groupie, a little boy who was fascinated with us and insisted on having his picture taken with us. I think many Cambodians don’t understand the ‘point’ of taking pictures – I think they think it’s just to take a picture and then see yourself on the screen, rather than for us touries to keep and look at later.

More to come…. I hope….

On the road again - Thailand part 6

2009-10-13T23:57:00.001+08:00

On the road again

I thought I was sleeping, but even despite the pounding rain I could hear the collective gasp and feel the van tense as we braked suddenly, and swerved. A dog. The rain was coming down in sheets and I wondered how the driver could even see, much less brake for all of the curves he was taking at speed. I alternated between trying to sleep and not focus on my potentially imminent demise and staring nervously out the front windshield, but it was clear that there was nothing I could do at this point, and my fate was in the hands of what I hoped was a competent driver. Competent or no, the van a 15-passanger vehicule, the kind my parents didn't want me even riding in when I was younger because of their propensity to tip over, it had no seatbelts, it was 4 AM and pouring rain. At least the 4-AM part was to our advantage; traffic in Thailand is often more of an obstacle course than a path to a destinaiton, and the fact that we were not sharing the road with an armada of scooters and motorcycles contributed to our safety. Still, I can't pretend I wasn't nervous, but as I tell myself frequently, whether I die or not is determined by forces beyond my control, and worrying about it won't change it. During the daytime, traffic is barely controlled chaos. It seems like there are twice as many motorcycles as inhabitants, yet you constantly see entire families piled onto one machine. Stopping at a traffic light in Chiang Mai, you see a flock of literally hundreds of motorcycles, many of them with an additional person perched pillion-style on the back. Sometimes an old lady clings on feebly behind, or you see a woman returning from the markets with double her width in bags and baggage. There are also the sidecar varieties, though for many it's a kind of mobile shop, with things that dangle and rattle as the vehicle moves. The motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic, the shuttle busses stop suddenly in many places, and wherever there is a market it seems to spill out into the street. In the more rural areas you'd see, for example, a younger guy clinging to the back of the load of a pickup truck - at highway speeds (okay, most things only go 40 kph anyways, but still) - or a load almost three times the height of the truck, ballooning out over the sides and taking on almost comical proportions. And at some places there are cows on the road, which certainly contribute to the mayhem. This morning, the van was left swerving from the shoulder over two or three lanes towards the median (of an almost completely empty road) to avoid potholes large enough to serve as a watering hole.

We had all piled out of the house at 3 AM. It was strange to see everyone dressed and wandering around, looking sleepy and excited at the same time. We were off to Bangkok by van to meet the princess; a 10-ish hour drive. Eventually the rain must have let up and/or I must have relaxed, as I was able to more or less sleep for a few hours and awoke to a vision of verdant, mist-shrouded hills flanking some body of water, and I struggled between being awake and asleep. Mostly I was trying to decide if I was cold or if my legs were cramped; I'm not small and not usually dressed for air conditioning.

I feel you can judge a place quite a bit by its coffee; strangely, some of the best coffee producing regions seem to drink the most terrible coffee anywhere. Sumatra is not far away from here, yet most people drink 3-in-1 instant coffee, which I find drinkable under duress but not particularly good. Egypt was a mixture: Nescafe was widely available, and somewhat less so turkish coffee. But in Turkey: no Turkish coffee to be found, just cay (tea). In Europe, where no coffee is produced, they make fantastic drinks, which are exported elsewhere but otherwise horrendously overpriced. American coffee, much disparged, is at least mostly made with actual coffee grounds, and with the gentrification of coffee even that is quite drinkable. Thankfully Singapore has adopted the chinese Kopi, made from actual coffee beans, poured from the height of about a foot and a half (half a meter) and mixed with condensed milk.

All of that was a prelude to saying the coffee we had for breakfast was simply terrible, with an aftertaste of coffee filter and a strong actual flavor of some kind of spice. Or old coffee grounds, who knows. My friend ordered an ice coffee, which was also terrible but in a different fashion, with its own unique and terrible taste. Still, as anyone who knows me knows, I'm functionally retarded until after my first cup of coffee, so you can bet your buttons I drank the stuff. And wonders of wonders, I am now awake.

Despite the traffic and despite the terrible coffee, we made it alive to Bangkok, though the old guy was carsick towards the end, and we were again welcomed at the singer’s home where we had stayed the first night. They, of course, welcomed us with all manner of hospitality, which included an apparently famous and expensive dessert. Now, I’m not in general a big fan of jelly desserts and things made of strange wobbly gelatin, so I wasn’t too keen on the bowl of clear jelly surrounded by some kind of viscous clear liquid. I, ever curious, wanted to know what it was. The grandpa wasn’t really having much of anything to eat on account of his fragile stomache and general weakness, so Jun, the singer’s brother, told him it was good for health: “The last time I had it,” Jun said, “my wife couldn’t sleep for four nights.” I tasted it and didn’t like it, and it was happily lapped up by another family member. The dessert? As near as I could tell from the explanation, it was made from the saliva of seagulls, used in making their nests. Or something like that.

The motorcycle waiter, meeting the monk and other stories - Thailand part 5

2009-10-05T19:56:00.005+08:00

Among the vast relations and friends who turned out for the celebration, there were perhaps two or three little kids and one or two other youngens around my age - surprising that so few of them are having kids; or else, the kids are grown up and gone. Nevertheless, it was nice seeing faces at least of my own generation, and I got to talking to my friend's niece, who is a recent graduate of the university and is the same age as I. She invited me to come visit her, and she would show me around Chiang Mai and her home town. So I did.

People remark how cheap clothes are in Thailand, where you can pay a few dollars/euros/francs for a "genuine" article which everyone knows is fake and which will likely fall apart within a few weeks or days if you're unlucky. And no surprise: the quality is often terrible, but at the same time, with some of the "better" fakes, it's astounding to what level of detail they copy their original. And if you happen to purchase boxer shorts, some kinds of t-shirts or a number of other articles, it's possible they originated in the back room of my friend's sister's place. Their business is making clothes which are distributed in Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and elsewhere. Huge bolts of cloth go in, the three or four ladies sitting essentially in the garage whip them into boxer shorts, sewing on elastic claiming to be 'Calvin Klein' or 'Joe Boxer' or whatever. Another shed holds the finished product swathed in plastic bags and sorted in no fashion whatsoever. With much enthusiasm they managed to ferret out a few things for me to try: the baggy trousers typical of the region, popular with rural folk and tourists and otherwise no one under the age of forty; sport pants in neon green and red; a sarong; and other sundry items. We soon agreed on the necessity of 'big' opposed to 'small' sizes (I am a veritable giant here, taller than almost all of the men), and my friend's sister gave me several of the articles as a gift.

We'd brought the grandpa with, and when he got tired of the shade outside - where it's still almost unbearably hot - he went in to sleep and we went to lunch. Through innumerable back roads and avoiding potholes large enough to swallow a motorcycle without chewing, we somehow made it to The Reservoir. Steering carefully past the motorcycles parked on the embankment overlooking the lake, and so covered in foliage they were barely recognizable as motorcycles as such, we steered in to the parking lot of what appeared to be a restaurant. We ordered, still standing in the entry, and were given a reed mat, a basket of glasses, a bucket of ice and a bottle of coke, and we set off. On the shore of the lake were a series of little reed huts, each with a thatched roof and a reed floor balanced on stilts in the water. Reachable by a little gangplank, we made our way in, balancing our way across a floor with many of the reeds missing, to find a little table in the back. We spread out the reed mat, placed the low table in the middle, and distributed the glasses. Apparently our food would be delivered, and we passed the time by enjoying the scenery, and wondering if the little hut next to ours - reachable by wading a short distance through the water to a small sandbar, and the hut was floating on metal barrels - would sink completely under the weight of the 20 or so people who filled it to bursting. And because life isn't fair, they got their food before we did; we, however, got to enjoy the show. All of the sudden a motorcycle comes tearing across the field separating the huts from the restaurant, and upon closer inspection we see it is the waiter on the bike, expertly balancing a tray on one hand and steering with the other. He barely paused as well before shooting through the water onto the sandbar, where he gallantly dismounted, bounded up the gangplank and handed over their food. Ingenious.

On our way back, on one of these little dirt roads seeming to lead nowhere but actually leading back to "civilization", there was a temple. Granted, I've probably been to 20 or so so far, and in comparison, this one was downright boring. Except for the cast concrete naga staircase, I wouldn't even have known it was a temple, for it missed the opulence of its fellows. As soon as we entered, we were assaulted by a loud clacking sound, as if there were an air hocky tournament being held in the back, and indeed I thought the half-finished temple was being used as an activity center or something. Alas, it was nothing of the sort, but rather a Buddha factory. Here is where clay was pressed into little Buddha figurines, and the loud clacking noise was the die being pressed onto the base piece; the whole thing functioned somewhat like a drill press. A plug of clay is placed on the form, the person pulls the lever down sharply two or three times to press the clay into the die, the extra clay bits are brushed aside and by means of a little rotating lever, the clay piece is lifted up so it may be removed from the mold. Several young guys were busy at work, so quickly I wondered if they didn't accidentally Buddhize their fingers by mistake.

They made space and we gave it a try. I asked J., the niece, why we were doing this, if it was just for fun or for a specific purpose. I think she misunderstood me; she told me later it was their belief and not just for fun why they were doing this, and I explained I understood why they were making the Buddhas, but not why _we_ were making the Buddhas, if they have specific significance if one does it oneself, or something like that. She eventually explained that it was only because we knew the people making the figurines that we were able to do this, and it was therefore a special privilege to be able to do this.

Anyways, when I thought we were leaving, we were instead brought across the grounds to what looked like the monk's house, and we made ourselves (relatively) comfortable on the floor. Eventually the monk arrived and a few prayers were said. Now, this is not by far the first ceremony I had witnessed or taken part of since I had been here; there was the initial festival blessing, a blessing at Doi Suthep, the donation ceremony towards the building of a toilet at one of the temples, another blessing ceremony, and a commemoration of the death of my friend's son. This was, however, one of the first where the monk actually spoke to me. At the commemoration ceremony I was given a Thai name. This time, the monk asked me a few questions about myself - my name, my age, where I am from, where I lived in the US, etc - and then introduced the old guy seated next to him. "I call him my father," he said, "he's 92 years old and he has a sixth sense."

What followed is a bit difficult to describe, as it was also a bit difficult to understand. I think the grandfather was some kind of a fortune teller, or professed to do so, because he said I was in danger from something but somehow would be protected. It wasn't very clear. I had to correct their assumption that I was Christian; while I am respectful of all beliefs, I profess none of my own. He wanted to know if I meditate, and explained that the Buddha figures were one step towards doing Good Things which would bring one closer to heaven. And he told me that they had been talking about nuclear war, that they are very afraid it will come, and they feel their religion will protect them. For my part, I am still awaiting a better translation, but it boiled down to the monk giving me two little Buddha figures, explaining how to meditate, and promising that they would protect me. Lastly, the old guy examined my ring - a recent gift from my friend's father which I cherish greatly - and claimed it had been mine in a past life.

With no more comprehension than you, dear reader, we left the monk and made our way back to go to Chiang Mai for the evening. J. took us out to an amazing sushi restaurant and we collected her friends Bel and Hua for our "night on the town". The bar was open-air, full, and quite big, spilling somewhat into the street and blasting Thai rock music. The girls ordered almost 4 liters of what I found to be an overly sweet and strangely flavored neon green "cocktail", so I instead opted for a beer while they drank their concoction out of a shot glass which barely held a single piece of ice, and the boys opted for rum and soda. Being at this bar, with this crowd of kids was a strangely familiar experience, even though I had never been to this bar before nor did I know any of them: some things, like bars, are apparently similar in a lot of different places. Vendors would pass by hawking everything imaginable: jasmine wreaths, roses, snack food, more roses, more wreaths, begging for donations for the blind harmonica player, more roses, fried crickets (yes, and grasshoppers too), more roses.... the one bit that I had seen nowhere else before, besides the insects, were the elephants we looked over to find standing on the sidewalk. Where does the elephant go when it's not "working"?

Anyways, it was a good end to a good night, and I had an opportunity to speak to her friends a bit about what kinds of things they do, what they study, their plans and hobbies and such. One of them had spent a year in California, and all of them spoke at least decent English, so I enjoyed the break from my monosyllabic silence (I can communicate with my Thai family just fine, only it isn't a conversation and our mutual vocabulary is mostly restricted to kitchen objects, eating, sleeping, and temples).

Life in Thailand - Chiang Mai etc - Thailand part 4

2009-10-02T21:14:00.004+08:00

Report date: 20 September
Days since last report: about 4
Number of times I've said sawidee-chaaaaaaaao: about 23,000

So there we were, waiting, kicking our heels (for my friend, literally kicking her heels, as she's over a head shorter than I) on the bench next to some monks. Yes, monks are people too, and they also take the songtheows to get around. I kept my eye on the small herd of red ants busily doing something at the corner of my bench, and I watched with suspicion every time one ventured towards. I'm not a huge fan of insects, and I'm a big "live and let live" kind of person, but I wasn't sure of their intentions but soon figured out if I tapped on the bench they wouldn't come any closer to me. We boarded the shuttle bus with one of the monks and a few others. By shuttle bus, I mean more or less a small pickup, whose covered bed has been modified to add seats along each sides of the bed. There's a button on the cieling when you want to stop, and you can fit at least 20 people in and hanging off the back of the thing - as we would discover on our ride back. It's how mere mortals get around, and as we weren't able to borrow someone's uncle to drive us into town, we took the bus. I was with J., my excited, bird-like little friend who showed me some of the sights of Chiang Mai: temple after temple after temple after temple (which I dutifully photographed but didn't enter). We started off in the (a) market, attracted by a large crowd to the front of the Chinese temple. "?" my friend pointed to where they were apparently giving out some kind of drink, and I nodded. She quickly returned with a brownish drink, which she--by pointing at the thing as we crossed the market--expected to be tamarind juice. It turned out to be terrible-tasting tea, which goes to show that even locals don't know everything. At the wall, she had a tuk tuk driver take our picture, and as we were asked to take pictures for some Israeli tourists, they asked where we're from. I told them I was from the US and my friend from Thailand; he said, "I suppose you don't have any problems with the language, then." "Well," I replied, "I don't speak Thai and she doesn't speak English. But we communicate just fine."

---

"He't" he said, placing the dish in front of me. Mushrooms. Ta'kii'ya, chopsticks. Chan, plate. Na'am, water. Na'am'kheng, ice cubes. Na'am'geow, glass. Soom, fork. Slowly, slowly, I learn. "Arroy ma'i ka?" (do you like it / does it taste good). And the answer, bound to set the entire party into fits of laughter: "la'am cha'ao" (Northern dialect), or the more standard "arroy di". They enjoy teaching me words in Thai to expand my budding vocabulary. Sadly, I can't hardly remember any of them, but it's a start at least. I think if I lived here for a few months, with no english speakers to distract me and perhaps a basic grammar and a basic dictionary, I would eventually learn it. My friend's old schoolteacher often tells me words for things, but I can never tell if he's trying to tell me or teach me something.

---

J. and I set off on bicycles. I felt I was riding a child's bike, and indeed our bikes were the same size and I doubt she comes up to 4'8". I was actually able to pedal while seated on the luggage rack in the back; but considering we were riding on (for me) the opposite side of the road in a place where traffic is (just) barely organized chaos, I decided to behave myself and ride like a normal person. The result, of course, is that I felt like a frog folded up on a bicycle. Our job: town crier. But secret-like. There was going to be a birthday party and celebration for my friend's birthday and commemoration of her son's death, and a famous singer friend was going to come, so therefore in the interests of seating and space and in a general desire to prevent the whole town from turning out, we were instructed to selectively invite some of the neighbors. I've been staying in this villiage near a small town near a larger town near the city of Chiang Mai, with about perhaps 100 houses tightly huddled along a stretch of road. This is the kind of place where roots run very deep, and indeed the house we are staying in is the one she grew up in, and who knows how many generations lived there before that. A village, like an anthill, is an organic and somehow confederate entity. It has a nature and character all of its own, and so much of the life here -- if for nothing else, in the interests of temperature -- is conducted in the shaded areas in front of the houses. Life is so much more collective and so much more public; such that any trip through the town will inevitably lead to visits with this that and the other neighbor, and it is frequent that friends and family gather for meals and to just sit. The houses come in a wide variety: some, like ours, are more solid, sprawling plaster constructions firmly anchored to the ground; others are built more or less on stilts or pilings, such that the ground floor is garage or open porch space, and the actual house is only on the second floor. I was shown one of these stilt-houses, this one made entirely of dark, lovingly polished wood. The windows were a set of sliding slats which could be opened to let in sunlight or closed at will; there was no need to insulate for cold. Large families, combined with the tradition of referring to everyone as "sister" or "brother" or "uncle" or "aunt" seriously confused my attempts at keeping people straight; I have long given up on all but a few names, but have been able to communicate with and get along with most everyone some how.

The celebration was quite a bit of work, and it seemed like half the town was already involved in the preparation. Trucks arrived bearing plastic chairs, crates of dishes and glasses, drinking water and ice chests. Until into the evening on the preceding day the women were about the snipping and preparing of food, while the men busied themselves with the awnings and chairs and the stoves and everything else, and the work recommenced early in the morning. My job was photographer, which involved wandering around and, you guessed it, taking pictures. Of course, I preferred close-up expressive portraits and candid shots, but as soon as people figured out I was taking a picture everyone would stop, turn, pose, and smile - and worse, everyone would jump into the picture and drag anyone else they could find in with them, such that instead of taking a picture of two people I was taking a picture of twenty, and then everyone always wanted to see. At about 10 the monk arrived, and he was seated on the makeshift dais made by grandpa's bed, supplemented by the wrapped donations (?) of two sets of milk boxes adorned with flowers, and various articles of his trade. At about 10:30 the guests of honor arrived: the famous singer and his entourage. The ceremony itself consisted of intonation of blessings and finally pouring the water, and I was dispatched to take pictures, which I found horribly distracting but no one else seemed to. The singer et al had been greeted by cheers and greetings, and as he sat and ate various tentative family members and neighbours approached to have their picture taken. I don't know how to gauge his fame, but he seems to be recognized more or less wherever he goes--which happened when we were out at lunch in Chiang Mai the day before. But despite all of this, he seems a very warm and straightforward person with a good sense of humor. I like, for example, that his driver is essentially an accessory family member who is not treated as a servant.

As do many people who have connections to different cultures or who live in a different country than that of their birth, my friend seems to be, as they say in German, between two chairs. In many respects, it's clear she's in her element here; her vivacious personality, which sometimes clashes with the reserved Swiss-cum-Internationalism of Geneva, seems to flourish among a veritable flock of lively and talkative people. And yet it's clear she's become accustomed to the way things work in the "developed" world, and is frustrated by the "backwardness" or "small mindedness" (in quotations not because she said it, but because the terms should be taken as illustrative and not pejorative) she sometimes encounters here. And while she tries to change some bits of their world, in the end, she will return to Switzerland and they will get on with their lives however they best can; and when she talks of Switzerland or "the colleagues" or "the office," I can imagine that these terms find little resonance in their world. Perhaps they resent her for it--though I know they are proud of her as well--but her world and theirs intersect in the shaded area in the venn diagram rather than one of a series of concentric circles.

For my part, I feel like everyone's adopted wayward child; they have welcomed me so generously into their lives, homes and hearts. Today particularly I find the elder ladies, even some I have never seen before, heartily grasping my hand or my arm and smiling up at me, which is understandable in any language. I am coddled and spoiled and almost fed to death. Everyone has learned I don't eat meat, which leaves here an astounding range of options open. I particularly like anything made out of pumpkin or mushrooms, and all of their vegetables seem so incredibly flavorful. Most of the stuff I don't even know what it is, but they've assured me it's meatless, but that means it could contain seafood or fish. Here in Northern Thailand they frequently eat sticky rice instead of loose-grained rice, which is rolled into a ball in the palm of the hand and used to scoop food from a communal serving dish. You use your thumb and the ball of rice to pick up a small portion of whatever it is, and then place it directly in your mouth without somehow dropping it in your lap or getting your fingers particularly dirty. I'm learning a lot about Thai people: those who speak English are shy, but they are curious and lively. Friends and strangers alike are greeted with clasped hands and a tipped head, and you should never touch someone's head or step over someone lying on the ground. You are not allowed to let other people buy perfume or deodorant for you (are there any exceptions? I don't know), and you are supposed to keep your head lower than the monk's and the Buddha’s in the temple.

I'm learning also that families work different here: they seem larger and much more connected than the ones I am used to; certainly much different than the typical nuclear family. It is also so that within a family there is a kind of heirarchy, where more senior members are able (expected?) to direct the others. Where "western" (I speak here for the US and perhaps Germany) cultures emphasize the individual, such that all children are, for example, equal within the family but perhaps submissive to the parents, here there is a collective emphasis that one takes care of the family as a whole first. Thus it is not too out of the ordinary that a brother moves in to care for his sister and her aging husband, or more "senior" cousins direct more "junior" ones. I was surprised, for example, that the singer's brother and his wife live with him, and that they maintain the house and help manage his life. From the "western" perspective, I would think that the brother would find this insulting or demeaning, or would grate under his brother's obvious dominance, or be resentful towards his brother's success. Perhaps my perspective is a cynical one, but that was my initial take. But they way they see it here, the singer is taking care of his brother's family by having them live with him in his mansion, and since he contributes financially to the whole thing, it's only fair that the brother and his family contribute to its upkeep.

Temple Tramping - Thailand part III

2009-10-01T20:00:00.004+08:00

Report date: 16 September, 10h. 1 day since last report
Location: Lamphun district, Chiang Mai
Temples visited: 12 or so

He called me over. With trembling hands he took my own, slipping the ring on to my finger with his shaky ones. The ring was golden-coloured, patterned on each side and set with a greenish stone, and completely surprisingly, it fit. I admired it for a minute before slipping it off my finger and trying to hand it back to him: but he would not take it. For me? I asked in our sign language, and he nodded emphatically. Really for me? I asked again. He nodded again. Because he liked me, because I liked him, because we took good care of each other, he had given me his ring. The old guy and I had been getting on splendidly these past few days, and had developed a kind of sign language with a few English and Thai words able to cover the basics of communication. If he or I had anything more complicated to ask, we used our translator. Yesterday at lunch he kidnapped me, deciding now was the time to leave the table and return to the van, and so he took my hand and the two of us headed for the car as fast as his legs could take us, waving to the others over our heads as we left, and me all the while wondering where it was we were even going. Not bad for an 83-year-old. He still has most of his hair, which he dyes black, and most of his teeth. His voice is gravelly and difficult to understand even in Thai, so I am not all too disadvantaged. He calls me the youngest daughter of the family, and I am honored.

Yesterday was sightseeing day. The family rented a van and a driver so that everyone could come, so myself, my friend, her parents, her cousin, her uncle and two friends of her mum's all came with. And we set off, the ladies chattering happily about this and that, telling funny stories and generally having a good time. My friend wasn't feeling well and slept all the way there, and while I dozed in and out of sleep I was still fascinated by the surroundings. We travelled up past Chiang Mai to a temple called Wat Phrathat Doi Suthep, one of the more famous and extravagent temples in the area atop a mountain, reachable by elevator or by climbing a 306-step-Naga (dragon) staircase. The more elderly took the lift, and the rest of us made our way as best we could with all of the French and German tourists, many toting helmets. Our group bought their lotus blossoms and entered the temple. There is a large, golden pagoda there, and one is supposed to walk around it, clockwise, holding the lotus flower. As the heathen of the group, I wasn't given a lotus flower but rather the video camera and instructed to take a lap or two for posterity. I filmed the first lap entirely with the lens cap on, which I am sure contributed significantly to the artistic quality of the shoot. Afterwards we are blessed by an ancient and friendly-looking monk who ties a bracelet around my wrist; it's not my religion and still I feel the goodwill emanating from the piece of braided string.

From Wikipedia:
Established in 1383, this magnificent temple overlooks the city from its 1,073m elevation on the slopes of Doi (Mount) Suthep, which peaks at 1,685m. It is famous for its large gold-plated chedi, visible from the city on a good clear day. Although Wat Doi Suthep is the most recently built of the temples dating from the Lanna Thai period, it is the symbol of Chiang Mai. The site was selected by sending an elephant to roam at will up the mountainside. When it reached this spot, it trumpeted, circled three times, and knelt down - which was interpreted as a sign indicating an auspicious site.

My impression of Thailand, now expanding over these last few days, is that of a country hovering somewhere between its past and its future. Its past, evidenced in its beautiful and impeccably maintained temples (unlike Egypt, where many beautiful historical relics are derelict and all are dusty) and also by its strong rural character, at least in these parts, and beautiful old houses, is also reflected in workers laboring in the hot sun, or the man transporting his wares precariously balanced on a bicycle, or the little sheds that serve as workshops or restaurants or perhaps houses. The future has marked Thailand with mobile phones and gadgets and tourists, and grand shiny new houses sprouting up across the landscape. It's an uneven mix, but not an unfamiliar one: many areas remind me of some of the small mountain towns of my youth, consisting of some newer, grander houses and a lot of older, worn down but lovingly maintained ones with dead and dying vehicules in the driveway or livestock still in the back. A difference remains that here, there is a gentle gradiation between rural and town, where I am used to a sharp divide: city, suburbs, nothing, town, nothing, town. And here, the general level of technology seems to be about ten years behind the US, though not completely. Not that I am a disciple of modernization theory - holding that having navigated the transportation networks to come to this beautiful place, with no sense of deeper connection? I have been stunned by the beauty of the temples here, far more than I have been awed or impressed by a building for a long time, just based on their sheer beauty. But sometimes I miss the connection altogether and stand, in a beautiful or famous or ancient place, I take my pictures and I leave without this place ever really having touched me. So I wonder what makes Thailand a destination, an experience as opposed to a picture. Is it being in a "developing country"? Is it just the vastly different cuisine and the different language? How much of a foreign culture can you ever take in in a few days? To a certain extent, I feel like the country which has been the most foreign to me - as an American - of all the countries I have been to has been Germany, because it was the _first_ foreign country I had been to. Despite what I found to be extensive cultural similarities, the basic experience of recognizing that things are simply done differently elsewhere, for no particular reason. The experience of discovering that light switches and door knobs and toilet flushes can look completely different and yet function exactly the same was almost a revelation. Discovering the more bizarre and extreme versions of any of the above (our appartment in Egypt comes in mind, with its eighteen light switches, some of which were behind mirrors or pictures on the wall) was in comparison less profound than that initial experience of difference.

