I want more women in my pocket

Estonian kroon

The pulled pork sandwich was delicious, the bun warm on fingertips rubbed safe-cracking sensitive by a good night of rock climbing. Then the best part of these nights: sitting around a table with a good group of friends. Now it was time to pay, and a multimedia presentation of plastic cards and paper bills fluttered onto the table.

“Who is on your money?” asked the visiting German. And I couldn’t resist. Ever since I found Estonia’s money adorned by painters, scientists, and chess players, I’ve been aware of our US proclivities.

“Our money has the presidents who killed the most people,” I had to point out.

The rest of the (short) post, and why Quakers, escaped slaves, and Joaquin Phoenix can help us redefine who we consider heroes on today's vagabondurges.com post, here.

Lumps of love, transmitted by wire.

My headphones endorsed the errand by playing the perfect cycling songs as I pedaled downtown to the bank, Toots Thielemans’ “Bossa Nova” gliding right on into Johnny Cash’s “Hey Porter”. We had account data scribbled on an envelope in my pocket, five hundred of your dollars lurking around the ether somewhere reachable, and the perfect cure for a morning of mental mud washing the blech off my spirit.

A venomous dose of intimidation, and a steaming and stanking dollop of why-bother, were little piles of self doubt scat on my shoulders when I started, but they dried in the sunlight, weakened in the rushing air, and were scoured away by the wash of your generosity. I had money to pass on.

I have yet to master bicycling photography, and banks just
ain't pretty, so here's a couple more from the community
center where Alvaro volunteers.

Byzantine bank protocols were navigated with an easy smile nourished by the kindness of the 13 of you who had donated to help rebuild Alvaro's home, to find the best way to send every cent. No one takes cash anymore, but it turns out the best way is still to physically walk a money order down the block.

Colleagues from my Venezuela delegation and others, family, friends, and names I didn't recognize arrived in my inbox over the last week, all stepping up to help put a roof back over a family. The bank teller may have been bored, but I wasn’t.

(The sense of wellbeing y’all gave me endured, kicking the doors off the hinges of the Oakland Parking Citations Assistance Center, and I was the happiest person ever to wait in line to pay an exorbitant parking ticket. Confused the bejeebus out of the clerk.)

Stub of the most satisfying money order in history tucked into my notebook, I grinned my way around the jetstreams of Oakland, the morning’s sick inefficacy forgotten, feeling the flow, reflecting the rhythm. And no one seemed to mind a good mood, especially the woman who honked and waved while her laughter escaped the cracked window when my stoplight dance included a little traffic direction. (John Legend’s “Stereo” just wanted me to tell the turn lane when it was their turn).

Three of five delegates, dancers, musicians, and a magician

My feet were still drumming the earth when I arrived home just now, and what did I find? Two more donors, another lump of love to send Alvaro’s way. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to go back and do it again tomorrow.

(If you’d like to add to that errand, the fundraising page is still alive and dancing:  http://www.gofundme.com/AHomeForAlvaro)

(And since Tuesday’s blog pushed ahead of this one, I can update that to FIVE more donors, almost doubling our amount raised, bringing us within $50 of halfway. I’m going to need to charge my ipod for this…)

Ample? Fat? Or something more creative?

“What about this one? How does it look?” His girlfriend considered for a moment, head tilted to the side and lips pursed just a little.

“I like it, the color is good on you, but you need another size.” The shirt was stretched over his broad chest, and ample frame. This is Venezuela, the land of thick, doughy arepas for breakfast and afternoon snacks, and the man’s intellectual career has him sitting in board rooms and at conference tables around the country. “You need size…”

She turned to search for a larger shirt, but the man shopping next to them was more...helpful.

“You need size half-a-cow” he offered.

This is Venezuela, one of those countries that does not mince words. Whereas I might be left grasping for politely indicative words like “ample”, in Venezuela? They don’t mess around.

The question of which way is better is one for the sages, bores, and dorm room floors, but one thing is for sure: if you’re going to live in a place that’s this direct, you’d better have a good sense of humor.

Luckily for my Venezuelan friend of the substantive girth, he has no problem laughing at himself, and neither does Alvaro, my friend and the program director of the Witness for Peace Southwest delegation that brought me to the country.

