| walking like an Egyptian |
[Feb. 28th, 2005|01:26 pm] |
No joke, you really need to walk like an Egyptian if you don't want to get splattered all over Cairo's crouded avenues. this has nothing to do with pharoes or goofy 80s dancing, just looking both directions a dozen times, getting parallel up with a local who is about to make a first move as a cab passes and then once in the first lane run like hell right an left weaving through buses more cabs and guys in little pick up trucks who get a kick out of aiming down on you while accelerating. the noise doesn't help either because Egyptians seem to be the only people who can carry an entire conversation with their car horns. one honk to pass, two staccato to parallel, two long to get you to move, three to slow down, or just hold the horn down while accelerating and occasionally flash highbeams if at night and just see what might happen. they all seem to know what's going on, my heart doesn't slow down till i find a decent cafe to sit in for a tea.
most of them look like old car garages with an assortment of beat up chairs, but the adorable ones are in side streets where (just to spite cabbies) the seating gets scattered into the street huddled around soccer game on the tellie to create a small amphitheatre complete with sheesha water pipes and erect tea trays. men of all ages seem to suck the smoke down like their doctors told them to and at 25 cents a piece, why not if it chills you out from the cacafony that is 16 million egyptians pressed into the confines of the delta.
Egypt is dense. honestly the number one in population density in the world and life takes a different tone than other places i have been. there is plenty of waste, yet nothing is wasted: not an inch of fertile land along the nile and not a drop of water at the Siwa Oasis i visited 300 kilometers inland of nothingness yet still producing thousands of date palms and olives and the only taxis are padded carts tugged by donkeys. this is where i saw women completely covered, not even a slit of eyes and not even a vague idea of human figure due to their clothes large enough to cover a dinner table draped over them blowing in the wind like ghosts, the memory of a neighbor, something culture tells you not to look at but impossible to avoid. i only have my instincts of right and wrong when looking out for myself on my own, when it comes to someone else, people tell me only to be an observer. so I observer and realize how little I know about the world. then again, city folk aren't too proud of what happens far away from 'civilization' and then again, this is where civilization comes from, the fabric that keeps life moving beyond the death of an individual.
I went to the pyramids a few days ago and they were just as spectacular as I imagined. I walked out into the dunes and sat watching them as they didn't move while i recounted how far I have just to get here. I achieved a goal and I still felt a bit melancoly after the tombs I visited earlier that day in Cairo's City of the Dead, the northern cemetery.
here, tombs have become a walled in village where the homeless have squatted for 600 years. water, electricity, and a post office have been installed along side a few street side cafes and barbeques. the rich drive their luxery cars in to visit graves that are now occupied by some of their most desperate neighbors. I didn't feel as right about photographing these tombs as much as I did at the pyramids even though it was much more astounding and worth remembering. I'll never forget a feeling of powerlessness to my own curiosity, who are we people?
i've been powerless a lot. when in someone else's country, it would be nice to request the right to hospitality and be placed under anyone's honest protection. no matter how small we think the world is, it seems to be too big to count on any one but yourself. when people help, and they usually do, enjoy it, because everything is unpredictable. i never knew when i would get husstled or helped, every person proved to be different, that's life i guess. when i found myself to be the only foreigner in a cinema, cafe, or bus recieving curious often grilling stares, i couldn't help but laugh at the absurity of it all. sometimes we just don't know what to do with one another. i was a minority and felt more like a potential threat than distinguished guest. the common flow was stirred... no matter how common all people are with their basic needs, there are infinite variations on the same thing.
all i have is my experience to share with others and still the burden to recognize how incomplete is my understanding of it all. |
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| a curse on the holy land |
[Jan. 29th, 2005|05:41 pm] |
ok, as if being called out as the number one terrorist threat at Istanbul's airport by Israel's secret service wasn't stressful enough, i went to Bethlehem and learned that i also have to watch out for my supposedly own kind. a little background.
I spent a month in Turkey backpacking the Mediterranean coast and much of Istanbul. The season was very non touristy and while i expected great deals on accomodation and sights, everything seemed to be more expensive because people were pissed off when i showed up and made them reopen just for me. so i had great beaches, ruined old villages, and hotels all to myself along with echoes of past relationships made on the journey and a strange feeling that that trip has lasted too long as it is. I met a few people here and there, but most of my wandering through ancient greek colonized valleys and long roads between new and old towns were spent in the silence of my thoughts and a relentless search for baklava.
