I'll Get The Champagne...

Some Summer Food

2010-08-15T13:15:00.000-04:00

Venison t-bones with a 2003 Bordeaux


Heirloom tomatoes from various friends

Picnic bread at mid-assembly (there are layers of zucchini, mint,
basil and eggplant in there first...

Roasted tomatoes on a second bed of mint, arugula and basil


And then some caramelised shallots to top it off...

I took advantage of a slight reduction in the killer heat that we've been having here in Toronto lately to fire up the charcol barbecue and grill some zucchini and these venison steaks, which sadly represent that last bit of my sister's deer... : (

The picnic bread is a really handy and tasty recipe from Donna Hay's Entertaining -- a cookbook that we bought way back in Guelph (or was it Kingston?). In any event, a fun thing to make and very good to eat!

Goodnight! Bar

2010-08-07T14:03:00.002-04:00

Good friends S and G were the gatekeepers to Toronto’s latest underground spot last night: Goodnight! Bar.

After some excellent Persian food at Sheherzade (beside Pomegranate on College) and fine coffees on the genteel terrace of La Palette, we walked to the Richmond/Spadina area and then proceeded down an alley beside a small pop-up clothing store to a nondescript metal door. Upon ringing the bell, we were greeted by a young woman who confirmed our reservation and showed us into the bar.

Goodnight! is an extremely comely locale. It has a manufactured broken-in feel that truly works and the end result lies somewhere between Brooklyn and Barcelona. Recycled radiators make up the base of the bar, which is finished with a raw exposed wood top. Packing skids placed vertically create peek-a-book divisions between sitting areas to facilitate the people-watching that will definitely happen here. A small wood frame staircase propped against the far wall gives a sense of depth that is then played upon further by small half-steps that continue along in a vertical slant. My favourite part of the decor has to be the sewing/tailoring patterns on the walls – an original idea that highlights the bespoke nature of boutique spaces such as this one.

For my Red friends (Alex, Jen), I should mention that there is a “Communist Corner” below the faux stairs that sports portraits of famous Enemies of the West (and oddly, John F. Kennedy).

Drinks-wise, Goodnight! boasts an extensive, although certainly not cheap, cocktail list – parts of which the young bar staff working last night were still evidently learning. Service, though, was amiable and friendly and with no trace of attitude. The idea that Goodnight! should be a television-free bar in which conversation and meeting people should reign appears to be working. The music, as mixed by the owner, was eclectic and good and contributed well to the overall vibe of the place.

All in all, a very fine place to spend a few hours in good company or simply to watch the beautiful people. Current load restrictions will keep it intimate but one assumes that with TIFF just around the corner (and now centered in this neighbourhood), Goodnight! will become quite the hopping place, indeed.

Drink: Gimlet or Manhattan Dry if you want something even more lip-smacking.

Return to the AGO…

2010-08-04T23:05:00.001-04:00

On Tuesday, I finally got around to renewing my AGO membership – it had been a while and although I had poked my head in since the Gehry transformation, I hadn’t given the new building a good look-see.

It really is phenomenal. The use of wood, the bendy staircases and more than anything, the increased space to show the AGO’s fabulous collection have really combined to make for a special building.

I took advantage of being there to check out the current big show, “Drama and Desire: Artists and the Theatre” and while I found the first few rooms to be rather “meh,” I thought that the latter sections were excellent. It was a wonderful surprise to walk into the 19th Century France room and be greeted not only by some nice chamber music (after the heavy intonations of a Stratford production of Lear had resonated in another area) but also by Degas’s delightful “Blue Dancers.”

Equally intriguing was a chance to see “The Opera Orchestra” up close:

After taking in “Drama and Desire,” I just wandered the building a bit, finding the inner bendy staircase first and then the exterior one that takes you up to the espresso bar (a nice touch). I also checked out the Grange, which is now the members’ lounge as well as the Galeria Italia, which is the most breathtaking aspect of the transformed AGO. The arching Douglas Fir beams, which serve as the spine of the glass facade, are magnificent. A must see for anyone coming to Toronto.

PS: In my whirlwind tour of the building and collection, I did take time to see some of Varley’s work (my favourite of the Group of Seven and a very under-appreciated portratist) and the special room dedicated to Frans Masereel’s colour prints and engravings. The two pieces depicting a 6 day bicycle race are wonderful.

Some Varley for those who don’t know him:

[Note: this portrait of Vera, one of my favourite paintings, hangs at the National Gallery in Ottawa]

IGTC Endorses: Ruby Watchco

2010-08-03T23:02:00.001-04:00

OK, before my memory fades, here are some impressions and a review of the new hotspot in the East End, Chef Lynn Craford’s home-style, one-set-menu-is-all-there-is boite.

The space is cozy, inviting and only got really loud once it was full around 8:30. It’s been prepared with a lot of thought by the people who do Restaurant Makeover and still has its “new car” shine.

It was insanely hot here in Toronto today so the first thing up was a delicious house cocktail: a raspberry bourbon sour. Not too sweet, the raspberry and bourbon went well together, made all fizzy by some soda (but no egg white that I could discern). Could have had a couple…

The opening salad was perhaps the best salad I’ve ever had in a restaurant… hmm, could this be true? Let me think? Not too many fab salads immediately come to mind? Most of the truly great ones have involved duck products of some sort… Ah yes! Of course!! OK, this is the SECOND best salad that I’ve ever had. The first was most definitely the foie, pansy petals and iberico ham salad that Ramon served at his old fancy place, Cluny, in Madrid. Oh my… my mouth waters at the memory of that one… : )

So you get the idea; this was one good fucking bowl of greens, peach and pink shrimp. As far as the shrimp goes, given the immediate association most people make between small pink shrimp and the ubiquitous and flavour-free ring in which they normally appear, my mouth was almost expecting them to be a) ice cold and b) watery and nasty. Oh so wrong on both counts… These tasty little bastards had been warmed to the temperature of the other ingredients AND were extremely flavorful. Good show!

The “living mizuna” mentioned on the menu above was essentially a spinach substitute and the toasted cashew vinaigrette pulled it all together. YUM.

With that excellent course finished, it was time for the main event: a grilled flank steak with heirloom tomatoes and caper relish. This nicely rare meat came with some zucchini fritters (that disappeared quickly), a bowl of new potatoes and beans (that we won’t talk about) and, perhaps the greatest discovery of the entire meal: grilled sweet corn with chipotle aioli, lime salt, queso fresco and some fresh cilantro. Corn has never tasted so succulent and tangy. Wow. the combination of cilantro and the sweet yet grilled kernels was absolutely fantastic. This is definitely something to replicate at home.

Ruby Watchco’s cheese course tonight was a 10 yr old Ottawa Valley cheddar that came accompanied by some spicy pickles. The cheddar itself was extremely mellow and moist. Not heavy at all.

For dessert there was a blueberry shortcake made of almond sponge lathered in sweet cream from a farm named Hewitt. Good stuff, even for a non-dessert person like me.

Wine: Italian rose. Tart, not as fruity as expected but that was just as well, given the range of flavours on the plate(s).

Service: Fantastic. The Bulgarian server (who is almost finished her sommelier course) was wonderful, as was the rest of the staff.

Down East, Bye…

2010-08-02T15:38:00.001-04:00

Some photos from the recent trip to visit Andrew and Kirsty in Sackville…

View Full Album

Havana and Cuba Photographic Evidence

2010-02-20T15:53:00.004-05:00

Some pics to tide you over while I wade through a week's work of admin...

Próxima parada... Cuba

2010-02-12T13:39:00.002-05:00

Yes, what, 24 years later and I'm heading back to Cuba...

I'm sure that nothing has changed. Yeah, definitely looking forward to seeing how the Soviet machine continues to prop up the island nation... what's that? oh yeah, damn. Well, what with reconciling with the US and all, I'm sure it will be spic and span and brimming with optimism... hmmm, yes, you're right...

Well, looking forward to this quick research trip nonetheless!

Am off to check out the Habana Libre Hotel and the Nacional for my forthcoming hotel and cultural theory book. I've been getting stick from people who scoff at the idea of a research trip in Cuba but then I remind them that I actually like winter and would rather hang out in Toronto for Reading Week, but alas, they never believe me.

Internet access is spotty apparently down there so there won't be any updates but what with this long lay-off anyway, that won't be much of a surprise!

IGTC Endorses: La Esquina!

2009-10-12T10:36:00.003-04:00

The taqueria part of this place is great.

Go there. Eat tacos. Be happy.

New York City Launch

2009-10-12T10:02:00.006-04:00

So this past Friday was the NYC event for Jazz Age Barcelona at the Catalan Center at NYU. The King Juan Carlos Center hosted it and there was quite a nice crowd! My good friend and fellow print culture studies colleague, Jordana Mendelson introduced the book and totally made me blush during her extremely kind and generous intro. Then I said a few words and discussed some of the images before we just let the event turn into a free-flowing discussion between Jordana and me and the members of the public. It turned out really well. And ha ha, my request for cava at the reception afterwards was also a big hit as people finished off the case in short order... : )

Seeing so many great friends come out to help celebrate the book was again very humbling and rewarding. Duma came down from Toronto, Fran from Providence, Rosi from Philly and I got to see many other fantastic people who had sacrificed their Friday night for 1920s Catalonia... and cava, claro...

I find it really hard to talk sitting down...

The rest of the week-end was a great time just hanging out, shopping (picked up a couple of great new jackets) and exploring different parts of the city: like the Highline Park, a green space on top of the old elevated railway that ran through the meatpacking district... so cool...

Highline Park in Chelsea/Meatpacking District

Flatiron Building (much taller than Toronto's Gooderham [1892], but finished later [1902])

The men's section at Century 21 Department Store. Lots of deals but crazy-busy and full of tourists.

Interesting sky.

The Kitchen Underground reunited in NYC (minus the kitchen, unfortunately)

I like how the marquee and the façade play off one another.

Beautiful underground NYC.

More sky and buildings.

The Hold Steady -- Concert Review

2009-09-27T22:37:00.006-04:00

So I had gone a year without seeing my favourite live band of recent years, The Hold Steady.

People say, "who?" And I say, "Hold Steady."

People say, "why?" And I say, "Hold Steady."

And then I say, "Unironic joy. That's why."

These guys impress because not only do they bring it every night, but they unabashedly love playing. There is no posing (ok, maybe a little by the bassist when he starts getting cute with the keyboardist) and the insane gesticulations carried out by lead singer Craig Finn are real and engaging. Finding something authentically joyful in popular culture is not exactly easy these days and so for that reason, I latched onto them and even though their last album took an exceedingly long time to grow on me, I'm still hooked.

Tickets for the two Toronto shows at Lee's Palace this past week-end sold out quickly and I only had time to grab a couple for the first night. Now, while I used to preach the Hold Steady gospel and hope for them to make it big, I'm a little torn by the fact that they have become VERY big with frat boy types who seem to REALLY REALLY get into them. Less of a communion (how their concerts are often described), Saturday night was more a raucous episode of binge drinking with the Hold Steady playing the part of the alcohol. Duma and I were down in front and it had been a while since I'd been in a mosh-pit like atmosphere but what can I say, I just wasn't digging all of the sweaty boors... But that aside, the show was great. The setlist included a nice mix of old chestnuts, hidden gems, new tracks out and about for the first time and warhorses. Check it out:

Positive Jam
Magazines
Barfruit Blues
Hurricane J
Sequestered
Multitude
Stevie Nix
Hot Soft Light
Heaven Is Whenever
Chips Ahoy!
Yeah Sapphire
Massive Nights
Party Pit
Slight Discomfort
Southtown
Hoodrat
Goin' On A Hike
Slapped Actress

ENCORE:

Certain Songs
Constructive
Stations
Killer Parties

"Multitude of Casualties" and "Stevie Nix" were a great treat -- although you could tell that not everyone in the crowd was a long-time fan. Then, the trio of "Yeah Sapphire," "Massive Nights," and "Party Pit" really cranked things up before Constructive Summer and Stuck Between Stations brought the house down. There wasn't any "First Night" (which has particular resonance for me but wouldn't have fit with Saturday's vibe, anyway) nor "How a Resurrection Really Feels" at the end (although they finished with that one on Sunday). But, hey, I'm not going back-packing in Africa again for a while (oh, except for Kilimanjaro for my 40th next year) so I'm sure that I'll get another chance to see them again soon. This is a band that is not to be missed live.

hold steady.

(crank up the volume, the levels are low on this link...)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm4hqZuKr_g&feature=related

Toronto Book Launch

2009-09-27T10:55:00.008-04:00

Had the Toronto launch of Jazz Age Barcelona this past Wednesday night. It was quite simply one of the best evenings of my life. To be surrounded by so many great friends all at once was an absolute privilege.

My friend Marta, who is visiting from Girona, spent the afternoon making tortilla de patata and I even helped peel potatoes (for the first time! note: this is noteworthy because I don't EAT potatoes). The Press did a fabulous job of putting the evening together. The publicist Andrea-Jo was fantastic and arranged some good food and for a couple of jazz musicians to play during the evening. Ben Mcnally's Books, for those who haven't been, is a brilliant space and was the perfect spot to host the event.

My colleague Joe gave me a very warm and generous introduction and then I gave my speech, which Marta recorded on her camera (see below...). It was such a wonderful feeling to look out and see everyone there enjoying the cava and food but of course, it was tough in the sense that it was impossible to spend very much time with any one person/group in particular.

So all in all, a fabulous evening... and the added bonus is that it really motivates you to have another one! With any luck, I shouldn't have to wait tooooo long as The Hotel: Space Over Time (also with U of Toronto P), should hopefully be out in a year and a half...

IGTC Endorses: Journal For Plague Lovers by the Manic Street Preachers

2009-09-01T10:39:00.002-04:00

OK, so this album has been out for a couple of months in the UK but is as-of-yet unreleased here in Canada, which meant I had to pick up the import over at Soundscapes. I have to thank Derek for getting me back into this band. He called a couple of weeks ago with the news that they are touring and suggested that we go see them when they hit T.O. in October.

Their debut classic, Generation Terrorists, is one of those discs that has ALWAYS been in the car... I don't even know if it has ever been in the house... Now, "Motorcycle Emptiness" conjures up memories of driving to the moulin everyday back when I lived in Pincourt, of countless kilometres on the 401, trips to Kingston, Ottawa and just plain driving around town.

So getting back into their catalogue has been a trip even if I do prefer the earlier stuff. Imagine my surprise, then, when I heard the first couple of songs from Journal and realised that the lyrics were most definitely written by Ritchey (the band's lyricist who disappeared in 1995 and was recently presumed dead). It's very weird to hear that vibe coming literally from beyond the dead. And with lyrics like "Oh mummy what's a sex pistol?" you have to smile.

