¡Hola! La Paz

Alasitas, Take Two

2012-02-09T08:32:00.003-05:00

All right, so the novelty per se is already gone, we learned about the mini houses, the money, and the rooster and the hen last year – only the second time around does have added dimensions, as this year's Alasitas would confirm.

As a reminder: Alasitas is a festival where people wish for things – mostly material items, whether it is money (you should also state the currency, should you be lucky enough to emigrate), houses, cars, visas, diplomas, you name it. Of course the rooster and the hen symbolize marriage, so you will find many of La Paz's singles running around with tons of poultry.

In order to have your wish come true, you will have to buy the coveted items in miniature form. Think Matchbox, in this case, except that the car you would wish for is even smaller than that. On the days before Alasitas, merchants open their booths and sell anything mini people might wish – needless to say, they make a killing doing so. I have seen at least a dozen different currencies too (dollars, euros, pounds, bolivianos, pesos, among others), and houses that range from the mini cottage to a huge mansion. The sky seems to be the limit for what people can wish for.

Of course, what has actually come true is an entirely different manner. File any wishes the Pacenas might have among those you might have in the west when you break a wishbone, see a falling star, or drop a penny into a well.

This year around was a little different. Here it is customary – although by no means the law – to give employees enough time off (usually an hour or more) to buy the miniature equivalents of what they wish for this year and then have them blessed by the shaman. You see, buying the said items is hardly enough here. To clinch the deal, you need a little something extra, like a little divine interference to up your chances, unless you want that suitcase of money to remain a pipedream.

With familiarity come perks, as well.

For example, last year I was just another foreigner. This year, colleagues and neighbors inundated me with miniature items: I must have thousands of dollars in different currencies, most of them in dollars.

Supposedly at work, there is a lucky fairy here whose gifts have a bigger chance of becoming reality. This would be Karina, who, legend has it here, is directly responsible for more husbands and wives and cars and visas than anybody else in the building.

You could argue that it is suspect that Karina herself has none of these things, but according to tradition I asked her for a mini house, which I promptly received and is now sitting on the window sill behind my workstation.

Here are some of the oddest wishes that I've heard people express here in La Paz:

1. A printer, so the person can print money instead of making it.
2. A llama, so the person can run over it with his car (after one spat in his eye). No joke.
3. A gigantic roof, so the person can cover La Paz during the rainy season.
4. An earthquake so the person's architecture firm gets more business.

Different countries, different customs.

Saturday At The Brewery

2012-02-08T08:09:00.002-05:00

The Saya Brewery in Achocalla is owned by Remo, a forty-something Bolivian entrepreneur who also serves as its beermaster. It actually qualifies as a microbeer and, at the risk of running some advertisement here, is far superior in taste to the other giants in La Paz like Pacena and Huari. The downside is that only 10,000 bottles are sold per day, meaning it is still very much a day-to-day business operation where expenses need to be observed and waste avoided.

The hashers followed Remo's invitation to hold the event there recently – being that beer is the main ingredient of any hash, this was a no-brainer.

We took a convoy of five cars (with several more to follow later) and drove the thirty minutes or so out to Achocalla, a pretty little bucolic suburb of La Paz. It is what you'd expect of a suburb - clean, small, familiar, with superb views of the mountains and a lake that attracts plenty of Pacenas for the weekend. This is perfect green farmland combining all the charms of Bolivia… with all of its farm animals, as it turns out! You can virtually make a checklist of all farm animals and then cross them out one by one as they become visible – donkeys, cows, chickens, sheep, pigs. Old McDonald must have been Bolivian. Add to the fact that the people are much nicer and more laid back that in the urban setting of La Paz, and you have a charming little weekend getaway at your fingertips.

The brewery itself is well hidden, but not unknown to the villagers, who are not above rapping on the door occasionally to ask for some unfiltered Saya beer. Remo, always obliging, knows well the value of decent community standing, and though its more conservative members might frown at the idea of a city dweller producing suds in their midst, they can't deny he's been a valuable contributor to the community as well as an outstanding neighbor.

Remo proudly likes to point out how everything is recycled within his small compound, not a given in a country that lacks technological fundamentals like Bolivia. Even the runoff from his bathrooms is treated in a little water work – certainly a good long term solution both ecologically and financially.

The hashers themselves treated themselves to a run around Achochalla's pristine lake and would run just a little faster this time around, owing mainly to the dark and menacing clouds gathering in the distance. This also entailed stepping into mud puddles and crossing a racetrack. Anything to stay dry and get to the beer quickly.

The people in Achocalla themselves greeted this novelty with a collective shake of the heads or with simple greetings. I can even recall a farmer we passed with his two cows offering one of his cows for immediate consumption, coca leaf stained teeth showing. Unlike La Paz, it's not like these people don't have a sense of humor.

The valley of Achocalla itself is a sight to behold. Whereas I've heard people compare La Paz to an erosion ditch, Achocalla is little more than a village really, despite its claim of being a suburb, and has far more green and water to offer than La Paz itself. It's far less intimidating than La Paz and almost feels like a different area or province altogether.

Great place, certainly, and one of Bolivia's many little hidden treasures.

U.S. – Bolivian Diplomacy

2012-01-10T09:11:00.002-05:00

Following years of political tension and saber rattling that included the expulsion of one agency from Bolivia (the Drug Enforcement Agency) and the near expulsion of another (USAID), the U.S. and Bolivia finally signed a framework agreement in November, thus giving diplomacy a chance.

Relations between both nations also featured the expulsion of each other's ambassador three years ago, the culmination of a soap opera that has featured dozens more political speeches with the rhetorical value of a Marx Brothers dialogue.

How exactly the agreement will transform relations between President Evo Morales, a bitter enemy of the United States, remains unclear. Whereas Morales continues to accuse the U.S. of attempting to destabilize his country, the U.S. counters that Bolivia continues to fail in its efforts to fight in the war on drugs.

The tide of sentiment within Latin America has apparently turned for the worse over the years. Main nemesis Hugo Chavez of Venezuela even went as far as to say that the United States might have been behind the recent cancer diseases that have afflicted various Latin American leaders with anti-American sentiments, including Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, Brazil's Dilma Rousseff, and Argentina's Christina Kirchner. The recent cancer cases could not be explained by the laws of probability alone, Chavez explained.

One of the main bones of contention between the U.S. and Bolivia itself has been the official status of the coca plant. Morales, a former coca farmer, has been lobbying world-wide that the coca plant itself is harmless and doesn't warrant either the scrutiny or the 'special' status bestowed upon it.

First and foremost among the priorities listed in the agreement is the return of each country's ambassador (good idea for the U.S. – the vacant Ambassador's Residence still costs $ 25,000 per month in rent) as well as respecting the sovereignty of each nation, in other words Bolivia would like to avoid having you-know-who continue to meddle in their internal affairs. Whether this can be accomplished by a mere signature of the pen remains to be seen.

Although Bolivia wouldn't appear to be on the list of priorities for the U.S. in Latin America, that assumption is highly misleading. Its strategic location in the middle of South America as well as its socialist leader coupled with the copious amounts of coca being produced have made Bolivia a consistent source of concern for the U.S., and one it doesn't take lightly, what with the fresh wave of anti-American sentiment now ruling most countries in Latin America.

More recently, the U.S. and Bolivia clashed over the arrest of one of Bolivia's anti-drug 'czars' in Panama… due to drug trafficking, ironically. Bolivia recently responded by seizing several tons of rice by an American businessman last month, claiming his business dealings were illegal and that the government now had the right to sell the rice on the open market.

Of course, the main whipping boy was the United States Agency for International Development, short USAID, and its supposedly diabolic empowerment of the Bolivian people. Within the agreement, Bolivia has agreed to respect the cooperation agreements formerly reached with USAID.

The framework agreement, while not a cure-all for all ills between both nations, appears to at least be a promising first step in establishing normal diplomatic relations.

Machu Picchu

2011-12-09T21:53:00.004-05:00

On the face of things, this was going to be a grueling trip we had planned for Liebi's 40th birthday: 45 minutes to the train station, three hours on the train to Machu Picchu, plus another half hour on a bus that would take us to the lost civilization.

For beginners, we would have to answer a wake-up call at five thirty a.m. and hustle the kids out of the hotel. True to form, Axl would get carsick again, luckily this time without throwing up. Poor guy. People who are not familiar with motion sickness can easily downplay it. Not me. I remember many trips I would take with my family as a kid when the car had to be stopped and yours truly would have to toss his cookies by the side of the road. This would be the worst of it for the day, though. The kids are experienced travelers, and it turned out they would take Machu Picchu with incredible ease.

The train itself was nothing special, a diesel engine that would creep along the old trails at something like a 30 mile per hour clip. Riding the train in Peru is as comfortable as riding a camel - it always seems like one side or one car of the train is in the air. We would pass old farms with every animal from Old McDonald's song before the train would start its slow descent toward Machu Picchu. A half mile below Machu Picchu, we spotted a bridge where the famous Inca Trail would begin. Here numerous hikers humping profesional gear would be seen on the first mile of the Inca Trail,and this is where the dry hills and dusty roads would end and the green rainforest would begin.

When you look at the high green mountains hugging the clouds with its lush green vegetation and rocky cliffs, you simply know where you are - only South America has mountains like these, in much the same way Jordan has endless miles of vast red desert or Ireland has emerald green rolling hills. We ride another twenty miles along a river before we finally reach Machu Picchu. The kids fall asleep on the bus leading up, and we stare at the winding road without protection and the 1,000foot drop below, hoping the driver keeps his eyes on the road.

At Machu Picchu, you would think there wouldn't be any surprises - you thought you had seen these images before, but we quickly realize it's quite another story to see this in person. Vast ruins cover the mountain top, a full city that in its heyday must have compared to the hustle and bustle of any Peruvian town near sea level. And yet, this region with its old stone walls and thatched roofs and breathtaking views wasn't even discovered until the 20th century. Old steps lead us from one quarter of the town to the next, and we need to watch our step. We stare through the windows of some of the old stone houses and realize that even in the 15th century people enjoyed the most stunning views, which means people chose wisely.

The kids play hide and seek among the ruins, and we still have to keep our eyes on them to make sure they don't find the one hiding place on the side of the mountain that will ensure a 1,000 yard drop to the river and the rain station below.

The wonderful thing about nature is that - arguably - it's always been there. The views of the mountains today are exactly what the Incas saw back then. There are no real estate agents or developers that can alter that (for the time being), and chances are these places will remain untouched for a long time. Even after visiting Machu Picchu, you wonder whether what you just saw was real, whether it wasn't just a setting for an old movie and people will hustle and pick up all the rocks within the ruins once you've left.

On the way back, there is some special entertainment on the train, including a local dancer (dressed up as an old Inca warrior) and, get this, a fashion show that features the local wear tastefully tailored and worn by what appear to be Peruvian models.

The trip in all goes without a hitch, and we are proud of the kids who were such brave troopers. It seems like you can't even surprise them anymore with all the miles they have clocked on planes, trains, and automobiles.

Peru, Cusco

2011-12-08T19:33:00.004-05:00

'Bienvenidos a Cusco', the driver tells us as we leave the airport in Cusco. The flight took 55 minutes from La Paz, we are finally in Peru, and it´s time to enjoy one of the tourists' hotspots in the world.

The flight on Aero Sur itself went all right - it´s an international flight, which means waiting at the airport for two hours in order to fly just for one. On the descent into Cusco, Axl gets sick, but we get through customs quickly and without a hitch and find ourselves at 3,300 meters altitude, which is where we are in La Paz, more or less. Unlike for most tourists visiting this town, the altitude won't present much of a problem. There is actually a one hour difference between La Paz and Cusco, so we actually gain five minutes or so when we arrive in Peru.

Our hotel, the Torre Dorado, is in a sleepy area of town, but luckily we have a car whenever we need it and will have to make full use of it, as the sights, the main town square, or the Catedrale de Cusco are a fair distance away.

The town itself resembles one of those clean little towns you would find in the mountains in Switzerland or Austria. Everything is impeccably clean, as you would expect from a town that brings in billions of tourist dollars per year. The cathedral and the other large church next to the town square, the Santa Catalina, are picture book, as if they had been cut out of a postcard from somewhere in Spain.

Axl attracts the most attention from the locals, simply because he´s wearing his Superman costume. Hola! Superman, the locals greet him, and Axl, no stranger to gaining a little PR, flexes his muscles for them, clearly enjoying the attention.

We have lunch at Paddy´s Pub, the self-proclaimed highest Irish pub owned by the Irish in the world (La Paz, no doubt, will dispute that). Pictures show in detail the great flood of last year, which cost the town billions of dollars besides a couple of dozen lives. We eat our lunch on old Singer tables - furniture, if you will, that was formerly used for sewing machines. Another plaque depicts Simon and Garfunkel and the origins of their classic song El Condor Pasa.

When I find a public phone to ring up our car, a local quietly passes me and whispers, Coca, which means there are drugs to be had should the more adventurous tourist wish to consume them without having any fear of South American jails.

A steady shower accompanies us on our way back to the hotel, and merchants are selling everything from coca candy to paintings and other worthless junk, like wooden sculptures and hand knit sweaters. The boys are drinking this all in, seemingly intrigued by this novelty that is Cusco. Although by now they are no strangers to world travel, they, too, will stop occasionally and look at the large monuments and fountains that are such a big part of this town of 400,000 inhabitants.

Conspicuous are the writings in the hills surrounding Cusco. Viva El Peru is written ino one mountain, the city´s shield is stamped into another. There appears to be ample pride in this community, something utterly lacking in Bolivia these days. I suppose it helps a bit if there is a consistent income to keep the population happy.

We purchase our admission tickets for tomorrow´s trip to Machu Picchu, which will include a taxi and a train drive to get us to the ancient civilization embedded in the Andes.

So far, so good. The hotel, though lacking the vital location points, has the best service I have ever witnessed anywhere from a hotel staff, and they go out of their way to make us feel at home. It´s almost as if we were staying at a hotel from the 19th century.

Cusco makes an early good impression, but will certainly not compare to tomorrow´s voyage to Machu Picchu.

Random Observations

2011-11-16T15:26:00.001-05:00

-After trying it a few times, I must (still) admit that llama meat is tasty! And no, it doesn' taste anything like chicken. More like ham, only lighter.

-This is filed under the archives of not-so-genius Bolivian engineering. I have already mentioned the river, aka the sewer in these parts. To accomplish a couple of minor modifications that would prevent the river from flooding, the city of La Paz built a little hut that would enable construction workers easier access to the river and plug in the gaps as needed. A good idea, considering the rainy season is just around the season. What is not so good is the fact that this hut was built at an intersection, meaning now two directions are completely blocked by the hut's construction, thus becoming a deathtrap. Of course, a one hundred dollar mirror that would enable drivers to see who is coming from which direction could do wonders but shucks, there's just no money for that.

-I'm amazed at how cheap carpenters and technicians are in this country. This is, clearly, still a fix-it society unlike in the west, where a simple bad breath touching the product demands you replace or destroy it altogether.

-Most popular costume during Halloween: Evo! El Presidente here won by a wide margin, which wasn't hard, considering his head was blown up fivefold to go along with his wig-like hair.

-I have yet to find a taxi in this town with a meter. I suppose that would unnecessarily cut into the driver's profits. That, and his ability to rip off the passenger at will.

-So an earthquake in northern Chile followed by an earthquake in southern Peru? Doesn't mean it's zeroing in on us, does it? Knock on the heaviest and sturdiest wood on earth.

-Nothing good can come out of a foreign government program that stipulates that over 500 program vehicles be turned over to the Government of Bolivia within a few years. With no foreigners to fund the vehicles, expect Bolivia to build the largest car junkyard in its history.

-Bolivia's soccer team is the worst in South America, or so it would appear. With four games in for World Cup qualifying, they have garnered a pitiful three points out of four matches played. Looks like they will have to root for the European team of their choice again when neighboring Brazil hosts in 2014.

-No sign of OWS (Occupy Wall Street) in any form here. People (guys from the transportation union, in particular) are too busy occupying the airports, bus stations, and oil refineries for that.

-Per capita, this country probably has more classic cars (25 years or older) than the United States. There are old cars in La Paz you never knew existed. And yes, people are definitely trying to make money off them… by using them as their work vehicles.

-If I were to guess which language my kids knew best at this point (English, German, Spanish), my money would be on Spanish. They very rarely speak anything but Spanish to each other.

Dressing in Drag

2011-11-03T14:04:00.002-04:00

Over the course of the past 15 years alone, I have been to more Halloween parties than I care to imagine. The only common denominator among these parties was that there was none. Certain parties served certain purposes: on some there was an emphasis on what you wore, on others on what you drank, meaning the goal was to get as many people sloshed as quickly as possible. I have also been invited to non-alcoholic Halloween parties (I have yet to accept any of those). Whether this affected your costumes in the end was secondary.

The Americans, having virtually created Halloween in its modern form with all of its perks and idiosyncrasies, will always be the upper crust when it comes to creating costumes. The notorious blue dress by Monica Lewinsky, a dead Moammar Qaddafi, a walking green card... while you can accuse Americans of being tasteless at times, it's hard to dispute their originality. I recall a party I attended in California that was doling out big prizes for the best three costumes and an honorable mention (free dinner at a fine restaurant) for fourth place. Tragically, I finished fourth, although it did earn me the right to take my girlfriend out in a financially disastrous time. I came dressed as a toaster… a costume I was very proud of, and yet I finished behind a Siegfried and an R2D2 (which was understandable), and a banana (which was not).

This year, I would also attend a costume party, for which there would be a prize for the best outfit out there. Some of the more original costumes I sighted were a scarecrow (who eventually won), a smurf, a lobster, a lego, and a couple of Evo Morales' (President of Bolivia). That said, everybody agreed I had creamed the competition, when I agreed to dress in drag and appear as a cholita.

This was not my original idea. Liebi last year had toyed with the idea and described in detail what she would wear the next Halloween – the black braided wig, the bowler hat, the gold tooth, the poncho cascading over the waistline of one of those heavy and colorful skirts. As time wore on, Liebi finally decided that this probably wasn't such a bright idea, that she was afraid she was going to insult the indigenous population and play to the political incorrectness of the less sophisticated among our society. Her idea thus dashed, she rolled out her second bright idea: to let me go as a cholita.

At first I liked the idea. No harm, no foul, if the man debases himself by dressing in women's clothing for an evening, right? So Liebi broke out the bowler hat she'd bought the year before, fitted me with a poncho, and I ordered minor items like the braided wig and the golden tooth through Amazon. Our cook went to the market to buy a skirt (she still has no idea what that was for, and I'd like to keep it that way), I wore my size 11 crocs, and voila… I was ready to roll.

Except the whole outfit was as comfortable as standing in an iron maiden. Liebi decided not to go to the party herself, since she'd lollygagged on getting an outfit on time. I decided I wouldn't stay long and took off in the car, taking off the bowler hat and the wig before driving. I remember praying to avoid an accident, since I knew this would be the worst time to get caught in drag… that, or being pulled over at a police stop.

Long story short: the outfit itself was a complete success, and there must be at least 20 cameras out there with the likeness of me flashing my golden tooth in them. So be it. I also would have won, according to almost everybody who attended the party, except that I left after two hours – I was needed at home and couldn't stand donning drag any longer than I had to.

Another day, another Halloween. And almost certainly the last that I will arrive in drag.

Holidays, Real and Created

2011-10-31T08:49:00.003-04:00

Here I need to clarify: I realize how the headline contradicts itself, being that all holidays were created per se, strictly speaking. Maybe some are just more real than others.

One of the perks of working overseas is that you receive both your own and the local holidays. Okay, so it doesn't nearly match the time off any of the Euros get, but it still helps to have a three day weekend now and then.

There are quite a few holidays we have in common, most notably the Christian holidays, like Christmas or Good Friday. Then there are holidays we expats could care less about, like the Andean-Amazonic New Year in June or Agrarian Reform Day in August.

There are other days that are celebrated, although we might not necessarily get any time off for them, like the Fiesta del Gran Poder. This is the festival that has grown into an international celebration. Parades and processions with the dark figure of the Christ, music and costumed (usually scantily clad) dancers honoring cultural and ethnic backgrounds. People eat and drink until they resemble parade floats, and foreigners need to watch themselves, as public drunkenness and pick pocketing become quite common.

Then there are holidays that – while partially observed - have been invented, plain and simple. Take Halloween, for example. Only the upper crust of Bolivian society can afford to buy costumes and spring for candy to hundreds of trick or treaters. And just who would benefit from holidays like Halloween? Down the road, the dentists, no doubt. The most obvious candidates would be the factories making candy and the stores selling them. Okay, so November 2nd, All Saints Day, is a holiday, albeit one that does not compare to Halloween.

When I was living in Nepal, there was an ongoing campaign to make Christmas a national holiday in India and surrounding countries like Bangladesh or even Nepal. Never mind that Christmas itself has little in common with the Hindi faith and that Christ's birth might actually rank lower to these people than the birth of a snake – here it's the thought that counts. That, and the possibility of the windfall of billions of dollars for selected merchants when the season starts. It's a clumsy concept, to say the least, and one that is better not rammed down the throats of the populace who can't spring for dozens of Christmas presents.

Here the idea is already being floated of celebrating Thanksgiving. Not a bad idea, except that I wouldn't expect people to dole out a week's pay just to afford a turkey. American football would have a better chance selling itself in Antarctica to the penguins, I'm sure. During the Aed in Arabic countries people are supposed to buy a sheep (often with money they don't have) for each household in order to slaughter it and watch its blood bless the grounds of the house. Though it is commendable that people would observe their holidays to a 't', it will often –literally – come at great expense to their pocketbooks.

Whether new holidays should be added or not is not for me to say. The additional financial burden on people might suggest that this isn't such a good idea.

Election Day

2011-10-14T16:15:00.002-04:00

You would think this wasn't such a big deal here in Bolivia, or any other place else for that matter.

The fact that three things are forbidden on that day suggests otherwise.

As with Pedestrian Day, cars are banned, with the exception of official and emergency cars. Anybody who wishes to have an exemption must obtain a written permit from the Ministry of Transportation. That alone seems hardly worth the bother, since I've seen people stand in line here, their backpacks with tents often strapped to their backs, as if they were waiting for the new i-phone.

But the prohibition of motored vehicles on Election Day has deeper roots than that. Since there doesn't seem to be an official national registry for voters, a Department of Motored Vehicles, or anything similar, the fear is abundant that people might vote in one town, take off in their cars, and vote in another. To achieve the stuffing of the ballot boxes would take a little something extraordinary from would-be fraudsters. Here a (very strong and tough) horse would be needed, a plane could be rented from drug dealers, or you would have to start marathon training well in advance of Election Day. Neither of these options appears overly palatable.

Next in line are public gatherings that are outlawed up to 24 hours before Election Day. God forbid anybody stumped for any last minute votes from an undecided populace. What if this group actually discussed in earnest what was going on? What if they decided not to vote altogether? While large groups can be a wonderful thing at a market or a football stadium, they are positively a nuisance and a threat to national security if assembled around Election Day. This brings us to the next no-no around Election Day, something closely related to gathering crowds. Of course I am talking about…

Booze. Can't sell it, and in many places don't even bother consuming it. You know there will always be certain days when cars will be prohibited and days when people need to refrain from either drinking or purchasing alcohol. Having a day that dictates you to abstain from both has only three groups of people cheering here: the insurance companies, the coca farmers, and the Mormons. This one might be a more difficult pill, or in this case cocktail, to swallow. You are not allowed to drive, so traffic cops can breathe easily, except for the chumps out there on duty who need to enforce it. Outlawing booze then seems redundant. It's not like that third or fourth beer will make the voter think any more clearly.

Luckily, people are allowed to drink within the friendly confines of their own homes. People are allowed to vote for another windbag promising them the wind and the sun. Of course Election Day is always on a Sunday, the only day Bolivians should not work, so there shouldn't be any excuses not to vote. You can vote if you are 18 (only if you are married) or 21 if you are single, so people who get married in their teens have an advantage (the logic here escapes me). Did you think only New York could use buildings as billboards? Think again. You can allow political parties to spray your entire home with slogans and the colors of any respective party.

Finally, people must carry a document that proves they voted. Not holding one will not permit you to apply for other documents nor allow you to execute simpler transactions, such as withdrawing money from your account. In other words, you will vote and you will like it.

Malassa Hash Trail

2011-10-03T17:00:00.003-04:00

Malassa is a little town located just outside to the west of La Paz. If you recall the report I posted about the Valle de Lunes, then you know we're in the right neighborhood.

To get there, you must climb a steep hill by car and pass through several little tunnels carved out of the rock. Look to your left and you will see some unmatched scenery of La Paz itself, not to mention the Andes beckoning in the distance.

Nearby is also the Hotel Oberland, the Swiss restaurant hosting the annual Oktoberfest here. Right around the corner is the house for the week's Hash, the drinking group with a running problem, and I have volunteered to be the hare this time around, the guy setting the trail with finely shredded paper (instead of the traditional flour that could easily be somebody's bread).

I start at a park that serves as the starting point. This is where I draw a large white circle with the white shredded paper. When I start out running, I realize that Malassa is very much a small town, not unlike the place I come from. I pass an old church, kids playing soccer with an old coke can, and a llama being led by an old cholita.

As I continue to sprinkle the white shredded paper, a man asks me, 'Para los hormigas?' (transl. Is that for the ants?) I lie, replying affirmatively, 'Claro que si'. Often I realize it takes too much trouble to explain exactly what a hash trail is and why a bunch of drunks would enjoy following it.

Finally, I descend into the riverbed, the sharp and gorgeous contours of the landscape so similar of the Valle de Lunes now visible. An old stray dog joins me. I call him 'Waldi', for want of a better name. Waldi decides to follow me down to the river bed.

I pass two fierce looking dogs chained to a post, a half dozen sheep, and a couple of horses. I now skip skillfully over the river, follow its curves, and lay the paper trail where people won't get wet, but will have to work to avoid the water. Waldi seems to be enjoying this little field trip.

What goes down must eventually come up, and I find a trail that will lead me out of the river bed and towards the zoo. This is a steep incline that will have the runners wailing when they reach it. A half a mile run on a grinding uphill slope is nothing to sneeze at, yet Waldi continues to soldier on with me, his tail wagging eagerly.

At the top of the hill I pause and admire the view of the canyon and the river below me. A couple of guys drinking beer on a park bench laugh when they see the paper trail. Around the zoo is where I lose Waldi. He was a wonderful pet, even though it was for less than an hour.

I run past the hundreds of eucalyptus trees, tricking the runners with what will turn out to be false trails. I carefully avoid the street. Though a run can be a grind at high altitude, it is best enjoyed without smog, in my humble opinion.

Finally, I take the trail around a school and draw a circle with shredded paper with a 'V' inside it. This is something unique to a hash trail, a 'Vista' check, meaning a checkpoint for the runners to simply stop and enjoy the gorgeous view of the Andes in front of them.

The worst of the blazing sun's effects is over for the day. I sit down and enjoy a bottle of Villa Santa water and wait for the Hashers to arrive.

Nepal Earthquake

2011-09-19T10:52:00.002-04:00

Last night Liebi told me that one of her Facebook friends had written to her about a Nepal earthquake, one that allegedly had originated from the Chinese-Indian border.

My feelings about the earthquake itself are mixed. Obviously, my first reaction was relief that we had escaped. When we were in Kathmandu, I was often tortured by the possibility of an earthquake, where I would be, and whether there would be any chance of saving my children when it struck. I could never quite shake the looming image of an earthquake in Kathmandu, not until the end, and it was this image that helped taint my stay in Nepal itself. My second reaction, obviously, was directed at Kathmandu and its people. There are not many cities in the world that have suffered the hardships Kathmandu has, so an earthquake in Nepal is as welcome as an old missile you just dug up in your back yard. Of course, it doesn't help that most houses that have been built in Nepal are fragile and don't adhere to any specific code. It's the same old story, but with a new chapter. Why a city sitting on one of the most active vault lines in the world would allow houses to be built that have the fortitude and strength of cardboard, at best, is beyond me. It's as silly as holding a sandcastle building competition in a carwash. Yet this seems to be the story in places like Haiti, China, and name the disaster area of your choice: the complete absence of a Plan B, a lack of preparation that will eventually have the incompetent higher-ups hurry to point fingers at what went wrong and what should have been done.

This earthquake itself killed 50, I understand, which means Nepal and Kathmandu in particular got off light. A 6.9 earthquake pales compared to the one that knocked the earth of its axis last year, but can still level entire cities if its origin, the epicenter, is in the right (in this case wrong) place. In the case of Kathmandu Valley, you would be talking disaster that hasn't been witnessed in the west since World War II. Some photos in the daily online journals reported that the wall of the British Embassy crumbled down, instantly killing three people, including an eight year old girl. That alone was enough to give me the shakes. I was active a lot in that area. Besides formal functions that needed to be attended at the British Embassy, there is also the British Council next door, where I would have certain dealings due to my studies with the University of London. Across from the British Embassy is also the finest clinic, CIWEC, in Kathmandu, meaning this was the place Axl was brought to when he was under the weather and needed an IV needle to save him. This was also the place where Liebi would get her sonograms when she was pregnant with Bash. This is also where we would have our kids' biannual checkups, so we knew the area very well. The British Embassy is located near Lazimpat Road, which is probably the busiest road in Kathmandu. I also imagine the American Embassy, the only building in Kathmandu that is seismically safe, still standing proud, its foundation unshaken. A tree in the backyard might have lost a leaf or two, but that's the possible extent of the damage, if there was any.

So the good news is that it was a 6.9 and caused only marginal damage to Kathmandu. The bad news is that the bigger one is still out there and will not be as forgiving to the non-existent building codes and an incompetent government who can't look beyond lunch when it comes to future planning. Prayers to Nepal, a much abused country that certainly deserves better.

Cholita Wrestling, II

2011-09-14T13:02:00.002-04:00

We quickly realize that this is what we'd expected: entertainment, rather than any real-life bouts, if there were any lingering doubts about that. You can tell that many smacks and thumps are mere grazes that barely touch the hairline, that wrestlers who are bodyslammed easily bounce off the mat as if they'd just been tossed onto cotton.

Most matches are quite predictable, and the fan favorite will win. What is even more remarkable is the political incorrectness of it all. While we are munching on popcorn and downing water or beer, this puny little wrestling association is not above pitting men against women, or alleged straight against alleged homosexual.

The first cholita we see in action has the misfortune not so much as having to fight a man twice her size but being subjected to the whims of the ref, one Mr. Ramiro, a pin-striped ref who has never called a fair match in his life and is not below dishing out a little punishment to wrestlers as he sees fit. In this case, it's the cholita who bears the brunt of his punishment. Mr. Ramiro is ridiculously biased, meaning the three count the cholita would need to win the match takes a full hour, the cholita is frequently tripped up once there's a promising series of punches or haymakers she is able to muster against her opponent. The match ends when the crooked ref is thrown out of the arena and led off by security guards. Predictably enough, the cholita wins, the audience gleefully lap this up, and it's on to the next match. In between, both she and her opponent are sent crashing into the row where we are sitting, so we need move quickly so as not to get crushed by either wrestler.

Finally two cholitas are pitted against each other. One of them is Rebecca LaLoca, who quickly confirms how she has earned the name. She smashes everything from tables and chairs to wooden crates over her opponent, helps herself to various other illegal tools like water bottles, and finally produces a pair of sheers that she claims will help her cut her opponent's hair. She manages to tie the braids of her opponent to the ropes of the ring. Somehow Rebecca's opponent is freed and proceeds to win the match, but not before Rebecca LaLoca is disqualified for her illegal use of a ladder that she produces from underneath the ring.

In between we see matches featuring Frankenstein and later the big bad wolf. Needless to say, the wolf enters the arena in grand style, clearing many of the seats that were occupied by little kids. Frankenstein is remarkable in that he goes after everybody, including the ref and fans sitting ringside.

The last match pits another cholita against a guy wearing tights in hot pink… of course this feeds right into the audience's feeding frenzy who chant maricon (queer) every chance they get. You have the cholita doing everything from grabbing the maricon's private parts to prancing around the ring mocking the guy's supposed queer behavior. Again, not something the political correct audience in the west would stand for, but if you need a phony enemy, people here seem to know who they are, given their limited means.

When we finally leave the arena, we are freezing and find out why.

As we board the bus, there is actual snow coming down from the skies of El Alto. It is unreal, but then again so was the spectacle we just witnessed in that run down old gym.

Cholita Wrestling

2011-09-12T16:13:00.002-04:00

Our bus slowly crawls up the hill as we put more distance between us and La Paz. I feel like we are an airplane rising into the clouds, and with each turn we see higher mountains surrounding more houses of La Paz and its burbs. The bus is loaded with Yanks, Aussies, and assorted other nationalities, our destination El Alto and the Cholita wrestling. It is a crisp 75 degrees outside and the previous warnings of colder weather in El Alto are relentlessly mocked.

Our guide is a scrawny five foot four, 100 pound guy named Carlito, who explains about the wrestling circuit himself on our way to El Alto. Carlito himself was a professional wrestler when he was young, he admits, although one look at him prompts guffaws and serious questions as to how he, a man equipped with little more than skin and bones, could have survived such a violent sport usually dominated by musclemen or men who are just plain beefy enough to knock you into next week.

Of course, all of this is relative, since the wrestling we are about to watch is as related to the real world as much as sand is related to gold.

The star of the circuit, he explains, is Rebecca LaLoca (Rebecca the Crazy), the unofficial champion.

When we park the bus in front of the arena, we see a band playing for some religious denomination whose existence I am unaware of. The trumpets and trombones are playing on a wooden makeshift stage while a cholita is smashing the cymbals together.
Before we leave the bus, Carlito has managed to get Rebecca LaLoca herself on the bus to great applause and fanfare. This meet and greet is priceless for us, needless to say, and a wonderful photo opportunity.

Spoiler alert: the arena is not really an arena but an old gym that is so old and dilapidated you would be pressed to find anything comparable in the west anywhere. Yet there's the ring in the middle of the basketball court, and golden curtains at the far side mark the entrance and exit points for the fake wrestlers.

As a reminder: a cholita is a native of the country whose features are, well, Indian, I guess with far east influences. She is what you'd expect on a poster for Latin American tourism: long braided black hair topped by a bowler hat that complement long colorful skirts that stream over a plump physique. You would expect these cholitas to be anywhere – in the street, feeding llamas, selling black market items... really anywhere except in a wrestling ring.

The label Cholita Wrestling is misleading, really, since there are plenty of guys featured on the card as well – El Commandante, El Chico, El Lupo (the big bad wolf) – the names are as plenty as they are colorful.

We have ringside seats and are warned about wrestlers flying into the audience. Of course it also means that we have more opportunities to capture photographs of and with the wrestlers, although I learned long ago this might not be such a good thing. I recall a women's wrestling match I attended outside of Tijuana more than a decade ago when one of the female wrestlers asked me for a kiss and in the end gave me some tongue with no teeth. Not good.

When we settle in, we are ready to roll and see that the guys are still on the card. The cholitas are the main attraction, as we will see later.

Random Observations

2011-09-06T08:44:00.000-04:00

- A Bolivian group planned a demonstration for September 5 in front of the American Embassy in order to secure the release of a former president who's being held captive by the U.S. The only problem is, the demonstration will be on Labor Day, a holiday. Let's see how many Americans not working will hear these chumps.

- It's odd, but I missed both a hurricane and an earthquake on the east coast of the U.S. by exactly two weeks.

- The DJ playing oldies on 96.9 FM La Paz is one of the best I've ever heard. To listen to songs I hadn't heard in decades, it's funny I need to tune it to Bolivian local radio. Right now, I'm listening to Shannon's 'Let The Music Play'. Ever heard of that one?

- The diatribes against USAID continue in Bolivia. The calls grow louder to expel USAID, although people are not certain why. God forbid AID actually help or empower people. We can't have that. I guess Bolivia doesn't want the half billion dollars in foreign as badly as we all thought.

- Yesterday I welcomed a guest I used to work with in Jordan. What he didn't tell me was that he was fighting liver cancer and was on heavy meds. That's one brave man. Cancer meds plus the two mile altitude. Maybe the man has a death wish, and I'm not really joking about this.