In istanbul, defenses were up a little more for tourist hustlers but i learned quickly that every stranger is a potential friend or theif and i never knew which way the relationship would go until i made it home. I arrived in the city at midnight from Prague and had no idea how to find a place to stay. i asked one guy who asked another who asked another who asked yet another guy on the street who took us to safety without a problem or charge. the third guy was a business student who showed me around town for two days and treated me as well as a diplomat with visits to all the best sights and eateries. the rest of the time was not as easy as following my new friend everywhere but the city was always alive and surprizing me with european, american, asian, and persian styles all mixed together with too much traffic and a constant haze blowing in and out along the various waterways and chanels. every once in a while someone would ask me something in turkish, i would apologize for not understanding, then they would apologize for thinking i was turkish (yeah right) and i'd have to either run away or stop them from drugging me in some bar by saying, "look, i just heard that line from some other guy down the street, get more creative if you want to rip me off."
and then i could go about my business remembering that even in one of my favorite cities in the world, i never know what friendly stranger to trust until definite signs are displayed of honesty either as a thief or friend are displayed. in the end, i guess it's interesting to think about how frightening anonymity can be when tensions politically and relgiously are high enough while so closely crammed together.
so going to Israel didn't help my faith that things will be worked out next week. the first question asked to me by two ugly guys in suits at the airport before i even got near the check in counter was, 'are you Jewish?" no, what does that have to do with anything? oops. after half an hour of interogation not believing that i was an american, that i had a friend in Jerusalem, that i had funded a trip this long on my own, that i did not meet any militants in Turkey, that i owned my camera, that i did not know Bethlehem was in the west bank, the let me get every one of my posessions get exrayed and then search my body in front of everyone else about to board the plane. nice guys. i could have been rejected, but even after i was granted admission to the country, i wasn't sure if i wanted to.
jerusalem is exausting, i have never seen such segregation and so many soldiers still battling achne in my life. it's like summer camp with machine guns all over the arab quarter of the old city where too many religions exist on top of each other and even more poltical beliefs and identities confuse the issue more. Jews pray at the last remaining wall of their temple while sirens burst muslim calls to prayer right above them and orthodox priests push people out of their way trying to get back to the church of the holy sepulchre. everything seems quiet enough, but ready to burst or just fall over with fatigue worrying so much about the various Others everywhere.
so i went to Bethlehem through a relatively casual checkpoint, into the west bank, and saw the wall. no comment besided the fact that it's bloody huge and depressing.
deep in the cave of the church where Jesus was born i found myself staring at a hole in the ground lined with a silver star that people couldn't stop kissing. i thought to myself, what the hell is this? then a tour came down with some americans and a local guy proclaimed, this is where jeusus was born, this exact spot. well i thought it was a well. and after everyone left, i had the cave to myself, i was free to meditate on whatever faith i might have, remember great times had on this journey, think about the future, ruminate on biblical stories... the sacred space was all mine and i had never been so curious about religion before. i thought it might all unfold before me, Truth, Justice, the condition of the human family and what must be done for peace and coexistence. then chanting echoed down the stone footstep worn steps and a monk came down, opened some alters, stole some candles left by tourists/pilgrims, and light the place up explaining that a procession was coming. i asked if i had to leave because i did not what a procession was -i was protestant, i explained- and he said i could remain sitting where i was on the side. the all the priests in their robes with their incense and followers came down chanting and the head dude stared at me with a real sting in his eye. while trying to keep rhythm with the chorus he made an upward motion toward me but i thought he was just conjuring spirits, the whole group took their places facing the hole and he motioned at me again getting tighter in the face. oh, i was supposed to stand like they were. but i didn't want to interupt, do i move, do i get in line, where is right, should i just leave, would that be rude? so i just stood and they did their chanting and incence swinging thing while i remained rigid and almost stubbornly between the patriarch and the alter. nope, definitely not making any friends in the orthodox community, i figured the less disruption the better and i beat Martin Luther at his own game, there was no denying that i cut the middle man out of pursuing faith in christ. they were following ritual as was I -the intimidated stranger... awkward, currious, unwelcomed and not to be forgotten after getting in the way of local routine- i was not sure if i was christian enough. was i welcomed or not? what does ritual have to do with a rebel messiah anyway? these guys screwed up my meditation on all these big questions and everything else i thought i cared about within the christian community.