Congratulations to Sarah and Eric on their Marriage

2009-08-29T17:15:00.002-04:00

Sarah the bride and yours truly

Last night we attended a fun wedding over at Hart House. Sarah and Eric got married before approximately 350 people - an eclectic mix predominantly made up of Montreal Jews and Toronto Chinese.

I broke out this nice Sand jacket from David the Tailor along with a linen shirt from Calcutta and some white trousers (not pictured). Note the Mad Men-inspired pocket square and the gin martini (both pictured).

Oh and I should note that the band they had for the dance was hands down the BEST wedding band any of us had ever heard -- the lead singer had tremendous range, switching from Nat King Cole to Bono with ease. Someone said that he was the voice of the giraffe in The Lion King. I wouldn't doubt it.

Good times.

Toronto Book Launch is a Go!

2009-08-29T17:14:00.002-04:00

Apres Barcelona

2009-07-06T19:51:00.002-04:00

Whew... finally starting to feel grounded again after those two quick trips to Catalonia in June. The second, which was generously paid for by the Generalitat, had me giving the keynote at the launch of the latest issue of Cultura. I was particulary pleased with the layout of the magazine and the funky graphics that they chose to go along with my article. You can check it out here:

http://cultura2.gencat.cat/revistacultura/_pdf/51709507%20Robert%20A.%20Davidson.pdf

This phase of work for the Generalitat, while intense, has been really good in terms of concretising what I hope will be my wider contribution to studies on contemporary Barcelona. That is, the notion of "siege modernity" as a master metaphor for understanding the modern experience in the Catalan capital as it moves further into a post-modern phase that has seen it evacuated of specificity in the search for ever-greater brand status.

Am now officially back from sabbatical and today performed a very satisfying purge of assorted crap that had accumulated in my office over my Asst. Prof years...

Various projects on the go... the hotel book, which I've re-titled The Hotel: Space Over Time is hopefully going to be my priority this year after I finish up a couple of pending essays and chapter contributions. Am still waiting on UTP re: an advance contract but their interest seems firm, so that's great.

You Know It's Over When...

2009-06-19T23:36:00.003-04:00

The Carlaw Carburator store, bellweather of non-hipsterness in quickly evolving Leslieville, goes out of business and a liquor licence application appears in the window...

This sign always reads "Up Yours" to me for some reason...

Tram wires at Broadview & Queen.

Pointy building at Distillery District.

Because I Love You All...

2009-06-18T19:28:00.001-04:00

http://www.saveur.com/article/Food/Steam-Clams-with-Ham-in-White-Wine

This is Colman Andrews riffing on Cal Pep's "worth the damn wait in the queue" recipe...

Just tried it -- delicious!

Talk in Barcelona

2009-06-17T20:59:00.005-04:00

Will be heading back to Barcelona on 27 June to give a talk on the 30th. Then I have to high-tail it back to Toronto for one Prof. Néstor Rodríguez´s imminent nuptials...

Anyone interested in hanging out in Barna for a couple of days, by all means jump on Ryan Air!

Quimet Quimet: Another Barcelona Insitution

2009-06-17T20:42:00.005-04:00

Vermouth vs Champers
[note: click on the images for extra-big goodness!]

This is one of those places where you wander in, start picando and then lo and behold, you're both happy drunk and in the hole a good fair bit... Alas, it is totally worth it, though, as the montaditos and combinats that the owners serve up are simply spectacular.

Vermouth makes a comeback for a combinat of tuna and salmon.

Champagne, a clear victor in the war of paté, foie and candied chestnuts.

Vins a Quimet Quimet

New meets old in the Raval

El Roure/Roble

2009-06-09T18:36:00.005-04:00

Colleen just reminded me that it has been almost 10 years since we have been going to the Roure, the bar in Gràcia that adopted us way back when we were young Cornellians hanging out in Barcelona for the first time as budding Catalanistas... whoa... Tempus fugit.

This place is really something else. Anyone who doubts that a bar or restaurant can be a community centre has never been here. This is where I go if I ever feel lonely in Barcelona and let it be known that Toni and Santi are just plain awesome: always happy to see you and very quick on the cava or the copa or the "otro vaso para la princesa..." : )

Herewith, my impromtu mini Roure photo-essay, minus what Santi said he should do to vet Colleen's boyfriend... ; )

UPDATE!

Brad was kind enough to send in these pics from their trip to Barcelona a while back...

Aga, Santi and Silvia

Brad, Santi and Aga

Market Scenes

2009-06-06T08:25:00.011-04:00

This morning I had an absolutely wonderful little visit to the Galvany Market here in my neighbourhood. I had gone to the supermarket earlier to get sundries and things and almost didn't go back out for the good fresh stuff but since the weather was nice as it can get for me here in Barcelona (dry air, cool breeze and big clouds), I figured that I had no excuse.

The market is one of the ones in the xarxa or network that is really thriving. Being located in Sant Gervasi obviously doesn't hurt (this is a very well-off little enclave between Gràcia and Sarrià) but there is a real sense of community and the people here aren't afraid to let you in.

1st Scene:

I had forgotten to have my coffee back at the flat so I figured I'd just sidle up to one of the wee bars in the market. I chose the first one that I saw and sat down on a stool. The little old lady who served me was charming. She must be over 80 but her hair is brilliant blond and in her soft-spoken voice, she asked me what I wanted. She made my tallat slowly and deliberately and it was really cute seeing such a slight granny go through the practised motions of making an espresso. Credit where credit is due, though! Her arms were muscular and toned and they reminded me of Jenna's at Bar Mercurio as she removed the portafilter, banged out the used grounds, filled it up and tamped it again. The best though was after the coffee had been drawn, she stood and let every single drip fall into my cup... Her daughter, who was talking on the phone, winked at me, covered the mouthpiece and said, "It's done, ma, give the man his coffee!" The older lady, who had gone into a sort of reverie, smiled and took the cup from the machine and presented it to me with the requisite bag of sugar and spoon. "I'm sorry, lad," she said. "I'm getting old..." I told her not to worry, that I was impressed that she didn't waste even a single drop. The old lady smiled even more and said, "You see! Why let those drops go? It's good coffee..." I knew what she wanted to say next, so I gave her the segueway, "People these days," I said, "don't appreciate everything they have." She nodded enthusiastically and it was plain as day that this lady had known poverty in her life and probably hunger too.

2nd Scene

I wandered back towards the Santalò street entrance and some cured meats caught my eye. Last night Andrew, Kirsty and I had finished our ramble through Barcelona at Carmelitas and we had eaten some incredibly good fuet de Vic. That stuff was buttery and oh-so-good... I figured that I should look for some more and when my turn to be served came and the lady behind the counter asked me what I wanted, I decided to just put myself in her hands. I asked for some good llonganissa and a cheese from Catalunya. As we went throught the ritual of her adjusting the knife on the products that she had picked out until it reached the amount that I wanted, at least 4 people came by and called out to her. They all said how great it was to see her and expressed surprise that she was back so soon and how young she looked with her new haircut. After the second instance of this, the woman looked up at me and explained that she had suffered a stroke three months ago and that they had to open up her skull. I could see the scar through her hair but couldn't believe that she had recovered so quickly and was back at work already. She shrugged and said that she had been lucky and that after 40 years of working in the stall, she was where she wanted to be. After I had paid and yet more people had come by to wish her well, I looked at her and said "The market is a family, oi?" She smiled and replied happily "I tant!" [you can say that again].

Scene 3

Both of those little episodes had made me very happy; I love markets for the things you learn about people and how small interactions can all of a sudden be imbued with really meaningful resonances regarding how we live, what community means and the role of food in bringing people together. The fact that I'm a confirmed hedonist also means that markets for me are places of caprice and it was with this in mind that I headed to the centre of the building where the seafood stalls are located. I did the cursory tour and did indeed see many things that appealed to me: spitting clams, thrashing Mediterranean lobsters, prawns of all shapes and sizes... but then one thing caught my eye and I knew what I would be eating for lunch (indeed, as soon as I finish this entry!): cues de rap or baby monkfish tails. The fishmonger saw the glint in my eye and he waved at them, "These are delectable! Just fry them up and there you go! A total pleasure." He knew he had me hooked and from there on it was simply a question of how many I was going to take... We settled on 5 euros 75 for a handful and when I tried to just give him a round 6 he would have none of it (in keeping with the Catalan resistance to tips of any sort) and called me back for my equivalent of a quarter. "Remember," he instructed, "fry them quickly... and then enjoy!"

And with that, I shall do just that... : )

Time For Champagne at IGTC!

2009-06-03T18:13:00.003-04:00

Just got word that U of Toronto Press is preparing an advance contract for my book on hotels and cultural theory...

Yay!

Slow Burn

2009-06-03T17:32:00.003-04:00

Very effective burn treatment gel.

So I finally got bumped up to 1st class. Unfortunately, it was a result of being scalded by a litre of hot tea...

I'm on the plane to Frankfurt... just had dinner and am dozing while watching an episode of Mad Men. Am reaching that happy airplane sleep state when all of a sudden I feel something bang into my chair arm and hear a crash... then I feel a lot of VERY hot liquid hit my leg and side... I try to leap up but am strapped in so I start to swear LOUDLY: "Me cago en Diós! Jesus F*&k!! Putaaaaaaa!" I finally get myself free and pull out my shirt while the stewardess does effectively nothing. In fact, she kept serving coffee. Oh, then she gave me some ice, which I applied but after seeing myself in the bathroom mirror with a big red scald mark, I figured something else was in order. I had to ask for the first aid kit to be opened... and only then was I given some burn treatment gel (which works like a charm, by the way). Eventually, a more senior member of the flight crew took over handling my case and whisked me up to first class where I could lie down with my shirt off and apply the gel.

When asked if they could get me anything, I asked that they open a bottle of champagne for my nerves because seriously, the fright of being woken up by boiling liquid was pretty fucking fierce!

Am feeling much better now and there was no blistering, so that's good.

I much preferred having brandy spilled on me like the last time I flew to Europe...

Alas...

Recent Food Fotos

2009-05-31T18:47:00.005-04:00

Elk striploin from 2nd Wind Elk (Rockwood, Ontario)

Wild leeks from Duma.

Leek leaves, parsley and buttermilk in ye olde Cuisinart...

Ready for the risotto...

Live BC spot prawns.

Not-so-live BC spot prawns...

Our friend garlic frying for the picada.

Bread frying up for the picada.

Toasted almonds and hazelnuts for the picada.

Pulverised nuts for picada.

Back to BCN

2009-05-31T10:12:00.002-04:00

Off tomorrow for a quick research trip to Barcelona... June is an awesome month to be there so it should be a good time.

Actually, I'll be there twice in June as the Generalitat has just invited me to give the closing talk at the launch of the latest issue of the Cultura magazine... sweet!

Am going to get back to updating this more regularly... let's see what interesting aspects of the city that I find this time...

Barcelona is Different

2009-05-19T21:41:00.009-04:00

Barcelona is different. Capital of a stateless nation, a Mediterranean port city, the place where anarchism worked, the site of the rebirth of the Olympic movement in an orgy of spectacle and urban potential… Barcelona is all of these things at once. What is more, living vibrantly in the now of the present and in the recesses of an archive that tells of oppression, the city continues to surprise and to confound both residents and visitors alike. When one considers Barcelona as both an aesthetic entity/experience and as a built environment—as spatial practice and geographic place—its singularity becomes even more apparent. Indeed, such is the power of the image of this lived and built Barcelona that it is possible to now speak of the Catalan metropolis as having its own “brand.” Branding, a process in which meaning is collapsed into an image or a feeling that can then be managed and manipulated, relies on patent difference in order to function effectively. As regards the possibility of urban branding, Smith points out rightly that “city re-imaging is the deliberate (re)presentation and (re)configuration of a city’s image to accrue economic, cultural and political capital” (399). In the case of Barcelona this practice or dynamic has taken place at various levels — most pointedly in municipal campaigns geared towards increasing tourism and promoting the city as a stylish locale. Image and marketing are no strangers to one another in the promotion of the Catalan capital and a recent change in labeling practices by the Catalan company MANGO reflects this most fittingly (Fig. 1).

Figure 1. MANGO apparel label with Barcelona brand added.

From the company’s perspective, the addition of the city’s name to its apparel logo taps into the stylish aura of the place: “per tal que la imatge de la multinacional s’identifiqui amb la de la ciutat, de la mateixa manera que altres marques de moda s’associen amb la ciutat de Barcelona o altres capitals de la moda” (“L’Ajuntament). For his part, Jordi Hereu, the city’s mayor, sees the deal this way:

"la signatura d’aquest conveni és un pas més per vincular la marca Barcelona a referents internacionals de prestigi i d’innovació. La moda és per a Barcelona un aspecte important de la seva economia i de la seva cultura, sent la nostra ciutat un referent de formació i de recerca per la moda. La ciutat es felicita per aquesta iniciativa d’institucionalitzar el vincle entre el nom de Barcelona i una empresa catalana com MANGO, reconeguda internacionalment pel seu caràcter innovador. És una prova més de la projecció i les garanties que ofereix la ciutat de Barcelona, sens dubte, un valor segur." (“L’Ajuntament”)

This mutually beneficial relationship seems predicated on the special character of Barcelona as a “sure bet” of quality and distinction, but that said, how does one adequately engage with the difference exhibited by a city such as the Catalan capital if the process of branding is itself a generic process — one that literally commodifies variation and reifies the supposedly intangible elements of urban life that make the city unique and “authentic”? If branding—or re-imaging—has become part of the modern capitalist condition and touches everything from the smallest consumer item to how cities and even nations imagine and market themselves, what sets Barcelona apart? If the easy and interchangeable symbols that come to be metonyms for cities looking to proclaim their difference do not indicate distinction, where then does it lie?

I propose that Barcelona’s particular difference—and thus its inherent brand, so to speak—is powered by a motor that is only now receiving the attention that it deserves. Namely, I point to the fact that Barcelona’s modernity has been conditioned intimately by the experience of siege. I argue that if the Barcelona brand has become so potent today, it is because inherent in its aesthetic and spatial distinction are the tensions of centuries of struggle for cultural survival as the main urban element of the Catalan fact. What is more, I propose that these tensions point to nothing less than the potentiality of Barcelona as a national capital in the sense that Giorgio Agamben implies in the term when he discusses sovereignty. [1] If Barcelona’s hook to the world has become the intoxicating potential or possibility for transformation that it represents — which MANGO president Isak Andic points to directly when he states that “Si bé MANGO és present en més de 90 països, identificar la nostra marca amb el nom de Barcelona és una manera de no oblidar on vam començar i de projectar el potencial de la ciutat per tots els continents” (“L’Ajuntament”)—it must be recognized that this root of the city-as-brand goes even deeper and touches the concomitant potential inherent in the thing to not be. [2] I argue that it is in the experience of siege, both literal and metaphoric, that Barcelona’s potential to not be has been made patent on so many occasions. Barcelona’s brand becomes then, more than surface appeal; it is a question of resonance, of echoes and of deeper meaning for the “consumer” who is open to its message. Unfortunately, it has also become a burden for many residents and as a result of the negative potentiality inherent in the city’s history of being oppressed, has contributed to the latest manifestation of the siege rubric.

