Games kids play

I remember seeing a great bit in the TV series Bush Mechanics with an old guy talking about how when they were kids they made cars our of sticks and wire and drove them around. In Africa they are still doing it, from Mozambique to Kenya, kids still make their own toys, and seem to have a ball playing with them. This fine example is in Mfuwe, a small village in the north of Zambia, a 10 wheeler road train !! Notice the steering wheel in the drivers hand, so the kid can steer the thing around as he pushes it. The wheels are made from bottle tops, and on the right roads these things can go like the wind !! I have even seen kids load up the back with mangoes, or water bottles, and make little deliveries. Throw away the X-Box and have some real fun !!!

With work like this: Bus touts part 2

Am is the Loiterer a terrible moraliser, projecting an unknown sense of Protestant work ethic on to others, in this case poor Africans, or am I simply trying to ignore the devastating effects of alcohol on society - in particular the effects on women and children caused by men's failure to pass on income when funds are directed towards buying alcohol ?

When I was first wandering around in Africa, I met a man in the Ivory Coast who admonished me "All you Europeans think Africa is just poverty and starving people, but there is a lot of wealth in Africa", and pausing to raise his glass of beer at 11 am in the morning under the glaring sun, "there is a lot of beer in Africa too". The more I travel in Africa the more true this statement becomes, it seems no matter where I wander I can always stumble across a bar, where there is money the beer comes in bottles and glasses, where there is little money it is home brewed and comes in plastic bottles and food tins.

Arriving at the Lusaka bus terminal at 8.15 am, I found my bus, which was parked across the road from a bar. I was approached by several touts and having already having found my bus they directed their requests at asking me to buy them a beer. As I wrangled with them, one of the touts explained

"With work like this, we need a little drink to make it", reeking of alcohol.

Having watched people doing real work all morning - carrying around food and other goods to sell - and having seen others lugging around 50kg sacks of grain, ploughing fields and doing real work, I was not particularly sympathetic to their requests and repeatedly told them no. One of the touts later reappeared with a beer in hand and offered some to me, drawing my attention to the groups of men loitering around the bar, drinking beer - the most expensive form of alcohol, and generally doing not much at all.

I start to ask myself, why do I feel such antipathy and even anger towards them ? Why do I expect them to behave any differently - they earn a pittance, their income is unpredictable, they have very little chance of moving up the socio-economic ladder and they have little or no access to education. However floating over all of this is that most of these men are fathers - most Zambians are parents before they hit their twenties - and consciously (or unconsciously) they have taken on, or had thrust upon them the responsibility of providing for others - shouldn't they take this a little more seriously.

And if I was in the same position, what would I do ?

What is a poor, ignorant tourist to do when confronted by a tout with such a request?

Brother, I am human: Bus touts part 1

"Brother I am human, the company will pay me if I take you to buy a ticket, and you pay the same price"

So I was greeted by a tout as I approached the bus station in Lusaka. Like almost every bus station in Africa, the terminal in Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, is flooded with touts or bus boys. As soon as they see you heading towards the gate and they sense a traveller they surround you, trying to find out where you are going and then leading you to the ticket office. The station in Lusaka is not that large,there is room for perhaps fifty or sixty buses, and there are twenty or thirty companies, all pretty much serving the same destinations for the same price. Thus the tout has a limited opportunity to catch you before you get in to the terminal and to drag you to a window to get his commission. A tout explained to me that where a bus ticket costs 90,000 Zambian Kwacha (US$20), the tout will receive 5,000 kwacha (US$1.25). Passengers with or without a tout will be charged the same, bus companies have simply calculated their fares on the basis that most people will come with a tout and the company will only receive the ticket price less the commission. This is fairly standard practice across Africa.

Likewise in most African countries, whilst the population - particularly between 18 and 35 years, is booming, levels of unemployment and under employment are high, and continue to grow despite the best (but usually fairly feeble) efforts of local governments and the pointy heads from NGOs and the IMF and World Bank.

So, on the one hand taking people to a ticket window provides otherwise unemployed people - usually young men - with an income that they would not otherwise have. It can be presumed that most young men are either supporting their own family, or their parents and siblings, so several people probably live off this meagre income. The income probably dissuades them from turning towards petty crime as the principal way to gain an income, making places safer for tourists like me to visit. On the other hand the touts actually provide little of use - most passengers could find the ticket window/bus themselves, whilst driving up the price of the ticket. (As the ticket price is set taking in to account payments to touts, passengers don't really have a choice in the matter because even those who don't use a tout are effectively paying for the touts.) This tout component of the price means that transport is more expensive, and the flow on effects on the cost of goods and services throughout society is inflationary - as price of the goods or services carried on the bus are higher because of the tout payment, the person purchasing the good or services will increase the charge when they sell them on, so on and so on ad infinitum. The price goes up for now real benefit - the evidence of this is the high price of transport and goods in Zambia.
Further, accepting touting as a means to generate employment seems to be self defeating, it discourages people from finding or creating jobs which require skill and training and actually provide a beneficial service, and instead encourages young men to remain in a low skilled job which is more lucrative.

What is a poor, ignorant tourist to do when confronted by a tout with such a request?

African content - more safari adventures

It is the joy from the simple things in life which nourish our soul and fulfil our yearning for contentment.
In the late afternoon, I am sitting on my tree platform, looking out over the river to the thick, verdant bush that is the South Luangwa National Park, watching the baboons flitter about in the trees, listening to the hippopotamuses bellow as they rise and submerge in the river, the deep roars of thunder, small bursts of lighting and accompanying light grey rain clouds roll in, carried by a cooling breeze that relieves the heat of the day. The sheer tranquillity of the place is overwhelming - Africa has taken a hold of me - and I feel completely at peace.
After five days of 3.30 am starts and solid travelling, I arrived at the campsite at 7 in the evening, set up my tent and promptly fell asleep. The next day I was awoken at 4.30 by the sun peering through the trees in my open tent door.  I rolled over to see an elephant walking across the river bank, then swimming across the river, next to some hippos doing not much in the water. Soon thereafter the monkeys and baboons appeared, and with there endless calling to each other, they made sure that I couldn't go back to sleep.
I spent an hour or so sitting on the bank of the river watching the hippos loll about in the water, every now and then putting on a show of rising to the surface and opening their gaping jaws to show off their fine hippo teeth. It made me think of a childhood book I read, something along the lines of the 99th Great Hippopotamus Race or the like. And now, here I was watching real, live hippos do their thing, which when it comes down to it, ain't really that much at all. I ended up spending more than a week at the camp ground, which is pitched on the riverbank, so you can look across the river in to the park. I had the pleasure of seeing what a seasoned expert later told me, was without a doubt Africa's most beautiful National Park. A few of the highlights included,

• Listening to the sounds of hippos as they bark at each other and thrash about in the water every once in a while
• Seeing my first lion, from afar, and then across the dry river bank, about 30 metres away, and being left breathless. This wasn't enough for the guide though, so we drive across the river bank, up the verge, through the trees, and literally two metres away from a lion and lioness - close enough for them to jump on to our laps. As we passed the seated,young (2 year old) lion, it reared up and peered very intently at the car. We all gasped, and the guide laughed, "This young one is afraid of people", and we nervously joined in his chuckling.
  
• Having a young bull (elephant) get a little frisky and look like he was going to charge the vehicle. Then, the next day, spotting a bull by the roadside who was on to us, coming directly out of the trees to size us up, then building up speed as he came straight for us. Fortunately, our trusty steed, Pudding the Pajero legged it, and the elephant headed back in to the trees
  
• Looking out over the treeless plain, menacing grey clouds and a curtain of approaching rain in the background, with all the animals from your kiddy animal set wandering about together - zebras, elephants, giraffes, warthogs, kudu, lions, impalas, buffaloes. It still sends shivers down my spine thinking about it.
  
• Watching elephants using their trunks, curling them around grass shoots, pulling the grass out of the ground, shaking the dirt of, and them shoving them into their gob. The trunk is exclusive to elephants, yet it is such a useful tool. It can be used to smell out the good food, twirled around to grasp objects - pulling grass from the ground and leaves from the trees, then bent around the put the food in the mouth. It can also be used to push baby elephants up and down inclines, and to repel other adults when they get a little too close. (Elephants in Thailand are trained to use it as a snorkel when they are swimming across rivers) And of course, most importantly of all it can be used to spray things with water like a fire hose !!!
  
• Listening to the sounds of lions roaring through the night, and feeling the tree platform shake as an elephant rubs against it, in the middle of the night.