- Sunday was Pedestrian Day in Bolivia, meaning cars during the day were absolutely, positively forbidden to drive in Bolivia, with the exception of the police and assorted other official vehicles. That's a lot of money that taxi drivers, who can't afford to miss a day's work, did not make. It also reminded me of the empty streets of Kathmandu whenever there would be a bhand. La Paz is pretty, but even more so without cars.

- When people think about cholitas, they imagine small round women with black braided hair, a bowler hat, layers of colorful skirts, a gold tooth, slight Asian facial features, and maybe a llama next to her for extra local flavor and kitsch. What they don't associate with cholitas is wrestling. On this September 11 is the cholita wrestling. Needless to say, a full report will follow immediately after this event.

-There was a march on Labor Day (coincidence, no doubt) by the Brewery workers that went from the Presidential Palace downtown all the way to the Zona Sur. Impressive. With all of those flags waving you'd have thought it was a parade. I say pay them. Bolivia beer is more than adequate.

-Winter is slowly drawing to a close. Very good, as now we no longer have to use electric heaters at night. In our houses here in La Paz, very few of them have central heating. We have electric heaters, the fireplace, and some whiskey, and that's all you have to protect you from sub-zero temperatures.

-Whereas most kids will have a fascination with cartoons or superheroes as toddlers, my kids have this continuing fascination with the Blues Brothers. They now have the black suits, hats, and sunglasses, so they can sing and dance whenever we're playing their CD's for the one hundredth time.

From the Beach to the Mountains: After Aruba

2011-08-29T15:18:00.002-04:00

The physical considerations aside, it can be sobering to return to a two mile altitude in the mountains following a beach vacation.

We have been gone for less than three weeks, and yet it seems a lot longer.

There is little evidence La Paz has changed in our absence. The temperature is barely above freezing, yet I breathe normally, relieved that this readjustment process to the altitude appears to be less tedious this time around. From the plane, we see the Illimani mountain donning a thick white coat of snow, which is visible even in the dark.

Inside the airport, Charlize Theron is advertising for some perfume on a poster outside the duty free shop. Less than a mile into the city of El Alto, the Pacena company has produced a new beer, the negra, the black beer and boasts of this achievement on a billboard outside the airport. Stray dogs chase each other about in the wee hours in El Alto, one of them with a pronounced limp on one of its hind legs. This pooch will be ill advised to bark too loud or chase anyone too aggressively.

When we leave El Alto and descend into La Paz, thick clouds of fog linger below us in the valley. It's as if we are still on the plane and are ready to land by penetrating the clouds. It can't be any later than six in the morning, yet there's a runner soldiering up this monster hill that has to be at least a couple of miles long.

Bash is in a pissy mood, and we soon find out why. Before we can even reach the valley, he throws up, visibly ill from both the change in altitude and temperature. Axl chirps about how he is going back to 'Axl's house' and how there will be a Spiderman costume that he's sorely missed waiting for him.

A junked up small Toyota Corolla taxi putt putts in front of us, its rearview mirrors on the sides completely missing and a spare tire serving on one of its back wheels. Anywhere in the west, this heap of junk would be impounded and probably sold for scrap metal. In La Paz, it is considered fully functional, meaning the taxi can pick up passengers and drive over a cliff as it sees fit. No need to deny anyone his or her livelihood.

Back home, the cleaning lady Lorenza is there early, which is remarkable. That lady has braved horrible weather conditions, floods, and violent street protests to show up for work – on time, no less – and she is once again demonstrating her value. The cat, needless to say, is royally pissed. Instead of a hug and a kiss or anything remotely resembling gratitude or joy, she scolds us for our extended leave of absence without her explicit permission.

We quickly unpack and sort out the laundry. Axl in no time is in his Spiderman costume, happy to be back in his element. Liebi and I sleep almost the rest of the day.

At work, people expect me to be somewhat mournful for coming back from R&R, but the truth is I'm clearly not. In fact, I am quite pleased to be back, to be home where I am familiar with things and can rely on my own wits rather than room service. More importantly, the kids are back, ready to get on with their lives and routines.

Even though I live and work here, in many ways I still consider La Paz a vacation spot in itself. Which is not a bad thing.

Aruba II: Shipwreck and Parasailing

2011-08-25T09:34:00.002-04:00

I had signed up the family for a special treat on Thursday the 18th.

This would include a boat ride around the island. This was not your ordinary boat, however. As the passengers descended into the hull, the entire bottom of the ship was transparent, meaning you could wave at Nemo and his friends as they swam past you, along with the one million or so scuba divers around the island.

For maximum effect, you obviously need clear water, which Aruba has like the North Pole has ice. Gliding through the water, you could see the fish up close and personal, like in a huge aquarium. Of course, the fishies barely compared to the highlight of the trip, the shipwreck known as the Antilla.

The Antilla was a ship that supplied the German submarines during World War II. Aruba, of course, was a part of the greater Netherlands, not an ally of Nazi Germany. The ship itself that was anchored off the coast of Aruba was asked to surrender to a contingent of Dutch marines in 1940, the year when hostilities were declared between both countries. Not one to easily give in to the enemy, the German captain decided to scuttle the ship and blew it up before surrendering himself and his crew. The result is a new home for various life forms around Aruba and a treasure to see for divers or tourists like myself. Before the boat tour, I had only known shipwrecks from the movies.

There was only one thing I hadn't counted on: when you're sitting in the hull of the ship, things move differently, meaning you get more seasick. I won't deny we were all a little woozy ourselves.

We would save the best for Friday, when I would finally go parasailing for the first time. Parasailing is the activity where the person is towed behind a boat while attached to a parachute, also known as a parasail. The boat then drives off, carrying the parasailer into the air. The parasailer has little or no control over the parachute and can fly up to 500 or 600 feet high.

I had always watched people up in the air, now it would finally be my turn… and Liebi's and Sarah-Ann's.

The boat took us out to the deeper end of the ocean, where I volunteered to go first. I was strapped to the harness, the rope gradually lifted me into the air, and before you knew it I was floating at over 150 meters above the crystal blue Caribbean.

The result was hard to describe, but I'll try anyway.

It's one thing when you look at things from a plane, quite another when you don't have the window to protect you, let alone a floor beneath your feet. Here you are, sailing in the air, with nothing to hear but the wind and the glittering water that seems like miles under you. It is a rare moment of tranquility I will never forget.

That is not to say the flight did not have its weird moments. Remember, you have no control over where you're going and even less over which way the wind blows. It would not be common for you to suddenly dip twenty or thirty feet in the air, up or down. Did I already mention how you had no control over which way you were going? It hardly mattered, because watching Aruba, the ships, the water, and the beaches from up there, would more than compensate for any inconveniences.

When it was Liebi's turn, Bash immediately voiced his veto, battering me with his little fists and legs when he was handed over to me. How dare his Mom go up there in the sky and leave him in the boat? Nobody had consulted him about his Mom deciding to have fun without him. High Treason indeed.

We would go to the beach one more time in the afternoon for an encore, but that would be it for Aruba.

Money and time well spent, I'd say. It was certainly one of the better beach vacations we've had.

Caribbean Debut: Aruba

2011-08-24T11:17:00.002-04:00

As seasoned worldchumps, Liebi and I have learned by now not to expect too much from certain places.

In other words, when you go to places like Kathmandu or Delhi, there is a very real possibility that things will not be like in the west.

A grocery market in Akaba, Jordan, for example, will not carry twenty different brands of peanut butter (or even one, for that matter). People in Arika, Chile have not received the memo about English being the premier language used in the world these days. Kuala Lumpur's cafes, while of a superb quality, might not have the five hundred different coffee bean menu you've come to expect from a Starbucks.

Caveat Emptor, in other words. Don't expect too much.

It's a simple formula, really. Expect things in Morocco to be Moroccan, things in Germany to be German, etc. and you your traveling experience should be a heck of a lot more pleasant.

Under these conditions it was not hard to understand why Liebi and I first didn't buy the Caribbean paradise idea when we looked at online brochures of Aruba, an island located less than 20 miles from Venezuela and mainland South America. It seems we had seen those kitschy ice blue waters on sandy beaches before, quite possibly at some place that turned out to be a dump, the white sands toxic waste and the water as clear as sewage.

That said, we knew that Aruba, being more or less a Dutch province, would offer some quality and fair weather. So we threw the dice and read a couple of online trip advisors, booked a condo one block from the beach, and crossed our fingers.

Anybody familiar with how the Dutch do business, how laid-back and friendly they are while displaying remarkably progressive philosophies on life? Same in Aruba. While the native language may be different, people in Aruba have learned a lot from the Dutch, which is certainly not a bad thing. We learned that the moment we landed in Oranjestad (Orange City, of course). Joining us from San Diego would also be my niece, Sarah Ann, a welcome addition to the party.

On the face of it, it would seem ridiculous to invite somebody from San Diego to a beach resort. In this assumption, we turned out to be mistaken.

There would be plenty of time to check out the beach once we artrived at our temporary digs, so we slipped into our suits, slapped on the sunscreen, crossed one road, and headed to the beach.

What we found there were… drum roll… kitschy ice blue waters, clearer than swimming pools, white sandy beaches that looked like they were the sole suppliers for hourglasses around the world, and warm water that prompted you to forget there ever was such a thing as an indoor swimming pool or a jacuzzi. Dive into the water and you could kiss the fish, which is how clearly you could see them.

On the beach were straw thatched umbrellas. From a cloudless sky pelicans dive bombed into the ocean, only to emerge with a bill full of fish. The kids, meanwhile, ditched the water in favor of the sand, and would dig in it for hours or until their first sunburn.

In the distance further down the coast, we spotted a light tower perched upon the cliffs. Old wooden schooners and merchant ships anchored off the shore took you back in time for decades or even centuries, blending in handsomely with their more modern counterparts, the yachts, in 85 degree F weather. You could hardly send a better picture home, nor could cameras begin to capture the scene adequately.

In short: Bull's eye, or whatever the Dutch word for that is.

This was going to be a hell (or in this case heaven) of a vacation.

Camp Meet

2011-08-16T20:25:00.002-04:00

Marrying into a southern family has brought forth many changes in my life, both perceived and factual.

I now talk in a semi-convincing southern drawl. I am a hard core NASCAR fan. There are two political affiliates I agree with, conservative and tea party. I have a crush on Kenny Chesney and Carrie Underwood. And I am a converted Baptist who goes to Camp Meet every year.

Okay, so those are all lies. Except for the last one, which was a half lie.

Whereas I am as close to becoming a Sothern Baptist as the U.S. is to becoming debt free, I have to admit it’s been a while since I’ve missed Camp Meet, the annual religious Revival designed to bring people together to profess and confirm their faith. My sons haven’t missed a single one in their combined six years on this earth. Maybe there is something cleansing about sitting in wooden AC-less huts in one hundred degree heat, pounding tea – in the south, that’s sweet ice tea, not that hot stuff imbibed by wig wearing scone eaters – and gorging yourself on ham biscuits while watching the scantily clad teens pass your hut while you’re sitting on the front porch swing.

The Camp Meets I’ve attended have ranged from bad to atrocious.

I’m sorry, but that’s mainly because I have a tolerance for BS the way Dr. Phil has built up an intolerance against green salads. I cannot reconcile most Christians –especially those in the south – and their faith with their political positions. I would so like to divide the two, but this might just be a two headed monster that will accompany us all the way to Armageddon. I simply can’t and won’t accept Christians who live by the rule of the jungle. A certain Governor asking his people to pray for rain instead of investing in renewable energy shows the entire spectrum of the new Loonie Tunes shows we’ve been subjected to.

Then there are the intangibles: the preachers who make Glenn Beck look sane, the ‘singers’ who wouldn’t be allowed anywhere near a karaoke bar, the heaps of junk food that, in the end, might consign you closer to your maker than you would ever believe.

The music in the south has become especially painful. It used to be that country would be a statement, something you stood for. Country music would be Johnny Cash and Willie, the Man in Black and the Stoner. Today it stands for… what? Patriotism? A boot up the guy’s a$$ who messes with the USA? Puh-lease.

And yet, for the first time I was actually touched by the music at this year’s Camp Meet. Bluegrass: the guitar, the fiddle, the banjo, and the mandolin, all strumming in perfect unison to complement those killer four part harmonies. Now that’s Christian music, that’s probably what they sang here two hundred years ago when the idea was first floated of raising a few barns with the help of religious celebration.

I sat on my swing for the better part of three hours watching two bluegrass bands take me back in time and yes, quite possibly closer to heaven for that short instance. Absolutely stunning.

Amen, brother.

Rock Concert

2011-07-26T08:20:00.003-04:00

My Spanish tutor is one of the most inconspicuous people you'll meet anywhere.

His hair tied back in a pony tail and his dark eyes looking at you through wireless glasses, he is soft spoken, the way you'd expect it from a teacher or even a college professor. He wears a suit and carries a briefcase with him, wherever he goes, the ultimate Joe College.

That is, of course, until his day job ends and the night begins. This is when he makes his smooth and seamless transition to hard rock singer. The suit is replaced by leather clothes, the hair is untied and will fly everywhere around his head like planets orbiting the sun. The glasses are nowhere to be found, and the gentle, soft-spoken voice becomes a set of pipes belting out Judas Priest and Def Leppard tunes with a remarkable vocal range, not to mention songs from his own band, Facto Alfa.

Meet Vico, the teacher by day and the rock star by night.

I had long promised Vico I would catch one of his live gigs, and last Friday would finally be the time for it. Of course, there's a hitch. The concert doesn't start until midnight, which is when I am usually counting sheep, or here in La Paz's case, all the llamas in Bolivia.

As a parent, your job never really stops. When you come home from work where plenty of pressing demands needed to be met, there are more demands the minute you walk through the door.

I remember somebody in Baghdad who once told me, "The Moment you become a parent, consider sleep a hobby." Okay, so it's not that bad anymore, and the kids are not babies anymore, which isn't to say they don't have their nightmares and wake you up at night. To make matters worse, the kids are early risers, meaning that's what you become by default.

And now I must squeeze in a rock concert. Hey, anything to hear old 80's hard rock, right?

The alarm clock wakes me up at 11:30 and I quickly get dressed. No way am I driving, since one, I will be drinking some beer and two, leaving a car anywhere in La Paz in the wee hours is akin to leaving a rabbit chained to a tree in the middle of the forest. That car will be seriously vandalized, which I am not in the mood for.

I somehow flag down a cab, find the place, the 'Alive', and buy a ticket. The place is bigger than it looks and is tailor made for rock concerts. Since there is nobody there I know and my Spanish wasn't made yet to be heard above electric guitars and power vocals, I take a seat upstairs and order a Huari beer. The place is packed and a few fans don't wait for the music to start until they get plastered.

The band starts with songs from 'Hysteria', one of my favorite 80's albums. Some drunk kid waves a set of brass knuckles in front of me and I smile weakly, thinking, 'Bud, you're going to look pretty weird walking home with those shoved up the small intestine'. Luckily, the kid heads off to the stage, where he is gesticulating wildly to the musicians, who take in this little sideshow off the stage.

I quickly find out that the upstairs is more for the drunks who need to sleep off their fix, and one by one, leather clad drunken youths occupy the chairs and tables next to me, their heads blissfully slumped over the furniture. Security needs to haul a few of them out.

The later it gets, the more questionable the creatures of the night become who've decided to frequent this place. It's only a matter of time before something major, like a fight, breaks out here. The place is both rocking and rowdy.

I leave at around two thirty between Judas Priest songs, it's getting too gnarly around here for a family guy like me who is way out of his element. I salute the band and duck into a cab outside.

Good concert, but not without its risks.

Copa America

2011-07-21T13:05:00.001-04:00

Growing up in Germany, you could rely on the natural order of things coming to a standstill for two events: the FIFA World Cup, and to a lesser extent the European Cup two years later. For people who have been living in a cave or are blissfully ignorant of any sports lingo outside of American football or baseball, I am referring to the real football, or soccer, of course.

Here in Latin America, countries wait an entire year after the World Cup until it is time for the Copa America, the single largest event after the World Cup and Carnival here to gobble up millions of man work hours while producing more drunks than an Irish Pub handing out free beer for the evening.

Europe, of course, likes to consider itself the non plus ultra of all things football-related. Considering that the greatest football powerhouses are firmly entrenched in Europe – Manchester United, Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC and Inter, Bayern – you can make a case that Latin America has decades to go before it can hope to achieve the success of their cousins across the pond. Although progress has been made, it is hard to imagine Europe without South America's finest players, the Messis and the Kakas of this world.

As any football fan around the globe can confirm, the national teams are an entirely different matter.

Brazil is the undisputed king of World Cups with five titles, with Argentina and Uruguay adding two each. The 2010 World Cup in South Africa saw every participating national team from South America advancing past the group stage, while European powerhouses like Italy or France went belly up early, thus making way for the new guard from South America.

Remarkably, the titans of South American football, really Brazil and Argentina, have split 21 Cope America titles between them, with at least as many more runners-up finishes.

And just when you think there would be a change within the balance of power in football, you are correct: only that doesn't just apply to Europe.

The last four teams surviving in the Copa America are Uruguay, Peru, Venezuela, and Paraguay.

Now read that again.

Right. Where are Brazil and Argentina? Plane crash? Boycott? Did they lose their way to the stadium? That almost sounds like Thanksgiving without the turkey or the Vatican without a pope.

It's actually much simpler than that: Argentina (the host, no less) was knocked out by its little neighbor from Uruguay while Brazil was knocked out by Paraguay, each of them in the quarterfinals.

Good news for the upstarts in South American football (except Bolivia, of course), bad news for television ratings.

Predictably enough, Bolivia was reduced once again to bottom feeder following one goal, one point, and two red cards in three games.

The motto for Bolivia remains unchanged: esperamos hasta el ano proximo. Wait until next year.

Or next decade.

Funeral Mass

2011-07-18T14:53:00.002-04:00

It's just my luck that my first mass in Bolivia would be a funeral mass. I suppose that's God's revenge for my absence in church for the past six months or so. At least I don't have to fake it, being a Catholic, since I am well aware how mass works. I also don't want to be facetious here, but I was simply not built for going to funerals.

I still think even God will be convinced that my kids need me more than the Almighty himself. They have clearly not forgiven me yet for being absent for seven weeks in Washington, work-related or not.

A funeral mass is the one event where I try my hardest not to focus, because I think that if I did, I might lose it. Whether the guy is in your family or not, death is still a sobering thing. There better not be a mass for me when I buy the farm or I will come back and personally prove the Ghosthunters and their freaky nerdy fans right as to the authenticity of spirits who've refused to cross over.

So what do you do at funeral masses to keep your eyes off both the corpse in the casket and the pretty ladies dressed up acting all distraught?

Humor, I suppose.

Today, for example, I imagined a group of Commandoes busting through the windows like Seal Team 6, their weapons ready, barking out orders, and finally blushing beet red after they've discovered that the little church might not have been the right place on their itinerary.

There could also be a concessionaire walking through the aisles selling peanuts, crackerjacks, or even soda.

Another time it might be that the congregation decides to bust a few moves and dances to, oh I don't know, maybe the Monster Mash, Only the Good Die Young, or Highway to Hell, if the deceased was a prick.

Again, this is only my silly (and admittedly absurd) method of coping and I don't recommend it to the truly faithful and respectful who have come to the place exclusively to mourn.

This can also backfire, because if you crack yourself up, you have an entire congregation throwing invisible daggers at you or wishing to consign you to the casket as well for laughing when you really should be miserable and acting both your age and the way the black colors on your suit dictate it.

Today I had a different issue.

Compost breath, or should I say death breath.

No, for real. Somebody's breath was so bad and potent I was almost afraid that the corpse might be revived only to watch the congregation see him drop dead again from the foul smelling pollutant. That's a serious matter, especially with people packed in the pews like sardines. People will go from crying to sneezing to fainting within minutes.

This is only one of two places where I need to imagine myself somewhere else. That and the dentist's.

El Camino De La Muerte

2011-07-14T13:05:00.002-04:00

When I look back on some of these blogs, I realize I spend an exorbitant amount of time posting reports about vehicles and traffic. I apologize should these postings prove to be redundant and make sleeping pills appear exciting by comparison.

It seems the differences in traffic between countries in the world can be summed up as easily as the difference between fast and faster or signs or no signs. Yet just when you think you've completed the exploration of the absurdity of cultural differences, you will discover that the barrel has another removable layer that enables Alice to look deeper into the hole.

Today we are talking about the North Yungas Road, El Camino De La Muerte, also often referred to as the most dangerous road in the world by several experts:

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kx4fc5F7Wq1qzs32ro1_500.jpg

The North Yungas Road is a 40 mile stretch leading from La Paz to the Yungas region and the Amazon rainforest. Estimates have the number of dead at 250 per year. Now I am not one to mind paying toll on roads. I discovered early how these roadblocks with the glass booths would pop up in the middle of nowhere demanding a nominal fee for using their stretch of the road. I have paid tolls for the use of various turnpikes in the States, often grudgingly. Money is one thing to forfeit when using a road. I'm not sure I would like to throw in my life as part of the deal.

Also known as Grove's Road in English, the more proper name should probably be Grave's road. The road itself, on average ten feet wide, frequently needs to support a two way traffic. The producers of Jackass: The Movie have nothing on the experts who constructed this road.

The road itself ascends almost three miles high before its steady two mile descent. Of course, all of this wouldn't be half as exciting and death defying if there were such nuisances as guard rails or street signs. One formal rule is that the downhill driver does not have the right of way and must move to the edge of the road. On this road, people drive on the left, for obvious reasons. It would be hard to negotiate passing a vehicle when you can't see where your outer tires are.

Drivers using Yungas Road to make a living can be given a pass. I'm not so sure about thrill seekers who wish to bike the entire route. The unofficial death count of bikers using the 40 mile downhill route is currently at 20.

To make matters even more absurd, the Discovery Channel's show 'Dangerous Driving' brought in American truckers to drive the scenic byways of Bolivia, foremost among them the North Yungas Road. In a rare display of showmanship and generosity, the producers offered any group, in particular the U.S. Embassy, free shipping for any loads they wanted transported. Not surprisingly, the Embassy told the producers thanks, but no thanks.

There is a new Yungas road, paved and two-laned, but hardly a sure thing:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_01Pu8Y_j_oo/S6TJk4K07tI/AAAAAAAAMtI/UWqFDTLYECg/s400/stelvio+italy-707474.jpg

I will also make a deal with anybody reading this blog. I will stop writing about traffic once people stop bending over backwards to win the ultimate price of cerebral shortcomings, the Darwin Award. For any possibility of that happening, look up the saying 'hell freezes over' in the dictionary.

Fuel Crisis

2011-07-12T15:52:00.002-04:00

How nice it would be if this blog could simply consist of posts that are nature and people related, an extension of the world brought to you, the poor man's National Geographic, if you will.

It would be so fun to simply write about rain forests and deserts and oceans and Sherpas and Indios and Bedouins.

Describe the good and ignore the bad. Write about the elephant and ignore the snake.

It would be. Too bad that's not the way the ball bounces in this world, and that goes double for La Paz, the world's highest capital.

Question: If you wish to hold a city hostage and prevent its traffic flow, how do you go about it? In Nepal, you drum up a bunch of thugs and block the roads using bhands. That's also been the modus operandi of most malcontents here.

Years ago, I recall reading a story about how a man invented the answer to stopping war. Destroy the bullets. Swell idea, the citizens of El Alto above La Paz thought to themselves. If you really want to kill traffic, let's stop the gas transports.

Now people no longer need to sit on an intersection all day, fiddle their toes, pick their noses, and threaten working class citizens trying to make a living. No, now there's only one fleet of vehicles that need to be stopped: trucks. To be more specific, trucks carrying fuel. Bingo. Now the people occupying the intersections and main roads only need to threaten people and provide human roadblocks part time.

And just like that, every fuel station is shut down after rationing the sale of fuel to each vehicle to 50 bolivianos. At present, there are hardly any vehicles in the street, and La Paz can go back to horses and carriages for a while.
That is, of course, unless the good people of El Alto find that their demands have been met.

The good news here is that the first demand has been met. The people of El Alto have demanded the installation of sewer and drain systems within the district, which the mayor immediately agreed to. The bad news is that there are still 17 more demands pending.

The city's transportation was the first to shut down, and the wheezing and huffing sounds of the city's bus fleet have been conspicuous through their absence today.
And who are the winners of the latest fuel crisis?

Well, there are two natural gas stations here in La Paz. However, being that I have yet to see any vehicle consuming this type of gas, you would have to like the ice vendor's chances on the North Pole better of turning a profit.

Stay tuned. Officials are still negotiating with citizens. What is not recommended is the current pace, this 'we will agree to one demand per day' nonsense. Be that as it may, people who keep horses in their stable in El Alto or La Paz are looking pretty smart right now.

Random and, Occasionally, Senseless Observations

2011-06-24T14:38:00.001-04:00

- In the past two days, I have already spotted three vehicles here in Bolivia with the digits 666. Either people are blissfully unaware of the number of the beast, or they are blissfully ignoring its significance. I think I would be a little more superstitious in a town full of ravines, high cliffs, and a higher than average accident rate.

- While I was gone, our dog, Aunt Laverne was kidnapped and has yet to be returned. I am not too bothered by it, since we didn't have her long enough to get too attached. Also, Bolivians treat their canines pretty darn well. The one big winner from the dog's disappearance: the Ginger cat, Skinjbir. A prissy animal herself, I don't think there was anything that cat really hated until she met dogs.

- A transportation strike was averted here in Bolivia by the last second deal that was struck between the union and President Morales. That's one union you don't want striking. When the roads are virtually shut down, you are reminded of thugs taking hostages, except that this affects the entire city. I almost prefer the striking miners and their dynamite.

- Winter has started here in Bolivia, which doesn't really mean much, except that the nights are at around freezing point and you have no central heating. Looking out of the window now, I can see a bright sunshine and 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

- A couple of days ago, I saw a driver in his jeep, gripping his wheel, and staring straight ahead, his eyes focused on the road. Could be one of a half a million drivers in La Paz, right? Not exactly, this man was actually upside down. Good thing he was wearing his safety belt. Though his vehicle had tipped over, he didn't appear to have a scratch.

- Less than two weeks back, I am having a harder time re-adjusting to the altitude than I'd expected. Back at sea level, I'd run 7-10 miles per day. Now I find it hard to walk up 7-10 stairs before getting the feeling the rug is being yanked from underneath me.

- Though I try to avoid sports on this blog, I was tickled to watch Dirk Nowitzki win the NBA Championship with Dallas. I and Gonzo, one of my oldest buddies in Germany, remember seeing a young teenage Dirk playing for second league team DJK Wuerzburg in what was then known as the Carl Diem Halle, now the S. Oliver Arena. You can't help but be proud of the native Wuerzburger. I sure am.

- I don't think I have ever seen a bigger Blues Brothers fan than my four year old. When I skyped with Liebi a month ago in DC, I saw Axl suddenly crowding the camera lense, complete with a black tie, sunglasses, and black hat.

Back to the Mountains

2011-06-15T16:07:00.002-04:00

A heat wave hits DC before I am scheduled to move out on Saturday. Following three days of the muggy heat DC is known for and temperatures that read 98, 99, and 98, respectively, it is a relief to leave the place. So Saturday is slightly better, at around 90, but with one hitch… a slight possibility of thunderstorms. That slight possibility would end up being sizable.

First things first. A Moroccan driver takes me to the airport, and I am surprised at how much Moroccan Arabic I actually remember. The man is from Rachidia, a place I remember well, a college town on the eastern side of the Atlas mountains whereas my town was to the west of them. This guy can't stop laughing. What's this white boy in DC doing speaking Arabic to him?

Everything goes according to plan. I get rid of the luggage, meaning I now have some mobility lugging nothing but an almost empty backpack around Ronald Reagan Airport. A quick snack and a glass of red Italian Allegrini (delicious), and it's time to board. The captain on the plane says there are something like twelve planes ahead of us, due to weather complications, storm warnings. While I appreciate the captain's honesty, this also means a considerable delay. I suppose that's normal these days. What I don't like, however, is the fact that we leave around eight, two hours later than planned. That means it will be close trying to reach my plane in Miami.

In Miami, I get off the plane, locate the gate from where the plane to La Paz is leaving, and put my running training to good use. I don't slow down until I reach D6, the gate reserved for American Airlines to La Paz. I am probably the last passenger on the plane, meaning I made it. Somebody must have told the crew that the plane from DC (also American Airlines) was arriving, meaning they hold the plane for me. I feel so special. Uh, actually not. It would have been nice to have a bit of a breather in Miami and stretch my legs. Not going to happen. It will be more of the same with American Airlines, meaning rude service along with the crammed space that makes you think you might have been an oil sardine in a former life.

Eventually I do make it back to La Paz. The driver is there. Good. No problems coming back to high altitude, even better. Once I leave the terminal, I realize my mistake. Winter has just begun here in June, and the temperatures are below freezing. Brrrr. For once, I am grateful a heater is on inside a car.

It's six in the morning when I get home. Liebi and Bash are already awake. Excellent.

Bash is surprisingly shy when he sees me, but happy no less. When I check to see what Axl's doing, I see he's still sleeping, in our bed, no less. I just sit and stare at him for a moment, knowing that I haven't seen him or his brother for almost two months. I wonder what's going on in that little head of his.

The next bit of news doesn't have to wait. The next day, that Monday, there will be a transportation strike. How's that for luck on my first day back at work? If the last transportation strike is any indication, then this is one you might want to avoid. I don't mind boxing matches, it's just that I would prefer professional fighters doing these, not union drivers beating up on non-union members.

Whereas I didn't mind going back to the States so much, it's just that I wished I could have returned to La Paz much sooner. DC is one of my favorite cities in the world, but it's a different story if you have nothing and nobody to come home to. Liebi wouldn't be there, nobody to share a fire or a glass of wine with in the evening. There were days when I'd expect the kids to greet me at the door (how's that for a Norman Rockwell?), only to realize that I would spend the evening by myself.

No more, luckily. At least not for the near future.

Marathon, Part II

2011-05-18T18:15:00.002-04:00

When the shot rings out, I turn on my i-pod and we’re all off. It’s a slow jog at first. I tip my cap to the friendly Yorkers who have turned out to cheer the runners on and remind myself to go slow.

There is one goal and one goal only here: to finish.

We circle through a few neighborhood blocks until we finally reach the Heritage Rail Trail that runs along the railway that once took President Lincoln on a train to deliver the Gettysburg address almost 150 years ago. The trail of course slows runners down, even though admittedly it doesn’t hit the joints as badly.

Looking left and right, as corny as this may sound, I see my native Franken again. It’s so funny how this place reminds me of the hills and fields of Kitzingen and the Steigerwald back home.

I complete three miles, near the back of the pack, and I still can’t calm down. I am amped up, so hyper it’s nauseating. If this keeps up, I will pass out. The good news about that is that I will finish ahead of everybody else. The bad news, of course, is that I will do it in an ambulance.

After four miles, I need to stop to pee, which takes a half minute off my time. Damn it. Not a good start, continuing I still have over 22 miles to go. I am trying badly to find a rhythm here and decide not to go any faster than one mile for every ten minutes. Let the fat guys and half cripples pass me, if they must. Again, this isn’t a race for anything but survival.

Four miles later, the bladder is full again, and I must pull over again. Lesson learned. Should have had less water and the Gatorade before the race. I have over eighteen miles to go and still feel like a wreck. The music playing on my i-pod isn’t helping either. I need relief in the worst way.

What have I gotten myself into?

A little bit of comic relief happens when I see a Jewish runner passing me, complete with the yarmulke on his head.

Around ten miles, something surprising happens. I finally get locked in, meaning I have found a rhythm. Excellent. I will need it.

At the halfway mark, I grab a Gatorade pouch from one of the volunteers and tear it open while I am still running. It tastes like an ice cream sundae topping, but then again, it’s an easy replenishment in terms of the much needed carbs, so I down the whole thing.

At mile 14, I am congratulating myself on making it past the half. I see the first runners walking. For them from now on, it will be walk a mile, run a mile. I can’t stop, nor do I feel the need for it.

From here on out, it’s one mile at a time. Don’t ever think there’s twelve miles to go, just think in increments. Like make it to milestone 16, then there will be ten to go, etc. There’s little logic to this, but I need to keep going here.

I continue to pass dozens of people who are now walking and will probably run at their own leisure from here on out. Looking at the time, I see that I have remained consistent, at a ten minute mile clip. I wonder when I will finally slow down and walk myself.

Yet the milestones keep passing me, every two miles I grab another cup of Gatorade from one of the volunteers and toss it aside once I’m done with it without slowing down. The goal is to make it at least to mile number 20 and then, if I must, I will walk.

The funny thing is, I am not tired in the least.

I pass scores of people, younger and older, alike and think to myself, Yeah! Ha! Not so bad for a 40-something first timer.

At mile 19, the battery on the old i-pod dies. Crap. There goes my time monitor along with the music. Oh well. Seven Miles to go. A snap for me on any day, but those seven miles now feel like seven states away.

I pass the Jewish runner, who by now has taken his yarmulke off and is walking. He’s probably sweating too heavily under it.

Then the first casualties. A few runners have passed out in front of me and require medical attention. I can’t stop now, nor can I think about that, as cold as that may sound.

When I reach twenty-one miles, I see more casualties, some of them wheeled off by ambulances. I pass many more runners who have turned into walkers. My exercise and running regime in La Paz at two miles altitude is now paying major dividends. I have a stamina I can’t even recognize myself.

Mile 24, two miles to go. I still am running. I finally realize I will make it, even if I have to walk the last two miles. I’m just afraid of what will happen if I do slow down. I’m afraid I will collapse. Can’t do that now, I have to keep running.

Run Forrest, run.

By now, I must have passed over a hundred runners over the past three miles and counting. Milestone 25, one mile to go. The trail ends, and it’s back to the pavement. I hear more ambulance sirens.

Finally, I see the stadium and pick up the pace. I recognize the line where the race began, but instead the run ends in the stadium, the last two hundred meters coming on a track. This is when I actually dash for it, I am so exhilarated to be alive and well.

Before I cross the finish line, I see the time. 4 hours, 24 minutes. Not great, but I kept the ten mile a minute clip. I’ll take it. Not bad for a first timer.
When I cross the line, I would like to cheer, throw my arms in the air. YEAH! I made it! Lock up your kids, YORK!!!! I just pump a fist.

I barely hear the voice coming through the PR.

“From Arlington, Virginia, at four hours and twenty-four minutes… Andrew Longworth!”

One volunteer runs up to me and grabs my shoulders. Obviously they anticipate the runners to collapse once they’ve crossed the finish line.

"Are you okay, he asks me?"

He looks intently into my eyes or looks for any other telltale signs that I might mail it in and just get sick right then and there or have a heart attack.

"Get off me!" I tell him. Damn Dr. Phil.I'm all right.

The great thing is that that’s the truth.

A female volunteer comes over and slips a medal over my neck, which I will wear for the rest of the day.

I drink some more Gatorade, then head for the car and simply leave. I’m not interested in any post-race celebrities. I need to hurry to check out of the motel or be charged for another day. I also need to return the rental car in DC.

Oddly enough, I am not aching much when I am driving back.

I do have a huge grin on my face though, all the way home.

Marathon, Part I

2011-05-17T18:54:00.003-04:00

In September of 2006, Liebi and I ran a Half Marathon in Amman, Jordan.

This was a thirteen mile course through the city, which was a painful lesson about conditioning and endurance. We would both walk funny for the next few days, owing largely to inexperience and the inability to pace ourselves properly.

Nearly five years later, I would decide to go for the ultimate prize. For this, I would have to rent a car and drive two hours to the north, to York, Pennsylvania, where the third annual Bob Potts Marathon would take place, the only marathon in the area I could possibly partake in.

By now, I’d become a better runner, or so I thought. Whether it would be enough for 26.2 miles was another question.

On the night before marathons, you always hear about runners loading up on carbohydrates, pre-hydrating and getting plenty of rest.