But Alvaro is no half-a-cow. What would they hang a nickname on, then? The bushy eyebrows? I am sensitive about that one, after years of people telling me I look angry, when actually I’m just ⅛ Neanderthal. But no, it’s not the brows that the man on the steps of the Cathedral commented on.

At five foot and a few, Alvaro comes up to my shoulder. I always like people who do that, especially after living near Holland, habitat of the humongous. Indigenous people throughout Latin America are frequently vertically modest, but Venezuela is predominantly mestizo, ie descendants of Europeans, with Amerindians making up only 2% of the population.

So Alvaro is short. And the man on the steps noticed. He also noticed the calm confidence and knowledge with which Alvaro was conducting us around Caracas, and he had a question.

“Oye, bonsai Tarzan, which way to the metro?”

Bonsai Tarzan. That is quite an image. Not one that every altitudinally modest individual might appreciate. Alvaro politely gave the man directions, and off we all went on our days.

Note: Last weekend Alvaro’s house suddenly collapsed. Luckily no one was hurt, but he, his wife, and their five year old daughter are now homeless. I cannot imagine what this would be like. I set up a fundraising page here, and urge you to contribute, even just a few dollars, if you can.

Thank you.

A home for Alvaro

Alvaro and his daughter

“My daughter is a musician,” were Alvaro’s proud words as we shared a taxi into Caracas. He was the program coordinator for the Witness for Peace delegation that I had come to Venezuela to attend.

“Oh?” I asked, “What does she play?”

“Drums, mostly.” I nodded politely, but I confess, my inner cynic was sniping: Yeah, sure. Everyone’s kid is a brilliant drummer, just like everyone’s kid is a young Picasso. But a few days later, during which Alvaro manouvered, facilitated, and orchestrated our Venezuelan experience with virtuoso skill, something happened that made me question my snark.

We were in his hometown of Barquisimeto, so his wife and daughter had joined us for dinner. While we waited for the pollo to become asado, Alvaro thumped out a rhythm on the table top with fingers and palms.

His daughter, a five year old cherub with more than a sliver of impishness in her smile, looked at his hands for a moment. Maybe a moment and a half. Then her tiny hands were thumping the tabletop too, in perfect sync with her father. I was impressed; maybe she was a musician after all.

Sanare, "The Garden of Lara" (province)

The delegation proceeded to the hill town of Sanare, where Alvaro wrangled meetings with women’s co-operatives, community organizers, and the local radio station. One afternoon I rode with him to run a couple errands, and he pointed out the chaotic scribble of thick black wire that hung on the electrical poles.

“People connect their own wires to steal electricity. Then the power company comes by, installs meters on the lines, and starts charging them. It works, because they don’t have to do all the wiring themselves, saving everyone money and time.”

How’s that for a capsule of Venezuela: people doing what they can to get by, using their own wiles and agency, and a pragmatic government that works with things the way they are to bring everyone into the system. I was marveling at that when we stopped so Alvaro could go run a mysterious errand. “Eh...wait here, okay?” was all he said.

Wheelies for Bolivar

The next day was Simon Bolivar’s birthday, and you’d better believe Venezuela takes notice of The Liberator’s cumpleaños. I sat down to dinner after watching the town celebrate in the tidy plaza, and Alvaro’s secret errand was revealed when he carried out a massive birthday cake. It was birthday season, I guess, since in our five person delegation, two of us had birthdays that week as well. Kathy and I shared space among strawberries with Simon. Birthday solidarity; how wonderfully Venezuelan.

Alvaro and company drumming it out

Stuffed with information, experience, and frosting, we made our way back to Barquisimeto the next day, and Alvaro informed us that his community center had prepared “a little presentation” for us.

Every coastal province in Venezuela has its own Afro-Venezuelan traditions and heritage, with particular rhythms, songs, and drums. This community center performed them all. Grinning faces, welcoming words, and flashing hands from throughout the community piled into the room, and the drumbeats, singing, and guitar chords rose to the rafters.