"Wanna play ?", said the elephant to the giraffe

An awesome encounter between a giraffe, an elephant, some impalas and some baboons. As we trundled along the road we spotted a giraffe around a bend, on the right hand side of the road. We stopped, and watched as he grazed on the tree tops. On the left hand side of the road a number of baboons, including some very small babies were sitting around. A few impalas grazed between the baboons. A few of the animals, including the giraffe, briefly checked us out when we arrived, but when the engine was switched off, they returned to what they had been doing and largely, ignored us. (The animals in the Park, particularly those who live close to the gate are probably exposed to so much traffic that they have adjusted to its presence - which is largely benign. It is a strange experience to be so close to wild animals - especially in open topped cars-, and have the animals ,for the main part, simply ignore you. Elephants are the exception, frisky young bulls like playing and sometimes charge vehicles.) It was then that we noticed that a relatively large elephant bull,  hidden behind a tree, about 10 metres away from the giraffe. We watched for the next 10 minutes (yeah, we even put the cameras away) an amazing spectacle, as the elephant and the giraffe , and the surrounding animals, interacted. The elephant, slowly approaching, then retreating  - each time getting a little closer. He clearly had eyes for us, a couple of times he looked as though he was about to charge toward the car - ears all flapping about, and a quick first couple of steps. Meanwhile the giraffe continued to completely ignore us, but closely monitored what the elephant was up to - by twisting his head, without moving his legs, the giraffe made sure that he always knew what the elephant was up to.  The moment when the elephant got closest to the giraffe - around five metres away, the giraffe stared directly at him, and the elephant seemingly disappointed that the giraffe wasn't responding to the game of chicken turned away. Eventually the elephant seemed to give up playing with the giraffe, he stopped and stared at us - raising his trunk up in the air. He then ambled across the road in front of us heading towards the baboons and impalas, and using his trunk to blow up dust he half heartedly chased them along the road, and then wandered off in to the bushes.

(Check out the series of photos to see the image I am trying to create)

• On the last night, after hearing the reports of others who had seen 17 lions together and several leopards, I decided to throw my usual budgetary caution to the wind and head out on another safari. It is a decision I will never regret for two experiences in particular. Before I detail them though, it is important to set the scene a little. Safaris are done in open air landcruisers - basically a ute (pickup) with three, tiered bench seats, welded on to the back - there is no cover and you climb aboard by hauling yourself up the side. The cab is removed, leaving only the windscreen, the guide/driver and the spotter sit in the front. Supposedly a lion's eyesight isn't all that good, so as long as you remain seated, it will perceive you as one big object, and leave you alone. Sitting five metres away from a lion, particularly when it stands up and seems to take a particular interest in the car and you, is, to say the least, a little unsettling.
  

Lounging lions

Early on in the drive, whilst it was still light, we happened upon to mature lions - about 10-15 years old with long but scruffy manes, lounging about on the edge of a plain. We drove within a couple of metres of one. The other, clearly desirous of being photographed, got up, stretched (a perfect downward dog !!!) and then ambled over and lay on top of the other. The two rolled around on each other as we excitedly and breathtakingly snapped as many photos as we could. The thing about lions is that pictures do not do them justice - when you are up close they are even more strikingly beautiful and imposing. They make you want to hug them, whilst at the same time causing a slightly quivering about the immense potential of their muscular, feline build, sharp claws and huge jaws. After watching them for a couple of minutes, three other safari cars appeared and we headed off. We drove off the plain, up the road a little, and then stopped on the edge of the river, to watch the sun go down. As we looked back across the plain from where we had come from, in the dim twilight we saw the two lions stalking across the plain heading towards us. Even from the distance, they had lost none of there awesome, regal  character, that they imposed on all that surrounded them. As they reached the edge of the plane, you could hear the baboons warning all with their cries, and see the impala, zebras and birds becoming more attentive to everything going on around them. Our guide warned us not to wander too far from the car, as the lions may well approach - instinctively every body dropped their volume and began speaking in whispers.

Leaping Leopard

After our break, darkness had set in, the spotter cranked up his powerful spotlight and we drove around for about an hour and a half without seeing much, other than a large owl and a lynx. Just as I was about to give up hope, I suddenly spotted a large, yellow cat in the bushes about 10 metres in front of us. As we got closer, "Leopard" cried out the Swiss guy next to me, and no more than five metres away from us, clearly visible in the scrub was the beautiful and gob smacking shape of a leopard, it all it's spotted glory. Suddenly is pounced, and we saw that it was chasing an impala. The impala sprung out of the bushes, and the leopard leaped to within a couple of metres. This symphony continued two or threes times, until the impala was on the road, just behind us. The leopard followed, and leaped, looking like it was headed for the back seat of the car - and a meal of a very raw, German, who was sitting on the back seat. (I later saw the German guy in Malawi and he told me that he had dreamt three or four times of the leopard leaping directly toward him) Instead the leopard ignored us, and continued across the road in hot pursuit of the impala. We all turned, facing the other side of the car, and watched, the impala escape in to the scrub. The leopard then ran alongside the road for a 15 or twenty metres, crossed the road, and slunk off in to trees. The guide gunned the car, and the spotter tried to keep the light on the leopard, but we only managed to spot it intermittently in the bushes, growing further and further away. The guide headed off the road in to the trees, in hot pursuit, and we spotted the leopard one last time about 30 metres away, it ran out of the beam of light and disappeared in to the darkness. The guide cut the engine, the spotlight was turned off and we sat it the darkness. About ten seconds later we heard the leopard growl - more like a bark then a purr or roar. And incredibly another leopard responded, and they carried on barking back and forth for the next minute or so, the cries growing fainter and fainter, and less frequent as they moved away from us and closer to each other. Eventually the background buzzing of insects took over and the leopard was gone, we started whispering at each other - did we really just see, hear and experience what we think we did ? We started retelling our particular view, chipping in over the top of each other - retelling it seemed the only way to deal with such an experience.  The photo is good only as a memory trigger for this incredible experience but I include it anyway.