But I digress.

I've learned how to say hello and thank you, both in standard Thai and in the Northern dialect. I feel sometimes as if I'm a performing dog when my friend whispers in my ear and I am to repeat it aloud, to peals of laughter from the assembled group, without ever knowing what I said. Still, a thank you means the most in your own language, so I try my best and let my sincerity make up for the rest. And the rest mainly consists of sign language and charades, but it works out. I spent the whole morning with the family, none of whom speak English, and we got on splendidly (though we did manage to misplace the grandfather for a few minutes, when he wandered off while we were at the second temple). The first temple we went to was holding a similar ceremony to the one we had seen a few days ago. The first thing the women did was drag me into a clothing shop and outfit me with the traditional pants and shirt of the region; I chose the colors myself but needed help in tying the pants. I'm inordinately proud of the clothing, though I will have to find a way to incorporate it into my more "modern" wardrobe. At the temple we looked around, planted the grandfather in the shade and made our way up the mountain to Wat Phra Phutthabat Tak Pha (วัดพระพุทธบาทตากผ้า). The 306 steps of the previous temple were no match for this one's 460, and in almost 90-degree heat and humidity, it's not an easy march. We make it to the top, and are greeted by a few dogs and a woman who sells us water. Apart from another couple there, the place is deserted. We settle down into the temple to drink our water and cool off, and I am struck by the serenity of the place. The only sounds are the birds, our breathing, and the distant chanting of the monks from below. This place is of another world.

A long way from anywhere - Thailand part 2

2009-09-29T16:30:00.002+08:00

Log date:14 September, 21h. 2.5 days since last report.
Location: near Lamphun, Thailand
Kilos of longans eaten: probably 3 or 4

If I may be forgiven the comparison, and not as if I would actually really know, but the festival had all the suspicious markers of a church festival in a small town: the whole town was there and there was praying involved. Except this time it's at a buddhist festival of (to me) unknown import, and it happens annually. The whole congregation gathers in shaded rows of seats outside the temple, and there are baskets of what I assume are offerings or gifts (consisting of small portions of different fruits or candies or other things). The temple was of, as I would later discover, the usual style of architechture: rectangual shape, a long nave (again, forgive the comparison), and with a steep, tiled roof of whose eaves curved slightly upward where the gutters would be. The building was accessed by a broad staircase at the front, and it is this featue I find most remarkable about the building, for what would have been the handrails were the bodies of two huge and magnificant dragons, whose heads reared upwards at the base of the stairs (Naga staircase, they're called). The entire building was worked in gold and mirrors, and the interior was covered in mural panels depicting scenes from something but in altogether opulent fashion. The ceremony involved sitting and waiting, following our small group leader into the temple where one monk, seated crosslegged at the front, intoned almost a constant prayer. The crowd remained lively and talkative until at one point the entire assembly clasped hands as the monk intoned words of particular import; I, for my part, kept myself occupied by wondering whether the little kid next to me would either (a) get bored and cause a ruckus or (b) fall off his chair.

Needless to say, this is not the kind of event to which foreigners usually come; the temple served a tiny village of about 200 years and, despite its opulence, is unlikely to draw visitors from farther afield. And as i walked through the crowds, I could feel eyes following me, and curious smiles turned my way. I had said once that I always wanted to see what it's like being member of an physically obviously minority, just to see how one feels when one is automatically categorized on an ascriptive basis. True, the same was true of Egypt, but here the attention was much more subdued and perhaps much friendlier (or at least less exploitative or harassing).

Later in the afternoon we visited another temple in Lampuhn, to donate towards the completion of a toilet for the premesis. Our donation was accepted by a novice and a monk, the latter saying a blessing before tying a small bracelet for good luck around each of our arms. We were accomanied by two elder ladies of the district in our viewing of the construction of said toilets: two labourers stuccoing the walls, supervised by two or three monks with the requisite shaved tonsure and saffron robes. I wonder what it's like to be a monk; not only the daily regimen but also if monks still hold the same status they once did, if the institution of 'monkhood' is still such an integal part of society.

At one point we went to the Thai version of walmart, which means it sold any and everything (kind of like Mustafa's in Singapore but way less cool and way less random) from knickers to knicknacks and everything in between. I set off in search of deodorant, having somehow in the bustle misplaced mine, and was dismayed to be confronted with an entire wall of them: and almost all of them bearing the jaunty label "whitening". Why, pray tell, why oh why does deodorant need to be whitening?? What is there to whiten on one of the few parts of my body which see the sun as often as republicans vote for healthcare reform (almost never and only under duress)? I get the point that white is beautiful and is therefore the kind of label that should make you want to purchase any other kind of beauty product, provided it takes your genetically predispositioned mocha exterior and turns it into the tasteless but apparently desired white chocolate variety, but deodorant?? Reeeeeeally? And while we're at it, can we please have that as our standard of beauty too? (not sayin' this just 'cause I'm Irish) We'd have a whole lot less of skin cancer. And orange people. Anyways, my friend wanted bras and underwear, so appropriately we headed for the lingerie department (lingerie in french, by the way, refers to the room for cleaning linens and not racy women's underthings - at least it did in my building). We apparently needed help with something, so we were immediately descended upon by four heavily made-up young women who cooperatively managed to find us what we were looking for. Now that's service. Or overkill.

We set off this morning in a small pickup truck filled with a small possee of small women, cackling like hens and shrieking with laughter at the drop of a longan. I felt disproportionate crammed into the backseat, and except for the part where my head pretty much touched the cieling it was a comfortable ride. We were off on a Random Adventure, which wasn't actually random at all but simply undisclosed and subject to change. I felt like someone had captured three overexcited small parrots and locked them inside my head. Read: I was having trouble adjusting to conversations carried on as if the partner were standing on a distant mountaintop and not, for example, in the seat next to the speaker. And the custom of putting all cell calls on speakerphone -- such that the entire car can contribute with shrill smatterings or peals of laughter, again at full volume -- will also be more difficult for me to appreciate. Or I just had a bit of a headache. I was just along for the ride anyways. We managed to stop at another magnificent temple, similar to the others we had viewed but even more splendid, and appropriately flanked by stalls selling every tourist bauble your heart could desire. And as I was accompanied by Thais I was exempt from the entry fee (a trick which didn't work at the museum, unfortunately), leaving me to fend my way through the tourist throngs to the best picture-taking spot. Not to cheapen the experience: this temple compound is perhaps one of, if not the, most beautiful buildings I have ever seen. The opulence never seems gaudy, and on the contrary seems to highlight the extreme beauty of the place. It made me want to shave my head and become a monkess just to be able to live there.

Our late afternoon stop was a market and artisan's street in Chiang Mai, where every kind of home furnishing imaginable was available for sale, probably hand carved out of teak or hardwood or woven of rattan or something else. While some evidence of tourist infrastructure existed, I had the impression that the entire place didn't see more than four score of visitors in a day, and our salesladies were certainly hiding a glint of desperation as my companions bargained for my purchases. By this point I had formed an alliance with my fellow back-seat passanger, a bird-like (or fairy-like) woman also likely in her late 40s (being a school friend of my host) with an impish smile, a strangely high voice and a childlike demeanor. She and I shared various jokes, mostly related to the ever-expanding bag which acquired all of our purchases and food throughout the day.

It's not like I ever get hungry here. Soon as breakfast is finished, I am called to the table to consume yet another dish of some persuasion, which my hosts emphatically explain has "no pork no pork," which is our accepted code for "vegetarian." As I suspected would happen, my acquiescence to eating fish here as a compromise born of the necessity of traveling has been taken to mean that I _want_ fish or seafood at all times, and frankly I am happy now when there is food without it. But it is such a part of the cuisine that finding dishes without fish, oyster sauce or shrimp paste will prove difficult. Still, refusing meat has allowed me to decline the skewered barbeque frogs without insult (though I likely would have been unable to eat them, meat or no meat, as I couldn't even stand the look of them). Dinners here have often included up to 15 people, friends and family and neighbors and other random people whose names and connection I have forgotten, and when I can no longer pretend to even half follow the conversation based on occasional translations and random guessing, I watch the lizards on the wall. There's usually around five or six of them, scattered here and there like wriggly brown blotches on the pale plaster. Their locomation is so comical as one front and the opposite hind leg advance in unison, such that the entire body curves laterally with each step. In a fluid motion it looks quite natural, but to see a lizard creep up on a fly is to watch the tiny critter bend his entire body to one side and then to the other with each step. Some of them hide behind the lightbulb, and I think that's the most sought-after place to be given the series of mini battles fought for the privilege. Two little lizards will be behind the light and a third will approach and want in; instead of accommodating him nicely, he feels the need to stage a coup. He arches his back, a bit like an inchworm, and creeps carefully a few steps forwards until he is just in position --all the while keeping his body bowed upwards-- and then he springs into action. A brief flurry of movement and he has displaced his rivals, to reign over the lamp until the next challenger comes...

The Thailand Trip - part 1

2009-09-29T16:28:00.002+08:00

Log date: 12 September.
Location: unknown.
Food poisoning: not yet.

“Helllllllloooooooo,” came the voice from the other side. “How aaaaaaaare you?” it continued. “I’m fine,” I replied, “how are you?” “I’m gooooood,” came the answer, distance, bad cell reception and an adventurous take on English stretching the other’s words as if they were taffy. “Where aaaaaaaare you?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

I’m somewhere in Thailand. To be more specific, I’m somewhere in northern Thailand, “a half hour” (read: at least an hour) outside of Chiang Mai in some town whose name I neither know nor can pronounce. We passed an eternity of town followed by relatively secluded road—still with small shops and occasional restaurants—followed by more town and more road. The shops we passed were reminiscent of small shops in most other countries I’ve been to, selling bits of this and that, or snack food, or drinks, or clothes, narrow in width and in offerings, open ever hopefully well past the time when you would expect business. I wondered if Thailand was—like Europe—more or less completely settled, if the peoples who had been in this area, building towns and destroying others and creating kingdoms at least since the 14th century had managed to cover more or less every square mile with human civilization. I was expecting the familiar interval of town, nothing, town, nothing, town, and instead was rewarded with constant and continuous evidence of human habitation.

We were also rewarded with one dead dog and one motorcycle accident, evidence both that this country is still on the road to modernization (or at least to road safety regulations and crash helmets). Traffic is of the blithely hectic variety, as if everyone is purposefully and happily unaware that riding against traffic on a motorcycle (or on the centerline) might not be a good idea, that twenty people should perhaps not be crammed into a bus, and one would think nothing of blocking six lanes of traffic to eke a tractor trailer through a U-turn. Back forward back forward back forward back forward. Repeat.

As we pass the little shops and the hawker-center style restaurants, the dingy buildings and the scrubby little cars, I realize I am not surprised. I don’t think abject poverty would surprise me much either, and I wonder at my equanimity. Nor am I struck by any feature particularly ‘Thai’ of the arrangement, simply that I am in an area not quite so rich as that to which I am perhaps accustomed – though the signs are identical wherever you go. Both here and in my home town, junked vehicles, bits of trash lying around, overgrown gardens and half-feral animals are signs of less well-off areas.

I sit in the back and chat with my colleague, a Thai friend whom I met when I was an intern at the UN agency where she works in Geneva. And I realize how vastly different our backgrounds are, and how incredible it is for her to have achieved what she has. My circumstances will qualify me for the kind of job I want to have, but for those born of average means in the northern corner of a country like Thailand have a lot longer of a road than mine to get to a place like Geneva. Her English has always been quite good, but the contrast of most of the people we have met—who do not speak much beyond “how are you?”—only underlines her ability.

One week ago I was in Malaysia, one day ago I had just arrived in Thailand from Singapore, and one hour ago I was learning the word for Gecko in Thai and wondering if the shrimps were staring at me.

Upon my arrival in Bangkok, I was whisked away to the home of my colleague’s friends, apparently a well-known Thai singer and movie star, who seems to be enamored of me and was surprised to find that not only am I not married (his son, at 21, is soon to be made a father by his wife of two years), I don’t even have a boyfriend. He thought he might arrange something, but I declined. We dined on lobster, drank wine, swam in the pool, and drank wine _while_ swimming in the pool. He, his wife, his daughter, his son, his son’s pregnant wife, his brother, the brother’s wife and their three children all apparently live in the same massive and labyrinthine house, which I suspect was originally two houses somehow connected together by way of a purple-carpeted, mirrored walkway. There are at least three or four living-room-type-areas I could discern, each with a flatscreen TV, plus winter gardens and kitchens and bars and eating areas. I got lost twice looking for my room. Despite their apparent status they welcomed me warmly, fed me well and tried out their English. The daughter, an 11-year-old budding soap opera star, taught me the words for pool, water, leaf, tree, glass, hand, and other things. Which I have since forgotten. Our morning consisted of breakfast, a massage, curried crab for lunch, and a trip to the airport. Life is horribly hard.

I sat on the plane and forced myself through forty pages on Indonesia’s history and politics, catching up on missed work for a class on the region and its politics. I realize (well, I knew this before but now it is even more apparent) I know nothing about this place, or any other place over here. I knew almost next to nothing about either Suharto or Marcos, about where Mindano was or that Malasyian Borneo was ruled by a white guy for over a hundred years. I feel ignorance should be remedied and not bragged about, and so I attack my readings with at least the intention of fervor (which, alas, was conquered by the confusion of a multiplicity of acronyms and the quiet desperation arising in contemplation of the inch-thick stack remaining to me. But nevertheless, I wonder what kind of place these countries today would be if they had been run not quite so kleptocratically, if the leaders had taken just a little instead of everything. I also wonder what it’s like to be in a place like Indonesia when riots are going on, when police fire on protesters, when protesters attack bystanders, when a coup happens. I can’t imagine that.

We land in Chaing Mai amid a trickle (it would be a flood if the plane had been full but it wasn’t) of slightly grubby backpackers, who were all dutifully collected at the gate by an enthusiastic sign-waver. After our hour or so of winding roads and small villages, we arrived at what would be home for the next few days. My colleague’s family has lived in this house for over fifty years. I wonder how many generations have lived in that house, and how many joys and sorrows that house has seen, silent against the passage of time.

I still don’t speak Thai. My vocabulary consists of about five words, and most of that is passive. Therefore, conversation is difficult. My friend’s father is 82 years old, has to more or less gum things rather than chew them, and apparently when he speaks in Thai he’s not always easily understood. But he and I have learned to communicate: he sees me, holds up whatever it is he’s eating or doing, and announces its name. The only time I ever understand him, however, is when the thing happens to be a banana. “Banana!” he calls happily, and I smile and reply, “banana”. My conversation with the rest of my colleague’s family, however, is more limited, as no one can speak much more than a sentence of two of the “where are you from?” and “how old are you?” variety.

(Coolest kitchen ever)

Beach baby beach

2009-08-17T23:29:00.002+08:00

The plot, as expected, was predictable. It starts off well, and as with all stories, something goes wrong. Obstacles are surmounted, it’s looking up, and then things look black – but the heroes always win in the end.

So there we were. 1:30 AM, we’re shuffling off the bus, bleary eyed and not entirely convinced we’re in the right city. We were at a roundabout. A TV flickered forlornly to our left, with a few lost souls still sitting and slurping beer out of plastic mugs. Now what? We had kind of expected to get in around 4 or so in the morning, which would put us not too far off from the first ferry at 7:30. We gathered our optimism and trundled off down the street in search of Omar’s hostel, expecting as per internet reviews that someone would be there to take us in. The place offered a stark contrast to Singapore: no spotless streets, the smell of garbage faintly and occasionally more presciently in the air, more Malay and less English, and the buttoned-down look of closed shops and empty windows. I half expected a tumbleweed to blow by.

It was hard to eat our French toast. A kitten was desperately trying to climb into B.’s bag, which I suppose you could see as a good thing if your view towards kittens was generally positive, but if you were anti-kitten or at least skeptical as to the cleanliness of said kittens, you’d probably rather prefer them not take up residence in your baggage. And aside from them trying to eat or play with anything they could find, they were absolutely adorable, small and furry and kitteny, still not weaned, quite friendly and rather clean. There were several, perhaps as many as six, with at least two mothers involved.

The bus ride had been a relative breeze, though one is required to pass immigration twice – once for Singapore, once for Malaysia. As well informed passangers who had thoroughly researched our rout, we were astounded to find our bus stopping and all of the passangers bolting off the bus at almost a run, up the escalators and through the counters, filing neatly into the proper lines. Our baggage continued with the bus, and we were to rejoin it later, only to repeat the process for the Malaysian immigration – this time with our baggage. Between the two posts, the bus snaked through an interminable hamster-cage labyrinth of concrete flyovers, accompanied by the two or three hundred motorcycles in the far lane. Despite the preposterousness of it all, this was the first time I at least had done a real border crossing by land. Despite living in Switzerland almost spitting distance from the French border, I had only once, in all of my numerous crossings, I had only once ever seen the border manned and there I was simply waved through. And in Europe, Schengen is responsible for my lack of passport stamps.

Anyways, we found Omar’s, or rather, Omar found us as we were explanatorily climbing the stairs. He regretted to inform us the hostel was full, and that we should have called to tell him we were getting in this late. It didn’t seem to bother him that he was turning away four young foreign women with the vague hope of another hotel being open. Closed, closed, full, closed. The prognosis didn’t look good for us. The minutes had slunk by and it was past two before we found the sleeping doorkeeper of what looked like a lone open hotel. He wanted to call a friend—everyone is a friend—to see if the rooms listed on the placard by the door were still available, but somehow it turned out he happened to have a room for us. We trooped upstairs to find a surprisingly clean but altogether soulless room, a useable toilet (in the Turkish style, no offense to Turks), no bugs that we could find. I’m sure our desperation was clearly evident, and yet he charged us only a moderate amount (it came to 3 euro per person) and promised to wake us at 7 the next morning. I wondered heartily if the poor man spent every night asleep in a plastic chair, waiting for hapless travelers to stumble by.

The hammock calls. It’s pretty hard to resist a hammock, situated, as it is, on the beach, between two palms and commanding an unparalleled view of the beach, the island, and the coast. Ensconced with a book, a coke, and a peaceful disposition, it wasn’t hard to spend much of an evening there reading, listening to the waves lap on the shore, feeling the rhythmic thumping as the pack of children thumped repeatedly on the strings holding up my hammock as if completely and utterly oblivious to my presence; for my part, I couldn’t muster enough Malay to say hello, much less request them to cease and desist.

Crawling out into the predawn light, confused and sleep deprived, we managed to construct what we hoped would be breakfast from a 7-11 and made our way in the direction in which we hoped the pier lay. The town was soon left behind and we were in a residential area. It wasn’t looking good for a pier, but by chance we stumbled on someone who pointed us along the right way. We found what looked like a ticket counter and an excitable man who practically dragged us to the wharf, where the ferry was about to leave. We managed to get both tickets and seats, and soon we were happily snoozing away and shivering under the air conditioning.

Disembarking at Tioman, at the main village, we were first greeted with a tree full of … bats. Large ones, nesting in daylight in a tree. Personally I prefer my bats glued to the Bacardi bottles, but I don’t really object to them – which was good, as these were pretty huge. As we gather our collective enthusiasm and set off towards our first potential lodging—as the clouds darkened and the rain started, thick droplets falling steadily, dampening our hair and our spirits. Onward we trudged.

Tioman is kind of a touristy place, if I may generalize. Though we were staying in the main village, tourists inevitably ended up in one of the beachfront resorts offering small cottages, an own restaurant and often a dive shop. Most any resort offers all services and similar prices, with extra added for those with particular features or luxury. It all looked like an overgrown tiki bar, and we could be happy in any of the little cottage bungalows we saw. Alas, they were all full. Full, full, full, full. Most of them didn’t bother to check their books, just shook their heads and sent us on. So with little left of our original optimism we approached the last little resort on the street, not really sure what our plan B would be if they turned us down. Tioman has several beaches, each with several resorts, but getting between them costs almost as much as the ferry over, and we would lose precious time as the new ferry arrivals got the first crack at the other lodgings. But we lucked out. The last resort on the street had one room left, its most expensive, but with the exchange rate in our favor and a bit of looking desperate, we managed to convince the manager to give us the room and put an extra double mattress in it to sleep four.

I’m pretty convinced the fish was still staring at me. My rule: I don’t eat anything with eyes or anything which moves of its own volition. I make exceptions for Spain, Sushi, and traveling, and for whenever I otherwise feel like eating fish. Here, on this little island, fish and seafood is unavoidable, and I just pray heartily that whatever I ordered is only flavored with surf and not turf. If you get my drift. And while I sometimes enjoy a fish filet, I prefer it without the head, as if I don’t want to be reminded of my transgression. Every time we tried to order something in almost any restaurant, the waiter would suddenly turn and walk off without explanation, invariably to return with someone who spoke better English than they to explain the unpronounceable and unexplained dishes on the menu. I’m surprised they don’t just send the English speakers for obvious white people such as ourselves. Eventually we work our way far enough up or down the command tree in order to get more or less what we wanted, but by the end of it all we established that fried Bee Hoon was some kind of noodle, though the result had considerably more ingredients, and most of the vegetable dishes were a more or less tasteless soup/stew of bok choy, carrots and chili peppers. Still, topped off with pineapple or lime juice, it made for delectable dinners.

Our room was one half of a standalone bungalow, with a front porch and veranda overlooking the beach, not 10 meters from the sea. It was gorgeous. Between us and the sea were three hammocks, and we could sit on the porch and watch the snorkelers bobbing around like disembodied heads and tubes in the shallow shoals. Once we rented gear and went out ourselves, we were treated to an underwater paradise of reefs and tropical fish. The reef seemed itself to be a mixture of alien landscape and organic creature; while the individual components of the reef were indeed living, much was immobile but interspersed with patches of waving tentacles or flaps that seemed to open and close as if with the rhythm of breathing. Schools of hundreds of finger-long silver fish would descend upon us, split and school around us. We saw all manner of tropical fish, the largest with the circumference of a human head or larger, a deep blue with darker spots, lurking in the depths. Sea urchins perched on many corners and in inopportune spots, just waiting for a stupid kid in a bikini to come too close. I was astounded how straight the spikes were, immobile, and when looking down at the urchin there were several white circles radially arranged around a glowing blue center. It had eyes and a mouth. Swimming over one reef I scared up a stingray, which unburied itself and fluttered away, a steely grey with light blue stops.

Once, while I was just swimming around in the shallow water, I picked up a friend. Sadly, not Dory, but close enough. The fish, the size of my fish, was following me. It’s possible the continued exposure to heat and sunshine has completely robbed me of my mental faculties, but I suspect the fish was not, in fact, a hallucination. I took a step backwards. The little fish, striped black and white, swam closer. I took another step back. The fish matched me. After a few cautious steps, continuously pursued by my fishy friend, I tried swimming a few strokes to see if the fish would follow – and indeed it did! But my fishy friend had to abandon me as I headed for shore, but to be honest – it kinda freaked me out after a minute, as I started seriously considering if these kind of fish might bite. But anyways, I found Nemo, so I guess it's alright.

Sing sang sung

2009-08-14T19:04:00.003+08:00

Somehow I can’t get past the alliterative aspects of Singapore. I’m sure it will continue to entertain me for quite awhile. Then again, I am usually easily entertained – bits of paper, pieces of string, and small shiny objects enthrall me. And distract me from whatever I’m trying to—ooh! A shiny thing!

So today I had carrot cake, which contrary to expectations was neither cake nor was it carrot. Instead of moist and fluffy carroty cake goodness, I received a plate of…something. They call it chai tow kway. There were eggs and little lumps of things that looked a bit like potatoes. Turns out they were bits of some kind of radish, which is apparently close enough that people would call it carrot (apparently the word for daikon, the radish, is similar to the word for carrot), interspersed with unidentifiable lumps and held together with egg. Slightly sweet, slightly salty, it tasted quite good and was likely unhealthy, and was available with or without soy sauce. This was accompanied by, if I recall correctly, a meatless version of Malaysian rojak, a roll of some kind of dough which is fried and sliced (or sliced and fried) containing some kind of vegetable and served with sauce and ground peanuts, otherwise mixed up with cucumber, pineapple, likely some kind of meat and various sauces. My curry rice sadly had to miss out on the curry part on account of me being vegetarian and the curry being made of chicken, but all in all was yummy. I felt like I needed to be rolled back to the motorcycle for the return trip.

Yesterday was my birthday, and that of a (new) friend here in Singapore (though sadly or gladly I am older by a few), which we celebrated with half of Grenoble at a sushi restaurant in a mall near City Hall. If any of this sounds surprising to you, it shouldn’t. French people plus sushi plus mall equals air conditioning, good food and a good test of my French. Anyways, for dessert we had….. chocolate cake! Which we consumed, ignoring the hint of wasabi and fish, with chopsticks. Welcome to Singapore, I suppose – east meets west.

The past few days have been the introduction to university life here. It’s called “shopping week”, which is where you go and have the syllabus introduced to you by the professor, after which students are free (and willing) to ask about five thousand questions relating to every possible detail and sentence of the syllabus. Apparently after this point you are supposed to drop the courses you don’t like, or else start to sign up for them – I’m not clear on the system, but I had to have my classes registered and approved weeks ago, and my last add-period expired last week. So I can just drop the stuff I hate and then beg administration to put me in another class, but it’s a small school and there are few choices (in a public policy school for someone who doesn’t study public policy, the options are particularly restricted). But I have four solid classes with nice and funny profs. One is a Singaporean woman of Malay origin who, thankfully, has a polisci background and is teaching courses on SE Asia in general and ethnic politics in specific. One professor is a beanpole of a man who speaks with exaggerated slowness, paces up and down the front like a caged tiger, and has a hilariously tangential way of talking that has the class in uproars. This is all the good news. The bad news is that I have a solid 8 inches of readings for the semester, of sufficient width to rival Genevan polycopiés and keep me “entertained” this semester.

Tonight we’re off to Palau Tioman, an island off the east coast of Malaysia. It’s known for its backpacker bungalows, gorgeous beaches, and good diving and swimming. It’ll be a trick to get there, requiring a bus and a ferry, both of whose timetables are followed by “departure times are approximate” and “the first ferry runs at 8:00, and after that when full”. But with the promise of two days of sunshine and beach and jungle (with monkeys!!), we are setting off in a small Franco-Germanophone pack. For once in my life I will speak ALL the languages available in our little group, though I wager we’ll be speaking English more than not.