Those rules went out the window the less than ten minutes after arriving in York.

Shortly after I check into the Rodeway Inn, a low budget motel in the heart of York, I search in vain for a restaurant that could serve pasta and the necessary nutrients for the upcoming run.

Instead, I find an Irish pub a block away from the motel.

Aw, shucks.

Time for a drink.

Instead of the pasta, I have pita bread with a delicious fattening crab dip, as well as a glass of red wine and a pint of Harp. Dinner of Champions? Not exactly.

That said, I am amped and need to calm down in the worst way. I need a drink and distraction, which the folk duo featuring two female students, their guitars and gorgeous harmonies more than provide. I still slam plenty of water before I go to bed, which is at about midnight.

I sleep four hours and finally get up. I pound a pint of Gatorade and some Power Bar gells, large sized gummi bears really, but they seem to have the sugar I need to get going.

First I head over to the stadium, home of the minor league baseball team York Revolution, to pick up a marathon packet, which supposedly should be ready at five a.m. I am there at half past five, and there is not a soul in sight.

Another runner stops his car in the parking lot and asks where he can get a marathon packet, the kit that includes your number, a free t-shirt and a ticket to see that day’s Revolution game. Like him, I have no clue. Was there something we missed? Have they cancelled the run?

So, now I head over to York College, where the run supposedly will start and finish.
I find the place easily. In the parking lot, it’s obvious that the run is on. Hundreds of runners gather around, some of them chatting with friends and family.

I head into the arena and pick up my number, 479, the shirt and the ticket to the baseball game. I pin my number to my shirt and then locate the next restroom. There are a half dozen porto potties located just outside the college stadium and long lines waiting in front of every one of them. Of course all runners have taken in plenty of liquids like me, and now it’s time to pee it out or take a dump or throw up, depending on how nervous people are.

Somebody announces through a bullhorn that the race will start in ten minutes.

Ouch. Time to relax.

You can tell who’s who at the start line. With some jokers, you know why they are here. You look at them and you know they will be at the finish line miles ahead of you, duking it out with the cheetahs while the others will be with the sloths. These are the hard core veterans who have done this before and are clearly among the contenders, not the pretenders and first timers like me.

The other runners are still chit chatting with family and friends, hugging and kissing. I can’t think about that now. I am here by myself and in it for myself. I simply gather my thoughts. Where will I be five hours from now? I try to cool down, but I am a nervous wreck.

Finally, the guy barks through the megaphone for the runners to get to the starting line.

I would like to say I am as cool as a cucumber, but the cold truth is that I am a wreck and am making coffee look nervous.

To the Keystone State

2011-05-16T18:15:00.002-04:00

When I leave DC for Pennsylvania, I realize, or should I say remember, one thing pretty quickly.

Driving in DC is an absolute drag.

Sometimes there are no street signs, and when there are they make less sense than if you printed them in Braille. Add the overall poor quality of the roads, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that people love to complain about the Beltway’s traffic.

On my way to the airport, where I pick up the rental car, I also learned something else.

When the Nationals play, make sure you schedule your plans well ahead of the ninth or final inning, whichever comes first. It’s hard to believe how a baseball game can cripple an entire metro system, but once the Nats' game ends you can forget any plans you might have made about getting into DC, and often even out of it.

On a dark and rainy day, I decide to make the drive to York, Pennsylvania, bypassing the highways as much as I can, instead opting for the more idyllic and easygoing rural roads.

The first stop is Gettysburg along Highway 15, site of the most famous Civil War battlefield. As seems to be the case with most battlefields, the area is drop dead gorgeous. It is inconceivable that this place would be the stage for an unprecedented bloodshed on American soil. I’ve seen battlefields in countries like Ireland and France, and they are as pretty as the most popular postcard shots posted on the web, but they give you the creeps no less. 100,000 casualties don’t lie, and numbers in this case can be even colder than where the blood was shed itself.

This place has something haunting to it, but less so as you move on.

Driving westward, you can see the street signs pointing to Berlin in one direction, Hanover in the other. German country, then. There are rolling hills and little country roads leading through small towns that will have the usual American shops and the occasional monument and town square. There are wheat fields surrounding these towns at the foot of the hills. This, too, has a familiarity to it, kind of like Franken in Germany, where I grew up. I have to laugh when I actually see a vineyard in the distance. Franken recreated in the United States.

Then it’s on to British territory and Lancaster and York, America’s modest answer to the War of the Roses. It’s almost fitting that there would be a reminder of one of the grimmest battles on English soil so close to Gettysburg.

Finally, I make it to York.

Of course, I am not here to witness any small town Americana or write an essay about small towns in the State of Independence. I am here for a different business altogether.

That would be the York marathon, which will start in less than ten hours from now.

Washington Run

2011-05-10T11:29:00.002-04:00

For anybody who is in the DC area and itching to do a run or hike, I have a 'can’t miss' route that should satisfy the requirements for both exercising as well as sight seeing.

Of course this depends on where you start out from, but either way, I believe Arlington, VA across the Potomac needs to be included.

For beginners, start on the Mount Vernon trail down by the river on the Arlington side, as close to Theodore Roosevelt Island as possible. This can also be your end point, since there are some wonderful places to relax in, let your dog run, or simply kick back, rest and gaze at Teddy Roosevelt’s enormous statue.

For runners, this should be the end point. What I usually do is start at Arlington Boulevard and pass the US Marine Memorial Circle featuring the Iwo Jima Monument. Eventually you will pass Arlington Cemetery, if you fancy saying good morning to the Kennedys.

From there you will cross Arlington Memorial Bridge, where you will run into the Lincoln Memorial at the far west end of the Mall. From there you go south where you will pass the pool that Jenny waded through to gain easier access to Forrest Gump, and eventually cross 17th Street.

The Mall in all of its green splendor still continues for quite a while and will hold more tourists than you think, so don’t be shy to continue your hike or run for as long as you please.

Past the Washington Monument, probably the most recognizable structure in DC aside from the Capitol or the White House, you will pass the Smithsonian, the Hirshhorn, the Air & Space Museum and eventually the Botanic Gardens before you reach the Capitol. This is where you turn north and head back, with the difference now that you will covering the entire northern side of the Mall.

Turn at the Peace Circle before you pass the National Gallery of Art. You will pass Sculpture Garden and Butterfly Park before it’s back to the Washington Monument again. Now look to your right and bingo, there’s the White House. Next you pass Constitution Gardens and its pond before you reach the Vietnam War Memorial, Honest Abe and the bridge again.

As a runner, I can cover this distance in less than an hour.

For walkers it will be an all day affair, visits to the various monuments and museums included. There is very little chance that you will not stop along the way somewhere if you are hiking it, not with all of the museums 100% subsidized and therefor free of charge.

Either way you look at it, the route is a winner.

From Bolivia to Columbia (The District)

2011-04-24T20:22:00.002-04:00

Before I land at Ronald Reagan National Airport in DC, dozens of passengers ignore the pilot's request to shut off all electronics. Dazed by the lights outside and the Washington Monument we pass, they press the film function of their cameras, hoping to capture as much of the nation's capital from a birdseye view as they can.

It will be the last indiscretion I will see for a while back in the U.S.

So I am back to civilization. This is where people walk in a straight line and stop at red lights. If you have the right of way on the roads, you have the right of way, unless you would like to discuss it with one of thousands of friendly lawyers, cops, and judges who enforce these rules.

The next day, an Easter Sunday, I am re-introduced to Washington's metro and its waffle iron ceilings above the platforms. Again, people are remarkably civilized. They give each other plenty of space and rarely bump into each other.

One of the most American charcteristics is giving your fellow citizen space. This is apparent in the size of their cars and houses, but also when it comes to privacy. For instance, if I take a seat in the metro, the next guy entering the train will take a seat that is as far removed from mine as possible. I like to compare it to the dogs marking their territory. In public restrooms, if I take a urinal that is to the far right, you just know that the next guy will take the one to the far left. It's nothing personal, merely a question of privacy.

On the train, I look at the passengers on this Easter Sunday. It's clear that these people don't know about La Paz, haven't heard of the place and probably never will whenever their education is concluded, if it isn't already.

When I exit at L'Enfant Plaza, I am walking faster than anybody else. After almost a year in La Paz at 11,000 feet altitude, I am fit. It's good to be back at sea level.

Whereas most people are probably at home feasting on chicken or turkey and stuffing themselves with chocolate eggs, I buy a soft pretzel from a vendor. An Easter Pretzel, if you will. Those pretzel vendors are lame. At least they could have colored it a little or decorated it with a bunny.

My goal is to visit the Hirshhorn, one of my favorite art museums. The best place to go there is the basement. That's where you will find all of the new exhibitions and other oddities, today the Black Box by Laurent Grasso.

Grasso is a French-Italian artist who is truly unique.

His work here surveys architecture in the area that was formerly East Berlin, focusing on the city's TV tower at the Alexanderplatz and other structures that transmit electromagnetic waves. Here you have to wonder: is that sparkly fluff that sails through the air cosmic lint or an invasive botanical species? The sky features heavily in this video display, which becomes the artist's quasi canvas. It is mesmerizing to watch this, to say the least.

Up two stairs and there is an exhibition by a protege of Beuys, the late Blinky Palermo, where we find his fabric paintings. This guy has blown the stereotypical artistic form, as we have known it, to smithereens. Rarely do you see a painting reduced to merely being featured within a square or a rectangular frame. He will paint on fabric, aluminum, steel, wood, you name it.

I love to look at the permanent exhibition, the sculpture garden that I have always admired, starring works by Giacometti. On a sunny day like this, the sculptures look particularly sweet.

When I head home and sit on the balcony of the apartment I've rented on the 14th floor, I gaze across the river from where I am in Arlington. I can see the National Cathedral of Washington towering on a hill above Georgetown. Everything looks so peaceful, and the Cathedral makes me think for a moment I might be in an English city like Coventry instead of America's Washington, DC.

I finally head back inside. Time to write.

Takin' It To The Streets

2011-04-21T16:10:00.002-04:00

Last week I was finally compelled to miss my first day of week due to protests.

This is lightweight compared to Kathmandu, where you were likely to miss weeks at a time. Here in La Paz it's a little more complicated.

La Paz itself does not have that one omnipotent central road that will shut down a city if blocked. The city here is spread out over numerous mountains over a greater area. Many important buildings are in different important places, so occupying one road would be downright counter-productive.

So far the roads to be blocked were the ones leading to the airport or the main highways into the city. The objectives here were clear: cripple commerce and force the government to negotiate or whoever the opposing party happened to be. This was also the modus operandi of the Maoists in Kathmandu. Bringing pressure to bear on the local economy will not necessarily guarantee the desired results but will at least ensure that there is a dialogue.

Since the main highways in La Paz do not intersect with either the roads leading to the Embassy or other government buildings, there has never been any need to call off work.

Until now, that is.

The protesting party here was the Teacher's Union, who had come from the outlying rural communities to occupy the city and force the government's hand. The Teacher's Union would prove to be very systematic in its chosen routes, thereby causing the desired effect of maiming traffic which in turn would cause hundreds of people to stay at home. They would march through one sector at a time, first in the center of the city, and then work themselves down to the Zona Del Sur, our area, where they would block the roads in Calacoto, San Miguel, and Achumani, among others.

With the roads blocked, the only alternative would be to weasel your way around the roadblocks and maybe walk to work, not an option if your workplace is seven to eight miles away and forces you up a steep incline for most of the way. To make matters worse, you were not guaranteed to make it to work by that rationale, either. In fact, the Teacher's Union could just as easily have 1,000 marching in the Zona Del Sur and another 600 downtown. Here you would have to pick your poison.

And if people also assume that these are peaceful marches, then they will quickly stand corrected the moment the riot police shows up. Taunts will fly back and forth, from somewhere a knucklehead might throw a rock, and the game is on. To keep the protests away from government buildings, the police will use tear gas and water cannons quite frequently.

The reasons for these protests are nearly identical in their demands: an increase in wages, since the cost of living has gone up here in the past year considerably.
Whereas you would have to like your chances if you're the riot police facing the teachers, you will need to proceed with extra caution when dealing with another labor group, the miners.

Whereas teachers will use sticks and stones to make their feelings known, miners will use something that is more common in their profession: dynamite.

Although these protests haven't nearly reached the dimensions achieved when President Morales announced he would scrap gas subsidies around New Year's Day, they are nonetheless a not so subtle reminder there are still unhappy people in this country who could set off a powder keg at the drop of a bowler's hat.

Both the locals and visitors need to beware to keep their distance when these clashes do happen.

We've learned that by now.

The Policia and me

2011-04-07T09:33:00.002-04:00

Being a policeman in Bolivia is a double-edged sword.

They are abundant in La Paz, for example, these men in their olive drab uniforms watching over intersections, streets, or happenings within the city in general. Seeing them for the first time almost has you believing you are dealing with the military.

A lot has been written and said about the policia here, a lot of it rather unflattering. For example, opinions range just how much they are involved in the ubiquitous drug trade here. Some say one in four are involved, others many more. What isn’t in dispute is the fact that you can buy them, although I will drive my car off one of these cliffs with the stunning views of La Paz before I try. In Mexico, that was easy. Here, foreigners have a bigger target on their backs.

Last week, I saw the police snap to action not involving traffic for the first time. I had my car parked waiting for Liebi to exit a store when I saw six or seven youths assemble under a bridge. This is rather suspect, I am thinking, although they very much looked like students, kids who had just gotten out of class.

The next thing I know a police car (a jeep) is pulling up, the youths scatter, and the cops run them down, one by one. I still have no clue what they were doing, although it’s a safe guess that it had something to do with narcotics. Why otherwise would they remain concealed under a bridge?

I have been stopped a couple of times myself by the police. Sometimes they would be routine traffic stops, and I would flash my license and be on my way. Twice I committed a couple of no-no’s, and they were on me like roaches on drain water. The first was for an illegal crossing when a pretty female policewoman stopped me, an obvious traffic offense, if there ever was one. So she flags the car down, I roll down my window and act dumb and play the stupid foreigner, telling her how I’d only been there for a few months. That, of course, is a whopper of a lie, considering that the license states I’ve been here much longer. Not feeling that this puppet show was worth her time, she decided to let the dumb foreigner go in the end.

The second time was a little more egregious. Here I go the wrong way and then commit an illegal U-turn. Guilty, guilty, guilty, if I may say so myself. Again the cop pulls me over, this time a guy who looks to be in his 40’s. Again, stammer, fart, blab, a nervous chuckle trying to convince him how I am the stupid foreigner who couldn’t find his way out of a phone booth, let alone a city as big as this. Axl bails me out of this one. When he starts a conversation with the cop, the man softens, so apparently taken in by his charm. The bad guy (me) gets away again.

Let’s face it: for the most part, the police are only trying to do a job too. I have so little doubt, though, that there will be run-ins with the other half of them, the ones trying to do more than a job and will re-invent the rules to achieve their ends.

Stay tuned.

News And Thoughts

2011-03-28T16:07:00.001-04:00

This past month, sudden seismic activity caused a landslide in nearby Kupini that destroyed more than 500 homes. There are now campaigns all over the city to help these families, who suddenly find themselves without a home. Sad but true: when you look at all those beautiful mountains and cliffs, you know not everybody go completely unscathed, in particular those with homes on them.

On a brighter note, I watched a couple of youth groups perform some public dances at a public park near Calacoto last Saturday. There are dozens of these kids, simply armed with an old fashioned boom box and a dance instructor. What was really funny, though, was that there was a llama sitting in the middle of their group, as if he belonged there. Here are dozens of kids jumping up and down and dancing their hearts out while a llama sits among them, cool as a cucumber, not moving an eyelash.

A few weeks ago, the former anti-drug czar of Bolivia, meaning the man in charge of curbing drug trafficking, was arrested in Panama… by the Drug Enforcement Agency of the United States. The Bolivian government requested he be released so that he can stand trial in Bolivia. This is one of the few times I wish I could have been invisible so that I could have eavesdropped on that conversation. I just wish I could have heard the Americans laugh their heads off before telling the Bolivian delegation to take a hike. That said, the so-called War On Drugs is beginning to make Sesame Street look serious, that’s how ridiculous it’s become.

Just like we were the favorite address for the poor cholitas here during Christmas, now we are the favorite address for the all male dogs of the neighborhood. Our dog, Auntie Laverne, hasn’t been scheduled to be spayed until today. Whenever you open the front door when she was in heat, you could find a half a dozen dogs of all sizes eagerly wagging their tails, hoping for some action. No dice, pooches.

Coming to La Paz soon… Shakira! No, wait a minute, she’s only going to Santa Cruz. Most musicians need to save their lungs for sea level.

Following the most recent mudslides, entire neighborhoods have been without water. Incidentally the Spanish word for pump is bomba, which also means bomb. Nowadays it is not uncommon to have people call up mechanics, stating that they would like to have their bombs fixed.

It still blows my mind to watch people, grown people at that, enter a street without looking either way. La Paz must have hundreds of thousands of vehicles, but people still walk into the street here as if they had superpowers preventing automotive steel from making contact with human flesh. I wonder if it’s ever dawned on them that a one ton vehicle can and will flatten them like welcome mats. The same goes for people driving their cars into intersections, again without looking. A lot of people in La Paz are certainly vying for honorary Darwin Awards.

Titicaca II

2011-03-15T12:30:00.002-04:00

When we reach the Isla Del Sol, nobody from our cabins knows we were coming in advance (a weak telephone signal didn’t help either). The captain of the boat points up the hill where our huts are – predictably at the very top. From the docks where we are standing, we can tell it will be at least a one hour hike and all uphill, no less. There is no common path we can use, either, so it appears we will have to blaze our own trail to get there.

There is no sign of a road, a sidewalk or anything paved, so we strap our backpacks, hold on to the kids, and march off, hoping for the best. On the bright side, the rain has finally subsided, which means we will not have to negotiate slippery slopes on our way up in addition to hauling a ton of luggage and the kids. The downside is we will probably lose a couple of gallons of sweat by the time we make it up there.

We inch our way up, step by step, avoiding the wet grass whenever we can and using boulders and rocks to assist us in our ascent. Axl finally tires about a third way up, which means that I will have to schlep him as well. It doesn’t get any easier. We finally make it, and Axl rallies to lift himself up this mountain for a good part. Brave trooper, I’d say.

When we check in at the lobby, I have pina (pineapple) tea and admire the splendid view of the lake. Our little cabin is primitive, has a room to accommodate all four of us, but looking out the window is dreamlike – there is lake and green mountains everywhere. In the distance, the shore of Peru beckons. The rain starts up again, yet it is so fitting to this place that I can’t really complain about the weather. After our murder hike we all rest. There will be time to check out the village later.

When we hike through the village with the boys in tow, it becomes obvious that this society is clearly agriculture based. We find a farm with numerous animals crammed together. There are llamas, pigs, and sheep, all sharing just a few square meters of living space. It hardly looks humane, although the vast green spaces of the mountain indicate that that is where they graze once they are taken out. When I take a photo of the llamas, a girl no older than six tries to shake me down, asking me to pay for the picture I just made. I apologize, stating I have no money on me, which is actually the truth. Aside from that, I wouldn’t have paid her. Just as easily she could have asked me for money to take a snapshot of the sky.

We wade through ankle deep mud, trying to facilitate our path with stones whenever we can. We hike up to the highest point of the village, the football field. From here, it is a gorgeous sight of the lake. Of course, the boys up here know this like I know my own shoes and simply play football. Here being the next Messi or Ronaldinho has priority over some stinking picture perfect landscape that they know by heart. The kids not playing football have large water guns with them, and this is where I realize that we, the dumb foreigners, have walked into an ambush. During carnival, everybody is fair game, which goes DOUBLE for white clueless foreigners. We inch ourselves closer to the exit, I kick the ball a few times, the boys charm the water gunmen just enough for them to hold their fire, or their water. We come out unscathed.

For dinner we have the finest and freshest trout ever served. A few families I hadn’t seen before join us in the dining room. The owners – all local – have warmed the place the old fashioned way, with firewood. I appreciate that, knowing it will be brass monkey cold that night. The rain is pounding the place again, and we hear it hammer the straw thatched roof at night.

When we leave the next morning, we arrange for donkeys to at least carry our bags to the boat. We will have to hike for a good hour to the docks, although this should be easier, as the locals have pointed out a hard trail we can use. The rain has been pouring for twenty straight hours, meaning the hike will be done in the rain, with complaining kids, no doubt. I carry Axl most of the way, hanging onto him for dear life as I navigate the slippery path leading down to the docks. It seems to take forever and we are thoroughly drenched by the time we get there. The boys’ clothes need to be changed.

Later we learn there is no donkey that took our bags but an old sixty year old cholita who managed to carry all of our bags by herself. Not only that, but she arrives only minutes after Liebi reaches the dock, an incredible athletic feat by anybody’s standard, even more so by a sixty year old cholita. Later in Cpacabana, we visit the Basilica, which is unique, unlike any church I have ever seen, but then again most of them are here.

The last 24 hours packed a lot of punch. That's okay, because we know we will be back.

Titicaca

2011-03-09T14:57:00.002-05:00

The long Carnival weekend gives us the rare opportunity to pack our suitcases, strap the boys into their child seats, fill up the Pilot, and leave La Paz. Our destination: Lake Titicaca, the highest navigable body of water in the world, and a jewel of a tourist destination that Bolivia shares with neighboring Peru. We head north early in the morning.

We drive a good two hours until we leave the highway. From there it’s a curvy and winding road snaking through the hills. This means I need to slow down. I remember the boys getting sick several times on our last trip to Chile, so I will have to be sensible and drive the Pilot the way I would a limo. The rain hasn’t stopped since early in the morning. It looks like a wet weekend.

At Tiquina, we must take a ferry to cross a thin strip of lake no more than a kilometer wide, if that. The ferries themselves are equipped with 55 hp engines that will power these ancient looking wooden slabs plus their heavy cargo across the strait. There are two cars per ferry, each vessel manned by a group of two. I pay the thirty-five Bolivianos fare to a teenage kid steering the ferry. Liebi and the boys must take a separate passenger ship owing to weight concerns. I spot a ferry carrying a huge tour bus. The ferries themselves look like they’ve been used centuries ago to haul livestock. I am on my own and take the time to admire the sparkling lake wrapped around the bases of lush green mountains. The ferry ride takes at least a half hour.

On the other side, Liebi and the boys hop back in and we head toward Copacabana, a resort town resting on the main body of Lake Titicaca and a beehive of activity when compared with the village of Tiquina. The road on this peninsula is similar to what we witnessed on the mainland, except that the peninsula is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We drive through rolling green hills with lake views that remind me of our trip to Ireland only three years ago. The main difference, of course, is that these rolling hills are two and a half miles high. We spot shepherds leading their flocks up a mountain. Everywhere there are little waterfalls cascading into the green grass, their water as fresh as if tapped from a source. The rain still has not stopped, but this only adds to the charm of the place. I picture families sitting in their mud huts dotting the countryside, no doubt enjoying the fire and probably a good cup of coca tea.

I continue to drive slowly. It’s a good decision, as I hear the boys horsing around with each other. We approach Copacabana, the idyllic small town by the lake. We park our car at a nearby hotel since we won’t need it anymore. From here on out, it will be boats and shoes.

We board a little boat and are seated in front to avoid the gas fumes coming from the back. The front of the boat is adorned with a hand painted map of the islands of Titicaca as well as a woolen chain of little bells and cholita dolls, handcrafted, of course. Bash cares little for its artistry and manages to yank the chain off the wall.

From Copacabana, we take the boat for one and a half hours to our ultimate destination, the Isla Del Sol, the Island of the Sun, where the Inca Sun God was born, as legend has it. The rain continues to pound the lake, the sky is an ominous grey, and yet I can’t imagine this place to be any sweeter under the sun. The Isla Del Sol coming up will prove to have its own set of challenges once we disembark.

Valley Of The Moons

2011-02-25T12:11:00.001-05:00

A few miles outside of La Paz is the Valley Of The Moons, a landscape riddled with large sandstone formations, shaped over thousands of years by different forces, mainly the wind. If I said that La Paz was like living in the Grand Canyon, then the Valley Of The Moons is Bryce Canyon in Utah. It is a wonderful walk and good for hikers, not to mention a great opportunity for a picnic.

The drive up there is unique in itself. You leave Calacotto and follow the river along the red mountains. From there it is a steady climb up to the Valle De La Luna, and there will be plenty of the Andes’ peaks on the way to admire. I watch a group of High Schoolers run down the mountain, which makes me smile. They better save their breath, I am thinking, unless they want to take a taxi back up there. Meanwhile, the red mountains on the other side of the river multiply the further we climb. The mountains are red with green tufts of trees and a blue background, courtesy of the clear sky today. Every look outside of the window is a photo opportunity, every picture I mentally snap a postcard.

We park the car between rows of stones that are masquerading as parking lots. The entrance to the Valley Of The Moons is a whopping three Bolivianos per person, less than fifty cents. Well worth it, I’d say. Inside, the first (and last, as it turns out) merchant solicits us with handcrafted flutes that he plays for us. Since our kids already have an entire orchestra worth of instruments, we pass. Time to literally take a hike.

Almost every stone monolith with distinct features has a name. One rock formation might look like a cholita’s hat, for example, and will be named accordingly. Another looks like a cloud, another like a particular instrument. There are no railings along the paths which means one misstep will land you in deep crevices twenty or thirty feet deep. This is not the place to walk too hastily. Better to enjoy the views and watch your step than have somebody pull you out of a hole with a rope.

Alain, our French friend, must have snapped a few rolls worth of film by the time we’ve completed the hike. Not hard to do. From one point you can snap pictures of La Paz in the distance, from another a dried out canyon where a river used to be. Add the various rock formations that almost assume human forms, and you might have yourself a complete album by the time you’re done.

We stop at the shop, where Alain buys a handcrafted woolen hat to protect himself from the sun. On the counter of the shop I can still see miniature wooden models of houses, suitcases of money, and chickens, all remnants from the Alasita festival.

A wonderful day, for certain, and another reminder of how La Paz is half city, half national park. Hard to imagine that we’ve only scratched the surface of the various possibilities La Paz and Bolivia have to offer. Next week is carnival and a four day weekend, meaning our next chance won’t be too far away.

The Middle East, Remembered

2011-02-15T15:52:00.002-05:00

These past three weeks have seen unprecedented unrest in the Middle East, and for the first time I am beginning to think that people there are beginning to understand what has held them back for so long. This is history at its best in the making. The Arabs too, deserve a fair deal, and it’s beginning to dawn on them what must be done to achieve just that.

So far, the ‘chiefs’ (they are not Presidents or Prime Ministers any more than I am an alien from Vulcan) running the Arab countries have managed to paint the boogie man for their people, a target to direct their misguided animosity against, the non-plus-ultra enemy if there ever was one - Israel, naturally. Of course this tactic often belied the fact that the chiefs were stealing from the tribe, millions and billions worth of dollars.

I have been fortunate enough to have lived in two of these nations, Morocco and Jordan. I have accepted the warm hospitality of each of these countries and also gained a rare insight into what might be plaguing them. The fact is, the Middle East is tired of faceless (and usually wealthy) leaders ruling over them with an iron fist while serving the elite and their own pocketbooks. They have long ago grown weary of watching these kings and presidents enrich themselves while the nation’s youth remains disenfranchised and without a voice. These kids, a large part of them very well educated, spit on the tradition that dictates they need to live at home with their parents while being un- or underemployed. They sneer at the thought of their chiefs using patriotism and religion as a convenient cover for plundering their countries while refusing them, the sons and daughters of the nation, a fair shake. They detest the very fact that they must leave their homes to have a chance at work and to be able to afford a family.

Well no more.

The message Tunisia (and then Egypt in a more poignant fashion) have sent to the world is loud and clear: give us our country back. Give us our share of it. Give us a chance to determine our future, free of the shackles of phony traditions and phony enemies. This is not to say that some whackjob (see Iran) might not rise up and threaten to ring in Armageddon against Israel sooner that various scriptures have planned, but the good thing is clearly that these countries are beginning to see who their real, immediate enemies are, and they are usually the ones right in their midst, in their nation’s capital, working at nothing but maintaining the status quo.

And this is only the beginning. The rest of the Middle East better hold on to their hats, because they will be in for a wide ride. No more business as usual. They have now been unmasked for the fakes they are.

The Moroccans and Jordanians that I know living abroad couldn’t be more happier, I am sure. It appears as if their time has finally arrived. Good for them.

Alasita and Water Bombs

2011-01-31T07:03:00.002-05:00

Last Monday marked the beginning of Alasita, the festival of ‘abundance’ in Bolivia.

Alasita is similar to Christmas in many ways, the only difference being that the gifts you buy are – literally – one hundredth of their actual size. In La Paz, people pack the streets and markets to buy anything and everything in miniature: cars, houses, shops, money, mobil phones, computers, you name it. Owning these things in miniature supposedly expresses the people’s dreams of actually owning them one day. Originally this was a festival celebrated by the farmers who were praying for good crops.

Of course there couldn’t possibly be a holiday without the contribution of certain Gods. The first one to pray to is Ekeko, God of wealth in the old Andean civilization. Supposedly he is to turn your dreams into reality, meaning that miniature house or that airplane ticket you’ve been given needs to become real, but can’t be accomplished by mere mortals. People will usually take these miniature gifts and pin them to the poncho of the God Ekeko, which is left in your home throughout the year, kind of like a mini altar. When they pin these items on Ekeko, they usually light a cigarette and put it in his mouth. They actually then pray to him as he smokes! It is also vital to pay homage to the Mother Land and pray for mercy from the catholic saints, most notably the Virgin of La Paz.

The most popular items this year have been mini bags of sugar (there is a sugar shortage in Bolivia) and mini bags of cement (for construction). What do you buy if you need a partner? Women buy roosters, men buy hens. Owls need to be purchased if you merely seek something as banal as wisdom.

It is surprising that such a materialistic holiday would be connected with any deities, but it doesn’t end there. After acquiring your gifts, you need to have them blessed by a local shaman.

Then there is the Bolivian carnival coming up in a few weeks. You will know it’s about that time of the year when people – mostly youths – line up on each side of the street and battle each other with water balloons. It is a bad idea to be by yourself, because then you will become an easy victim. Mostly young women are easy money for these boys with bombs. Foreigners are not immune either: I ought to know – when I did my run last week, I got nailed in a drive-by. A water balloon hit me flush in the side of the head. Again, one shouldn’t walk (or run) alone, at least not unarmed.

Although the Bolivia carnival is not as well knows as its counterpart in Brazil, it’s a wonderful opportunity to take a few days off, perform the local dances, and shut off traffic in the entire city. Women then wear high boots and miniature skirts that would seem scandalous in other parts of the world. Other people dress up as devils or other ancient creatures to help form the parade.

The parades come later. For now, we must survive the bombs.

Teach Your Parents Well

2011-01-18T11:32:00.003-05:00

When I look back over the years, I can say that I have had an outstanding education, for the most part. Though I would badmouth school as a teen like anybody else and openly question and criticize the curriculum when I was a student, I have to admit that the authorities in the end got it right. Today I am convinced that I was adequately prepared for adulthood and equipped with a formidable arsenal of knowledge.

I have always believed that it would always be the adults passing on their knowledge, the proverbial passing of the torch from one generation to the next. Today, I am not so sure anymore. Today, it looks like there will be no handing it over. These kids will grab it without a please or thank you.

Let’s not kid ourselves here: the difference in our lives today will still be people, whether you are a rocket scientist or a homeless person living in a shelter. That’s what being a human being entails. But then there are the technological skills that suggest that we are not too far from having a ten year old teaching a seminar on how to handle an ipad.

My oldest son Axl is truly amazing, and from what I can tell, he will only learn more as he gets older. This started last year when I bought an iphone for Christmas. Some people I know won’t bother with an iphone. For the longest time I was frustrated with the thing. Completely forgotten amidst all these new applications and user friendly installations that could adequately support the modern life on the go was the fact that I couldn’t use the actual phone itself. A friend of mine in Jordan likes to tell the story about how he went shopping in a Nokia store and asked for a cell phone. The kid serving him had no idea what he was talking about and offered him internet, global navigation, and the stock market, all at one low monthly fee. No, my buddy insisted, you don’t understand. I just want a phone.

Back to the next generation: my three year old has already taught me things on my ipad that I never knew existed. Heard about the Wikileaks story? How hundreds of teenagers came to the aid of jailed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange? Here our governments thought, no problem, we’ll freeze his bank accounts, arraign him on various charges, and keep him quiet. How did the world’s youth respond? How about by hacking into dozens of government and business websites, those who had blacklisted Assange? The security of these websites is controlled by executives making six to seven digit salaries and have gone to school for years to prevent cyber attacks. I think the message came through loud and clear. Even various diplomas and years of experience couldn’t keep (hundreds of) kids from easily hacking into their websites. And I can almost guarantee that none of those teenagers had an ipad when they were toddlers. What do you think this next generation (including Axl) of tech wiz kids will look like? Child labor might just become legal, and NASA and the NSA might start hiring junior high schoolers.

Today, authorities will have to communicate more with our youth rather than just demand blind obedience and impose their will on them. It used to be easy to mete out punishment to youngsters back in the day. Ground him, make an example of him, suspend him from school? Today, that might not be so easy, because that same kid you punish today might knock out your website and deplete all of your bank accounts tomorrow.

Often I can see Axl hammering away at that ipad as if he had invented it. His little fingers work quickly. He will go from music to game to e-book to dozens of other applications I have never seen. It looks like I might be teaching him some things, but technology won’t be one of them. Scary? No, because he will have to be self sufficient in our knowledge driven world, so it’s par for the course. There are millions of kids like him who will have the same skills, and it will be us, the parents, kindly asking these kids later how to pull up information, how to perfect this photo we just shot, how to make transactions we used to think could only be done by snail mail. That is today’s reality. Since the quality of life is already decreasing and the dog eat dog mentality increasing with each decade, I don’t feel sorry for my generation one bit.

We have left our kids quite a mess through various questionable and self-serving decisions we have made politically, economically, and morally. It is only fair that they shape their own agenda. They are well on their way to doing just that, besides letting their own skills re-define the agenda. Good for them.

Random Observations

2011-01-10T08:15:00.002-05:00

-It took President Morales all of one day to discover that removing gas subsidies would not only spell the end of his political career but very likely the end of the country’s life. Can you imagine what would happen if Obama announced from one day to the next that all gas and oil subsidies would be gone in the U.S.? Can you spell depression?

-The rainy season started in December, now comes the brunt of it in January and February, at the tune of 4-5 inches per month. Businesses are already bracing themselves for workers’ days lost due to massive flooding.

-Bolivia has the hottest 75 degree days I have ever known anywhere. The hottest day on record is something like 81 degrees. Don’t let that fool you should you ever visit this fine place. I guess it does make a difference if you are two miles closer to the sun. You need lotion here or you will burn, especially if you have white skin. We have all learned that the hard way.

-When I was shopping at Qetal Supermarket last week, the only German wine I happened to find was a Junge Franken white wine, aka as a Bocksbeutel – from Kitzingen, my hometown, would you believe it. It doesn’t matter how much you travel throughout this world, you will be reminded time and again of how small it really is.

-I still don’t understand the function of cholitas’ hats. It can’t be for protection against the sun, nor can it be for warmth, being that it doesn’t reach around the forehead. I guess it’s just for fashion. To view a cholita hat, go to this link:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39682981@N00/433869730

-I bought a red radio flyer wagon for the boys for Christmas. Whenever people see me pulling them on the sidewalk, the cars stop dead in their tracks. It could very well be that none of them have ever seen a red wagon before, although Liebi suggests that it’s the boys in the wagon really catching their attention.

-There are plenty of restaurants here that offer lama meat. I haven’t had the stomach (literally) to order it yet, although I suspect I will soon.

-The other day I nearly ran over a priest in my neighborhood. Though the guy was a little startled, he nonetheless gave me absolution, drawing a sign of the cross in the air from the middle of the road where he was standing. Bless his heart.

-I have a new dance called the ‘Pooch Stomp’. I do this dance whenever I go running and stray wannabe alpha dogs try to attack me. Shoe to the head.