so questions of the holy land are becoming clearer especially after my experience in Sarajevo. while that city known as Europe's Jerusalem, my friend told me that the war was the turning point when people stopped believing in God and only followed their religions. it is not 100% but it seems clear that the supposed holy land is plagued by people and their inconsistencies. whatever teachings we take away from our childhood and growing relationship with religion or without it, we are definitely left to our own resources to sourvive among one another. there are communities and there are antagonisms and even within those two chategories, Israel is showing me that they can be one in the same. Jews, Palestinians, and Christians, all vary when agreeing and disagreeing with and within one another. some people say it all comes down to money and business meaning that anything is flexible enough as long as you can keep eating. regarless, when people want differences and menaced history to heal itself, I am still currious how it is possible if it is so easy to hurt someone's feelings without trying. then think about how deep social scar tissue can be when you know someone actually intended to hurt your feelings! so it is give and take... if the problems between cultural and religious and political and economic differences are so deep and forever a part of daily life, then maybe this is nothing new. maybe there isn't much of a problem if it is the status quo. maybe we all live on a battlefield one way or another, land is contested and everyone's liberties are limited somehow. who is to say who is right? this place is full of these questions and i am glad i was allowed to enter it after being publicly humilated. well, it's just a small taste of what so many people deal with every day getting frisked on their way into cafes and biblical sites. i'm not proud of how paranoid the world has become yet i am glad that life does find ways to keep surprising me with unpredictable posibilities. children still play marbles among armed soldiers, and not every business is segregated. there are windows for exchange, and i guess that is why i am still travelling, hopefully at least to understand my own. |
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| sunny Sarajevo |
[Nov. 8th, 2004|04:43 pm] |
It has been difficult to begin writing about Sarajevo. I have been afraid of trying to over generalize or rush explaining something that has affected my trip so much. I spent 10 days in the small city nestled in a grand valley. From now on, every town and ever person I meet from will be compared to how I felt in Sarajevo.
Nine years have passed since the city was under siege, trapped in its own glorious valley, and almost completely leveled by motors, missles, and invasions for four years of fighting and fear. Within the first five or ten minutes of conversation, almost everyone I met mentioned the fact that they lived through the war. Often a silence would follow until one of us, usually me, had to change the subject. Nothing has ever proven so hard as talking to Bosnians about Bosnia. Then again, nothing has ever turned out to be so beautiful.
I stayed in a cheap hostle for a few days and explored the city on my own. It took a while to actually believe that all of the holes sprayed across so many walls were from machine gun fire and what i thought were pot holes from winter were actually mortor craters yet to be patched up. Even stone buildings that have been patched up still display two tone patterns of where the bullets hit around windows and doors. They cannot be painted over so the city seems to permanently display its scars and daily life continues regardless. Almost any peaceful place where people shop, socialize, or sit to enjoy a coffee is backdropped or juxtaposed by an unhesitant reminder of what happened. I needed to learn more, i did not know what about, about people i guess, about healing, about what is happening now from an insider's perspective. Someone had to disprove the idea that if the city has been rebuilt with a new old center, hip cafes, nice boutiques, and reserected Mosque minoretes that everything is ok. There is no violence, but the Truth of the matter seems to be that there is no peace either, just people carrying on with their lives. The conflict has turned more internal than ever before.
I went to the art institute to see what students were creating. Most asked why I was there. I told them because I am interested in art. Some said, No, why are you here in Sarajevo? No one comes here and we all want to leave. (When I voted at the embassy, even the Amercan clerk gave me a double take because i told him that i was only a tourist in Sarajevo... he almost didnt believe me). So many students left their studios to come meet me, talk art, and show me some of their work. The discussion usually, actually inevitably, turned to politics and the war and then more silence fell over us among the fumes of paint and the settling smoke of cigarettes. It wasnt easy, so when they had class I left and wanted to cry.
I sat along the stone wall of the city's river and could not cry. I looked up at the old town hall still boarded up and stained by fire and bullet holes. I watched passing trams rattle through the streets and I saw people on cell phones. I heard a firework explode at sunset giving me a shudder and urge to duck and hide. It was Ramazan (Ramadan) and the signle for the end of fasting for the day. Gentle calls to prayer echoed between the several mosques in the area and I sat watching portions of the town's 80% of the population hurry to worship. Religion, politics, art, lonliness, and gathering in a community were all happening at once and I did not know what to do with myself but return to my favorite cafe for another Turkish coffee, write in my journal, and enjoy the company of the old owner chatting with his buddies at the table next to me. They always remembered me, the weird young stranger who tried to teach himself how to serve Turkish coffee and the sit reading, writing, or just watching people for several hours at a time, usually two or three times a day.