Airport Hi-jinxs

Fortunately most of the time I get to avoid airports, neither having the money to indulge in a carbon loaded hop from one place to another, nor the inclination to be suddenly lifted from one place and deposited not long thereafter in another entirely foreign place and suffer the consequent culture shock generated by such rapid dislocation. It still leaves me bereft as to how it is possible to spend more time getting to and then through an airport, than actually in motion. Hence whenever I succumb to the necessary evil of plane flight I am intrigued by what goes on in airports, and the recent last minute cancellation of a flight served as a reminder that it is often more than you would think.
Unusually for me I managed to arrive on time for a change, I felt luck was on my side that day, having connected with three different forms of transport to get across New York without more than a two minute wake. Thus it was a shock to peer up at the flight listing board and see the rather ominously looking "CANCELLED" written in bold red letters next to my flight number. Having never been in that situation before I wondered to myself, I pondered as to the significance of that word to my travel plans.  As I made my way to the airline counter I noticed a line that was a microcosm of the world, closer to the counter their was an arrow like sinuous line, starting from the single person being served and fanning out across the walkway, populated by boisterous travellers, each trying to seek any advantage they could be sneaking their trolleys trolleys piled high with suitcases in to any gap in the line they could find, whilst talking loudly to their mobile phones or each other about the importance of them arriving on time - it felt like being in an Indian railway station. The line then gently petered out across to the other side of the walkway where even more passengers were corralled into the standard airport queue ribbons, which seemed to suck all of their energy leaving them with a much more resigned and lethargic look, as they lounged on their luggage and trolleys, seeking whatever comfort they could find for the long wait ahead. After eventually finding the end of the queue, and a short wait, an airline official appeared and informed us that due to bad weather the flight had never left Abu Dhabi and therefore there was no return flight (I was heading to Johannesburg via  Abu Dhabi). She passed around a phone number and suggested we call the airline in order for them to book us on another flight. Being the only person without a mobile phone I headed off to find a public phone (yes, they still do exist) and after a 45 minute wait on hold I got through to a helpful consultant who booked me on to the evening flight with South African Airlines direct to Johannesburg, leaving me thinking that every rain cloud surely does carry a rainbow. Unfortunately in order for me to obtain my ticket I had to return to the line and have the airline issue me with some kind of pass that I needed in order to get on the rebooked flight, a process that wasn't really made all that clear to me.
I returned to the line, as the last in line at 9am, and it wasn't until 2pm that I finally reached the counter and was served. Somebody had decided that the best way to managed about 150 people who were waiting for a flight was to not give them any information about what was going on or what arrangements would be made to get them to their destination, and to serve them one at a time, each person taking about 20 minutes to be served. During the waiting I did manage to make a few new friends, most of my fellow travellers were Indians, living in the US and on their way home laden with the bounty of the first world. The poor fellow in front of me had been awake since three am that morning, having flown in from Boston, with his wife and young child, it immediately made me think that a 6am start for me was flamin' luxury. Another passenger was on his way to his brother's wedding in Chennai, he was dressed in his best Paki leather jacket and white faux leather pointed shoes, and was extremely stressed that as he had planned to arrive on the Friday and the wedding was on the Saturday he would now miss the wedding. He made a repeated series of attempts at reaching the counter to pry out at least some information about what was likely to happen to him, but he was rebuffed each time and ended up back with us at the end of the line, each time a little more despondent than before. We began to share a camaraderie that somehow arises between complete strangers when they are thrown together in such circumstances; rules were laid down implicitly, each waited their turn in the queue, baggage was watched when the owners need to go to the toilet or get something to eat, we started to share our stories - where we had come from, where we were going, shared advice then lead to shared food and shared experience led to shared emotions. We all shook our heads and tut tutted at the stupidity and frustration generated by the the airline staff not giving us any information; we all sighed and and  collectively thought there but for the grace of god each time a frustrated passenger lost his cool and was reprimanded for raising his voice in discussion with the airline staff who would dare to leave the relative safety of the counter to carry out some pointless act of bureaucracy - like having us write down our names; we all chuckled to ourselves when New York's finest appeared and try to exert their authority by informing us we couldn't form a line that occupied a small part of the 8 metre wide entrance doors, and we all then worked together to return to the exact same spot we had been in as soon as the cops walked away; we all shared in the joy of somebody making it to the counter and getting a new ticket, wishing them good buy and a safe trip. As the last four or five of us reached the counter I think we all shared a little sadness, our little community thrown together by happen stance was now dissolving, we had come together as strangers and now we were saying good bye to friends.
When I finally arrived at the counter I was greeted by the particular way of bureaucracy that has been perfected by decolonised Arabs. It reminds me of an article I once read about a study done in Egypt that found that on average an Egyptian public service does about 30 minutes of actual work a day - and I am sure that about 20 minutes of that is simply stamping forms. There were 7 people working behind the counter but only one was dealing with a passenger, two stood behind him having a chat to each other, one was operating another computer, another was completing forms which were then passed to another who duly copied the information on to another form, which she handed to another who's job appeared to be to simply collate these forms, separating the relevant parts and stapling them together. Every once in a while the managed would wander in, cast a supervising eye over the workers and then disappear. The operation was so high tech they even had an old dot matrix printer (with a ribbon) churning out more printouts to be copied and collated - not exactly inspiring any confidence that if I had flown with them the actual aeroplane not have been of the same vintage.
I gave my details for the fifth time, and they then sent me in to a panic because they weren't sure if I could get on the SAA flight, however this was only momentary as a call confirmed that there was space. So a computer print out was made, given to the first woman who copied the details, gave it to the second woman who appeared to do likewise, and I ended up with piece f paper that politely requested that SAA put me on their flight. By this time the checkout for the SAA flight had not only opened, but had also cleared the initial crowd. So I wander over and after another moment of panic before the SAA staff called and confirmed they would take me, I was all checked in and ready to go - after another three hour wait !
Using the vouchers I had been given by the airline I picked up some processed chemicals called food and found a seat  in the dining area, in front of a large glass wall looking out on to the tarmac, with a queue of planes waiting in line for their turn to have a go at taking off. As I was munching away I noticed a neat, anorak and pleated nylon trouser wearing, greying, bespectacled, middle aged man, who was regularly checking the line up with his binoculars. Every once in a while he would dive in to his 70's travel bag, pull out a encyclopaedia thick book, check through the binoculars and check the picture on the page. After a couple of repeats of this I noticed the book was a "All the Planes Ever Made" publication, and I had a real life plane spotter in front of me. The thought did occur to me, perhaps because I had recently visited the World Trade Centre site, that with all the  Orwellian please-inform-us-if-you-see-something-strange propaganda, it was a risky activity in this day and age. Not five minutes later two official looking figures, one a guard and one a private security worker appeared, and started wandering about as if they were looking for something. One had a full page of written notes in his hand, which could be nothing other than a dob-'em-report, and after about thirty seconds they located the plane spotter. They started questioning him in that particularly aggressive American way, had a good look at his binoculars and searched through his bag. It was excruciating watching him trying to explain that "It's just a hobby, something I like to do in my spare time", knowing that they would have no comprehension of even the quaintly British habit if spotting machines. Finally they gave him a stern warning, telling him he wasn't allowed to do that, and that he should cease and desist forthwith. After they left the poor guy looked a little embarrassed, "I have been here for four days" he explained to interested on-lookers, "and I have been here for the last three hours." Rather than fear, perhaps all we need fear is those authorised to ensure that a general sense of insecurity is maintained.
As I ate the remainder my meal I noticed the cop return to surreptitiously check if his order was being obeyed, and it was then that the Puerto Riquena sneaked up next to me on the bench. She was a typical older Latina "mama", not much over 5ft tall, stocky, with a head of red-dyed hair clearly not hiding the grey, hands and face marked with the lines of a life of honest, hard work.
When she discovered that I spoke Spanish, she was off with her life story. After I told her I had been in New York for a week, she told me she had been "there" since Saturday (it was Thursday) and it took me a while to work out that there for her was the airport. She had come to New York for a medical procedure which was completed early, and when she asked her travel agent he said that if she went to the airport she could pay $100 and take an earlier flight home. When she arrived at the airport, she was then informed it would be $250. Rather than fork over the cash, she decided to wait until the airline brought the price down. On the Tuesday she went back, and they said she could go if she paid $150, but "I told them I had spent the money on food while I was waiting, but of course I still have the money, but now I don't mind waiting" she said, winking conspiratorially to me.
"It's not so bad here" she explained, "the first two nights I was in the other terminal and there were no comfortable chairs, and at night everybody left, so I was afraid that security would throw me out. But then the cleaners told me to come over here, and this space" she said, indicating the corner of the bench I was occupying, "is very comfortable. There are always people here so I don't have to worry about security. The cleaners are very friendly, and I have made friends from all over the world - a couple from Germany, an English backpacker, a Filipino woman, two Mexican priests and an Israeli girl who was worried about spending the night in the airport, who then bought me dinner and we spent nearly the whole night talking. And now an Australian. I have all of their address in my notebook, so now I have friends all over the world." As if this wasn't enough, the wait had had a curative effect, " When I arrived I was very stressed, and my back was always hurting me. But now I have spent a week relaxing, not having to worry, and I feel much better, my back doesn't hurt, and I have learnt to be patient."

Feeling a little guilty about having stolen her space, after a while I bid her farewell, wished her luck on her journey home, and headed off to find my gate. The queue for security was quite long, and as I weaved my way through the cattle gates I had plenty of time to observe my fellow travellers. When I finally reached the security check, and disrobe sufficiently - no shoes (including double-pluggers), no jackets, no belt, no hat, no sunglasses, laptops out of their cases in a separate container, I passed through without a hitch and stumbled on a scene which later left me in stitches, as I redressed myself. Standing at the counter, with her bag open was an Egyptian "mamma" dressed in her full length djellaba, and head scarf, she was looking at the security guard with a lack of complete dismay and incomprehension, as he held about 20 gold plated butter knives above a box of cutlery taken from her bag. Another guard walked passed and said to the guard, "La. That means no in Arabic". The guard duly tried that out, but the woman kept talking away in Arabic, apparently holding the same belief as the guard - that if you said enough eventually you would be understood. The passenger behind me reluctantly responded to the security guard's request for an Egyptian speaker, he listened to her explanation and then informed the guard that she was saying that it was a wedding present, she is taking it to her son's wedding.
As I walked away I heard the security guard speaking over the Arabic pleading of the woman, "I can't let this through, I would get fired if I let this through. My managed would kick my ass".

That was enough adventure in an airport to last me for a while yet.

Safari photos

For those who are interested I have added some of my safari photos to the little show at the top of the page, and you can also access them through Picasa online - under my email address name. (Don't ask me how !!)

Not (really) a white man - Adventures in Mozambique

Not really a white man

Coming from a large family sometimes has seemed like a load stone - not the actual experience of  growing up with so many siblings but the way that it is wheeled out as a party trick by others - ask him how many brothers and sisters he has, and the usual predictable response. In the last couple of months though I have had two unusual responses. The first was somebody who clearly had a yearning to be a game show host, she asked "Number 7, name and date of birth", the second is the story that follows:

Touched again by the hand of luck, together with a Brazlian guy that I had met at the hotel where I was staying, we somehow managed to wing our way in to a small house perched on top of a dune overlooking the best wave in Mozambique for less than what we were paying at the hotel. The photos don't really do it justice, we could sit on the patio and look out over the wave immediately below us, and across the bay stretching back towards Tofo. As the Brazlian wryly commented, I would pay that amount just for the patio - there is enough room to pitch our tent.

Every morning I would get up at 5.30, and the on the days there were no surf, I would watch the ocean in action. Almost every morning I watched dolphins swim around the point, into the small bay, and either fish or simply frolic. A number of times I saw whales swim past, usually at a distant, but a few times close enough to clearly identify them. One day I watched a huge Great Southern breach three of four times, getting its entire body out of the water, and leaving an almighty wake, with white water that was visible for 10 minutes afterwards. A few times a mother and small calf swam past, and the calf showed its playfulness by thumping its tail out of the water as it swam in circles around its mother.