-During Christmas I purchased different items to give away to the poor. I stuffed each bag with a bag of rice, a bag of dried beans, a can of sardines, an a powdered drink mix containing Vitamin C. Word of mouth spread quickly in our neighborhood, and we had cholitas line up here as if this were a soup kitchen. After a while I made it a policy to only give to women. Children were routinely turned away and asked to come back with their mothers.

No Peace in La Paz

2010-12-31T08:35:00.002-05:00

Another title for this column would be ‘Kathmandu And the Bhands: Revisited’.

Over night, fuel prices virtually doubled on an executive order by President Evo Morales, thus ending our stay in this Andean nation without any violent incidents. There’s also a good chance that the protests that started a few days ago won’t end anytime soon.

So far, the nationalization of gas prices has benefited everybody, but us in particular. At fifty cents a liter, we could pork away and buy a Hummer, if need be (never going to happen). Filling our tank would cost us thirty dollars, a steal, although we rarely drive here. The raise in fuel prices will have all sorts of ramifications.

One, higher fuel prices translate to, right, higher transport costs (busses, taxis) and consequently higher food prices (diesel prices went up even more; truck drivers can’t be too happy about that). Businesses immediately compensated by raising workers’ salaries, which we will have to do as well. Our domestic staff has to travel far to get here, and to carry the additional burden of a double fare each way would be asking too much.

Yesterday, there were marches (dubbed the ‘gasolinazos’) in La Paz that started peacefully, but eventually turned violent when they reached the main plaza (which I just wrote about one post ago). Clashes with the police became inevitable, tear gas was used, and the crowd dispersed. In nearby El Alto, a half a mile higher from us and the location of the airport, demonstrators set cars on fire as well as toll booths. A Venezuelan flag, for what it’s worth, was burned. This refers to the president’s friendships with one of South America’s most famous bêtes noirs, Hugo Chavez.

There were violent clashes between union and anti-union public transportation workers. Throughout the city, non-union vehicles were stopped at intersections and their drivers pulled out and dragged through the streets. More than a dozen police officers were hurt and black smoke could be seen throughout the city, usually tire fires.

What does this mean for populist Evo Morales? The most unpopular move of his presidency, for sure. For the past six years, fuel prices have been frozen, but now Bolivia can no longer afford to subsidize them, so Morales. Of course, smuggling the cheapest gas in South America across the border didn’t help, either.

Personally, we can’t complain here. The three and a half dollars per gallon we will pay is still on par with what American consumers pay and far less than Europeans. But that changes life quite a bit for Bolivians here. How do they make up for the rising costs? People so far have gotten by just fine here, but now their living conditions have changed overnight.

To quote John Fogerty, I see a bad moon risin’.

You Can Always Go… Downtown

2010-12-24T09:38:00.002-05:00

On a weekend Niko, my friend and Spanish teacher, takes me on a guided tour of downtown La Paz, a healthy distance (at least 10 miles) from where I live. We share a taxi with three other passengers (two in front, three in back) at 3 Bolivianos a head (about 40 cents) and wing it into Centro, downtown.

The high altitude of La Paz naturally implies that there will be many hills and that most places in the city will be as level as a slide. It is easily one of the best ‘walking’ cities I have ever been to. There are wide sidewalks everywhere (good idea; no, Kathmandu?), a hundred stairs to climb to get to one neighborhood, a hidden copplestoned alley to get to another.

We are dropped of at Central Plaza, where the government is located, next to the Catedral de La Paz. I stare at the town hall, see numerous police cars and firetrucks. Whoa, I’m thinking. These people are serious. We stop at the Palacio Quemado, the Bolivian Palace of Government, which has also been named the ‘Burned Palace’ after it was almost completely razed to the ground following an uprising 150 years ago. I witness the changing of the guard and marvel at the soldiers’ uniforms. They look like toy soldiers, no doubt donning old uniforms they must have worn a century ago. Old fashioned red coats, the square backpack, the cylindrical hats that remind me of the headgear of Union Soldiers during the US Civil War – even the old rifle (probably a Mauser) comes equipped with a bayonet.

Next comes the Catedral de La Paz, the seat of the archbishop of La Paz. It is anything you would expect in a European cathedral (I’ll explain later) - two rectangular towers proudly facing the plaza with a dome in back, inside sparse furnishings and elaborately colored tinted windows. There’s mold in many parts of the church, which is a little troublesome. When we exit the church, the plaza is entirely covered by pigeons (who even swarm over every inch of the statues), and I’m thinking I might be in some Italian or Spanish city, that’s the feel of it.

We take the pedestrian zone up a steep incline (repeat: a great place for walking) and stop at one of the oldest souvenirs left by the Spanish, which is the copplestoned pedestrian walk of Calle Jaen, a place people say to this day is haunted. Frequently people still hear horse carriages rattling through Calle Jaen at night, as if the Spanish conquistadores haven’t quite left yet. When we get to the top of the street, there is an army battalion marching through the street in rows of six, each of the soldiers donning their old fashioned red uniforms.

We walk through a series of alleys and backways featuring various markets to get to the most famous church in La Paz, San Francisco. The moment we walk inside it becomes obvious to me that this church doesn’t look anything like the Catedral. The single tower outside suggests something a little more economical, but inside I can see that they have used every inch. There are glass encasings everywhere, holding everything from the Virgin Mary of Guadalupe to the baby Jesus. In anticipation of the Christmas festivities, children are building a model city of Bethlehem near the altar. San Francisco is, literally, a colorful place with hundreds of icons everywhere, a church you would find in Latin America, and only in Latin America.

Up another series of uphill sidewalks, we duck into a sidestreet, and hail a cab to get back home. Niko and I share a bottle of water and laugh at our good fortune. The main drag through downtown is completely crowded while we swiftly make it through Obrajes and from there to the Zona Del Sur. A great day in a great place indeed.

Fallen Angel

2010-12-17T15:06:00.000-05:00

There are always certain milestones you brace yourselves for as parents. When your kid finally walks, speaks his first words, gives you his first kiss, goes to school.

And now, after three and a half years, Liebi and I were finally going to be treated to Axl’s first show at his school. This was going to be a Christmas show, and we were instructed to have him ready, bright and early on Thursday, in the costume of an angel. This had always been Liebi’s secret ambition, to see Axl as an angel. With his pale complexion and goldilocks, that’s not so hard to imagine, but heck, here was her chance to see just that. Liebi, of course, took a few days to handcraft the costume herself, creating the wings, the gown, the halo, the whole nine.

Before we got here we’d always thought of Axl as being a sweet little kid, albeit a little shy. So the question here was, would he perform with the other kids? Would he act up? Would he ditch everything altogether once he saw his parents in the audience?

The school itself put up large tent-like structures, knowing the sun would be beating down on the parents and grandparents who were coming out to watch their little angels perform. As it turned out, there wasn’t nearly enough room for the entire audience, so that half of the guests needed to seek independent means of shelter from the sun. Remember, December is considered summer here in Bolivia, and with the sun beating down the way it has, there’s no doubt that winter is still quite a ways off.

The show finally was kicked off with the kids who were leaving the school, or ‘graduating’, if you will. About half a dozen kids clad in graduation garb, complete with gown and cap, were introduced and each given a round of applause.

Finally it was time for the main act, the dance of the angels. The kids, all dressed in angel costumes, were marched out to the center stage, where they would then perform a choreographed dance, naturally to Christmas music. I snuck off to a corner, hoping Axl wouldn’t spot me and then ditch the dance altogether.

The first songs played, and the kids twisted and air-guitared their way through pre-arranged Christmas tunes, their parents filming and shooting photos throughout.

After song two Axl decided to rebel and took off his angel costume. Can’t say I could blame him. The kids had no place to go and the sun was scorching on them mercilessly. What followed then even made me chuckle. When he tossed his costume on the floor, he went to the center of the stage, to the very front. Clearly, he decided, the chorus line was not for him. Here he would do his own show for the grown-ups, pausing to wave hello and his parents without wishing to leave the stage.

We’d been wrong all along. No way was Axl coming off that stage without his saying so. A nice little Christmas gift. As the only white boy and non native Spanish speaker at his school, it is safe to assume he has finally arrived.

The Art of Manana

2010-12-07T18:23:00.001-05:00

Wherever I’ve been in the world, I have always discovered there are different reasons why certain things don’t get done.

In the west, you a) either blame other people or b) give a long list of complex circumstances that prevented you from getting the job done (translated this means excuses) or c) you prove to be a mensch and owe up to the fact that you couldn’t get the job done, which, of course, is the rarest of these three scenarios.

Last week in an American football match, a match was tied in sudden death overtime (meaning the first score wins) when a wide receiver broke loose from the secondary and was all by himself in the end zone, the ball a perfect spiral floating his way. For inexplicable reasons, the ball went through his hands. What should have been an easy touchdown and a sure game winner was a simple incomplete pass and, as Murphy’s Law can tell you, things only got worse from there. The other team got the ball back, scored, and won the game. Asked what happened in a post-match press conference, the wide receiver blamed GOD. That’s right, not himself, not the ball, not the opponent’s defensive coverage, not his quarterback, his new gloves, or the sun that might have burned his little toe. It had to be God.

Arabs, of course, know a thing or two about divine intervention, or the lack thereof. In the Arabic world, the key word is inshallah, meaning ‘God willing’. If you say that you will see a guy tomorrow, the answer will be inshallah. If you have planned a project and set a tentative deadline, the consensus will be inshallah, rather than a nod of the head or a simple okay. Inshallah might just be my least favorite expression in the world because, as I have learned, more than often God is not willing. Even worse than blaming a failure on other people is blaming a failure on God.

In Nepal, you could propose a plan and people would bob their heads to the side, a sign for vacillation in the west, meaning you are not sure. Turns out in Nepal that actually means ‘yes’, although from the gesture you will swear up and down that this guy is everything except positive. In lieu of the bobbing head doll, you will get a ‘next week’. Don’t be fooled by that either. By next week, it is very likely the other guy (and you, for that matter) will have forgotten all about your little arrangement.

Which leads us here to South America. Here it is manana, with a little wavy hyphen over the first n, pronounced ‘manyana’. If people come ill prepared for a certain task it will be ‘manana’ this or ‘manana’ that. The other week when an appliance couldn’t be fixed in a timely manner, the worker just shook his head and told me he didn’t have the part. Let me guess, I said with a tint of sarcasm, you will have it manana? Correct, he said.

When I was a Peace Corps Volunteer, I learned that having everything right then and now is not necessarily good for your health, physically, mentally, or otherwise (I could have added spiritually, but then I would have to mention inshallah again). As a volunteer, the instructors said, be prepared to be more and do less. There’s nothing wrong with that per se. That seems to be the modus operandi everywhere in the world. Sometimes I mind it, sometimes I don’t. It’s all a question of how your mind is geared. Just be prepared for the proverbial New York minute to last a La Paz day or a Morocco week, for example.

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

2010-11-24T17:03:00.002-05:00

For everything Bolivia and the rest of South America have to offer from a standpoint of cultural diversity, I never forget that this is also the place where my family grows together more, where my kids are growing a little more each day, and where they finally start interacting together.

This weekend was supposed to be something special. Liebi decided to make the first batch of Christmas cookies, and she would have the boys help them. So she created the dough, broke out the cookie cutters, and got to work. I had especially created two Christmas CD’s, because I am a sucker for Christmas music, in particular carols by choirs (I used to sing in one myself as a kid) and classic popular tunes by stars like Sinatra, Dean Martin, Jimmy Durante, or the Andrews Sisters. A perfect stage, perfect music, and the perfect setting, right?

Cookie cutters are popular to little kids from an early age, at least from the first time they come in contact with playdough. My kids are no different, and they frothed at the mouth at this prospect of playfun with their mother and the fact they were making cookies, a word even my youngest one knows.

Each boy was equipped with a couple of cookie cutters and a generous ball of dough which would keep them occupied for a while and enable them to make many cookies indeed. They were each seated in their own chair and seemed pleased as punch to be there. Being the doting father that I am, I ran upstairs to get the camera. When I got there, I noticed the battery needed more juice. This lack of preparation would prove to be costly. I needed to wait for a few minutes.

Meanwhile, the boys were eagerly at work pressing the cutters into the dough and were visibly thrilled by the results. Liebi then handed Axl a red lollipop, and with that disaster struck. Baby Bash, of course, didn’t wish to be slighted and held out his hand for a lolly of his own. Liebi offered him a green one, then an orange one, but to no avail. Bash had to have the darn red one. Titanic, meet the iceberg.

Axl, of course, refused to fork it over. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise, being that red things are the ‘it’ thing for kids, kind of the equivalent of red sports cars for the man dealing with the inevitable midlife crisis. What made this episode annoying is that Axl wasn’t even eating the lolly, not even touching it. Perhaps he was using it as a microphone, we will never know.

Being no shrinking violet, Bash now decided he would have to fight for what he believed was rightfully his and reached over in an attempt to grab it. Axl immediately decided there was one thing to do to protect his treasure: run.

Quicker than a kid devouring a cookie, the boys were out of their chairs and the race was on. Axl hurried to the living room and Bash, though two years younger and with smaller and skinnier legs, tracked him down in no time. Where is the last resort for little kids to go to when they feel there is no way out? Yep, the mother, and Axl hightailed it back to the kitchen. Surprisingly, Bash was quickly on his tail and cornered him next to the fridge, where he wrestled his big brother for the lolly. The two had to be separated, because Bash wouldn’t let him go. To make matters worse, the crying and screaming was accompanied by the wailing of the cat, who can’t stand anything less than a peaceful household and will have her say when this is not the case.

Baby Bash was inconsolable. It was going to be the red lolly or bust. Eventually he did get the lolly (after Axl decided he had no further use for it), licked it a few times, and then threw it on the floor, smashing it to bits. Thus the biggest fight in the short history of the brothers ended.

Not quite. Not without a little instigation by the big brother. A few days later, the boys were summoned to cut the next batch of cookies. Axl’s first question when he took the chair was, “Can I have a red lolly?”

Chile Pill, Part III

2010-11-19T12:31:00.002-05:00

A Volcano and Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid

The day before we leave Arica, we need to stock up on our shopping. There is no particular reason for this - conceivably, La Paz’s stores have plenty to offer. I guess more than anything it’s the novelty factor, that whatever you can get here, you probably won’t get elsewhere, unless it’s McDonald’s or Blockbuster.

We ask for a grocery store, and an inhabitant says ‘Lidl! Lidl! Muy, muy grande!’ Now I know Lidl very, very well, being from Germany and all. I know it certainly is a nice little grocery store, but big? Not unless the average size of a shop in Arica is that of a phone booth. But then again I am thinking, why not? Lidl has always had good stuff. I remember Ireland three years ago, and the Emerald Isle was full of them! I never thought Lidl would make it to South America, at least not this fast, but that’s global capitalism for you, as McDonald’s and Blockbuster can attest.

Of course we can’t find the damn thing and we have to ask for directions again. Just to be on the safe side, we ask again where one might find a supermarket. The Chileans won’t give in. ‘Lidl! Lidl! Muy grande!’ Lidl it is, then. Maybe they’ll even have the German yogurt gums I am so fond of. When we finally do find the place, it turns out that ‘Lidl’ is actually ‘Lider’ and indeed very, very big. We spend all of our money, let the boys take a few rides on a toy rocket and a tractor outside, then head back for the hotel.

At a traffic stop, Liebi is startled by the sudden appearance of… a mime. This guy came from out of nowhere. Of course, if I were a mime hater I wouldn’t think twice about stepping on the rubber and see how well our mime can imitate a road kill, but instead he does his spiel, we drop a few coins in his hat, and are on our way.

The trip back is absolutely gorgeous. Now that we have a little more time (the Hollys left the day before we did), we can enjoy the scenery a little more. We take the obligatory break at the border station, which, at 4,660 meters, must be the highest in the world. Imagine, just a little more than 100 meters and you’re on the Montblanc, the Alps’ highest peak. The border station itself is near Chungura Lake and the volcano Sajama. Here is a fine picture I found:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Chungara_Lake_and_Volcan_Sajama_Chile_Luca_Galuzzi_2006.jpg

You have to see it to believe it, that’s how gorgeous the place is. The place is teeming with wildlife. Lamas, flamingoes, the long necked deer as pictured (I still don’t know their real name) - they graze on green grass with crystal blue water in the background. This must be the place if you’re an animal in South America.

For some reason, it takes us less time to travel back to La Paz (about 7 hours), even with the steady climb from sea level, but we don’t complain. We even take rest stops along the way (the boys get sick again), and you can’t help but marvel at the wild west scenery. It’s as if at any moment you expect a lonely rider or cowboys herding their cattle to pop out of the canyons at any moment.

Supposedly this is the land where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kicked the bucket in their duel with the federales, although that still remains unproven. What we do know is that they spent a considerable time in Bolivia after the ground became too hot for them in the States, and it’s easy to see how they could have fit in here.

La Paz greets us with… rain and hail! Hail clumps the size of ping pong balls pelt our car and Liebi swears up and down that this isn’t hail but snow. I pick up a handful when we get out of the car and, sure enough, my fingers pack the snow into a tight little ball. Our lawn is full of white hail when we get home, and there are tracks of the dog and the cat running in circles.

How’s that for a vacation? Sun and beach in the morning followed by snow, rain, and hail in the evening. Nice trip. We have no doubt there will be some awesome encores here in South America.

Chile Pill, Part II

2010-11-18T11:45:00.002-05:00

Arica

The next day I go for a run in the morning along the beach. I noticed the evening before that there are hundreds of runners here, whether they use the beach or the promenade. For obvious reasons I use the promenade, knowing it will guarantee a quicker run and enable me to cover more ground. I intend to jog north up the coast for as long as I can.

I have to wonder about the name, 'Arica'. Like 'Eureka', Greek for 'I have found it' the way California did? Maybe it's supposed to be Africa, but somebody dropped the 'f' along the way?

One myth is quickly put to rest: that I will feel a lot better once I reach sea level and run accordingly. Not so. I have already become acclimatized to the high altitude, and something tells me it will be a while before I can fully enjoy the sea breeze coming off the Pacific.

For now I do, and there’s nothing more splendid than running with the beach on one side and the mountains on the other. I immediately pass a pier that is primarily used by fishermen. It is a rickety looking structure with holes in the floorboard and few railings that can prevent the fishermen from plunging into the surf below. The road next to the beach seems endless and level, the casual runner’s dream. Although I don’t mind uphills, there are plenty of those in La Paz - there’s no such thing as a run without a hill there.

I also quickly realize that there are plenty of crosses to go around on this supposedly wide and straight road as well. How can that be possible? Did people get blitzed on their way to or from the beach? Do people have licenses here? Then it dawns on me that those may not necessarily be dedicated to drivers, these crosses and shrines, but very likely to swimmers. That said, there are still way too many crosses on the other side of the beach road for this to be true.

I see a beached seal on the sand to my left. Seal, hmmm, means there must be killer whales, sharks, or both out there. A simple deduction from the years I lived in California.

A few miles later I run into the police academy. What a dream it must be for them to be trained on the beach like that with consistent good weather. Then again, recalling California, that is not necessarily true, as hundreds of thousands of Marines who went to Camp Pendleton will confirm.

Civilization stops altogether after the Police Academy, so that there is nothing but an empty beach on the left (with bigger waves now) and assorted shanties on the right. This is no man’s land, and I can imagine there’s plenty of this in a country with a coastline as long as Chile’s and a population so relatively sparse. Hundreds of black feathered red-beaked condors circle around the beach, probably hoping I’ll drop from exhaustion.

Arica at first looks like a town in the dumps, or as some British merchant put it in the 19th Century “a comfortless, empty place”, although I am sure that Tommy Boy has neither seen the beach or the modern town square around here. The town square itself is a modern pedestrian zone four blocks deep that you won’t find anywhere in the U.S. outside of a shopping mall. And yet the U.S. makes its presence felt: besides the obligatory McDonald's, there’s a Blockbuster Video.

But the jewel of the town is still clearly the beach. It only gets more gorgeous the further you head out of town. The waves get bigger, the beach-goers sparser, the terrain greener. I can't help but stop and gaze.

Chile Pill, Part I

2010-11-16T08:47:00.007-05:00

Back To Sea Level

It is late Thursday night, November 11, which means that by tradition Fasching has started in Germany thousands of miles and seven time zones away. I am sitting on a seventh floor balcony of a beachfront hotel in Arica, Chile, sipping a Pacena (Bolivian beer) and enjoying the waves, the ignorant white armies clashing by night here on Arica Beach, the west coast of South America. To the right of us is the pier jutting out into the cold Pacific. If I were to throw my beer can, then it would probably land on the beach promenade which stretches for miles in either direction. The picture here is one of utter bliss, although we had to go through hell to get there.

This morning we leave La Paz at around ten a.m. with the Hollys, friends of ours here, and head towards Chile, our first trip here after more than two months of living at almost 12,000 feet altitude. Our destination is the beach. Supposedly this should take us six hours, depending on traffic and any harrassment they might want to dish out at the border.

We leave La Paz easily enough. We need to climb another 2,000 feet to El Alto (where the airport is), and from there the transition from urban to bucolic surroundings is fairly easy. There are rolling hills dominating the dry landscape, dotted by shrubs here and there and numerous mud huts, very similar to what we had known from Morocco. Of course, there is a slight difference. One, there are plenty of pigs (and other animals) people in the country keep as pets (an Arab will recognize Israel as a blood brother before recognizing a pig as a legitimate living being), and two, there is a difference in altitude of about two miles. It is the perfect wild west setting - that is, until you come across your first lama. The peaks of the Andes in the distance remain somewhat hidden, although, again, at 15,000 feet, that is relative. If you see a snow capped peak, that means that mountain is higher than 4,500 meters, because that’s where the snow begins to fall.

There is a stretch of road between La Paz and the Chilean border that is as notorious as it is dangerous. Before paying a toll for the dubious pleasure of using the road, a sign proclaims that 32 people have been killed here so far this year.

There are many roads in the U.S. that have a Dead Man’s Curve, but after only a dozen kilometers or so, I quickly realize that this road high up in the Andes in Dead Man’s Road. The roadside is inundated with crosses and shrines. It starts off slowly. One cross here, one there, but rapidly it is quite clear that hundreds of people have bitten the dust here. There are three crosses in a row, then seven, then a dozen (a bus, perhaps?). I am also not trying to be facetious about this, but I must have stopped counting at around seventy over a thirty mile stretch. There is not much protection here for drivers. If you should happen to slide off the road, there’s a good possibility that you land a few hundred feet below in some gorge or in a meadow where there are hundreds of lamas grazing.

We cross the border, where a mile of trucks have piled up to gain clearance from Chile into Bolivia. There is an incredibly high volcano (which will be mentioned later) displaying thick glacier ice on one side and a crystal clear lake on the other where flamingoes are grazing . The officials are picky about documents at the border, but we are prepared and make it to the other side in less than an hour. We are lucky they don’t check the cooler, because they would have found the milk for the kids in it, a beverage you are absolutely not allowed to bring across the border.

Now comes the tough part, the descent. To make matters worse, my kids have also inherited my carsick gene, the same gene that would prompt the family car to stop on vacations whenever I was a kid so I could throw up on the side of the road. On the way to the beach, each boy gets sick twice. I am not feeling too hot myself, but I am also running out of gas and we are descending quickly, meaning we could make it before sunset.

Closer to the coast, the mountains all resemble giant sand hills with oases of grass and fertile land in valleys below. Weird, these contrasts, although that shouldn’t be too surprising, being that Chile has long high mountain ranges to compliment their long coastlines.

Although the road winding down the mountains and towards the coast is not Death Road, there are dozens of crosses to indicate just where drivers got a little unlucky. This windy road is beginning to make Lombard Street in San Francisco look smooth, straight, and level.

I am happy when I see the Pacific in the distance. We locate our hotel - really an apartment hotel, we have a 2BR we rented - and are thrilled to find nothing but beach and the ocean in front of us. It will be nice to hear the waves in bed at night. We have time for a quick dinner and then it’s bedtime.

A Different St. Peter

2010-11-10T11:42:00.002-05:00

When somebody mentions the expression ‘black market’, what exactly does the imagination conjure up? Back alleys and contraband sold out of car trunks? Knock-off merchandise that does not match the original in quality but will do perfectly, much purchasing like the bleacher seats when you can’t get field level? Are the merchants themselves people you will see once and once only with the secure notion that for the remainder of your lifetime (and most likely his) he will be incarcerated?

Say hello to the black market of La Paz, nested in one of the more ominous neighborhoods of La Paz, San Pedro. And with it, get ready to jettisone any idea you thought you may have had about black markets.

It is a Saturday, and my buddy Alberto picks me up for an afternoon in San Pedro. The mission: get a cellular phone to replace the crappy I-phone that just went kaput. From the Zona Sur where I live it is at least a half hour drive to the other, poorer, side of town in San Pedro. We keep climbing up hills in his little Ford Fiesta until there’s a sputter and the car comes to a complete halt.

“My bad,” Alberto says in Spanish. “Out of gas”

He hangs a u-turn and guides the car down the hill, where he stops in front of a German car dealership. While he is off to get gas (I remain behind to guard the car), I check out the brand new Beamers, Benzes, and Porsches sparkling inside the shop windows. No black market required there. When Alberto returns, we’re back on the road and climb further. Incredible, I’m thinking. We’re already at 12 thousand feet, no? How long before we’ll need to suck on some oxygen? Yet the ascent continues, past the Embassy, and finally we reach Avenida Buenos Aires, according to locals the most dangerous street in town when it comes to criminal statistics.

During the day, it looks like any other. I see little boys in their torn up clothes carrying their tattered soccer ball home. There are street merchants selling rotisserie chickens, old classic cars and outdated busses weaving through the narrow streets. A kid with nothing on but a torn up Miami Hurricanes shirt sits on a doorstep, working over a lolly. Cholitas carry heavy loads of fruits and vegetables which they will sell in San Pedro.

Finally a descent as we get off Avenida Buenos Aires. The city in the valley below looks spectacular from where we are. The 21 thousand foot snow-covered Illimani mountain beckons from the distance and looks like it is right at the city’s doorstep. Very fitting to have a view like this from a place called St. Peter.

San Pedro itself is pure madness. The Black Market here is probably ten by ten blocks with merchants overtly offering their merchandise, the way you would see it in a souk in Morocco or a shopping mall in the States. The merchandise is stacked rows deep into the street, so that the roads quickly become one way. There are furniture stores, kitchen appliances (top brand), flat screen TV’s (again Samsung and Sony), cameras, exercise equipment, musical instruments, you name it. You can call it the largest duty-free shop on the planet.

I actually buy a cell phone, a Samsung, at a good price and later head over to the DVD’s to see what movies they have to offer.

When the sun goes down, we are done shopping for the day. Alberto congratulates us on a job well done. Just what exactly makes this black market so, hmmm… legal? Alberto says that the merchants pay a nominal fee to the government (maybe a tax?) to stay in business, which seems to benefit everybody. So maybe the black market is not so black.

Soccer Match

2010-10-28T11:20:00.002-04:00

One of the reasons I was looking forward to Bolivia was the assurance that I was going to be in a soccer country again. South American soccer is never to be taken lightly. The records of powerhouses like neighbors Brazil and Argentina speak for themselves. Then add to the fact that virtually every neighbor of Bolivia qualified for this year’s World Cup (Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile; the only neighbor that didn’t make it being Peru), and you have some impressive soccer on this continent. Furthermore, each World Cup participant survived the group stage, and that is nothing to sneeze at. Oddly enough, it was Uruguay, of all teams, that was to achieve the most remarkable result in the World Cup, reaching the semifinals, where it lost to Germany. Bolivia, of course, had to play the roll of spectator, although that can easily change with the World Cup in 2014. Nosotros veremos. We’ll see.

For my first soccer match, I was going to be in for a treat. I had tickets for the Bolivar vs. The Strongest (that’s actually their name) at the National Stadium, Hernando Sillas, the derby between La Paz’s most traditional clubs.

There are some wonderful rivalries in soccer throughout the world, like Manchester United vs. FC Liverpool, FC Barcelona vs. Real Madrid, Inter Milan vs. Juventus, and Bayern Munich against pretty much anybody in Germany. However, derbys are an entirely different animal, and this is where you will find neighbors and families actively clashing with each other for at least a week. The people in Manchester, Milan, London, Madrid, or Rome will be the first to tell you this. Win a derby and that can very much make your season, regardless of where you end up in the league standings.

Of course you can’t just have a rivalry within a city without pointing out what the obvious differences are between the clubs other than their jersey colors. Liverpool, conceivably, was a Protestant vs. Catholic affair. Internazionale Milan was founded to allow foreign players into their club instead of merely the locals dominating like they did at AC a century ago. Here in La Paz, it is said that it was a class thing, that the wealthier fans preferred The Strongest (aka the ‘tigres’, the tigers, owing to their yellow and black stripes), whereas Bolivar was more working class. Either way, I joined supporters of The Strongest and now consider myself a ‘tigre’ as well.

The game itself was one for the ages. Delayed by fifteen minutes thanks to pouring rain that would also keep thousands of fans at home, we took our seats and watched the third teams of The Strongest and Bolivar duke it out. The first oddity I noticed was the fact that something seemed terribly wrong on the field. Some players were missing, and when I took a headcount, it showed The Strongest to be shorthanded by two players. Whoa, I’m thinking, red cards. Derby Time, right? The first teams would later prove this point exactly.

The Strongest had obviously fallen on hard times, placing in the middle tier of the standings while Bolivar were the leaders. But again, this is a derby, where anything can and will happen.

The Strongest went up a goal after Bolivar missed some good opportunities, and then started controlling the match. When a penalty was not given to The Strongest shortly before halftime, all hell broke loose. A yellow card here, another, another, and another. I quietly nodded. So that’s how the third team ended up short-handed. To make matters worse, Bolivar scored a soft goal before the whistle, sending the Bolivar fans into a frenzy. The tigre fans were less diplomatic pelting the field with lighters, shoes, and whatever else they could get their hands on, so that the refs needed police protection on their way into the lockers. Bolivar added another goal a few minutes after half, and The Strongest fans started dropping their heads. There would be another yellow card, and yet another. Remember, though, this is a derby. Bolivar missed a couple of opportunities to seal the deal, and The Strongest came back with two beautiful goals of their own to take the lead. Not surprisingly, Bolivar then lost it – first their heads, then the match. Two red cards, three more yellows, and that was all she wrote. In fact, I can recall a substitute taking the field for all of two minutes before being sent off again with a red card. Final, 3-2, The Strongest. What a match!

Could this have happened elsewhere? Of course, derbies are derbies. That said, I don’t think ten yellows and two reds would have happened in, say, England or Germany. I don’t wish to stereotype here, but here it just seemed natural to players to gang up on the refs or upend opposing players with their spikes in the air when things weren’t going their way.

The Strongest supporters couldn’t care less. Their team had shown tremendous character in coming back from a goal down to beat their supposedly superior cross-town rivals. Though I still see them ranking seventh of fourteen teams here in Bolivia, there is little doubt that this match made their season, and that fans will still be talking about this one for years. I will, too. For now, I too, consider myself a tigre.

Street Sideshows

2010-09-26T13:04:00.000-04:00

At first, I wanted to name this particular post ‘street shows’, but that would imply that these had been elaborately planned, boasted an actual venue they performed in, and charged admission. This is clearly not the case.

I will write more about traffic and streets in another post, but this one is dedicated to the artists roaming - and performing - on the streets of their beloved city. These are people actually working for a living, scraping together a few bolivianos from whatever the La Paz traffic can bear.

In Kathmandu, by comparison, the sideshows were a little, shall we say, different? There would be the holy cows in the middle of the road, the two peg legged beggar doing his balancing act in heavy traffic for the benefit of a few rupees, and the little kids selling colorful postcards of some of their beloved Hindi Gods. More than not, you kept your windows rolled down and kept your eyes on the road. That went double for the holy cows, since I have already described how costly it can be to strike a cow in Nepal. That concern was always there.

The first sideshow on La Paz’s roads had nothing to do with human beings. On my way in a taxi through Callacoto, the driver suddenly pulled on the brakes when we came across five lamas swiftly jogging down the road. They were well disciplined and intuitively ran shoulder to shoulder, as if anybody separated from the herd would be easy game for predators. The entire width of these lamas spanned no more than that of an economy sized car, and their herder with the stick behind them made darn sure they went the right way.

Even so, lamas are rather rare in the city, so we can chalk that up to pure luck.

More attractive are the shows the artists put on whenever the lights turn red. You will see jugglers, acrobats, and artists stepping to the forefront and squeezing their little act into the little time they have until the light turns green again. The jugglers are impressive. Complete with the entire colorful clown garb, they will hurl balls, rings and clubs in the air, fully aware that they need to be extra perfect here. One erratic toss could land your little club under the tires of an oncoming car, which is not good. I haven’t seen it happen yet.

Even more astounding are the duos performing their juggling acts. This means more space is needed for their back and forths, which dictates nothing less than perfection.

The acrobats, on the other hand, need to pretty much walk (often on their hands) a straight line, which presents little trouble. Of course, the last thing you would want to see is a clown neatly towing the line between cars when suddenly some passenger has the overwhelming urge to leave the car and open the door, thus spilling the clown to the turf. Again, though I have never seen it happen, I’m sure it does.

Possibly the funniest sideshow I have seen so far happened in front of the Quetal market in the middle of Callacoto. When the light turned red, this guy, dressed in a Panama hat, overalls, and the brightest colors you would ever see outside of Haight Ashbury, slowly marched to the front of the traffic, straightened his shoulders, and played on his trumpet for the entire neighborhood to here. Can you imagine a rock band symphony orchestra doing an impromptu in the middle of an intersection? This guy clearly didn’t care how ridiculous he looked, and he probably envisaged dozens of pairs of rolling eyeballs behind the windshields. Yet, he was part of the show here, and that was all that mattered.

La Ciudad

2010-09-21T11:11:00.000-04:00

This means, the city, in this case my new home of La Paz. I have already mentioned the altitude here, how it feels like you’re walking in space, minus the astronaut outfit. But I can already claim that I love this place, something I was never able to say about Kathmandu.

Where to begin? Picture Bryce Canyon in Utah, truly a gorgeous place. Then imagine a city in its midst and that’s La Paz for you right there. The city is surrounded by cliffs and mountains of various heights, shapes, and forms. In fact, I can see several of them from my house. That picture I took of the little church and the huge cross in the header of this blog is what I see from my yard. It is up a hillside a few hundred yards from here. Now pivot ninety degrees to your right and you will see snow capped mountains looming in the distance.

Kathmandu was always a bit of a tease. Less than a mile in altitude, Kathmandu is surrounded by large green foothills that seem too remote to really enjoy. Every now and then you might spot one of the huge peaks of the Himalayas on a clear day, and you would be tickled pink that they appeared so close, which really wasn’t the case. Think of the rare appearances the sun makes on a winter’s day and that in essence sums up Kathmandu. You would always see a little of the Himalayas, whenever the weather fancied it, but to see the big boys of the Himalayas you would have to hike for miles.

Not so in La Paz. Here you can walk anywhere in the city and just gawk at the mountains and high cliffs. There are no particular buildings that stand out here in La Paz, nothing I would consider truly unique. There are a few churches that are certainly worth your time, but La Paz clearly earns its keep with its natural surroundings. Two other things that have impressed me are the abundance and parks and the sidewalks.

In Kathmandu you had to look for ages before you found a park or a playground. If you were lucky you would spot a little sandy pit holding a slide and maybe a battered sea-saw. Here in La Paz, they are everywhere, complete with a well maintained blanket of grass. Then there are the sidewalks, which were virtually non-existent in Kathmandu. Here there is barely a block without a sidewalk, which makes things so much easier. Fancy an afternoon stroll with the kids? Sure let’s do it, because there are sidewalks here. That makes a big difference.

In essence, you have a big city scattered throughout several mountains, different neighborhoods and different altitudes, and a breath taking scenery that you would not expect in a city. Now we can only start to imagine what life will be like in the country.