So i returned to the institute the next day. Everyone remembered my name, honestly, who forgets Bhu? and i was introduced to more artists and their work. I explained that i wanted to stay in Sarajevo longer because I liked it. An extra bed in a student's apartment was immediately offered to me free of charge. So I moved in. Frome then on, the generosity of showing me the special places in the city and the even more dynamic places in peoples souls that were slowly shared with me will never be forgotten. Basically, people live and study together with different faiths but freedom, whatever that is, has not gauranteed safety. Tollerance exists on paper, avoidance exists in public. Many people told me that they can fogive their neighbors for what happened and at the same time never forget.
That is why so much of the student artists had such an effect on me. I started acting and writing our of curriosity and interest away from conservative professors. Many of the people i met said they became artists because of the war. Many students work attacked conservative dogma, the sacrifice of all faiths together, the spirits that remain among us after death. I saw some heavy images that will always haunt me with the ability to stir the limits of human emotion both in pain and appreciation for what is capable with love and communication. Most of them were fighting their professors too; it was genuine personal expression. If it were not for the war, they told me they, 'might be painting flowers' or some bullshit. Art was a new life.
I left Sarajevo too ealy. I was just beginning to learn so much about life, humanity, our global family and I think i got scared. I could call it the itch to move on and see more, but all the time i spent sitting alone trying to absorb the weight of that place in the world's heart, I spent wishing I were somewhere easier. Somewhere I would not feel so ignorant. Somewhere I would feel older and more experienced. I saw my innocence and hated it. I saw my own fragility and complete separation and privilege to pack up and leave and I took advantage. I can always go back and that hurt more. Some of the best people I met do not want to leave Sarajevo. They want to make art and a better life there and not give up on their home. Their strength of character amazes me. They want to give to their community because they do not want it to fall victim to the tyranny of people's greed and inability to share space under a higher power than themselves and their weapons. My host told me that the war is why people do not believe in God any more, they only believe in their religions. So who are we accountable to now?
Accountability... I am putting my faith in the cafe owner who gave me his pen when mine went blank; in the artists; in the mothers who fed me; in the people whos flowershops are still covered in bullet holes; in the children who splash in puddles deep in mortor holes dotted along the sidewalk. Everytime it rained in Sarajevo, the craters would fill with clear water like tears from above. Afterwards, the clouds would clear and turn to gold with a low light from far away. Towers and rooftops stacked next to one another with church steeples and new business buildings glow together as new street lights and monument decorations would come to life into the night. For brief moments, after four years of hell, Sarajevo can be heaven. Everything is calm and passion for humanity's genius to survive is overwhelming. I never did cry in Sarajevo even though I wanted to so much. Maybe I have no reason to cry if so much beauty can still exist in such a world of shit. |
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| not Europe |
[Oct. 19th, 2004|05:57 pm] |
yes, this is 'the east' and adamantly not Europe. in the modern art galery in Coratia's capital, Zagreb, only sports posters from various events in the past 100 years were on display. i had to get some more info than just pictures of jocks so i pestered a philosophy student subbing for a friend at the front desk for an hour and a half. Marian gave me the skinny on everything...
if Croatia joins the EU, something only the politicians who descide everything on saturday mornings in town center cafes want, 'all traditions' will change. the peasant market with fresh fruit and meat free of chemicals and crap will become illegal because it is not up to industrial quality/quantity.
and the water will become corporate.
and religion will be limited.
and the country has only been independent from a super power for 12 years, who actually thinks they are ready to be exploited by another?!?!?!
she continued...
the point is, there is no Yugoslavia anymore. someone needs to update Lonely Planet.
a diologue sample
-me
--Mariana
-yeah, i might go to Yugoslavia after Sarajavo.
--you cant
-why not?
--there is no such thing as Yugoslavia
-really
--yes, only Serbia
-but that is a part of Yugoslavia
--no, it was Yugoslavia, so were we.
-and now everyone is independent
--no
-not from Yugoslavia
--there is no Yugoslavia
-so they cannot be independent from something that does not exist
--yes, now it is Serbia. soon they will be independent from Serbia
-montenegro and Kosovo
--yes
-and that is why they are still fighting
--yes, with Servia
-so what is Serbia?
--Serbians
-and where did they come from?