So I’m off to the beach, beeches, and I’ll see you on Monday.

Happy birthday to Yew, happy birthday to Yew…

2009-08-10T00:18:00.001+08:00

…happy birthday dear Singapore…

Singapore turned 44 today, and we all turned out for the celebrations. Nothing much was to happen before 6 pm, yet at 3 already the caravans with construction workers were driving past banging drums and streams of red-clad families flooded into the city centre. Follow the crowd, follow the crowd.

Police were everywhere. I still find it unsettling to see small flocks of young men with big guns, yet at the same time the thought occurs to me that this would be the perfect opportunity, the perfect venue to plan something requiring maximum numbers of targets. But Singapore’s brave police and army auxiliary forces were doing their valiant job of protecting us. It was easy to be swept along in the rush of strollers and flag waving and patriotic accoutrements. Red, red, red, with soldiers directing us to the security checkpoints.

We fond a corner on the Esplanade next to a white guy, who turned out to be a freshly minted political science professor here for a conference. We got acquainted, we talked and laughed with the little malay kids, we hung out. And we waited, and waited and waited. Those few and lucky individuals with a ticket to the parade, I am sure, had something to look at, but the rest of us faced hours of waiting.

Eventually the parachuters spiraled lazily down from somewhere up above, heading for the stadium and the parade. They were eventually followed by the “anti-terrorist” display, which was mostly a low-budget James Bond-style jet ski-chase scene involving several Navy boats emitting sparks. Every time the boats approached any of the spectator banks, i.e. shores, the crowds would emit screams befitting boy band concerts. A Chinook and a few apache helicopters rolled in and flew by, and returned a few minutes later with the Singaporean flag. After awhile we had a flight of fighter jets fly by. I suppose what’s the point of having a military if you don’t use it for something?

In between and afterwards there was nothing, no noise, no music, no nothing. We sat and waited, we waited and sat, with the promise of eventual fireworks the only purpose of our presence. We had a round of cannon fire at one point. We waited and sat, we sat and waited. Some boats, decorated in white to have the approximate shape and appearance of a paper origami boat, float over to our part of the bay, and spend awhile driving up and down, rotating occasionally to mostly give the other side a view of the larger-than-life puppets inside. Mostly the boats were just kind of there. We watched and waited and sat. A line of little boats towing large paper-boat-shaped lanterns puttered by and back again. The most interesting thing was the pledge squad, a crowd of cheerleading girls with “Pledge moment” and 8:22 written on it, which is apparently the time when all Singaporeans are supposed to say the national pledge – or something.

Occasionally bursts of fireworks would emerge from down by the stadium, at which point the crowd would scream and ooh and ah and then nothing would happen for a long time.

Eventually, finally, and ultimately, we were duly rewarded with fireworks. Two sets, less than 10 minutes apiece, and already the crowds begin to shuffle off and we have to consider if this is another sit and wait moment or a get on and get out moment. We gave up and headed out.

This was easier said than done. I have no idea how many people were crowded into the waterfront area, but all of these people wanted to leave at the same time. It became massive red shuffling as everyone headed for the MRT stations at the same time. Shuffle shuffle shuffle. Little kids are draped over their parents’ backs and we opt out of going through the tunnel which looks like the Tunnel to Hell – full and crowded and soon to be enclosed. Instead we end up climbing up an embankment and climbing over a fence, shuffling in a snail’s pace. We shuffle down one way for awhile before discovering we can’t cross the street ahead and shuffle back. We shuffle down the street, past where we climbed the fence, over down to a street crossing, and back opposite to the fence. After several minutes of stop and go bottleneck we make it down to where the tunnel comes out – we would have saved a good half hour of crowds had we taken it, but oh well. We outsmarted ourselves, I suppose….

But all in all it was underwhelming. Compared to similar events in the US and in Germany, there was considerable patriotism, less entertainment and far less beer. No party was to be seen, just the ubiquitous bags most (other) people had been given. I could have saved myself the six hours and the massive crowds, and accrually enjoyed all the stuff in the stadium from the comfort of my living room. Next year…

The Singapore post - part 2

2009-08-03T21:57:00.001+08:00

There are a few things that almost every Singaporean tells me: people here largely don’t cook, the city is very safe so you can walk alone at night, everything is punctual and efficient, and I should travel to Thailand. It’s a bit odd living in a city that’s an entire country, but I guess if you live in NYC or DC you might as well be visiting another country when you go elsewhere.

The CIA Factbook summarizes it well: “Singapore was founded as a British trading colony in 1819. It joined the Malaysian Federation in 1963 but separated two years later and became independent. Singapore subsequently became one of the world's most prosperous countries with strong international trading links (its port is one of the world's busiest in terms of tonnage handled) and with per capita GDP equal to that of the leading nations of Western Europe.” Because of the British legacy, people drive on the left side of the road. As one would expect, foot traffic largely follows street traffic: oncoming pedestrians pass to your right. The large exceptions to this are (a) the oblivious tourists or recent expats who insist on pushing a baby yacht against the stream, and (b) the occasional escalators which intriguingly do not follow this pattern and are reversed for no apparent reason. This whole driving on the left thing was something I didn’t know before I got here, but I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. In fact, I knew very little of Singapore before coming here: I knew it was an island (it’s actually about 25 islands together) and had four official languages, and that’s about it. I had to look it up on the map to find where it was in relation to anywhere else.

The entire country of Singapore clocks in at 697 sq km, which is about 3.5 times the size of Washington, DC and places Singapore as the 199th largest country in the world, following Bahrain and the Federated States of Micronesia, out of 256. The smallest, by the way, is the Vatican. There are, as of July 2009, 4,657,542 people in Singapore, which makes it only marginally less populous than the United Arab Emirates (4,798,491) and Norway (4,660,539), and more populous than 120 other countries, including Costa Rica, Ireland, Puerto Rico. It has twice the population of Jamaica, Kuwait or Latvia. Singapore also has one of the lowest birth rates in the world (218 of 224), followed by Austria, Germany, Italy, and Japan. For all of this, it has the 8th highest GDP per capita in the world, ahead of the US and just slightly behind Luxemburg, Kuwait and Norway. For all of this, Singapore has a massive army. It has compulsory military service of 2 years for men, followed by reserve duty until age 40. This makes 1,033,961 people fit for military service. I suppose being little makes Singapore nervous…

“Against all tenents of Western liberal democracy, Singapore works,” a Singaporean friend told me. Singapore is kind of a one-party benevolent “parliamentary democracy”. The ruling party has 82 out of 86 seats, of which over 30 were uncontested. It’s essentially a one-party system, but, as my friend commented, they offer low corruption, wealth, and excellent infrastructure in exchange for keeping opposition quiet. Of course, my friend was a journalist and perhaps a cynic. Still, someone else commented that the rulers that they have are just fine, the question is what happens when they’re gone – are there mechanisms in place to ensure the future crop of leaders is equally as benevolent? (more on this topic here ).

The beach we went to was on the island of Sentosa, accessible by bus, cable car or expressthingy from the adjoining supermall. The island is one giant theme park / resort / tourist attraction, like being at six flags or something, without the ferris wheel. It’s got butterfly pavilions and dolphin encounters, a jungle fort, and lots of beaches full of imported Indonesian sand.

The Singapore post – part 1 of many

2009-08-01T23:50:00.004+08:00

“Over here! Do you see me? No, cross the street! No, the other street! Now turn, farther, farther farther, silver car…. See?”

“Bendito el lugar, y el motivo de estar ahí, bendita la coincidencia…Bendito el reloj, que nos puso puntual ahí, bendita sea tu, presencia….” To my surprise, the opening strains of a Spanish song trail out of the open doorway, here, somewhere in northeastern Singapore. I peer into the car; the driver, an Indian man in his early thirties, peers back. We introduce ourselves, I jump in, and we’re off. We promptly get lost; he doesn’t ever take the metro, the MRT, and doesn’t usually drive home in a car. I’m apartment hunting, on a tight budget and a tighter deadline in a city with a quick rental market and unusually high rents. Everything is either too expensive or too far away, or the unlucky combination of both too far away and too expensive, with the dubious added benefit of a pool and overzealous security guards. It’s a race against the clock, as I have to be out of my current accommodations by Saturday night, as my host have relatives in to visit. So aside from searching apartment listings, I am also trolling for couchsurfing hosts, as a way to bridge the gap until I find something I like.

The doors open, and somehow the entire occupancy of the metro car realizes in the exact same instant that the transfer line, across the platform, is still there, the doors are still open, and some slim possibility remains for being able to board it. Suddenly, as if of one beast the crowd takes off at a run in a mad dash for the opposite car. And as soon as any individual reaches the interior they immediately stop moving and check their cell phone as if programmed to do so, and at the same time impeding the progress of everyone behind them in entering the car.

I must spare a word in ode to the MRT - the metro. It has an ingenious system where you purchase a metro card with a deposit of 5 SD, you load it up with money and you use this to pay your way. Rides cost between SD0.69 and 1.29 or so, who knows, depending on the distance. Basically, you beep in and beep out again, and you get a discount for transfers. It's fantastic, it's cheap, efficient, and harder to cheat than Germany's frequent "honor system" (you buy them, and someone occasionally checks if you did or not). There are buses going everywhere, and my only complaint is that stops aren't announced, nor is it listed on the locality map in the metro station which buses leave from which place.

No one in Singapore seems to cook. And why bother? What’s the point? It costs money (ingredients) and time, it’s messy, and just around the corner (any corner, it doesn’t really matter) is a battery of food joints, offering anything you could wish (as long as that ‘anything’ consists of ‘local food’ or ‘western food’, of which varieties are usually present. Meals with drinks cost between 3 and 5 Singapore dollar (2.2 - 3.7 CHF, 2 - 3.4 USD, 1.4 – 2.4 EUR). Keeping track of the names is tricky for me, but I had something kind of like a naan bread but greasier, with egg and onions in it and served with curry sauce; I had fried noodles and vegetables; I had a kind of local soup where you pick the ingredients and the whole thing is quickly boiled and served with chili sauce; I had some kind of apple bun which I think was actually blueberry… all new and different. Local coffee is served extra sweet and often made of instant coffee, you can get a bazillion varieties of iced tea at any little stand by the MRT or in a convenience store, and it’s all New and Different and Tasty. Yum.

Sometime around Thursday night we all met at a park and hung out, we being the contingent of international students (about 90% “Western” or otherwise Caucasian). It’s a lot like speed dating: you get there, you know no one, you need to figure out if you like the people in 10 minutes or less to move on to the next group. It’s all about finding a crowd who does fun stuff, from whom you can weed out the good friends later. I talked with some Germans, some Poles, some Norwegians and Hong Kongians and Mexicans and Danish and at some point I stopped keeping track. I need to see these people several more times before I remember anyone’s name much less whether or not I liked them.

(Chinatown - haven't been there yet)

We went to a jazz club. Actually, we were going to some concert where some friend of a friend was playing, but by the time we got everyone together the concert was long over and had been replaced by firedancers. Shisha pipes lined the sides of the streets in Haji street, surrounded by piles of people crowded onto faded rugs on the sidelines. We ended up at the Blu jaz, one of those places with a different offer on each level. It was Goldilocks. Outside was full, downstairs was boring, first floor was raccous and third floor was “just right”, and we settled into some tunes by an Amerian in a hawaiin shirt who offered to sleep with anyone who bought him beer, and his enthusiastic drummer pal. With renditions of Sting and Simon & Garfunkel interspersed with other tunes, and with an ever-increasing percussion section, they were great entertainment but didn’t play long enough, which is how we ended up downstairs with an overenthusiastic DJ / Singer guy in a yellow shirt. Aside from his spastic nature and odd voice, he wasn’t doing to badly. We should import him to Geneva; he’d be a definite improvement. We finished up with some “Tiger” beers at a corner bar, saving Clark’s Quay for another night.

(Sentosa - haven't been there yet either)

People seem to make some pretty crazy demands for future roommates - no cooking, no Indians, Malays or Muslims, no overnight guests, no hot showers, no couples, no men, no no no no no no.... it seems odd that people try to prevent all of this stuff. Couples or families rent out an extra room, and in Singapore's inflated housing market, they can earn a pretty penny on it. But they still want the kitchen to themselves, want no messes anywhere and no extra people - it sounds like the landlords, through their restrictions, are trying to solve problems that are really only solved by not living with other people. I also learned the hard way that being off the metro line is a bad thing. I did manage to tour Bukit Timah by bus, and while it was lovely (and not too different from anything else I'd seen), I was hoping to get somewhere a bit more quickly. People say Singapore's always 20 minutes from anywhere else, but for me it's an hour and a half. "Newton station? Does this bus go to Newton Station?" I ask. The bus driver nods. I board. We drive. And drive and drive anddriveanddriveanddrive. And we end up at Clementi station, which I know well as I've been there at least eight times before. We stop, and the driver looks expectantly at me to get out. No Newton station after all.... and I am sending somewhat hectic SMSs to the person I'm supposed to meet: "I'm running 15 min late," "I'm on a bus somewhere," "Turns out I'm at Clementi, my aus river led" (my bus driver lied, but I was walking and texting). I was an hour late for my appartment.

I was faced with the choice: live far away in a nice condo with nice people for not cheap, live farther away with nice but more restrictive people for cheaper, and off the metro, live central but expensively and still have no pool.... I couldn't decide. I tried to borrow a laptop from some kids at McDonald's, but the internet was too slow. But they were cool kids and let me try; they were working on a project of how to prevent AIDS from being used as a weapon. Sadly, they didn't yet know the answer. I tried to find internet in the swisshotel, but that required being a resident with a key card, which I wasn't and hadn't. I couldn't reach my hosts, I had no more numbers to call and no idea of what to do, so I started wandering around the mall, as it at least had air conditioning. and: internet! on my phone! I got ahold of a number and called, but no one answered... and then my phone died. Next stop: phone charger. The wireless store not only let me charge my phone, they also had computers with internet I could surreptitiously use to check my email! Lo and behold, the "perfect" ad appears and the guy actually calls me back! We agree to meet, I let my phone charge a bit more and off I go!

Thus I found my appartment. It's 10-15 minutes by bus off of a major and very central MRT station, it's public housing (sadly still no pool :( ) but on the 10th floor with an amazing view, very little noise despite being on a main street, an extra mattress, chill roommates (an American lawyer and an India Motorola employee), and within walking distance of my school (through the botanic gardens, no less). It's a humble place, no shining parquet floors and marble entryways, but it's less funky than many places I've lived, and with a bit of sprucing up in my room will be quite homely. And I'm here for only four months anyways - and it was a steal! I pay little more here than I do in Geneva, and have 13 fewer people with whom to share kitchen and bath facilities.

What, you ask, are my impressions of Singapore? It's huge (5 million people and 150% of the land area of Berlin). It's busting (try the MRT in rush hour - sardine time!). It's multiethnic (four official languages, people from everywhere, tons of unidentifiable languages). It's orderly, clean, and freakishly so. Everything works, everything is clean and pretty and manicured: no drainage ditches of trash, no seedy parks (that I've found), only occasional severely ugly housing, nothing like that. Singapore seems to be a giant public service announcement: not only is one enjoined from doing this or that, it's accompanied by the admonishment to "be gracious" "be considerate of others", i.e. "think of the environment, don't litter" (don't think about the 500 dollar fine....). The metros are adorned with a freakishly smiling lady in too much makeup warning me to "don't play, let me come out first!" to ask people to stand back from the doors. The inside of the cars are filled with instructions on how to wipe your filters and prevent dengue fever, anti-terrorism videos run on repeat in the stations, and through all of this "smile!" and "be friendly" are plastered everywhere. Be civic, and be damn happy about it. Strange place, this is....

more to come.

Notes from the Road

2009-07-29T12:16:00.000+08:00

Frankfurt airport now also belongs on the list of airports I don’t particularly like. It’s huge, and the signage is a terrible mixture of the London Tube and Cairo, as if there were someone able to change the signs with a button and were sitting somewhere with a malicious glee and a “haha! Got you now! Hahahaha! And again!”. I joyrided the escalator to the fourth floor – twice – because I couldn’t figure out where the sign for gate E5 told me to go. Swiiiiiiiiiiiiiish. The bag slides another eight inches, impelled by my foot. Swiiiiiiiiish. Another eight inches. At a snail’s pace I creep my way through the line, down the hall, around the trash can and finally approaching the check-in counter. Good thing I’m here three hours before my flight…

The flight itself seems to be filled with a broad mix of holidaymakers, locals (from somewhere in the Gulf, I suppose), with a disproportionate number of unattractive German men (heiratsunfähig?) with youngish Thai wives. But I make no assumptions… Surprisingly, the national airlines of the UAE serves booze for free and had movies on demand. I made it through Sunshine Cleaning and The International. I’ve watched more movies this last week than in the last year, I’m sure of it.

What a Fox!

2009-07-29T11:59:00.005+08:00

Already you could see the masses streaming towards the park; it was if a magnetic pull drew them on, and we found ourselves joining the masses. After we accidentally ran a red light and managed to park the car, of course. Anything you wanted was there: sausages and fries, pizza and lemonade, beer and terrible “Grape” beer drinks, port-o-potties, and anything you wanted required waiting in line for quite awhile. As I waited for my turn in the green plastic cubicle, the girls next to me were eating pizza, drinking champagne, and discussing their problems with a fellow named Matze (short form of Matthias or Matthew). I stood there long enough next to them, learning about how he needs boundaries and less coddling of his whims, that I started to suspect this fellow was one of their children rather than one of their boyfriends. Eventually we managed to acquire our beverages of choice and made our way to where friends were ostensibly fending off the masses to secure us a spot in exchange for not having to go wait in line for Coca Cola themselves. Our little caravan of three cars had split into an earlier and a later group, and the earlier group had staked out a prime location at the “foot of the hill, to the left of the stage, at the height of the screen.” With these precise directions we set off, but by this time the entire stage area and the “hill” were entirely full, the later looking as if it were covered in brightly-colored ants.

Ostensibly there was a path between the “orchestra” space and the “hill”, but by this time even this had become full of latecomers who figured it wasn’t worth shoving father in and had contented themselves with standing on the path. And inevitably, at some point, the steady but trickling progress through the masses ground to a complete halt, complicated by the stream from the other direction and the woman who – despite all logic and maternal instinct – insisted in letting her small son try to trycicle his way through the crowds with admirable determination for someone who is knee high. And we’re stopped. And no one knows we’re really stopped and not just dawdling, and someone sees that the path is blocked by stationary people who don’t look like they want to move. And someone decides to move the process along, and suddently I’m being shoved into the person in front of me, who was shoved by the person behind them, who was shoved by the person behind them… but it’s still not moving forward and the mass compresses like air in a bottle. You could almost taste the stench of so many people pressed on one another as your body is sandwiched. I could feel the contours of the body of the person behind me; I knew he was male and wearing a belt, and considerably taller than I am, and I realized with a sting that my bracelet, a wide metal ring open on one side, had caught on someone and was now almost stabbing into my arm. A string of teenies who had linked into a chain were slowly torn from one another. Thankfully, the girl’s escalating cries, bordering on hysteria, of “I can’t get any air! I can’t breathe!” only marginally preceded the eventual release of pressure and we stumbled forward as if air expelled from a balloon.

But it was worth it. The ideal location valiantly defended by our friends was indeed fantastic, as close as you could get to the stage without hitting the mosh pit, and still, as we were on the hill, providing a good view in the stadium-seating-like array. The only problem was that we had to actually stand on said hill, which wasn’t level and allowed no room for sitting down or for moving in any direction besides vertical, and after the arduous fight to our spot, we downed our cokes and beers long before the show began. In an attempt to entertain us, the producers sent a series of beach balls into the crowd which we were supposed to keep afloat; the crowd, in turn, countered with oblong balloons floating lazily from here to there, made of condoms. Someone up and to the left had a Spongebob balloon which eventually escaped, and the entire crowd turned to watched Mr Squarepants floating lazily into the stratosphere, his little foil arm twitching in the breeze as if he were waving us goodbye. He probably had an appointment with the hot air balloon taking off in the background.

It’s something incredible to see so many people in one place. Some estimates say over 40 000 were gathered there; as far as the eye could see there were people, fading into little ecstatic dots. And because the performer – Peter Fox, former frontman of the German hip-hop band Seeed from Berlin – was well known, he didn’t have to convince the crowd. Religion is perhaps the opiate of the masses, but concerts are more likely the adderol of the masses. Hands stretched towards the stage, bobbing with the beat, in the typical gesture which for us at least was the only movement possible in such a tight space.

The band itself consisted of Mr Fox, three backup singers (two ladies and a tattooed man who looked like he moonlighted in movies like the Fast and the Furious), a random guy who danced around with a monkey mask on (makes sense for Peter Fox), and a row of drummers who were probably horribly happy to not also have to wear a monkey mask. And the cool thing was that all of these people, throughout much of the show, were dancing in unison. The drummers were there for both percussion and show, spinning sticks, making shapes with them and meanwhile dancing along. It was like the mutant lovechild of marching band, line dancing and hip hop music.

After two hours of frenetic jumping up and down on the side of the hill, we were subjected to two “opening” groups who were actually “ending” groups, fortified with slurpees and went on our way.

Into the wild...ish

2009-07-26T00:13:00.001+08:00

42 years ago, my uncle went to Liberia in the Peace Corps. He built a school and a market and taught English to Liberians in a small town far from anywhere. He had a choice between cockroaches or spiders and chose the former. This year, he returned, to find new buildings to replace those destroyed in the civil war, and to find that in many respects, not much has changed. The buildings he built were still there, the school he taught at as well, and his former host family still lived in the same house. Only everything and everyone was 42 years older. Why is it that the West has seen rock n roll develop, the cold war grow and die, social revolution, the end of segregation, bad hairdos, disco, color TV, portable computers and adjustable-rate mortgages?

One year and nine weeks ago, I left the US for Europe, bearing with me a suitcase full of memories, a lifetime’s upbringing and the teary but genuine blessing of my parents, for the third time. And again I have returned, but this time not to live but only to visit, and I am back again on a plane. The map tells me I’m somewhere over Illinois between Peoria and somewhere else, and the cloud-filled patchwork below me offers no further clues. The map continuously rotates: Illinois, Midwest, USA, Illinois, Midwest, USA. I suppose it all depends on your context. The answer to “who are you?” or “where are you from?” depends on the interlocutor and the context: for some people, the country suffices; for others, I must specify my state; others will want to know my hometown. You decide how much meaning is in the answer. The more I travel and the more I live abroad, the more important it is, I realize, to actually be “from” somewhere, even if that’s not where I currently live. I saw a DVD on Bob Dylan, a documentary titled “No direction home”. It well explained his rambling soul, how he left his childhood behind with a harmonica and a guitar, and how he changed a generation (or several). A part of me recognizes in him my own wandering spirit. Still, despite all that he has achieved, I feel a bit sorry for him for having felt so little connection to his roots that he changed his given name.

I don’t know if I’ve gained much outside perspective on the US for having been abroad. Certainly I see the follies of our politics, the defects consistently and insistently highlighted by our detractors, but I recognize the positives that Hollywood ignores or doesn’t glorify. I think, though, that the widest divide isn’t between me and my European friends and acquaintances based on our nationalities, but rather the vast chasm between those of us with opportunities and those of us without. There is poverty and despair in the US as well; we don’t all need to gallivant off to Africa to find people with barely enough to eat and scarce hope of a better future. And for all of the angry young men facing 60% or higher unemployment in Africa, in the Middle East and elsewhere, there are high-schools full of self-destructive teenagers in the middle of their respective personal Angst, squandering the opportunities we were granted, unasked for and unappreciated, wrecking our second or third car, drinking away our youths and our livers, cutting classes and wasting time. For all of those youngsters who waste their parents’ money on those repeated tries at college after partying precluded passing, there are kids of the same age who don’t get to go to school. They end up having a family and working at Walmart and just scraping by, and they give up far more dreams than we can ever waste with our selfishness.

As we were parking the truck, perched precariously on the outside corner of a dirt road where, stepping out, you could gaze down at several hundred meters of not very much. It makes you check the parking brake just one more time. On all sides of us loomed hills blossoming into mountains, rugged, craggy things interrupted by a verdant valley. A road leading to the quarry gashed the opposite hillside, and for our part, we were faced with a trail in two directions: ‘up’ and ‘down’. On this side of the Rockies, snow and rainfall – and particularly this summer – evoke a startling change from the Eastern slope; instead of scrubby forests and sparse undergrowth, the entire forest was carpeted by a thick underbrush of grass and wildflowers. Tall and slender pines were interspersed with our one and only kind of leafy tree, the aspen, which is all part of one organism and turns a beautiful gold color in the autumn.

I had forgotten how quickly the storms roll in. Outsiders think we’re paranoid for worrying about the weather on a perfectly clear day, but as they say, “if you don’t like the weather in Colorado, wait half an hour.” Usually a couple of people die each year from lightning strikes from the violent, black clouds. It can start with little puffy clouds on the horizon, not much and not too threatening, but within a few minutes they gather and darken. Standing on the ridgeline, watching the storm come in, sends your heart, mind and legs racing to find a safe place. The thunder is already echoing, rumbling long and low when the storm is far off, and cracking like a whip, simultaneous with the flash, when it is upon you. It begins with the gusting wind, and you can see the sheets of rain across the valley. You know your turn is up, you know you’ll be drenched, and you start looking for places to hide. It may pour in one valley and completely skip the other one; you could see hailstones the size of marbles or golf balls, followed by rain and brilliant sunshine. Sometimes it’s over quickly, and sometimes it sets in for a pounding.

Near Crested Butte we found a trail drenched in wildflowers. They were everywhere and in all colors, reds, pinks, purples, whites, yellows, blues, all across the hillsides. Europe, at least the bits I’ve mostly been to, lacks the riotousness of a natural wood. Here there are no trees planted in rows, no manicured, landscaped horticultures interspersed with marble statues. Here there is a craggy rock face higher than Mont Blanc, there a waterfall and a hidden valley, and everywhere the signs of a living ecosystem.

I’m happy to report that Boulder is just as much filled with strange people as ever. In addition to street performers of the usual ilk (as in, playing actual instruments or some kind of performance), we have the wheelchair pirate, the girl in the gorilla suit, and the beggar who only accepts donations that are stapled to his body. With a stapler. Everything seems to be health food, people are snobby about the beer, and there are almost as many roadbikes as on the Tour de France. Dreadlocks and tattoos abound, the coffee shops are full of wannabe poets and musicians with the light scent of self-righteousness and political leftism.