I’ve Got A New Altitude

2010-08-30T22:47:00.002-04:00

Before heading to La Paz, we were told about many things to look for here by colleagues and friends, the altitude being chiefly among them. I looked up altitude sickness to learn exactly how this would affect us and was a little spooked at some of the symptoms listed. Headache, accelerated heart rate, difficulty breathing, etc. Deaths have been known to occur in the extreme cases, evacuation to lower elevations didn’t seem uncommon, either.

A week into the La Paz experience, we are all still standing, alive and well, with no ill effects. This doesn’t mean we got away completely unharmed.

I have already described our arrival at the airport, although on our ride to our new house my popping ears indicated that things would improve vastly once we descended from the airport, the peak of the city at 14,000 feet. The first few days we braced for the worst, yet the headaches never happened, nor were we nauseous or felt overly alarmed. That said, climbing up the stairs proved to be a task. Whereas Kathmandu, less than a mile in altitude, was no challenge whatsoever, here we would have to pace ourselves. Even Axl learned this the hard way, and I would regularly find him breathing heavily after seeing him do what three year olds do. Even now, although I am convinced the worst is behind us, do I realize I find myself staring into space, as if I wasn’t quite sure where I was. Altitude will do that to you.

It is obvious there are certain things humans weren’t meant to do. They weren’t meant to run down animals and shred them with their bare hands and teeth. They were not meant to live in the water or outer space. The same appears to apply to high altitudes, although the history of La Paz seems to suggest otherwise. Here I can Take a walk around the neighborhood and I will still see kids playing in parks, grown men kicking a soccer ball around, workers doing heavy lifting without breaking a sweat. It’s obvious we haven’t reached that stage yet.

The visitor here will do well to be aware of the altitude. This isn’t a vacation resort where you step out, go for a jog or a nice power walk and then move on with your life. Any guest here will do good to reserve a few days for adjusting.

A few weeks ago, an American NGO staged a benefit women's soccer match between an American team and a local team. The score was respectable at halftime, with the locals clinging to a slim 1-0 lead. When the final whistle sounded, though, the scoreboard read 7-0, locals. Superior soccer skills? Certainly, but you could chalk up most of those goals to the altitude and the fact that the American ladies, completely gassed, felt they were playing the second half in astronaut gear.

Not surprisingly, foreign national soccer teams hate coming to La Paz. To most, it must appear like they’ve been asked to chase dolphins underwater. I’m surprised the home team here ever loses, yet somehow they do. Also, it must be disheartening to the Bolivian national team that they have to play half of their games at sea level.

Foreigners here are strongly advised not to get pregnant, the obvious reason being that a fetus here will have less oxygen to work with. Miscarriages here are well above the average, and Americans are encouraged, check that, in some cases ordered to have their babies back home, provided the pregnancies survive until the latter stages. People are also strongly advised to abstain from alcohol when they first get here, since a hangover can last up to two weeks. This might become the right place for becoming a teetotaler.

On the plus side, it has been well established what high altitude cardio can do for you. I have an itching to run again, but will heed my doctor’s advice on this one, that is to wait a few weeks before even contemplating jogging. I can already walk at a brisk pace, so that’s a start.

Walk before you run. And don’t forget the breathing part before that.

Buenos Dias, Bolivia!

2010-08-28T22:25:00.001-04:00

We leave Charlotte early in the morning on a typical Southern day, 90 degrees plus humidity. A few scattered thunderstorms are predicted and they fall by the time we land in Miami. Surprisingly, the cat travels quite well, although we will never know that, being that she didn’t travel with us in the cabin. Thank God for that. Hard enough to look after a baby and a toddler. The cat would have put the icing on top of it all.

Six and a half hours to Bolivia from Miami, good deal. La Paz is Eastern time, so no unnecessary break in our routine. The plane, of course, was late, but that’s American Airlines for you these days. There used to be a time when airlines (and their flight attendants, in particular) actually cared about passengers. These days, flight attendants all seem burned out, as if they truly didn’t enjoy their job anymore.

The plane is less than half empty, so we can spread out a little. I am a little apprehensive about the altitude sickness that will inevitably befall us, but for now I need to worry about Axl. Axl doesn’t wait till La Paz to get sick and does a double duty vomit paint job on our seats. The flight attendant gives me a few napkins and a trash bag. Too kind, really. Axl already has had his stomach acting up prior to the flight with huge bouts of diarrhea. Going to a place that is 12,000 feet up can’t possibly help.

When we get to La Paz, I feel winded the moment I get off the plane. As luck would have it, the airport is the highest point within the city at about 14,000 feet. We get the cat through customs and I breathe (with what little oxygen there is) a huge sigh of relief.

The moment we step outside we realize how brass monkey cold it is. Eddy, our sponsor, explains that this is the end of winter in these parts. Swell, I am thinking. We go from 90 degrees plus to freezing within half a day. I don’t even attempt to catch anything of the city on our way to the house. It is too dark, and I realize I need to focus more on the lungs. Breathe deep. Easy does it.

The kids go to bed, we follow soon after.

The next day, we realize how beautiful the place really is. Nestled in a valley (not unlike Kathmandu), La Paz is surrounded by huge hills, a lot of them partly eroded, so that it appears that the city was built in the middle of Bryce Canyon. I still have to slam one cup of water after the other. Don’t get dehydrated, otherwise this might turn into the never-ending hangover. Liebi and the kids take it easy. Axl still feels a little sick. He doesn’t realize that he is over two miles high up here, that the same conditions vis a vis running and other physical activities simply doesn’t apply here. He’ll throw up a few more times before he finally gets the message. The cat and Bash seem blissfully unaware of all this.

We have a fireplace and use it, too. We are well supplied with firewood so that the only challenge now is not the cold but how to get the kids away from the fireplace.

I am satisfied with our car, a Honda we bought from the guy who lived here before us. Eddy explains that the most frequent crime here in La Paz is stealing car parts. What’s more (or less, I suppose), you can find the same car parts at the market the next day and buy them back. The parts come with the license plate number attached to them. Wow. Charitable criminals indeed.

A uniformed guard strolls up and down the street and declares that this is his neighborhood, that he guards it with care, and for a small fee he will ensure your property is protected as well. We pass on that for now.

I need to get my breath back to enjoy this fully, but once I do, look out. This will be quite a trip.

Namaste, Nepal

2010-08-04T00:02:00.000-04:00

I climb up on the roof, all the way to the water tower as I usually do whenever I have a moment to myself. I gaze at the familiar foothills of the Himalayas hiding behind thick grey rain clouds. A light speck here and there in the green hills indicates human habitation, and they are about to catch hell.

Then I look at the vacant lot next door. There used to be a house sitting there. It was a primitive construction of wood and brick, a cut above being a shanty, and it housed a huge poor family there. The house was eventually razed, the family was probably evicted, and now it’s weeds (weed, literally, as dozens of wild marijuana plants are shooting out of the dirt) and assorted other shrubbery.

Lord, the place is teaming with mongooses. I found two dead mongooses around our yard this past week, their carcasses picked to death by the crows. One of these buggers probably nearly killed my cat. She came home one evening with a sizable chunk removed from where her upper left leg is, and she withdrew for a bit, fully aware that she had almost bought the farm. That mongoose must have sold its life dearly. Hard to say who killed the mongooses. We can discount the locals, the reason being that they will slice up one of their own caste with knives in a public ritual before laying a finger on an animal. It’s a safe guess that the cats probably took care of them, and there are a few around here, fearless creatures that have learned to fight and defend their turf. I am glad I don’t have to bury my cat here.

What of Nepal, then? I have learned a lot more after two years here. Another culture, another race, the do’s and don’ts of the place, the castes, interaction among the locals, interaction with them. I am grateful for my time here. I have come to a part of the world I could have only dreamed of earlier in life. The traveling here was superb, although virtually non-existent after the second child’s birth. There were plenty of National Geographic moments here, things that defied wisdoms you had long established for yourself and your own little world. There was poverty in this country I haven’t seen anywhere, which will humble any human being not living by the rule of the jungle. I have seen my son grow into a three year old, and Kathmandu has become the only home he has ever known.

Most notably, I have learned about life in fringe state. Political upheaval and violence have always been, and continue to be, a possibility here, and the uncertainty from day to day can and will wreak havoc on any plans you might have made. Nepal is a country that has hosted civilization far longer than we can imagine, but its government is more like a baby crying its people to sleep. It leaves the locals with a sense of crippling disbelief, and in many faces you still see resignation. There is no doubt there is still trouble ahead here, and the baby might need another diaper change.

Unfortunately, for all of Nepal’s merits, I have to sadly admit that I never quite connected with this country or its people. Part of that is circumstantial. I am a father of two now, which means the weekends you thought you could put aside for yourself will be reserved for your kids instead. That doesn’t bother me one bit. I love spending time with my kids, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, not the highest mountains or the greenest valleys.

But there’s more to it. I never connected quite with the Nepali people, their language, or the more delicate features of their culture. It’s possible I have become travel weary, that learning a new culture and language isn’t all that anymore, although I sincerely doubt that. We look forward to our time back in the west this summer, but we will also get the old itch to get going again. Sadly, the itch for Nepal is no longer there.

I still welcome the experience and wish Nepal nothing but the best. Nepal certainly deserves much better.

Malaysia V

2010-06-11T22:21:00.002-04:00

Whenever you think of shopping centers in our day and age, I suppose the ultra modern malls the size of stadiums with various brand names describe the picture. To a lesser degree, the big boxes like Wal and K-Mart qualify. I have already described the state-of-the-art Petronas Plaza, a shopper’s dream if I ever saw one. Markets can mean many things to different people. The Jmaa F’naa in Marakech, for example, is a beehive of activity, although you won’t have the air conditioners and fancy restaurants to compliment your shopping day like they do in more developed cities.

Can you imagine, then, a souk in Morocco or a place like Jama F’naa selling Brooks Brothers suits or Adidas shoes (not the fakes that are so readily available there)? Turns out there is such a place in Kuala Lumpur. To get there, we boarded the cramped monorail which took us into the middle of Bukit, a shopping district and tourist trap to a t. We would stroll with the boys through dingy looking swing doors that could have been the entrance to a vacant warehouse. The elevators held no more than four people and were dysfunctional. The five story building itself had escalators, luckily enough. The shops themselves were no better than the holes in the wall you would find in Thamel right here in Kathmandu. Yet, the merchandise offered was undoubtedly the real deal. The soccer jerseys were genuine and priced accordingly. The brand clothes occupied bigger rooms and displayed prices for them I never considered.

I buy a remote controlled helicopter for Axl, a Japanese creation, sturdy and reliable. At a store selling sunglasses, I try on various pairs, but eventually shake my head when presented with the price tag. I am still too cheap to shell out a lot of money for anything, let alone clothes, shoes, or sunglasses. I must still be stuck in the 80’s, I guess, when my mom would buy things on sale for me and when I was genuinely convinced clothes should, or could never be too pricey. We continue to weave our way through traffic, the boys parting paths in the stroller like royalty.

We have lunch later at the Petronas Plaza, and the food is first rate. The cold beer is absolutely delicious in the muggy heat. The fountains dance playfully in front of Petronas Plaza, people line up on the stairs, each taking a seat, baking in the sun. It is a relaxed atmosphere that is contagious.

The last day is saved for the butterfly park. That’s right a butterfly park, where they charge you admission for watching exotic butterflies hover around plants in botanic gardens. Although admittedly charming, we are out of the place within 30 minutes, to continue at the nearby zoo. Again, here comes the paparazzi, click, flash, they simply have to have the white boy on film. I order fresh coconut milk and take in the vegetation of the place. This could have been little more than a jungle a few decades ago.

We’re nearing the end of our stay in Asia, but I think Malaysia made the greatest impression on me. I can still see Axl playing in the park, kids splashing through the knee deep fountains, their parents sometimes eagerly joining in. I think about being wined and dined and eating Malay food, the family neatly together and soaking this all in. I will have missed quite a few destinations in Asia by the time we leave, but I’m glad I caught this one just in time.

Malaysia IV

2010-05-31T11:36:00.002-04:00

Before we made it to Kuala Lumpur, I must admit the city was still a relative unknown, an also-ran in a lineup of Asian power hubs such as Hong Kong, Bangkok, Seoul, or name any Japanese city. I might have known at times that it was the capital of Malaysia; I later realized this is where the Petronas twin towers were at home, once the world’s highest building. Other than that, there was nothing about Kuala Lumpur that I thought merited any serious recognition. After our visit there, it is quite possibly my favorite Asian city I have visited so far.

We had already become familiar with the airport on our way in, an afterthought compared to our beach vacation in Langkawi, or so it seemed. This time we would get to know the real KL.

For beginners, the cleanest, most modern, and relatively empty roads lead us into town, the landscape as of yet consisting of orchards and wide palm forests. This gives way to highrises that remind me of Cairo on my way to Giza and the Pyramids. It doesn’t seem they have a code in Malaysia for skyscrapers. Most of these highrises will remain nameless to us, although they would very well dwarf any building of an American city. We recognize the Petronas Towers and realize we are almost there, in downtown KL.

A view from the Traders Hotel reveals the incredible Petronas Towers right in front of us, in front of the twin towers a park decked out that I have yet to see in an inner city. The size of the park itself is modest and wouldn’t hold a candle to, say Balboa Park of San Diego or New York’s Central. Yet inch by inch, Malaysians have exploited this small area of land to the max, in ways we could probably only imagine in the west. There is an elegant series of water fountains rigged into a water park for the children to play in. The water is no more than knee deep, but this will suffice to cool off the city dwellers here from the incredible heat. From my window, I see parents chasing their kids in the water and splashing water on to them. I turn to see a makeshift running route, a knee friendly red rubber track that conceivably surrounds the perimeter, no more than a mile. I would later make good use of this. There are what seems to be a dozen playgrounds, each one feeding into the next. This place is simply amazing.

We break out the double stroller and go to work. We cut through the park to check out the playgrounds, and Axl immediately approves. Here he can jump and climb as he wishes, even though I still have to monitor him closely. When we eventually leave the playgrounds -it is too hot to do otherwise - Axl leaves kicking and screaming. He’ll cool down… literally. There’s AC within the Petronas Plaza, which feels especially good after hauling the boys up a few steps. The Towers up close are impressive. I always remember how boring I thought the WTC in New York looked, from the first moment I ever saw them. These big boys here have form and shape, although something about them still looks too technical, much like the pistons of an engine. Inside is a huge shopping mall, and it is filled to the brim. Of course there is no such place without AC. In the lobby of the towers the firm proudly displays their Formula One car.

The next day we head to the television tower. The Petronas are nice, but you can only go as far as the bridge connecting the twins, 44 floors. Pathetic. At least the WTC allowed you to go all up all the way. I guess that’s only reserved for the penthouse owners here. The TV tower is nothing special in itself, but there are some nifty little sideshows here that make it worth it. There is a children’s zoo, although that’s debatable. Here are some of the most dangerous creatures on earth, primarily snakes and spiders, of which there is no dearth here in Asia. The kids of course can’t pat any of the critters. Later, Axl takes a ride on a pony.

We board the monorail to get to where we want to go. Efficient, clean, on time. That’s how we like it. Did I mention air-conditioned? The passengers politely make room for our huge double stroller and do their obligatory drooling over the boys. More is to follow.

Lockdown

2010-05-05T10:58:00.003-04:00

I will have to interrupt the gorgeous sandy beaches and ultra modern roads of Malaysia for an update back in Kathmandu.

For six days now, the Maoists have locked down the city. Supposedly disenchanted with the opposition and the Prime Minister, they have pulled out all stops and are forcing the government's hand. Maoists from strongholds in the country have assembled here, and they don't intend to leave anytime soon. This means that the Ring Road has been blocked for a long time now, and no compromise seems pending.

This means no work for us, and no school for the kids. More importantly, it means what a bhand usually means: the crippling of the city's economy for as long as they please.

I have walked down the Ring Road many times now this past week, and it is the usual sight during a bhand: hundreds of people walking down the only quality street of the city, like refugees on a road to nowhere. At the chowks (intersections) you will still hear the Nepali folk music, you will have eager Maoists erect a stage and dance to their hearts' desire and much to the annoyance of Kathmandu residents. The Maoists' flags are defiantly tied high in the trees, a symbol of occupation, in this case of all major intersections of the city.

What now? The Maoists are still in negotiations, but if they break down, who knows? At each chowk you will find a squadron of armed police, eager to crack heads at the drop of a hat. But exactly how long do they hold their fire, or shall we say, their batons? Will the Maoists try to provoke an attack? Could this become a full fledge civil war? Nobody knows.

What we know is that we have run out of water, and the transportation options are not helping. We need to conserve, conserve, conserve, which also goes for the power. Suppose the city power is cut off? Just another variable in this perpetual struggle for power (pun not intended).

Best case scenario: the parties come to an agreement and the Maoists go back home.

Worst case: Full blown civil war with nothing short of an evacuation as a result.

Then we need to figure who will bear the brunt of this conflict. Kathmandu itself is battered as it is, but it appears the city was almost built for abuse. The Maoists have never disappointed in that regard. The people, of course, need to make a living, a fact the Maoists are blissfully aware of. But in the end, I think we can agree that everybody will suffer. Now let's hope it won't be from blood loss.

Malaysia III

2010-05-02T19:41:00.001-04:00

We decided on a boat tour down a river cutting through Langkawi, supposedly virgin terrain, plenty of wildlife included. When looking at Langkawi and its surroundings it would be a surprise if they could develop every single island out there, every acre of bogland. We were loaded into a simple motorboat, suitable for up to a dozen people; instead it's just Liebi, the boys, and I. Down the river we sputtered, thick jungle vegetation and high cliffs surrounding us. The guide’s eyesight is impeccable, but then again, I’m sure that’s what he’s been trained for. He spots a medium sized viper coiled around a branch of a tree spouting out of the water on the riverbank. I catch something out of the corner of my eye and watch a huge iguana paddle across the river. I film the eagles swooping in to snag the fish from the surface. Somewhere King Kong must be between those cliffs.

We stop at a fish farm where Axl touches manta rays and other big critters destined for somebody’s diner downtown. We get off the boat and walk through bat caves before a path leads us back into the jungle and further down the river. We re-board and proceed to take a lovely ride upstream. We are now out in the ocean, scattered islands rising from it at intervals. Needless to say, it is also a muggy 95 or so degrees, and we need to watch ourselves from becoming burnt like lobsters. And yet, the scene seems really complete. The baby, a mere seven months, enjoys going out with his family and gazes into the thick of the brush like the rest of us. Axl’s eyes beam whenever he spots another animal. Although Liebi and I are not accustomed to cows walking in the middle of the road or stray dogs dotting every square foot of the city scape, that is all Axl has ever known. Seeing exotic creatures has become routine for him. Axl is not yet three, and he has already ridden a camel and an elephant. I suspect at sometime he will ride a horse too.

We get off the boat and take a rickety but air-conditioned minivan back to the resort. On the way back there are still several vivid reminders of why this may not be as prosperous as it seems, While most on the island have sold out to development one way or the other, people more off the beaten bath seem less eager to give up the land and resources they were born into. There are old rusty gas pumps, shanties made out of material we can’t begin to imagine, and old, appliances that suck a lot of energy and possibly only benefit marginally. People get around a lot on motorcycles, the private transportation machine of choice in Asia (behind the bicycle). These are Muslims, for the most part, and I am reminded of that when I hear my first call to prayer in years.

I need to exercise, but the air conditioning at the gym is inadequate, so I grab the ipod and burn my own trail through town. I find some good paths, mainly through the park and reach the turning point at over three miles on the beach, close to the main mosque. Someone has built a circuit for model race cars, and I watch these little engines buzzing skillfully around the curves. The greeting is the same any Muslim would give: Salaam Alikoom, peace on you. Unlikely I’ll ever forget that.

I also realize I have fallen hard for Malay food. This wouldn’t be everybody’s cup of tea, but I absolutely adore their mixes of the sweet and spicy. Too hot, or even mildly spicy, is a constant turnoff and has alienated me from many country’s cuisine, but Malaysia’s is not among them.

We have another night in Langkawi, but use it to get some sleep. Luckily we can take a taxi back to the airport and it will be on to Kuala Lumpur, the capital.

Malaysia II

2010-04-25T04:29:00.001-04:00

The next day belongs to… the playground.

In Malaysia, and perhaps in most of Asia, this rates as a pathetic playground. There are two swings, one slide, four rocking horses (a mouse, an elephant, a seahorse, and a giraffe, to be precise) and a bunch of sand. In Katmandu, this would be more than enough. This would have saved a lot of the miles I have chased after him around the house (play, of course). But here in Malaysia, it doesn’t rate, not with the super park in town across from the McDonalds with enough space to hold two football stadiums. Not with the parks we saw in Bangkok. It matters little to Axl.

He proceeds to forego, in short order, a beautiful beach, his choice of swimming pool, and the five star rock fountain pool (the only thing I really liked here)... in favor of the playground. At the rock fountain pool, there is a deep and a shallow end, each flanked by rock formations growing out of the water and daring the swimmer to climb them. On top await a half a dozen water fountains, each one spouting water that could have been shot out of a fireman’s hose. It is just a nice place to horse around in, especially with your kids.

Instead I stand there in the sweltering heat, helping Axl on the swings, up the top of the slide and onto a phony seahorse while Liebi merrily wallows in the water with Bash. I converse politely with a Saudi couple, both US educated. When Axl asks to be hoisted up into the tree next to the playground, I pull him away. In the canopy above there is a troop of monkeys on maneuver. They swing from one branch to another with one hand tied behind their back, it seems. I don’t think they will welcome an intrusion here. Kathmandu has taught me that messing with one monkey is dangerous enough. A troop of monkeys directing the entire troop’s resources at you is positively a disaster. Axl is pissed and when he is, he will buckle his own knees and make himself heavy, like an ’80’s nuclear power protester. No compromise here. I carry him back to our room.

The next day we visit the harbor of Langkawi, dominated by a huge replica eagle the size of a mid-size yacht. It seems tacky here, but who am I to say that? It’s not like they don’t pay tribute to eagles where I am from. Flapping its wings, the Langkawi island has its powerful beak pointed out at the ocean and the gorgeous islands popping out of it. The kids are still being mobbed at every opportunity. When we walk through this shopping center, a guy breaks away from his date to make a photo of Axl.

When we come back, the apes have struck on our balcony and possibly the entire floor. Now I understand the message. On our balcony a Pringles chips container lies tipped over on its side, most of its content devoured. They also snag a bag of raisins. So the sign essentially means, ’Don’t leave food on the balcony, knuckleheads.’

When we return to the pool there is this Russian couple straight out of an Esquire magazine. The guy looks like a secret agent and built like a refrigerator. The wife is five star all the way. Just your average Russian tennis star, right? Their little fat boy, a year older than Axl, keeps picking on the tube Axl has sewn into his swimsuit. The Russians don’t admonish their kid or anything. Nope, just let the fat kid pick on him. Rule of the jungle. Then we switch to the rock fountain pool, which Axl finally embraces. Without hesitation he makes that climb up the rock and plays with the water spouts. Meanwhile, Russian KGB guy and his fat son decide it’s time to switch venues as well. Problem is, Yuri can’t get fat boy to climb up the rock formation. Serves you right, Andropov. How about a glass of humble Stoli for a change, eh?

Although I don’t care for Langkawi much, there are two other highlights worth mentioning. One is finding an Arabic restaurant (not a Lebanese) in a shopping center. Tagine for me, for the first time since I left Morocco eight years ago. It is delicious. It won’t hold Axl long enough. Axl wishes to dash through the center and stop at every shop along the way. The souvenir store with the musical instruments particularly piques his interest. The maracas, drums, xylophones… and the shopowners who would usually glance nervously at toddlers handling their things are delighted to have such a special guest. Axl’s new name must be ‘red carpet’. Little does he know how much that helps his parents at times.

Malaysia I

2010-04-17T10:25:00.002-04:00

Earlier in this blog I had mentioned India and its television advertisements to come, right away, yesterday, to Incredible India. India wasn’t alone in trying to lure the tourists’ dollars, euros, and yen. Thailand joined in, flaunting its beaches with its massage parlors featuring the most ravishing, not to mention luscious, women. There’s Indonesia with its luscious beaches and thatched huts, eager to get a piece of the pie. And Malaysia. This is where we would go after Thailand. Short flight, another country, let’s do it.

Our first night would be in a three star close to the airport. No luxuries, really, just a bed to keep you rested until it was time to move on. We looked at the room service menu. I don’t know Malay food, neither does Liebi. Mee Mamak is what she orders. I order another dish and we end up swapping. Good, good stuff. Malay food is absolutely wonderful. They have the right combination of sugar and spices to keep the dish just right. I am already a fan.

The next day, early in the morning, finds us at the airport again, this time to catch an inland flight to Langkawi island, a resort island off the west coast. Axl again is mugged at the airport. Hard to ignore him. But in the hour or so leading up to the flight, he sings and dances, runs around the passengers’ lounge, not shy at all about his nervous bursts of energy. When we are on the plane, he is asleep next to me before the plane even lifts off. I have a coke and watch the water below us while Axl peacefully rests. He looks like an angel, all quiet and still. Bash is sleeping too. I have one boy on one side, one on another, and life is simply good. I can rest like this for a while and for a change. It’s very rare that you will find both boys asleep at the same time.

When we land, we hire a taxi to get us to the resort. The weather is muggy and hot, the AC is blasting everywhere. We drive past the countryside, a few rice fields here, skinny palms there, and bright green mountains where you'd expect to see King Kong pop out at any minute everywhere. The roads are paved quite well, and people more or less are civilized in traffic. Then a small town, we curve through a couple of parks and blocks loaded with duty free stores. But this isn’t Singapore, meaning while there is a certain development of the infrastructure in place, these people can’t afford to go all in here simply because circumstances dictate it. We pass a mosque where I hear the call to prayer for the first time in what seems like ages. We arrive at the Westin resort near the southern tip of the island.

When we get to our rooms there is a sign on the balcony depicting the shape of a monkey that says, ’Do not feed’. Interesting. Where are these monkeys supposed to be coming from? No trees anywhere. And who would want to feed them? We would learn this lesson the hard way only a few days later. From our balcony, we have a view of the sea and a couple of islands scattered in the water. Yep, this is the place.

We stow away our things and inspect the compound of the hotel. Good pools, beyond that the beach, chic dining facilities, a gym, and a public playroom for kids. We gather the boys, buckle them into our trusted double stroller and take them into town. The sidewalks barely do it for our stroller, and there will be some lifting required. The first hundred meters or so outside of the Westin, we are entertained by a troop of monkeys and a very slow and deliberate iguana crossing the sidewalk. I guess they don’t need a zoo around here.

We stop at a shopping center, grateful for the artificial air. It is simply scorching out there. We pick up some items from a bakery, unwilling to rely on five star resorts and their inflated prices. I pick up a bottle of rum at a duty free. There is a McDonald’s, a KFC, and a Kenny Rogers. Uh-huh, a Kenny Rogers, where you hear Kenny Rogers’ tunes all day (’The Gambler’ is an unofficial anthem of many countries I know), order a low sodium meal, and just enjoy the atmosphere. Nice, that means less junk for the kids.

There’s not much time left in the day, so we return to the Hotel and head to the pool. When Axl sees the playground, though, it will ruin some of our plans in days to come.

Bangkok, II

2010-04-05T05:08:00.002-04:00

If what I said about airports rings true for the appearance of a city, the public transportation should be another firm indicator of how well off a city is. Bangkok has a wonderful intercity subway, dirt cheap, and very usable. Nobody loves driving in a city. I learned that living in New York. The less you use a car in the city, the better.

Underwater World is your basic Asian Sea World. Would I go there under any other circumstances? Probably not, but that’s not what you go there for as a parent. I love to watch Axl’s eyes light up when he sees something out of the ordinary. The problem is (and I have a photo to prove it) his first encounter is with an Underwater World mascot, a stingray, and this freaks him out. That dude in the costume has other problems, I bet. Luckily for him, the air conditioner works just fine down there. It better be for 500 bhats a ticket.

Later it’s more trains, more pushing through streets. Have I ever talked about a city’s assets? How about people? They are so friendly everywhere it’s scary. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to have a toddler and a baby in tow. That will get you to the front of the line in a hurry.

Over lunch I pore over the papers. The red shirts are marching. Key roads have been blocked, the government warns of going out. “Stay Home, Bangkok!” cries the newspaper. It seems the newfound wealth in this city has come at a price. The red shirts are protesting the elite rule in Bangkok, claiming too many people -most notably themselves - are being left out. I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if this were so. That said, the government better be careful. These same red shirts (supporters of an ousted dictator, no less) shut down the airport last year, so that’s a good reason to open the dialogue right away.

Liebi points at another table during breakfast the next morning and giggles. There’s Kevin Bacon sitting, all by himself. No way am I going to bug the man. Let him eat. It’s never dawned on me to start a chat with a celebrity, and I’ve seen quite a few. Let them be people.

Later it’s on to the carnival. Here it didn’t matter that this was in Bangkok. We could have been at any carnival around the world. The highlight here was taking your kids there for the first time. I personally never take any rides. They make me sick to my stomach, but there’s evidence that suggests my boys won’t share that distaste for dizzying rides that could make you lose the snacks you had just consumed. Here their eyes light up, even the seven month old baby. You can tell the little shrimp badly wants to get in on the action.

Axl does a few rides and bounces on a trampoline. The last ride is on the Ferris wheel, and I immediately start snapping away at the Bangkok skyline with my camera. The baby thoroughly enjoys the ride and laughs with his cute smile.

We eventually return here after Malaysia, so I get to catch the famous Night Market, where we down a few pitchers of beer while the boys chill and watch the singers on the stage. The Night Market is mainly comprised of shops, but the dining area (for what? 2,000 people) fits into a square in front of a large music stage, where the local talent belts out their songs. There is so much food to choose from it’s embarrassing. I eventually go for a kebab with hummus. I have already had the Thai food, so let’s pork away.

Meanwhile, Axl’s communication skills continue to flourish, which can be good and bad. It is nice to know that you understand what your son wants. What is not so cool is that most sentences will be orders, his ultimate goal of world domination still firmly entrenched. This is clearly a boy who knows what he wants and his not too shy to voice that. People in Asia of course eat from his hand, which plays exactly into his hand. He will use that little hand of his to make people do things for him, in no uncertain terms.

The final image I have of Bangkok was our return to the airport. With the redshirts still a threat, there are now groups of policemen at checks around the airport. We ran into one such stop and saw about a dozen uniformed police, all masked and ready to take the car apart, if need be. They took one look in the window, saw Axl glaring back at them, and all waved and cheered at our taxi as they let it pass.

I wish I could have been in Thailand more often. I never got the opportunity to see the beaches of Thailand, of which there are some we can only see on postcards. That’s what happens when you have a family. It will take some convincing to the kids to go on trips, no matter how simple they appear. Bangkok is a wonderful place, you get a lot of bang for your buck and enjoy the atmosphere without losing your shirt (right, Singapore?). Add the extremely kind people to the mix and the traveler will win. Every time.

Bangkok, Oriental City I

2010-04-02T10:19:00.002-04:00

This would be the first and last stop of our R&R, and quite possibly my only chance to see this major hub of not only Asia’s but indeed the world’s activities. The first time we had stopped there was before our arrival to Kathmandu, where I was afforded the best amenities of an airport hotel, which we incidentally had to rent by the hour. Supply and demand, right? Not a bad deal to catch some quick z’s and walk to your departure gate after breakfast in the morning. I seriously doubt that is what visitors come to Bangkok for, though, which is why this last trip -pitifully undertaken after being nearly two years in Nepal- was necessary, mostly to travel within the area while we still could. We would not be disappointed with the results.

An airport alone can tell you a lot about a city. It can tell you in a way how the city itself is run, sometimes even the country. It will reflect modern trends or traditional, sometimes a blend of both. Kathmandu Airport has always been good to us, and we have never had issues with the officials here - they have always treated us well (especially the boys), and we will always remember that. We probably won’t care to remember the airport itself, which is old and dingy by modern standards and not comparable in terms of operations to an even mediocre airport of a smaller city anywhere in the west. You can tell that a lot of work needs to be done in Kathmandu the moment you step off the plane. Bangkok -unlike Delhi, our airport from hell- is quick, easy, and convenient. I can do without them photographing me on departure and arrival, but I guess that’s part of the plan.

First, a taxi into the city. The shiny taxis at the airport come in pink and green and red, a colorful omen of what is to come. But these taxis are well-maintained Japanese cars, so we feel good about our chances. The taxi drivers are clumsy with our stroller. Understandable, that thing is a double stroller designed to hold two kids. We’ve put that stroller through hell, and come summer it will be junkyard time for it, but here we need to keep this stroller in tact - the boys will have to be controlled here in Bangkok’s streets. Bangkok’s streets being solid, the problem lies with the sidewalks. Not good. I hate a city lacking good sidewalks. I hate them even more in Bangkok, because it will see me hauling that stroller -sometimes with both boys in it- up and down curbs, stairs, into trains, you name it. We arrive after about an hour or so and are already getting a sound idea of how big this city really is. So far, Bangkok is a simple skyline dotted with scrapers that go high and higher. There are still so many cranes there, so we know this city isn’t done growing yet. The recession has slowed these people down maybe, but hardly stopped them.

The Conrad Hotel, just one of a hundred such skyscrapers, is our destination, and we are checked in quickly, although people need to slobber over the boys a little first. Par for the course. That’s Asia for you. These kids have already had so much blistex applied to their little behinds that I can’t help but worry just a little. That’s royal treatment they will want to get used to.

The Conrad is smack in the middle of Bangkok, conveniently close to many restaurants and stores - your bloated shopping mall, in other words. What we don’t know yet is that there is a carnival going on a block down the road, and the boys will enjoy every bit of it later. For now, it will be Burger King (that’s right, whopper for me) and night-night.

The next morning we go to Underwater World, a quick train ride and walk away. The stroller grinds through the sidewalks of Bangkok, we need to create room to pass the numerous street vendors (awesome food!), and people here, God bless them, leave us plenty of room. It’s cute, though, watching people’s reactions when they see something so unusual. Here comes a stroller with one toddler in the front and a baby in the back, both blonde and white as snow, so they start fawning. I love their smiles when they see the boys, there is so much happiness and love in those faces. The boys, of course, have other plans which means they can only stop for so many people. We put this affection for them to good use, no dispute there. We must be creative to squeeze through this town.

Portrait of a Local

2010-03-10T06:53:00.002-05:00

The main reason I maintain this blog, aside from communicating with people I know, is to remember things how they were later. Sometimes I go through some of the entries form the Jordanian times, and I’ll have a good chuckle.

What I have noticed about the entries from Kathmandu is that one commodity here is seriously shorted: people! Looking back here, I am thinking, this does read all right for tourists, but what are people like? What do they believe in? What do they do? How do they fare in impoverished Kathmandu? What are their hopes? I thought I would rectify that a little.

So meet Dipendra of Kathmandu. Dipendra is a gardener/guard for a European family. Although he works for a private company, he is not above trying to hone his skills in other areas, like planting and learning about pets.

Dipendra looks like the average Joe from Kathmandu: dark-skinned, five foot four, in good shape, looking younger than his 36 years, and always grinding to make a living. His pay per month is 7,000 rupees, which is less than a hundred dollars. Of course this is not Manhattan, so he pays market prices for food. His wife was a teacher for five years before she became pregnant in consecutive years, adding a boy and a girl to the family. That left her with no time for work. No such thing as daycare except for foreigners who can pay a hundred bucks per month or so for a didi or a school, depending on the child’s age (guilty). Rent in their two bedroom apartment near Durbar Square is 40 dollars a month, which leaves the family of four to fend for themselves on sixty bucks a month. And somehow they do it.

“We still have money left at the end of the month,” he grins. “Five or ten bucks barring disaster. But if one of the kids gets sick, that will wipe out that surplus.”

Harder is the inflation that is constantly driving up food prices.

“We used to be able to afford meat, now it’s vegetarian,” he explains. “But that’s all right. My wife’s a good cook.”

About his job?

“Six days a week, ten hours per day,” he says while counting on his fingers.