--they were always there
-when they were Yugoslavians
--yes, and so were we
-but not really
--no
-got it
politics... what have i gotten myself into?!?! |
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| East? |
[Oct. 19th, 2004|05:48 pm] |
Slovenia's capital, Ljubjana, did not give me the shock i expected. well, i try not to expect anything, but honestly, how possible is that after growing up with so much American imagery of the former communist countries that supposedly almost destroied us. i have not found such a legacy yet. Apparently, Slovenia has always had a closer relationship with the rest of Europe than its neighbors and walking around and talking to people on the street seemed no different than anywhere else. the only thing that made me feel out of place was the fact that everyone i met in stores, on the street, and in the library spoke better English than i do. development and all its expansive imagination of progress...
the goal is art, modern art, public art, political art, previously suppressed art, anything. Slovenia, despite its cool demeanor in public displayed plenty of angry artists through the past 50 years in their national gallery. if an image were to be derived from what they chose to show, it might have something to do with some of the titles: the unknown hero, protest, execution wall, the big letter, sunny august, battle, we are the last ones, nightmare, last supper, wall of hostages, and ashes to ashes...
yes, heavy. and in the last supper, portraits of all 12 disciples hanging from nuces circulated around jesus.
so i went to Croatia. |
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| leaving italy |
[Oct. 19th, 2004|05:39 pm] |
it was difficult but necessary. i got far too comfortable in Italy and did not realize how quickly two months could pass. Venice became the perfect chilly ending. i had to see it, but i knew it would hurt. expenses soared and a montage of my Italian experiences from depressing anxiety in Sicily, to the energy of labor, to fallowing curriosity through ancient ruins, to meeting such a ridiculus aray of people i met along the way. backpackers, students, laborers... everyone pushed me further and fed me with humanity and Truth to chew on for the rest of the journey to come. personal experiences, past stories, observations, opinions, explanations... i tried as best i could to get as much as possible out of everyone that helped make this trip what it is, some kind of new education. Italy is a place for talking. it proved true. despite the neo nazi graffiti in every town i visited, people could still converse for a better understanding of what they want. if the words could not come out, a few hand gestures could usually the point across quicker and clearer. so be it, we are still keeping on and all problems might not all be solved over a cup of coffee, but at least i know how much more i need to know about learning more.
so i headed East. |
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| office space |
[Oct. 11th, 2004|01:53 am] |
i just needed to feel useful again. slobbing around cafes and monuments is only fulfilling for so long. first stop: Cararra Itlay, home of the world's best marble and legendarily the best carvers as well. after David, why not, i'd give it a shot, i thought to myself. Arriving on a Sunday when everything was closed, the streets hollowed out with Sundy tranquility, and the entire town's back turned to me set the mood for the job hunt. Come Monday, the same rejection hit me, the lonely imigrant. Every sculptor and tombstone jockey wanted a bunch of degrees and letters next to my name before they could hand me a chisle, but they dont use those any more anyway, only huge powertools that killed the romantic Michaelango old master feel i was searching for. so i packed up and left, didnt shed to many tears over not becoming a new master over night.
cinque terra: the unavoidable splendor. five fishing and vinyard towns strung along a cliff by trail and railroad, now protected as a national park was close enough on the way north to Milan so i had to make a stop over. but i didnt stop, with Irma packed up behind me i hoofed through most of the trail, cheated a bit on the train, commited myself to a day of sweat and dirt among honeymooners and retired comcorder toting tourists clogging up the single track trail up and over countless chopped steps and winding terraced vinards. what a rush pounding through the dust with the sea to my right, cliff side vista points to my left, and plenty of ice cream waiting for me at the end of the trail. oh yeah, and after a day of hiking, the hostel was booked solid which i found out after waiting for two hours for it to open. i have not called ahead once or ever made a reservation in advance since my first night arriving in Madrid, sometimes it bights me from behind.
pack up again, head out on the first train, still feeling the blood tighten up in my legs, finally find a hostel in Genoa, Columbus' old hangout, crash, wake up, get a job the next day in Milan.
if i told you i was going to Europe to work in an Architectural firm with a political science degree, live in a swank bachelor pad, and get on a first name basis with the two guys running my local cafe, you would probably tell me life doesnt work like that. it does.
through a friend of a friend of my father, i have been set up here in Milan doing odd jobs around the office from painting to marketing and the dense awful humanity that lingers through an office life was almost enough to send me to an early grave. Bhu, in an office? believe it, their stress stressed me, i would come home still tight and still running around the apartment trying to accomplish tasks the way they were expected on the job. what a mess, everything most tourists dont see. the draftsman stopping his work to bring the boss and new clients coffee, the secretary taking the blame for everyone else, a kid with down sydrom under my managment to paint the place and not get in the way, and ignorant me sent out to photograph a newly finished building and apparently doing a good enough job to get my shots organized into a fancy brochure. professionalism... what a joke, i spent a week taking photos and at least another one just compiling it all to the boss's ever fickle perfectionism. every time i clicked print, my heart stopped until i could reasure myself i didnt screw up, but i usually did and had to keep asking for help in broken italian and in the end, somehow, things worked out. oh the humanity, do a job, do it well, hope for a thank you at the end.