I brought you typhus

2009-07-01T00:56:00.002+08:00

I’ll be taking bets about how long I can bear my 5 shirts and 5 skirts before I detest everything and throw it all away. Nevertheless, for the next seven months, I will be able to carry everything I own on my person at one time, which is the kind of feat you can’t really put on your resume but is exceptionally useful if you’re on the road. Once again, as with every other time I’ve moved (out / across countries and continents), I realize just how much random shit I’ve acquired the last year. I’d been happily squirreling it away, bringing back from every trip to Germany some utensils or shoes or something I’d purchased, along with the last bag I’d stored with someone months or years ago. At least now, everything I own is either with me now or in Geneva, which helps as it is no longer scattered across continents and countries.

It’s like camping: once you’re out there with just what you can carry on your back, you realize just how little you really need. You can get by with very little, and the less you have the easier your life is on the road. However, there is a difference between getting by and doing well, and just because it is possible to rotate among three outfits, that gets old quite quickly.

Happily, I can now announce that I am officially transient again. I am, as the French say, sans domicile fixe (s.d.f.), with no fixed residence. I am not homeless in the literal sense, as I have lots of homes in lots of places, those to which I now return and those to which I have not yet ventured, and in any case I’m not on the streets. I am not heimatslos in the German sense of being without a home (think of a sort of primal concept of ‘home’ rather than ‘the house in which I live’). I just have no residence, and currently receive post in three countries but don’t currently live in any of them.

I’ve been trying hard to figure out what exactly makes me unable to live anywhere for long. Perhaps ‘unable’ is not the word. It’s not really ‘push factors’ that drive me away, but rather the lure of faraway places that inspires me to pack it all up and move out. If I have the time or a particular opportunity, as with both my current voyage to Asia and my previous sojourn in Egypt, the unknown calls to me.

People sometimes ask me what I hate about the States that I don’t want to live there. To make it clear, while there are things I dislike about the States – just as there are things I dislike about Germany or Switzerland or Egypt or anywhere else I’ve lived or will live – it is not out of hate of the place that I leave. On the contrary, being abroad makes me feel a bit more connected to “the country I know best” as I am confronted with stereotypes, people’s impressions gained on their voyages and invariably shared with me upon learning where I’m from, or people’s frustrations or enthusiasm for our country. Coming from the US is a bit like living in a glass house – our culture and politics are spread everywhere, and everyone feels somewhat entitled to an opinion about it all. Everyone has an opinion about the US, I would dare to suppose, for better or for worse. While I have met many people whose conception of the US is based on bad Hollywood movies and Bush’s polemic foreign policy, I have also met with an exceptional number of people who are interested in and know better than I US politics, current popular culture, history, literature, or anything else you care to know.

Going through security at customs was kind of like shopping at Aldi – everything has to be placed as onto the belt, you are quickly shooed through the scanners, and as soon as possible you have to recollect your liquids, put on your shoes, find the loose change and contents of your pockets, and get the heck out of the way before everything falls off the back end. But at least it went quickly. Passport control was manned by an ill-tempered serf whose sole purpose in life was to rag on people who don’t move quickly enough, towing children and suitcases, to wait in the proper line to have their passport stamped. All the while, on the TV screens above the massive lines shuffling resignedly but quickly towards the blue-uniformed officers, US propaganda videos loop showing smiling families and individuals, of appropriate ethnic and cultural distribution, interspersed with US landmarks and clichéd cowboys and NYC skyline shots, culminating in a series of grinning people repeating “welcome”. It’s all a bit frightening.

All the while I’m trying hard to babysit my “Petri dish”, a typhus vaccine which is supposed to be refrigerated. Apparently airplanes don’t really have refrigerators (?? Makes no sense to me, but okeee), so I ended up with a barf bag full of ice at one point in which to place the tiny box. The ice proceeded to melt everywhere and soak the packaging, but kept the vaccine cold. The bar in Dulles gave me a little plastic tray with ice cubes which I refreshed on the plane to Denver. Instead of normal take-off worries, I was worried that my little plastic tray under my seat would slide back and douse the feet of the passanger behind me in icewater. Luckily, my typhus made it home intact, swimmingly happily in its basin of water. I’ve mistreated it enough, I’ll probably get typhus itself instead of immunity against it….

Train musings

2009-06-09T05:35:00.002+08:00

I’d never really though of it this way, but riding a train is kind of like riding a giant metal worm. [As an aside, note to self: do NOT, under any circumstances, do a google image search containing the word 'worm' in order to illustrate a post]. It’s like you’ve been swallowed by the thing from Tremors, and it gulps you whole, luggage and all, before descending beneath the earth to arise somewhere else. Perhaps the bastard lovechild of Tremors and a tin can. And of course, Sunday nights is when the entire male youth population of Switzerland, decked out in their little pressed uniforms and their little machine guns, seem to be on the road from somewhere to somewhere else. Thankfully, the ones in uniform with guns are generally not the ones in uniform with beer. Still, where I have my crutches clasped between my knees, the youngling across from me has some kind of weapon pressed between his, and despite our beloved second amendment, I have to say I find it unnerving that someone who wouldn’t be allowed in a bar in the US (but would be granted a driver’s license) is allowed a weapon in Switzerland.

You have to hand it to them Swiss. Their country sure is a be-yoo-tiful place, gosh darnit. They have mountains and rivers and lakes and villages, and occasional castles, and things are actually green most of the time. Even well into the winter. The train rides are picturesque, taking you through rustic hamlets and old mining towns, interspersed with modern or antique cities of mini- to moderate size, and everything is clean. Squeeeeeeky, freakishly clean. I feel like if you sent the Smurfs, (otherwise known as the blue-suited street-sweeper corps of Geneva) to some random African country, with an equal amount of effort they would build an entire interstate highway system inside of a week. They could at least stop off in Cairo for a week or so; I’m sure they’d have the place looking spiffy in no time.

Cruising in from Germany towards the Swiss border, I was kidnapped by a corpulent woman with an incomprehensible accent and a small man and suitcase in tow. She had offered me the option of riding along on their group ticket, and while I saved €1,70 (actually, €3,70 if you count the money we forgot to pay for the tram) on the trip, I and the slightly confused looking youngish guy the lady also managed to snag paid for more than half the ticket. In any case, she swept me, the other guy, and my crutches up and deposited us in a corner of the train, where we proceeded to make small talk most of the way to Switzerland. I think her first question to me was if I could read. Or if I did read. She asked me things like, “do you read burks?” which turned out to mean “do you read books?” I ended up faking the title and author of a historical novel I pretended recently to have read (because I felt that edifying her on the subject of refugee security in Africa might be more than she had bargained for). We made small talk. It was difficult.

Many people assume I am German. These people were no exception. And like many Germans, I dare to say, who speak (only) standard, normal German, I hold a vague resentment towards speakers of dialect, as if they are deliberately trying to frustrate me by reducing my comprehension to approximately 30% of what they say. I, of course, am always the wronged party, and I draw my indignation by resorting to the usual argument of “I am a foreigner,” which is true but irrelevant in this situation, as I feel my comprehension is not much behind that of your average not-from-a-small-town-in-southern-Germany-German, and the latter group can’t draw their indignation from a sense of people making it hard because you’re not from around here. My traveling companions, the hefty lady From A Small Town in Southern Germany (which evokes mild terror among speakers of High German) spoke with a nearly unintelligible accent. It was like trying to speak Cockney with an American. She repeated a lot of her questions, and eventually we resorted to talking about the weather. Her husband / shadow was a slight man with a broad smile, tobacco-stained teeth and a worse accent, which was explained by the fact that he was actually Sicilian, so he spoke Small Town German With A Foreign Accent. Despite the fact that I understood nothing of what he said he seemed quite nice. Our last companion, the fellow snagged at the last minute, was a businessman of some kind who spoke normal German but was also From and Lived In A Small Town In Southern Germany. As soon as he fell into conversation with the lady I could see my comprehension sinking faster than a concrete-laden mafia victim (no inspiration from the Sicilian, for sure) as he delved into a detailed explanation of why he dislikes his father-in-law and therefore refuses to name his impending child after him. We made an unlikely collection of lost souls, for sure. I feigned sleep and hoped for the best.

Because of a recent operation I’ve been traveling with crutches. I have an awesome, slightly bloodstained and slightly grody bandage on my left foot, now held together with some kind of red hockey tape and a lot of good will, and I feel I require this visual sign of my grave disability to justify my crutches, my unique style of locomotion, and the fact that my foot and I take up two to three chairs at every opportunity. Now I can get around without the sticks, using them mostly just for stability’s sake and to chastise errant friends, but in the beginning it was a tiring mixture of limp-walking, hobbling, and full-on ground-eating crutching, which left me exhausted after about 20 meters and made me look absolutely ridiculous. Still, people make way for me on the tram, give me seats on the train and generally go about being nice to me or giving me pitying looks. Being “handicapped” has led to me being tenderly cared for all weekend and exempted from dish duty, which has been quite a bonus, and has led me to adopt a style of eating commensurate to the fact that one of my legs sticks out to the side of the table and is propped on the chair, meaning I can’t get closer than about a foot (30 cm) to my food in many cases. Besides the dish-duty-free-ness and the vaguely satisfying visible display of a long-standing problem (why does no one believe I have torn ligaments? It’s not like I run or wear ridiculous high-heeled shoes all the time or anything), the experience has given me a greater respect for people who can’t simply pop downstairs (four flights) to grab the washing because of a dependency on crutches or a wheelchair or simply funny legs or joints. The experience has also given me a surprisingly peaceful and even freeing sense of resignation I recognize from countries where nothing works or runs on time: you get there when you get there, and not before, and that’s okay. The world doesn’t wait for you to crutch your way there, but it’s actually not that bad if it turns a little bit without you.

v Lubanga

2009-05-26T06:13:00.003+08:00

Looking out of his fishtank is Thomas Lubanga. He sits—from my perspective—sullenly, relegated to the back, wearing a suit and flanked by bored-looking security. Scanning the room, he’s one of the few black faces present—one of the elements that makes the whole process, some times, seem somewhat of an absurdity. The robes grant solemnity but are almost a caricature of themselves, unable to do more than blur the lines of individuals and far from creating homogenous figures of that which each is supposed to represent. The pixilation and distorted voice made the speaker sound like they were lifted from a bad sci-fi movie, and barely after we had arrived the session reverted to silence and we sat in solemn quiet as their lips moved and no sound came out.

He looks at us, again, and we recall that we are not looking through a one-way mirror but a whindow, and our view of him is his view of us as we sit gawking, faced with a man dressed as a diplomat, who would perhaps be amicable or likeable if you met him in person, or perhaps he would be haughty or abrasive—but in any case, he sits before us in his suit, accused of some of the more heinous crimes mankind has identified, categorized, and created punishments for.

You can question the merits of bodies like the ICC: many have, and many will continue to do so. There is something to say for the idea that tribunals simply aren’t the place to deal with mass crimes where half a society is guilty, or that conviting the commander while letting the soldier—the one who killed your loved one with his own hand before your eyes—goes free and moves in next door. Shouldn’t the millions of dollars going into these expensive prosecutions, the one black face in the sea of white prosecutors, be better spent on victims, or on poverty? But there’s something to be said as well that monsters must be brought to justice, and organizing mass murder, genocide, sexual torture, or any of a number of heinous crimes needs the swift and decisive hand of justice, that there should be no forgiveness for those who have committed the unforgivable. These arguments circle like flies around a corpse, and are equally incapable of bringing back the dead. What’s left are the living, like our Mr Lubanga before us, sitting in an aquarium of a courtroom, bored and listening to the distorted testimony of a protected witness whose testimony he already knows. What’s left is someone who has done horrible who looks just like anyone else you’d meet on the street. Makes you wonder at what point his humanity checked out of the hotel and left.

Counts

M. Lubanga is allegedly responsible, as co-perpetrator, of war crimes consisting of:

• Enlisting and conscripting of children under the age of 15 years into the Forces patriotiques pour la libération du Congo [Patriotic Forces for the Liberation of Congo] (FPLC) and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the context of an international armed conflict from early September 2002 to 2 June 2003 (punishable under article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) of the Rome Statute);

• Enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 years into the FPLC and using them to participate actively in hostilities in the context of an armed conflict not of an international character from 2 June 2003 to 13 August 2003 (punishable under article 8(2)(e)(vii) of the Rome Statute).

Lubanga is being tried on child soldiery offenses, though he is alledgedly responsible for a multitude of other crimes.

2009-05-18T05:27:00.002+08:00

Germany is a country where you don’t cross against the lights. The joke is that if three Europeans (an Italian, a Frenchie and a German) come to a red light at 3 AM on a deserted street, the Italian will cross without looking, the Frenchie will look and then cross, and the German will stand there and wait for the light to change. I’ve seen ‘em do it. Anyways, the other thing you’re not supposed to do is ride across red lights on your bike, which I hear is punished by flogging or at least a dressing down on the part of some otherwise quite nice old lady. I think it’s a ridiculous restriction, but then again, bike helmets and traffic laws were made for lesser (and smarter) mortals than I. In any case, there I was with a super high quality borrowed bike, trying to cross the street. The thing had one gear which was likely partially rusted to the chain, a crooked handlebar, margianally functioning brakes, and a seat so high I could barely reach the pedals. Needless to say, maneuvering was quite tricky, so when I came to the intersection and saw the stopped cars, I assumed I was allowed to cross and/or was willing to risk it anyways, as stopping and starting was too complicated on the bike. So I toodle on in to the middle of the intersection, when two things happened simultaneously: (a) I realized I was crossing against the light, meaning traffic would start up any second, and (b), my tire became completely jammed in the tram lines, leaving me stranded in the intersection, frantically trying to extricate my bike before the cars let loose. Happily for all parties involved I succeeded.

Istanbul, here we come!!

2009-04-21T23:42:00.002+08:00

Arriving anywhere in the middle of the night is basically like drinking the potion in Alice’s wonderland. Suddenly, everything is strange and distorted by lack of sleep, a new place, an incomprehensible language and the inevitable warp of reality inherent in any place at 4 AM. I would likely not have been surprised to be confronted with a talking rabbit or any other apparent hallucination. We therefore took refuge in the first open and well-lit place we could find as the clerk eyed us and our approaching backpack with obvious trepidation. We’re basically a married couple, two girls living out of one backpack, one guidebook, one plane ticket, sharing a mattress, meals, and a vacation. At least I got my own underwear in the deal.

“What is that?” I asked the poor fast food man, stuck with crazy travelers at a deserted joint at 4 AM, pointing to the image of something blown up on a poster larger than my backpack that looked a) sugary and b) not made of meat. “Chicken menu?” came his hesitant non-sequitor reply, which either meant that everything else was sold out / gone / eaten by wolves / too much work to make, or that that was the only English he knew. Ordering food was like a hilarious game of charades meets Christmas meets roulette: your miming skills are crucial, you only know what you ended up with after you opened the package, and it may or may not kill you. We consoled ourselves with decent fries, a terrible chicken sandwich and a yellowish goo which turned out to be rice pudding as we awaited rescue.

As masses of giggling girls in impossible shoes passes us, followed by a group of drunken 20-year-olds and another group of twentysomethings and another group and another group and another in a surreal kind of déjà vu, like underwear in the dryer clinging briefly to each other only to separate again, constantly recycling, another and another and another on tottery legs after a night out. I reflect on the universality of man: or of young people. We’re really all the same, the unwashed masses dragging their worldly possessions in a beat up backpack across the well-trodden paths of a good time in a strange place, armed with our flipflops and our Lonely Planets, a tolerance for the uncomfortable (we call it adventure) and a sense of self entitlement. We’re gonna do Istanbul, yeah!

Istanbul at 4 AM, like many other massive cities, is anything but dead, and in our case, largely consisted of drunk tourists beginning to stagger home from the bars along the Ikslandai Caddesi, a microcosm of Europe teetering home on unsteady heels. Our home away from home was tucked into a corner of Beyoğlu, with views of the Bosphorus and Sultnahmet from the rooftop terrace, accessible after several flights of bizarrely-painted walls accompanied by the faint smell of old cigarette smoke. It was kind of like stairmaster meets Jackson Pollock. We found no obvious critters anywhere (an obvious contrast to my last stay away from home, when a massive cockroach tried to eat me alive), and the toilet was decent. The shower, however, was the place (I am sure) hairballs go to die, after huddling, shivering, in the corners, trying to avoid the onslaught of water drenching the room every time someone takes a shower. I was worried one of those slimy clumps would sink its teeth into my foot, grasping at rescue from its watery grave. No such luck; after the first shower, you learn to avoid the slimy bits and all is well. We call it adventure, after all; no fun without hardship. We stumbled off to bed as the call to prayer rang out over the rooftops reminding us that, wherever we were, we weren’t in Kansas any more.

I expected Istanbul to be something between Europe and Cairo, but here it’s all Europe and no Cairo. No mosques, no headscarves. Men don’t yell obscenities (ok, that only happened once), or marriage proposals, from the other side of the street. There is public transportation. It works. There are taxis with meters, and prices in stores (though some negotiability), and you can eat anything anywhere. But then again, that takes a lot of the adventure out of it, and you don’t feel like you’ve ‘survived’ Istanbul as you ‘survive’ Cairo. Istanbul is kind of like Prague but with mosques: perhaps some run-down bits but otherwise pretty and touristy and cheap (by European standards).

Istanbul is also massive, and exciting, and vivacious: full of people, full of cafés and bars and restaurants and food joints and boutiques and markets and bazaars and everything all at once. In this respect, it’s much more interesting than your “average” European city. It has beautiful waterfront promenades and parks, with playgrounds (for adults?) and parks along the clean river, with clean air.

Armed with two loaves of bread, two containers of what claimed to be cheese, a liter and a half of Ayran (salted yoghurt drink) and the eager enthusiasm of small children at the zoo for the first time, we set off for the Princess islands, where we spent a delightful day walking, eating, sleeping, eating, walking, eating, sleeping, drinking tea, eating, and walking. Accessible by ferry, the islands are car-free (except for the one and only car, a police cruiser, making weary laps of the island), thinly inhabited, and covered with beautiful spots perfect for picknicking (except for the sign which said “no picknicking”, which we promptly ignored) looking out over cliffs and the open water towards the Mediterranean. Moments like these make me want to forget school and responsibilities and all of that, shanghai a sailboat and head for Gibralter. Escape takes the form of blue water and a distant horizon. We must content ourselves with cheese and cookies.

FYI: Ski goggles are not a fashion statement.

2009-03-15T06:50:00.005+08:00

Man I suck at life. It's halfway into March and I've posted nothing.... argh.

Grocery shopping is a great cultural experience. It shows you a lot about a place, everything from clientele to employees to selection, it all has a Deeper Meaning. Take the employees for example. In the US, they are super overly friendly, and desperately want to help you find everything. I almost feel like the Safeway employees should go for a career change and switch to counseling, because I have never had so many people ask me "can I help you?" in my life. Or else I am due for therapy. Anyways, the American freakish helpfulness is counteracted by the famous German Indifference, which basically consists of pretending customers don't exist, making snide comments to those who are too slow in throwing their purchases into their cart to be bagged later, and a basic general commitment to being Serious About Everything And On Top Of That Having No Humor. I can't say too much about Spanish supermarkets because I was only in one about twice, but I did stand behind a lady who had to fill out her address and complete medical history and multi-volume memoires (in triplicate) in order to leave her cart for a few minutes. But I mentioned that before. The Swiss are nice and helpful if you need something, but not irritatingly friendly nor with some kind of strange superiority complex.

I'm a Migros, I have to admit. I always go to the same one, 'cause it's the only one which carries my brand of Müsli. Regardless of the fact that I only buy Müsli about every second or third week. Anyways, back when I had nothing to do I could go shopping whenever I wanted, which was mostly mid-morning. Now, the following is a shameless bout of mockery which, while evoking a small but prescient complaint from my conscience that I am Not A Good Person For Making Fun Of Other People--but I can't resist. It's a post about supermarkets and Migros. At my Migros, there's a lady who works there all the time. She has her hair, frizzled and dyed black, always in a ponytail on the very top of her head. Besides this heinous fashion misdeed, she also has no eyebrows whatsoever. Now I suppose it's your choice to pluck your eyebrows out and re-create them with a sharpie if you so desire, but if you do, make sure they actually have the proportions of eyebrows and not of ski goggles.

Aaaaaanyways, I was there today (everything is fricking closed on Sunday, which means everyone goes shopping on Saturday, which means everyone tries to fit a week's worth of groceries in our solitary fridge--shared among 8 people with mutually exclusive food--which is subsequently adorned with little notes as people discover, with dismay, someone else's 3 dozen eggs taking up their shelf). And I collected my usual round of suspects and picked a short-ish looking queue. Of course, I only notice the problem once I have unpacked my basket, and it's too late to leave. The woman in front of me bought about 100 CHF of groceries, but here she is, complaining that she was charged 10 centimes too much for four of the fifteen bars of chocolate she had purchased; apparently, she had mistakenly been lead to believe that there is some kind of rebate or customer loyalty points collection which she would not be acquiring as a result of the store's negligence in proper signage. Establishing that the thing was poorly signed involved three employees and two trips back to the chocolate aisle, whereupon the collective brainpower of the wronged party and her three assistants, after meticulously pressing all possible combinations of buttons on the register, established that no rebate was forthcoming, so the lady was therefore only going to take those bars of chocolate on sale, and re-select the remainder so as to fit the conditions of the special offer. Meanwhile, I have sprouted several gray hairs and can literally see my milk turning bad from being out too long on account of this lady. Immersed with the consideration of exactly what I would tell my profs to excuse my certain absence on Monday (still stuck in the line at Mirgros) I almost missed the lady paying with the promise of reimbursement and special assistance in re-selecting her chocolate choices.

//rant

PS: is it weird that I already had a tag for 'grocery shopping'?

Your correspondant reports (II)

2009-02-22T19:24:00.003+08:00

Observation of the day:

Geneva seems to be populated by a particular species of Cruella de Villes. Specimens of this species are additionally easily identifiable by the following characteristics: poorly dyed hair (usually a faded bleach-job à la Barbie, 20 years on, or else a failed attempt to regain redheaded glory or an ill-fated mixture of the two), an absurdly small, fluffy dog, and/or a fur coat (the latter demonstrating the specimen’s (a) political incorrectness, (b) indifference towards animals, (c) insensitivity towards fashion, and/or (d) fondness for mothballs).

In other news, I have been swallowed by my studies and internship and intend to re-emerge around June. If I haven’t showed up by July, please notify the authorities.

Au revoir Caire...

2009-02-17T20:37:00.004+08:00

Our collective gasp filled the microsecond between when we saw the pedestrian come from between two parked cars and when, with a sickening thump, he rolled up the hood to be left sprawled in traffic as our taxi hit him. He lay stricken, a crowd quickly forming about him as he gathered himself, slowly stood and painfully and made his way to the median. Our taxi driver did not protest when we refused to continue in his cab, and we made our way per metro after reassuring ourselves that the poor man was at least in mobile condition.

January has stumbled into February. The days grow steadily warmer, as if someone is slowly turning up the burner under Cairo. At a time when freezing snow and battering winds are smothering Europe, Cairo is bathed in a springtime warmth—magnified by the brown cloud hovering over everything and smothering the city in pollution.

My time here is also coming to a close. Six weeks of Cairo, with brief interludes in Alexandria and in the desert, have taught me so much, showed me so many things, and proved my introduction to another world.

Looking out from the US, the Middle East is not a happy place. Everything from Morocco to Pakistan gets lumped together, and for a lot of people this region is simply the place “where terrorists come from”, horribly repressive, fanatically religious, and definitely out to get us. Indeed, the region can be all of these things—and my experiences have been of Egypt and I can thus not speak too much to anywhere else—but this generalization ignores two important points. First, the division within the “Middle East” can be as great as the divisions between “Islam and the rest”. The religious and ethnic differences are vast: among Sunnis (Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, majority in Kuwait, Libya, Sudan, Syria, Turkey, UAE), Shi’ites (Bahrain, majority in Iraq, Iran), Sufis, Ibadhi (Oman), Druze, and others; among Arabs and non-Arabs (including Persians, Turks, Kurds). The “Middle East” states doesn’t always get along with each other, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan often on one side and Iran, Syria, and some of the Gulf states on the other. The second point this generalization often overlooks is that people—at least in Egypt, though this has also been my experience elsewhere—differentiate between politics and people. The US government makes this difficult, and the deeply unpopular presidency of Bush II (a note to you non-Americans: a lot of us didn’t like him either, and I certainly didn’t vote for him!) has done quite a bit for increasing the dislike and hate of the US government. Nevertheless, in most cases Egyptians at least can distinguish and treat me similarly to how they treat me when I claim to be German: friendly and curious. But nevertheless, the first forty-five seconds of any conversation generally consists of “where are you from?” “America.” “Obama?” “Obama!”. Friends for life, I tell you.

I finally made it to the pyramids, which, completely in line with all expectations of the matter, more or less resemble giant piles of ancient rock—a startling coincidence, because that is, in fact, what they are. The pyramids at Giza are renowned for being a massive hassle, both in terms of getting there and of surviving the gauntlet of overly enthusiastic trinket-sellers and people trying to convince you to do all manner of things (and pay handsomely for them). We let ourselves be convinced (by our driver, a taxi driver whom we had befriended on a previous trip and asked again to take us) to take a camel ride around the pyramids, and were readily equipped with two intemperate camels and two bored-looking horses. Riding a camel is like riding a horse, except your head is at about eleven feet off the ground, the animal makes all kinds of disconcerting noises (“gargling Drano” was L.’s characterization), the motion is more akin to a ship than a horse, and you can neither get off nor steer. Once we convinced our mini companion (aside from our guide we were accompanied by two smallish children responsible for ‘encouraging’ the camels) to let loose the horses and to steer them ourselves, the poor beasts seemed slightly perkier and we continued on our tour of Giza from a distance. Riding in from the back side and coming around the pyramids up to the sphinx is really the way to do it: you miss the hassle, miss the crowds, and have your own burbling camels for company on the way. We spent the afternoon in Saqqara (whose step pyramid was made famous by being featured on the label of an eponymous beer which, besides Egypt-brewed Stella and Heineken, seem to be the only kinds of beer readily available). Saqqara consisted of temples and old burial sites, richly adorned tombs and a pyramid, and basically we were able to muck about and look at most anything while almost completely unsupervised. Our trip concluded with Dahshur, where we were able to enter one of the two pyramids. Pyramids seem like just a giant pile of rocks, but climbing into one really emphasizes both how massive and huge they were, but also gives a distinct feeling of being, well, in a tomb. Entering the pyramid requires descending a 100-meter chute, itself about four or five feet tall, forcing everyone to descend backwards and bent over down the ramp. Reaching the bottom, one traverses another mini-sized tunnel to enter one of three vaulted chambers. Immediately upon leaving the chute the air becomes warmer and stickier, and the question of ventilation and exactly where does their oxygen come from become ever more preoccupying.