Barcelona is a metropolis for which the concept of siege has specifically modern connotations. Captive in various forms for much of its history following the comprehensive defeat of the Catalan crown in 1714, what was to become the economic motor of Spain would learn to live under the watchful eyes, cannon and restrictive centrist policies of the Spanish state for the bulk of its modernization. Sovereignty and the capacity to decide, both in municipal and by extension, national terms, have thus always been contested in its modern phase. What is more, around the turn of the twentieth century, a foundational period both in cultural and political terms, this external vigilance was supplemented in the Catalan capital by periods of brutal class warfare amongst its own citizens. That this time of growth was inflected by urban violence only heightened the city’s understanding of what it meant to be under prolonged attack as both working- and ruling-class Barcelona felt besieged from without and from within.

The city persisted and survived trials ranging from living with the Ciutadella army barracks on its doorstep to being bombarded on various occasions from Montjuic Castle on the mountain above. It withstood, as well, two dictatorships during the twentieth century and was finally rewarded in the years following the transition to democracy in 1975 with urban expansion and growth that rivalled those of the latter half of the 1800s. As had happened during that first modern Catalan renaissance, Barcelona was able to slough off its overt prison garb as it built and developed frenetically. This process of revitalization culminated in the hosting of the 1992 Olympics. The ostensible success of those Games as a performance of urban possibility coded as “renewal” has resonated around the world ever since. Even though critics are increasingly questioning the ultimate consequences of this period, urbanists in particular now point to a “Barcelona model”—especially in terms of waterfront revitalisation—as a way of helping urban centres connect not only to their citizenry but to the built environment and their natural geographies, as well. This model status has become an integral part of the Barcelona brand and within that rubric endorses a process of radical transformation that codes potential as a positive element. Increasingly, though, local voices in Barcelona have begun to disagree with this aspect of the brand.

Of course, Barcelona’s attractiveness is not limited to policy wonks and urban planners. Its arrival as a sought-out destination—an “in” city—on the world’s map, has been a mixed blessing. Among its valued attractions Antoni Gaudí’s and his contemporaries’ instantly recognisable modernista architecture has helped confer upon Barcelona “must see” status for tourists travelling to Europe. At the same time, the celebrated urban “renewal” has brought the holiday beach experience to within steps of Barcelona proper and the brand image of Barcelona has become one not of a specifically Catalan metropolis but rather that of a cosmopolitan sensorial experience that one consumes. As a result of these multiple dynamics, the city is less and less a local city and more and more a “world” city — its brand resonating at once in terms of urban form (the particular built environment of the place) and as regards its style — that is, the surface appeal that it offers the visitor with limited time and/or desire to “know” the city. The flip side of this “success” is that the metropolis is also, increasingly, a difficult place to live for its residents. Mass tourism and the economic effects of being a very desirable location for visitor and potential expatriates alike are changing Barcelona, with the wide-ranging consequences of the brand’s success having been felt in a relatively short period of time. Not surprisingly, this rapid ascension and visibility after so many years of being stifled and ignored have had unintended results and now, as in the past, the Catalan capital is once again facing a siege. The walls and conflicts of old have been replaced by new threats to social cohesion but the effects are just as serious. Real estate speculation, top-down urban planning and the promise of a unique urban experience projected by Barcelona’s postmodern image have all had deleterious consequences. Perversely, the city’s strong design-based foundation has contributed to the current danger that is perceived in many quarters. Barcelona’s continuing siege dynamic owes much to the fact that it is a very deliberately “designed” city on the one hand and is a now pre-eminent “city of design” on the other. Barcelona’s literal development within its historical siege rubric has ceded to what may be called its postmodern siege. Given that this new form is predicated in large part on the city-as-experience that the manufactured brand image of Barcelona promises, it is interesting to key on the sensorial, specifically, on look and sound. An exploration of these two facets of the urban experience provides a new approach to an analysis of the city’s civic tension now that the idea of what an urban siege entails has been literally and figuratively internalised with the advent of the postmodern global city. What is more, the insistence on look, which has been driven by the powerful design imperative in Barcelona, has also been fundamental to forced evolutions in the city’s sound, a telling, yet until now, under-appreciated aspect of how the Catalan capital has changed due to external and internal pressures such as densification, immigration and the consequences of the aforementioned increase in mass tourism.

From the Transition to the Olympics

With the death of Francisco Franco and the transition to democracy in the late 1970s, Catalonia entered a new phase, one in which hopes of greater autonomy had been raised in the wake of the Moncloa Pacts. Now relieved of the weight of overt Francoist and right-wing derision, the capital Barcelona started a rapid and steady process of change and revitalization headed by architect and critic Oriol Bohigas. Even though, as Resina points out, “Bohigas favored monumentalization of open spaces through architectural design of a markedly avant-garde character [and with] his blessing, his disciples inflicted the unpopular places dures on a city that was starved for green space,” there is no denying the radical nature of the changes that the city was about to experience (Resina 209). This type of comprehensive and interventionist urbanism was not new. As Delgado observes astutely, urban design as policy did not come about only with the democratically-elected local governments of the Transition; it began as early as 1953 with the Francoist administration’s official plan for the city, continued through this scheme’s revision in 1964 and then saw a new Plan General Metropolitano developed and approved in principle in the 1970s under Enric Massó, the last mayor to be named by Franco (Delgado 22).

While multiple projects, expansions and developments occurred around the city during the post-Franco period, the announcement by IOC chief Juan Antonio Samaranch on 17 October 1986 that Barcelona had been awarded the 1992 summer Olympic Games meant that the Catalan capital was to enter a new phase of its history. As a result of this victory, Barcelona would gear itself up not only for the world’s premiere sporting event but for its largest celebration of mass spectacle and image production. This embracing of the idea of city-as-image would propel Barcelona into the global imaginary—here was its literal and figurative branding—but it would do so at a great cost. If the technocratic development principles of the city planners had started the estrangement between citizen and city, it was this element of spectacle that would ultimately contribute to a new sense of siege as the traces and legacy of Barcelona’s modernist past combined with new endeavours so as to maximise the city’s potential as a brand image of cosmopolitan urbanity, progress and fashion.

The success and style of the 1992 games, with their groundbreaking opening ceremonies by the theatre group Fura dels Baus and compelling venues played off Barcelona’s intrinsic architectural beauty and style while underlining the tremendous transformative potential (from a capitalist perspective) of such a global media event. Indeed, in addition to the choreographed theatricality of the opening ceremony, which set a new standard for this type of production, one of the most suggestive—and repeated— images was that of Olympic divers in full flight while framed against the city’s skyline at the Piscines Picornell complex. The perceived subject may have been the athletes soaring freely above the metropolis, but the placement of the pool and the diving towers when combined with the ingenious camera angles ensured that more often than not Barcelona’s most recognisable building and the one that most epitomises its look and that has come to be its synecdoche, the Sagrada Familia, would figure in the background. The fact that Gaudi’s masterpiece was (and still is) unfinished and was itself flanked by massive cranes served both as an overt marker of ostensibly avant-garde progress to the outside observer and as an ironic reminder of the continuous construction project that Barcelona had become – both literally and figuratively in terms of how its image would continue to be built as its renown grew in the post-Olympic years.

Barcelona’s Olympic transformation was so acute and so visible that ever since urbanists, architects and politicians from around the world have sought to duplicate it. While the specifically Mediterranean context of Barcelona is often suppressed in the transfer and application of this “model,” it has become, nevertheless, both a powerful template for innovative change at home and a vehicle for Catalan architects and urbanists to succeed abroad. This interchange—consolidation and planning at the local level, projection and distribution of form and technique overseas—has been celebrated both at home and abroad and a charitable interpretation would be to read this dynamic as a natural, yet postmodern, evolution of Barcelona’s status as a port, a city to and from which people, ideas and goods have long flowed — even if that exchange has often been restricted. However, the notion that the Barcelona Model has mostly served planners, political elites and real estate developers is one that has begun to gain greater and greater traction. [3] That said, in the wake of such an apparently successful Games and Spain’s full entrance into the EU—which Catalan nationalists initially saw as a way to further escape Madrid’s influence—it seemed that, on the surface, at least, the siege experiences of the past were finally over.

Olympic Consequences

There is no doubting that 1992 was a watershed year in terms of Barcelona finally achieving the international prominence that it had sought when it hosted the World’s Fairs of 1888 and 1929, respectively. With the Olympics Games focusing the world’s attention on the city, the Catalan capital tried to make the most of its international media close-up by portraying itself as a vibrant economic and cultural hub. Nevertheless, while Catalan was one of the official languages of the Games, the Spanish state was determined to incorporate the event into the larger 1992 celebrations going on in the country and avoid it becoming a rallying point for Catalan independence. [4] I would argue that these tactics recalled the treatment of Barcelona during the 1929 Fair and that the further emptying of the city of its political charge as a capital of a stateless nation abetted its growth as an international image while, at the same time, contributing to the disconnect experienced by its citizens. Here then is a latter variation on the potential to not be that was so patent in the military threat that the city faced throughout its modern history. The timing for the presentation of a de-politicized urban image of city-as-spectacle was propitious also in that Barcelona’s ascension coincided with a general shift in style and tourism trends. The 1990s saw a rise of superficial “specificity” as travelers looked beyond traditional packaged trips and more at tailored travel “experiences” that would become increasingly mainstream by the 2000s. A concurrent general gentrification and democratisation of architecture and design spearheaded by “star” architects such as Frank Gehry, Enric Miralles, and I.M. Pei also contributed to the attractiveness of Barcelona. New monumental and “trophy” architecture in cities around the world helped make Antoni Gaudí’s early twentieth century work even more known and immediately recognisable while relieving it of the vernacular meaning that it had accrued. Buildings such as the Casa Battló, the Pedrera and especially the Sagrada Familia Expiatory Temple, helped confer “must see” status not only on Gaudi’s modernista oeuvre but also, through the metonymy that the built environment can engender, on the entire city itself. These dynamics contributed to the growing stream of international tourists “doing” Barcelona by consuming the city’s surface appeal—its distinctive modernista look—often with only the briefest of historical or cultural contexts provided by their Fodor’s, Lonely Planet or Let’s Go: Spain travel guide. With the “must-sees” checked off during the day, nights would be free to enjoy the city’s increasingly vibrant entertainment culture.

The image production that arises from the Barcelona model and its brand is, on the one hand a product of technocratic desire—development, speculation, transformation, etc—and, on the other, predicated on the promise of “experience.” This potential for sensation is where the look, feel and taste of the city come into play. Unfortunately for those residents of Barcelona who aspire to a “normal” urban existence and not the out-of-the-ordinary experience that the image of Barcelona has come to represent, this focus on sensation as both a side-effect and “natural” progression of the Barcelona brand image has had deleterious effects as regards quality of life in the city.

In response to the changes that Barcelona’s international success has wrought, many neighbourhood groups have sprung up in order to protest both public and private initiatives. For many, the Barcelona brand/model is flawed in that it privileges capital over community. Undeniably, Barcelona’s ascendance to world city status has come at the expense of a further erosion of its own Catalan specificity and the local areas, neighbourhoods and communities that make up the greater city of Barcelona have all been caught up in consequences of the city’s wider move towards spectacle, branding and image production whether they like it or not. Here this latest—and unexpected—phase of the city’s experience of siege comes to the fore. For while mass tourism may pour millions of euros into municipal coffers, the effects on daily life have been far from negligible. This siege may not feature the walls or cannons of the nineteenth century, the social violence of the early twentieth, or the overt ideological force of Spanish military dictatorships, but the attention given to large-scale developments such as the Olympics and the Fòrum Universal de les Cultures—which emphasise the city’s international reputation and image—have come at the expense of investments in making the city a viable place to live for its citizens. Electrical black-outs, water problems, as well as chronic delays in local train service and stunted airport growth all underline the growing disconnect between Barcelona, the imagined city of style and design and Barcelona, the city where citizens live and work. The negative perception of top-down urbanism and its triumph of style over substance has been exacerbated by the rampant real estate speculation of the 1990s and early 2000s. This speculation has not only affected individuals; the irony of the economics of the Barcelona model is patent too in the changes in the nature of businesses that exist in what have become prime tourist areas of the city. High amounts of tourist traffic have contributed to a general loss of specificity as chain stores that can afford high rents gradually push out the small family and independent businesses that contributed to the character of the Gothic Quarter or the Ramblas. Of course, these increasing flat rents and prices have had a serious impact on the local populace across the city in that people across the age spectrum found it impossible to afford to live in the city proper. Barcelona has become too expensive for the Barcelonans. Where once walls and cannon kept citizens in, economic forces now conspire to keep many out.

The Barcelona Experience

The new siege of/in Barcelona is multifaceted and one of the most tangible results of the success of the Barcelona brand/image that has contributed to it has been this aforementioned increase in tourism over the past twenty years. Tourist visits to the Catalan capital—and their nature—have especially been transformed by the advent and proliferation of cheap inter-European airlines. Flights starting as low as 1 euro plus taxes bring tourists and weekenders from all over Europe to airports in Reus and Girona where landing fees and flight traffic are lower than at the Prat airport on the outskirts of the capital. Indeed, passengers are often unaware that they will not be arriving in Barcelona proper and are bussed into the city upon arrival. Thus, for many, “Barcelona” has come to encompass a massive area stretching from Tarragona in the south to the Empordà region in the north. The cosmopolitan Barcelona brand as entertainment destination is made out to be part museum and part beach, with bits of discotheque and restaurant thrown in for good measure. The physical alterations to the city’s seafront that have turned the city to face the sea are the direct result of the rehabilitation projects of the 1980s and1990s. These changes have had a profound effect on the city’s relationship to the Mediterranean and as a result of the massive investment in remodelling the zone from the base of the Ramblas to the Olympic Port, the holiday beach experience has been brought to literally within steps of Barcelona proper. The knock-on effect of this has been to make the city even more attractive for a wide-range of tourists and emigrants from northern Europe. Like in other areas of Barcelona, though, this particular development has occurred much to the chagrin of locals — in this case, those in the previously working-class Barceloneta neighbourhood who have seen their waterfront radically redesigned for purposes not at all compatible with the needs of the small-scale fishers who were once the area’s primary residents. What is more, real estate speculation has gone hand in hand with the beach development and meant that flats have been priced out of reach for many residents as property is bought up to service a growing tourist trade and expatriate community. Once again, residents are faced with a future in which there children will not be able to afford to live in the area where they grew up.