confidence, i had a J O B again, what a feeling skipping around Milan knowing i am useful and accomplished again.
then i went shopping, realizing i have worn the same clothes for four months, and my world fell apart again. ovwhelmed hardly describes the feeling. where to begin, what do i want, why am i doing this to myself? it took me 12 hours to by shoes and underwear that didnt fit after feeling some kind of necessity to buy something but with shaking hands of uncertainty holding my credit card. it just was not right. i did not need new clothes, but the feeling of being undeserving, outcast, beat up from the road and unacceptable in the real working world sent me off the comfortable course i was in, really, just in my head, suddenly shocked by so much style and form all around. it took me until the end of my stay here, three weeks later to realize manicans are put together by fashion whores and i need to put myself together. this trip is still teaching me how to do that. after an exchange and two weeks of pain, the shoes are broken in and perfect for me. i am no longer wearing my shame and i tossed the underwear. to hell with it. the biggest conflict was thinking about replacing my life, everything that had brought me to this point, i could not do it. there was no reason, but i had to learn to be comfortable with myself again. it was not a temptation to conform, more of an issue of shame, loss of security, even though i had a job again, i thought the trip needed a makeover, why? i still dont know. just got myself on a bad day i guess. i am comfortable in my own skin again, even the parts stained with white paint, character, punk rock, this trip is still a rebellion against the Career Development office at school
i do not ever need or want to return to an office again. but i know what it is like. i learned about hierarchy and about being on the bottom again. but i never got that low, i am still breathing.
so i went to the cemetary to get a better dose of reality. 'the Disneyland of death' as dad likes to call it. that is an understatement. so much personality, artistry, grandeur. graves were small monuments, tombs are practically cities. it kept going forever and the diversity, care, and continuity of respect and memory was unavoidable. everything was sacred and everyone will end up in a box someday, might as well go out with a bang. leave your mark. then i realized, walking down these isles was not much different than walking down a street right outside. everyone has their rhythm, their personal meaning, even their influence on others. the cemetary was just a little quieter than downtown but filled with the same freshness of life and the value we have for what we love and crave to make it as meaningful as possible. it was good reminder. a tomb is supposed to be permanent, but our daily lives can be too easily ephemoral. what do we not remember, or willingly ignore? how much do we miss looking at our feet, making sure we dont trip in the present without focusing on the horizon ahead. can we take it all in or do we have to wait to meet our maker before making sense of it all. i wonder if the grandiosity of the cemetary is supposed to remind us that the artistry there is only a small example of what is possible. we can build anything, keep the Gods on there toes with our creativity and skill, while the other animals are routine and borning. so what is important today and tomorrow? what expectations do we need to live up to?
what does the world need of us before we keel over and the game is over? i thought about this stuff while reorganizing the catologue library of office furniture and lighting fixtures alone in the back of the office. |
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| vacation? |
[Oct. 8th, 2004|07:24 am] |
the restaurant was an amazing experience, something i did for two weeks and will talk about for the next forty years. afterwards, Rome was OK, i guess, but there was no Chef, no free food, no beach near by... it seemed to lack what i had grown to love while so exhausted from work. nevertheless, Rome is Rome and heading into it after two weeks of drugery was like waking from a deep hybernation and arriving in a very old disneyland. I kept up the energy to explore for a few days and never got lonely, tired, or lost because i was still high from all the love and nurishment i got in the kitchen. Funny thing about Rome: ruins that are 2000 years old can either stand out as megolithic beasts imposing history and all of its menacing presnce over you, or they can blend in with an equally dirty town and be easily forgotten while caught up looking for a cheap cafe. it kind of depends on your mood. sometimes i would spen an hour lying in the grass staring up at the crumbling arches of the colosseum... othertimes i would just scram past the circus maximus, now a park, heading for the used bookstore in the bohemian section of town without recognizing the fact that Ben Hur used to hang out there.
i did not really want to meet anyone. walking all day just thinking about stuff was enough for me. Rome, just the idea of it, kept me occupied without realizing i was talking to myself in various accents just for the hell of it while walking along the river or along the walls of the old Forum. it never mattered to me what people on the street thought of me, i just kept walking for a few days and then decided to go to some other towns and keep walking around. no big deal, i was on vacation again!