Every other day the guard would show up around 10 in the morning, wash any dishes we had left unwashed, make our beds, clean our rooms, and hang around for a chat.In our initial conversation with the guard we had to disabuse him of the idea of Brazil being in Europe, and left him floundering with the idea that Australia is in Asia - (Paul Keating would be a happy man). He insisted that Noel speak to the booking agent because he was Brazilian and therefore poor, whereas as an Australian, (and a European), I had a lot of money and we would be made to pay more - "better that you pay less and tip me more", he explained.
On our final day at lunch Noel asked how many children Bernardo had. He stopped eating and with a sheepish grin he confessed ,
"I am a black man, so I have many, seven children." Unable to resist I interjected,
"Nao so os negros que tem muito ninos...." (It is not only  blacks who have a lot of children)
This didn't provoke much response, but with Noel being in on the joke insisted that Roberto asked me how many children I had.
I explained that I didn't have any but I came from a family of 15
"Ahi, he is not a real white person"

Noel attempted to explain to Bernardo that just as in Mozambique there were wealthy people, the world was populated by haves and have-nots. He is a poor Australian, and I am a rich Brazilian. Bernardo didn't seem convinced.

Other Mozambican highlights:

• Maputo is a strange city, it sits on a hill overlooking a narrow harbour. It is filled with decaying, concrete, high-rise residential buildings, which clearly haven't received any attention since the Portuguese abruptly packed up sticks and fled Mozambique in the late 1970's, leaving Mozambicans with a new country, and the almost mandatory for Africa senseless civil war. Tropical air is not kind to concrete, grime quickly covers all the outward facing surfaces, cracks soon appear sometimes exposing reinforcing, and pieces fall off. The streets are covered in that third world special black grime, rubbish lies piled on the streets, and the roads are largely devoid of traffic. It all gives the city a decrepit and dying look, the only splash of colour to be seen is the ubiquitous mobile phone network advertising, whether in the form of billboards, huge posters hanging off the sides of buildings or small stickers stuck on every possible surface.

• As I am walking in to the small town that is Ponta d'Ouro to buy my daily ration of two bread rolls, which make up two of my daily meals, I crest the small hill just before town and give my usual wave to the local boys hanging out a 3ft high wall in the shade. One of the boys calls out,  "My friend, can you do me a favour". Normally I would walk straight past, but life should be variable, so I approached and asked - "What would the favour be ?" He replies, with a completely straight face "I am thirsty my friend, buy me a beer." I couldn't hold back my mirth - but I guess you can't blame him for trying. "Not today" I replied and wandered off chuckling to myself.
• Perhaps it is a function of growing up in the suburbs and my own twisted sense of the world, but for some reason I came to Africa under the impression that most of the wildlife would be restricted to national parks. However in the first two weeks of surfing in Africa I have more accustomed to surfing with dolphins rather than without them. I surfed three times in South Africa, and each time a few fins appeared on the horizon and there was some nervous neck craning going on from the local surfers. Each time however relief soon set in as the fins came closer and a pod of dolphins swam past. When I arrived in Ponta D'ouro in Mozambique it appeared as if the dolphins had followed me. On the first day I surfed alone, and sitting outside the point waiting for a wave I saw some dolphins swim my way (thank you lasik surgery) A group of about 10 large dolphins swam right towards me, a couple flew past on either side, and then two show offs, in perfect synchronisation, formed a beeline directly for me, jumped completely out of the water immediately in front of me and then swiftly dove down and swam right under me. The water in Mozambique is ridiculously clear, and the and  smooth and seemingly effortless way in which the dolphins moved through the water made me a little envious. It made me think of Douglas Adams' So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, maybe he was right and dolphins were the most evolved animals. For the next couple of days I surfed with a South African guy, who made my previous attempts to look like Fabio seem pathetic - with his long blonde hair blowing in the breeze and his washboard stomach being shown off for all and sundry he clearly has some Italian stallion heritage in him somewhere. Each day the dolphins were regularly show up, check out what we were doing, catch a few waves if the surf was any good, and then swim off across the bay. On the last day I surfed at Ponta D'ouro the less friendly cousin decided to show up. As I was paddling back out to the point after catching the wave, I saw the South African frantically signalling at me. I soon worked out what he was trying to say with his rapid arm movements, and following his pointing, I spotted the fin moving through the water about 30 metres away from us. We quickly made our way in to shore, and on the way he explained that it was a tiger shark, about 3 to 4 metres long, no explanation was really necessary - if a South African heads out of the water after seeing a shark that is enough for me.
  
• Later when I reached Tofo the wind howled for the first three days I was there, so I had to be content with my 5.30 surf check being a dolphin watching session instead. On the second morning a large group swam in the the small bay made by a small rocky headland, and whilst the rest of the group swam around hunting fish, one smaller dolphin spent most of the time jumping through the back of the breaking waves and riding them in as they broke around the point. Perhaps, after all it is not that we are surf bums, but that the nature of the ocean and the motion of riding waves makes us that way - whether dolphin or human.
• Heading down to the beach for an afternoon swim we notice a whale particularly close to shore, about 500 metres up the beach. We run down to the water, asking each other on the way down to the water, exactly what would we do if the whale did come close to us. Whilst this gives us cause to pause, it doesn't stop us throwing ourselves headlong in to the water, in pursuit of the whale - or perhaps more accurately, in pursuit of the idea of the whale. Naturally the whale doesn't reappear, but we experience something equally spectacular. We swim out past the breakers, and diving underneath the water I suddenly notice that I can hear the whale singing. I call to my friend and we dive down and try and hold our breath for as long as we can, over and over. Each time being more and more mesmerised and exhilarated listening to the real, live whale song. After about 10 minutes or so, as we were beginning to tire, the songs began to trail off, but 10 minutes is more than enough to remember for a lifetime.
• Participating in the strange, strange ritual that is Mozambican transport. The Government has decreed that no public transport can be on the road between 9pm and 4.30am, so most chapas (old Japanese Toyota Hiaces, fitted out to seat 18 -or more- in 4 rows of 4 seats, plus two in the front plus the driver, plus the cobrador - sometimes hanging out the window) leave at 4.30 in the morning. When I decided to high tail it out of Mozambique it took me four days to get to Zambia - on the first I took the last of the day chapas from Inhambane to Vilanculos, arriving at 9pm at night - after wandering past a couple of overpriced backpackers I ended up at the end of the road, at a fenced in campsite with no one around. I reluctantly set up my tent, slept 5 hours, got up at 3am, packed up everything, walked back in to town and finally left at 5am. I then arrived at Chimoio at 1 in the afternoon to be told that nothing would leave for Tete until 4.30am the next morning. So I spent the rest of the day in Chimoio, woke at 4am and left at 4.30am, to arrive in Tete at around 1 in the afternoon, to be told again that nothing would be leaving for the border until - yep, you guessed it 4.30am the next morning. So after a fruitless hitching attempt, I stayed with some local guys, got up at 3am and the chapa finally left at 5.30, and I was at the border by 11am. (I have spent the last week in South Luangwa NP in Zambia recovering !!!)
  

Safari, so goodi

If a picture speaks a thousand words then the following pictures would simply read "Wow" a thousand times over.

Does anybody hear you scream in cyberspace ?

It is getting awfully lonely out here in cyberspace ?
Time for you lot to pull out the finger and throw a few comments my way - otherwise the gin drinking is likely to start before 11 (am)
Hmm, what... Yar, pesky natives

Mozambique Impressions

Immigration procedures are such a pleasant way to be introduced to a country - and the Mozambican officials that I had to deal with at the border with Swaziland could almost win the award for the rudest immigration officials I have ever come across.
After standing in a queue with all the other bus passengers for over half an hour, as we were served by a single person, whilst 9 or ten other officials were standing at the neighbouring counter talking aimlessly, when I arrived at the counter I was informed that I had filled out the wrong form and another form was thrown at me and the instructions to fill it in were barked at me. So I diligently applied myself in the usual fashion to completing a form which requested
information which was clearly printed on my passport, and giving further details as to where I lived, where I was going to stay in Mozambique (presuming they let me in). In the space asking how long I was to stay in Mozambique I wrote 60 days just to see if I could lucky.

The form, and my cash then disappeared to a small office at the back of the building and I was told to wait. About ten minutes later somebody appeared from the office with my passport and form in hand, and he proceeded to have a conversation with the serving official, as if I was
not present. "This form is no good, he says he wants two months. This is not possible, he must fill in a new form" I overheard, so I piped up explaining that I could amend the form to make it a month. He then went on about how I hadn't filled in an address for Mozambique, when I told
him I only knew the name and not the address, he nodded his head to signify write it down anyway, and once I had completed the formalities he took the form back and wandered off to hos office.