The economic question is a constant in the new Barcelona and for tourists the Catalan capital is still a relatively affordable city. This is especially so for the British, who up until the economic crisis of 2008-09, had seen their money go much further in Catalonia than in their own cities, particularly, London. The combination of easy access through the aforementioned discount airline flights and this basic affordability has given rise to a large number of weekenders — among them traveling “stag” and “hen” parties replete with revelers who treat the city as a fun park for wild week-ends of binge drinking. Neighbourhoods such as the Gothic Quarter and Gràcia, where homes, bars and restaurants are often found in very close proximity to one another, have seen a reduction in quality of life as noise and general rowdiness encroach on formerly quiet residential areas. Frustrated by inaction at city hall, residents have formed a variety of groups to protest and lobby the local government for more stringent laws. Here is where one sees the intersection of the effects of Barcelona’s look and the changes in Barcelona’s sound — so much so that as a response to increasing noise levels, in 1998 L'Associació Catalana Contra la Contaminació Acústica (ACCCA) was founded to specifically combat noise pollution. Residents of Barcelona have found themselves literally besieged by noise as bars and terraces proliferate, discotheques multiply and flats are transformed into illegal guest houses where groups of tourists noisily stay during their brief sojourns to the Catalan capital.

The Barcelona brand is powerful and compelling. Barcelona has truly become a “world city” and has seen its image and model employed around the globe as a means of spurring growth and development in cities far removed from the particular circumstances of the metropolis that lies beside the Mediterranean between the Llobregat and the Besòs rivers. That said, however, as I have alluded to here, Barcelona’s difference is not an easily interchangeable marker or image but rather has its source in the unique conditions of its modernity, in the fact that it was radically affected by the experience of siege. That this dynamic has returned in a postmodern sense through the emptying-out of the accrued meaning of the place that is Barcelona reminds us to beware the homogenizing power of branding even as it leads us to the inescapable conclusion that Barcelona is different.

Notes

[1] See Agamben’s Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life.

[2] For Agamben, “what is potential can both be and not be” (45).

[3] See La ciudad mentirosa and Odio Barcelona among others.

[4] See Resina, pp 219-20.

Works Cited

Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1998.

“L’Ajuntament de Barcelona i MANGO promocionen la marca Barcelona.” http://news.mango.com/?p=811&lang=ca. 15 maig 2009.

Delgado, Manuel. La ciudad mentirosa: fraude y miseria del “modelo Barcelona.” Madrid: Libros de la Catarata, 2007.

Odio Barcelona. Barcelona: Melusina, 2008.

Resina, Joan Ramon. Barcelona’s Vocation of Modernity: Rise and Decline of an Urban Image. Stanford: Stanford UP, 2008.

Smith, Andrew. “Conceptualizing City Image Change: The ‘Re-Imaging’ of Barcelona. Tourism Geographies. 7.4 (2005): 398-423.

Dinner in Providence

2009-04-20T08:12:00.004-04:00

Was down in Providence for the last few days visiting Fran and Ali and meeting Kiko, who is to-tal-mente encantador. I also gave a talk at Brown on Friday and the fact that it went swimmingly put me in an awesome mood for the entire week-end. Now, when Fran and I hang out, there is always serious food and drink involved and this time was no different. I primed the pump with some Cuvee Catherine Brut and a late harvest vidal from Duty-Free and then we made sure to stock up even further with various trips to Providence's bottle stores (including one that is a bizarre hybrid of a pharmacy and a wine shop). In the end, the provisions included bottles of Bollinger and Taittinger, a bloody fantastic oaked rose from Prado del Rey and, once Rosi arrived from Philly, a trio of the extremely tasty Evolution white and some pear brandy, among other things.

The central meal for the gathering was Saturday evening's extravaganza to which Enric and his girlfriend along with some other friends of Fran and Ali's had also been invited. Fran, Rosi and I had gone to the market to get the lamb earlier in the day and then had a great time preparing things as we munched and sipped our way through the afternoon. The menu included: steamed mussels with a red pepper and smoked bacon sauce, papardelle with Rosi's great bolognese of veal and pork, then the lamb slow-cooked for 7 hours while sealed in the creuset with a mix of flour and water... To say that it all turned out wonderfully would be an understatement...

The Fun Part...

2009-04-01T22:33:00.003-04:00

Today was pretty awesome; I dropped by the U of T Press offices to talk to their Publicist about the mechanics of book launches, getting copies sent places, fliers made, etc.

Given that I had the original idea for Jazz Age Barcelona around 9 or 10 years ago, you'll have to indulge me as I indulge myself... : )

Publication date: 20 of August or thereabouts AND after some great lobbying by the editor, it will be appearing in paperback and as part of the General Interest list (which means bookstore distribution, etc). Yes, there will be cava!

Toronto launch details to follow (David the tailor has graciously offered up his shop for a party and his vitrine for a display coordinated with his sweet merchandise...).

Yay!

Annals of Crime...

2009-04-01T22:13:00.004-04:00

Toronto street.

So being back in Toronto has been great... seeing people, rediscovering old haunts, and so on and so on...

One of the things I had forgotten about this city, though, is the really high ratio of "characters" on the TTC during off-peak hours (when I am usually riding, given my, um, flexible schedule...).

A favourite from a couple of years ago was the guy sitting in the aquarium at the back of the streetcar, arms and legs spread while he barked something to this effect into his cell phone:

"I want my f**king money, you f**k! My money! I want my f**king money... I don't care if you have to go into a magical f**king world to get it, if I don't get my money by noon, you're DEAD! F**k! You f**k"

A real charmer...

So the other day I was on the streetcar minding my own business when sketchy dude gets on, all shakes and twitches, and starts talking on his cell phone really loud at the back of the car. Nothing out of the ordinary so far, except then, then, it becomes clear that he is probably planning a robbery. "Yeah, man, c'mon, I need you for like an hour... Yeah, the place is empty... I'll give you your cash right after... yeah, I'm on the streetcar now... yeah, then I'll get in the car and pick you up... yeah, yeah, c'mon man, yeah, Etobicoke..."

Then it was my stop. If my sense of adventure hadn't been at a low ebb (see last 7 months of blog entries for reasons why), I may have followed him for kicks and watched him get caught...

Ah, Toronto, how I've missed you...

Bundi... It's Bundi-liscious

2009-03-31T19:52:00.004-04:00

Elephant Gate, Bundi Palace

Ok, so we got to see a lot of India in 5 weeks.

But the friendliest, happiest place we visited has to have been the small Rajasthan town of Bundi.

This place is pure gold. No touts, helpful locals who really just want to hang out and shoot the shit, a beautiful castle complex that makes you feel like you're in an Indiana Jones movie (you even have to carry a monkey stick to keep the critters at bay!) and some fine, fine food make this town a must-see for people heading to this part of the country.

(Plus, I got to see more cows eating garbage! I'm not kidding when I say that I love that!)

Monkeys doing monkey things in Bundi

Copper and bikes.

Bundi Palace complex.

Bundi Palace

Cows doing cow things in Bundi.

At Long Last...Udaipur

2009-03-31T19:42:00.003-04:00

After dropping off Denise in New Delhi, Helene and I took a Kingfisher flight down to Udaipur, a wonderful town in Rajasthan. The same fog that had turned a 12 hour train trip between Varanasi and the capital into a 22 hour long one decided to spare us this time, though, and the trip went without a hitch.

We spent 3 days here and managed to get ourselves some more bespoke clothing (myself, a nice super 120s suit and Helene a funky Fall jacket). The touts eventually got on our nerves--as they cannot help but do when you're based one place and they see you walking by ALL THE TIME--but any tension accumulated on this account was blissfully relieved by our next destination, Bundi....

Udaipur is famous for having it's island palace feature in Octopussy...

With a name like this...

Puppet shop and view of Udaipur street.

Funky puppets.

Beautiful handmade books.

Little sitting area in our hotel room.

Barcelona!

2009-01-18T15:05:00.003-05:00

Back in the Catalan capital after a couple of nice days in Amsterdam that were only marred by the fact that after 3 months of illness-free travelling through Africa and India, I got sick on the day we left Delhi... Damn you Delhi Belly!

More on the last stages of the trip (Udaipur, Bundi) soon!

Some Varanasi, Some Delhi

2009-01-09T00:58:00.006-05:00

So the trip to Delhi from Varanasi was quite the odyssey... First, our train to Agra was cancelled outright on account of heavy fog (they take trains out of commission to lighten traffic for the important routes, I guess) and then we got ye olde rigamarole trying to buy tickets for any train that evening that was heading to the capital. Helene braved the crush at the ticket wicket a couple of times (women are allowed to bud here) but in the end, it was a mixture of persistence, sweet-talking a Tourist Office dude, using Denise's grey hair to our advantage and, yes, bribing the train conductor, that got us on a train about to leave... and in 2nd AC class even! So we had very comfy digs, which was good because instead of taking 12 hours, the journey stretched out to 21... oof!

So no Taj Mahal. Oh well.

Delhi, though, is great! And so clean and orderly! People look at us funny when we say this but, hey, compared to Calcutta, Delhi is Geneva on a Sunday.

The guest house we stayed in (and to which we will hopefully return next week before our flight back to Amsterdam) is very nice and homey. Thanks to Monica for the recommendation!

We had a very nice time traipsing around the capital in a cab that we had rented for the day. Here is some of the photographic evidence of what we saw (after a few extra Varanasi pics).

Colours on the Ganges

Near the burning ghat.

Folding on the banks.

Out on the boat.

PG detail of Nepali Temple.

X-Rated detail of Nepali Temple.

Humayun's Tomb

Inside the tomb.

Nice lattice work at tomb.

Arcade at Red Fort.

Detail at Red Fort.

Sepia Red Fort

Rickshaw view of Old Delhi

Thoughts on Varanasi...

2009-01-04T02:36:00.003-05:00

I know that for a lot of people, Bodhgaya is a moving spiritual centre and it is peaceful, but if you’re not Buddhist, my impression is that you can’t appreciate it fully. Varanasi, on the other hand, is a place that touches you whether you are Hindu or not. The fact that, ultimately, amongst all of the other rites and rituals happening here, this is the place where life and material existence ends and one is cast back into nature (the Ganges) makes it a universal gateway.

The main burning ghat is about 250 metres from I am sitting right now. There, wood is carefully weighed (apparently it is quite an art to be able to judge the perfect amount needed to incinerate a corpse) and then built into pyres upon which the silk-clad bodies are placed to be rendered into ash and bone. Many bodies are burning at any one time and you can see the process at different stages as you move around the ghat. Skulls burned clean, leg bones sticking up blackened and everywhere the deep smell of woodsmoke mixed with burning flesh. It is an incredibly powerful experience to see this. A great South African couple that I met in Calcutta told me that Varanasi is a place that every human being should visit and I agree. It’s not everyday that Westerners get to see—in the same day—both poles of existence: daily subsistence struggle and then the very public end of one’s physicality. This is certainly “bare life.”

A few people have written me and, while not wanting to sound trite, have asked if India has “changed me.” I think that anyone with critical faculties cannot help but be affected by what you see and feel here. One thing that I didn’t expect, though, is to feel even more alienated from organized religion than I was before. Seeing, for example, the Catholicism of the Sisters of Charity who teach acceptance of one’s suffering--which they do seek to mitigate, of course--but certainly not by addressing the root causes of that suffering through any sort of social justice-centred inquiry. Or the caste system inherent to Hinduism here. Life is certainly a struggle for millions and millions in India but the alleviation of the exertions and pain can again, only come in the afterlife and its eventual negation… what about now?

Onwards... to Varanasi/Benares

2009-01-04T02:14:00.006-05:00

View from the hotel balcony in Varanasi.

Well, we weren’t sad to leave Gaya.

Typical street in Gaya.

Typical open sewer in Gaya.

Before that, though, Bodhgaya was nice – especially the Mahabodhi Temple complex and the area right around the Bodhi Tree, where the Buddha was enlightened – but with so many other temples from other Buddhist countries and a constant flow of people in and out, the town did have a bit of an Epcot Center feel to it. To get there (if you’re not flying in to the airstrip) you have to hire an autorickshaw from the station in Gaya and then it’s a rough ride through town followed by a relatively smooth one 13 kms along the (dry) river’s edge to this Buddhist “mecca.” Once there, we had some hot tea to warm up (by the way, has everyone noticed that it’s been weeks since I whined about being hot? : ) ), visited a bunch of temples and then headed back to Gaya before it got dark because traveling at night here is dangerous even for the locals, apparently.

Giant Buddha in Bodhgaya.

Ceremony in Bodhgaya.

Flags near Cobra statue.

Two of the many, many monks making the rounds...

Main temple, Bodhgaya.

Part of the temple complex.

Meditating near the Bodhi tree.

Buddha shrine (a lady was vacuuming the carpet when we were there...)

On our way back to the (nasty) hotel, we stopped to do some internet at a café that we thought was much closer to where we were staying than it actually was and so in the end, there we were, trudging along the dark roads, getting an even closer look at a place we were all ready to leave. Good news, though: we did pass a liquor kiosk and managed to pick up some Kingfisher to drink while eating chips, cookies and puffed lentils and watching Jaws 3 in fuzzy black and white. Note: the fact that when we got back the main light in the room had stopped working was actually a blessing in disguise because it made the grime charmingly decadent… ha!

Up at 4am or so to catch the train to Varanasi. The train was some 40 mins late but we had reserved seats in Sleeper class (the class below 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd “climate controlled, ie: “AC and heating” but above General, which features wooden seats and overcrowding). We were relatively comfy (although since the windows didn’t close totally, it was pretty cold) sitting across from a nice old Tibetan couple on their way to Sarnath to see the Dalai Lama. After a ride of some 6 hours, we were in Varanasi and being helped by the extremely friendly man who works at the tourist information office in the station. Standing over in that corner has the added advantage of the tourist police keeping the touts away, which is nice when you’re tired.

A bit of a mix-up with our room reservation at a nice place on Scindhia Ghat but that was resolved and after many, many stairs (poor Denise!), we were happily installed with an amazing view over the Ganges and the nearby ghats (piers/steps into the water).

Lalita Ghat

Sitting on the ghat.

Me and my new friends. (I took a picture for another family and then the daughter of this one came up and asked for a picture with me [!]. A big round of photos then took place.)

A New Worst Place I've Ever Been...