There is a great piazza in the world that can stop anyone for at least a minute and beckon them to shut up and sit down in the sun. It is in Siena, i think it is call the Piazza del campo, i cannot remember, but what is in a name anyway? I walked around Siena for a day and returned to that same piazza four times just to make sure i never fogot what it felt like to be in that vastly open and slightly sloping space in the middle of so many tiny medevil streets. it was safe sourrounded by so many walls but exposed to the sun... it was quiet away from the echoing alleys and sirens around but cluttered with readers, strollers, and children. my kind of place.
but i got the itch to keep moving and headed up to Florence to hang out with David. Florence was a miserable sight flooded with tourists and their invading tour groups, ridiculus lines for museums and extorionate cafes. luckily i went with a English girl i met Siena's Piazza to show me around so i wouldnt flip out and give up on the place before seeing David. David David David, yup, he's the man. I have been completely stunned twice in my life, hypnotized, and baffled by the great potential humans have to create beauty: the Taj Mahal, and your friend and mine, David. It is not just his butt or his big hands or his crooked stare, it is the sensitivity that created him that kept me still. the fact that someone spent a lifetime studying the human form and the story that goes along with it enough to create something so magnificent and grand, to inspire greatness and courage in the face of a goliath, well, what else do we need when faced with the entire goliath of a human colamity we have created for ourselves? we dont need David, he is just a boy, well, he is really just a chunk of scrap marble, but we do need some kind of courage that we do not yet know we have. there is both accomplishment and fear in his face, something uncertain, almost forboding. His body says 'dont mess with me and my own' his face seems to say 'oh shit, here we go again'. the monster is in the suburbs, the public schools, the coming election, the loneliness in every traveler, the solitude of every laborer, the rain seeping through our walls, paint in our murals, and the consumption in our malls. i guess we bring a lot of history with us everywhere we go from Rome to home, what to do with it, i don't know, but it helps to know that maybe, with a little luck, help is on the way from an unsuspected child full of ambition that is still within us all.
so i decided i needed another job. i went to find one. |
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| in the Italian kitchen |
[Sep. 11th, 2004|12:06 pm] |
the one thing that i learned for sure while cleaning squid guts all morning is that i do not want to spend the rest of my life cleaning squid guts. i should not complain, i dont think that i am, but when that brown sack of bile bursts and hits your unsuspecting eye, thats when you start to think you are not getting paid enough to do what no one else wants to. why did i go to college? maybe to help recognize the human theatre that is: la cucina Italiana.
everyone thinks chef is crazy because he speaks an incoherent Sardinian dialect and always yells at us for leaving the door open letting flies in 'la porta, la porta, vai fanculo!' and he thinks everyon else is crazy for listening to the manager who demands too much. it wasnt always the most peacful of environments when he would pick a fight with our manager, half his age, over money and business since everyone has been working in the restaurant for four months, two full shifts per day, without a day off and without tip. we wake up, eat, work, rest, work again, clean up, crash in bed, and wake up again. after a while that is all you know, you start dreaming and imagining all of the dishes that need to be washed and in what order, where the bowls go, how to stack the pans properly, how long will it take to clean out the pasta pot in the morning after soaking overnight. then when you are at work, you dont need to think, you just do it so you dont need to worry about the fact that you would rather be at the beach. and believe me, you havent lived until you have cleaned out the fat from an industrial stove vent. that took a full mornings work before cleaning all of the prep dishes with the Russian kid i was replacing. While up to our elbows in grease, vinegar, and piles of paper towels we looked at each other and wondered how two guys from the two greatest superpowers in the world ended up cleaning up the fowlest wrechedness of a small countryside kitchen while a bunch of cheeky italians chopped eggplant and sipped coffee waiting for us to finish. so be it.
i think the kitchen became a good school for me. working in the kitchen at vassar prepared me for the love of serving people and the vital importance of a well functional kitchen to provide for the masses. as the noble and overworked dishwasher, everything became my responsibility. Chef and Angelo were busy cooking so i had to make sure their job was smooth, meaning i had to always be a step ahead of them with sponge and soap in hand. after a while, i claimed the space as my own and whatever i needed i got to make sure my job was as smooth as possible. they began appologizing for giving me too much work but i told them i enjoied it because, well, what else was i going to do?