I refuse to do some counting of my own, in this case his per hour rate. This is far more atrocious than minimum wage, if there is such a thing. How does a person live on that little, I wonder. You have to buy clothes too. He gets to work riding a motorcycle, like most people in the Valley.

“You change what you wear every other day,” he shrugs, “sometimes every third day. And my wife made most of the kids’ clothes.”

The kids are his daughter Chitanna, aged eight, and son Jittendra, five. Both are in school, but don’t seem like they are lacking anything. There might be a hole in the sweater or pants, but they seem like normal kids by anybody’s standards.

“They are happy,” Dipendra says, “and they should be. I rarely see them with matching socks. There are days when the shoes have more holes than I can count. But they don’t miss anything.”

They threw away their television a few weeks ago. It was an old German Grundig, a model made decades ago.

“There’s only twelve hours of power per day,” he laughs. “No time to watch anything anyway.”

He refuses to discuss politics.

“They’re all bad,” is his simple statement. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t elaborate. In these parts you learn to keep your mouth shut. Doing the opposite might earn you a visit from a Maoist or somebody claiming to be one.

What does he hope for in the future?

“A better job,” he shrugs, “and that the kids are educated. They need more of a choice than me. I never finished tenth grade.”

And just how are these people different? Not at all, really. Do you know of any similar stories, say in New York? In London? Rome? The only discernible difference is the lack of income, but this is your same average family of four you could encounter anywhere. The kids play outside all day unlike their counterparts in the west who will play inside as well with other, more modern electronic means. It is impressive to be reminded that you can live with less. I was much more impressed with Dipendra's positive outlook in life, which is very refreshing and something you don't see that often anymore back home, where people are wealthier and supposedly can create more opportunities.

The next local I will describe will come from a different walk of life with a different income and different education. Either way, people will agree that these are tough people, tough but positive, ready to tackle any obstacle with a smile. Good for them.

Holi War!

2010-03-06T21:54:00.002-05:00

The Holi is a festival celebrated by Hindus and Buddhists alike here in Nepal. They love to refer to it as the Festival of Colors, and in some regions this can last up to two weeks. Supposedly this tradition harks back to the days of Lord Krishna and Radha, the original Goddess, and eternal love of Krishna. Legend says that Krishna had complained in detail about his skin’s dark complexion as opposed to the fair one donned by Radha. To make light of the situation, his mother applied color to Krishna’s face, which explains today’s rituals during the Festival. This is why people’s faces are colored, also the result of the pitched colored powder and water duels.

Last year, I was well aware of this tradition, but only this year was I an active, willing participant. Last year, I hid to avoid the colored powder and water being painted on my face. This year I was more than up for it. With a handsome arsenal of my own.

My weapons: 50 water balloons, each of them filled with purple colored water. Then there is the pump gun that can take a couple of liters of liquid. This would be my assault weapon.

Ready to storm the Kathmandu armies of kids Rambo style, I hear a commotion from the neighbor’s house. There’s a full house next door, and I hear the unmistakable splats of water balloons connecting. Hee hee hee. Time to be a good neighbor. I peak over the wall: yep, quite an assembly they’ve got there. Five adult women, five men, and another half dozen or so kids. Time for a rampage, I say.

A couple of water grenades that I lob into the parking area hail my pending assault. Splat. Splat. Now the neighbors are looking. Where did this come from? Ever so observant, one of the little kids spots me and minutes later, here come the balloons and buckets of water flying right back. Whoa. We’re going to have to lay low for a bit. Finally I see one of their guys on the balcony restocking his water balloons. I give him a wave. I have never seen the guy before. He says he lives in Chicago, that he returned home for the Holi. His English of course is perfect, I even hear a slight Midwest twang.

“You realize,” he grins, “it is fifteen people against one?”
“That’s okay,” I laugh, “I’ve got plenty of ammo.”

No doubt about that. Water is quite a commodity in Kathmandu. They are lucky if they can use drain water for their Holi battles. As an American, I have no such issue. In the end it’s a jet against rubber bands. And the rubber bands will eventually run out. Yeah! That’s what I’m talking about! Starve them. Long live the Empire. Dick Cheney rules.

Except now there are other balloons crashing against my wall. Darn, they land with such an impact that I am wondering if people mixed cement in them (some jokers actually do this). I spy a couple of men firing at me from the rooftop two houses away. A good ambush position, I have to admit, and quite a throw. What my neighbors don’t realize is that I actually have the range to hit them up there. Incredulously they watch as water grenade after water grenade hits the target upstairs, scattering whoever is assembled up there. A few bad grenades fly back, but they are losing water in midair - inferior weapons. I catch one limp balloon with my head.

The kids need to stay inside for this. It certainly looks fun but a balloon in the face from that far away will send any toddler home crying, especially if he doesn’t expect it.

Finally the neighbors run out of ammo or decide it‘s time for a siesta. Time to take care of my own kids. Drenched and colored, I change my clothes.

Incredible India, III

2010-02-27T00:12:00.002-05:00

The next day has little in store for us. I walk around town in the morning, accosted by merchants and wanna be tour guides offering their services. Eventually there is Ali, a Muslim with the trademark overgrown beard who offers to take me to some places, most notably his own bazaar shop. The guy’s English is impeccable. Eventually I manage to buy a silk shirt made in Kashmir, a belated Valentine’s Day gift for my wife.

We have a good breakfast, but then it’s time to pack up and hit the road. Remember the three part plan I explained that is so crucial to reaching your destination? The driver is wonderful and gets us to the airport with plenty of time to spare. The check-in is a breeze.

Then disaster strikes. We make the ill-fated decision to actually take our stroller through customs and security, assuming (remember the rule?) this super power understands that this will speed up things. Stroller or none, we expected Indian officials to not let us wait for hours in a line and paid dearly for it. Meanwhile our comfortable margin of time is quickly evaporating. Officials won’t let us go through the security fast track, so now it is up to the mercy of fellow travelers to get what we want. Luckily, a friendly British couple takes pity on us and we are almost at the beginning of the line. I go through first, checking the laptop and Liebi’s carry-on. There is no order here at the airport, people push and shove their way towards the x-ray machines, the officials themselves merely wish to prevent a stampede, although a few choice words here and there would alleviate this nightmare immensely. It is impossible to carry a baby and a toddler through this, something that goes blissfully unnoticed by airport guards. Yep, you sure are a superpower, India. Or should I say, incredible.

Axl goes with me, and we get through unscathed. I also admit that by now I have abandoned any modicum of decency and join in on the rugby game, Axl pressed to my belly. Sorry, Axl. Not surprisingly, though, at twice the size of Indians and Nepalis, I win this one. Add Axl to the package and we are 220 pounds rolling through an Indian mob. High five.

Now I need to harass the officials to let my wife through. I did not snap at any time here, because by now I know better. Yelling at an airport can earn you all sorts of hitlist points. At the same time, though, there is my wife with a six month old baby that needs to get through there, now. Needless to say, men and women are separated at the security checkpoint, for obvious reasons. Yet Liebi can’t get through the crowd of forty or so trying to wedge themselves through this made-for-one metal detector, so I seek out the boss and tell him to get my wife through the detector unharmed. I tell him I will jump over there myself and do it, if need be. Meanwhile, Axl is crying in the stroller. Poor guy. He’s been such a rock throughout the whole travel thing. I think I would have hated myself and if I had been an Indian airport security guard that day. So be it. A lack of professionalism and decency and incompetence will earn you that. I get the hammer for assuming things could run smoothly. Looks like a draw here, a scoreless one at that.

But no, India must win this one today and they do so decisively.

First, Liebi and Bash make it through all right. Good thing. But the stroller is still on the other side. The Indian guards do bobble head doll movements (yes or no? We still don’t know what that means), and leave the stroller stuck inside the crowd of forty. Could Liebi have gotten through with Bash on the stroller? Only if you think that you can thread an elephant through a keyhole.

But more help makes up for these jackasses. An old Irish couple this time collapses the stroller and pushes it through the checkpoint. Of course the stroller can’t fit into the x-ray machine (I only assumed it would), so you will have to lift it and have the Indians cram it under a microscope to take a better look at it. The stroller makes it to us. God bless the Irish. We have the stroller and the boys are buckled in so we can retrieve hand bags and stroller. We are late for the plane. We are missing stamps and permits and run back and forth and in circles to attain all of these.

Then, uncharachteristically, Liebi snaps. There is an elderly women who who is in the way of the stroller's path.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" she barks.

Ferenc, a Hungarian contact we knew from Kathmandu joined us and was equally nervous. Not a bad thing, I’m thinking. They won’t fly without us now.

We have everything together until we reach the last passport control downstairs. Damn it. A stamp is missing on Axl’s ticket. I need to wing it back upstairs and take Axl with me. Incredible. Thank God for being in shape. I lug Axl’s thirty-five pounds with me up the stairs, reach the counter with the immigration official before the pretty customer service rep does and repeat the process, this time going downstairs.

We make it but leave later than we’d expected. This is the first time I have ever held up a plane. The boys fall asleep before we even take off, and Liebi and I share a Tiger beer (and a laugh, believe it or not, over this bloody fiasco) as we look out at the approaching Himalayas.

What have we learned? Again, expect the unexpected. A few days later, I watched a speech given by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He stated that we must ‘deliver what we promise’. This was more in tune with the recent environmental summit in Kopenhagen, but he no doubt was reflecting his own country’s stance. India is full of potential, but is still inherently third world. A billion plus people with a great percentage of poverty, no matter what the status. Ask this country to be like the west and you might as well ask a cat to leave mice alone and, what the heck, the canned food too and feed on grass instead.

India is certainly a great country with loads of potential. I wish them well. I just hope I don’t go back there in the foreseeable future.

Incredible India, II

2010-02-22T04:13:00.003-05:00

(cont.)

Waiting at an airport can be heaven for some, but hell for most. I don’t mind the delay. Those happen. What we didn’t count on was that we would be there a full seven hours before we would manage to finally make a one hour flight. In that time we could have made it to Delhi and back three times. Again, though, this is an international flight, and the weather is the weather. Better security first than being splattered on the side of the Annapurna Range.

III. Landing the Plane

We get to Delhi, although we discover that we flew in circles for an hour before we even landed. Very odd. That map display that pinpoints your exact location via GPS and accurately gives you distance and altitude? Our distance goes from 20 km to 52 to 10 to 61. At least they could have done this over the Himalayas if they wanted to treat us to a tour. We also know that the rest of the day is done and that we will be exhausted when we get to our room. This does not bode well for the next day. We get to the hotel, but we know we will have to make adjustments for the next day if we are to see the Taj. The plan is executed, although not without the plan in return exacting some executions of its own first. It’s an exciting adventure in the same way pulling teeth with a rubber band would be.

But first, we need to get out of the airport. On the bright side, the driver from the Shagri-la is there. That’s why you pay five star prices. It is nice to see wide paved streets again. In the dark the driver tells us we are passing Embassy Row. It becomes obvious what a big city Delhi is. The driver in impeccable English casually says that Delhi has fourteen point five million. Ykes. A bidding superpower needs a super metropolis, I suppose.

After ten minutes we inch past an accident site. A bike rickshaw took a spill. The cyclist is probably seven years old. So much for your super power status, India. Apply again next century, preferably minus the child labor. Those big and wide streets like ribbons around a large gift box are a façade that will mask the imperfections we will eventually encounter. I tip the driver with Nepali rupees (tough luck, that’s all we have for now). The concierge, a gorgeous young Indian woman (five stars, right?), accompanies us to our room. Before she leaves she gives Axl a gift (a Mickey Mouse puzzle) and asks to have her picture taken with him. Sure, she’s only trying to be polite, right? Little do we know. We scramble to get some food and put the boys to bed before deciding what to do the next day.

We decide to forego the train ride in the morning, which means we will lose around 1000 rupees, or twenty dollars. Not ideal, but we can manage. Getting the boys up in the morning (let alone ourselves) is going to be hell one way or the other. The boys are troopers and cause little problem except for a well-timed meltdown here and there. Good for them. They better get used to it, because that‘s going to be their life for the foreseeable future.

We hire a driver to take us to the Taj. Getting out of Delhi itself is quite an effort, that’s how big it is. The smog is everywhere, par for the course for a third world metropolis. There is a truckstop where we break after two hours, but I take one look at the circus outside and decide to stay in the car. There are old Brahmins everywhere with little rhesus monkeys on leashes. I know better than to roll down the window. Those little monkeys can make off like bandits if you give them just a sliver of space. A transvestite wanders around the car and propositions to me via the driver. This is getting just a little weird, I am thinking.

We stop at a McDonald’s close to Agra. We miss a golden photo opportunity when we see a man donning a turban seating himself next to Ronald McDonald on a park bench. Too bad. Leave it to McDonald’s to turn a profit here with the complete absence of beef products (cows top the caste system as mentioned in an earlier blog) and pork products (too many Muslims here). Meanwhile, a family has spotted Baby Bash and the photo shoot is on. Liebi watches in horror as Bash is passed around between wives, aunts, and cousins. That seals the deal for her for the remainder of the trip. Nobody is going to hold Bash again.

The Taj itself is relatively uneventful. We are solicited by a number of tour guides and junk souvenir vendors. We are warned that the line takes three hours (we actually get through in less than three minutes) and bravely continue to push the stroller through the throng of people. Admission to the Taj is fairly expensive (about 15$) each, but we are mesmerized by its silhouette in the late afternoon once we see it in its full beauty. Even the postcards don’t do it justice.

Then come the mobs: one by one, men and women alike demand to have their picture taken with the boys. They treat the kids as if they were the legitimate tenants of this place, and I stare in amazement as at least fifty people and probably more line up and ignore the Taj for a while. I always knew that Asians can make a big fuss out of children (the Japanese for some reason always seem to adore Axl), but this was positively hero worshipping.

All good things must eventually come to an end and we will have to take the long road back to Delhi. On our way back we get stuck in several jams thanks to unfinished roads. The 200 or so km take about six hours in the end and the boys are good troopers. I buy some Carlsbergs and Foster’s from a hole in the wall, so that helps liven things up a bit. On our way back it’s stop and go, stop and go, all through a thick shroud of smog. We see a thief take a twelve foot plunge from a lorry to secure his loot, a crate of grapes. Any thief who doesn’t mid getting hurt like that will almost always be successful. The driver drops us off at the Shangrila and that’s it for day two. Next comes the hard part: getting home.

Incredible India I

2010-02-20T06:09:00.002-05:00

There is an ad campaign out on TV channels around here. I watch virtually no TV here, but when I tune in on BBC News or Deutsche Welle, you can’t ignore the latest Dokomo ads with the catchy jingle, nor can I imagine that you can watch anything these days without the omnipresent ads that come to you by the courtesy of the Indian tourism board urging people in no uncertain terms to visit their country. There’s a guy, supposedly a white foreigner, mowing through Indias’s crown jewels at breathtaking speed, always managing to put a happy face on it all, despite the apparent cultural differences. So somebody just smothered you with dye? Throw it back! Take a photo of a couple at the Taj Mahal, ride an elephant (past a yawning tiger), hit India’s bitchin’ nightclubs and then write a postcard home with the simple words Incredible India. Clever. Whether you actually leave India with a smile is open to dispute.

We didn’t need an ad campaign to tell us where and when to go to India. Kathmandu does not have a large (or modern) airport by any stretch of the imagination, but as a capital city you can still catch direct flights to Seoul, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Doha in the Middle East. Not bad at all. We thought that the Taj Mahal around Valentine’s Day would be an ideal fit for us. There would be a Nepali holiday on Friday (Lord Shiva’s birthday) and an American on Monday. Good for two days and a trip to Delhi.

Delhi is little more than an hour away, otherwise I don’t think we would have bothered making the trip. Luckily for us, the baby has been an angel (compared to his brother at a comparable age), so we knew we could make that trip with the kids. Ironically, the trip from Delhi to the Taj Mahal would take much longer. We booked two nights at the Shangri La in Delhi. We booked tickets for a fast train from Delhi to Agra, the city hosting the Taj Mahal. The boys would get a kick out of taking a train, and we could even rest on it, which we fully expected to. We would have plenty of time to take in Delhi and see the Taj alike. Good deal. We would have the stroller with us at all times, so the boys could rest whenever they wanted to. We were fools, bloody fools, despite the fun we had. We made a mistake we had long laughed about when committed by other people. We thought we were now veteran travelers, skilled and street smart, infallible in our judgment. Somewhere the Board of Tourism is laughing themselves silly at us.

The lesson was: never assume anything abroad. For the third world that often translates as: never expect anything. I still can’t believe we got whacked the way we did.

But I digress. First came the part of executing the three part plan that should find you warm and safe at your destination:

I. Making it to the airport

Seems like a given, right? Four miles from home, piece of cake. Not quite. With no traffic lights in this city, anything can happen and will happen if the stars are aligned (or the busses, motorcycles and tuk-tuks are not). One knucklehead can cause serious jams for hours. Then there’s the holiday. On Lord Shiva‘s birthday the kids will build tolls on the road. You roll down the window, give them a rupee or two, then be on your way. Their barrier: a string, made taut by two kids, one on each side of the road. These kids are already learning about bhands and which material hopefully not to use if they wish to receive the desired result. That said, the kids are only a minor obstacle and we arrive at the airport with time to spare. There is the additional challenge of avoiding any meltdown by the boys should they become impatient and hyper and demand to be let out of the car. This part of the plan went relatively smoothly, which led us to the next challenge.

II. Getting on the plane

This trip would prove how miserably we’d fail here. First things first. We get through security and check in. As is custom, you always serve the disabled and women with little children first. This (supposedly) works at any airport. Check. Worked like a charm. The officials in Kathmandu are friendly and take time to slobber over the boys. We have a half hour to spare. We wait in the overcrowded boarding area where we watch passengers board a plane to Singapore. Then an announcement: plane to Delhi is delhi-d, delayed. I look at the weather. Fair enough. It’s quite foggy out there, although I have no idea how the Singapore plane will get through that any worse than we do. The officials say the weather, the weather, and we kick back. We should have been in Delhi by noon. Now we know we’re not going to even fly by noon.

(to be continued)

King For A Day

2010-01-23T12:00:00.002-05:00

Only last year did it finally become possible for commoners to visit the Royal Palace, long the central nervous system for power in Nepal. Naranyiti, as it is known around here, still is the closest thing Kathmandu has to a skyscraper, its high tower looming above the tree line at the gates of Thamel, a custom made sight for tourists and locals alike.

Built in 1969, Naranyiti, according to Liebi, is visually little more than a 70’s disco palace, especially on the outside.

It’s easy to second-guess, but I think I would recommend to tourists to skip the palace. There is nothing you won’t catch in an average castle of similar size anywhere in Europe. You will see the photos of the Royal family lining the walls, the king with Mitterand here, the king with Hassan II. of Morocco there, supersized portraits, stuffed animals, ottomans, and various other excesses you would associate with a family that has too much money. Again, nothing you can’t see in the castle of some Duke or Lord.

The most pressing matter to tourists here, then, was where the massacre of 2001 occurred. In a sudden blood rush, the crown prince Dipendra wiped out almost the entire royal family after allegedly failing to gain the king’s blessing for his bride. The building behind the Palace where it actually happened was razed for unknown reasons, although they still accurately pinpointed the waypoints of the bloodbath. The prince grabbed a pistol, pop, shot his old man, a couple of aunts and uncles, then his mother and brother before finally giving himself a bullet. Mercy.

It is amazing that people here would preserve such a site. If this indeed were a city teeming with wealth, it would be understandable. But here we are talking about a billion dollars worth of prime real estate while the state makes a few hundred rupees here and there from admission and the cost for maintenance must be enormous. Add that the Maoists literally buried the monarchy and you would think that this place would topple more quickly than a Saddam Hussein statue in Baghdad. Let’s see how strong their sense of history and preserving it remains.

Sometimes, monarchies can be a fascinating thing for history to preserve, if only for the benefit of tourists. People find it rather boring, I’ve noticed, traveling a long way from home only to be reminded there is such a dull thing as democracy. Even military dictators are preferred, anything that distracts from the comfortable, but boring predictability of things back home. Those tourists would strongly disagree if they actually lived in those countries. Poverty and misery are a way of life here, and I have always noticed how uncomfortable immigrants were back in New York once they realized what freedoms they had. That’s why tourists rarely become residents here. Facing the every day conditions here can be a trial in itself.

And yet, ask people about the Palace here: students, professors, teachers, laborers, and taxi drivers. A Kathmandu without the Palace would be Moscow without the Red Square. Whether people are in favor of the monarchy are not, they feel the Palace still belongs there. Considering the alternatives, like the Pizza Hut and KFC around the corner from it, I think I’ll agree. I am equally certain people around here could care less about their form of government. The stipulation here is that it doesn’t interfere with our everyday lives. My boss back in Brooklyn used to say this about immigrants coming from developing countries: “People there don’t want democracy, they want food.”

Then again, it is not to say that democracy as such will last and the monarchy won’t make a comeback. I don’t like the monarchy’s chances here, but with the capriciousness of politics here, I wouldn’t take them off the board yet either.

Nagarkot, The Second

2010-01-20T07:12:00.002-05:00

What I didn’t mention about the first trip to, or rather should I say from, Nagarkot was the trip home. I wouldn’t call it road rage, the way I tore down the inadequately paved roads, but maybe honk happy. Not that I haven’t learned this already, but it is truly liberating to honk your horn every fifty or so yards and then watch the traffic part in front of you like the Red Sea. The only thing that would have gotten me through that quicker would have been a siren. This was my only trip behind the wheel in this country of any significance. I still hate driving on the left hand sign, but I manage.

The car would go back to Nagarkot months later, but I wouldn’t be riding in it. Sal would again be part of this, as would my other colleague, Aidan. Together we hatched this bright idea that would see us in Nagarkot on a Saturday, on our day off … running, that is. This time we would take a different route. It would be 15 km of more or less level terrain followed by a consistent 9 km climb up the mountain. Not an easy run, but manageable.

There are times when you think to yourself that Saturdays are wonderful events, rare opportunities to charge the batteries while devoting much needed time to your children when you otherwise wouldn’t see them. You can go out and play some ball yourself or slouch on the sofa while watching it. Who in their right mind would then spend it beating themselves up hustling up a mountain? People who have a very odd sense of fun, no doubt.

The plan was simple. Get up at six, run at seven. Have the car meat us every five k so we can drink water and move on after a few minutes. The plan was executed to perfection. Meanwhile, once we left hazy, foggy and smoggy Kathmandu, curious villagers lined up to watch these crazy white people beat themselves up while they were sitting around drinking tea. After fifteen k’s, the paved road seized to exist, the climb began, and we were now going to earn our brunch. Once you leave the Valley, you are on your own. You will find the odd motorcyclist here and there, but other than that, there will be nothing but animals and hamlets who have nothing to do with either electricity or machinery. Conceivably, this is also the perfect place to get mugged. It is not uncommon for westerners to wander out too far into the outback, only to be relieved of their belongings by groups of bandits who are as far away from civilization as they are from any physical representation by the law. Even while I was huffing and puffing up that mountain, I would have to remain alert.

Luckily, I ran into nothing the rest of the way but friendly villagers and a stray dog or goat here and there. I recognized the village where I walked by with my kids in their stroller only a few months before. I wonder if they recognized me. When I saw the hotel, I pumped my fist and waited for the others. For the briefest of moments, when we sat down to eat brunch, the mountains peaked through the thick shrouds of haze and revealed themselves. What a tease. One minute, as if the mountains wished to reward us without fully unveiling. We still had a beer at ten a.m., and a Carlsberg beer never tasted better.

I would be walking for a few days like I had been grossly violated, but it wouldn’t be without a smile on my face. Yeah! I kicked that mountain's a$$!

Random Observations

2010-01-18T00:57:00.000-05:00

-The most frequent accident happens when motorcycles run into cars as a result of ignoring turning signals. For similar scenes, watch the movie ‘Jackass’.

-Most Australian products are damn good here. It makes up for what you can’t get from Europe or the U.S. Ever tried Berri Juice?

-This is not winter, but disease season. The entire family was wiped out by a respiratory illness way too common for a smog laced Kathmandu at this time of the year. To quote Tom Lehrer in his hymn to the city:
“If the hoods don’t get you the monoxide will.”

-What is still mind-boggling to me is watching men and women half my size carry full size closets, desks, and sofas by themselves on their backs by means of a strap tied around their heads. Truly amazing. Watching this gives me a headache.

-An idea here: why don’t we have a bhand against bhands? That’ll teach ’em.

-I don’t think there can be anything more gut wrenching than the recent earthquake in Haiti. When I was in Brooklyn, Haitians were my main clients. Good Lord, that country is cursed. It’s also another scary reminder of what this city will probably look like when another one hits here.

-It’s sad that we have to go through bootleggers to get some halfway decent entertainment in Kathmandu. A movie here costs less than a rental in the States. Problem is, it doesn’t seem illegal here, what with even the Bhat Bhateinis (the Nepali Walmarts) selling the stuff.

-It’s true, but I never watch TV here, but I just saw the Late Show here… at nine in the morning.

-For Christmas, I just got an Iphone. Great toy, really. Compass, clock, great games, camera, Ipod. Now I only need to make the damn phone work.

-Flashback. I still love negotiating with merchants here. Reminds me a lot of Marrakech in Morocco. It’s so much fun laughing with the guys, although I think I am laughing more at the prices they demand for some of their worthless stuff. Only yesterday did a merchant go from 1200 rupees for a lock to two hundred within a matter of minutes. It helps not to be a tourist sometimes.

-The garbage carriers were on strike until a few days ago. People estimate it will take weeks until the garbage littered streets can be cleared. This does not bode well for a city notorious for being untidy.

-Allegedly, India is trying to popularize Christmas to capitalize on its incredible market. With more than a billion people in India, you can’t fault CEO’s for trying.

Deutsch, bitte!

2009-12-19T21:23:00.005-05:00

This post will be completely unrelated to Nepal or any of its features, but will deal with my oldest son and his papa. This could be happening anywhere in the world between a father and a son. It’s still a nice footnote when it happens to us in a place like Nepal.

Ever since he was born, I tried to teach him German. That was never high priority, although I wished very much that he could learn it. I would start with the standard baby words, Papa, Hallo, Gut! Auto, etc. He would repeat them every now and then, but at other times he would ignore me or swear up and down that it was a ’car’, not an ’auto’. Point taken. In other words, you little snot are as stubborn as your old man and will speak only one language. That’s perfectly okay. Besides, something tells me he will eventually learn more languages than I can even count. Were one of those only German. I always imagined it would be nice for Axl to see his family in Germany, and communicate with them the way I do. I always feel uncomfortable when my friends and family in Germany go (or even jump) out of their way to speak English around me, even if they mean so well towards my wife. Axl should be well armed the next time around.

How do I know this? Being as pre-occupied as I am at times, I hardly ever imagined he was storing all of this knowledge. Shame on me forever for underestimating children like that. A few months ago, I tried again. ‘Deutsch!’ I would say after he correctly pointed out the name of an object in English. He would then smile shyly and turn away, as if he wanted no part of Papa or his archaic and irrelevant language. He would listlessly look at the books I read to him before bedtime. A little hungry caterpillar seemed to have a better ring to it than ’die kleine Raupe Nimmersatt’. His Gods, the Wiggles, never sang anything in German. What the hell? I also thought his didi might be teaching him Nepali during the day while I was at work. Shouldn’t surprise me. She thinks he’s a little Buddha anyway, might as well hear him talk like a little Buddha. Still no sign of any snippets he might have remembered from deutsch.

Then it came. One day after his bath I had put on his jammies and brushed his teeth. I strolled over to his bookcase, picking out his staple for the night, Good Night Moon, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, My Truck is Stuck, etc. Axl saw what was being offered and then calmly made the walk to the bookshelf himself. He yanked down my arm, his order for him to be lifted up to where he could see the book. His little hands grabbed the German book. I thought he had made a mistake. But when I put him down his eyes started beaming as he said, “Deutsch!”

Yeah! I have a son here who wants to learn it. Until recently he could count in German and give me a few body parts, like Kopf or Nase. Though he still rarely talks in complete sentences (although we know fully well he can) he is storing vocabulary, a ton of it. He knows what an Anker and an Ameise (ant) is. He knows what a Katze and a Schmetterling is. He can also tell you what color they are. Rot. Blau. Gelb. And now he has mastered chess pieces. I won’t give this boy a Rhodes scholarship just yet, but he certainly deserves merit for his willingness to learn, his curiosity.

A good start, for sure. I will not try and cram this down his throat (I really haven’t), but I will patiently wait and see what he can digest and what he will throw out (or throw up). So far, it seems German tastes good to him. I know now that, with even minimal effort, that he will speak good German. Papa is pleased.

Nagarkot

2009-12-12T20:06:00.003-05:00

This happened a month ago, but I am still happy to have recalled it.

One of the great things about living in Nepal is that you don’t have to go very far to enjoy some exquisite nature. Shivapuri National Park is a prime example, a National Park teeming with wild animals and spectacular views of the Himalayas. A conservative estimate says that if I left my home now and drove my car to the Park entrance I would be on the mountain top in less than three hours, albeit at a brisk pace. On my way to the top of Mount Shivapuri I would cross paths with ermines, reptiles, Himalayan black bears, and snow leopards. The handful of people you would encounter would be merchants on their way to or from Kathmandu. The summit itself stands at 2,600 meters, a gnome in this country. But from the top of this gnome you will see its much bigger cousins, snow capped 7 and 8,000 meter giants with no equal in the world.

When we returned to Nepal with the baby, Liebi and I decided that we can travel with the boys, thanks to the baby’s sweet disposition. We would drive ourselves, a twenty-four mile drive to Nagarkot, east of the Kathmandu Valley. Accompanying us would be Sal, a colleague of mine and Kyoko, his Japanese girlfriend. They would be traveling on motorbike. Twenty-four miles is a lot in this country, in this case it translated to one and a half hours in the car. That’s a sluggish pace at best, owing to bad roads, a steady uphill climb once we leave the valley, and bad traffic. We finally arrive at the Courtside Hotel, clearly an independent hotel, but one that does it the right way. Our rooms face the east, and the highest summits of the Himalayas will be revealed to us in the morning when the air is clearer. We also have a gorgeous view of some of the villages in the valley. No matter how many tourist busses come up here: this is nothing close to Kathmandu. These are villagers who will have just unwillingly degraded you to fishbowl status. However, it is perfectly clear they don’t mean any ill will whatsoever, so we are encouraged to take a stroll to the villages.

Sal and Kyoko understandably go their own way, they have more a ambitious hiking project in mind, and we will not see them until the evening. In the meantime I study an unpaved rocky road that had just taken us up here and where it continues. Adequate for a hiker yes, but for a stroller holding a toddler and a baby? There is quite a decline from our hotel to the other side of the mountain, so this will require a little muscle. Thank God I’m in shape. The stroller holds the boys while I skillfully dodge the rocks and potholes in the road. We make it to the first village a klick away and are treated to a traditional folk dance group, accompanied by some local musicians, all donning traditional garb. When the stroller arrives at the scene, a good fraction of the crowd divides their attention to our children. Axl is in front, so he will get the brunt of it. Axl hates being fussed over and is terribly shy. It doesn’t help here that he is a as white as Casper the Ghost and has outstanding blond hair for a two year old. The villagers, in particular the mothers and daughters slobber over him as if he were the Buddha himself. Axl wants no part of it. The baby’s sleeping, bless his heart.

What goes down must inevitably go up. Now the boys will have to be pushed back up the hill. The sun is beating down on me. Forgot the suntan oil. The dancers also stop at our hotel, and Axl can now watch them from the comfort of the stroller. He likes what he sees. Nobody here to bother him.

Later we meet Sal and Kyoko at the restaurant, our tables on a balcony. Beer, an Everest, let’s have it! Later Liebi and I sit on the balcony of Sal’s room. The clouds are beginning to lift, revealing some peaks that are just to high for the clouds to hide. We sip whiskey on ice. “Life is good,” Sal says simply. Hard to disagree.

My postcard moment came the next day. After breakfast I climbed down into the valley, Axl in tow. We covered a great distance when we arrived at a Buddha statue surrounded by tall grass. In the background you could see the snow capped mountains. Click. The easiest photo I ever made.

It wouldn't be long before I would return here, and then under extraordinary circumstances.

Yoga! Yoga! Yoga!

2009-12-02T01:40:00.002-05:00

Being a worldchump is not for everyone. People need to remember that we are not here as tourists, but as actual residents. Whereas tourists will filter through the catalog and pick out the sites (Himalayas, Pokhara, Chitwan) most likely to guarantee a vacation over two weeks or so, we need to digest the less desirable features (Bagmati River, extreme poverty, political violence) as part of the package for two years.

It’s a delicate situation, admittedly. Day in and day out, we are furthermore at the mercy of the pollution, traffic conditions, and the possibility of an imminent earthquake. Not your average suburbs in the west, that’s for sure.

As a worldchump, you must be prepared for everything. You must think positive, meaning you should gain and learn whatever cultural aspects you can whenever you can while you are here. In the Far East, there are religions to learn about, philosophies about life so at odds with what you had known that you can choose to ignore them, accept them, or even embrace them.

When I first arrived here, I was hoping to learn a martial art like Taekwondo or Karate. That hasn’t happened, more than anything due to lack of time. Remember, just because I reside in a somewhat exotic place doesn’t mean I don't have certain routines to follow. Having a second child has only added to these routines.

I am very rigid about physical fitness and this perception has only augmented with age. I religiously record cardio minutes each week and supplement this training by lifting weights. One of the greatest gifts, though, Nepal could have possibly given me is learning about yoga. In short, it is everything I had hoped for and more. Being into physical fitness, especially at my age, does not preclude me from little nicks and injuries. Now and then there will be a big fat zero under cardio minutes owing to some little pull or tear I might have picked up. That sometimes makes you want to swear off physical fitness altogether. Yoga itself is an exercise program that will assist you in achieving two things: proper breathing and fitter and more robust limbs.

People in general like to regard it as little more than a good stretching program, but it has proven to strengthen more muscles than I could have ever imagined. And those little nicks and injuries? Alakazam! Gone. Whoa!

As a novice, yoga will be uncomfortable and you will feel like you have twisted yourself into a pretzel. This will ring true during the first week or so.

Eventually, the benefits are quite tangible. I have logged 220 or more cardio minutes over the past nine weeks, which is not too shabby at all. Every now and then I will feel a little pain in the body somewhere, but very, very rarely.

I can only recommend this to anyone interested in physical fitness. You will feel more balanced mentally as well besides feeling stronger physically. Forty minutes per day. It is well worth the investment.

Like Buffalo to the Slaughter

2009-11-26T09:26:00.002-05:00

This is not a good posting for PETA fans. And if you don’t have a tolerance for blood and gore, you might want to go back to your Facebook. I can’t judge these things anymore, nor do I intend to. The culture here has been imbedded in this nation for more years than we can imagine. I cringed at a mass slaughtering of sheep on Aid l K’bir at an apartment house in Fes, Morocco. One by one, they were brought out, their throats stuck to a knife and thrash, kick, enjoy the kebap. The blood sifting through the tiles of the apartment or house is to bless the house. Not a pretty sight, and I made sure I only saw the demise of one sheep. His cousins probably joined them in their reincarnation as pullovers.

I have not witnessed a buffalo slaughter, nor do I honestly want to. The next few weeks I will get my chance, this being sacrifice season and all. What happens is that a buffalo is led out to a temple or pagoda, a hole is slit in his throat, one of the guys pulls out the artery on both sides and holds them in place, careful not to leak any blood. He aims the arteries toward the edifice in the temple and… re-lease! That’s a lot of blood squirting out of such a big animal. Now you know where that red color at all the pagodas comes from. Of course they don’t slaughter buffalo throughout the year, so if there is no blood red dye will do perfectly.

In Kathmandu they expect a grand total of 4,000 buffalo to be slaughtered, and these are only the public bovine executions we’re talking about. I am sure a few buffalo can also be offed in the warm confines of many private residents. I know that many Moroccans could not afford the cost of a sheep during the Aid, many of them going into debt to secure the sheep. Now imagine the cost of a buffalo in a less developed country such as Nepal.