Anyways, Egypt will soon be left behind with its crazy streets, congested traffic, endless markets and 1001 mosques. The call to prayer will not echo across the streets of Geneva; no bustling markets are to be found, no pop hits from Lebanon blaring at a deafening volume from the neon-lit boats along the Nile corniche, no mobile cafés consisting of twenty plastic chairs and a kettle, no juice bars, no illuminated mosques and centuries-old buildings hidden among the warren-like streets of the Islamic quarter, no tamiyya, no chorus of “welcome! Welcome! Welcome to Egypt!” will follow us as we pass.

The {…} that ate Cincinnati

2009-01-26T04:02:00.000+08:00

I swear it was eight inches long, a blood-red color, and coming for my foot with little clicking skittery noises, determined to munch my toenails off and otherwise cause me all manner of buggy evilness. Actually, it was really only an inch or two long and probably more interested in escaping L.’s Boot Heel of Death than in nibbling on my toes, heading for the relative safety of underneath the bed… but alas, the boot heel won out, and the cockroach became nothing more than a slightly greasy smear on the carpet. Hey, you get what you pay for, and we didn’t pay much. What we did get was a balcony overlooking the Mediterranean, which, except for the four-lane (-ish…Egypt doesn’t really use lanes) road separating it from us, was right on our doorstep. Making it across the road is a bit of a trick, but having been forged in the fires of Cairo traffic, we were undaunted by the hindrance of four to six lanes of swerving taxis and braved across to the promenade.

Michael Palin called Alexandria “Cannes…with acne.” The slightly more charitable moniker is the “pearl of the Mediterranean”, and the city undoubtedly has a Mediterranean flair to it, marked only by the occasional minaret to show it’s still in Egypt. Alexandria has several things that Cairo does not: little bustle, less traffic, clean streets, clean air, rain, a coast. We partook enthusiastically of these things, spending hours at a coastside café with lemonade and shisha, exploring the catacombs, recovering from food poisoning (ish…no one’s quite sure what caused ‘it’ or what ‘it’ was, aside from icky and thankfully not for me) on plastic chairs on the beach after a wonderful breakfast of couscousy, or dinking around the art exhibit at the new library of Alexandria (a giant testament to the fundamental split in Egypt: either things are completely unbelievably undeveloped, along the lines of potholed streets and donkey carts, or else they are completely new, shiny and automated, like the sumptuous new library).

Broadly generalizing, one could say the people in Alex are friendlier than in Cairo, and indeed, the unusual trio of three westerners, two of whom were unveiled women, attracted considerable attention, curiosity, leering, funny comments. “I looooooove you!” called one man from across the street; the most frequent comment was likely to be “you a lucky man!” comments directed at our sole male group member, and one youth insisted on introducing himself with the curious comment of “I am beautiful!” until we realized he was mixing up “I” and “you”, and what he intended was a compliment. We had groups of teenage girls stop us, ask us about ourselves, and introduce themselves—considerably more infrequent in Cairo—and had short but interesting conversations with various individuals. Unfortunately, while I now recognize the question of “do you speak Arabic,” I don’t know how to say, “I know Arabic like a marmot knows knitting,” instead only able to reply with shuwei shuwei (so so), which just gets me into trouble.

All in all, a fun adventure, a nice escape from Cairo—but to be honest, as much as I love the shore, I missed the bustle of Cairo. Just not the traffic or the air.

Obama will fix it

2009-01-25T18:16:00.003+08:00

Perceptions on America’s new president in the Arab world

For many in Egypt and across the world, the new American President Barack Obama gives America’s image abroad a new lease on life—a new face, a new administration, and finally an opportunity to escape the catastrophic presidency of George W. Bush. However, the almost unqualified optimism, implying Obama will be able to fix everything from the global financial crisis, the protracted crisis in the Middle East and even the traffic in Cairo (the “Obama will fix it” mentality), is contrasted by the stark pessimism of “business as usual.”

Traffic in Cairo is a mixture between absolute mayhem and barely ordered chaos, either completely gridlocked or swerving among pedestrians at stomach-lurching speeds. The cause? Overcrowded, slow and limited public transportation, too many taxis, and highway construction composed of superhighways and resembling a giant bowl of spaghetti. The solution? “Obama will fix it.”

“Obama will fix it”

Obama ran his campaign on the slogan of “change,” and it is this promise which is so tantalizing both for Americans and Egyptians. For the Egyptians, and perhaps for Arabs and the world at large, Obama possesses several characteristics guaranteeing his success: in addition to his eloquent personal narrative and his call for “mutual respect” towards Muslims, Obama has the crucial qualification of simply not being former President Bush. As an added bonus, Obama has the important characteristics both of being black and having a middle name of Hussein, reminiscent of his father’s Muslim origins, and evidence he is not Just Another White President. The popular hope in the Arab world is that Obama will take the Middle East more seriously and more pragmatically, and use America’s considerable power and influence to evoke lasting change, or even more basically, to just stop making things worse. What Obama more broadly represents is also what many Arabs long for and are unable to achieve: peaceful and democratic regime change, the removal of an unpopular president and his replacement by a man with diverse and minority origins. This is the last vestige of the “American dream” where anything is possible, representing a testament to American vitality, a rejection of Bush’s policies and a willingness to break barriers and new ground.

“Business as usual”

On the other side of the coin, many Arabs see Obama’s administration (like any kind of traffic jam) as just a lot of horn honking and not a lot of forward progress. Just as it’s ridiculous to expect President Obama to fix the traffic problem in Cairo—anyone who has tried to get through Midan Ramses in rush hour will tell you that’s as close to impossible as it gets—many Arabs don’t expect the US foreign policy towards the Middle East to change significantly. Black skin and a Muslim middle name are insufficient qualifications for sensible foreign policy, and slogans of “change” are seen as just more rhetoric. The Egyptian daily Al-Ahram cautioned against undue enthusiasm: "We know the kind of pressure the Jewish lobby puts on the presidents in the United States and the degree of influence this minority exercises daily in the departments and organs of political decision-making," wrote Atef al-Gamry in an editorial.

According to this view, America, a constant and staunch ally of Israel, will continue in Bush’s footsteps, likely invade Iran and basically make a mess of the whole thing as his predecessor has done. More nuanced pessimists see little tangible change in Middle East policy, a likely repetition of anti-Arab rhetoric, continued support of Israel and an inability to see beyond the limited borders of American invested interest and knee-jerk anti-Islamism. Even a more charitable version suggests President Obama will be too busy mopping up the mess of the American domestic economy, the health care system, the financial system, the social security system, the housing markets, and whatever else has recently gone wrong domestically to be able to do much about Palestine, Iran, or anything else.

Bridging the gap

Egyptian and Arab intellectuals, while generally receptive of and positive towards Obama, have also clarified concrete expectations (some realistic, others not). Foremost on the agenda is a resolution of the Gaza crisis. In the “Obama will fix it” mentality, the new American president is expected to happily resolve a protracted conflict continuing for over fifty years, against whose bulwark previous onslaughts of American diplomacy from Kissinger to Clinton have tried their strength and failed. From the Arab perspective, any viable change in Middle East policy has to include a legitimate recognition of Arab grievances and concerns, and evidence a good-faith effort to take Arab concerns seriously, instead of the perceived blind alliance to Israel. Though pressure has been mounting on Obama to condemn Israel for its invasion of the Gaza Strip, the fact that he has not done so is seen by many as a continuation of previous unequivocal support for Israel. Given the exceptionally complicated and emotionally charged nature of the current conflict over Gaza, the ever-widening split among the Palestinian factions and its reflection among Arab and Islamic states, a solution will not come easily. But a clear break from “business as usual” can provide enough of an impetus to get the process started. Encouraging Arab states—several of whom are also allies of the US—to engage proactively in the peace process, ensuring good-faith consideration of Palestinian grievances and concerns and evidence that Israel’s alliance with the US runs both ways are as much of a “fix” as President Obama will likely be able to provide. Nevertheless, the continuing goodwill and optimism of the Arab public is contingent on President Obama’s initial actions towards the Middle East.

Already he seems to be on the right track. Obama’s first day in office was marked by a flurry of phone calls to leaders all across the Middle East (just imagine the size of his phone bill!), starting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and including the leaders of Egypt, Israel and Jordan, reaffirming his “commitment to active engagement in pursuit of Arab-Israeli peace from the beginning of his term.” Additionally, a willingness to engage Iran as well as the emphasis on a “responsible” withdrawal from Iraq are two large steps in the right direction. Lastly, the appointment of George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East, a diplomatic heavyweight seen as neither pro-Israel nor pro-Palestinian, shows that Obama really is taking things seriously.

Most analysts, though not necessarily any individual off the street, understand the severity of the problems facing America’s new president at home and abroad, and don’t expect miracles—but they do have expectations. Broadly, President Obama needs make the Middle East a priority, work pragmatically and engage all sides to work collectively towards solutions in a number of areas, starting with Gaza, but also including Iran and its nuclear ambition, the American occupation of Iraq, relations with Syria, and support of democratization. These issues are crucially interlinked and good-faith effort in but one area could provide the US with the needed credibility to be taken seriously.

Inshallah bukra

2009-01-20T04:51:00.000+08:00

“Egypt,” said my neighbor, a slender Chinese man, leaning across the row of chairs towards me, “is a timeless country.” It’s hard to dispute that. As one of the oldest (and the longest continuous history of a state) and culturally richest civilizations on earth, the Egyptians left their legacy in the form of opulent artifacts and an astounding cultural heritage, from the ancient pharaohs to the Roman, Arab, Ottoman, and modern leaders entrusted with these people and their past. It’s inconceivable how many centuries of habitation have shaped this place, how much time and history have flown down the Nile, made their marks and continued on (at least before the Aswan High Dam). Being here gives the sense of history, of a place progressively built long ago, of mosques and walls and fortresses—and also the sense of culture. Modern Egypt is juxtaposed atop the ancient ruins of former civilizations and more modern constructions, and most buildings in the older part of Cairo have been around three times as long as my country.

But what my neighbor meant was not the history but rather the punctuality, as the conference was running significantly late and our stomachs had informed us that lunch was long overdue. As the joke goes, the concept of punctuality can vary widly: German punctuality means five minutes early, Americans have five to ten minutes before it’s ‘late’ (although the cable guy is a law unto himself with his whole “Tuesday or Thursday between 8 AM and 12:30”), the French clock in about a quarter to a half hour or so after the meeting time (panne de réveil or embouteillage sur le trottoir). Don’t expect the Spaniards within forty-five minutes of when they’re supposed to be somewhere (and if you’re lucky, it’s not mañana)—and for the Arabs, it’s inshallah bukra: tomorrow, God willing.

DAS RAFAH-CROSSING: DIE POLITISCHE LAGE

2009-01-16T15:08:00.000+08:00

DIPLOMATISCHE VORSCHLÄGE:

Die meisten diplomatischen Ansätze beruhen auf drei Hauptpunkte: Waffenstillstand seitens Hamas, Waffenstillstand mit möglichem vollständigem Abzug seitens Israel, und ein verbessertes Grenzregime (s.u.). Obwohl Ägypten durchaus das Recht hätte, die Grenze komplett oder begrenzt unilateral aufzumachen, zieht es Ägypten vor, sie geschlossen zu halten mit der Absicht, zu einem verbesserten Grenzregime zu gelangen. Ägypten hat drei Hauptobjektive: Versöhnung zwischen Hamas und Fatah mit Fatah bevorzugt; Stabilisierung Gazas, um eine Überquellung der Gewalt in die Sinai-Halbinsel zu vermeiden; und die Sicherstellung der Grenze bzw. der Übergängen zwischen dem Gazastreifen und Ägypten zu gewährleisten.

MÖGLICHKEIT 1. DIE GRENZE ÖFFNEN

Ägypten würde die Grenze bzw. den Grenzübergang Rafah für Gütertransport, begrenzten Personenverkehr oder ganz zu öffnen. Diese würde den praktischen Ansturm von Flüchtlingen, Konsumenten, Verletzten, und vielleicht auch Hamas-Kämpfern in Ägypten bedeuten. Ägypten hat auch angedeutet, es würde die Grenze nur unter Beobachtung von European Union Observers nach dem 2005 Abkommen öffnen. Einige Analytiker meinen, eine permanente Öffnung sei die einzige Möglichkeit für Hamas, den jetzigen Krieg zu überstehen und, noch wichtiger, in Zukunft sich unabhängig von Israel versorgen zu können—bref, es geht um die Existenz oder Überlebung vom Gazastreifen als (de facto) Staat (auch ohne hiermit eine Äußerung zur Rechtmäßigkeit des Gazastreifens als Staat treffen zu wollen).

Politische Auswirkungen: de facto Anerkennung von Hamas-Kontrolle des Gazastreifens. Ägypten beruft sich auf das 2005 Abkommen zwischen der PA und Israel, wonach die PA für die Kontrolle gazascherseits und Ägypten für seine Grenze verantwortlich ist. Nach dem Vertrag hat Hamas keinerlei Verpflichtung zur Grenzkontrolle, und daraufhin würde Ägypten entweder alleine für die Grenzsicherheit aufkommen oder einen expliziten Vertrag mit Hamas unterschreiben müssen und somit der Hamas de jure Anerkennung geben. Dies würde ferner zu einer Verschlimmerung des Streits zwischen Fatah (von Ägypten anerkannt) und Hamas (von Ägypten nicht anerkannt und mit der ägyptischen Widerstandspartei der Muslimischen Bruderschaft liiert) führen sowie gegen das 2005 Abkommen stoßen. Daraufhin wäre die politische Beziehung zwischen Israel und Ägypten verschlechtert. Einige Analytiker deuten an, Israel könne die Öffnung auf ägyptischer Seite als Ziel des Konflikts haben, um die Auswanderung oder Flucht der Bevölkerung voranzutreiben und die humanitäre und medizinische Verantwortung Ägypten zuzuschieben.

Sicherheitspolitische Auswirkungen: verstärkter Personenverkehr aus dem Gazastreifen könnte die Sicherheitslage auf ägyptischer Seite gefährden und ,,Terroristen“ könnten in Ägypten Unterschlupf finden. Ägypten wäre möglicherweise selbst gefährdet, und wäre für das Aufspuren von Terroristen oder Hamas-Zellen, für die Sicherheit auf eigener Seite sowie für die Grenze verantwortlich. Die Sicherheits- und Flüchtlingsprobleme wären also auf Ägypten verlagert, vor dem Hintergrund des 2008er Durchbruchs der Grenze (und des darauf folgenden Chaos) und den permanenten Flüchtlingslagern in Jordanien für Ägypten besonders unvorteilhaft.

Andere Auswirkungen: eine plötzliche Flut von Konsumenten aus dem Gazastreifen könnte die lokale Wirtschaft in eine Krise versetzen, z.B. zu Inflation, opportunistischen Preissteigerungen oder komplettem Ausverkauf Gebrauchsgüter führen. Diese sind bei der letzten Grenzöffnung in 2008 vorgekommen.

MÖGLICHKEIT 2: DIE GRENZE GESCHLOSSEN HALTEN

Ägypten würde sich weigern, die Grenze für Gütertransport oder Personenverkehr zu öffnen, und würde eine Einhaltung der Status quo bedeuten. Nach wie vor wäre die Grenze aber für humanitäre Hilfe und medizinische Versorgung passierbar. Die Grenze geschlossen zu halten wird im arabischen oder islamischen Raum als ,,Versagen“ Ägyptens angesehen, den Palästinensern beizustehen. Ägyptens Regierung wird Mitschuld und auch teilweise Mitverantwortung der Angriffe Israels vorgeworfen.

Politische Auswirkungen: Die Grenze geschlossen zu halten heißt auch für Ägypten, auf eine diplomatische Lösung zu bestehen und Hamas nicht direkt anzuerkennen, und hoffentlich den Streit zwischen Hamas und Fatah schlichten. Dies räumte auch die Möglichkeit ein, sich auf ein neues Grenzregime zu verständigen, die für Ägypten vorteilhafter wäre. Es würden keine verstärkten Flüchtlinge oder Sicherheitsprobleme auf ägyptischer Seite geben. Weil Hamas trotz allen noch auf Ägypten angewiesen ist (einziger Grenzübergang nicht unter der Krontolle Israels), könnte Ägypten vis-à-vis Hamas an Einfluss gewinnen sollte Ägypten dem Druck standhalten und die Grenze nicht öffnen.

Inlandspolitische Auswirkungen: Die große Sympathie der heimischen Bevölkerung Ägyptens mit der Lage der Palästinenser und (begrenzt) mit Hamas verstärkt die Unzufriedenheit mir der Regierung Ägyptens. Die muslimische Bruderschaft, offiziell in Ägypten verboten aber trotzdem der regierenden Partei der stärkste politische Konkurrenz, gewinnt an Beliebtheit und politischer Unterstützung nach dem ,,Versagen“ Ägyptens. Die Demonstrationen wurden in Ägypten von der muslimischen Bruderschaft aufgerufen und wurden als Anlass genommen, gegen die ägyptische Regierung im Allgemeinen zu protestieren. Einige Analytiker bezweifeln jedoch, inwiefern die Muslimische Bruderschaft (Ägypten) bzw die Hamas (international) wirklich an Macht gewonnen haben: Demonstrationen in Ägypten scheinen weder keinen sonderlichen Ausmaß anzunehmen noch in tiefe Kritik der Regierung zu wandeln, und international sehen viele arabische Staaten (insb. Jordanien, Saudi Arabien und Syrien) die Verbindung zwischen Hamas und Iran mit Skepsis.

Regionalpolitische Auswirkungen: Ägyptens langjährige Rolle als Streitschlichter im arabischen Raum und insbesondere zwischen Hamas und Fatah wird gefährdet als andere Staaten (insbesondere Iran) die Rolle der Regionalmacht einnehmen (wollen). Die muslimischen Länder teilen sich in zwei Gruppen auf: auf einer Seite stehen Ägypten, Jordanien (als Einzigen, die ein Friedensabkommen mit Israel unterschrieben haben), Saudi Arabien, und Palästinische Autorität (Fatah). Auf der anderen Seite stehen Iran, Hamas, Syrien und die regierenden Hezbollah in Libanon. Iran ist zu Ägyptens stärkstem Kritiker geworden und beschuldigt Ägypten, im jetzigen Konflikt mitgewirkt zu haben und dadurch Mitschuld zu tragen. Ägypten wurde schon weiträumig im Nahost kritisiert und könnte langfristig an politischen Einfluss und Regionalmacht verlieren, weil diese Beschuldung, ,,nichts“ gemacht zu haben, weitgehend auf Zustimmung in der Bevölkerungen trifft—dies bleibt aber noch unbewiesen.

MÖGLICHKEIT 3: EIN VERBESSERTES GRENZREGIME ERFINDEN

Ein besseres Grenzregime, wodurch Waffenschmuggel (und daher die Rakete, die aus dem Gazastreifen auf Israel gefeuert werden) besser verhindert werden kann, wird als diplomatischer Hebel verwendet. Europäische Diplomaten haben Hilfe angeboten, Waffenschmuggel zu verhindern und die Grenze besser zu kontrollieren.

Politischer Hintergrund: Israel hat den Gazastreifen angeblich angegriffen, um den ständigen Raketenabschuss aus dem Gazastreifen endgültig zu stoppen. Israel besteht auf eine bessere Grenzüberwachung, wodurch Hamas keine durch die Tunnel geschmuggelten Waffen und Rakete bekommt, als Grundbaustein eines möglichen Abkommens. Von der Hamas-Seite kommt der Vorwurf, Israel habe das 2005-Abkommen nicht eingehalten und die Grenze nicht vertragsgemäß geöffnet, erst weitgehend in einzeln Bestimmungen (z.B. 400 LKWs pro Tag waren bis Ende 2006 vorgesehen, jedoch beschränkte Israel dies auf 12 pro Tag, Grenzübergänge sollten offen sein, waren aber aus angeblichen Sicherheitsgründen geschlossen) und danach durch die völlige Blockade des Gazastreifens. Dies weist darauf hin, dass ein mögliches Waffenstillstandsabkommen oder gar ein Friedensabkommen die Aufhebung der Blockade wirtschaftlicher Güter beinhalten muss, um auf Akzeptanz von Hamas zu treffen. Deshalb ist die Rafah-Crossing besonders wichtig geworden, weil er der einzige nicht von Israel kontrollierte Grenzübergang zum Gazastreifen ist. Die Tunnel, die sowohl zur Waffenschmuggel als zur Lebensader der Palästinenser seit der Blockade gedient haben, sind dadurch zum Streitpunkt geworden. Auf ägyptischer Seite sind die Tunnel auch der wirtschaftliche Mittelpunkt der Grenzregion geworden, wobei dies offiziell weder gestattet noch anerkannt sind und keine größere Rolle in der Verhandlung zu spielen scheint.

Problemfeld 1: Wer ist für Gaza verantwortlich?
Das 2005 Abkommen wurde zwischen der Palästinischeren Autorität (PA) und Israel mit ägyptischer Zustimmung gemacht. Jedoch, seitdem im Gazastreifen Hamas 2007 an die Macht gekommen ist, hat Hamas de facto Hoheit über dem Gazastreifen während die PA de jure verwalten sollte. Nach einer etablierten Rollenverteilung ist implizit erwartet, dass die USA Israel zum Gesprächstisch bringen und die EU die Palästinenser. Jedoch verhandelt die EU nicht direkt mit Hamas, weil Hamas von der EU und den USA als terroristische Gruppe eingestuft worden ist, zumal hat Mahmoud Abbas, Präsident Palästinas (Fatah), die EU darum gebeten, nicht mit Hamas zu verhandeln um seine Autorität dadurch nicht zu untergraben. Zudem könnte Verhandlungen zwischen der EU und Hamas auch die EU-Israel Beziehungen gefährden. Aus innenpolitischen Gründen möchte Ägypten Hamas nicht anerkennen, jedoch verhandelt Ägypten doch mit hamaschen Diplomaten, im Gegensatz zu den Vereinigten Staaten und der EU. Der Vorschlag, die Grenzübergänge unter parteiunabhängiger Kontrolle einer technokratischen Agentur zu stellen, könnte hierzu einen Ausweg bieten.
Ägypten besteht weiterhin auf das 2005 Abkommen, wonach die PA und nicht Hamas für die Rafah-Crossing verantwortlich sein soll, verhandelt aber weiterhin direkt mit Hamas—aber nur am Rande der ,,offiziellen“ Verhandlungen mit der PA und Israel. Die Verbindungen zwischen Hamas und Iran werden zunehmend verdächtigt, weshalb Hamas nicht mit zunehmender Unterstützung von anderen arabischen Staaten rechnen kann.

Problemfeld 2: Wie würde das aussehen?
Der ägyptisch-französische Vorschlag für einen Waffenstillstand ist nicht vollständig bekannt geworden. Die bisherige Vorschläge sind: bessere Überwachung durch technische Hilfe, internationale Truppen an der Grenze stationieren, und andere physische Maßnahmen wie einen Graben entlang der Grenze zu gruben (von der Jerusalem Post angegeben, sonst nicht weiter bestätigt).

Technische Hilfe:
Der Vorschlag gehört zu den französischen Ansätzen, eine diplomatische Lösung zu finden, und wurde zusammen mit Ägypten vertreten. Ein internationales Team würde mit Ägyptischen Sicherheitskräften auf der ägyptischen Seite arbeiten, um den Transfer von Waffen und Kämpfer endgültig zum Ende zu bringen. Technische Hilfe (nach israelischen Quellen von den USA entsandt) würden die ägyptischen Kräfte verstärken, neue Tunnel aufzuspuren, Waffenhandel zu kontrollieren und Sicherheit (auch geheimdienstlich) zu erhöhen. Frankreich und die Türkei haben bisher ein Monitoringteam angeboten, um die Grenze besser zu überwachen, und Deutschland und die USA haben Ingeneure und andere technische Hilfe zur Verfügung gestellt, um diese sog. Philadelphi Corridor zu schließen. Fatah sieht für sich auch eine verstärkte Rolle, wonach Fatah Soldaten oder Polizisten, zusammen mit Observation-Teams der EU (die das 2005 Abkommen bzw die Grenze hat überwachen sollen), mit den Ägyptern zusammenarbeiten würden.

Internationale Truppen an der Grenze:
Dieser Vorschlag wurde auch von der PA unterstützt, wonach internationale Truppen an der ägyptischen und gazaschen Grenze stationiert wären (auf ägyptischem Territorium), um Schmuggel zu verhindern. Ägypten hat solch einen Vorschlag aus Souveränitätsprinzipien abgelehnt haben, und internationale Truppen im Hamas-Gebiet zu stationieren würde die Kontrolle Hamas de facto anerkennen. Ägyptische Zustimmung wäre einer Akzeptanz dessen, dass Waffen über Ägypten in das Gazagebiet eingeschmuggelt wurden, gleichzusetzen. Hamas hat bisher auch abgelehnt, auch nur eine internationale Beobachtungskommission an der Grenze stationieren zu lassen.

UND WIE WEITER?