2009-01-02T07:11:00.002-05:00

The previous holders:

Los Mochis, Mexico: The place where my old buddy Clark saw kids poking a dead body in the middle of the road with a stick... Dusty, mean and just in another time zone so that it screws you up when you're travelling, Los Mochis is a place that you don't want to hang out in. Unless you're trying to take the Copper Canyon train... I remember buying some wine and drinking the whole bottle myself in a vain attempt to make my time there go quicker.

Algeciras, Spain: Port city where you take the ferry to Morocco or the Spanish cities in North Africa. In the early '90s it was full of smugglers, prostitutes and ne'er-do-wells. Palpable sense of danger and foreboding. Never went back and never missed it.

The new champion:

Gaya, India: Not only is Gaya in the somewhat lawless state of Bihar where bandits still operate, but it is DIRTY -- filthy dirty. If you had seen the first room that the hotel tried to give us... Mold, wet mattresses with hairy and moist linen... grimy walls... and big holes around the pipes where rats could crawl... SO NASTY! The vast stretches of strewn garbage in the streets, open sewers and mean dogs don't do much to help this place, either. I am literally counting the hours until I can get on the train to Varanasi (where they perform public cremations... should be interesting...)

Things in Calcutta...

2008-12-28T06:33:00.003-05:00

One of those things you see and just have to take a picture of...

The most stylish goat in all of Calcutta.

The holiday season here has been fun so far... although the air pollution is pretty fierce (MUCH worse than my experience in Mexico City, which has such a bad reputation).

Have done a wee bit of sight-seeing but then again, it's not like there is a lot to really see here -- it's more the experience of the city's energy that is the attraction.

The Kali Temple was pretty intense. A guide took us around and showed us where they sacrifice some 40 goats a day for the deity (saw a couple of severed heads being passed around) and then a purification area where a guy was standing in lamb's blood, I do believe, washing himself with water... Then we pushed our way down a small alley to a window where another man yelled at all of the jostling people behind him and they gave way momentarily to reveal the face of Kali to us. Very cool. And Kali is quite futuristic looking! After this vision, we were anointed and taken to another baths area where we paid the guide too much, got a little string bracelet (that bled immediately on to our skin) and were bid adieu.

The Kali Temple is right beside Mother Teresa's home for the dying and destitute and since they were closed for midday, there were a lot of people begging and just lying about waiting to get in... quite the scene, that.

We have a few more days here in Calcutta and then on the 1st, it's off to Bodhgaya for some more peaceful environs (provided that there are no bandits on the road between there and Gaya...)

Here are some more recently captured pictures:

Kali Temple

Shiva Temple

OK.

Enjoying some Indian bubbly on X-Mas Eve.
Methode champenoise, so it was pretty tasty!

Another cow pic for the fans...

Where the cows go in Muslim and Christian areas...

Christmas in Calcutta

2008-12-25T02:05:00.002-05:00

No snow, no skating and there are creepy-looking Santas wandering around town but the city is quite lit up and there is a remarkable lack of conspicuous consumption here so there is definitely some festive spirit to be had. It's also really nice how many people spontaneously wish us happy x-mas when we're walking about.

Last night we went to a party organised by some of the volunteers at Mother Teresa's and it was fun. There was good soup and some cheese (!) and chips and things to nibble on. And there was beer! Kingfisher isn't Kilimanjaro but it's damn tasty nonetheless. We grabbed a cab home and when the driver saw the holiday tip that we layed on him, he kissed Denise's hand. A nice evening.

This morning, Denise went off to serve the poor breakfast and Helene and I wandered over later. We went to see the orphans (who were all in one room screaming about, apparently on sugar highs) and while Helene was being mauled by a posse of them, I played with a couple by tossing them up and down in the air... I couldn't help but notice how light they were -- fat little Canadian kids, these were not... After that we walked the gauntlet of people who had converged on Mother Teresa's place looking for hand-outs. We chatted briefly with the little girl that lives on the corner with her family (and when I say 'on the corner' I mean on the street corner, not in a house) and then I had a bit of a start -- a lady asked me for some money and when I smiled and demurred, she grabbed my ass and ran off giggling! Wtf?! Weird...

Breafast at the Calcuttan institution, Flury's, was good but it took forever to get in. Now this afternoon we'll probably see a couple of sights and then go to a concert before having dinner on Park Street.

A different Christmas but definitely not a bad Christmas.

All the best to everyone who takes the time to read this blog. And hey, please feel free to post comments; Duma and Jen are getting lonely!

Bob

Getting the Hang of Calcutta...

2008-12-23T00:00:00.006-05:00

Taxis on Free School.

I’m getting the hang of this place. After a few days of being utterly bewildered and discombobulated by the sheer intensity of central Calcutta’s streets and noise, I’m starting to see the numbers of the Matrix… This is still easily the most overwhelming metropolis that I’ve ever visited but the initial shock is wearing off. Unlike when freshly-arrived from tranquil Kerala, I can now appreciate more of the details. The most important thing has been to simply learn how to walk the streets: Calcuttan flanerie 101. Now that I’ve realized that most drivers aren’t even conscious that they’re honking so much (I think that it’s becoming an autonomic function), I’m no longer jumping for cover every time I hear a horn. The locals must think that tourists and volunteers here are crazy neurotics, all jumpy and jittery… So now I’m cultivating their disinterested saunter on the side of the road and getting better at shifting ever-so-slightly to avoid autorickshaws, cars, bikes and the occasional beast of burden.

Dog, meet cow.

One of the characteristic things of central Calcutta is the massive variety of shops on any given street (like Ripon, for instance, which has quickly become one of my favourites to walk). And it’s not just that you have a myriad of services at your disposition that makes this multiplicity so enticing, but rather that you get to see all of the crafts and trades being practised. For there is no back shop here; most everything is up front and, in many cases, the private establishment extends into what, in the West, would be the public walkway or sidewalk. Often too, the street is used as well -- transformed into an autobody bay, or sawmill, a kitchen or a barbershop. So if you have the time to just wander and watch, you can observe all sorts of tools being employed and things being built. It’s fascinating. The streets of Calcutta are teeming with trade practices and lore, the kind that are slowly dying out in Canada, where handmade is a luxury and imported manufactured goods trump reuse, recycling and rearticulation.

Street market on Banerjee.

The street barbers (sometimes set up under a tree, other times just sitting on the curb) are fast workers. The cutthroat razors zip up and down while fingers dab at cream and position the face, seeking angles of habit. Equally ubiquitous are the tailors, both for men and women. Bespoke in India is a natural state of affairs given that having something made or altered is quite affordable for many here. And with apologies to David, my tailor in Toronto who does command superior wools and fabrics, I found an older gentleman here who measured me for a new suit and a couple of shirts – both the price and the chance to support a small, independent businessman were too good to pass up…

Just off Ripon.

Calcutta is one of the few cities in India that really celebrate Christmas so there are lights up all over the place and lots of people wearing Santa hats, which is pretty cute. The weather here is such that I have almost forgotten how hot the past few months have been—almost—and with it getting dark quite early, it does feel a bit like the end of December. We’re not quite sure what the plan will be for the 25^th and New Year’s but I’m very happy to be spending Christmas in Calcutta – it’s an enchanting city... as long as you can get past the first few days of shock and awe.

Detail of the Circular Hotel (roaches not pictured)

Bought some nice pomegranates from this cute lady.

One of Calcutta's major draws, much to the chagrin of many Calcuttans...

One crow stranger, two crows danger, three crows a summons...

Grim, yes, but at least you know the meat is fresh...

The Astoria on Sudder St.

Blanket cricket coverage and darjeeling tea: you gotta love it...

On Free School Road

More Kilimanjaro...

2008-12-19T04:36:00.001-05:00

On our last night in northern Tanzania we headed outside Moshi to a big estate that had some awesome views of Kilimanjaro...

Calcutta: Day 3

2008-12-18T09:26:00.004-05:00

Used the earplugs last night - had to. The din was immense and no sleep would have been had otherwise. Wrapped the mattress in our insecticide impregnated mosquito net before bed to kill any bedbugs and ward off the cockroaches. It seemed to work. Alarmingly, though, after only 24 hours, the noise is not bothering me as much anymore... could be that I've gone slightly deaf from the honking at street level...

Wishful thinking, surely...

Have had a great day so far; Baj came by this morning and we all cabbed over to the university area where there are booksellers lining the streets. after searching for a couple of books for his dad and then futilely for a bohemian coffee house, we cabbed across town to a shopping district where we all marvelled at the great selection and prices. I picked up a few shirts for myself as a birthday present and then Helene treated us all to a meal at Oh, Calcutta! a superb restaurant specialising in Bengali cuisine. Your mouth is never bored with this type of cooking and at some point I should dedicate an entire entry to do it real justice.

After that, it was over to Park Street, which is the hip street along which you see couples and intellectuals out walking (not together!), etc. Walking back to the hotel, I was lulled into a sense of calm, and started to think that maybe Calcutta wasn't so intense after all, that I was just overreacting yesterday...

Commuting.

Then we turned back onto our road. Traffic, honking, people coming every which way, a guy peeing on the side of the road while talking on his cell phone, another hurling himself off a bus and then getting spun around by an auto-rickshaw that grazed him... street kids scavenging things from under idling cars, women sitting amidst debris breastfeeding newborns, men warming themselves by fires hastily made by lighting pieces of discarded drywall... all this among clouds of acrid exhaust smoke and haze in the setting sun and the very frequent smiles that people give us when we cross paths. This is not a tourist city -- a fact evident in the genuine interest that is shown wherever we go...

Don't ask me... I just take the pictures...

Proof that they don't always miss...

Bookstore

Second Impression of Calcutta Proper...

2008-12-18T09:10:00.003-05:00

View from the terrace.

Our soft landing in India came to a screeching halt when we finally took a cab down Dum Dum street towards the city centre and our LOUD, slightly cockroach-inhabited hotel room near Mother Teresa's house. The noise and what seems like sheer "chaos" to the Western eye is pretty overwhelming. Sensory overload is a good way to describe it because when you're not trying to process what you're seeing or smelling or trying to hear above the honking, you're dodging cars/buses/trams/rickshaws (auto, bicycle, foot-powered) and motorcycles. A lot of the honking is of the "I'm here behind you/trying to pass you on the left or right/move your ass/move over/don't stop or merge or turn or drift" variety. Given that at any given point in semi-gridlock, many of these contingencies may be happening gives rise to the constant cacophony of klaxons and cursing.

Baj's street.

Downtown Calcutta.

It's actually kind of like Barcelona on a Friday night - except with les "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" from the motos.

I think that a trip to the Darjeeling hill station in the pre-Himalayas may be in order... : )

Views from the terrace...

Last night was not like this at all. Baj picked us up from the airport and the driver took us to his grandmother's home in a nearby suburb. Best moment of the trip on the relatively new 4 lane highway? Going down an on-ramp so that we could then do a u-turn into on-coming traffic and exit closer to the house... oh ys... amazingly, the bus that we came across half-way down the up ramp didn't even blink its lights or honk.

The swastika is a symbol of peace in Hindi culture.

Once at the house, we had a great evening of catching up with Baj, bantering with the ladies who help his grandma and eating very, very well. We have been so lucky to have been invited into so many homes on this trip; it really makes the chain of hotel rooms bearable and lets us learn so much more about the various places that we have seen. They gave us the freshly painted room even and then the next morning, after taking tea on the terrace and snapping some pics (which I will post when I can get connected with my laptop), went for a wee walkabout the neighbourhood, We visited Baj's communist auntie and then went to his great-grandmother's shrine, where a local priest was doing prayers and making offerings. At the end, we all got blessed and given sweets. Sweet!

Offerings.

Leaving Baj's place.

After that it was off to the airport again to pick up Denise (my mum-in-law), who, thankfully arrived from Montreal via Paris and Delhi sans probleme.

Which brings us back to Calcutta proper... on the way here I saw something that was frankly new to me: cows fighting dogs for garbage dumped in the street... with a murder of crows sitting atop the cows waiting either to see who would win or to scavenge any bits that might be about to fall...

In the afternoon, Helene and Denise went to Mother Teresa's volunteer orientation (men aren't allowed to volunteer with the orphans and I am not moved to do hospice work so I'll be catching up on my writing and doing some exploring while they are busy during the days). The it was back to the hotel and its funky '60s nightclub-like restaurant for some good food, internet and then my first beer since Africa...

It's my birthday tomorrow and we're going to go for a nice lunch with Baj and then maybe head out to his other grandmother's place for a visit, Helene had some good ideas for a birthday present, including: a local cooking course; a trip to the 19th century race track for some wagering and gin & tonics; some champers; and maybe even a new suit made by one of the local tailors... Thanks! I'll take them all! ; )

Calcutta...

2008-12-17T08:23:00.000-05:00

Holy shit!

: )

The Keralan Backwaters

2008-12-13T03:38:00.002-05:00

Luxury houseboat on the canals, Kerala.

Sunrise in Kerala

Keralan canals

Houseboat

Bucolic scene along the canals

Out Of Africa...

2008-12-10T11:28:00.005-05:00

Spitzkoppe

Leaving Africa in less than 24 hours...

In no particular order, here’s my quick “Best Of” after 2 months and 4 countries…

**The women’s fashion in Maputo – especially their hairstyles… from the ’30s to the 2000s and everything in between. Fantastic!

**Spitzkoppe, Damaraland, Namibia. Best place that we camped. Magical sunset.

**Dune 45 in Sossuvlei, Namibia. At sunrise. Pain in the ass to get to – because you have to haul yourself out of bed really early, break camp in the dark and then drive like hell once the gate opens AND THEN just climb the world’s tallest sand dune in order to see the sun rise over the Namib. But totally worth it.

The front of the 4x4 before I stepped on that plastic bit and broke the license plate and "bumper"

**Getting driven to the airport by Morgan and Katie. That was awesome and totally helped us relax after a hectic/hellish week preparing – thanks again!

**Wild oysters in Knyssa, South Africa. Washed down with Mitchell’s draft. Damn fine!

**Seeing giraffes loping about in Etosha Park, Namibia. Giraffes are cool. Weird, but cool.

Chasing a giraffe in Etosha

**Maputo, Mozambique. All of it. Period. Oh, except for Fatima’s Backpackers, which is nasty. One of my favourite cities in the world. That fish market will live on in my stomach’s memory…

**Zanzibar’s cuisine. Oh my, soooo tasty. Worth the trip to Africa on its own.

**Seeing Kilimanjaro for the first time. Powerful. Then seeing it again from the gardens of the Kilemakyaro Lodge while eating warm crisps and drinking Kili beer — with a rainbow appearing over the east slope…

**Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania. Almost didn’t go. So glad we did. I didn’t understand why the guide said “stunning ethereal blue-green vistas” until I went there and saw for myself. You should too.