Then I received another story from a local engineer here that stated that there had been two thousand buffalo slaughtered near Chitwan along the Indian border. Supposedly a monk witnessed the slaughtering and loudly protested against the mass slaughtering. This was over a week ago, and the man has mysteriously disappeared. Make the final tally 2,000 buffalo and one monk.

And while we’re at the killing of animals, here’s a tidbit of unrelated news. The first western fast food franchise was opened near Durbar Marg in Kathmandu, a joint KFC/Pizza Hut venture. I definitely think they will turn a profit. The westerners in this town alone will almost guarantee that. How about a bucket of fried chicken instead of real turkey for Thanksgiving?

The Plot Thickens

2009-11-18T07:09:00.002-05:00

So far we have been lucky with the weather. It is warm almost every day, even though now the nights are getting chillier. It’s still been a long time since I’ve worn a jacket. It’s nice to have a climate that is predictable sometimes.

For the political climate you would have to wear a fur coat one day and go bare-chested the next. It’s as predictable as a spider on acid. There have always been differences in this new democratic experience, and I am sure that one day this will serve them well when they are to lead their country after so many years of turmoil. The fact remains, though, that this is still the infancy of a nation in the modern age, and there are a lot of angry tears coming from the baby. This is still a country acclimatizing to talks and negotiations within a democratic forum. For the time being, it is still a nation where sudden death for governments are the rule. Don’t believe me? Ask the king when the monarchy came to an end a couple of years ago. He lives about a hundred yards from the Embassy in a house most CEO’s would kill for. Will they recycle him when the time is ripe? You wonder.

The Marxists, Parliament’s ruling party though not the absolute majority, have found it hard to rule when there is such a thing as a coalition partner, let alone an opposition. Why should they have cared? They relied heavily on themselves in the guerilla days in the country side. They didn’t need help then. And why is everybody else ganging up on them, the ungrateful lot? The Prime Minister (their guy) resigned following a struggle with the President (supposedly a neutral occupation) after the former had decided to sack the military chief. That general was reinstated and, I am assuming, is still in charge of the aces in the deck, the armed forces in this case.

Their protests against this minority abuse of power has been calm by all (Maoists’) measures. There have been torch light protest marches at night, followed by mass gatherings in the heart of the city during the day, up to 40,000 strong. There have been clashes with the police. Now the papers report the Maoists have begun seizing land. Supposedly a rougher program is to follow. Calm, eh? As calm as a crash of rhinos. Not good. They sound serious.

I have already written about bhands here, which supposedly now have been banned. This will be put to the test here again in the coming weeks, seriously so. It’s one thing if the local carpenters for finer wood stage a bhand and block off a road. The tear gas bombs will disperse them more quickly than their saws going through wood. You always had dozens of splinter groups, each one blocking roads for whatever purpose. The government finally put its steel booted toe down and warned about interference should this continue. This appears to be true. Bhands were wiped out largely over the last couple of months. Now what if you’re the ruling party staging the bhand? The Maosits invented bhands. It’s one thing to disperse a flock of protesters. The Maoists numbering 50,000 or so occupying every entry into the valley will be harder to convince. I believe these next two weeks will be very telling where this will lead, although I don’t want to spell out those options. Either way, when all is said and done, you will have a lot of extremely pissed off people.

I hope their God is with them. I hope that God is peaceful and guides them to do whatever is necessary to save the country. I pray these people are spared, because they will be the first to suffer. Then I realize that Maoists may not even have a God, which here should be secondary. Everybody here should know what is at stake. Survival. Of the Maoists. Of the Government. Of the people. And most of all, the beautiful nation of Nepal.

Managing

2009-11-16T10:04:00.004-05:00

The clash of cultures has been brought home to me in a more chilling manner.

Do you know how all the spectators in the stadium are managers and players and that they can do the man’s job twice as good on the grass, beer belly, bad back and all?

This time I would not be an employee in my house, now I would half people working for me. I have had managing and supervisory experience before. And yet, the hardest is managing house staff, hands down. When my wife and I returned with baby back from the States a month ago, we thought that yeah, we were glad to be going back to Kathmandu, but the staff is going to be a pain. That was true, and it was always from the same source.

That would be the didi, the person mainly responsible for our kids. We have got a terrific driver, a person who cleans, but it’s the one with the biggest responsibility who has failed us the most. It’s more safe to say we failed each other. My dad was a union organizer, and I have become something like a Walmart Manager here.

...

Let’s see… didi number five quit this morning. Too bad I didn’t write this last night, I actually still had hope of keeping her. These didis are doing nothing wrong. They have children and babies like we do and it’s in their best interest that they do well with them. They are experienced with children and give children a status that we no longer remember in the west. They adore their children and yours, too. Their only mistake was that they couldn’t please us, the parents. Not true, Liebi will say. The last didi let a diaper rash grow on the oldest, one the size of a glove. Out. Thanks for the memories. That was the only one she fired, I did in the first four. One before that stole from us. Boot. The first two formed a union together the first day on the job. They would drive up their salary demands and do this together, united against me. That union lasted about two weeks before it was smashed by yours truly. You only have so much say in things if your work is only half-assed. It’s a funny thing with children: they will like you or they won’t. And our son didn’t like either. He could tell they didn’t care about him. He contributed heavily to the firings. I didn’t need much convincing. Bye, bye Union. Never gave them a chance. Go get ’em Walmart. Go Yankees.

I have also learned that you must not ever overpay people. That's when people start quitting on you. It took me a while to figure that out. That said, I am not cheap and pay them better than most. If they need vacation or leave, take it. Sick? Stay home, how much is the medecine or the doctor's visit? No problem. I am sure most of them don't like working for me, although they at some time will appreciate it. I am not cruel to people, but I will be firm if that is what is needed. Liebi was so mad at a didi that she cried after seeing a diaper rash on Axl's rear the size of a glove. That dismissal goes to her. I definitely got the other four.

I remember my younger brother and I used to have this game starring… ostriches. I have no damn clue how I came up with that. My brother was the tyrant and fought to suppress all ostriches. Any suspicion he had, whack, hack, let there be blood. The ostriches couldn’t do a darn thing, because even with all their courage and fighting spirit, that will only get you so far against machine guns, tanks, and bombs. My brother reinvented the word terror in his gallant struggle against the ostriches. In a way, I have become that tyrant and stuck it to the ostriches.

What my staff also knows, though, is that I want better for them. At the rate they were going, they were going to remain hundred dollar a month nannies and house cleaners in the far feature. They are worth more than that now, because they have learned many things, about doing things the right way in our house.

Laundry.

Hygiene.

Cooking.

Organizing.

Managing.

That's the word.

Worldchump Still

2009-11-14T02:17:00.002-05:00

I realize I haven’t written anything on this page for some time now. Perfectly okay, because I have lived half a lifetime in between them. There was a vacation in the Bavarian Alps with twelve of my wife’s family visiting. That went swell, all things considered. It’s hard not to like the region. Our vacation house was nestled between the mountains and the river, south of Lenggries, 5 km from the Austrian border. That made for a good run in the morning. Every morning I could go home, people still waking up, and proclaim, “I just ran to Austria”. Of course nobody likes a boastful twit.

That said, it was a great stay. We had everybody stay at a vacation house, a former customs border station rarely visited. We could have packed as many as thirty in there. I wish we had. It turns out the landlord had refurbished the old jailhouse, so that the visitor found two more beds, if needed, behind iron bars. Too bad we never used it.

We took in familiar sites, took the train to Munich at least three times. We visited Dachau, which had quite an effect on our visitors. Germans are more familiar with it by now. Though not done mourning, the younger generations in Germany don’t and can’t cry over it anymore. Fair enough. My grandfather fought on the German side in the second World War, and you can’t help but feel a little rotten about the fortune you inherited, of being born in 1969. No draft now, no full scale wars that cripple entire continents. What has my generation ever had to worry about?

Neuschwanstein, or Disneyland, as I like to call it came last. Again, I have seen it but you have to marvel at so many people visiting it and their ensuing reactions to it. It makes you appreciate it even more.

Germany, beautiful though it may be, was secondary. Spartanburg, South Carolina was next, where my son Bash was born. This has nothing to do with world chumpiness - it occupies an entirely separate world of its own. First things first. I had to fly back to Kathmandu after Germany for six more weeks while Liebi left for the States, son in tow (both sons really). I left Kathmandu two weeks before the due date. From Kathmandu it went to Doha, back to Munich, finally on to Washington. Two days wasted on a plane, although Qatar Air more than made up for it.

Liebi herself was due to give birth, that was apparent when we finally met at the airport in Greenville. We would have the baby induced. On the date we chose we went to the hospital, Liebi quite normal and eating breakfast and chatty. We checked in and the baby was there in less than an hour. Chalk one up for science. I am sure that people fondly remember going into labor, heavy gasps and all, but that won’t be us. Liebi was tucked into bed, pumped full of dope, and rolled off. I was never nervous before that, not at any time during the pregnancy. We had done this before, so we both felt more confident. I became nervous, though. I had just put on my outfit that made me look like a two bit Halloween doctor at best, hood and cheap plastic blues included. I went to get me a cup of hot tea at the cafeteria and waited. Finally a nurse called me into the delivery room. These guys were as cool as cucumbers. I later heard they had delivered five babies that day, so this was all in a day’s work. From the speakers came Michael Jackson music. The tune was ‘Beat It’. Jacko had just died a few months ago. The surgeons cut and carved some more. The baby popped out during ’Smooth Criminal’. Wow. Little thing, not as big as we thought, not even eight pounds. Poor kid was tall but skinny. Our first son was a bear, this one positively a bird. He looked a lot like his brother. Back in Liebi’s room, the tea was still warm.

Bash was scurried off to the fishbowl where routine tests are made, measurements are taken, the whole nine. I had to leave the OR. Liebi was probably still getting some good drugs. In the family waiting room I stared at Baby Bash, my arms folded. There’s my child. Can’t believe it. Number two and from the looks of it our final issue. At first I felt concern for the little guy. His brother yelled like he had been born with rage. This little boy barely emitted a squawk. Of course like me, Baby Bash is also a second son. This will not get him any special privileges, but I feel for him just the same. Easy to fall under the radar when you’re not number one.

It is three months later now. We are safe and sound back in Kathmadu. The attitude a normal person (those not converted) has after a year in the third world when he gets back to the first is the same. Same here. My wife and I decided we would eat at McDonald’s, Burger King, Taco Bell, Junk Paradise, whatever. At first this seems like the answer to life’s problems, a Big Mac and fries, cholesterol over culture. This is as good as a quality vacation, but no more. Three weeks pass before you get locked back into the routine of things and become a Westerner again. Time to go then. Kathmandu by now is our home and will be for another year. And Bash? Bash is an angel, the answer to our prayers after the reign of terror created by his brother in Jordan. He sleeps well and smiles like a movie star.

Ape, The Third

2009-07-30T07:59:00.002-04:00

Not the same ape that visited our house months back. The ape that dropped in on us then was so obviously an outsider, an outlaw perhaps, a male that would get killed by his troop if he was to return. This one was bigger and did not shyly gaze out at the staff and the little children as they went about their daily routines. This ape was on a mission.

When I returned home from work one day, I found that both my didis were still there. Odd, since one would always arrive earlier in the day and was then permitted to leave earlier. This didi decided to stay put, thanks to the ape terrorizing our block. They wasted no time in detailing the exploits of our friend. The tally (though not final one) was one bitten guard, two bitten women outside of the compound, and scores of people left horrified at this wanna be alpha male. Even our cat had decided that the place under a bed was her best option. Oh boy.

I do not have the same attitude towards animals as the Nepalis, and I doubt I ever will. I know what animals can do to people, and dying a hero while being gored is not a choice here. That said, I won’t deny people have pacified me a little bit. Case in point: I have carried out about a dozen cockroaches from my bathroom, whereas a year ago I would have just set up a trap or simply stomped on them. Here I would grab a tissue, quickly snag the bastard, and throw it off my balcony. A minor difference here: this is a primate ranking near the top of the food chain. There is no way I am going to use a tissue to fend him off.

I spotted the ape about an hour after the last of my staff had left. He was sitting on the wall, listening to the taunts of several teenage boys lingering in Lovers Lane. Hard to make out if you have an aggressive ape glaring at you. These boys were fearless, all standing in a group, more with a curious than aggressive attitude towards the ape. The ape himself was cool about all this. He had marked his territory inside my compound, and that’s where he would stay until somebody said he couldn't. I stepped outside, bamboo stick at hand and approached the yard, keeping a very safe distance to our ape friend. Surprisingly, he thought so little of me that the only motion he made would be a hop to the generator where he would again sit and size up the enemy.

Not feeling so brave, I stayed where I was, bamboo stick held in both hands. The ape must have honestly thought that the bigger threat had been presented to him by the ‘troop’ boys outside the compound. He picked a few insects out of his fur, then with a giant leap jumped into the adjacent vacant lot, never to be seen again.

The staff was given the day off following this terror. Later, I heard a foreign non-profit organization dealing with biological (especially animal) issues had captured him and transported him to a place I will never know of. You kind of have to feel for the ape too. He had so obviously been expelled from his troop at - no doubt - one of the temples around here that it had just become unfathomable for him to return. What does an ape naturally do? Establish his new territory. Problem: the fruits on the trees are gone once they are picked, and there are no females around, the worst thing that can happen to a male of any species. That poor ape was probably as terrified as we all were.

Selfishly, I don’t want to see an ape around here again. I will also not attempt to feed it in anyway should that be required. I will also, to the best of my abilities, try not to whack it with a bamboo stick if it should attack. Unfortunately, the best odds for a lost ape are to leave, keep wandering, either until death or his unlikely induction into a new troop.

Landscapes

2009-07-28T17:00:00.002-04:00

By the title, I am referring to mine. The place where I live and the changing makeup of the neighborhood. My perception of change differs greatly from people who have actually been here for a long time, like a decade or more.

Like all major cities, Kathmandu has also experienced a tremendous spurt in growth, and the old-timers here will confirm how entire neighborhoods, entire quarters, hell, entire counties were nothing but a bunch of peasants with their cow and buffalo only a few yeaars ago. I have been here for less than a year, and yet changes here are tangible.

When I first came here, we were one large German owned house, next to a large American owned house, next to a large Indian owned house and a half a dozen puny local ones that were little more than the unhappy product of the marriage trailer and shanty. Well, the shanties have been torn down, quicker than you can say ’namaste’, and their replacements are already on deck. As quick as houses go down they go up. Here, it takes them months, and the plural form applied here is generous. Unencumbered by pesky regulations for security and safety, as well as other environmental issues that might arise for the investor, these houses go up fast. The primitive bamboo scaffolds erected against the sides of these new houses attest to the sheer will of people to have things built, be it a house or a highrise. Unions back in the States would be crying bloody murder.

One house in this neighborhood two lots away is complete, whereas it wasn’t even a dig of a shovel months ago. Two old houses that were torn down on the adjoining lot hid the fact that this was a huge tract of land, something the owner must have finally learned. The lot next to ours is now a wide field, peppered by walls supposedly demonstrating the borders. The landlord has bigger ambitions with the land, that seems clear. I only wondered, with a city in poverty mired in poverty, where are they going to find all of these rich people to afford these houses? Just a thought.

What’s more, the removal of the local houses in the neighborhood have removed any source of neighborly intimacy and replaced it with a different sort of intimacy, meaning the paved road leading up to my home has become… Lovers Lane.

Here, not unlike the Middle East where I was before, public affection is underdeveloped here. You will see the odd couple holding hands, but more than not you will find people of the same gender doing that. To satisfy any other shameful ideas here, you will have to find a place more private. They have officially chosen my house for this purpose. Their thinking undoubtedly finds its roots in their perception that the American, or super dallit, knows no shame. And so far I haven’t ratted on them, so I guess their trust was well invested.

The lovers in question are teenagers, young ones, no older than fifteen. Knowing that cars could show up at any moment, they squeeze themselves into the recesses in the wall where the gates are. They are serious about this. You will find them hugging and kissing and making damn sure the chance of discovering them is minimal. It’s the same kids too. They seem to feel comfortable here.

After my vacation in Germany, I was baffled to find that so much could change in two weeks. The house about a hundred yards away is a prime example. But there were also other houses a few blocks away that just looked like they had grown too quickly. Aside from that, my yard was a virtual jungle after a couple of weeks, the result of two weeks of monsoon rain.

And that all was only a few weeks and eleven months, these observations I have made. A decade from now, I will be coming to a new city.

Government Bandhs

2009-07-21T10:00:00.001-04:00

From last month, following the government crisis and the alleged murder of a high party official:

And who to stage a bandh (roadblock) this time but the former majority government party in charge, the Maoists? If the ruling party of the country can stage a bandh, anybody can. The only thing is, these guys are much better (worse?) at it.

They assemble early in the morning, 10-20 people per group, all of them blocking key intersections to the Ring Road. What is the purpose of it? Again, consider shutting down the Interstate 5 Freeway in Los Angeles or the Beltway in DC, and there’s your answer. Without traffic there can’t be any business. Most shops don’t even bother to open, save for the token mom-and-pop stores inside the Ring Road. The Ring Road without cars is an eerie sight, and the Maoists know it. Their protest against an untimely demise of one of their leaders (supposedly poisoned) is a good enough reason to neutralize Nepal’s businesses for a day, they seem to think. Even at this early hour I cycle to work, fully aware there probably won’t be any work that day.

It takes all of thirty minutes to prove me right as the announcement comes through the PA system. No work then. One of my colleagues lives close by, so I phone him. Up for a run in the hills? You bet, he says. You can always count on William for a good run.

In hot and sticky countries, it is best to run early in the morning, except that it doesn’t seem to make any difference here. We had a run the day before at eight a.m. and agreed it might be feasible to run an hour earlier. The difference was marginal, to say the least, kind of like the difference between playing soccer in a sauna or an outhouse. My stamina is quite good, but this time even I wilt towards the end of the run. The climate can make a difference.

The bigger challenge will be getting through the bandh, though. Our run took us through rice paddies and forest, hardly noteworthy spots to carry out bandhs at. So it’s back to the Ring Road, and even more protesters. Those that are not early risers have joined in by now. When I reach the intersection closest to my house, people get off their bikes. I follow suit. I am not going to fool around with people boasting their fighting experience. Hell, they probably invented the bandh here. One of the men from the protesting crowd steps into the middle of the road. Without a word he points his finger and slowly waves it up and down. Dismount is the message. Get off the bikes or risk losing them or pushing them home deflated.

Whenever I pass a bandh, I get off my bike, lower my head and go my way. I will not argue with these people. So many people I know call them ‘thugs’. Whether this is true or not hardly concerns me. This is no time to be a hero.

Hundreds of pedestrians continue to crowd the Ring Road like people forced into exile. I climb up my roof and can’t hear anything, which is no surprise being that the main culprits of noise (cars) are out of action for the day. Suddenly, out of thin air I hear a little boy singing from the top of his lungs. I will never know what he sang, but I just remember this high pitched voice lingering above Kathmandu, the mountains around the valley serving as an ideal backdrop. Is he singing about peace? Suffering? Is it support for the Maoists? I so wish I knew.

Later reports come over the radio about vandalized vehicles and clashes with the police. The bandh is terminated around six o’clock, a full day’s work done by the Maoists, a full day’s work lost by the rest of us. And we are told there is more to come.

Drive My Car

2009-06-08T06:03:00.002-04:00

On what would be an insignificant day for most people in the world turned out to be a milestone for me last Thursday. Some people fondly remember their first roller coaster ride, others their first bungee jump. People who prefer their heart thumping in their throat, then in entirely different spheres of the anatomy will go parachuting. Since I know that these events are completely out of the question, I ventured out on my own personal adventure: driving a car in Kathmandu.

It has been almost nine months since I have been here. I hired a driver for a good reason, and people who have tuned in to this blog regularly will know that driving here has a risk factor best explained by insurance companies, the friendly neighbors who can stiff you later on potential payouts. Driving a car in New York is nothing compared to Kathmandu. An accident in the Big Apple means a slap on the hand by your friendly insurers, whereas here you, the westerner, are automatically guilty, regardless of whether you are at fault or not. Why then, would people wonder, don’t people simply seek out every blue-plated vehicle in town, take a dive, and cash in? The sense of self preservation is too great for that. Ten or twenty grand won’t do you any good if you’re dead. It only means the remainder of your family can afford a lavish funeral.

The call came from work, where I was told I was needed. A few options were presented to me. Walk to the next intersection, flag a taxi down and then debate for the next few centuries what the fare should be. I could also have taken my bicycle, although the darkness outside convinced me to shelf this brilliant idea. Oh well, I thought. There’s gotta be a first time for everything. I put on my jacket, pocketed the keys, and headed out the door. Of course, there’s something to be said for a knucklehead debuting in Kathmandu traffic trying to weave his way through traffic in the dark, the pouring rain, and the heavy traffic on their way home. What to do? Focus, that’s what. Low profile, drive extra slowly, and keep that foot close to the brake pedal. Until the second intersection everything went smoothly. I had already driven on the left side before, so I was familiar with the unorthodox handling of the wheel on the right side. What was new to me was the crowd of motorcycles inching their way past me, each one trying to gain that little edge that would push them forward and get them home a tenth of a minute faster.

My rearview mirror on the left side did manage to hit something – one of those minivans posing at a bus near the intersection. I heard the rubbery thump of the mirror hitting something solid, then saw the mirror knocked inward, the way it had been done multiple times before by other cars, bicycles, or even pedestrians in their attempts to squeeze their way past us when I was riding shotgun next to my driver.

The return trip was anti-climactic by comparison. After my rescue attempt at work, most people had already gone home so that I had the streets more or less to myself. A couple of close shaves followed through narrow roads, but eventually I managed to guide the car back into our own compound with everything intact. Mission accomplished.

Now when some braggart tells me about the virtues of base jumping, I will flip him off and tell him about driving in Kathmandu. That oughta show him.

Just Another Manic Bandh-day

2009-06-01T23:04:00.002-04:00

Last week, the Newar Community, a well represented Ethnic community in Nepal, called for a Valley-wide Bandh in Kathmandu. For those of you who might have forgotten what a bandh is here, it is to Nepalis what a barbecue is to Americans, with the exception that instead of sausages and ribs, you throw cars and motorbikes into a fire. Bandhs are a means of protest by any group who wishes to get something off their chest. One day it might be a union, the next day, students, on yet another day it might be abused chickens organizing the bandh.

The effects of a bandh are well known. Besides paralyzing traffic in an entire quarter of town, it will force people to close their stores, and not rarely are motorbikes and cars burnt on top of the old tires, all specifically designed to seal off traffic. A small bandh will more or less bring business to a screeching halt within a specific region of town. A valley wide bandh will cripple the entire city. The demands of the Newar Community? An independent state within the Republic of Nepal. They are quite serious about this too. How do I know? Yesterday was the first day of work I missed because of a bandh.

I had already heard of the Newars’ intentions from the week before, although mentally I was still geared up for work. It started innocuously enough. I rode my bicycle to the nearest chowk (intersection) at around six in the morning and quickly realized something was amiss. The Ring Road, Kathmandu’s answer to the Beltway in Washington, was completely void of any vehicles. Uh-oh, I am thinking, so this means my wife won’t be able to drive to work later in the day. The sight of an empty Ring Road is surreal, like something you would see in documentaries that depict mass migrations. Here were hundreds of people walking up and down the Ring Road with no cars, motorcycles, or buses to bump them off. Needless to say, this was also accompanied by an eerie silence, something you do not associate with buzzing Kathmandu. Silence in this town is not a good thing. Think about the killing fields in Cambodia.

I hopped off my bike and quietly snuck through the assembled crowd onto the Ring Road, hoping they would not show too much interest in a white guy pushing his bicycle. Right then I was resigned to the fact that there would be no work that day. Fine, let’s at least go to the gym and work out, I am thinking. We’ll sort out the work issue later.

The Newars did a thorough job of preventing vehicles from entering the Ring Road. There must be hundreds of little dirt roads feeding into the Ring Road, and they shut off every one of them. At work, I call my wife to tell her she would not be able to drive that day. Later at the gym, a colleague mentions that the Embassy will be closed that day. That settles it, I am thinking, let’s call the wife again.

Later outside, I listen for protests or any sign of danger. A small group passes the Embassy, I patiently wait for them to leave, quietly pushing my bike on the sidewalk behind them. I make it back to the Ring Road with no effort and pass the pedestrians on my way to the chowk leading to my house. The crowd has now grown quite a bit, and again I hop off my bike and roll it through the crowd at one corner, eager not to attract any attention.

Later at home, the didi (nanny) has arrived! I wonder how the hell she did that. She also tells me that my wife actually walked to the Embassy.

Later on the roof of my house, I gaze at the masses walking down the Ring Road. I lean back to enjoy the sun, now welcoming the day off. Let’s have a beer for the Niwars, whether or not they do gain their independence.

Country Roads, Take Me Away From Home

2009-05-25T23:02:00.002-04:00

One thing I have always learned about developing countries is that the worse the cities are, the more beautiful the country side is, or at least seems to be.

Tourists shelling out the cash for a plane ticket to Nepal will take the couple of days or so they have for Kathmandu, but it is hardly the objective of their journey. In fact, some people already in the know about Kathmandu or repeat travelers will hightail it to Pokhara the next opportunity they get.

Then again, I admit that the country could also merely appear to look better after so many days in smog-filled, poverty-riddled Kathmandu. There is some truth to that, although people must not forget that people here in the country eke out a living the same way their cousins do in the city. Sometimes the rain isn’t there, causing an enormous loss of their crops. The haze itself is bad anywhere in the valley, it only lessens the closer you get to the edge of it. But once you look at the valley from a distance, say a 10,000 foot mountain top, you can see just how thickly veiled this city is, and it is not through the courtesy of rain clouds.

Still Nepal – I have always maintained this – has scenery outside the valley unlike any country. It is not uncommon for people like me to work in a cubicle one moment and thirty minutes later be jogging past waterfalls, narrow mountain trails, and idyllic stupas. Cows, enjoying the same god-like status everywhere in Nepal, still block the roads as they please, their defiant stares a reminder that human beings in these parts might not be at the top of the food chain. Buffalo are guided along rice paddies, and a closer look at the horns of those animals convinces you to slow down your run or hike so as not to aggravate them. Of course there are also dogs in abundance, the next best thing to a cow in Kathmandu. Dogs in Nepal enjoy a popularity the way cats never could and never will. They will give you a few warning yaps, somebody will invariably raise his arm as if to throw a stone at it, and the dog will be off with its tail between its legs. Once in a blue moon you will actually see a cat. They are widely feared, although most people attribute this to superstition rather than any concrete feline personality trait. Some people are actually smart enough to realize that cats get rid of vermin. People can quickly ignore their superstitions when their livelihood is being messed with.

Whereas people in Kathmandu will give you a curious look, people in the country will smile at this freak of nature (you) and also invite you for a drink. On numerous occasions I have dashed straight through a farmer’s yard or fields, and they would still be greeting you, hands clasped together as if in prayer, welcoming the distraction to their routines. I have sometimes jogged through chicken coops, pig pens, sheep yards, you name it. It bothered the tenants there as little as the animals, amazingly enough. Maybe the Maoists have gotten through to its population, that everything must be owned by the community. Maybe…

Then back to Kathmandu and another traffic jam featuring a hundred or so vehicles squeezing through an intersection meant for a dozen. It’s equivalent to changing the pipes under the toilet and replacing them with those of the kitchen sink. Somewhere along the line you will have a clog. It’s an eternal stalemate with the city, people here know. They must live with it, even though many would just as soon see it knocked down, if only out of sheer curiosity over what its successor might look like. They might get that opportunity sooner than they think.

No Charge

2009-05-15T05:23:00.002-04:00

To imagine what loadshedding means, just picture yourself in a city with running water and electricity that functions about one third of the time. When a power outage occurs in the west, people will go, WTF? Okay, so something was short circuited, whatever. Flip the damn thing back on, etc. We take electricity granted the way we breathe the air.

In Kathmandu electricity is a luxury. Currently I believe we’re at sixteen hours of shedding, meaning technically two thirds of the time the city network is unable to deliver power. But that’s okay, because that’s what generators are for. We are never without electricity if we don’t want to be. Of course, the generator consumes five liters of diesel fuel per hour, which is why you need to seriously consider how much you need the hair dryer, toaster, etc.

Here people don’t even blink when the power goes out. Not even my son does. In fact, he finds it kind of amusing, even when he’s taking a bath. So somebody played a trick on me, he’ll be thinking. Funny. The light will be back on anyway. His parents look at it differently. It can be a bit of a nuisance if you’re in the middle of the movie and zap, the power outage stops the bullet from spraying the bad guy’s brains on the wall or that crucial love scene is deferred until the generator powers itself up. If you cycled around Kathmandu at night, it would not be so hard to deduct who has the generators (and arguably the means to afford them). Our house with security lights is lit up like Vegas.

Every week there is supposedly some schedule in your neighborhood that allows you to plan ahead and find out just when you power is available every day. That seems to be a little sketchy lately. It seems to me we receive city power when we need it the least, which is at night. Cute. That’s like applying chemo after the cancer ridden body has already decomposed.

If you look at a satellite photo of Kathmandu at night, it is the exact opposite of say, New York or Singapore. You’ll find a speck of light here, a bit there, but for the most part it is as dark as Amish country.

Sixteen hours without power means a lot of things to a lot of people. Businesses can’t operate efficiently with the absence of power. I have even seen cashiers in the most noble stores break out the old pad and pen and do the math by calculator. Construction projects are delayed as you can’t weld or use the power tools necessary to fit your components. Why also would be people want to buy new appliances or TV sets if they are unable to use them?

I am always happy to turn the generator off as I have found out that it helps me sleep like a log. No noise outside (having a generator in your yard is the equivalent of a tractor running non-stop) plus the complete absence of light add up to a heck of a night’s sleep. That is, of course, unless city power is on at night, which then brings you back to square one. If I never considered electricity a luxury before, I sure do now.

A PM No More

2009-05-07T05:49:00.000-04:00

A few days ago the Prime Minister of Nepal announced his resignation. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Maoist government is on the verge of collapse. And it is not so much the Maoists themselves who brought this upon them, but quite possibly a weary people seeking change.

The word ‘change’ is relative in Nepal. Has anybody forgotten the democratic transition from the old monarchy within a couple of short years? What exactly is change within the political parties? That old men merely take the place of older men? People here are fully aware of their limitations under the Maoist regime. However, if the Maoist regime were to disperse, what happens then? Do people want to know? Is this what they took to the streets for? They understand that they are standing on a cliff with a hungry white Himalayan snow leopard bearing down on them. Do they want to take that jump, knowing that they could land on a soft bed of snow or the hard ice of a glacier?

It started innocuously enough. The Prime Minister sacked the Army Chief of Staff last week, claiming the General refused to obey civilian orders. The General remained at HQ, claiming the Prime Minister didn’t have the legal authority to remove him from power. The President, the nominal and de jure (although not de facto) head of state, sided with the General, whereupon the Prime Minister in a press conference announced his resignation. And now the party begins. People are taking to the streets, demonstrators are clashing with the police, and an entire nation waits with baited breath for what this all means for their young republic. Since the announcement of his resignation, the Prime Minister’s popularity has soared. People recognized that he was willing to give up power in exchange for his honor, for the right to govern within the executive branch the way the constitution dictated it. People understandably have seen their share of oligarchs in power, the military being quite prominent in these, so that it shouldn’t come as a revelation that the military’s and thus the Chief of Staff’s support is virtually nil.

These events may be surprising but hardly unexpected. The grand majority of the population never considered the Maoists and Centrist (the deceptively named Marxist Leninists) powers an alliance with any staying power. With the general population, it’s almost comical: now that people are done complaining about the government, now that they have rallied for more causes than you can shake a stick at, what exactly do they want now? Tough question. I am not sure people even know themselves. There seems to be a general wave of confusion since the abolishment of the monarchy, and who can blame them? People must have wondered where all of these freedoms came from that they so utterly lacked for all of those years under a king.

The constitution, on the other hand, is equally confusing and has the clarity of the Bagmati River in Kathmandu. Our attorneys in the west would have a field day with this one. Just who has how much authority when, where, and why? Perhaps that is something still being scrutinized as the Prime Minister and his cabinet are making way for a successor. The answer might not matter. What does is that the Nepalis, no strangers to hardship, deserve a peaceful solution and at least some stability and sense of sanity in a government apparently gone ballistic.

Pop! Goes Papa

2009-04-26T23:57:00.002-04:00

Child abuse is a serious crime, as I am sure we all agree. Child abuse can leave scars that might be invisible, but are certainly felt by the respective victims for a lifetime. As a kid myself I was lucky to get off with a little whack here and there, mostly for things I wholeheartedly deserved. What people don’t tell you is that abuse can go both ways. I am considering opening the first chapter of ‘Parents Abused By Their Children’.

My son has always been known to have a temper if things don’t go exactly that way. Some people call this phenomenon a result of genetics (true), others are less philosophical about this and chalk this up to being a brat (also true). I recall a few times when the boy would land a few good kicks to his old man’s mid section, and there were times when I would have to catch his fists in midair before they had a chance to reconfigure my face. Sometimes a simple headbutt would also do the trick. At thirty pounds, you would think that his little head wouldn’t be strong enough to go through paper. But then you need to remember that there are animals that can be more vicious than their size might indicate – dogs or ermines, to name just a few, not to mention a certain five pound cat who has fought off entire veterinary staffs. It’s the size of the fight in the dog (cat), right?

Q.e.d., then. A couple of days ago I was cycling home, peddling a little harder than I usually would, simply because I was happy to get home after a long day at work. Surely my son would be happy to see me, right? The reality hit home as fast as you could say ‘blood’. When I ordered the didi (nanny) to go home, I took my son by the hand and was about to lead him upstairs when he threw a fit the strongest strait jacket couldn’t have sustained. He protested at this unauthorized removal from his nanny, flailing away with his little arms and legs the way I had only known this before vaccinations at the doctor’s office. Easy does it, I thought. We’ll have to let the rules of physics run their course. I picked him up, my arm firmly clasped around his waste when his little head shot up and popped me squarely in the mouth. A good jab at the least, a strong uppercut at best. I didn’t need to feel for my mouth like Jimmy Stewart did in ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ to know I had drawn blood. I walked up the rest of the stairs with my chin up, wishing to avoid an encore.
Inside his room, he was still sobbing and gasping, unable of comprehending the grave injustice that had been done to him. Props to the nanny, for sure. I have had nannies who made my son cry before he actually saw them in the morning. It seems to me I have now reached the bottom of the barrel, with my wife and the nannies clearly outranking me. The curse of being a man. And the curse of having to be the only person who has to say that dreadful word ‘no’ to him. One of my colleagues once told me that some people were born to say no. I don’t consider myself part of that sector, but for my son I must make an exception.

After Mr. Hyde’s short reign of terror had gradually subsided, my son found his toy play tool box and was fresh as a daisy again, barking out orders to me and using his favorite tool (my hands) to get done what he wanted accomplished. I looked at him long and hard and finally rubbed the spot where he had cold-cocked me. The terrible twos, they always say. Maybe, since he will be two in a month or so. All right, so it’s rebellion then, as billions of other fathers before me have already discovered. I’ll just have to roll with the punches. And keep my chin up or duck the next time.

Pictures in less than 1,000 words

2009-04-21T01:19:00.001-04:00

Here are some recent Hallmark/National Geographic moments I was able to witness in Kathmandu. All right, so they don't all qualify.

-Watching a mongoose slip underneath a neighbor’s gate and proceeding to make himself at home in his garden.

-Being slightly sluggish from the sudden spike in temperatures. It is getting much hotter now. Add a thunderstorm for good measure each week, and you will have produced the perfect formula for the reproduction of mosquitoes.

-Drinking rice liquor that tastes like licorice and is almost the nastiest stuff I have ever tasted, second only to some ‘mehia’, a figwine in Morocco.

-Starting a hash run right at the Bagmati river a week ago. Not a good idea. The strip along the Bagmati river featuring dozens of shanties is the most appalling portrait yet depicted of poverty in my experience. How do people ignore that stench?