My cheeks were already sore with enthusiasm, and my foot tingled from ceaseless tapping, when Alvaro’s daughter climbed up to sit on a drum far larger than she was. I thought it was sweet that everyone would indulge the five year old, but then she started playing.

Por dios! He wasn’t kidding, she IS a musician! She thumped and thwacked right along with the best of them, pixie grins breaking out only between songs, as the music filled the night, almost as loudly as the welcome.

I am indebted to Alvaro for all his hard work, both with our delegation and with his community center, which also organizes a massive summer camp for local kids every year. And I just genuinely like the man.

That made it that much worse when I heard that Alvaro’s house collapsed a couple days ago. He, his wife, and their daughter are now on the street in Barquisimeto, and need help raising the funds to rebuild their home.

If you can spare anything to help, I urge you to do so. This is a good man, doing good work, and I have seen firsthand how selfless he is, working tirelessly without pay for his community. Please see his fundraising page at: http://www.gofundme.com/AHomeForAlvaro

Getting gas in Venezuela

It’s a routine errand, expensive, kinda smelly, and utterly unexciting, for millions (billions?) of people. Filling up the tank. Getting gas. Burning dinosaur bones. (And you were worried this was a chronological consequence of the post on Venezuelan food. Tut tut, I'm classy.)

You pull into the station, maybe wait in line, park your car, turn it off, no smoking, no cell phones, stand there bored while the thick black hose squirts thick black sludge into your car, the sun is hot on your neck. Then swipe your card to pay your $30, $40, $50...$60 per tank?

It’s pretty much the same in Venezuela, with one major difference. No, it’s not that there was no brand name necessary on the shelter. No, it’s not the absence of muzak “radio” piped in.

Can you guess the difference?

If my math is correct, with it’s flurry of units of measurement, and depending on what rate you actually get for your dollar (no one uses the official rate, so I’m using the average rate one gets in a hotel, about 45 bolivars per dollar), a gallon of gas that day, and every day, in Venezuela costs about $0.008 per gallon.

A gallon of gas costs less than a penny.

How do you feel about that?

But that’s Venezuelan gas, we Americans get the finer stuff, the Saudi Arabian stuff, the moral stuff, right?

Guess who is, and always has been, the number one purchaser of Venezuelan oil. I don’t even need to tell you.

(And we can get into the relative morality of Venezuela versus the Middle East another day.)

How do you feel, right now, about the subsidies oil companies receive? How do you feel about the fact that the profits they make are the highest in human history?

Let's sing a little song to make you feel better.

Food porn, Venezuela style

In the countryside, you can often find nata, the savory
cream topping to the left. No, it's not even close to mayo.

The pupusas of El Salvador clearly made an impression on me, but Venezuela was ready with a rebound relationship. The arepa is the traditional and quintessential food item of Venezuela and Colombia, dating back to precolonial times, when it was made by the indigenous tribes of the area whose word, erepa, it (basically) still bears.

A friend had expressed concern that shortages of arepa flour might prevent me from finding them, but luckily that was not a problem. However, we did hear tales of scarcity, similar to what you'd hear if China ran out of rice, America ran out of oil, or Brazil ran out of sex.

Ham and cheese arepa for breakfast,
and unfortunately too dark to see the
one in the back, because I can't
remember what it was.

Arepas are pretty much just corn meal patties, with none of nixtamal's alkaline processing (and ergo less nutritious than pupusas), though yucca and wheat varieties are also skulking around the region. Plain arepas are served with most meals, like bread in Italy or tortillas in Mexico, but they are commonly a stand alone breakfast or afternoon snack. If they're the star of the show, they can be fried, stuffed, or stacked with a variety of ingredients.

The basic breakfast incarnations select among cheese, beans, and egg, though shrimp, chicken, pork, beef, coconut, and avocado were usually available too. That list is deceptively short, since “cheese” can take any of a dozen forms, while pork, chicken, and beef also come in multiple preparations, my favorite being pernil, a pulled pork usually made from the shoulder.

My domino sample, with avena. I would
have taken a pic after I started eating,
but it was drippy lava-hot goodness.