**The awesome people that have treated us so well and whom we’ve met along the way: Philippe, Januario, Ali, Sophia, Ilse, Hanneke, Flora, Patricia, John

**The Indian food at the Jacaranda hotel in Arusha, Tanzania. Arusha doesn’t have a lot going for it but I would return just to eat this guy’s curry and dal again. Seriously good stuff. He’ll soon have his own place or be snatched up by one of the bigger hotels, no doubt.

**Ok, a subset of best food: prawns at Zambi, Maputo; curry at Jacaranda; sprinkbok shanks at Khaya Ngamay Game Restaurant, Cape Town; cashew fruit, Xai Xai, Mozambique; grilled lobster, fish market, Maputo; wild oysters, Knyssa, South Africa;

Enjoying a nice meal (with wine!) in the desert

Not-so Best Of…

**Helene passing out at 30,000 feet. Somewhere over the Atlantic.

**Helene’s eye swelling up to 3 times normal size. Zanzibar.

**Trying to beat the sun going down en route to God-knows-where. Rural Namibia.

**Getting rained on inside the bus, while standing for 3 hours. Xai-Xai to Vilanculo, Mozambique.

Picnic with Hawk and Snake or An African Take on Quetzalcoatl

2008-12-10T11:23:00.002-05:00

The evil bird...

At the end of our drive around Ngorongoro Crater, our guide took us over to a small lake (still in the crater) where a dozen or so hippos were lounging just beneath the surface. There were plenty of other 4x4s and it was obvious that this was the lunch spot for just about every safari operator going. We got to use the washroom and then dug out the boxed-lunch that the lodge had prepared for us. Helene had spotted the nice tree by the water and wanted to go eat there while I was already preparing to tuck into my meal in the truck. But it’s a picnic, right? So off we go. Unfortunately, in his haste to go talk to his fellow guides and perhaps scare up some motor oil for our ailing Land Rover, Stephen had neglected to tell us just how dangerous it was to eat outside at this location. Not that the hippos were going to bound up onto shore or anything like that, no, the danger came from above: there were numerous Black Kite hawks that were circling the meadow and I even snapped a pic of one before it came after us. Yes, Helene had taken only two wee bites of her tasty piece of chicken before this big raptor swooped over my shoulder at high speed and knocked the frango out of her hand. The piece landed on the shore right by the water and before we could react, the bird was back on his second pattern and had snatched it up. He then engaged evasive manoeuvres as another bird tried to steal it from him – unsuccessfully, as it turned out. Well, for our part, we hustled back into the truck to finish our lunch — poor Helene bereft of her chicken.

Once done, we stood outside the truck (the birds don’t bother you if you have no food or reasonable facsimile thereof) waiting for Stephen when suddenly a guide in a truck off to our left shouted out that there was a snake behind us… Those are words that get you moving here in Africa and we backed away from the truck before moving in for a closer look at the serpent that had slithered between the back right wheel and the rock that Stephen had placed there to keep the truck from rolling away (yes, great vehicle, that…).

Not sure what it was but it wasn’t that big and the other guide didn’t think it was poisonous. We didn’t want to take any chances though so I didn’t poke it with a stick before we took this picture.

Oh and I just remembered that 4 zebras showed up and wandered by while we were eating too. And a couple of little birds actually came into the truck to try to steal food.

Quite the picnic!

Ngorongoro Crater

2008-12-06T03:15:00.006-05:00

Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

The Ngorongoro Crater is to the west of Arusha, on the way to the Serengeti. It's some 2500m high and the descent from the rim down to the crater's floor is 610m. It is a spectacular place and I'm really glad that we decided to (splurge) and go because even though we saw our fill of animals in Etosha Park in Namibia, the setting here is something that you don't soon forget. Mix that with the piece-of-shit Land Rover that we and our excellent guide were saddled with and you have an unforgettable day.

Stephen the guide picked us up early and we piled into the Rover for the 3 hour trip to the Crater. Way back when in Amsterdam, we had met a woman from Toronto who did some volunteer work in a town on the road to the park so we stopped in for a visit. That town, ominously called "Mosquito Town" in Kiswahili is in the Rift Valley, a magnificent ridged area that apparently stretches all the way to Turkey...

Road through Rift Valley.

After our visit, we climbed out of the valley and headed to the Crater Park on a wonderful tarmack road that, I learned later, had been paid for by the Japanese Govt. That night we stayed in a new lodge inside the park, the advantage of which was that it would take less time to get down to the crater floor in the morning, when the animals would be most active. Given that the lodge has no fence, however, meant that we had to be careful moving about and indeed, they provided a Masai escort back to our room after dinner... (apparently the night before there had been some lions prowling about...).

Back at the room after a nice meal, we were greeted by the sight of 3 huge buffalo (the dangerous, charge at humans kind) right outside our back window/porch. One was actually half under the porch and we got a nice and close look when we shone the flashlight on him.

Next morning we descended into the park and were amazed at the views... absolutely fantastic. And the animals! So many of them so close together! Hippos, lions, elephants, monkeys, the works and all within a couple hours' drive.

Ah yes, driving... our poor Land Rover was truly on its last legs and burned oil like it was going out of style. Oh and at one point the accelerator stuck and the cab filled with smoke and fumes, which had Helene literally jumping out of the truck for fear that we were on fire...

We used up all of our extra oil and barely made it up the slope when we left the crater around midday after our picnic... which deserves its own entry...

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

2008-12-04T02:27:00.003-05:00

Arusha is quite the dirty, dusty town. There are lots of Land Rovers heading out on safari, lots of touts pushing both said safaris and local tours and there are also lots and lots of lawyers working at the ICTR. Our contact here, a prosecutor at the tribunal, took us to a restaurant the night we arrived where we ran into a bevy of Quebecois litigators, all of whom are either here working (many for the defence) or are law students doing a stage.

Walking around Arusha, one is contantly being hassled by people asking you to buy things or to go on a safari, etc. We discovered the magic bullet, though: if you tell them that you're in town for the court, they look at you funny and you can see them searching for something to say... and by that time, you've walked on and left them behind. It's like the Jedi mind trick!

Of course, we REALLY WERE here to see the court so we headed up to the convention centre where it is located, cleared security and then made our way to one of the courtrooms. The trial we found in session was interesting: a former Rwandan army captain was in the dock defending himself from charges of failing to seop the massacre of Belgian sodiers. We were able to sit in the public/media gallery, which was located behind the witness stand and separated from the court proper by bullet-proof glass. We had to surrender mobiles, cameras, etc. at the door and pick up some headphones with which to hear the proceedings. Since things were happening in both English and French, most people in the court were wearing them and sometimes there would be a lag between questions and answers as the different parties waited for the interpreter to finish.

The captain kind of looked like Donovan McNabb and had a deep voice that rumbled as he went over the minutiae of what he had done on the day/night in question. He was rather hostile to the prosecutor (who wasn't the best) and tried to point out what his duties as a simple captain were... At the end of his testimony, though, he offered his thanks to the court and pointed out that those who were really responsible for the genocide were not the ones who were on trial...

It will be very interesting to follow what happens...

Leaving Zanzibar...

2008-12-01T08:13:00.004-05:00

Wall in Stone Town.

It has been really great to spend relatively extended periods in both Maputo and now, Zanzibar. Getting to know people, visiting different places and also just being recognised on the street every now and then has been lots of fun and has also helped stave off any homesickness for my daily routine in Toronto (that said, of course I miss the Bistro with Joe, hanging out at Theodore 1922 and chatting over coffee and martinis at Mercurio and can't wait to see everyone again at those places and others...).

So here are some more photos of Stone Town in Zanzibar, where the touts most definitely know your name and aren't afraid to yell it across the street...

Detail of dhow (sewn!).

They have the most succulent pineapples here...

Our friend Sophia.

Old slave pen.

Monument at site of old slave market.

Descaling on the dirty floor...

Locks in Stone Town.

Windows of Stone Town.

Yet more windows of Stone Town.

What a great name for a hotel...

IGTC Endorses...

2008-12-01T08:03:00.002-05:00

Kilimanjaro Beer.

In a hot-as-hell place like Zanzibar, where any wine-by-the-glass that you may come across is fiendishly diabolical, there's only one choice and it only comes in half-litre bottles...

Also, the way that people say "Killy" is very cute, kind of like how new hispanophones to Toronto pronounce/sometimes understand "Keele Station" as "Kill Station"...

Matembwe, Northeast Coast of Zanzibar

2008-12-01T07:10:00.007-05:00

Matembwe beach.

After having finished the workshops, we decided that we should explore the island a little more and get out of charming, yet stiflingly hot, Stone Town... A lot of the places that I called were full but there was space at a cozy hotel called Barahani Villas in the village of Matembwe. Our guide's driver took us out there for a pretty penny but when we came back this morning, we caught one of the local dalla dallas and paid a tenth of that price so it evened out. And hey, we also got to see a woman almost forcibly throw her daughter off the truck... it turned out that she had skipped school to go to Stone Town with her mum, who was none too impressed...

House on the way to Matembwe.

In any event, we had a couple of very relaxing days and were really taken with the wonderful staff at the Barahani. It would have been perfect if I hadn't cut my head on one of their solid wood umbrellas... (sorry, no pics available), for which I would have felt stupid had not everyone else at the place also cracked their skulls at one point, including an Austrian guest who also drew blood like me...

The most interesting feature of this part of the coast is that the village is right there alongside the hotels and thus you get to see the daily life of the people from Matembwe as they go about their business collecting seaweed at low tide and fishing and scaling coconut trees (to get the fruit or simply to strip the leaves).

Ladies collecting seaweed.

Low tide haul...

Seaweed drying on shore.

Another benefit of our low-key place to stay was that the diving centre, which was cleverly named: Scuba Libre, had the best prices around for exploring the nearby reef and the area that they call "The Aquarium."

Impromptu fish market on the beach.

Big-ass spider near the pool... species, Duma?

We took a trip out the boat on Sat. and the location lived up to its name... the snorkeling was amazing. The Indian Ocean is terrifically warm (although there were some cold currents away from shore) and when I say warm, I mean like 25 degrees warm... like taking a bath.

Sunrise.

All in all it was a very enjoyable little holiday away from the sabbatical (please, no abuse...) and now we're into our last day in Zanzibar -- tomorrow morning, it's off to Arusha.

Not quite sure why they gave us neoprene but hey, it makes you look good!

Namibia Off the Record, on the QT and Very Hush-Hush

2008-11-28T09:05:00.003-05:00

So back when we were in Namibia last month, one of the people that we ran into took me aside at one point and asked me if I wanted to buy some diamonds... Angolan diamonds... Angolan blood diamonds... When I expressed concern about the legality of such a thing (not to mention the ethics) and told him that, in any event, I knew that exporting them would be impossible, he reassured me by saying that he knew a really good forger and that the papers wouldn't be a problem...

Talk about taking me back to my Honduras days... when, in the space of an hour at Expat's in La Ceiba, I would run into drug smugglers, car thieves, arms dealers and jewel merchants like "Action" Jackson, who once had not one, but two, gotas de aceite (pure emeralds) in his possession. Whether he really did get betrayed by his Colombian army partner and end up in a firefight (he won) is inconsequential... ah yes, quite the time and place...

Oh, and I said "no" to the offer to buy the diamonds.

Stone Town

2008-11-27T08:31:00.006-05:00

Stone Town, Zanzibar

Detail of an Indian door.

Enjoying Zanzibari coffee in the street.

Bank door.

Sensing a pattern here...

Fresh garlic and onions at the central market.

The fish truck...

And the meat truck... (I'm sure that's ice under there...)

Fish being sold at auction.

Mmm, octopi...

Bananas on the stalk.

Love the name of this place...

Cute kids going to school.

Helene's eye...

2008-11-27T08:06:00.003-05:00

The other day while she was teaching her workshop, Helene's eye started to bug her (something about an old contact lens or something...). It calmed down but then yesterday, as she was doing the second part of the day's session, it kind of went phooey on her and made her quit for the day and even take the extraordinary measure of trying to return to the hotel in taxi rather than dalla dalla... A couple of hours later, she met me at the Shangani where her eye had totally puffed up and was causing her that stinging needle type of pain. I tried washing it out in the shower but that only hurt her more and we thought that a trip to a Zanzabarian hospital might be in order... Still, because she could still see (when she could get the lids open), I figured that some time and darkness might be ticket... hence the patch.

This morning it was still swollen but went back to normal -- thankfully -- over the course of our tour around Stone Town.

Moments like that (and the fainting spell on the airplane) make one appreciate good health when travelling...

IGTC Endorses: Radha Food House, Stone Town, Zanzibar

2008-11-27T07:54:00.002-05:00

Because of Helene's eye problems last night, I popped into the Radha to get some take-away. After a pleasant wait watching 20/20 cricket and chatting with the owner, my order of 1 chick pea curry with rice, 1 dal soup, 4 chapatis, 3 papadum and two lassies arrived.

We ate it on our room's little balcony at the Shangani Hotel and oh my, was it ever delicious... possibly the best Indian food I've ever had. Certainly the best dal soup, which was perfectly spiced and peppered with little baby bay leaves... not too picante, either (although this has been our experience of most curries in Africa: they're flavourful but not killer hot).

Two enthusiastic thumbs up...

More Stone Town, Zanzibar...

2008-11-26T06:14:00.004-05:00

Now that is some scaffolding...

Zanzibar is a very nice place in which to hang out. The streets feel very safe (there’s always a tout close by so really, if anything were to happen, I suppose you could just yell for a taxi or some cashews and somebody would come running!) and once the sun goes down, the air is comfortable enough, especially if there’s a nice breeze blowing in from the Indian Ocean.

Turned a corner down near the port and poof! Awesome cinema...

Stone Town is totally walkable and if you need to go anywhere beyond the immediate tourist areas the “dalla dallas” are cheap and relatively quick. We’ve been taking one out to the neighbourhood where the youth group is based and some bumps nothwithstanding, it’s a pleasant experience to chat with the other passengers, who are invariably shocked when they climb on and see a couple of white people sitting (or standing) there.

I finished my wee workshop on Word and Powerpoint this morning... it was fun, although kind of frustrating... try remembering what it was like when you didn't know what a cursor was... or when someone moving it around made you dizzy... Today, I just threw them into the deep end and showed them how to prepare slides, insert images and crop them... then it was on to custom animation... oh yeah, baby... dissolves, checkerboarding, faing swivels, the whole lot. They loved it. Then, I headed back into town and grabbed some lunch here at a place called "Livingstone's" where the best thing going is the free wireless... [oops, I take that back: the chocolate cake with ganache just arrived and it's wonderful...]

My computer class...