Whilst I continued waiting some officious worker thought that I should be moved on as waiting in the waiting area presented some sort of existentialist threat to the state of Mozambique. He took a fair bit of persuading to allow me to remain in the waiting area, and despite the fact that by this time I was the only person there, the official who had taken my form and knew what I was doing choose to steadfastly ignore the discussion raging before her and pretend that the flies on the roof where occupying her full attention, rather than intervening to back up my claims.

In a way the immigration game is almost the perfect metaphor for the inanity of bureaucracy, the art of which third world countries seemed to have adopted from their colonisers, then have gone on to perfect. Exactly what a poor third world nation gains from having to print,
collect and store a scrap of paper with the same details contained in my passport, kept in some office on the border is beyond me. (I also observed the immigration official simply copy the details from my passport in to a register he had on his desk, thereby creating another
copy of the essential data about me.) Other than the details on my passport I responded to every other question on the form with a creative answer, my address in Australia was in Darwin, my occupation was a Professional Ignoramus. I didn't even get to spend one night in the
hostel that I wrote on the form as it was full, so that would have provided little use tracking me down. At the end of it all though I did get a fancy sticker visa in my passport, even with a little flashy hologram in the corner, and two stamps over the top of this (with, of course, my details written on to it by the dutiful official as well). It is not as if Mozambique is being flooded with people trying to get in, and the largest group of foreigners to visit (South Africans) don't
need a visa, they just fill in a form and they are in.
So what exactly the point of collecting and rewriting all of this information is beyond me. I am sure that the people employed to collect the information, and the other associated costs could be better spent on providing some of the essentials to those millions in Mozambique who go
without. I suppose how if a State is to be a State it must surround itself in all the trappings of a State, nothing more important than a bureaucracy that does nothing.

So far Mozambique has provided plenty of linguistic fun, it is like speaking Spanish but putting on a funny accent.Surprisingly I can understand most of what people say, relying on my Spanish and the few tricks I learnt when I studied Portuguese in Mexico. All those nasal vowel sounds and the nya that sounded so wrong in Mexico now actually evoke a response from people.

South African impressions

• It seems that everyone (by that I mean white people) in South Africa has shocking skin - that is my shorthand test so far to see if people are locals. Combined with the incredible number of goatees and the epidemic of mullets. All appear to confirm my worst suspicions about these strange bunch of people.

• My first little reminder of being back in the Third World - I go to the terminus to catch a city bus and after waiting half an hour without seeing one bus I ask someone sitting on the bench next to me whether there are any buses. He explains that the drivers are on strike and that if you are lucky one or two buses a day come past. Initially I thought, just my luck, the one day I want to catch a bus the drivers are on strike. Later I found out that the strike had been going two months, after the city sold the bus routes to a private company without the drivers. The drivers went on strike, burnt a few buses, and now neither the city or the buyer runs a bus service. Of course there is an alternative, they are called meat lockers, white vans and minivans, run by private operators, stripped of their original seating to fit 20 people in a Tarago sized van !
• Durban conjures up pictures of a decaying, perhaps even post apocalyptic Gold Coast. There is a narrow strip of high rise apartments along the shore, on the edge of a sweeping bay, flanked on one side by a huge port and three sugar towers standing to attention, and a series of points stretching out to as far as the eye can see on the other. The rest of the city slowly climbs away from the beach, via a few love hotels - pay by the hour - through a section of Japanese imported car yards, through down town to the railway tracks
  
• However everywhere there is the air of decay, paint peeling off buildings, plenty of windows that have broken and not been replaced, boarded up buildings - sometimes with rubble strewn at their feet as they begin to show the effects of no maintenance, rubbish lying about in the streets in large piles, that general thick layer of black, greasy dirt that covers cities so quickly, people sleeping in the streets, and semi-permanent camps at the end of dead-end streets or on median strips - with little fires burning as kids and drunks mingle in the piles of rubbish sorting through what has been discarded by others. I can't help imagine what it must have been like back in the day - a kind of glittering seaside city for the folks from Joburg to come down and visit for the weekend - I guess this is what the South Africans who reminisce about the good old days mean. Things definitely look as they are going to get worse before they get better.
  

• I moved out of Durban to a seaside suburb, perched precariously on a steep sand duned hill, looking as though with a good rain the houses will slide in to the sea. (Strangely it reminds me of those 70's brick veneer Australian coastal towns, built before people recognised that perhaps the suburban home wasn't the most appropriate design for a coastal dwelling)  The suburb is predominantly - no, that word doesn't capture it - almost exclusively (that's better, implied exclusion) white. In fact the only black people I see are in the back of utes and trucks driven around by fat white men, delivering them to various building sites, and the odd gardener here and there. Whilst official separation may have ended a while back, there is still a de facto separation - the town centre is pretty much straight black as to the market area, the shops are owned by whites or Indians, only black people travel on the meat locker buses or even on the intercity buses, white people all have cars. The beach suburbs (and the water) and white only, except on Sundays when blacks come down to the beach for a swim. There is also a latent tension in the air, whites look skittish and don't really look anyone in the eye - afraid of those uppity blacks who are now allowed to look you in the eye and are capable of who knows what, blacks look afraid - every time I was walking along a footpath in the suburb and a black person was coming the other way they would stop, step off the footpath and wait for me. And everyone bemoans the crime and the general insecurity. Yet despite all this negativity people are incredibly friendly, lots of people went out of their way to help me out - giving directions, helping me on to a bus, indicating the best place to eat, even shouting me a few beers at the internet cafe so they could talk about Australia. And whilst I was only there for less than two weeks I didn't see any crime or really feel that unsafe. So who knows what it all means !!!
  

Americana (Last part)

• 1820's GRAFITTI

The Temple of Dendur was relocated and rebuilt holus bolus in the Metropolitan Museum of Art t avoid its destruction due to the building of the Aswam dam in Egypt. The temple is huge, taking up an entire wing, and is housed in a purpose built building as large as the rest of the Egyptian collection.You can walk through the temple, and what struck me was that the building some of the stones contained graffiti from the 1820's. And what insightful piece of wisdom did people think was important enough to deface a monumental building to pass on to future generations ? Such wisdom can be summarised with the simple phrase (insert the particulars) " _(Name)_ woz ere, from _(Place)__ in 18__" It makes you wonder whether human beans ever change, from marks on the wall in caves in France, to elaborate spray painted designs on trains, it seems we simply which to make the point that we came, we saw and we left evidence thereof.
(One of the pieces of graffiti had a name, followed by New York, 1830, and it made me wonder if some family in New York comes to the Museum every year to show there grand kids and great grand kids what there grandfather did back in the 1800's)

• BREAD AND WATER

Walking around Central Station and Fifth Ave, past a swanky restaurant, noticing that all people are eating are bread, salad and water. But I guess if you have the money you have to flaunt it - wondering how much they charge for bread and water these days.

• THE PARADOX OF THE F BOMB

At the same restaurant, I overhead two suits having a conversation
" There is your fucking problem... That fucking guy is never fucking going to pay"
New Yorkers are known for their directness, but the F bomb is everywhere on the the street, yet you never ever hear it on TV - with one exception. I didn't quite work this out completely but apparently it works like this - free to air TV has no swearing at all, basic cable likewise has no swearing either, however if you have extended cable - for which you have to pay a pretty sum - then you suddenly hear swearing coming from the idiot box - but usually only late at night. Thus only the rich get to hear the language normally associated with the poor and uneducated.
Yet somehow despite this straight out wealth based discrimination reserving swearing on the idiot box for only those rich enough to afford extended cable TV, the democratic street allows everyone to drop F bombs as frequently as they like.

• EPONYMOUSITIS

Eponymousitis [€ponImsItis] n the social disease in which every act of philanthropy must be recognised by naming the use for to which the money was put, commonly seen in foundations (Ford, Gates) museum wings, university chairs etc. Endemic to the entirety of the US. (Query whether really is philanthropy is the give receives something in return ?)

Grand Central Station

The island of Manhattan, which for most people is what is New York, is covered with  a plethora of buildings, but there is one that whilst not towering above the others certainly serves as an outstanding testimony to the art of constructing a public edifice to be at once a lasting, well designed, efficient, effective and aesthetically appealing statement.