Three other favorites are dominó, reina pepiada, and pabellon criollo. The first of those is just a mixture of black beans and cheese that went well with a glass of avena, a thick oat-based drink cinnamon, clove, and sugar, that reminded me of horchata's chewier cousin.

Reina pepiada is a traditional Venezuelan filling of chicken and avocado, in a sauce that may contain mayonnaise, lime, and cilantro. It's frickin delicious.

Then there's pabellón criollo. You can stuff a sample of this dish into an arepa, but I had it as a separate plate, and it was the single best meal I had in Venezuela. Traditionally a farmer's hearty breakfast, I did indeed feel capable of working for hours after eating it...as long as I (miraculously) avoided the food coma.

There are of course variations, but I only have eyes for what I ate.

Nostalgia rarely includes so much drooling.

-Rice, and caraotas fritas. I use the local term since if I just said “fried black beans” you might not picture the savory deliciousness that found its way into most forkloads. So good.

-A fried egg on top of the beans, cuz why not?

-Carne mechada is a shredded beef preparation similar to Cuba's ropa vieja that paired perfectly with the caraotas, and made me eager to find a field to plow. I felt like Venezuelan Popeye. I bet there was coriander in there.

-Tajadas. Again, “fried plantains” just doesn't do it justice. Nor adequately pay homage to the way these ingredients blended, cooperated, and tag-teamed my taste buds into blissful submission.

It was all so good, I nearly forgot about the fresh parchita (passionfruit) juice and basket full of arepas.

There is still a special place in my heart for pupusas, but after a Venezuelan meal, there was no spare space in my stomach.

A battalion of sauces, lots of boobs, and sheer normalcy on the streets of Caracas.

(In deference to the blogosphere’s reverence for brevity, I split this post in two; the first half is here)

After clearing customs, hearing of youthful harlots, and being warned that the water is shut off at 8:30 PM every night, I was released to wander the streets of Caracas, a city endorsed by voices familial and journalistic as being utterly unsafe. “Walk those streets, and you’ll be kidnapped, shot, or worse” seemed to be the consensus.

My first task was a haircut. That completed (blog to follow), I set my steps to witness the city. I'd left as many expectations and preconceptions as possible at home, and tried to see it with open eyes. What did I see?

Normal people wearing normal clothes walked normal streets past normal stores selling normal things. Familiar billboards used the same idiotic pressures and messaging to sell junk, and the noise level was generally...normal. People smiled back when I smiled first, nobody seemed angry or in a particular hurry, and no pedestrians were being run over, nor abducted into unmarked SUVs.

All in all, it was a lot like most cities.

There had to be something different, after all, Venezuela is not a routine nation. There was more propaganda and political dialogue than I'm used to, but not so different from, for example, Nicaragua, and less than any country during election season. This, despite the surprising fact that there was indeed a minor election that weekend. 

(The tags on this wall read: "It's not about Left or Right, it's about human dignity", "The people are the power", and the iconic eyes belong to Chavez, listed along with a lamenting cry to Nicolas Maduro, the current president and Chavez's successor, listing things he sees, including scarcity, torture, corruption, and violence. But the most striking to me is the one in the middle, which reads "There is no milk, only bullets" and is an infant nursing from the barrel of a handgun.)

Perhaps the most noteworthy difference? There was an unnatural incidence of giant boobs. Plastic surgery is insanely popular in Venezuela's capital, and the cleavage was on patrol.

(Yawn.)

I meandered through the crowd, took a few pictures, got lost for a while, and surveyed for what I would eat. The answer seemed clear; the answer seemed...normal.

The one where I ate had no chairs and even more sauces.

Food carts stood at regular intervals on Avenida Francisco de Miranda, one of the city's main thoroughfares. Depending on the size of the cart, one-to-three cooks sauteed, fried, and assembled portable meals for a steady stream of customers, most of whom stood in front of the cart, helping themselves to liberal quantities from the armada of sauces waiting there. Ketchup, mustard, mayo, barbeque, and ranks of mystery bottles stood ready to dollop, squeeze, and squirt onto sandwiches, burgers, or whatever one had in hand.