Ägypten hat drei Hauptobjektive: Versöhnung zwischen Hamas und Fatah mit Fatah bevorzugt; Stabilisierung Gazas, um eine Überquellung der Gewalt in die Sinai-Halbinsel zu vermeiden; und die Sicherstellung der Grenze bzw. der Übergängen zwischen dem Gazastreifen und Ägypten zu gewährleisten. Obwohl Ägypten durchaus das Recht hätte, die Grenze komplett oder begrenzt unilateral aufzumachen, kommt es nicht wirklich in Frage, die Grenze zu öffnen—dies würde den Streit zwischen Hamas und Fatah nur verschlechtern, eine mögliche Verlagerung der Probleme auf die Sinai-Halbinsel und auf Ägypten heranleiten, und würde die Grenzsicherung gefährden. Ägypten will die Palästina-Krise nicht auf sich ziehen. Für Ägypten ist auch wichtig, die Rolle als Regionalmacht und Streitschlichter zu behalten, aber dies wird zunehmend in Frage gestellt und hängen eng mit regionalpolitischen Interessen zusammen. Die Grenze verschlossen zu halten bietet die Möglichkeit, eine Diplomatische Lösung und dadurch vielleicht Versöhnung zwischen Hamas und Fatah heranziehen, jedoch gefährde dies Ägyptens Position als Regionalmacht und Streitschlichter und könnte zu regional- oder innenpolitischen Konsequenzen führen. Die seriösen diplomatischen Ansätze beruhen auf drei Hauptpunkte: Waffenstillstand seitens Hamas, Waffenstillstand mit möglichem vollständigem Abzug seitens Israel, und ein verbessertes Grenzregime—jedoch ist noch nicht erläutert, wie dies aussehen könnte. Internationale Truppen wurden bisher von allen Seiten abgelehnt, und die Rolle möglicher technischen Hilfe ist noch unklar Der Vorschlag, die Grenzübergänge unter parteiunabhängiger Kontrolle einer technokratischen Agentur zu stellen könnte eine Antwort auf das Anerkennungsproblem Hamas liefern, jedoch löst nicht die grundlegenden Probleme—aber wenn es einfach wäre, wären es schon längst gelöst. Jetzt steckt nun auch Ägypten in der Falle.

Meshee and no worries

2009-01-14T14:06:00.002+08:00

It was the part where he was going for my eyeball with a pointy stick that I started to get worried. “No worries,” he tells me, “just relax,” directing me by the shoulders where to stand, grasping the back of my head and, with the inexpert touch of someone who not only doesn’t do this often but also never does it to himself, he began applying “real Egyptian kohl”. As I understand it, kohl is a very fine kind of charcoal used in ancient times as makeup. As I stood, cramped neck and head tilted awkwardly to the side, he proceeded to blacken my eyesockets and promising me I would come out an “Egyptian queen”. He had started by applying it as eyeliner, and proceeded to use it to black in both of my eyelids. It’s only when the process had already taken twenty minutes with no end in sight did we start making motions to leave and eventually managed to extricate ourselves.

His name was Saïd, and he was the proprietor of the tiny trinket shop in Khan al-Khalili where we were asking for our little Turkish coffee maker, our (until now) unsuccessful mission to make cardamomy coffee goodness at home. His shop was typical of the Khan—rows upon rows upon rows of handmade glass ornaments and goblets, extravagant lamps to be used either with light bulbs or candles which cast the light in intricate patterns, brassworks à la Aladdin’s lamp, fancy teapots, picture frames, inlaid boxes. The usual. Some shops look more like someone’s attic where all the metal is tarnished and random junk sits forgotten in the corner—from strange figurines to old European currency (the first time I’d seen lira, for example). The brassworks shop, the shisha shop, the jewelry shop, and the cloth shops seem to be the most common variants. Saïd had an easy smile, a wheezing laugh, bad teeth, and constantly a cigarette in the hand as he jovially demonstrated how the various glass and brass lamps would look with the aid of a lightbulb on a string. Saïd also had such a coffee maker, and of decent quality (we had, by now, examined half the coffee makers in the entire market, and were aware of the fact that his coffee makers were one-piece and not two-piece, and the handle was solid). He spoke decent English, acceptable French, and bits and pieces of German, and our conversation was a mixture of all four as we admired pictures of his work for hotels and fancy establishments, perched awkwardly on the eclectic collection of stools in the back of the shop, sipped the Arabic coffee he had ordered for us, and chatted about brassworks, glassmaking, his family history, and how it was we came to be in Cairo. We were introduced to the shop cat and “his wife” (the cat’s wife). Unfortunately, petting the kitties in Cairo isn’t a particularly great idea, but oh well; this one didn’t look too scruffy and hopefully didn’t have fleas. Ordering coffee for and sitting with a customer would be unthinkable in many Western countries (at least the bits I’m from), but things obviously work differently here.

I’m not sure if you can call it over-employment or under-employment or unemployment, but it seems most shops are full of approximately six times as many staff members as are necessary. Before we were in Khan al-Khalili we had been to the tailor’s, where my friend was having a suit made and shirts fitted. There’s usually one or two men loitering outside, watching traffic pass and trying to entice customers inside, where another six or eight men were sitting, chatting, and waiting on potential business. The salesman helping you invariably consults with two or three others in most decisions, such that you are subjected to a flurry of activity wherever you go. Many people for little work. Having home improvements done—for example, having water damage remedied—requires a series of different workmen, one to look at the problem, one to remove the wallpaper, one examine the damage, one to sand down the wall beneath, another to apply new wallpaper, and another to clean up. Busy streets turn into mini open-air cafés, as anyone seated nearby will be offered tea by some entrepreneurial individual who comes back later for his dishes. On many street corners you’ll find a guy with an oven on wheels, roasting sweet potatoes or corn, yours for a pound or two. Any doorway becomes almost an ‘official’ café, with shisha pipes, a more reputable-looking refreshment system, and invariably a collection of men playing dominos or backgammon. There’s usually a lot of people not doing a lot of anything, or maybe there’s nothing to do, or maybe they just have it figured out better than those of us constantly pretending to be busy doing something.

A merchant enterprise

2009-01-10T16:55:00.002+08:00

“Welcome, welcome!”

Cairo seems to be a place where you only find what you’re looking for once you stop looking—and even better, the treasures you discover by accident and mistake. So was our trip to Islamic Cairo (‘Islamic’ referring to the distinctive architecture and not particularly increased religious conviction), ostensibly north of the massive bazaar Khan al-Khalili, home to some of Cairo’s most beautiful mosques and differing from the rest of Cairo’s architechture, otherwise a mishmash of colonial-era buildings in elaborate style, now fading and increasingly dilapidated, and utilitarian buildings of the Nasser era. Maps are doubtful at the best of times, so we opted to be let out at Midan Atabi and walk from there, wading through the street sellers hawking the same selection of sweaters (yes, Egyptians wear sweaters, ‘cause it’s “winter” here now), scarves, and jeans. Mountains, literally mountains of shoes seemed poised to flood one alleyway, where on another corner various sellers perched atop their table of wares announced prices and items at deafening volume, and the occasional intrepid seller hawked very daring lingerie and bucket-sized bras to the teeming masses.

“Welcome, welcome!” “Welcome to Egypt!” As we press our way through the masses, where any even half-glance at an item extracts the seller’s immediate attention and enthusiastic salesmanship, we are showered with a chorus of “welcome! Welcome to Egypt! Welcome!” It’s almost like being in an echo chamber. Someone must have told the Egyptians that the word for ‘hello’ in English is ‘welcome’, because they seem universally convinced that this will attract my immediate attention.

One of the questions I’ve been mulling over in my head is how to ‘deal’ with locals talking to me. Egypt is notorious for its scams and schemes, and many of them start off with someone engaging you in conversation. The most likely variant is he will try to talk you into his shop, or into his cousin’s shop, where you will be expected (hoped?) to buy something; in other versions, the particular tourist attraction you are looking for is “closed”, but he can show you something else (also possibly involving his brother’s shop, or his local mosque—with an entry fee—or anything else), and a tip is expected at the end. Indeed, ‘baksheesh’ seems to be expected for all manner of services rendered or intended, asked or unasked, everywhere an outstretched hand. Anyways, a philosophical and moral discussion on obligations to ‘spread the wealth’ (the meaning, as I understand it, of the word ‘baksheesh’) is not my intention; my point is that simple non-responsiveness to attempts in conversation is a viable strategy to avoid many of the scams and schemes designed to fleece tourists anyone gullible or convincible. But always being on your guard, always ignoring comments and questions closes off an avenue of contact to new people and experiences, can be a rude response to well-intentioned friendliness, and can be wearying. I am trying to develop a better sense of what is friendliness or curiosity, what is an attempt at salesmanship, and what is a scam. So my response to “welcome to Egypt!” is a smile and a “thank you,” but I continue on my way without answering the inevitable follow-up question of “where you come from?”

We didn’t find Islamic Cairo. What we found was normal Cairo: a district of winding streets, lined by stalls selling wares and food and produce, shops with all manner of items for sale, coffeehouses full of men, shisha, and backgammon, women balancing preposterous bundles on their head. We found districts collectively rivaling Ikea or Home Depot for selection of house fittings, doorknobs, and power tools; we saw woodworking shops, metalluragy shops, tailors and all manner of activities, and the entire area was a gargantuan market—selling the staples of everyday life in Cairo. We saw no other tourists, and frankly, most everything we saw would not interest tourists, unless someone was in desperate need of sawblades or bits of leather whose usage we couldn’t divine. Handcarts full of sewing machines shoved their way through the masses (if you hear a hissing sound, get out of the way—it’s what they use instead of a horn), and every third person seems busy transporting bread—including one kid on a bicycle, balancing a wicker basket of pita breads on his head, upon which were balanced another flat tray with stacked breads. How he got on the bicycle was a mystery to us. Occasionally cars or lorries try to force their way through the narrow and twisty streets, causing blockages where handcarts full of fence posts or clay pots or brassware are trying to go the opposite direction.

Somehow, we ended up at Midan Ramses—the train station square—which is not anywhere near where we started, but it was dominated by the beautiful Al Fath Mosque. It was Friday, the Muslim holy day of the week (think Sunday for ye Christians), so we didn’t know if we could get into the Mosque. I managed to unelegantly cover my hair with my scarf and we were able to enter, after removing our shoes at the door. This is the first mosque I had ever been in, after countless churches and cathedrals across Europe. Instead of a long nave leading to an altar, the mosque was a large open space with vaulted ceilings, roughly square. Because Islam forbids human depictions, the mosque was free of the countless statues and paintings of saints adorning Catholic places of worship, instead adorned with intricate inlaid geometric patterns. It was breathtaking, and as much as I felt I was intruding in someone else’s private sphere, no one seemed to mind or take much notice of us as we stood in the back, craning our necks, and listening to the prayers of some and the quiet snores of others.

We decided to trek up to Khan al-Khalili, the massive souk which preceded Wal-mart by several centuries in selling pretty much everything imaginable, with variations in price in quality (and even in the good old days I imagine much of the interesting stuff was made in China). Though it increasingly caters to tourists, and the sellers in the main part of the market all seem to speak quite good English (thus reducing our advantage of conferring in English and bargaining in Arabic), it has been a commercial centerpiece of Cairo since time immemorial, and is the place to find pretty much anything. If you look hard. The spice markets are good for anything except saffron (easy to fake), entire districts sell just jewelry, or just shisha water pipes, or cloth, or clothing, or cheap trinkets and tacky souveniers, or all manner of beautiful woodwork of varying quality. The shops specializing in trinkets will have brass pyramid models and little sphinxes carved of alabaster, but also antique (looking) brass lamps, aladin-style, Turkish coffee pots, and intricate inlaid woodwork.

“Bikem?”

Bargaining is the name of the game. Nothing has a listed or a fixed price, so it is up to you to know how much you are willing to pay for things. As soon as you evince the slightest interest in anything, the seller will descend upon you. He names a preposterous price for something, you counter with an offer about a third of his, and it goes from there. Once you reach a good price, you pretend to change your mind and walk away. “Wait! Just a MINUTE!” he’ll call after you, if he’s interested in the sale, and you will be able to talk him down a few pounds (or more likely, get something else thrown in the bargain for a slightly increased price). The point isn’t to pay the price you set out to in the beginning, but to come to a conclusion with which both are happy. The happy coincidence of favorable exchange rates means that 10 or 20 LE either way isn’t too much of a hit to the wallet. Bargaining for something does, however, lead to impulse decisions and lightning-fast mental math (ever my strong point, eeek!), trying to counter his offer with your own, assess the value of the purchase, and keep your facial expressions from betraying your thought processes. Still, you likely don’t start bargaining unless you want the thing, and both you and the seller know this, so as long as you started out with a conception of what the thing is worth and are willing to walk away if the thing is outrageously priced, you’ll likely come home with some treasures and, hopefully, the feeling of having gotten a good deal. It gets to the point where we were disappointed if we were in a shop and the salesman didn’t immediately come after us, offering us the deal of a lifetime, and we would never consider taking the item to a salesman in order to bargain for the price.

Walking through the streets evokes a chorus of calls (“welcome!” “welcome!” “welcome to Egypt!” “you need a scarf?”), and even some more creative ones: “you are a lucky man!” “I have a good deal, special deal for the honeymoon!”. We mostly reply with a smile and “laa, shukran” (“no thanks”). My favorite line, however: “hello, hello!” (no response from us) “hello! Hello! how can I take your money?” I guess honesty is the best policy.

Your correspondant reports

2009-01-08T16:17:00.000+08:00

I have a confession to make: I don’t speak Arabic. It’s likely not the most profound confession you’ve ever heard, but I really am hopeless. Even if it weren’t an incredibly complex and complicated language, even if it used letters I recognized and sounds I could pronounce, and even if the distance between the Arabic I would have learned in school and what is spoken on the streets of Cairo is as great or greater than the difference between Spanish and Italian, I would still be hopeless because my first exposure to the language was on the car ride from the airport with Ahmed. I can now say ‘thank you’ and ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ and ‘house’. That’s pretty much it. And that’s okay by me, in the sense that I don’t realistically expect to learn fluent Eyptian in the six weeks I’m here, as much as I would dearly love to.

The problem is, I can’t say anything to anyone. A smile goes a long way, and some creative gesticulations will get you most things, but there’s a pretty low limit to what you can accomplish from a communicative standpoint. And as such, it’s unsurprising that I know so little about so many things, and don’t know much about Egypt or Egyptians. I didn’t come here just to see buildings but to see life and to see people and to hopefully meet some. My colleagues at work are hence for me worth their weight in gold. Half of them are Germans who speak some measure (or very good) Arabic and have considerable experience living as a foreigner in Cairo, and the other half are Egyptians who also speak a language I understand and have told me a bit about their lives.

It astounded me to learn, for example, that many of my Egyptian colleagues had a commute of up to two hours each way—four hours a day in traffic. The younger staff live with their families, one practically by the pyramids, and sometimes take multiple busses in order to get to work. Our 8-hour day is their 12-hour day. Apparently (and here I generalize, inducting from the limited sample of my colleagues a conclusion which is probably limited only to Egyptians of similar socioeconomic standing), the concept of a lunch break doesn’t exist, and most of the Egyptians in our office don’t eat lunch or anything at all.

Last night we went shopping for wedding rings. No, I’m not getting married, but someone from my office (a German couple) is, and it’s a better value to buy gold in Egypt. So we took a field trip down to Nasr City and hit up several jewelry shops with my colleague translating between the jewelers and the Germans, and this lovely woman with flawless and lightly-accented German was a godsend. It’s worthwhile going to a reputable jeweler who won’t cheat on the price, and it was a reassuring sign to see several women (perhaps ten) waiting outside his shop for him to return from prayers. (She also helped me acquire a SIM card for my phone for the actual price of LE15 and not LE200, which is what my friends—mistakenly—paid). There I was suggested to stick closer to the single man of the group to avoid being hassled—though to be honest, I think the verbal comments to which I would have been subject would be considered abusive for Egyptians, but since I don’t understand them, they don’t bother me.

Egyptians apparently love malls, or so they tell me. And while they are more expensive, perhaps, than items you would find on the street (I am firmly convinced that everything is for sale in Cairo somewhere, and you find the most random combination of items in the most unlikely places), malls are cleaner and more convenient, and you can go shopping and even try things on as you would anywhere else.

Everywhere I go, it’s clear I don’t fit in. I didn’t expect to, to be honest, and although I am used to being a foreigner, I am used to looking like everyone else, more or less. And here, no matter if your skin color would let you blend in, no matter how well you speak Egyptian, you won’t ever be “from” here. Forget about going native. And I stick out, here, as an obviously Western woman. Most women here wear headscarves most everywhere I go, though quite a few don’t, and it doesn’t seem to be an issue (but what do I know?). I thought about wearing one, along the lines of “when in Rome,” but I don’t want to be making a mockery of anything or pretending to be something I’m not—not that it would bother me, but that it might bother them that I’m pretending I’m Muslim or something. If I were convinced it belonged to common decency I would do it, but there seems to be no expectation for visitors to also wear headscarves.

There’s the crux of it: foreigners and expats are welcomed here, perhaps jovially dismissed and often subject to the “tourist tax” or “white people tax” (which, within limits, is something we can easily afford), but there’s a double standard. In Europe, the foreigners are discriminated against; here, it’s the locals who are discriminated against. The way I hear it, foreigners can act with a certain amount of impunity (particularly anyone here in any kind of official capacity, though to whom normal diplomatic immunity would not extend). I wouldn’t go so far as to say that foreigners can act as they please, but no one seems to expect foreigners to blend in, and most expats continue on in happy indifference or ignorance of “the real life”. Those of us coming from countries with favorable exchange rates can easily afford the spacious and renovated apartments in Zamalek, can have our lunch ordered in every day and go to restaurants every night, and take taxis everywhere (gasp! the environment! gasp!), and spend our evenings sipping cocktails with the youth of the upper crust. Life is good, here, for those of us who can afford it—and that barrier is both startlingly low for Europeans and North Americans, and tragically high for Egyptians. As a lowly starving student I can live a lifestyle here I could never afford elsewhere, but that is just further evidence of the gap between me and most of the rest of the 18 million residents here. I’m not saying I need to go live in the slums in order to have the “real experience”, but it does make me think….

Welcome to Egypt

2009-01-04T18:48:00.000+08:00

Ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat, ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat…. There was a military march in Switzerland, no, in Berlin, but what are they doing here? ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat. No, the march is real and I was only dreaming of Europe. I lay utterly still for several seconds, trying desperately to herd my scattered brain cells like recalcitrant cats into something resembling order and make some sense of the situation. I lay on a wide and elevated bed, which would exclude most of the places I’ve slept the last two weeks, under heavy bedding and the sound of yelling accompanying the drums and—xylophones? ratatatata, ratatata, rat tat tat, rat tat tat. I tasted dust in my mouth, and it all came crashing into place. Cairo. Not Germany, not Switzerland, Egypt. My impulse was to run out onto the balcony, from which direction the sounds were coming from, but I decided a Romeo and Juliet style balcony number in my jammies wouldn’t be a great call. Pants were a must, should I cover my hair? I think it was a school assembly, but even that is only speculation.

For some unknown and for me incomprehensible reason, all flights to Cairo seem to get in in the middle of the night, and mine was no exception. 3.30 AM is not a great time to land in a very foreign city, but as it seems to be the norm, it’s not too much trouble to arrange to be picked up. Even on the plane I had the feeling Cairo belonged to another world, if only for the fact that we were confronted with sorry looking chicken and somewhat greasy ravioli at about midnight (our “hot dinner”), with a “cheesecake stick” for desert. Maybe Egypt is one of those countries, like Spain, where dinner is eaten exceptionally late. Most of my fellow passengers were bridging the gap between Egypt and Germany, “sitting on two chairs.” Mixed families with one parent German, one parent Egyptian, were frequent, as were expatriates. Some of the staff of the German school in Alexandria were returning from holidays, as were my seatmates. My “single serving friend” next to me struck up conversation. An Egyptian “from the oasis”, he explained to me in excellent German, he ran a travel and construction business in Cairo, with outposts in Vienna, Berlin, Spain, and elsewhere. He was married to a German woman, seated in front of us, and their two children spoke both perfect German and Arabic, and I suppose he could be considered a Cairean success. He promised me a special guided tour of the pyramids with his next tour group (with a wink and a smile), but it wasn’t the kind of promise I would regard as serious.

Pushed along with the other exiting passengers I was more a bit of flotsam than anything else, and I hoped the tide would eventually get me to where I needed to go. Egypt couldn’t care less who enters (a drastic but not unsurprising contrast to Switzerland), and visas can be had for 15$ or 15€ at any of the bank outposts, where I was also handed a large stack of grimy bills as my 5€ in change, before passport control.

Navigating in Cairo is kind of like trying to follow a spaghetti noodle to its source in a plate with heavy sauce (watch out for the parmesan). Thankfully there was little traffic, and while I would characterize my driver’s lazy drifting from one lane to another, or better still, driving upon the white line in the middle as somewhat erratic, he steered the car with confidence, unfazed by traffic. Cairo is a sprawling mass. I think of it as a creature of itself, pulsing, tentacles (traffic lanes) extending in thick lines in all directions, forming a dense web and weaving above and below one another, elevated above and separated from the city itself, undulating slowly (obviously the streets themselves don’t undulate, seeing as how they’re fixed in concrete). Finding our building was another matter, and involved circling the block several times, several phone calls, and asking directions. Eventually we found it, and I was settled into my new home for the next several weeks. The entry to our building is dulled green marble, testament to the fading and faded glory of the city. Our apartment is ornamented in brickwork, with ornamented tiles forming eight-sided stars on the floor. Heavy antique furniture graces the apartment in the Victorian (ornamented) style, and the walls are painted green and yellow in the living room. Apparently all apartments in Cairo are painted either white or some shade of pink, so my friends were happy to find this piece. Light switches are scattered all over the apartment, ‘up’ means ‘off’, and there are two sizes of outlets, leading to the creative use of power strips. Our fireplace features an air conditioner where the fire would be, and the window above it overlooks Zamalek and one of the prettier (apparently) districts of Cairo.

My first venture in Cairo was by foot, across the bridge from Zamalek to take a boat ride. One of the first things I noticed was how high the curbs are, raising the sidewalks, such as they are, over a foot into the air. Which makes climbing up and down each block noticeably more tiresome, though I was later quite thankful for them, as it ensured extra protection from Cairo’s notoriously chaotic traffic. The promenade along the river presents some of Cairo’s more ‘romantic’ scenery, and it’s not surprising that the promenade is adorned with tons of couples—women in headscarves talking and laughing with young men, seated at impromptu cafés, walking hand in hand or simply side by side. For about seven dollars, we could rent a falucca, a flat-bottomed riverboat with a single sail, common on the Nile, to be had for small trips or even parties, blaring Egyptian pop music or simply silently trolling along. We decided after our trip to head over to old Cairo, which involved crossing the street. Crosswalks and traffic lights don’t exist. Crossing the street isn’t simple: you can wait all day for an opportune time, but your best bet is to wait for the closest lane to become somewhat free, and work your way across the street one lane at a time. If you’re unlucky, you’ll be stuck in the middle of the street and traffic flows around you. Under no circumstances hesitate, and since this is the normal means of crossing the street, drivers are aware of you and will slow down, though may honk angrily. This seems to be the only time when the concept of ‘lanes’ is actually respected; otherwise, they seem mostly to be there for decorations. Most natives don’t seem to run, either, simply moving purposefully to the other side.

Old Cairo is a mixture of a street bazaar, a rundown housing area, and a giant outdoor café: private, public, and commercial lives are intermingled, about every third building is dilapidated and uninhabit(-ed and –able). Some streets contain sheep, others shops, others a workshop where steel or aluminum sheets were hammered into shape. Everything imaginable is on sale, and many shopfronts contain a small table with men drinking tea and smoking sheesha. I took a few pictures, trying to be unobtrusive, but I soon packed up the camera and contented myself with drinking in the sites. These people weren’t objects in a museum, and it somehow felt wrong –or more intrusive– photographing them as if they were part of the scenery. I wished I didn’t stand out as much, just to see what the place would be like without all eyes following me and my red-haired companion. Lunch was a delicious mixture of noodles, macaroni, lentils and chickpeas (served with a tomato sauce), which sated my hunger for the rest of the day and was thankfully vegetarian.

More to come, likely without photos for awhile—I leave it to your imagination and to google images.

Berlin, je t'aime

2009-01-04T00:42:00.002+08:00

Berlin, Berlin, Berlin. Eines Tages werde ich in Berlin wohnen, das weiß ich schon, oder nehme mir zumindest vor. Jeder hat eine Stadt, die zu einem spricht, die einen anlockt, die einem etwas darstellt. Ich hab zwar viele von ihnen, viele Städte, die zu mir sprechen, mich anlocken und mir etwas darstellen. Viele Städte, wo ich gerne leben möchte. Ich habe versucht Rechnungen aufzustellen, wie oft ich schon in Berlin war, aber ich weiß es jetzt nicht mehr. Meistens bin ich im Sommer unter den Linden, am Ufer der Spree oder irgendwo in der Bergmannstrasse, selten, wie jetzt, im Winter. Schöne Erinnerungen eines Sommers im Tiergarten, einer Motorbootfahrt auf der Wannsee an den prächtigen Villen vorbei, eines Nachmittags im Café am Sevigny-Platz, eines schwitzenden Besuchs beim Haus am Checkpoint-Charlie stapeln sich im Hinterkopf als ich durch die schneebedeckten und eisigen Straßen stampfte.

Ich bin kein Berliner(in), (stand jedoch unter dem Balkon, von dem Herr Kennedy sprach), behaupte jedoch, die Stadt zu kennen. Natürlich kratze ich nur an die oberste Ebene Berlins. Aber (ziemlich) alles, was gesehen werden muss, habe ich gesehen, von Humboldt-Uni zum Alexanderplatz, Friedrichstrasse hoch und runter, alles Nähe Mitte oder Unter den Linden, Berliner Mauer, Platz der Lüftbrücke und Holocast-Denkmal, unzählige Museen und schöne Ecken, an die ich mich nicht mehr erinnere, Reichstag mitsamt Schlange und Sicherheitskontrolle, leckere Restaurants und das Beste Eis der Welt (Geheimtipp: Sony-Arkaden am Potsdamer Platz. Dort gibt es Brombeer-Mandarinen- und Walnuss-Feigeeis). Und genauso habe ich meine Lieblingsstädte am Liebsten. Nicht mehr, wo ich schon alles gesehen habe, muss ich zu jeder Sehenswürdigkeit pilgern, mich davor fotografieren lassen und wieder in den Bus steigen wie die japanischen Touristen, die sich wie Tausendfüßler in Gruppen von fünfzig durch die Stadt bewegen. Ich muss nirgendwo hin, weil ich schon da war. Ich muss nicht mehr ratlos vor einer Kirche oder einem Museum oder einem Denkmal stehen und mich fragen, wieso ich gerade die, das oder den aufsuchen wollte, ob es mir überhaupt eine Bedeutung hat oder ob ich nur dort hin wollte, weil man es ja eben gesehen haben muss.