In 1871, when New York was still a small town, the city authorities alarmed at the way steam trains kept exploding and killing people, passed a law that restricted trains to below 42nd Street. At this time New York was the epicentre of US trade - almost everything that was traded into or out of the US came through New York, and of course in the age of rail roads, this meant most freight was carried by train. At this time the station that was to become Grand Central was sixty tracks wide - the length of five city blocks (from 42nd to 50th street).  A bright spark at one of the railroad companies came up with the idea of putting the tracks underground - or more accurately building over the top of the tracks. (If you walk between Lexington and Madison avenues between 42nd and 50th streets you will notice that you have to walk up a hill, which is completely artificially created - you are walking between two and three stories up and over the railway tracks. All of the buildings built on this hill have specially designed steel foundations that fit between the tracks)



Grand Central Station was opened in 1913 and was built so that no major structural work would be required for 700 years. (The railway companies took full advantage of this and no major maintenance was carried out until 1995 because the companies wanted to knock down the station and sell the real estate. This was the fate of the apparently even more impressive Penn Station built around the same time - it was demolished and the land sold off. Notice the two small black squares in the photo - that was the colour of the roof in 1995 which restoration work began) 


The station was constructed as a statement of the achievements of a grand society, and was intended to uplift all those who passed through it, encouraging them to see the full range of human potential. The design of the station was a work of passive architectural genius, designed to funnel people in and out in the quickest time possible:

• despite descending four floors underground there are no stairs - only gently sloping walkways
• passageways begin as narrow, low roofed walkways and progressively become wider and taller, leading to large, open well lit rooms with atriums
  
• only 6 platforms were used for arriving passengers, all grouped together, with a narrow walkway that lead out to an open meeting room with an atrium, and then directly out on to the street to a taxi rank or to a subway train. Departure platforms were located a floor below so that departing and arriving passenger wouldn't cross paths
• the building didn't have air-conditioning, instead the large windows in the main hall were opened and the sea breeze (after all Manhattan is an island no more than 2 miles wide) would blow through and cool the building). In winter the windows were closed and the 100 watts per person of human generated body warmth was exploited to heat the station

(Later most of these design principles were appropriated by shopping centre builders to subconsciously direct customers through shopping centres - obviously with the principles reversed)

These days when most public buildings are now more than slabs of concrete, chugging through the world's resources at an alarming rate to heat and cool them, with no apparent underlying design other than to reduce the cost of construction, it is reassuring to see that humanity does actually have the knowledge and ability to construct functional  and aesthetically pleasing buildings which "uplift the human spirit". If only the knowledge could be applied.

Going the wrong way

A picture says a thousand words, but I will a few more - 84 to 62 cents in less than a month - this financial crisis is getting serious.
And sadly I might be back sooner than expected !!

New York, New York -selected images

Land of the free ?

Loss of confidence

Here is a curly one, how come the moment I hear somebody say you can't do that (eg forge a visa) I think, lets give that a whirl - I wonder if I can talk my way through this one. Yet when I am wandering around alone I loose the confidence to try and convince the guys running the meat van taxi that yes my surfboard will fit. Why does surfing four foot alone seem so difficult, yet I blindly pull in to a six foot no way out sand spitting grinding barrel with a grin on my face ?

Spontaneous language

How bizarre is this, apparently during the civil war in Nicaragua, deaf children spontaneously invented a sign language so that they could communicate with each other. It was the first Nicaraguan sign language and was later adopted as the official one. Just can't stop those kids talking. Seems Chomsky was right all along.

US of A: Impressions

Walking through Central Station, two elder women and a man - one woman to the other "He is a socialist, we don't want a socialist, I'm not voting for him"

"He is a Marxist, he wants to take money, and redistribute wealth - he wants to tell you what to do with your money. Obama, Reid, Pelosi - the gang of three - they are all Marxists"
(A commentator on "Liberal" CNN, in need of what could be called a little "political re-education" this guy actually hosts a program on CNN. One can only wonder what the real wackos on talkback radio are saying... Luke ?)

Funnily enough the conservative/Republicans seems to despise the "liberal media" more that the Democrats/liberals themselves. Take Sarah Palin's convention speech where she spends a few bit of time wacking the liberal media/elites in Washington. However the tactic (as adopted by J Howard) of applying massive pressure on the media, means that people self correct or get on guests who may have a few screws loose but are Republican. All in the name of fair and balanced !! I think in Australia , though we have seen it a little in the history wars we are relatively free of the rabid conservatism in the US where conservatives are willing to forcefully argue every point, and demand that they recieve equal attention. Thus books like "48 Lies Liberals Taught You in School" get on the main tables at bookshops.


Central Park has to take the cake for parks in big cities. I spent nearly two weeks in NY and got lost about 5 times in Central Park, it is bloody huge. There are ponds, hills, forests, walking, running and riding tracks, a zoo, a musuem and pretty much anything else you can imagine. And apparently the land is estimated to be worth 530 billion smakcers.

Off to Africa.....completely unprepared

(I am writing this as I watch the last US Presidential debate, so if I start to mumble, look vague and finish my sentences by mumbling to myself, blame McCain !! I must admit it is actually quite interesting at the moment - they have gone each other face to face over the terrorist rally attendees and pal-ing around accusations.. Bring it on !!!)
So during my last day in New York, Aussie dollar collapses to the mid 60's, financial markets in turmoil - again, and I even read an article in The Age about (real) markets in Mozambique and how the cost of food is going through the roof. And I am off to Africa, feeling completely unprepared, wondering where I am going and exactly what for.
Oh and the debate... first, it is so weird here how there is so much analysis of everything, every approach, every phrase, even what the other guy was doing when the other guy was doing. Enough already as they say hear - you can pretty much find someone to say anything - for example there are some talking head stooges who actually say that Sarah Palin was a good choice. As for the candidates - McCain seems completely mad - as they say here - like an old guy trying to get the young whipsnappers off his front lawn. Meanwhile Obama knows he has it in the bag, and is being a bit uppity. At the end of the day though, don't really make much difference - despite 70 million Americans watching the thing. My prediction for the night - we will be hearing alot more about Joe the Plumber

iPods - A curse ? A question to the universe

Ahhh, just when things are going swimmingly, I have clogged the iPod up with 3000 songs of pure listening pleasure, bloody iTunes comes along and decides to wipe clean my music collection. Bugger !!
Somehow I managed to get a third of it back, but iTunes has just randomly scrubbed tracks and whole artists, apparently without fear or favour.
So, one asks the universe, is iTunes simply a pox on music loving people everywhere, sent by Lucifer to denegrate our music collections ?
Think I might go back to being a PC

New York, New York

I am jumping ahead of myself a little here - there is a big entry about
the flights (and movies I saw for those interested) but I feel like in a
place that is so immediate as New York, I really need to get some things
down now, so the tide of time doesn't wash them away.

So I arrive in Harlem on a bus from the airport, and within 10 minutes I
have already stumbled across two crazies - one who managed to royally
piss off the Latino sitting next to me on the park bench by swearing at
the sky about how "it's immigrants, all immigrants that done it, coming
here in their alien ships.... etc etc" and then another who was on the
whole 'the end is nigh, Jesus loves you' trip. But other than that
things have been pretty cool - in fact I have been a little disappointed
so far that I haven't copped any of the well known, New York in your
face attitude - in fact a few people have even returned my smile !!!

One thing that does immediately strike me is the way people hang out in
the streets. Lots of young black guys (Yeah I know, we have all seen it
on the TV and Spike Lee movies, but this is an almost completely black
neighbourhood) hanging on street corners in groups of three or four, or
sitting on public benches on the footpath - playing cards, chatting or
smoking a joint, standing around in front of the ubiquitous milk bars
that sell fast food - (picture a roadhouse, without any petrol), or
fanging around on their BMXs. Maybe it is just my paranoia, but I keep
getting a feeling that they look at me funny because I am a white boy in
their territory, and I have to honestly admit that most of the time I
can't quite make out what they are saying so I try to avoid engaging in
case I completely say the wrong thing and set somebody off. Anyway, it
got me thinking about how maybe there is an inner bigot inside all of
us, and stoked by the repetitious negative portrayal of black men in the
US media, it is easier (and lazy) to just fall in to the idea that they
are dangerous and risky. Note to self keep that in check.
However, when I think about it a little, I notice that I don't actually
feel unsafe. People here are crammed in to these tiny little apartments,
where you can't make any noise lest you disturb your neighbours -above,
below and around you - and the only place to escape to, where there is
open space and no charge, is the street. In a way it is strangely
democratic, the street is open to everyone, so people use it - the
footpath isn't just a place for walking to get from one place to another
- it is a place to socialise, to do business, to catch up with people,
be seen and just hang out. Rather than making the place frightening it
actually makes it come alive - almost like a third world city - and in
complete contrast to that eerie emptiness of suburbia.
On with the exploration.

B I T (Back In Town)

Somehow I went from nervously waiting out the last couple of days preoccupied about the return to Australia, to three weeks later on a plane to Los Angeles in the blink of an eye. How ? I have no idea but what a three weeks it was, and at the risk of sounding a little Lettermanesque I am going to do a top 10 list for my trip - So, in no particular order -

1. The look on my mother's face when she saw Marcelle and I appear completely unannounced at her 70th party. (Mind you I am still trying to work out what exactly her first words of "No, no, no you are not here" actually mean)
2. Clambering down the Grinders' cliff at break neck speed in the rain with brothers and others, to surf in freezing cold water, and still feeling as though I could keep doing this forever.
3. Watching the most unlikely of my brothers as new parents, nice work fellas and good luck - all that nappy foldin sure looks like fun !!!
   