Tomorrow will be a day to work on the essays that I have outstanding and then on Friday our guide will take us around Stone Town for three hours, starting with the seriously daunting looking market before finding us a driver to help us visit a spice farm for a tour... (you can expect little spice sampler kits as souvenirs...)

Saturday, it's way up the coast to a beach town for some more snorkeling and fresh fish... : ) then back to Stone Town for Monday before we fly to Arusha on Tuesday (forecast high: 23C!!!).

Fresh coconut juice... great for killing amoebas!

From there, we'll visit the International Tribunal for War Crimes in Rwanda and also go to the famous Ngoro Goro crater and do some hiking on Kilimanjaro...

Flight to India is 11 Dec.

One of the participants in the PAR seminar.

Dar es Salaam & the Spice Island of Zanzibar

2008-11-24T02:12:00.005-05:00

Old door in Stone Town.

There’s nothing quite like an East African port… the touts, the heat, the crowds, the heat…

Dar Es Salaam was always going to have it all to do following in the footsteps of Maputo so when we got here and it was REALLY hot and the dudes at the pricey hotel on which we had decided to splurge started to take advantage of us, I was not exactly feeling the Tanzanian love. That all changed, though, upon arriving in Zanzibar…

View of the harbour, Dar el Salaam.

Getting here was an adventure. We walked down to the port just after breakfast in search of passage to the island around 14h. The touts are THICK down there… It was funny to see how people who had been snoozing seconds before would jump to their feet ready to help us find things, sell us stuff or exchange money…they’re pesky but hey, they’re just trying to make a buck so, whatever… We found the best ferry available and took a 10:30 AM sail time to avoid having to take the extra slow boat…

You know you're in a Muslim area when...

When we arrived an hour later with our bags (in a local cab – not our hotel’s cab, which wanted to charge us $30 for a 2 dollar fare…) yet more touts clung to the car until we showed that we already had tickets upon seeing which, they dispersed in search of fresher tourists. Then it was the porters’ turn. I was definitely not adverse to having someone else carry my heavy bag in that heat, so off one guy went, following another who had Helene’s backpack. The best part? They marched us half-way up the queue and budded us right in… nice! The French guy behind us was bemused but held his peace and just gave us a wry smile; I suspect that he barged the queue just like us so easy come, easy go…

Eventually we were allowed to board and the thick, humid air of the port gave way to delightfully cool, air-conditioning and a Jackie Chan movie… After taking some pictures of the port from the water, we both promptly fell asleep. Upon arriving on the island, foreigners have to queue up again for a secondary customs check, which added a good 45 mins to the trip but the fact that the young guys in the booth were by far the nicest and friendliest customs officer on the planet made it pleasant all in all. It took a while to find our contact Ali, who had brought along his friend who is going to be our guide for the week (!) and rather than take a cab, they said we should walk to the hotel. By the time we got there we were totally soaked in sweat… the humidex must have been around 45C and our shirts felt like we had just gone snorkeling in them. Along the way, the Tanzanians are trying to make small talk and I’m just staring through the sweat that is stinging my eyes and trying to keep from throwing up. It wasn’t a long walk but our 5 month packs are not exactly light and the stickiness combined to make it one of those moments when you think that overheating is just a few minutes away.

Stone Tone harbour, Zanzibar.

Dhow avoiding tugs and ferries.

Arrived and settled, we started to feel better and after a nice cold shower, it was lunch on a breezy terrace overlooking the harbour. One thing that is definitely welcome in Tanzania is the pricing of things: 9 bucks for grilled marlin. Mozambique was quite expensive by comparison. Later in the afternoon we met up with Ali and the guide and had some ice cream while watching the sun set over the ocean. We discussed the workshops and what tourism we want to do and basically just resolved to wait until today to figure it out.

Ali and our guide. I want one of those hats...

Last evening was great: we wandered down to a restaurant in the old British consulate building and had drinks on their beach. The air was marginally cooler (maybe 24C) but there was a breeze so it was very pleasant. After a week here I will really be ready to both: a) get close to Kilimanjaro and cooler environs and b) cross the equator again and return to fall/winter. I am simply not made for the tropics…or for a summer that lasts from May to Dec.

Beach in Stone Town.

Leaving Maputo...

2008-11-21T01:16:00.009-05:00

View of the train station across the plaza.

Tomorrow it's off to Dar es Salaam and then quickly Zanzibar and, later, Kilimanjaro...

I'm sad to leave here; this is an amazing city that already has me scheming about finding a way back. I will definitely look into research possibilities when Robarts is handy once again... maybe there's an early-twentieth century journalism angle that I can explore or something like that.

What other city refurbishes an Art Deco washroom? Maputo, you rock!

What is it about this place that makes it so endearing? I guess in the first place I have to say that it is physically beautiful -- and was definitely more so in the past -- but that edge of decadence and decay only adds to its appeal. The fact that you can feel the energy and that there is a lot of investment coming also gives the place a kind of "see it now" feel.

The public washroom at the train station plaza.

There's also the food. Maputo is definitely a place for people who like to eat and eat well. It's not fantastically cheap but not once have I felt that I didn't get my money's worth and the sheer quantity and quality of the seafood here is a prize in an of itself. Yesterday we went back to the Fish Market. The prawn lady totally remembered me and jumped up to say hi and then helped us choose lobsters (mmm). Later, after we had feasted once again, we were waiting for Bento, our cabbie to pick us up and she came out of the market to say goodbye and to say that she was going to miss me, etc. So sweet.

Grilled lobster that I was forced to eat...

So yeah, then there's the people here. The War is still in recent memory but everyone has been very friendly and helpful. Sure, they stare a lot at the white guy wandering around, but that's OK.

Paving designs from old Maputo...

More photos to celebrate Maputo. I already miss it.

Deco bar at the Costa do Sol restaurant.

Cafe Continental.

Detail of Vicente Gil theatre.

Cathedral.

Dusk light.

Imposing Deco on Guerra Popular.

Hotel Africa Marquee... cover for my hotel book, anyone?? : )

Old dept. store sign.

Post office detail. Love the red.

Outside the Scala Theatre.

Guerra Popular street market.

Mosque downtown.

The Bazaruto Archipelago

2008-11-18T11:48:00.005-05:00

The crew preparing lunch.

Once in Vilanculo, we signed up for a couple of dhow safaris out to the Bazaruto archipelago, where we could have stayed had we not minded paying between $250 and $8,000 per person, per night at the different lodges...

Bazaruto island.

Turquoise waters.

Unfortunately, we weren't able to get on a Sail Away trip (the most recommended company) so we had to go out with a different guy who turned out to be the town rascal -- the type of dude who borrows money from one client in order to make change for another... you get the picture... Anyway, his trips turned out to be more expensive than we were led to believe, but whatever, this was kind of a little vacation week-end so we were like, meh...

Sand at low tide...

Let's just say, though, that this guy's crew is not going to win the America's Cup for Mozambique anytime soon... we kind of ran aground on a sandbar heading out to the big island -- even after a bunch of fishermen who were standing only knee-high in the water a hundred metres away, started yelling and gesturing (waving or drowning?) for us to turn around. Anyway, so there we were, stuck, with these able seamen out pushing the dhow off the sand... priceless...

Looking at a starfish when we ran aground...

To be fair, though, we did get to the island and then to the reef for some spectacular snorkeling -- the quantity and variety of fish was amazing, even if the coral was somewhat bleached. And, it must be said that our crew were great cooks. They prepared some grilled barracuda with rice, sofrito, fresh steamed crab and ripe mango for dessert. We ate in the shade on the beach. Not bad at all.

Sailing back had it's thrills, too. First, a bunch of us saw a big ray fly out of the sea just off port and then some massive thunder and lightning started up over shore and we tried to beat the storm as we headed back to base...

Me on the dhow (with a seemingly worried Ilse).

The next day, we ended up with the same company since nobody else was going to the smaller island. The boss was happy to see us and even gave us a discount for our loyalty. Hmm, maybe we misjudged his character... just as we were about to cast off, though, he freaked out on one of his workers, wading out into the surf and screaming at him for not respecting him, etc. All of us on the boat were like, nice...

Afterword: that wasn't the last that we saw of that dude... turns out further that he's the one who procures you tickets for the bus back to Maputo and then picks you up at 3 in the morning to drop you off at the depot -- for a price of course... I'm sure that he'll be mayor next time I visit Vilanculo...

Preparing to unfurl (the sail is held with bits of reed that explode when they pull the sheet).

Unfurled.

Sailing back to port.

Just Like the Old Days...

2008-11-18T05:24:00.006-05:00

The bus stop at Xai-Xai.

Helene sitting in the aisle.

My view from the aisle... Not shown: intense leakage of pounding rain into the bus...

One of "Ideal Coachlines's" buses...

The latest in bus upholstery.

Fish for sale along the way.

Guys selling coal.

Houses in the countryside.

Smuggler's Backpackers in Vilanculo.

Xai-Xai, the Mozambican Town So Nice, They Named it Twice...

2008-11-18T05:01:00.003-05:00

Back road out to one of UDEBA's larger projects in the Gaza interior.

The next morning, one of the UDEBA directors, Januario, picked us up and drove us about 60km out to a large school compound that was being built in the town of Mandjacaza. The back road was a bit of an adventure and I was happy to not be the one driving through muck and mud this time around...

Giant beetle (Anthia Burchelli, from the Carabidae [ground beetle] family according to Duma) wandering around the bush.

After that rather formal visit -- we met the councillor of the town, a happy man who told us that he had once been to Edmonton and Guelph on a Municipal Representatives' tour -- Januario took us to a smaller village where the UDEBA school had helped propel the area's education ranking from last to first... the principal told us that UDEBA "was like God" in the area for all of the good work that they had done... This same man was also the curator/warden for a new community-owned park that was being established to protect indigenous and endemic flora. They are planning on developing it as another way of creating income in the area but also for academic and ecological reasons.

So this is where cashews come from! Just the knobby bit on a succulent fruit...

Our day wasn't that long this time around and Januario dropped us back at the beach after helping us figure out the bus times for our planned trip up to Vilanculo the next day... We spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out on the beach and having a nice meal down the way at a local place that was significantly cheaper than the hotel and expressly did NOT offer us any "half cooked chicken." ; )

Oh! and I have to mention learning about cashews -- we met the elder of the town with the park on our way out of the area and he ran to a nearby tree (he was a very spry oldster!) and got us a bunch of cashew fruit. Januario told us how to eat them and so we tried them back at the hotel. The peeled fruit is very fibrous but incredibly succulent and when you suck on it, you get a massive amount of juice. It's hard to describe the taste -- kind of earthy but also sweet and redolent of the nut that hangs onto the top... Helene learned the hard way not to bite into the unroasted variety -- saying that the bitter taste lingered for a long time after...

Our mosquito net hanging--barely--from the light fixture...

Hmm, should I have the half-grilled or the half-cooked...? Chicken sashimi IS a favourite of mine...

Xai-Xai

2008-11-18T00:25:00.010-05:00

Cleaning the oven.

The group that we visited in Gaza province, north of Maputo, was called UDEBA Lab and they are really involved in a lot of good work that supports basic education. From helping adults or youths finish their schooling to making it easier for kids to get distance learning and providing orphaned children a safe place to live in the community, they have a big impact where they work.

Helene had made contact with the directors before we arrived and they treated us like gold, even sending a driver to pick us up in Maputo early the other morning so that we wouldn't have to take the bus.

The first place that we stopped on our way to the town of Xai-Xai proper was a small bakery that had been constructed by UDEBA Lab and then handed over to a group of local activists who used the place to train youth. The woman who runs it showed us around a bit and then when the director of UDEBA arrived, even gave us a welcome speech, a copy of which she let us keep... very touching.

Dough rising.

The welcoming speech that the bread lady gave us.

Bread oven's fire.

Since we had many other projects to visit that day, we had to move on pretty quickly, which was unfortunate only because it meant not being able to try the fresh bread...

I love the contrast of the different directions/dress here. On the left, one of the leaders of UDEBA, on the right, the boss of the bakery.

Our next stop was the same community that was making use of and staffing the bakery. Located on a sandy track just off the main road, the village is a rough collection of round thatch huts and small rectangular buildings also made of reeds. The couple of nicer cinder block homes were build by UDEBA for orphans to live in and we all trooped into them to check things out. In the first, we met one woman who could only pull herself around by her arms because her legs were crippled (polio?). She lives in the sparse space with a small boy in tattered clothes who promptly got lectured by everyone in the group (except us) for not going to school. Man, did he look down afterward. He'll probably go back to his studies just to avoid another surprise haranguing... witnessed by two Canadians who appeared out of nowhere in a 4x4...

Thatched houes in Gaza... (no, not THAT Gaza)

New house for the orphans.

New sleeping quarters in the new house for a couple of orphans in the community. At least now they have a cement floor and a door that will lock. Not much of a bed, though, is it?

Another of our stops was a local school, where a brand new 4 classroom building was going up. The contrast between that edifice and the sketchy thatch construct that has been the school up until now was striking. We met the principal and she was visibly proud of what she will get when the workers finish up with the last bits of construction.

A worker puts the finishing touches on a new classroom.

After that, it was off to yet another school, this time one for adult learners in a different community. Once again, the principal/director came out to meet us; he was exceptionally friendly and gave us a nice tour of the building and of the bakery/ brick-making works that sat nearby. As a special treat, he had his group of students sing us some songs of thanks for visiting and then a goodbye tune that also featured some dancing. It was kind of surreal... like being in some crazy African musical. As we left, we were also given some hollowed out gourds (don't worry Denise, there are no giant ants in them...) that they used as musical instruments. You play them by blowing across the holes -- like you would on a beer bottle...

The adult learners sing us a good-bye song... it was like being in a musical...

With our various visits for that day finished, the UDEBA guys dropped us off at a hotel on the beach, some 10km away. The weather was not that great so it was kind of dreary and depressing... luckily, later in the day, the sun came out and transformed the place. The warm Indian Ocean had some good surf going and there was a nice breeze. We ate at the hotel's restaurant and learned another lesson in Mozambican "patience" before hitting the sack in anticipation of another day of visiting projects...

Sunset at Xai-Xai beach on the Indian Ocean.

Back in Maputo... update coming...

2008-11-17T08:54:00.004-05:00

Wedding Ladies...

2008-11-08T13:11:00.001-05:00

The Sensualness of the Maputo Fish Market

2008-11-08T11:27:00.008-05:00

One of the two entrances...

What a sensual experience the Maputo fish market is...

Here's the way that lunch there works: first, you wander around and take everything in, then you buy the fish, shrimp, clams, lobsters or crabs that you want. Rather than taking them home, though, what you do next is absolutely brilliant: you walk a few metres over to one of the many little restaurants that line the market's outer edge, pick one and then they cook them up for you! Now if that isn't a bloody great idea, I don't know what is... No thermobags or shlepping ice around in the sun, no sir, from the stall to the grill. Y ya.