Das Smalltalk ist vorbei. Berlin und ich, wir haben uns schon vorgestellt, schon ausgetauscht, woher wir kommen, was wir gerade machen, ob wir etwas gemeinsam haben. Jetzt ist die schöne Zeit des wirklichen Kennenlernens, wo es darum geht, sowohl die schöneren geheimen Ecken zu finden als auch die Macken, die abgefahrenen und heruntergekommenen Seiten auch. Wie mit einem neuen Liebhaber: man ist eben doch noch frisch verliebt, schaut aber, ob er sich wirklich mit dieser neuen Person versteht, um sich hoffentlich noch fester zu verlieben.

Dementsprechend sieht mein Besuch in Berlin immer anders aus. Meistens bin ich auf Besuch, und in einer Woche fahre ich vielleicht ein- oder zweimal ,,in die Stadt“, und ansonsten bleibe ich in Zehlendorf oder Dahlem oder Steglitz oder Schöneberg oder was weiß ich noch bei Freunden, weswegen ich gekommen bin. Manchmal habe ich selber Besuch aus der Heimat, die in 24 oder 4 Stunden alles von Berlin sehen wollen, und dann sind wir wieder auf rascher Touri-Tour, liebevoll und lustig kommentiert von meinen Berliner Freunden. Diesmal war ich alleine, ein Zustand, den ich auf Reisen zunehmend genieße, denn es geht nicht mehr darum, wer wohin will und wann wir uns wieder treffen wollen. Keine Meinungsverschiedenheiten, keine Argumente, kein ,,ist mir egal“, ,,weiß nicht,“ oder ,,entscheide du“ (wofür ich genauso viel Verantwortung trage, denn am Liebsten meinen Gefährten die Entscheidung überlasse). Ich schloss mein Gepäck ab, marschierte aus dem Bahnhof einfach drauflos, ziellos, ahnungslos, ohne Plan und ohne Karte. Ich kann einfach laufen, so lange ich will, abbiegen, wo es mir gefällt oder am interessantesten vorkommt. Essen, wann ich Hunger habe und was ich will. Ich laufe nicht, um irgendwohin zu kommen, denn es gibt nichts, was ich aufsuchen möchte, denn ich kenne alles schon—und die Sachen, die ich nicht schon kenne, sind eher zu entdecken, indem ich einfach weiter gehe und sie in ihrem Versteck aufspüre. Ich will das Leben im Quartier entdecken, ich will die kleinen Geschäfte und Tanta-Emma-Läden sehen, ich will irgendwohin, wo ein Reisebus nicht durchpasst, wo es schön ist und wo es hässlich ist. Es ist manchmal schwer zu glauben, aber es gibt auch Leute die in Berlin leben, und nicht nur Touristen—auch im Winter! Bloß nicht auf eine Karte schauen, nicht nach dem Weg fragen, denn ich habe keinen Weg und weiß ohnehin, in welcher Richtung ich laufe. Wenn ich Glück habe, komme ich irgendwohin, wo ich nicht schon gewesen war. Wenn ich wirklich Glück habe, komme ich irgendwohin, wovon ich nicht mehr zurück will.

Es gibt öfters lustige Leute. In Kreutzberg habe ich zwei Engländer entdeckt, die mit Rasta-Locken und Röhrenhöschen über Esoterik diskutierten, die mir nach Friedrichstrasse folgten und die ich später am Hauptbahnhof vertieft in Diskussion mit einer Currywurst sah. In der Station Potsdamer Platz wurde einen Penner verhaftet (oder vielleicht nur freundlich hinausbegleitet, jedoch war der polizeiliche Einsatz stark genug, dass ich nicht mehr von Freundlichkeit ausgehen konnte), der allerlei Unfug über dem Gebrüll seines bellenden Hundes schrie. Ein junges Paar aus Amerika hat es in die S-Bahn Oranienburgerstrasse kaum geschafft, denn die Türen wollten schließen, und ein Student hat ihnen die Tür offen gehalten. „Thank you!“ rief der Eine, woraufhin der Student ihm freundlich antwortete: „please!“ (und zu seiner Freundin: ,,schau mal, wie gut ich Englisch kann!“). Neben mir am Flughafen deponierte jemand sein Gepäck, und ständig wechselte er sein Rhythmus: er schlief auf dem Gepäck, er wanderte unruhig herum und fingerte seinen Pferdeschwanz—der ohnehin eher wie ein Rattenschwanz aussah—oder er brüllte in sein Handy (auf Griechisch, wie sich später herausstellte; seine Erwiederung auf ,,¿hablas español?“ war ,,Greek, greek!“).

Heute habe ich nichts neues entdeckt, nur das Alte, mit einer schönen Decke Schnee, begleitet von meiner eigenen Freude und den fröhlichen Stampfen meiner Stiefel. Nichts neues entdeckt, mich dafür erneut in die alte Berlin verliebt.

Bis zum nächsten Mal, Berlin.

Au revoir simone

2009-01-01T03:46:00.000+08:00

If this blog could talk (independently, at least), it would complain of occasional sniffles, some minor aches and pains, and acute neglect. Posts for December: 2. Depending on the time zone. 2 is a good number for socks, shoes, twins, earplugs, and other things that come in pairs, but in terms of creative productivity, 2 is rather pathetic.

I’m currently trying to write while watching TV. Which shouldn’t be too difficult, as women are well known to be good multi-taskers, and I am a proven master of multiple internet- and chat-windows. However, I am a babe in the woods when it comes to TV. I don’t own one (though, strangely, I do own a DVD player, which sits forlorn and unconnected under my desk), I haven’t actually watched one (in the sense of TV as an activity) in years, with the exception of the 10 minutes it would take me to eat my dinner where I would watch CSPAN or Food network (yes, I am THAT lame). But it makes noise, has pretty flashing lights and a relatively low standard of humor. The problem is, I have approximately the attention span of a hamster, and am good for about 18 seconds per station. I don’t watch TV, I channel surf. Occasionally I stare in fascinated horror at MTV or whatever other aberration of normality which has been exported from my country to the rest of the world.

Not that I often have a point, but if I did, this wouldn’t be it. According to my clock, there are 3 hours and 43 minutes left in 2008. That’s kind of a crazy thought, but then again, today is a day like any other, just like birthdays are. It’s hard not to stand on the threshold of a new year and not look back at the old, for some happy, for others sad, for others indifferent. But that wasn’t the point either. The point, the point, the POINT is (I can imagine Arlo Guthrie at this point, with the glossy photos and the bench W), I finally have the opportunity to leave Europe, trade in my beer and chocolate for mokka and sheesha and unidentifiable bits which I will likely be expected to eat. I have been convinced to purchase a variety of medications which I will hopefully not have to take but likely will, and will have six whole weeks of EGYPT before returning to the freezing temperatures and darkness of Europe. This stint is an internship and some semblance of a vacation, at least in the sense of a holiday from “life” (which seems to change entirely its form and location every few months). No books, no papers. Adventure, chaos, frustration, culture shock, bedbugs, new experiences, new people, work, camels, all of this awaits me, and I it. Wish me luck, don’t mail me anything, and come visit.

December hath come and (almost) gone...

2008-12-21T20:11:00.002+08:00

I’m sitting on a train somewhere between Lausanne and Bern. Somewhere around here the announcements will be in German first, then French, instead of the other way around, but train is train is train. Muddy snow and the occasional light display are the only indications it’s working towards Christmas. Tiny country, many languages, strange politics: welcome to Europe. “What are you getting your family for Christmas?” “Chocolate.” Welcome to Switzerland.

Everyone pretty much went or is going home, a mass exodus of foreign students because no one is actually ever from here. The cité universitaire (the dorms) are haunted only by the forlorn echo of a door closing somewhere above or below you, and the hush of a big building with few people. Most anyone who’s left is doing laundry, and tinny Christmas music blares from the foyer. I wonder how much the receptionists hate it.

For my part, and I likely speak for my colleagues, not having anything to do is an unaccustomed and perhaps somewhat uncomfortable feeling—life is no longer predetermined, and there is no polycopié inducing guilt from the bookshelf. You can tell how the semester is going by the collective note of panic in everyone’s facebook statuses, reflecting long hours at the library, too many papers, a triumphal word count update or occasionally the expression of pure misery. The general burst of euphoria following the end of semester gave way to a general perplexity and a communal “…now what?” I don’t know either.

And I’m homeless again. In the hope of finding someone to take my room while I’m gone I packed everything I owned, distributed it among various friends who were maintaining their rooms, and cleared the premises. For the next two months I will live out of a backpack that is already too full without having much in it. I forget Christmas is next week. I felt like I’ve barely seen the sun for weeks, and my sudden parole has left me unprepared for the holiday spirit. Though I am going to Germany where, in my opinion, Christmas more or less is done properly (replete with Christmas markets, kitsch of all kinds and pre-Christmas Advent and St. Nicholas celebrations), I’m not going to any place I would call “home”, instead shuttling around among couches in a country which once was mine but to which I by all rights no longer belong. But I will be among my adopted my family, by which I mean that community of individuals who have taken such good care of me for all the years I’ve been a vagabond, a packrat, a holiday orphan, or just passing through. These days it seems all I ever do is pass through, and any time I start settling down, the little voice in the back of my mind starts encouraging me to pack my bag and move on.

(time elapses)

In Bern my trip took a turn for the worse. I was supposed to change in Bern to Basel, so, toting various backpacks, laptop bags, plastic bags with extraneous food products including a very large quantity of chocolate, I exited the train at Bern, happily took the escalator up to the main platform….to discover my connection had a 30-minute delay. There was no way I would make my connection (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do) to the other Basel station (frustratingly, there are two train stations in Basel, the Swiss one and the German one, and you can’t all that easily from one to another). The train of which I had just gotten off would continue on to Olten and Zürich, and I remember having gone through Olten (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do) on my way to Freiburg once, so…. Hectically I dashed down the platform to the train I had just gotten off, finding no maps no departure no other information, no ticket taker who could have helped me, no no no no no nothing (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do!!!). Still unsure I went back up to the main platform—still dragging sundry and all baggage, resulting in a noticeable tilt to starboard due to my laptop bag—and found a map showing Olten to be more or less (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do) between Bern and Freiburg. On a wing and a prayer I decided to risk the train to Olten, with the possibility that there would be no trains to Basel or that I would get to Basel too late to get on to Germany (what to do what to do what to do what to do what to do). Deciding to give it a go, I dash back down the platform where, by some miracle of which I was undeserving, the train I had just gotten off of was still there. I hopped back in, coincidentally in the same compartment, and spent the next twenty minutes desperately trying to connect with someone in Germany who would tell me when and if I would ever make it to my destination.

I was so preoccupied with my possible timetables and would I make my connection in Olten that I almost forgot to get off at Olten, and barely managed to collect my belongings and fight my way against the stream of boarding passengers like a giant malformed red salmon. I hurried three platforms over in the hope of catching a connecting train 3 minutes later, which turned out not to exist, which meant I had then to change seven platforms in the other direction to wait for my next train to Basel (Swiss). Upon boarding the train, upset, flustered and tired and looking forward to the yoghurt I had packed as at least a minor improvement in my evening, I discovered that said yoghurt had responded to Newton’s Third Law, which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Some action must have compressed its fragile plastic domicile, and in lawful reaction it exploded all over everything. They say yoghurt is good for the skin and I hope they’re right, ‘cause I kinda had to use it as hand cream (no Kleenex at hand).

Basel, of course, was a continuation of my previous disaster, as the S-Bahn over to the other Basel station is at the very very end and somehow half as long as the others, so a very hectic and almost painful odyssey over there made defeat all the more bitter when I discovered I had missed the transfer by about two minutes. Thankfully, in some last-ditch attempt to refute Murphy’s law, there was a (fast) train to Freiburg some minutes later. It is, of course, considerably more expensive than the train I otherwise would have taken, but at that point there was nothing I could do to change that.

The first stage is denial

2008-11-28T21:02:00.006+08:00

She saw the ad online somewhere, probably one of those really stupid-looking little blurbs on your email or somewhere that no one ever clicks on, except people do, or else they wouldn't be there--businesses don't run on optimism. Anyways, the product was certified and guaranteed and moreover recommended by several popular TV shows--and available at the drug store. So the next time she was at Murray's she found the little blue box and bought some. You know, just to try 'em.

They were little patches that you stuck onto your hip or your arm, giving you a badge like that of a recent ex-smokers. The package promised first results within a week, and she was excited to see what happened. After all, it was perfectly safe, or they wouldn't have been allowed to sell it. The package promised five a week, and she actually would only need maybe two weeks, maybe three before she got where she wanted--no extra work involved, no foregoing, no exertion of any kind. In fact, exertion was discouraged, which was fine with her.

And it worked. By Thursday she thought she could feel a difference, felt lighter, livlier, not so weighed down. By saturday she was borrowing Lisa's dress, Lisa, who was at least two sizes smaller--ok, the dress was still to big for Lisa, and a bit tight on her, but whatever.

By Tuesday she had to go shopping, which she did every Tuesday, and Monday and Friday and Saturday and Wednesday and Sunday and Thursday--but she was edging towards the rack of 'smalls', gingerly feeling the patch at her waist. That spot was a bit tender, but you can't have everything, and compared to months at the gym this was nothing.

By Friday she wasn't feeling hungry; an added bonus, making this all the much easier. She didn't have much farther to go before she was perfect, just another week or two. Sunday she passed on ice cream with Sonia, looking at the other girl with a mixture of pity and slight disgust. "Ice cream is the last thing *you* need," she joked, turning away, not noticing that Sonia didn't think it was funny.

Wednesday she didn't feel like getting out of bed. Nauseous and weak she lay there, remembered having read something about side effects. Temporary ones. Friday wasn't much better, and by Monday she was down fifteen, perhaps twenty. Her hipbones jutted out of her skirt and she wore them proudly as long as they hid her patch, and the bluish-purplish bruise that had been there for the last several days.

Thirty down. She was astounded at how well they were working, the little patches. She decided she'd done enough, and stop wearing them. But within the hour she began to feel as if she had been blown up to twice her normal size, and she stuck on another patch and immediately felt better.

Forty-five. Ordinarily she'd be proud of the fact that the size 0 hung loosly from her frame, but to be honest, she couldn't get up the effort to care. She didn't actually have the energy to to anything at all, and though she had resolved to stop using them, after much exertion she managed tiredly to pull back another wrapper of another patch, and to try to find a spot on her body not bony and bruised. Her skin felt loose and listless, but it didn't matter, she was skinny, she was beautiful. She pulled back the wrapper and stuck on the patch, waiting for the exhilirating rush. And she disappeared completely.

DISCLAIMER: I just found this in the archives of my blog, and it is, 100% honestly, a thought experiment. I think I wrote it after seeing a few emaciated pictures of unhappy otherwise well-fed Americans (equally applicable to other OECD countries) who starve themselves to be thin, compared to pictures of emaciated children in Africa who just don't get enough to eat and die of malnutrition. How is it that the US (and some large portions--no pun intended--of the rest of the world) suffer from obesity, and in other places people starve? Here's a new diet plan: spend less on fast food, send the money somewhere where people need it. Even better: stop subsidizing American and European agriculture, make us pay a bit more for food so perhaps we eat less, and allow all those subsistence farmers a market for their goods.

A conversation

2008-11-28T20:52:00.001+08:00

Subtitle: let's not kid ourselves.

What you say (what you mean)

A: Hi (hi.)
B: Hi! (hi.)
A: How have you been? (haven't seen you in a long time and have no idea what's happened to your life.)
B: Pretty well, thanks. Yourself? (well, my boyfriend/gilfriend just left me and I need to find a new place to live ASAP. I hope your life is worse than mine, so I'll feel better.)
A: Doing just fine. (except I'm broke and have had the flu for two weeks. But your lot sounds worse off, so there's that...)
B: Good to hear. Crappy weather we've got. (I can't think of anything to say.)
A: Yeah, no kidding. Hasn't rained like this in weeks. (I can't think of anything either.)
B: Supposed to get better tomorrow. (Ummmmm.....)
A: Yeah, we'll see. This rain sucks! (Ummmm......)
B: Well, I've got to run. We should catch up sometime... (This is getting awkward, so I'm bailing. Let's not have this conversation again any time soon.)
A: Definately. I've actually gotta run too, but I'll drop you a line sometime. (Yay, an exit. Don't wait for my call.)
B: Excellent! Yeah, well, take care! (Glad that's over with!)
A: You too! (Finally got that tosser off my back!)

Why is it that we default to talking about the weather when we've got nothing to say? I don't even buy the argument of weather as the lowest common denominator--why do I write about the weather to penpals or friends far away? It has no actual relevance to anything whatsoever, and why can't we just say what we're thinking?

Spiegelein, Spiegelein an der Wand...

2008-11-26T03:23:00.003+08:00

Es ist ein bisschen schwierig mich auszudrucken. Ich wollte es nicht sagen, konnte es nciht sagen, brachte es einfach nicht fertig, den Mund aufzumachen und dir zu sagen dass ich gehe. Und wie. Ich verlasse dieses Land und diese Stadt und diese Straße und diese Wohnung und dieses Zimmer und ich werde, höchstwahrscheinlich, nie wieder zurückkommen. Ich sage das so, so beiläufig, so nebenbei, weil ich es mir jeden Tag eingeübt habe. Ich saß, seit zwei Wochen saß ich im Wohnzimmer und habe es vor mich hin gesagt, habe der Luft vor mir gesagt, ,ich gehe’. Es dir zu sagen ist etwas schwieriger, denn im Gegesatz zur Luft, also im Gegensatz zu mir selber, hast du etwas dazu zu sagen. ,Nein’ hast du dazu zu sagen, also dagegen zu sagen. Du willst nicht, dass ich gehe. Sagtest du.

Bei ,nein’ kann es nicht bleiben, so einfach ist diese Sache nicht. Du verstehst mich nicht, du willst mich nicht verstehen, das Einzige, was du verstehst, ist dass ich dich verlasse. Dich verlasse ich nicht, also nicht mit Absicht, aber da du mit diesem Zimmer und dieser Wohnung und dieser Straße und dieser Stadt und diesem Land auf Ewigkeit verbunden bist, gehörst du zwangsläufig zu den Sachen und Orten und Leuten, die ich verlasse.

Ein Geheimnis habe ich für dich, eingepackt und eingeschweift wie Lebensmittel, wie Fleisch, das nicht verderben soll. Mein Geheimnis soll auch nicht verderben, also darfst du es nicht auspacken, sondern aufbewahren für immer und ewig und mindestens bis nächster Woche. Ich sage dir nicht, was drinnen ist, denn es ist ein Geheimnis, oder? Ich lege es dir hin neben dem Waschbecken. So. Siehst du? Genau da. Vielleicht hinter dem Wasserhahn ist besser, oder im Schrank? Vielleicht vergisst du es, wenn ich es in den Schrank stecke—ich lass mein Geheimnis hier neben dem Waschbecken.

Wir kennen uns seit zwei Tagen. Oder zwei Wochen. Oder zwei Jahren. Mir ist nicht so ganz klar, ich nehme es mit den Daten nicht so ganz genau. Du weiß das, nicht wahr? Wir haben uns nur zufällig kennengelernt, zwei Einzelpersonen, die jetzt Zweipersonen sind. Oder so ähnlich. Zwillinge sind wir, denn wir sehen uns sehr ähnlich. Wir sind sehr ähnlich: gleichaltrig, beide mit braunen Haaren—meine sind links gescheitelt, deine dagegen rechts—und mit leuchtenden, blauen Augen. Sommersprossen haben wir beide. Darüber bin ich froh, denn die anderen in der Schule machen sich über meine Sommersprossen lustig, und es erleichtert mich, dass du meine Last auch teilst.

In letzter Zeit, zumindest seit der Schule wieder angefangen hat, sehen wir uns seltener. Früher sahen wir uns morgens, abends, mittags, manchmal vor- oder nachmittags. Manchmal sahen wir uns mitten in der Nacht, manchmal trafen wir uns mitten in der Nacht, wo der Mond vom Fenster über meiner rechten—deiner linken—Schulter uns beleuchtete.

Jetzt ist es aber morgen, es ist der Morgen, an dem wir diese Wohnung, diese Straße, diese Stadt und dieses Land verlassen werden. Wir fahren mit dem Auto, hat Mama gesagt. Ich will aber nicht, aber sie hört nicht auf mich, sie sagt, dass wir gehen müssen. Es ist Zeit, dir zu sagen, dass ich gehe, aber wie gesagt, gerade das fällt mir jetzt schwer.

,,Peeeeeeter!” das war Mama. Sie ruft mich. Sie steht schon vorne, vorm Haus und vorm Auto, und wartet auf mich. Nur ich fehle, und sie ruft nach mir. ,,Peter!” sagte sie wieder. Sie steht hinter mir, hinter dir auch, und lächelt mir zu. Sie ist nicht böse, aber sie wird böse, wenn ich nicht mitkomme.

,,Mama, ich will nicht gehen,” klagte ich, wimmerte ich, aber sie begann trotzdem mich—dich—langsam aus dem Badezimmer zu zerren. Ich sah, wie du dich wehrtest, aber sie war kräftig und stärker. Fast warst du aus meiner Sicht verschwunden, da schreite ich dir, wie aus der Ferne: ,,ich muss gehen! Ich komm nicht wieder. Es tut mir Leid!” Und ich sah auch, wie du mit offenem Mund mir auch etwas zu schriest. Ich habe dich aber nicht gehört, nichts gehört, überhaupt nichts.

,,Peter, wir müssen gehen,” antwortete Mama. ,,Ach, was soll’s,” sagte Mama. “Ich werde es nie verstehen, wieso du ständig im Badezimmer stehst und mit deinem Spiegelbild redest! Aber wir müssen los!” Und als sie mich noch einmal zerrte warst du weg, verschwunden.

Remember remember November november

2008-11-24T15:44:00.000+08:00

I haven’t written much recently, as I haven’t really had much to write about. I am, after all, a grad student, and my life is marked by the boring monotony of readings and seminars that seem to take up 95% of my waking hours. To be fair, I spend a fair amount of time trying to make myself work, which is more or less directly euivalent to the amount of time I spend reading webcomics and checking facebook (because, you know, something might have changed in the last 30 seconds). It’s a bit pathetic, really, but the lure of shiny pictures and contact to the outside world is a bit hard to resist.

I have to admit, I really hate the library. Coming from a (former) librarian, that’s a harsh statement, but I’m quite anti-library. Even when I worked (read: lived) in one I still couldn’t stand the place and was nevertheless constantly there—but only to work. I cannot study in a library; library, to me, speaks of dusty books, poor lighting, sterile environment, uncomfortable chairs and a dearth of electric sockets. Compared to my desk at home replete with surround sound speakers, coffee maker and the opportunity to take walks in the fresh air, I can’t imagine under what circumstances I could be induced to leave my little 8th floor sanctuary.

In addition, the library has a certain air of frantic desperation to it which I find offputting (mostly because it gives me a guilty conscience). Everyone is frantically doing something, buried in readings, meandering lost through the stacks (why do no two libraries use the same cataloguing system? Am I spoiled by the American 2-option system of a) Dewey or b) Library of Congress?) or taking constant coffee breaks. In fact, I am quite sure there are several people whose coffee breaks exceed the time they spend studying. Mostly, my life right now just makes me want to go AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!
It’s obvious I don’t get out much, and I like complaining.

Occasionally, however, I do manage to make it off my butt to go do something. Satuday we went to a concert at au Chat Noir, a bar in Carouge, which was featuring a brass/funk. It’s the kind of thing which is either amazing or ridiculous; you either love it and you dance, or you hate it and you leave because there’s no middle ground. Of course, the place was almost empty, and we joked it was a private party just for us (we were what, 10 people?) and as the crowd trickled in, it became a mix of us and people twice our age.

The band consisted of seven-odd frenchies in their mid 30s acting like they were in their early 20s, playing tuba, saxophone, drums, drums, trombone, turntables and banjo, playing stuff ranging from uptempo funk to big-band rap with jam riffs. The kid playing the turntables was slight and rather scrawny, and like anyone I’ve ever seen do ‘tables he bobbed back in forth almost hypnotically with the music, hunched to one side, one hand turning and one hand flicking switches. The frontman was as ridiculous as they come, a saxophone player who looked about ten years older after taking off his hat and hoody, dancing along to the music and eventually leading the band off of the stage and into the crowd where they played jam-style. It reminded me of the soccer games this summer; at one point everyone (including the band) would crouch down and the pressure would build and build and the music would crescendo and speed up and everyone would leap up and jump up and down. After all of that I just had to go home, but everyone else stayed out and the night apparently turned into a minorly epic odyssey, trying to find some bar that was open, rescuing a drunk guy trying to walk to Annecy in the snow with no shoes, etc.

random

2008-10-31T22:07:00.000+08:00

Vrrrr-VROOOOOMM…purrrrrr…ka-THUNK, ka-THUNK….vrrr-vrrOOOOMMM!!! Vrrrr-VROOOOOMM…purrrrrr…ka-THUNK, ka-THUNK….vrrr-vrrOOOOMMM!!!

Watching a Maserati go over speedbumps is kind of like watching someone cut vegetables with a weed whacker--- can anyone say overkill?

And does anyone know what:

NO POGOS

ONLY THE REALS DANCING

--thank you

could possibly mean? It’s on the entryway to a club; usually, that location houses a “no smoking” sign, until it was recently replaced by this one.

Banana me...

2008-10-16T22:30:00.002+08:00

This might just be the most hilarious thing that has ever happened to me, and I almost fell off my bike laughing when it happened (although it was slightly less amusing as I was carrying my bike home…). In any case, it all started out one not so fine and not particularly sunny day when I, in a dearth of pretty much anything edible whatsoever in my little monk’s cell, determined to go grocery shopping on my way back from an appointment I was convinced I had but actually didn’t. I managed to collect the essentials (or ‘the usual’, as I pretty much always buy the same things…), pay, and in true German style pack everything in my backpack before the checker was done checking (if you’ve ever been to Aldi and in danger of having your purchases more or less pushed off the counter for not being fast enough, you’ll know what I mean). Everything fit except the bananas and the baguette; I had managed to stow the heavy, indestructible objects a the bottom of my backpack, the box of fresh figs on top (PS, for those of you in Switzerland, currently ‘en action’ at Migros this week), and in true German fashion had even brought my own plastic shopping bag in case it didn’t all fit in the backpack (again, veterans of deutsche Discountmärkte will know that additional bags cost money). Under the weight of my several kilos of müsli, coffee, carrots, milk, and god knows what else I bought I stagger outside, unlock my bike, push the bike across the street so I am set up to start riding in the direction, jump on, start riding and…

…that’s when it happens. I often boast of being able to transport much of anything on a bicycle, as if dangling all manner of baggage and accoutrements looking like I’m carrying all my earthly possessions in one go is some kind of virtue despite looking utterly ridiculous. So I figure one backpack, one plastic shopping bag would be no problem. And it usually isn’t: ask me about transporting a flat of strawberries, several watermelons, or bottles of wine and we can talk about ‘difficult’. In any case, I start off, and in the first five or so yards as I am gaining equilibrium, the bag dangling from my handlebars keeps touching the spokes, generally just making a terrible noise and damaging the bag for which I at one point paid money. All of the sudden, pendulating as it was, the bag suddenly swung into the spokes with enough force that the bag was essentially grabbed and swallowed by the front wheel like a wood chipper, as my bike manages somehow, in the space of about 8.2 seconds, to puree five bananas and half a baguette before I could get stopped and sort it all out. Unfortunately, this had already broken a bracket on my fender and managed to wedge the thingie holding on to the bracket under the front wheel, meaning I had to literally carry the bicycle—dripping banana—home in heels.