4. Discovering that in my absence my nieces and nephews are rapidly growing up - from the 1.5 year old chatter box who was a wee baby when I last saw her, to the two teenage nephews who have literally grown feet since I saw them last. Its turns out to be quite pleasant to have a decent conversation with someone who calls you uncle - just don't mention the basketball incidents.
5. Sitting in a Lebanese bakery, eating Turkish bread, watching people of various stripes - Asian, Indian, African, Middle Eastern and Anglo - at ease, interacting with each other - thank God Howard and the fifties have left Australia forever. Gotta love multiculturalism - even if only for the bread !!!
   
6. Feeling Grand Final Fever grip Melbourne, and watching my footy team play once this year, in a grand final no less, and seeing them defy the odds and common sense to cream the Geelong Cats. Only to be topped off by heading down the local oval after the game with the boys to slot a few on the run from 30 out and rekindle every boys' dream.
   
7. Sitting on a beach in Sydney, eating fish and chips with the temperature in the mid twenties, the water just the right temperature to remind you that you are swimming, bodysurfable waves lapping the shore, watching Sydneysiders on parade up and down the beach.
   
8. Spending so many good nights out (and one crap one) with Damo, who despite my protestations proved once again that Melbourne is quite a cool place to live, and almost tempt me to give up my nomadic ways. As my friend says "What is a Damo ?", truly the un-knowable.
   
9. Sitting around the table in Anglesea without space for one more, after having cooked for everyone, and enjoying listening to the myriad of conversations going on about various things, and realising that whilst I might sound like a certain wacko Christian senator, family is kind of cool.
   
10. In the tiny window of three weeks managing to meet someone about whom the question will plague me for the entire time I am in Africa - touché Brendan, touché.
    

Need I say more.

Finally managed to make it in to the top %1 of something global

I just discovered this website which is guaranteed to make you feel good about yourself...
When I last had a job I was in the top %1 of the world's richest people
Give it a spin !!!

I'm the 59,029,289 richest person on earth! Discover how rich you are! >>

Coahuila's Next Top Model(s)

 

My New Career - Texas Hammer

After having endured an interrogation by the Migra inquiring in to exactly what I do (they don't dig professional bum), I started pondering what options were open to me to further my legal career. Being in Texas the answer was almost immediately revealed to me by God (aka television) when the following ad appeared. Clearly it is my calling ....


Now for the ja ja ja !!!

Don't confuse the esfreezer and the locker

The other day I heard a radio program which basically pointed the finger at linguistic patriotism of the French and President Mitterand for the Rwanda genocide. Apparently the Frogs were concerned that the Tutsi lead Rwandan Patriotic Front , based in nearby Anglophone Uganda were likely to topple to Hutu dominated Rwanda regime and that this would be the first Francophone domino of many to fall. If the Frogs couldn't hold on to Rwanda, then they would be a laughing stock, and before you could say Merde! the whole continent would be speaking English, so thought Mitterand. So the Frogs sent military personnel and equipment to Rwanda to show the Hutus how to become effective killing machines using only basic farm implements like machetes. A couple of million dead hacked bodies later, and even as the Tutsi forces are advancing on the country trying to stop the genocide the Frogs allowed the Hutu elite to escape the country and even testified in favour of those Hutu who were later put on trial for crimes against humanity. The Frogs of course deny all this, no doubt with one of those Gallic shrug of the shoulder, who me? looks.
(All these allegations are backed up by detailed evidence in a report released by the Rwandan government last week.)

On a little more light hearted , I can't but help notice how widespread Spanglish is across Central America, (Spanglish is a combination of English and Spanish - mainly involving the use in original or modified form of English words or expression in Spanish) The dual the influences of the imperialist US media pouring its cultural schlock down the throats of Latinos and the influence of the millions of Latinos who have lived in the US and subsequently returned make Spanglish more and more prevalent. There are plenty examples, the particularly entertaining are when people start appropriating English words as if they were Spanish, even when there are clear alternatives in Spanish. There are the classics like parkear for park (as in a car), cathcear for catch, blokes for blocks, ticket for receipt
Without a doubt El Salvador is the country most effected, you can hardly walk down the street without somebody saying, What up white boy ?
My current favourite is cora - this is how El Salvadoreños pronounce quarter (US 25 cents) - now they use the US dollar as their currency. (It took me quite a while to work this on out)

I get the most laughs however when people go to the effort of actually writing these workds down in public signs. My favourite two examples of this phenomena are two signs that I saw in La Libertad:

1. A sign on the pier above some freezers read

Estos esfreezers son propriedad del cooperativo

2. A sign in a supermarket attached to the lockers for storing bags whilst in the store

No dejan cosas de valor en los lockers

What are the chances ? A piscine bullet

The other day I was out in the water, as I seem to be a fair bit these days, sitting about waiting for a wave to come my wave. As a small wave approached I bobbed down before it, losing sight of the horizon. As I bobbed over the wave, directly in front of me I saw three small fish, no larger than the size of a can of sardines, jump out of the water at great speed, in a flat arc slightly above the surface of the water, trying, no doubt, to avoid becoming the prey of something a little larger. I turned my head in an involuntary reflex action as I saw a fish coming straight for my face, and whack, the speeding bullet hit me just below my right eye. In the immediate aftermath I was too shocked to do anything, even feel the stinging pain in my eye. I had seen plenty of jumping fish before but I had never seen them strike anything. After a while I felt the stinging in my eye, but when I finally opened it I was relieved that I seemed to still have my vision. As there was nobody else out at the point, I sat there completely in wonder at the chances of a small fish being in the same place in my face given the expanse of ocean in which it had to roam. After a while the pain died down, a wave came my way, and I paddled on to it, and was soon focusing on making the next section.
However, sometimes now when I close my eyes I see that steely, cold, dark, black eye of the fish coming my way, fulfilling its date with destiny and my face.

Prostration, prostration, prostration

Anybody who has spent any time in Mexico or Central America would no doubt have come across the collapsed drunk in the street phenomenon. Latinos like to hit the drink hard, and when its Aguadiente or Agua del diablo (fire water) that you are drinking, you tend to end up pretty pissed. (The alcohol is usually made from some toxic substance and most times I can't even smell it let alone stomach the thought of drinking it) And usually at the end of the session the men (it's always men) end up in the same place they started it - in the street and often standing, sitting or at worst lying on the street.
Two classic examples I saw of this lately got me laughing - the first was in Escuintla in Guatemala, where on the footpath in front of the town's police station there were three, count them, three drunks passed out on the footpath - I guess it cuts down a long and painful ride in the back of the paddy wagon.
The second was in San Miguel in El Salvador, driving through the streets at night in a taxi in pouring rain, we saw a guy passed out face down, head on the pavement and legs hanging off the gutter - without even the slightest attempt to make himself in any way comfortable.
Tragically it is always the wives and mothers who the shameful job of going around and collecting the men and trying to get them home. (So they can demand a fry up in the morning to get over there hang over and start the drinking all over again !!!)

Under water adventures in a self contained breathing apparatus (Part 1)

Every once in a while you have one of those experiences which even as you are doing it you know will be unforgettable, and you try to awaken and heighten all of your senses to take in as much as possible, in a vain attempt to preserve every moment as a perfect record. This afternoon, I had such an experience, undertaking my first scuba dive off the island of Utila in the Bay Islands of the Caribbean Coast of Honduras.
After a day of reading the theory book, then an evening of the same theory presented in the cheesy, zany, over the top way Americans excel at, and then a morning of working through the multiple choice tests, I was very keen to get in the water. After being introduced to the smorgasbord of equipment, we finally got on the boat and motored out of the creek in to the bay. Once we had all gear on - wetsuit, flippers, mask, snorkel, BCD jacket, weight belt, tank and so on, I took a step off the back of the boat, and plunged in to the water - and had my first experience of breathing under water. After a session of skills in shoulder deep water, learning to use the regulator, clear the mask, borrow your buddy's regulator in case yours stops working, we got back on the the boat and motored over to another diving spot.

Stepping off the boat the second time, knowing I was about to descend to around 10 metres, I felt a little bit of dread, wondering if not being able to touch the bottom would cause me any concern - those brief thoughts that would shoot up from my unconscious, reminding me about all the ways that humans aren't built to be in deep water. It was however, au contraire, suddenly a door to a whole new world was opened and I was so overwhelmed I didn't have a chance to think about being 10 metres underwater and relying on human technology to keep me alive.

On the instructor's signal, I deflated the air from my BCD and slowly began sinking to the bottom of the ocean, about 10 metres below. As I descended the bright sunlight became more and more defuse, the pressure in my ears built up and was then released, and I felt the weight of all my gear melt away. Suspended in water I felt weightless, able to slowly glide in the water, letting myself relax and drift slowly to the bottom.