A burger just didn't seem appropriate, so I asked for an enrollado, which was basically a burrito, filled with quality chicken meat, tomato, avocado, alfalfa sprouts, and I don't know what all else. Some sort of sauce that tasted almost....Chinese? It was good, though I can’t imagine drowning its already drippy depths with surplus sauce.

I went looking for a big bottle of water to wash it down and get me through the dry night, but it was Caracas after all, and all the stores were out, or had only tiny ones. I grabbed two of those from a bored dude in a kiosk, and looked around to decide what direction to go, as the light faded. “The Blue Hour” is a photographer's favorite, and I wanted to find the right place. Photography time!

Turns out the water shortage wasn't the only thing to differentiate this city. As the light disappeared, so did 95% of the people on the street. Suddenly there were large open spaces, and a lot of young men looking at me. Taking out the camera didn't seem like such a great idea anymore.

Hm. Listen to Them, and head in? Listen to my experience that warnings are always overstated? A voice whispered that the most interesting things happen during the “forbidden” times... But another topic of emotional conversation on the cab ride in from the airport had been the utter impunity of criminals in the city. No one was sure what the exact figures were for kidnappings and ransoms, but estimates competed to reach the ceiling.

When in doubt, do as the locals do, which in this case meant abandoning the street. Getting flash kidnapped might make a good story, but would totally ruin the experience for the four other women in the group.

My unremarkable hotel room. Pretty clean (other than the
hair that came pre-installed on the pillows and sheets).

Back in my room, susurrations of the city leaked in through my poorly-fitting window, and a soundtrack for self doubt. Would a balsier traveler, a more audacious writer, have stayed out? Gotten some amazing story that was now slipping by, unseen by my eye? Or would that have just been stupid? Eyelids like sandbags at 8:00, I pondered the question as I went to the bathroom, preparatory to brushing my teeth and going to bed.

The toilet didn't flush.

All advice considered, if that was the extent of my misfortune... I'd take it. And be ready to witness the next day.

Arriving in Caracas Part 1 of 2; or, My niece's birthday party was a porno scene

The plane landed at Caracas' Simon Bolivar International Airport with a stronger bump than most, and taxied past a row of unfamiliar logos on modest fuselages. Between the recent unrest, and, more importantly, the country's inability to pay the airlines the fees they charge, several coarriers have pulled out of Venezuela entirely. Luckily for me, Copa still had daily hops over from Panama City.

Out the porthole window (is there a physics reason for that, or just nostalgia for the seafaring age?) a lego landscape of right angles and boxlike structures grew up the mountainsides in a competition between cinder blocks and tropical foliage. These slopes surround Caracas in a carpet of chaotic concrete similar to the iconic images of Brazil's favelas, and share many of the equally well-known problems. Blue and green walls were seasoned in among the reddish clay color, and a visual hum of lives being lived leaked from the spray of windows.

The customs officer was suspicious of my passport's extra pages, and he left me standing while he went to confirm with a superior. I watched the flow of Venezuelans, and the clusters of confusion around the few Chinese tourists (who seemed devoted to squabbling with the guards), savoring my eagerness to be into the city.

The program director and the translator from Witness for Peace met me in the terminal and I liked them both immediately. The director shared a taxi with me into Caracas, commiserating with the driver about how music isn't as good as it used to be, and kids these days misbehave.

“I went to my niece's birthday party last week, and watching them dance, I felt like I was watching a porno scene. It wasn't like that when I was a kid.” As an example of the better music of yesteryear, he referenced Black Sabbath.

The driver also raged at the traffic, which didn't seem that bad to me. We rarely stopped, and on the whole, people were far more complicit to the concept of lanes than I'm used to in the developing world, and even the honking wasn't continuous.

I checked into the generic comfort of the Hotel Altamira (hardworking marble floors, bulbs missing from the bedside lights, the vague moldy aftertaste of years of continuous air conditioning) in the neighborhood of the same name, familiar as the epicenter of the violence earlier this year. No sign of that today, as the man at the desk lazily buzzed us in, and my orientation boiled down to “Go right for a chicken restaurant, and left for shops and stuff. See you tomorrow morning at 7:00 in the lobby.”