-Barely seeing the mountains from my house for days. As the weather changes, so does the haze.

-Witnessing the spectacle of twenty crows cawing over a catfight, the crows neatly divided into two camps rooting for each feline. All were probably united in the belief that the killing of either opponent would have produced an easy meal for them.

-Seeing a man lying butt-naked early in the morning on one of the main drags of Kathmandu. I still have no idea whether he was alive or not. I’m guessing he probably was – the absence of flies was rather conspicuous.

-Reading about a man in Chitwan demanding compensation for injuries sustained after being upended by an elephant, owned and trained by the park authorities. The park refused remuneration, claiming the man had been drunk.

-Finding a hole (not just a pothole, but literally a hole) in a paved road the circumference of a saucer filled with weeds and twigs. I’m going to go out on a limb here, but I think that you might need something a little sturdier for oh, say a five ton truck.

-Watching an army of (big) ants making quick work of a lizard killed by the cat. They say vultures are nature’s undertakers, but I dispute that. Seems to me they have some serious competition in this neck of the woods. That lizard was so quickly dismantled I didn’t see a speck of it anywhere later in the evening.

-Looking at the pride my son felt after having just learned to jump.

-Watching the monkeys at a cafe near the Monkey temple perform their balancing act on the telephone wires. No wonder the cafe actually had cages at their windows.

The Right to Choose

2009-04-09T06:10:00.001-04:00

Last month a dead calf was found next to the property of a British embassy employee in Kathmandu. Witnesses stated they had seen a few neighbors from a nearby village feeding the calf on several occasions, sometimes even covering it up at night with straw and thin blankets. Nobody knew where the calf’s mother was, nor am I told did anybody care. This calf was left to die, plain and simple. And why? Because it was a male.

Of course all cows in Nepal are considered holy, and male or not, you don’t want the possible reincarnation of the savior dying in your backyard. However, people are also aware that there are practicalities and biological realities to consider when caring for animals. You can’t slaughter cows here in Nepal, so what do you do with a male calf which might seem as useless to some here as salt on a jalapeno? You starve it to death. Of course, people don’t let logic impede them from what is clearly a murderous act. Let it die on its own. If it couldn’t survive, then it wasn’t meant to. Funny. Maybe we should just let our next babies run around and fend for themselves.

Oddly enough, they have been known to do that to, only this time with the opposite sex. People are so bent on having baby boys (must be a nasty habit picked up from the Chinese neighbors), that they will go out of their way to get rid of the newborn baby girl in any way they can. This is why certain medical products are not available here. The Intelligender Test? You know the one that can supposedly determine the gender of your baby with a simple first morning piss after three months? Can’t sell those here, even though there is undoubtedly a market for it. And if they did sell those here, you would have not only the highest abortion rate ever recorded in a single nation, but also a plethora of newly patented abortion methods.

Funny how culture works at times. You wish with all of your heart that your offspring is male but a male calf, arguably the creature with the highest stature of the Hindi universe, is simply not worth keeping.

Here’s another biological fact along with a wild theory I’d like to throw out there: don’t you actually need males to reproduce? I am not a Hindi, but I also have yet to meet one person in this country who has witnessed a virgin birth of any calf. You will find people here who will swear up and down that they have seen UFO’s, the second coming of Elvis in the Himalayas, or the Easter Bunny before that happens.

Ditto with baby girls. If everyone were to have a boy, you would have precious few wedding ceremonies, unless the Supreme Court gets busy and allows gay marriages.

Home Viewing

2009-04-07T05:49:00.000-04:00

People have asked me more specific questions about Nepal, such as, “What exactly do you see from your house?” I think it’s a simple answer. What do most people see back in the States? Cars, houses, children playing, your basic package of a (sub)urban neighborhood. And yet, it’s certain that that’s where the similarities end.

On Sunday morning, I climbed to the top of my house. It is three stories high, but there is also a circular stairway that leads to a deck on top where you find the solar panels. Climb a ladder to yet another deck, and you’ll find the water tower. The water tower is the equivalent of what would probably be the fifth floor in the States. And if you have squeezed your way up the stairway and climbed the ladder, you should have a nice view.

From our house you will see an even bigger and fancier house to the south and a house of equal size and quality to the west that is vacant. To the east there once was an old dilapidated two story house that has now been leveled. Only a few weeks before that the poor family living there with their seven or eight kids had been evicted. We now know why. As you gaze past the ruins of the old house, the lot is at least five times what ours is. The owner of the property must have bigger plans, I am thinking. The lot is subdivided by old short walls that remind me of the boundaries erected by old English and Irish clansmen to mark their respective properties. And yet it’s almost a guarantee that these borders, too, will be torn down to make way for the bigger and better plans about to be fulfilled. Further to the east, past the property lines of the now vacant lot, there’s a little hut with corrugated tin roofs, a shanty deluxe really, a little shop that was built next to the main road through our neighborhood. To the north is the small narrow road, only recently paved, that leads to our house and the adjoining lot. In another vacant lot to the north, I see children playing. It appears they are shooting rubber bands at something, possibly birds in the tree.

It is very hazy today, so the mountains can only be seen as through a fog, which is unfortunate but not uncommon. A closer scrutiny will reveal Mount Chivapuri, the featured peak of the National Park bearing the same name. I have hiked up that mountain twice now, although now it seems like a mere picture postcard, distant and untenable.

I can see a stretch of the Ring Road to the south, where traffic is operating at its congestive best. On certain days there are stretches of the Ring Road that resemble arteries with not enough space to offer the bloodstream that is the Kathmandu traffic. You always have to wonder when the next hemorrhage might occur.

An old man is now leading his goats onto the vacant lot, although there are pitifully few trees and equally meager drippings for the land to offer them when it comes to their staple of choice, grass.

That’s the postcard from Nepal in words, if you will. Unremarkable, as far as I’m concerned, but then again, I’ve stopped being a tourist here months ago and have become a resident instead.

April Fool's Day

2009-04-01T23:27:00.002-04:00

This following article is clearly one of the better April Fool's pranks ever attempted. The question is: Is it really a joke here in Nepal? Time will tell. I, for one, am not falling for it. Note the kicker about blue-plated vehicles being allowed to drive on either side.

Nepal Drivers To Switch Sides

By John Child in Kathmandu

The Ministry of Labour and Transportation Management announced in Kathmandu today that Nepal will switch from driving on the left side of the road to driving on the right. The statement also said that the government will offer subsidized conversion kits for existing vehicles with right-side steering.

Transport Enhancement Division spokesman Latta Man Singh made the announcement in a joint news conference with police officials. He said that the proposal had been initiated by the Traffic Police after all other attempts to manage Kathmandu's chaotic roads had failed. Singh said that his ministry had supported the idea from the beginning and saw it as a modernization step.

"We drive on the left only because the British forced India to do so," he said. "People in the most developed countries drive on the right side of the road, and in the New Nepal we will too. That's sure to encourage development in Nepal."
The change will be phased in gradually according to Singh. Initially only government vehicles with yellow and white license plates will switch to right-side driving. After two weeks black-plate commercial vehicles will change over, and eventually private autos with red license plates will join them. The process is scheduled to be completed within 60 days.

Singh said that after extensive consultation with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, it had been decided that diplomatic and other blue-plated vehicles would be allowed to drive on either side of the road. Electric vehicles were exempted from the new rule at the request of the Ministry of Water Resources, and so will continue to drive on the left.

Opposition parties applauded the move to the right, but a statement from the coalition-partner UML slammed the move as anti-poor and demanded subsidized conversion kits for motorcycle riders, bicyclists and pedestrians too.

I Fought the Law and the Law Lost

2009-03-30T06:37:00.001-04:00

People in the west seem to forget that the reason for the current impoverished status of many a developing country seems to point to their governments, past or present, or their very lack of them. To claim that democracy is the cure-all end-all to all economic woes would be misleading, to say the least. Ask the people in Nepal. Since the abolishment of the monarchy a couple of years ago, civil unrest has continued unencumbered, with no end to the bhands and protests of the various special interest groups in sight.

Within an established democratic society we in the west take many things for granted, which often will impede our judgment once we acknowledge how the other half lives. One of them is the, to us, fairly basic concept of law. Every Nepali here will agree that whereas there might be as many rules as there are insect species, nobody can solidly confirm the existence of too many laws per se. Take traffic, one of my favorite topics in Nepal. The government rightfully allocates little of its budget to the erection of street signs and traffic lights. Why should it? Nepali drivers, unless a policeman is present to enforce some order, might think those bright colorful lights are festival ornaments. It sounds like I’m belittling the local population, but I really am not. Only two or three traffic lights in a city of over a million will produce more shaking heads than cautious drivers.

Then there are the accidents. Okay, so every country has them. Even the best laws and most battle-tested seatbelts will not prevent a driver from fender benders or worse as long as that driver is human. No problem, we’ll say in the west. We have insurance for that. Let them sort it out without drivers knocking each other’s heads off, if that hasn’t been accomplished in the accident. It is not hard to establish who is at fault. The police will jot down notes to include in their official report. Witnesses will submit their statements. And if the reports still smell fishy, our friends from All-State and State Farm will send investigators in their quest to deny yet another claim to any paying client. Here in Nepal, things are much easier. If I were to ram into a little taxi cab that just cut me off and failed to pull on its faulty brakes to regain its position in a non-existent lane, what happens? My fault, that’s right. Disregard the street theater that would invariably follow with the plethora of freaks and so-called witnesses crawling out from every uncovered manhole. It would be my fault, simply because I have the means and can afford for it to be my fault. Think I’m joking? This is by no means limited to foreigners, either. Ask any Nepali who has ever been involved in an accident. There’s a simple solution to every traffic accident: it’s the rich(er) guy’s fault. Now I see the logic of our people recommending leaving the accident site. These Maoists might just be serious! Let’s just turn Nepal into Nottingham Forrest. So if a little seventies VW bug rams into my car and paralyzes me for life simply because he was drunk, does this mean I am paying to have his bumper replaced and his broken arm fixed, should this occur? Some questions should really remain unasked, and that was certainly one of them.

Small World in a Small Town

2009-03-25T06:40:00.001-04:00

When people ask me to draw comparisons to Kathmandu Valley, I often mention Los Angeles, in particular the San Fernando Valley. I don’t think any native of L.A. will ever agree with that assessment. L.A. is much larger and has the fortune to be in the richest country in the world while Kathmandu is in one of the poorest. Kathmandu has nothing nearly resembling Hollywood, and there is as much beach here as on the moon. I suppose it must be the seismic properties of each place that prompt me to invoke this awkward match. That and a traffic that is excruciatingly sluggish given the right (or wrong) opportunities.

People can always tell you about big cities with a small town feel. Cities that have been bestowed this ambivalent honor include San Diego, San Antonio, Edinburgh, or even Munich in Germany. The makeup of these places have the bucolic footprints (millions of them) stamped all over the city, and yet you can’t help but feel a certain charm toward their somewhat innocuous qualities. Kathmandu is such a city, not so much for the fact that is as developed as a concrete plan for global warming, but more for people and its complete lack of cosmopolitan flair. The cows graze the tar of the main roads here like the tastiest greenest pastures of the Himalayas. Ever heard of the Beatles or Bruce Springsteen playing in Kathmandu? Neither have I.

But there’s more. Nepalis here know their city here unlike anybody. Never mind the streets, the allies paved and unpaved, or the various nooks and crannies begging to be upgraded until they are no longer just holes in the wall on a long desperate search for something as simple as an address. People know virtually every corner of this city, but it’s the people they will know even more. Every Nepali will have a cousin or sister of a cousin or a friend’s nephew living in some quarter here, and chances are that you will meet a person you know on the streets anywhere in Kathmandu more easily than you think. A remarkable event, considering that the population here easily exceeds a million people. I have run into people I know in Manhattan, Brooklyn, or Queens for example when there was not a snowball’s chance in hell, several times even. Not bad for a two year stay. Here that can and most likely will happen, oh, like every day.

And for the first time last week, I wish it hadn’t.

This occurred after the dismissal of our most recent didi, which is Nepali for nanny. After six months we have already gone through three didis, meaning the woman was just not right for our son. Conventional wisdom dictates that you should never fire somebody until you are certain that you have re-hired to fill that position. On the face of it, this can be quite cruel. Without her knowledge, the soon to be ex-didi is being axed while possibly chasing and playing with your child around the house. As a replacement for this didi, I found somebody working at a colleague’s house, somebody who came decorated with recommendations like generals are covered with medals. A person with a winning smile and a personality to match her remarkable work history. I hired her on the spot, knowing that this was it, that my chances of finding a better didi were as likely as Mount Everest erupting.

Well, Mount Everest just became a volcano.

It turns out I had hired the aunt of the outgoing didi. Needless to say, my dream choice for my household staff called the next day to excuse herself from working at our house, stating a bogus family illness. Nice. Think that could have happened in L.A.? The chance for such a story is there in any place in the world, just not as likely as in Kathmandu. It sure would make a good script for Hollywood, though.

Numb is the Word

2009-03-24T04:29:00.002-04:00

There’s no doubt that you have heard about people prescribing nada for any given psychological crisis or ailment. For combat veterans sifting through the charred flesh of humans amid the debris of burnt houses? Nada. For visitors of orphanages and homeless shelters? Give them a dose of nada, or nothing. Nurses and doctors working the emergency room? Pull your plunger back, Doctor, and ignore the bubbles – for there are none – and inject them with nada. I could name many more stages of horror, and the panacea would remain the same: blot it out, numb it, ignore it, spit on it. It all boils down to artificially numbing your senses the way you probably haven’t since 9/11.

Not surprisingly, Kathmandu is always a good candidate for the consumption –some would argue the excess or overdose – of nothing. The tourist must be well aware of this on his way to the jungle or the mountains. You will gaze at the ancient stupas and chuckle at the serenity of the orange-clad monks as well as at the shrieks of the orange-bottomed monkeys. Then, out of nowhere, quicker than a Tornado razing a trailer park, there will be the Bagmati River, the world’s biggest sewer attacking your nostrils like a well-timed whiff of ammonia. You will have to dig down deeper and numb yourself even more when you see the hundreds of primitive tents pitched along that deep river. A further dose is needed should you be unfortunate enough to spot any of the tenants.

Luckily tourists can’t ignore the many faces in Kathmandu for too long. At the entrance of Tamel, one of the Meccas for tourists seeking alternative holistic lifestyles or simply just a good puff of weed, you will find the poor mothers lined up all the way past the Royal Palace. Whereas you will find other boulevards in major cities inundated with prostitutes – and you have those here too – here it’s just the dirtpoor young women (quickly approaching middle age, from the looks of it) clutching their babies with emaciated fingers and covering them with blankets begging for another commodity (soap). The little babies and toddlers they are cradling in their arms already have the wide-eyed look of an antelope that has miraculously escaped the suffocating muscles of a python. You can’t help but wonder –unless you’ve numbed yourself sufficiently first, then you won’t- just what awaits this poor little kid at the end of his long and dreary road. An orphanage? Prostitution? A one-way ticket to a sweatshop? Even giving money to these wretched dwellers doesn’t satisfy your questions or ease your conscience.

People like to tell me that you shouldn’t give them anything, that the introduction of a micro nanny state in its infancy sets a bad precedent for a country already in dire straits. But it’s not about the money, I tell my numbed interrogators, it’s about something far more important: faith in human kindness and good will. That’s why people are out there. Of course the mother wants to buy bread for her toddler. 99% of the time she will be frustrated in her efforts and often go home hungry. The 1% keep her going, not with the money they hand them, but by showing that yes, there are human beings willing to help a fellow human. These aren’t elephants in a zoo snagging the peanuts from your hand. The 1% that gives a damn might be just as numb as the other 99%, but they are at least willing to feel bad about the strangers they have just seen and feel good about what they have done before they numb themselves. Most people just go straight to the medication.

But even I, a worldchump, can only numb myself for so long. Last week, a pair of ladies was spotted riding on a motorbike past the American Club. They pulled up short of the East entrance and dropped off something bundled in clothes. I would like to tell you that this story will have a happy ending, that there was a baby inside who was taken in by some widow or catholic nun, nursed back to health, and will go on to achieve great humanitarian milestones. What is true is that there was a baby inside the clothes. This baby, though, was dead. Try numbing that.

Give Blood

2009-03-14T00:35:00.002-04:00

God, I wish I could have written about Holi, the popular spring festival here that just took place this past Tuesday. I would have loved to write about the bright bonfires lit the previous day, then the main act featuring the seemingly senseless way people throw colored powder at each other in honor of the young Vishnu devotee, Prahlada. Thanks to a last minute assignment to my spouse, I would be stuck at home with my son and let other people get plastered with color and brag about it the next day. Wasn’t meant to be. Instead, I have dedicated this column to another earthshaking topic: the mosquito.

So far I am happy to be a part of Nepal. There is no doubt that the culture has hit me like a sledgehammer whereas I can’t quite confirm I have recovered from the blow yet. I’m probably now recovering and gazing at those new planets circling around my head. I admit I have been feeling closer to all living things, which is not that difficult with the status animals have here. With the exception of a few run-ins with a misguided monkey, and a few near run-overs of cows and dogs, I think Asia’s urban answer to the San Diego Zoo and I have harmonized fabulously.

That raw feeling of transcendentalism in its perfection has still eluded me, however. I have always said that if I could cut one creature out of the food chain it would be the mosquito. I am aware I would draw the wrath of thousands of different bird species (not to mention PETA) with that remark, and yet I stand by it. The sad thing is, it looked so promising for a while here in Nepal, my outreach program for our underappreciated parasites. You see, I am still a long way from enlightenment or wearing an orange robe under a shaved head.

I have a long history with mosquitoes. Even as a child, we were mortal enemies, except only one side did the killing. I could be lying in the dark, blissfully sawing wood and counting sheep when all of a sudden I would hear that high-pitched whine that would send my blood pressure into autobahn mode. I would be up more quickly than a bear in hibernation whose nose has just been scorched with a Bunsen. I would turn on the lights and not go back to bed until I saw that small red smudge on the wall, my revenge for lost sleep that translates into the end for one of God’s unfortunate creatures. I have lost hours, no, days and weeks of sleep to those little bastards, a good personal currency that can’t be easily recovered.

Like people, I have noticed that mosquitoes are different in every country. German mosquitoes are the worst. They have the most annoying shriek combined with that German ingenuity that helps them prevent an early demise. That’s why I have always considered them the most satisfying to kill. I have seen millions of mosquitoes around the south coast of Ireland. They would swarm and form an army that would make a lot of beehives look like cuddly glowworms by comparison. Better yet, they would always keep to themselves and elect to hover around bushes and in the outdoors instead of paying me a nocturnal visit. Jordanian mosquitoes would attack you without hesitation… and die just as easily. Catching a Jordanian mosquito was as easy as setting fire to a California forest. My relationship with our lovable blood sucking critters here started off just fabulously. They would bite me, every one of them a little chunk, possibly in that euphoric state of theirs that prays for me to get malaria. However, I recall they would always let me sleep and at least shut up while stabbing me. Fair enough.

Unfortunately, one of them recently declared war and woke me up. Mistake on their part. Now I have to go after that mosquito and his entire family, his cousin’s next of kin, etc. Wait a minute, I have a simpler solution. How about killing them all? Now when a mosquito protests that he in fact is not from the Miller family whose ill-fated member had been audacious enough to rob me of sleep, but from the Smith family, I shrug. Sorry, you all look the same to me. Splat. Now I am on a mission. We had an understanding, a contract signed in (my) blood about them picking up their nourishment from me in exchange for much needed Z’s, and that trust has been irretrievably betrayed.

It’s kind of crazy when you consider that the mosquitoes here in Nepal will apply to your spiritual senses to avoid getting whacked, as in,

“The wheel, brother, the wheel. Remember about reincarnation. You will be one of us one day. Watch the karma.”

I nod and rub my chin, thinking this guy actually has a point before I paint his intestines with my blood on the wall. Splat. Sorry, fella. You have another mosquito to thank for that. Now it’s on.

Left of Way

2009-03-04T22:30:00.002-05:00

It still boggles my mind to think that people drive on the left side of the road. I am looking out my window and gazing at this as we speak. All part of a culture, I guess. Hey, people don’t complain in the United States that we actually begin writing a document on the left side, do they? I always had to marvel at the Arabs for writing from right to left, as if they wanted to reverse anything ever written by the west. For example I can write, “Pork is good”. The answer would then be “.t’nsi ti oN”, right? Driving on the left side takes some getting used to (so is writing from right to left), I admit, even though I have yet to drive here. Riding my bicycle is experiment enough.

I recall first driving on the left side in the Republic of Ireland in the fall of ’07. This was one of the few times in my life when I wished I didn’t have a stickshift. Now the vital right hand was actually compelled to do something as ludicrous as steer while the underemployed left hand was put to work, frantically assisting in adjusting the clutch over narrow and capricious country roads. I took the rental car (a Volvo) for a spin one morning to inspect a battlefield of the late Anglo-Irish war in the early 20’s. I had read about this battle dozens of times, constantly recreating it in my mind while picturing the lush green rolling hills acting as witnesses to what would turn out to be an appalling day of bloodshed. Somewhere along the way I flashed back to my notes and lost myself in the beautiful countryside, picturing the Irish guerilla forces of 1920 scamper up the hills in plain view of the enemy. A duet of screeching rubber and honking horn quickly brought me back down to earth and County Cork, albeit the year 2007. Intuitively, I had managed to slam on the brakes and now found myself face to face with a white Toyota. What the hell was the driver doing on the wrong side of the road? Maybe it’s true what they say about the Irish after all, being a shameless bunch of drunkards who will slam the first whiskey shot before even brushing their teeth. I can confirm this lady was freakishly sober when I approached her car to check on her. And of course she was driving on the correct side, which is the left. I mentally slapped my forehead with the palm of my hand as I addressed the terrified young lady who was clutching her chest as if she’d suffered a crippling asthma attack.

“Are you okay?” I asked her, trying to spin the event into something less than what it actually was, like two pedestrians bumping into each other instead of the two metal monsters that would have possibly reduced each other to scrap metal.

Her reply was a question, although each word was virtually a sentence.

“Just. What. Were. You. Doing. Driving. On. The. Right. Side. Of. The. Road?”

The Irish accent sounded even more charming from a voice so apparently shell-shocked.

“Sorry,” I said. “Just a tourist. I forgot where I was.”

The lady’s response was to gun the engine and head away from this tourist as quickly as possible. She couldn’t have escaped more quickly from an alien.

Flash forward to Nepal. The streets are at least as narrow, and drivers are not impeded by such pesky things as etiquette or even rules. Come to think of it, driving on the left side is considered the norm, and is not necessarily smart and final. Drivers will take liberties and use as much of the road as they can. If this entails expanding the lane (a term loosely applied here, since the Hindis will sell Mount Everest to the Chinese before discovering dividing lines), so be it. The result of such liberties translates into inadvertent but frequent games of chicken. The exception here is that if you are riding a bike while the other chicken is drawing a bead on your head with a motorcycle, you might want to swallow your pride and throw the game. Fine, you win. Call me chicken. I’ll make the name change legal the next morning.

My wife is not too shy to drive herself around this town, which is fine with me. However, as long as I actually pay a driver to take us wherever I want, I will pass on this experience. And oh, thanks Britain for the reminder that you were actually a colonial power of these parts. One question, though. Why did you stop there? Why aren’t people greeting each other with left hand shakes? I mean these are very leftist Maoists, aren’t they? I’m sure they would have appreciated the gesture. I am surprised you didn’t just whack the locals on their knuckles to ensure that they would write left-handed as well. Maybe you’d like to build a time machine, race back through the ages, and clone a few people with a few modifications. So the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body? Chuck it, I say. Tinker until left and left can be one. Who needs artists and politicians anyway, right?

This will be interesting how I make the re-adjustment once (and if) I manage to get back to the west.

Springtime In Kathmandu

2009-03-02T10:14:00.002-05:00

That means ten degrees or so more, which makes a big difference. I realize that lately I have not been writing about the place where I actually live, which is Kathmandu. Today I will simply present some more impressions you get as you walk through the city. Call it a not-so-stillife of Nepal's capital.

There is a main road that takes you out to the northeast of town. It starts innocuously enough, with the pavement continuing well past the Ring Road, the Beltway of Kathmandu, if you will. No street is perfect in Kathmandu. The tortures and arduous endeavors that drivers subject their cars to on a daily basis are impressive. Taxi drivers don’t quite understand that their little 80’s style Korean made vehicles are not equipped with four wheel drive, which is why they zip through cracks and potholes with a fury you would expect from a horse. The mechanics in this town make good money.

Completely unperturbed by all this is the Hyatt Hotel, an oasis of luxury in this town of little. Gates manned by guards at the front warn of its exclusive nature, and the lawns inside are freshly combed and cut by entire troops of gardeners aiming to satisfy their picky clientele and protect the formidable reputation the Hyatt has. Past the Hyatt is the main stupa, or temple, in this town, the Boudha Stupa. You will find dozens of clean shaven monks in the vicinity, each of them blissfully making their way through the chaotic traffic, usually on foot. The stupa itself is a block removed from the main road but arguably attracts more attention than any other site in Kathmandu. Colorful flags wave at you from ropes strung from the top of the temple roof, eerily reminiscent of a circus tent.

Most shops here are little more than holes in the wall with a retractable gate to protect it at night. The merchandise is stacked high in piles with no apparent logic as to their location. There might be a heap of rugs six feet high at one store while the neighbor might just have rows of buckets stacked over each other. This must be their answer to the western skyscraper as each tower of merchandise seems to attempt to compete with the other in that race for the sky, or should I say ceiling, in this case.

There are literally hundreds of bicycles carrying heavy baskets you could picture on mules in more bucolic areas. The bicycle is a store in itself, among many other things. The merchant will use it as transportation, as a shelf stocked with fruits, vegetables, or textiles, and as his corporate headquarters, to be moved at will once the Chief Executive (himself) says so. Load shedding has hit people hard in this city. The businesses and residences are without energy for up to sixteen hours, so that there is finally a market again for calculators, pens, and pencils, no matter how affluent any particular store might be. Those few fortunate enough to afford electronic cash registers now scribble away on pads and check and double check whether their addition is correct. You can’t help but wonder how something like this would affect a western city, how people would have to cope without the PC or television or light for two thirds of the day. I recall a blackout that wiped out all of New York City about five years ago when I lived in Manhattan. With no power in the five boroughs, the subway was off limits and I was obliged to walk home… from Brooklyn, no less. People then ‘rallied’ together, as the press so lovingly put it. I am certain that rally would look quite different if power were to be absent for a longer period of time. Accustomed to hardships, people take this in stride here, although unhappy about it.

The pavement ends in a heavily populated area leading to Jorpati, a small suburb to the northeast of the city. Here the pavement morphs into dirt. Open manholes threaten to take out inattentive bikes, motorbikes, and cars alike, not to mention pedestrians. Somewhere a drainpipe has busted, so that people must hold their noses while taking special precautions in traffic. When and whether this will be fixed, nobody knows. When the heaps of merchandise on the roadside disappear, the heaps of trash have their say in the appearance of this neighborhood. A couple of cows nose their way through the trash to find something edible, while stray dogs stand by, awaiting their turn at this surreal trough.

It is almost a relief to reach the bridge that takes us across the Bagmati River into the countryside and an endless lush carpet of forest and fields, as if the reeking filth of Kathmandu never happened. At least for a while we can pretend that Kathmandu is just that, something like Timbuktu, an exotic place nobody has ever heard of.

The Lion City - Singapore III

2009-02-27T22:05:00.002-05:00

This day is for sightseeing and sightseeing only. Pitstop number one is the Botanic gardens. On our way there it’s obvious it’s Saturday. The streets are full of locals and tourists alike. Scores of joggers, many of them westerners, use their day off to lose the pounds they gained from Singapore’s fabulous restaurants. The gardens are maybe one quarter the size of New York’s Central Park, but people here made every square inch count. More than 1,000 species of orchids, the Ginger Garden, and a large clear lake are only a few attractions offered in a fabulous tropical setting. Families just like ours ride their toddlers in strollers, eager to test the impeccably manicured green lawns that were custom made for a family outing.

Sounds like the Garden of Eden, a place where you could linger all day, the rest of the world be damned, right? Absolutely, except for the hot and muggy weather that is spelling H-E-L-L in the atmosphere. We part after a few hours, gazing at the tourists taking snapshots of Tanglin Gate, the main entrance to the compound.

The rest of the day belongs to Sentosa Island. To get there, we take a cable car which carries us across the river and grants us a splendid view of the harbor and downtown. Sentosa, once famous for its military fortress captured by the Japanese after the Battle of Singapore during WWII (still arguably the greatest embarrassment ever suffered by the British in its epic military history – history buffs should read about it), has been fully developed for tourism, as several theme parks in the area can attest. Beaches euphorically seem to lick the soft white sands at its edges. Obviously we need to keep our son happy, so we visit the dolphin shows, Underwater World with its fantastic aquariums, and walk along a trail in a rainforest, marveling at a huge 100 foot dragon sculpture built into the path now crouching at our feet. Finally we arrive at Cineblast, a cinema simulation ride. I doubt our toddler can sit through this, and we decide to call it off once we are informed that the ride is unsuitable for pregnant ladies. Fine with me.

We enjoy Singapore by night as we take the cable car back to the taxi stand. Amazing how a tiny island nation like this one can possess so much wealth, while most of its Southeast Asian neighbors live in dire straits. Not that surprising, if you compare it with other apparent gnomes such as Monaco, Luxembourg, or Switzerland. Maybe having borders does have its merits.

The taxi gives us the necessary cool air through the A/C and our toddler a pacifier to clamp up after whining for so long at the taxi stand. I realize that my son is carsick, a eerie reminder of what I have passed on to him. There is not much traffic in the street, nor does the driver maneuver his vehicle like one would a jetski, and yet each turn takes its toll, on my offspring and me. I hope he’s also inherited more positive traits than just motion sickness.

There is no time for any activities the next morning. At six in the morning we take a cab to the airport, again covering the seven or eight miles of smooth clean roads that greeted us less than 72 hours ago. We agree it was worth the trip, although it will not compare to any of the more exotic places we have been fortunate to visit over the years. The Lion City may be just that to many visitors, we will rank it somewhere between bobcat and leopard - not majestic, as the name suggests, but also beautiful animals.

The Lion City - Singapore II

2009-02-25T03:28:00.001-05:00

The next day is first reserved for business. After one of those super power breakfasts featuring the finest cheeses, meats, cereals, and custom made omelets, we get our son ready and walk out the door. The Singapore sun knocks the wind out of us the moment we leave the friendly, air-conditioned confines of the Hotel. Singapore is a short distance from the equator, and we finally realize it. The warm and agreeable spring breeze that caressed our faces the night before has had a bad hangover and morphs into Mr. Hyde. Translated into meteorological terms, this means a humidity that feels more like a series of upper-cuts and jabs that leave us reeling.

We spend more than an hour looking for the clinic that turns out to be right at the backdoor of the hotel. So much for directions in this town. The clinic, predictably, is clean and modern, but our son refuses to be still or behave, owing to the fact that he’s tired and needs a nap. I will have to pass on meeting the doctor, regretfully, and take the kid in his stroller. He falls asleep on the way to the hotel and awakes almost the minute we get there. I can’t take him out for now – it’s going to be the Wiggles and tossing some soft rubbery foam footballs in our hotel room. My wife joins us an hour or so later. The news is great: certainly a daughter, healthy and active. I look at the ultrasound photo and regret having missed seeing her live and up close. There will be more chances.

We eventually force ourselves out of the hotel and head toward Orchard Road, the Madison Avenue of Singapore. We visit a few shops and again realize that this place is way out of our league. We don’t make Gucci money, so we won’t buy any Gucci clothes, plain and simple. We go to a Toys R’ Us in a shopping mall and buy a few items while passing on numerous others in stores you wouldn’t find on Rodeo Drive. Our son gets a haircut and is miserable. He is sitting through the worst fifteen minutes of his life, and it is a relief to be out of there.

Lunch is taken at a McDonald’s On Tangrin Road. I realize I will discover the remotest secrets of the universe before I know just why so many Americans (us included) anywhere in the world must frequent a McDonald’s the moment they hit fresh and unknown turf. Forgotten is the fact that you can frequent the choicest restaurants of Singapore. Never mind that you can have the finest sushi outside of Japan at the drop of the hat. The inherent longing for the Big Mac seems to triumph every time, and our son is treated to his first Happy Meal. Bored, he plays with his food. It’s not time for his lunch just yet, so it seems.

Eventually we make our way to the Embassy, a slick, new modern building that refuses to be upstaged in this city of megas. My wife receives medical clearance from the staff, and we are back on Tanglin Road, treading as slowly as a toddler on ice. We run into the entrance of the famed Botanic Gardens, but decide we should visit it the next day, our last day in Singapore.

We order takeout for dinner and retire to our hotel shortly before sunset. Tomorrow is our last day, so we must make it count. It will be nice to get out of the heart of Singapore and test the city’s other, though not lesser organs.

The Lion City - Singapore

2009-02-22T05:39:00.002-05:00

People must understand that when they read this blog that it is by no means a glorification of the exotic and foreign, or the apparent opposite and complete unknown. If somehow words have conveyed that message over time, then it is not intended quite that way. For a travel guide, I would suggest something different, like a Lonely Planet. Here you will see the realism of all places, first and third world. It just so happens that for the majority of my time, I happen to live in third world countries. I have learned that every place I have been to in the world has its good and bad sides. I might seem a little more cynical in third world countries, but again I still choose to live in them, so is this really a votum for the first world I come from? The answer is absolutely not. That vote is evenly divided.

Then people can probably also imagine what happens when you go from a dirt-poor city to an ultra-rich one. The first impressions of Singapore are favorable. I was also wondering what a city would look like if it had the skyscrapers and modern glitter of, say, Chicago mixed with the culture and old world feel of a Vienna or a Venice. It would probably look something like Singapore.

A five hour plane ride takes us from Kathmandu over India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Malaysia to Singapore. You can’t help but be impressed when you first see Singapore, especially in the evening. Hundreds of high rises, each one seemingly competing for its own prominence, are flexing steel and glass muscle from the ground, all against a backdrop of moonlit water. Whereas Kathmandu would look dark from the air at eight p.m. (remember, the load shedding currently is sixteen hours), even Las Vegas looks like a nightlight compared to this place. Millions of lights peer at you like eager eyes who have just woken up. In truth they are about to hit the sack. Very American, although for a population of five million people on an island, that means a lot of highrises. Not bad a for a former Malay fishing village.

The airport itself is impeccably clean, freakishly so. There are a few good reasons for this, as I find out later. All I know for now is that we have quickly left the plane and are directed to the taxis in no time. On my way to the taxi stand, a few duty-free purchases: A three-pack of Hoegarden for around five dollars (US) and a bottle of red Chilean wine for about $ 24. These would turn out to be the best purchases I would make in Singapore.

A taxi takes us into town over clean roads with not a speck of an indication there might be such a thing as a pothole. They must be spending their taxes wisely. When we arrive at the hotel in the heart of the city, we pay the driver, unload our bags and check in. It’s very late in the evening, close to the boy's bedtime, so the hunting chores, that is shopping for food, fall onto me. I buy a few items from a Bar and Grille restaurant, translate from Singaporean to US dollars and confirm that we are back in the west where you pay western prices for quality western goods. Only the pint I drink, a Carslberg, while waiting for my food costs me ten dollars and will be the last drink I have in this town, at least in a bar or restaurant. I walk a few blocks and am impressed. Behind the Bar and Grill is a top shelf bicycle shop. Most of these bikes cost more than my car, I realize, making me a staring rather than a buying customer. A Starbucks, a MacDonald’s, and a Seven Eleven complete the U.S. facelift of this fine city.

There are signs that threaten you with a fine if you spit anywhere. People take this seriously as I am still twisting my neck at every angle to look for something to ruin this city's perfection, if even a gumwrapper or a cigaret butt. Nothing. The place is as manufactured as a new car rolled out from an auto plant. The blemishes of this city will have to wait till the next day, if there are any.