LATER THAT DAY: I did manage to fix my bike, but it involved taking off the brakes to get to the fender to get to the bracket to put it all back together again. Go me. And I have no bananas left ☹

Je voudrais que quelqu'un....

2008-10-15T03:57:00.002+08:00

My new pet peeve has become: upon someone finding out I’m American, they immediately ask “have you voted yet?” to which I reply, “I’m still waiting for my ballot.” To which they hysterically screech “but you need to VOTE!!!” As if I had any effect on my ballot not being there. Yes, I damn well KNOW I have to vote—you think I want a repeat of the last time around? You Europeans seem half convinced I voted for Bush the last time…

Americans find it off-putting abroad that pretty much everyone and their grandmother wants to know your voting preference. Money, religion and politics are not subjects openly discussed, I suppose, and I would never consider asking another American how they voted / are going to vote. Germans have no problems asking that, nor how much we earn, nor what religion we are (though the concept of religion in Germany has less serious connotations than in the States, excepting Bavaria…). It also perturbs most Americans that your average European knows more about American politics than the Americans do…

Other new pet peeves include:
- paying ridiculous amounts of money for nearly everything;
- the cleaning ladies who absolutely have to clean our kitchen at the exact same time as I need to make my sandwich for lunch, regardless of what time of the day or night;
- the crackheads at cité at 2 AM on weekends (explanation: the seediest club in Geneva—where people go when nothing else is open or they can’t get in anywhere else—is located under my residence, conveniently right next to the bicycle room in the basement. That means I have to pass through clouds of weed smoke and drunk kids to put my bike away if I come home on weekends);
- people who automatically switch to English when we start to speak and think they’re doing me a favor
- 6:30 AM plus Garbage men = me not much sleep
- not having enough coffee (am sadly back to being coffee dependent… welcome to grad school)
- having the linguistical ability of your average eight-year-old—if that.

Mais en effet, ca va. Parfois.

En Suisse

2008-10-06T05:22:00.002+08:00

Frequent comment: “Are you going to take your bike?” (incredulous look at either the weather or what I’m wearing; I have a penchant for skirts and heels). “Of course I’m biking. I always take my bike.” (that would be why I am standing here holding the bike….) The next morning: “Did you make it home okay?” “Sure, I was home in 10 minutes, you?” “I hiked for 45 because I missed the last bus/tram and couldn’t find the night bus.” “HAHAHAHAHA…sucker.” Buy a bike, people, it makes your life worthwhile.

Europe is fun for its internationalism: there are so many little tiny countries all over the place. It’s like you can barely sneeze without it landing on someone from a different linguistic group. In the distance from California to Kansas City you could drive from Stockholm to Rome, New Mexico is about as far away from New York as Poland is from Portugal, and Colorado has 75% the land area of Germany, and 1/16th the population. I like to try to impress people with my a) basic math skills, b) tenuous grasp of geography, and c) conviction that spending eighteen hours in a car to go on vacation is FUN. It’s considered quite bad form to make fun of the Luxembourgians, Andorrans, Liechtensteinians, or for that matter the Dutch of the Belgians for how unbelievably tiny their countries are. Luxembourg, for example, has as a population comparable to a mid-sized city—and that’s the whole country! Somehow they still feel compelled to have three official languages—and one of their own!

I am an equal opportunity offender, so I try to spare no punches, (particularly in light of the crap I get about my own country, about which everyone is a self-styled expert without the most of them having spent more than a two-week vacation in either New York or Las Vegas/California.) Super tiny country jokes always go over well with these citizens, as well as the accusation that their language, be it Dutch, Flemish or Luxemborgish, is actually an f’ed up dialect of German. Asking the Swiss (or Bavarians for that matter) if they speak “normal German” is something they might take from me but never from an actual German. I think for both of them (the Belgians, the Dutch and the Swiss, and certainly the Austrians) the Germans are just annoying and overbearing, and nothing would be better than beating them at football or being able to definitively prove that one’s own country has the best cheese or chocolate. Because noting else matters. Beating the Germans at football (soccer) wouldn’t be bad either. From the German perspective, the Dutch make cheese and live in trailers, the French make cheese and complain a lot, the Austrians just talk funny, the Swiss are arrogant and the Belgians are supposed to be nice but a bit linguistically and politically confused, and they have good beer, and apparently the cities are pretty as well but you wouldn’t know because Germans don’t ever go to Belgium. I was greeted with outright incredulity when I said I went to Belgium on holiday, as if I had suddenly become a head case. Conversely, the Dutch and Belgians I had met had pretty much never been to Germany either, except perhaps as a child with the family in one of the aforementioned trailers.

This all has absolutely nothing to do with the Swiss, for the sole fact that the Swiss don’t much notice that the rest of Europe exists. They have large quantities of melty bubbly cheese which smells of feet, they have chocolate to rival the Belgians, and yes everything is horrendously overpriced but they are living in the best country on earth, so there. For the rest of Europe, though, they are serious (more so than the Germans) and rich. That’s bad enough, they speak funny German, slow French, Italian, and something else which no one can remember what it’s called.

Q: What does the postcard from a Swiss vacationer say?
A: Having a wonderful time. Where am I?

Q: What do you get when you cross a Swiss and a lawyer?
A: Well…there are some things even a Swiss won't do.

Q: Did you hear about the new epidemic among the Swiss?
A: It's called MAIDS - if they don't get one, they die.

A Swiss guy, looking for directions, pulls up at a bus stop where two Englishmen are waiting. "Entschuldigung, können Sie Deutsch sprechen?" He asks. The two Englishmen just stare at him. "Excusez-moi, parlez-vous français?" The two continue to stare. "Parlate italiano?" No response. "Hablan Ustedes espagnol?" Still nothing. The Swiss guy drives off, extremely disgusted.

The first Englishman turns to the second and says: "Y'know, maybe we should learn a foreign language…"

"Why?" says the other, "that bloke knew four languages, and it didn't do him any good."

In Heaven the cooks are French, the policemen are English, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian, the bankers are Swiss. In Hell the cooks are English, the policemen are German, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss, and the bankers are Italian.

...enter the bicycle

2008-09-24T23:50:00.001+08:00

I’m pretty sure the species of small children are closely related to the species of zombies: as soon as you have been discovered by a small child, particularly one of an inquisitive nature, its face breaks into a lopsided grin and it begins to stagger towards you, its motion unhindered by and unheeding of obstacles in its way. You may observe the Zombie Effect when riding a bicycle through the park: all of the sudden, garishly clad small creatures start wobbling, scenting a live one and moving in for the kill. As a person, I love children and I love dogs, but as a bicyclist, the two things I hate most are… children and dogs. Dogs on their own are bad, but as soon as they figure out you’re bearing down on them at 20 kph they move out of your way; the only problem is knowing where they’ll go. The only hitch: dogs on leashes. The dog notices you’re coming, and often the owner as well—and then the owner goes left and the dog goes right and you get clothesline. Children are worse; they lack the situational awareness, keen senses and self-preservation instinct of your average pooch, they move erratically and you have no idea in which direction they will move next—and unlike dogs, they often don’t respond when you call them.

Biking in Geneva has been fun. Compared to Germany the place is either a biker’s paradise or anarchy, depending on your view. In Germany, it’s considered a moving violation to cross ON FOOT against a light; therefore, the joke is, it’s always the Germans waiting at a deserted streetlight at 3 AM for the light to change. Doing so on a bike can cost you 90 euros. I couldn’t imagine biking in Italy or even in France; there, traffic is so chaotic as to make the endeavour practically suicidal. Geneva is the pleasant mix of the two: there are bike lanes and traffic lights for us—but basic traffic rules seem to be generally disregarded by bicyclists. You look, if no one is coming, you go, and you expect traffic to yield to you---and it does! However, the traffic in Geneva is worse than in Freiburg, and it is likely you will cross intersections with two tramlines, four lanes of traffic coming in at odd angles, and a mass of pedestrians, and the tram tracks provide interesting spice to your navigation of traffic. My one and only bike wreck involved me diving full-on into a creek when my tire got caught in the track on a rainy day.

I’m getting better. I can make it to class in 20 minutes and home in 25, if I’m in a hurry—and I seem to be perpetually in a hurry. I feel like I should wear motorcycle leathers, though, or a bike messenger bag instead of my usual skit and heels.

random...

2008-09-20T02:02:00.002+08:00

No one told me grad school would be like kindergarten, and all of this was of my own free will so I can't really complain, but I have mostly done nothing today but read, eat, read, read, run, read, and go grocery shopping. And read. If, for some reason, I had to leave my room for some reason I could imagine you would find residual skin left over from where my fingers were glued to my computer. But I actually LIKE this stuff, or else I wouldn't be here, so it's all good.

In other news, I, like every other foreigner, have discovered what I would dare to term a Swiss phenomenon (please correct me, ye Suiss allemands, if this does not pertain to you) to require several passport photos for absolutely everything. I almost feel as if grocery shopping requires several pass photos, which are conveniently available at a passport-photo booth on every other street corner. I have absolutely no idea how many of my pictures are floating around Geneva, but I swear, for some things I've even had to give four or five, in several different sets. Just in case someone wanted to forge my identity at the office of sports, donchaknow...

Apparently there is no such thing in French as Suiss francophone, extrapolated from Suiss allemand (German-speaking Swiss), it's called suiss romande.

Other funny things I or other people have said in French:
-- ,,j'ai une tete ouverte" to which my teacher replied if we really had an "open head" (intending to say 'have an open mind') we would be in the hospital.
-- the words for pear, (bell) pepper, scallions, and (seasoning) pepper are easy to mix up in French.

Um....

Swissnotes--- for the under-motivated

2008-09-18T03:24:00.000+08:00

So I went and moved to Switzerland. I am still getting over that one; every other time I’ve moved abroad (and there have been three of them) I’ve been moving to Germany. Now I speak German quite well and am so used to both the language and the culture that I don’t notice if I ask what time someone wants to stand up in the morning, bring my shopping bags with me and wait at red lights at empty intersections in the middle of the night without thinking twice. (But before I let you, dear reader, go on thinking I have nothing left to learn in German—which I may, out of hubris, occasionally claim—let me offer the following sentence uttered to explain that my friend had previously helped me move before as evidence that I am not and should not be mistaken for a native speaker: ,,Er hat mich schon mal umgezogen.” The verb ,umziehen’ refers to moving—and also to changing one’s clothes. Unfortunately, my usage of the verb points exclusively to the second meaning, implying that my friend has changed my clothes for me before.)

Here I am in a new country with a new bureaucracy, new rules and a new language with which I am not entirely familiar. I had long forgotten the days when I didn’t understand everything and where my verbal and written output was on intellectual par with your average four-year-old, except with less eloquence. It’s hard to get much beyond “I want, I need, I am, I won’t!” particularly as everyone here seems to speak English perfectly (and everything else too). Polyglots, I hate you all.

They say the bureaucracy here is typically Swiss—in that everything has to be done properly and orderly and with three copies to all relevant offices—and typically francophone, in that no one has any idea whatsoever how things are supposed to be done. Acquiring a residence permit for Switzerland is an exercise in patience, persistence and tenacity. I can only imagine what it’s like for those people who speak no French whatsoever….

J'suis arrivée!

2008-09-03T19:32:00.002+08:00

J’habite en Suisse, c’est-à-dire je me suis installée à Genève, à cette ville où l’on a presque le niveau de vie le plus haut du monde. Après un long et bon séjour sans maison (depuis mai 2008) je suis fière de dire que j’ai une petite chambre à la cité-u. Tout d’abord, quand je suis arrivée, je n’était pas heureuse de voire cette petite boite où je passerai la prochaine année mais maintenant, après avoir parlé avec des autres dans mon cours d’études, je suis tout à fait satisfaite. La ville de Genève est au bord du Lac Léman, appelé du monde anglophone comme « lake Geneva » et est entourée de la France aux trois cotés. Le fleuve, « le Rhône », partage la ville en deux moitiés : la rive gauche et la rive droite. L’institut IHEID, où j’étudierai, est dans la rive gauche près de l’Organisation mondiale du commerce (engl. WTO) et de l’ONU (engl. UN), la croix rouge et plusieurs autres organisations non gouvernemental. L’institut est au bord du Lac dans un grand parc. À coté du Lac, à la direction de la Vielle Ville, sont le Bain de Pâquis et la gare de Cornavain. Sur le Rhône est le quai de Mont Blanc entre la rive gauche et la rive droite. Dans la rive droit il y a la vielle vile, le « shopping district » de Genève avec plusieurs magasins connus, le Jet d’Eau, et les districts de Carouge, Plainpalais et Champel. J’habite à Champel et j’ai besoin d’une demi-heure pour traverser la vielle au vélo.

La cité universitaire est située presque le bout de monde (marquée sur le plan de Genève comme « le bout de monde ») en dessus d’une berge très vertes. On peut y bien courir, faire du tennis, du football ou du basket-ball et la vue vers l’extérieur des fenêtres est tellement jolie. Il y a aussi une salle de séjour avec des journaux, les places dehors à manger ou jouer, le resto-u, un automate de café et de timbres, et une cuisine, deux toilettes et quatre douches à partager entre seize personnes. De plus, quelques-uns de mes amis y habitent aussi et on va manger ou passer le temps ensemble. Je me semble bien.

L’institut à mille étudiants dont environ 60 doivent apprendre le Français avant de commencer leurs études. On les a partagés en quatre groups d’un niveau débutant au niveau avancé. Moi, je suis dans le groupe le plus avancé et nous y parlons seulement en français. Mes compatriotes viennent du monde entier : de l’Argentine, Honduras, Russie, Vietnam, Italie, Afrique du Sud, Brésil, Kazakhstan, et des Etats-Unis d’Amérique. Le cours de français dure trois heures chaque jour et l’après-midi est libre. Nous avons assez à faire et tant de travail en recevant notre permis de séjour, ouvrant un compte dans la banque (plus difficile pour moi que j’ai attendu), trouvant un téléphone portable…. Nous avons passé un après-midi à la plage, avons fait les pique-niques ou sommes allés dans une boîte de nuit. Le temps faisait toujours beau et chaud, entre 25 et 28 degrés, la soleil brillait…

Our trip to Budapest

2008-08-29T21:57:00.002+08:00

“Wait! Where are y-you g------oing?! There is a beeeee-u-ti-ful view and sights of the river and the parrrrrliament building! Over heeeeeere!”

The wailing and slightly wheezing imploration issued from a gaunt gentleman of indeterminable age brandishing an hungarisn tourist guide’s ID as if it were a weapon. His voice had the rough quality of an old chalkboard with all its redeeming qualities, gaunt features and some mannerisms reminiscent of a marionette, and his occasionally jerky manner added extra emphasis to his accented but enthusiastic English, marred by the occasional physical and vocal tic:

“I will show you, I will, I will……. Excuse me! EXC--------USE ME!!!” (this is conducted in a penetrating whisper as he leans in to recapture our wandering attention: mummy always told us not to talk to strangers; we pretend to ignore him.) “I will show you a tour of Budapest with in-for-may-shuns you will not find an-eeeeeee-where else in an-----y tourist guid-E! For only….. excuse me! EXCUSE MEEEEEEE!!!!" (I didn’t know it was possible to wail and whisper at the same time time, but it apparently is.) “For only two thausAND----”

“No. We’re not interested.”

“No, no nononononono!” His voice bordered on a wail and he seemed to be getting quasi hysterical by this point, and I was kind of worried he would go all crazy Edward Scissorhands on us, acting like a demonic wind-up toy on adderol. “NO! I cannot-----I cannot------ I cannot (EXCUSE ME!! EXCUUUUUUSE ME!) communicate with these creatures. With human beings I can communicate, but with these, with these prrrrrrimitive species I cannot communicate.” And he flounced off, muttering angrily. No joke.

-- Tickets please. May I see your ticket? (says the stout Hungarian metro worker)
--- (we hand them over)
--- (she examines them) This ticket is not valid.
--- (uhhhhhhh) What do you mean?
--- This ticket is not valid for your journey. From what station do you come?
---
--- When you transfer you must validate another ticket.
--- But we asked someone from the train company and he said it was valid!
--- This ticket is not valid.
--- Well, we have a book of tickets, we can give you the tickets we were supposed to have used. (angry look, angry shake of the head)
--- This ticket is not valid. You will have to pay a fine of 6,400 Florins. Per person (angry look)
--- But we don’t HAVE 6,400 Florins per person! (shrug). What do we do? (shrug) (she finds a traveler to translate for her)
--- Do you have a credit card? (of course we do, but I’m not about to tell her this.
--- no, no credit cards. At the hotel. (a lie)
--- Do you have a bank card?
--- Yes.
--- You will have to pay the fine. Two of you stay here and one will go to get the money (I feel like we are being robbed: Your money or your life!)
--- We can’t withdraw any more money from our account. You can only withdraw a certain amount each day and we have already withdrawn the maximum for today. We can’t take out any more money!
--- (shrug, angry look) Your passports!
--- At the hotel. (not a lie, but the last thing I am going to do is hand over my passport, which honestly wasn’t on me at this point anyways) (she consults briefly with the other controller, who had been stifling a smile the whole time).
--- Give me the tickets! (we hand them over, she rips them and we go on).

Whew. Welcome to Budapest. In their defense, it said we had to validate a new ticket each transfer on the back IN ENGLISH. In our defense, these were tickets out of a booklet of 10, and I had read the back of the individual ticket purchased from the machine and it said no such thing, so I assumed these would be the same.

The good experiences: When we arrived in Budapest we stumbled upon a folk festival selling overpriced handicrafts and random junk no one ever needs. WE listened to some cool music and also to the fascinatingly irritating bird calls that everyone and their grandmother seemed to be selling and which I would only give to the child of someone I hate. We had a stunning view of the parliament from the chain bridge and set off on an epic trip to find Liszt Ferenc tér, which happened to be right near our hostel. We had an excellent dinner at a gorgeous restaurant before meeting up with some contacts from Couchsurfing---who took us to pretty much the coolest bar ever. We wandered the castle district (overpriced and touristy), got swindled at lunch, tried to look for and eventually found the baths, and we went back the next night for dinner at the same place the next night before hiking up to hero’s square.

We don’t speak Slovakian either

2008-08-16T05:09:00.004+08:00

The first thought I had getting off the train in Zilina is that we had made a terrible mistake and shouldn’t have come here. We had practically traveled halfway across Slovakia to go to this tiny town which may or may not have a castle, where we would be picked up by unknown persons (our couchsurfing hosts) who would put us up in an unknown location. To top it all off, we had wittingly taken the slow train, unwittingly dooming ourselves to four and a half ours of Slovakian countryside instead of one and a half hours on the fast train. We should have stayed in Bratislava, we should have planned for Trencin, we should have done this or that or anything else. The train station in Zilina looked somewhat dismal, and we still didn’t speak Slovakian, and everything seems a bit gloomy and foreboding if you aren’t comfortable where you are and are unsure about the future.

But our couchsurfing hosts rode to our rescue, or biked rather, but before we knew it we had our bags stowed in the ticket office and were off, bicycle and dog proverbially in hand, to go visit ‘downtown’ Zilina. After a somewhat complicated maneuver, we managed to send our bags off with the father of our host, leaving us free and unencumbered and able to hike into the old part of the town (pop 100,000) for a short tour, the obligatory photo, and some beers at a local restaurant.

I must say, I am completely a fan of couchsurfing. As much as I love my travel companions, I see them all the time; as much as enjoy the interesting Brits and Americans you meet at your average hostel (and particularly in Prague), we didn’t come halfway across Europe to meet other Americans or just talk to each other. We had the opportunity to sit at this restaurant, actually have someone order for us in the native language, and talk about everything from language to culture to whether or not you say “cheese!” while taking pictures (you do. It’s called syr). We learned how to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘3 beers please’ and ‘I don’t speak Slovak’ and the nearly unpronounceable word for ‘ice cream’ (zmrzlina). And they swept us off to our family home located deep within the Soviet-style ‘suburbs’ (by suburbs they mean rows upon rows upon rows of unimaginative Soviet flats, nicknamed the Great Wall of China for its improbable length). Our hosts, a young couple, introduced us to his father and mother, neither of whom spoke anything other than Slovak and Russian. But the father, an incorrigible troublemaker with an eternal twinkle in his eye and an easy manner (reminding me of a wonderful French gentleman whose acquaintance I had the pleasure to have made), made us feel right at home. We concocted some kind of pudding (Dr. Oetker) with fresh blueberries (also practically unpronounceable), grapes, and Nilla wafers (Slovak style) and we toasted with homemade cherry liqueur. After our sumptuous dinner of venison and rice for everyone and salad and rice for me, followed by some kind of goat cheese which made our teeth squeak (no joke—but it was yummy) and fresh tomato salsa stuff, we set in on the puddings and homemade cherry/blueberry/apple cake with Slovak-style Sprite.

Couchsurfing lets you really get to know people from other countries. We heard about life under the Soviet system, with Slovak-East German football cooperations, no dishes without meat, how the school system, and pretty much everything else we could think of to ask. And this morning, our host took us on the most amazing hike ever, up a hillside overlooking a beautiful valley of verdant fields, tiny villages and even tinier people. And after that... the castle!

More later.

We don’t speak Czech

2008-08-16T05:04:00.002+08:00

It wasn’t until after we left Prague for Brno that I really had the feeling of being in the Czech Republic. Prague was beautiful, Prague was romantic and interesting and living, Prague was touristy and mostly in English. Which is convenient, seeing as how we don’t speak Czech. Still, there were more tourists than locals and reminded me strongly of Venice, though I like Prague considerably better than I liked Venice.

Brno, however, is not Prague. Its buildings are a mixture between old historic apartment blocks, Soviet-style apartment blocks, baroque and modern all mixed into one, centered around a beautiful, triangle-shaped central square in the old town beneath the castle. Brno was tourist-friendly without being touristy; a walking tour accompanied by informative signposts explained just what some of these cool buildings were as well as some of the stories and legends associated with them. And it was all in Czech. In Prague we would ask “English or Deutsch?” and usually find someone more than capable in one of the above languages. In Brno we ask “English or Deutsch?” and we receive a slight shake of the head accompanied by two fingers held up about a centimeter apart to indicate that the individual didn’t particularly speak English OR German. Merde. And due to our apparent incapacity to remember much more than ‘hello’ (Ahoj) and ‘thank you’ (dekuje, after several days of practice and several reminders) much less numbers 1 – 3, “may I have the bill please?”, “how much?” or anything else that would have been remotely useful, there was much pointing and smiling involved in ordering anything. We stared helplessly at the (presumed) cleaning lady who came to our rooms, at the blind boys asking for directions (perhaps? We foisted them off on a nice passing Czech lady), at the gentleman at the train station, and at the restaurant servers on most occasions…

There were, of course, some misunderstandings. One evening we were sitting outside on a patio drinking half-litres of Czech pilsner, having waved off the waitress who (we presume) asked if we wanted another round, intending to go for ice cream and then move on. I went to the restroom (apparently the wrong one, as my compatriots found out when my directions to the rest room led them to a old man empathetically pointing to the restrooms a floor above where I had sent them. Oops). At my return I was greeted with the somewhat chagrined or perplexed expressions of my companions—and another round of beer. Which we hadn’t wanted, hadn’t ordered, but had come anyways. Other times we spent several minutes painfully trying to get the beer menu explained to us in capable but halting English by the poor waiter only to discover he had left us with an English-language menu as well. Our last night in Brno, the girls set off for the bar with the goal of coming back with three *different* beers to try, resulting in two bottles, two glasses, and one which appeared to be 90% head.

Getting to Brno involved taking the slow train through rolling fields and little hamlets, hanging our heads out the windows like oversized dogs, sleeping nestled into a corner of the compartment, stopping at this and that tiny village, rolling through fields and hills, reading, taking pictures. The landscape looked a bit like the Shire from Lord of the Rings, and everything seemed to have a slight sepia tone to it. Brno itself is a typical college town, insofar as I could make the generalizations across two continents and several countries, but the size and the feel of the place, the many cafes and lively bars, the friendly atmosphere are all similarities shared among towns (or small cities, to be charitable) of significant student populations. We enjoyed cruising the shoe stores and the supermarkets, made a point of visiting pretty much every church in town (having completely neglected to enter any church at all in Prague). Continuing our beer tour, we tried varieties of pilsner of the varying local brew with anywhere between 5 and 8% alcohol (indicated by the proof, for example “Strastobrno 11” or “Strastobrno 12”), rich lagers (going on 16%), cut beers (half and half), and most anything bottom-fermented and filtered.

Our inability to speak Czech certainly hindered our interaction with the locals, though we managed to have our table besieged and successfully invaded by a young guy with about 8 words of English. And his twenty friends: “you are three?” (questioning look, nod in assent). “can you….?” (motion of hands compressing together, nod of assent, we scoot together). About three minutes pass, as his friends and compatriots and distant relations and everyone’s grandmother and second cousin and best friend and some guy they met on the corner and about seven or eight Asians slowly file in and try to fit at our table, eventually pulling all available chairs from the vicinity. Our ‘new friend’ turns to us: “over there…. Place for three people…” (points to table, nod in assent, we move over to a table where a slightly shady-looking man and a youngerish lady are engaged in the kind of activity for which a hotel room is usually suggested, but as all hands are above table-level and visible, we decide it’s okay).

But now it doesn’t matter, as we are in Slovakia on the train on the way to some small town with a castle. But we don’t speak Slovakian either…