Oh, and one more thing. “The water is shut off every night around 8:30, and back on around 6:30 AM.” I made a note to be back and complete my ablutions on time. I did not envy housekeeping the toilets they undoubtedly discover every morning. I dropped my bag in my room and headed out to the street, where music was blasting, giving everything the air of a neighborhood quinceañera

Time to explore this notorious city…

Censorship; or, Celebrity ____ likes to smoke ____!

Anthony Bourdain was in Tangier. That’s an interesting city, and from what I’ve seen of him, an interesting man, so I put my book away to listen. But in this boarding area in San Francisco International Airport, the speakers were well behind the TV, giving you the choice of either audio or video, you can’t eat your cake too.

Bourdain was eating couscous, not cake, but you get the idea.

I opted for visual, since Tangier’s...uglyprettyinteresting. He talked to young people, he talked to old people, he talked about Paul Bowles. Then he talked about hash. Or at least, that’s what the dimly heard audio whispered about, in sibilant syllables of illicit cannabis (the video avoided anything too overt). But it was the subtitles that caught my attention.

Subtitles always run a little behind, but they were doing a pretty good job. Until the hash. Then they paused. Froze. Stopped. AndAllOfASudden blasted through, the words regarding hash flying past, nearly too fast to read.

Hmm.

At another point in the episode, again mentioning hash, the same thing happened. A subtitle pause followed by a gushing. I think the same thing happened when he mentioned sexuality.

Was this CNN’s semi-censorship? They couldn’t block the topic completely, but they could muffle it, smother it, push it to the side. Or was it just coincidence?

Censorship.

I was on my way to Venezuela. What censorship would I (not) see there?

In my 4th of July post, I briefly mentioned USAID and its connection with the CIA, but thought it prudent not to expound at length on the issue, given that I was bound for a nation that many claim is the current site of a CIA-sponsored opposition movement intent on toppling the democratically elected government. So I self-censored, a little, the product of an environment and notoriety whose veracity I could not verify.

What would I be able to verify once I got there? Is the opposition movement authentically (there’s that word again) Venezuelan, or fostered from abroad? Would it be a propaganda download? Toe the party line? Toe the opposition party line? Any agenda forced on me?

And would I even be able to tell?

Where I'm going tomorrow, and a Travel Tip to save 60% on airfare.

When this was taken in March, there were daily peaceful
protests, only a few remaining for violence afterwards
which was well (overly?) publicized by the media.

“Why would you want to go to Venezuela? Haven’t you heard how dangerous it is?” That’s the question asked by my friend, Nonspecific Character.

There are the reasons I listed a few posts back but one of the main ones I didn’t go into is that Venezuela is just...different. It’s a different model of government, a different model of society, a different history and a different present. And an unpredictable future, hinging on a crucial period right now.

I’m not going to get into my political views, because at this point, with regards to Venezuela, I’m trying not to have any. Preconceptions and prejudgments (ie prejudices) are blinders for the brain, mental cataracts. But I have another example of how Venezuela is just...different. And a Travel Tip, to boot.

Stunning Mount Roraima...which I will not see this trip.

Searching airfare to Venezuela from San Francisco gave me two initial options: nightmarish 35+ hour itineraries for about $2000, or a reasonable itinerary (11 hours) for about $3000.

Both of those are rubbish; I don’t want to pay twice as much for the flight as I did for the trip.

A bit more clicking, and I found roundtrip flights to Bogota or Panama City were under $700, then a second roundtrip from there to Caracas was $500. Result: by splitting the ticket I saved 60%.

Image searches for Venezuela give you a lot like this...

Why? Well...it’s hard to talk about Venezuela right now without getting political, but suffice to say, several airlines have pulled out of the country, though I can’t imagine that’s the whole story, since clearly the tickets are there; I found them, so why couldn’t the search sites?

That’s one of the more minor questions I’m taking with my to Venezuela, though it blends with a hundred similar queries to form a coalition asking “Why is Venezuela so...different?”

though I suspect most protests are more like this.

I’ll let you know if I find any answers. I leave tomorrow.

(I’ll try to have blogs posting every three days or so while I’m gone, as I did when in Cuba, but don’t expect to be online again until the last couple days of the month. Happy July!)