Initially it was quite difficult to control my buoyancy, expanding my BCD by pumping air from the tank in to the air pockets in the jacket to rise, and letting it out to descend. But once I had it all under control, off I went, heading towards the sandy bottom, 8 metres away, and beginning to notice the new world that I was surround by. Whilst the reef was not as colourful as Ningaloo in WA, there was still an array of colours - huge brilliant purple leaves of seaweed swaying in the current, large schools of various tropical fresh, with all the colours of the rainbow and more in their most iridescent form. As well as the visual entertainment, the feeling of weightlessness - no more heavy tank and weight belt dragging me down - I was floating weightlessly was incredibly liberating. Without any need to concern myself with the need to return to the surface at some point soon, I realised that I was breathing under air, and could float about like a fish.

The even more exhilarating experiences came as I grew more comfortable, and started to paying more attention to my surroundings, rather than worrying about my depth or what the instructor was trying to tell me. Diving through other people's bubbles, as they glimmer a silver colour, there meniscus bending as they make their way towards the surface, fading in to the light of the sun. At one point I was completely surrounded by bubbles, unable to see anything but bubbles bouncing off me and tingling my skin on their inevitable path to the surface and disappearance.

Turning over and paddling around on my back, watching the gentle light filtering down from the surface, with the only sound being the rhythmic breathing - on the inhale as pressurised air rushes in through the regulator, and then the sound of the air forming bubbles on the exhale. Floating in the abyss, feeling weightless, with the colours diffused as light passes through the water, it made me think of being in the womb, an incredibly soothing experience.

So tomorrow, it's back to theory in the morning then a further confined water session, followed by another dive.

Still doing it and still smiling

What more can I say ?

Piss Hotel

Once again I find myself arriving on dark in a strange town, completely buggered after setting out at 5.30am and spending all day on various chicken buses, with seats so close together that sitting itself is like a yoga stretch and the oppressive heat of the day combined with the
incessant stopping and going make the very idea of sleep unimaginable. This time it was La Ceiba on the Caribbean coast of Honduras, another one of those nondescript stepping stone port towns on the way to some where else - in this case the island of Utila. After walking a couple of
kilometres in to town, I head to a guide book recommended hotel to find that it has since shut down. I then head to the seedy part of town, to find a couple of hotels who want to charge me way too much for a box with a bed in it. Getting more and more tired and desperate I stumble
across a place, two storey painted green weatherboard, with a distinct lean to the left. The price was right, and the room is a box with a bed much like the other rooms - dark, dingy and dusty, but I am sold by the leopard print curtains. So I trundle back downstairs, fork out the $4 and head back to the room to lie down. And that is when I notice the general background smell of urine which doesn't seem to have a single source but permeates everything - the bed, the floor, the walls, the door, the dark hallway, the toilet, the stairway. Sometimes it dissipates so that it almost disappears, but then suddenly it reappears, not particularly strong, just lying there in the background, waiting for you nose to suck in a little more air than usual, and let the smell waft
in to your senses.
How exactly, I wonder to myself, can an entire building reek of urine - has somebody simply pissed all over the place, or is there a toilet on the roof which leaks through the building. (I had to rule out the second option as I later discovered that there was no running water, so there
couldn't be a toilet on the roof) I noticed the graffiti on the door which said, Osama bin Laden is alive and is living in Honduras - and I wondered if living in a piss hotel would drive a man to jihad. Someone else had written, This place is filthy, and someone else had responded, Nobody forced you to stay here.

But no answer to the piss smell mystery.

The good thing about being dog tired is that I soon fell asleep, putting that particular mystery of the universe out of my mind.

Latent resentment

Travelling through Guatemala has involved a constant battle with busboys in a vain attempt to pay a fare approximating what locals wouldcough up. (As Marcelle said, If I hear one more person say the price has gone up because of fuel prices I will hit them over the head - expats -

gotta love 'em) Most trips I know I am getting ripped off but I can't be bothered bargaining, I try and see what others are paying, or ask, but most locals don't know because they rarely go the full distance of a bus ride. So I just sit out the trip, watching what others are charged to confirm my I have been ripped off feelings, being a passive aggressive, letting the internal resentment boil away. In Honduras they are a step ahead of Guatemala - I still got ripped off, but I was also given a chit of paper showing how much I had paid. Thus the amount I was ripped off was clearly evidenced in writing. As you get off the bus you hand in your chit of paper, so it can be used all over again for the same purpose !
Anyway, all this got me thinking about a conversation I had with a chicken shop rotisserie repair man who picked me up when I was hitching in El Salvador and a movie I saw about gangs in Central America made up men deported from the US. In the 1980's hundreds of thousands of people fled Central American countries to the US to escape the series of wars that rippled through the various countries. Most entered the US illegally, and thus when the wars came to an end, immigration authorities had even less qualms about deporting people back to the post
war hell holes that most of the central American countries were. In the front-line of these deportations were young men who came in to contact with the long arm of the law, many who were members of gangs which had been set up to protect them from the resentment and rejection they faced daily from Americans. Many of these gang members spoke little or no
Spanish, as they had grown up in the US, had little or no family in their country of birth, and had very few work skills in a market that was rampant with unemployment. Also, gang membership often required tattooing large parts of their bodies as a sign of loyalty, hence they were easily identifiable. Returning to countries which were largely lawless and filled with guns, gang members set up local chapters, and got heavily involved in the drug trade and other violent, illicit activities - assisting in creating high levels of violence and a general sense of a lack of safety in the streets. Governments soon cracked down on this, creating even more violence and oppression. The documentary I had seen was about some small attempts, by USAID backed NGOs, to assist former gang members escape the cycle of gang membership, and involvement
in crime. Needless to say, most attempts were half-arsed to begin with, and had little success, but it was interesting to hear former gang members talk about their life in gangs, and trying to escape the cycle which constantly required them to kill opposing gangs' members in endless turf warfare. Those who were trying to escape the cycle had a tough time, rejected and threatened by both their former gangs' members and by society at large - constantly harassed by police and
discriminated against by mainstream society, some of them bore quite a substantial amount of resentment towards society in general.
Meanwhile, my chicken man was explaining to me that in El Salvador the minimum wage was about $3 a day - although probably fifty percent of thepopulation earn even less than that. (Now, to appreciate how little that is, Hungry Planet says you can survive on $15-20 a day if you are more of a tight arse than me !! Basically it is impossible) He was paid about $6 a day, which he said still wasn't enough, but he managed to scrape through. He and his wife were waiting until he got a better paid job before he had kids - because he couldn't afford it yet. We then got talking about the delinquency and crime in El Salvador and how such low minimum wages means that many people were forced to make ends meet anyway that could - whether it be drugs, kidnapping or the like. (Later that day I heard on the radio about how drug cartels in the north of Mexico are recruiting soldiers, luring them from the army with offers of pay 10 times as much as their army salary ($3,000 a month versus $300))

Really, it isn't all that surprising that there is high levels of crime, and that locals might look to tourists as a potential target for outright theft, or simply by charging a gringo or tourist tax by
increasing prices for whiteys. It seems that until something is done to generate real employment which pays a living wage, no matter how Super Heavy Handed the government promises to be against crime, it won't make much of a difference.

Oh, and I won't complain about paying higher bus fares if I continue my good run of not being mugged or robbed.

Road Rules in El Salvador

In Mexico I met a few people who had driven down from the US and they all had stories of being hitten up by the cops for a bribe for minor transgressions, so when we came a cropper with the fuzz in El Salvador, the experience was a little surprising. After a night of emptying a few bottles of rum from the in pool bar, in classic '80s movie style, a little worse for wear all four of us packed in to the Tamboleo Azul (The Blue Wobble - a VW camper van that a Kiwi guy had driven down from California) with boards piled on top and headed Nicaragua way. About an hour in we came to a junction, and confused without a map we stopped and asked a local for directions, he pointed us straight ahead. A couple of hundred metres down the road we realised we should have turned, so on a two lane one way highway we do a u-turn and drive against the flow of traffic. The first car we said heading towards us is, yep you guessed it, a cop car. They signalled to pull over and then stopped just in front of us, turning the car off, and wandering over the see what we were up to. Bevan, the Kiwi driver, in is best broken Spanish, responded to their demands for the papers for the cars, and then simply said we wanted to go to the border, we missed the turn-off and so we were going back. There was a very pregnant pause, the cops looked at each other, and then admonished him for driving the wrong way on a one way street.
That seemed to be the length of it, as they then proceeded to explain how to get to the border, and then gave us an escort, lights flashing and all, driving the wrong way back to the turn off, and then a further couple of kilometres to a petrol station at the next turnoff.
Moral of the story - if you want to drive the wrong way up one way streets, do it in El Salvador.
As Bevan replied to a gringo we met at the border who inquired about driving difficulties in Central America, I prefer it here, because the only rule is, if you can get away with it, do it - it is far more intuitive driving !!