when the work ended, or at least paused, we ate, and we ate well. Chef always put more energy into the food he brought to our table because it was fuel and family. an old couple from Milan owned the place and had hired old Chef and a bunch of young people to wait and cook and clean and even a Tunisian family cooked roast pig everyday (ironic?). anyway, no matter how much we hated parts of our labors, we were a family at the table. the love came when realizing that these people brought in a dirty and ungroomed foreigner with a backpack and no language ability into their home to earn respect and contribute to a project in need. i picked up language and watched them joke and tease one another, pile more food on each others plates and always ask if i was ok. i was finally safe and found a beautiful place in the world that still valued some of the old humanity we seem to lose in the cities around the world. the food was simple, the building was old and welcoming lined with flowers and warm light in the evening, old jazz and blues (and a week of horrible karaoke) accompanied our labor and rest, and the sea with the most enchanting clear water and wild rocky coast was a short walk away for a mid day swim.
i would recomend the restaurant to you all to come and visit next summer, it was a warm place that filled my heart with grace but i cannot. within a year the entire farm, house, and restaurant will be leveled for a massive hotel, 64 appartment units, and a fancy corporate restaurant with a view of the coast. oh well, take the money and run, the mom and pop eatery is an endangered wonder |
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| strangers |
[Aug. 2nd, 2004|08:30 pm] |
on the train south, i felt alive again. not only was i satisfied to have seen the mysterious place that crowley hung out in, but i was off on my own again to a new place i knew nothing about, had no guide book to lead me, and the sun was going down again.
Sicily is bigger than i thought and the train through the countryside showed me a silent and still side of the country i did not expect. Olive trees with silvery new growth shimmering in gentle breezes were lined along small farms, and old stone ruins rested among rubble atop small slopeing hills above farm houses. when we stopped, a breeze would come through the windows that were opened down to chest height, perfect for leaning over and sticking your head out as you sweep from one town to another. i spent a few hours standing with the wind in my face dodging prickly pairs and just remembering how much it is going to suck going home away from such freedom someday.
but freedom is a conundrum. on the next train, i met another backpacker. this guy wasn't the same as the others i've met though. no guide book, no vacation time, no budget. Alex has been on the streets for five years and his dog, Rambo, has accompanied him from Germany down to the southern tip of Sicily where they have old friends supposedly from a year's worth of work and play. who knows, but i followed him to where i wanted cheap food, just a little, but his friends gave me a huge package to take to the beach and chow down on. great, i thought... debt to Sicilian strangers. favors, mafia, oh god, now he's off stumbling around in the dark paying a little more attention to his nose than before. i'm screwed. great, now it's too late to find a hotel. wait, i don't want a hotel, the beach is good enough for me if it's good enough for Alex. so i sat and sat and sat. the moon rose above the still water and each time i opened my eyes was in a new place along the horizon. alex disappeared with friends. someone's going to hassle me, i'm going to wake up staring down the barrel of a revolver. no, this place is partying late on a sunday night, i'm surrounded by rich tourists, no one's going to bother a dirty backpacker. but i'm not homeless, i'm not a vagrant, i'm a college graduate poseur. (these are thoughts that kept me awake from 11 till 7 in the morning). i never slept, i leaned against Irma till all bars finally stopped blasting all the pop hits from Nirvana unplugged to Britney spears's latest and i could finally bring out my blanket to settle in a bit more. i wanted to run, but how far could i go? i wanted to call home, but what good would that do? there were no hotels, no safety, nothing to turn to but crooked stares from everyone who passed by on their way to a party while i tried to be as inconspicuous as possible.
i now know what it is like to try to sleep cold and boiling over with anxiety. everytime i closed my eyes, i imagined escape plans and the worst things creeping up on me. i just wanted morning to come. i wanted to see the difference between the horizon and the sky so i knew it was not just a distant memory. my imagination was busy enough trying to stay tense and ready to defend myself. when if ever was Alex going to come back and why did he treat me as a friend and then abandon me? why did he give me advice and terrify me so much? what did he want?
i finally woke. that means that i did get a wink of real sleep that was not just a long blink between checking my watch. i woke to the crack of yellow light breaking over the house to my left and the long shadows along the beach. the water was the only sound in site and the sand, the horizon, the clear blue sky was all mine! Every clubber and baretender had retired a few hours ago and all of my anxiety was releaved by the most beautiful morning i have ever whitnessed. all i wanted to do was go back to sleep. i couldn't. so i dusted my self off, got a cup of coffee and a few croisants and now i'm in malta.
cheers |
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bhumuhler's journal