To see what colour they turn after steaming, see below...

So there you are, surrounded by touts, all of whom are trying to entice you to go to their particular restaurant (and trying to "help" you choose your meal... and you're like, dude, it's fresh seafood, it's not that hard...) and at the same time, the fishmongers are calling out and catching your eye, holding up their products, showing them kick and flip... and the colours on the lobsters and fish are amazing... everything is beautiful--even the big crabs covered in mud--and the crustaceans are still crawling and get this, the clams are actually spitting water! yes! there they are, chilling--literally--in a big bowl and every once in a while a wee spurt comes out... "hello! pick me!" they seem to say...

She was proud of her prawns...

So you're in total sensory-overload mode and you're having fun and trying not to lose your money, either, because you never know when a pickpocket is lurking about... you're hyper aware... and you haven't even eaten yet! Then, when you're sitting there waiting for your food and sipping some cheap, house white, these really nice girls come by and offer to sell you fresh peanuts and cashews. At first you say no but then they smile and ask sweetly and how can you resist? And besides, how often to you have big cashews delivered right to where you're sitting? So now you have salt on your fingers and tongue and it mixes with the crispness of the wine and you're happy...

Ah! And there's your food! The prawns arrive first; the meat is perfectly cooked and because they took the time to get some really good coals going, it's nicely offset by that wonderful and honest char-broiled taste. You're among the first to eat this afternoon but now the tables are filling up and people are looking at your feast enviously...

...and here's the plate of softshell crab... rosy-hued and eggshell thin, utterly succulent as you bite and suck... and at one point you go into your own little world as you savour the sweetness of the meat and taste the sea in your mouth...

Now you're done and doing a final walk-about the market. The touts are gone; you've already eaten. You admire the lobsters once more and promise to come back another day... then cross the aisle to thank the crab seller who is rightly delighted that you loved them and he shakes your hand the African way... like three times in a row... And now, just before you ring your cab to take you home, you slip the prawn lady the two bottles of Coke that she had not-so-subtly asked for earlier...

She looks at you, smiles and says "anytime..."

The nut-seller girls taking a break...

Maputo... (now with added frango!)

2008-11-06T15:14:00.005-05:00

Lemon and garlic grilled chicken at Macanata, Maputo.

Boarding and disembarking from the ferry, Maputo.

Ferry across the bay.

Razor wire and flowers in the nice area of the city.

One of the main streets in the nice area.

Central market. A great market with fabulous produce.

Half a kilo of freshly roasted cashews... : )

Mozambique deco.

Mozambique delapidated...

Sleek.

Just something about this building that i liked...

These two are consecutive numbers on Mao Tse Tung street...
(this will only be interesting to Caledonians and Orangevillains...)

The Bad Thing About Travelling For So Long...

2008-11-06T14:13:00.000-05:00

Various pieces of bad, disappointing and sad news have arrived from friends at home – I wish that I could teleport back and spend time with people… Hopefully we can talk on the phone soon – I’ll buy an international phone card and we’ll try to find times that work (it’s a 7 hour difference now, I believe).

One Of Those Moments

2008-11-06T14:11:00.003-05:00

People who know me know that food is important to me, that I appreciate what I eat and that when something is good, I speak up. I’m speaking up now because this afternoon, I had one of the best lunches of my life.

After we finished doing some email at a local internet café run by a very helpful guy from Mississauga (!), our new friend suggested a few places to eat. The pick of the lot, according to him, was Zambi, an up-scale resto down on the maritime drive and far enough from the downtown that we would never have found it on our own. He said that we could safely walk there during the day so we decided to head over for lunch and scratch our itch for some Mozambican prawns, about which we had heard so much...

The walk was nice and we passed by a pretty interesting juxtaposition… ie: shiny new shopping mall across from dilapidated old warehouses… Maputo is changing quickly but at the same time the blight remains, a testament to the war and its aftermath.

I’m getting used to being the only white guy walking around--it’s a good lesson in being a minority--but here in Maputo, there really are not many tourists and if you do walk about rather than take a cab, it’s quite the experience. People are universally friendly (sidebar: even the two cops who just shook us down when we popped out to grab some light snacks were relatively friendly. They demanded to see our passports and then asked for money so that they could get a couple of pops… we refused to hand over cash but did drop off a couple cans of Coke and some chips on the way back to the hotel…)

When we arrived at Zambi, we saw immediately that it’s not a tourist joint: more like a place for power-lunches and high society types -- judging by the number of suits and the jewels on display. Our being white foreigners helped us in that we were not exactly dressed-up (especially me in my t-shirt!). Nevertheless, a warm welcome was proffered and that led to the quick choice of a two plates of medium-sized prawns and a salad accompanied by a couple glasses of house white, which was both ample and good.

The prawns were sliced length-wise and lightly grilled before being coated in an exquisite butter, lemon, carrot (!) and garlic sauce. I’ve been lucky enough to have eaten many shrimp in my life (not least of all during my stint in the kitchen at Red Lobster in 2nd year and during my stays in Spain) and I can remember some pretty fabulous meals featuring them… especially the time that Josechu’s dad bought a paper bag full of live ones in Valencia and they walked themselves to the pot… now that was fresh! But even those couldn’t hold a candle to these at Zambi: the combination of freshness, the grill and the butter was wonderful and the fact that they never seemed to end (more than a dozen on the plate? I lost count) only added to the feeling that this was one of those meals when everything falls into place and the combination of taste, place and moment all combine to make for something special.

The Catalan prawn saying (you have to love a culture that has a saying for eating shrimp!): “Xup el cap i suc els dits” [Suck the head and lick the fingers] certainly applied here and the slightly grainy and bitter taste of the head provided a savoury contrast to the sweet flesh. Since Hélène refuses to eat prawn brain, I got extra. (Stephanie: this totally reminded me of the birthday lunch that you treated me to in Chicago when we had those fried shrimp heads [something ebi]… ha ha, the look on the Midwestern lady’s face was priceless…)

The shared dessert after this feast of crustaceans was a gem in itself: a chocolate fondant with a very thin crust and nicely cinnamon-infused chocolate that streamed out when liberated from the cake. Mmm! And I’m not even big on dessert!

A café to finish and then a nice walk back downtown and one of the best lunches ever became a deliciously recent memory…

Welcome to the Twilight Zone...

2008-11-06T14:06:00.003-05:00

En route: Windhoek - Jo-burg.

When they say that you need patience in Mozambique, my first impression is that they are not kidding… From the moment that we got near the LAM transfer desk in Jo-burg, everything slooooowed down… luckily, we had some 4 hours to kill so passing 1 of them in a somewhat chaotic queue was not a problem.

Arriving in Maputo was a fun scene: we stood in line to have our passports checked and then had to buy visas. After yelling at Hélène because she told him that she needed a visa (he apparently heard her say that she didn’t), the border guard took our money and passports and disappeared. Everyone else filtered through except for us, a young Saudi woman, a couple of Americans (one wearing an Obama shirt) and a group of 4 Japanese guys who were waiting for their local Japanese contact to facilitate their entry. Well, when she appeared, she certainly displayed a novel way of dealing with the slooooow border guards: she started screaming at them, telling them that they were doing things wrong and that they had made mistakes, etc… You can imagine how well this went over… but she didn’t care and in the end there she was hectoring a group of three of them. At one point one of the female guards started parroting her way of speaking in a high pitch and fast delivery (not exactly a banner moment for race relations, that…) and then told her that she had to “relax” and “speak sloooowly…” Eventually, the issue (whatever it was) got resolved and they left. We were among the last to go, and as a result, it was pretty late by the time that we got to our backpacker’s hostal.

Maybe it'll be nice one day...

Now, I’ve spent the night in some dingy places… that basement in Windsor in ’93, with the spiders and boiler that sounded like it may explode at any minute; the alley in Paris outside the hostal where the manager dude had woken me up in the middle of the night by masturbating next to me, and thus obliged me to pull my knife; and well, the Brisas del Occidente in San Pedro Sula did not exactly pour on the amenities at $2 a night (yeah, 2 bucks…). That said, it has been a good long while since I’ve been to serious dinge and after seeing some very nice and affordable lodgings in South Africa and Namibia (especially the Chameleon, where 25 bucks a night gets you a fantastic room with bath, a pool, a spotless communal kitchen, fun bar, internet facilities AND two cute puppies running around), this place was quite the unhappy shock. First of all, we had to wake up the night clerk, who was dozing/passed out while a couple of groups of hippies drank merrily. She was pretty out of it and just hostile and unhelpful enough for us to take the benefit of the doubt and throw it away... When we trucked up to the room, we noticed that the whole building was a construction site – dust and mortar everywhere, workers’ soiled clothing, beams, tools, the works… Then, when Ms. Cheerful opened the room that she thought was ours, she discovered people already in it… which precipitated a reluctant return trip for her to the reception to find the right room/key. When we did get in to the proper one, I had to immediately kill a cockroach (albeit pantry size, not prime Mexico racing stock) before she left us by reminding us that there was no bathroom in that part of the building and that we had to use the other ones outside… OK, no problem… it’s a hostal and that’s the norm… but then we SAW the bathrooms… vile, vile, vile. I wouldn’t have washed a flea-ridden dog in them (and I could have done, because on top of everything, this place had 3 poor wrinkle dogs that were constantly scratching and rubbing themselves against any and everything to try to alleviate their constant itching…). Yes, charming place. Oh, and the mosquito nets were kind of tattered too, but luckily, there weren’t too many mosquitoes around that evening so the malaria danger factor seemed low. Remembering Rosa’s wise words that everything is temporary, we had a beer and then retired to the room, pretty much set on being good bourgeoisie and finding a better place tomorrow (today).

Inside the net.

This experience has helped me understand the guidebook’s nuances… ie: when it says that “there isn’t a lot of good, safe budget accommodation in Maputo and that most people choose to upgrade a bit,” what they really mean is “Budget accommodation is utter shite; pay a little extra and get a clean place!”

Lesson learned! By 10am this morning and a new sim card installed in the phone ([258] + 846042992 for those who would like to call), we had a couple different places to crash for the next few days…

Leaving Namibia

2008-11-04T08:27:00.007-05:00

Our 4x4 on a clean day...

Tonight's my last night in Namibia on this trip. I'm going to miss it; this is an absolutely fantastic place and a real joy to visit. The people are incredibly friendly and well, the sights, they're simply awesome...

I'm very glad that we travelled with Philippe for those 12 days. Having him around totally helped me get out of my comfort zone in terms of doing things that I probably wouldn't have done (like camping for 12 days!) and as a result, I got to see so many more great things and meet some wonderful people.

Favourite places? In the bush: Spitzkoppe by far... that place is magic. Etosha was nice but there's just something about the granite at Spitzkoppe... If you ever go, I think that our campsite was #35 (or maybe #30) -- right around the first outcropping. And as for the urban areas: Swakopmund by far. Pretty much the ideal climate for me and a real sense of community. The crazy German factor in Africa also cannot be underestimated in terms of making it unforgettable.
Tonight we'll go out for dinner with Philippe Talavera; this morning we were briefly back at the conference centre to see the hip-hop artists teaching the kids some moves... let me just say that I have a new appreciation for the art! Very, very intricate! Some of them were having problems picking it up but hey, who am I to judge???

Flight to Joburg tomorrow aft and then on to Maputo in the evening... time to pick up some Portuguese, I suppose (or at least speak Catalan or Spanish with a Portuguese accent...)

Solitary tree at Sesriem.

Interesting juxtaposition here at the very comfy Chameleon Lodge in Windhoek.
The bottom flag is the estel.lada, the Catalan nationalist banner.

Shipwreck Pics from the Skeleton Coast...

2008-11-04T02:25:00.002-05:00

This wreck is just north of Swakopmund.

pics by Hélène.

Not Quite the "Plastics and Chickens" in Honduras, But Close...

2008-11-04T02:21:00.004-05:00

Store of some sort in Cape Town...

Dance Dance Revolution... to the Perfection...

2008-11-03T07:06:00.005-05:00

Yesterday was another good day and one of those when I found myself doing something totally foreign to my "normal" activities at home; which is good. The plan was to wait for the OYO driver to pick us up at the hostal and then get a lift with him to a conference centre outside of town. All went according to plan until he tried to start the truck... and nothing. Sounded flooded and after a quick inspection, we noticed that the choke was sticking on but even after waiting there was nothing and we spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what to do next, how to get the other truck at the organisation's HQ, etc. In the end, we pushed the first truck into the hostal's guarded carpark and then waited for the driver to fetch the other vehicle. Out came the Zizek and I was very thankful that the breakdown had happened in front of our temporary home and not some 10 kms out on a gravel road in the noonday sun.

We eventually made it to the centre and Philippe Talavera, the director of OYO and good friend of Monica's, had thoughtfully switched his program around a bit so that we could see him directing his troupe of young dancers and singers in their rehearsal of both new and old material. The group is made up of 4 guys and 4 girls and they are very good performers. One of the women obviously has had drama and dance training; she's got "it" when she performs and easily commands the audience's attention. The others, though, all have their strengths as well and are quite impressive, especially since many of them have only been involved since April. A couple of weeks ago, they all went to Berlin and performed their dances and songs on their first international tour. Now, they were practising for events surrounding the official premiere of OYO's new movie (the one about gang-rape that we showed last week to some high-schoolers). What is more, a film crew from the UK had flown down with 2 hip-hop artists and were documenting the troupe's preparations. The camera operators were cool to talk to and the guy even confessed to being a hockey fan and threw out the magical words: "Doug Gilmour..." ahhh, Dougy... damn you Gretzky and your non-called high-stick back in '93! Damn you!

Anyway, it really was fun to watch these rehearsals and interpret the dances; they all revolve around the themes of discrimination, AIDS and violence, etc. and employ contemporary music but also some classical pieces and Phillipe certainly isn't afraid to let the dancers get pretty physical and kinetic in their movements.

Afterward, I got a chance to talk to a few of them and it was really interesting to hear their takes on Berlin, on what they want to do in the future, etc. When a couple of them mentioned all of the contacts that they made on their trip, I took the opportunity to remind them that following-up is important and that they shouldn't be embarassed or shy to write people and just stay on their radar... 'cause that's the way that networking is done in the North and sometimes, you just have to play the game... especially if you've only got something to gain and nothing to lose by trying.

ps: "to the perfection" is another charming Namibian expression...

Swakop Images

2008-11-02T02:17:00.003-05:00

There is some nice architecture in Swakopmund.

And you're steps from the sea...

The currents are treacherous, though, and there are lots of shipwrecks...

Back to the Heat

2008-11-02T02:07:00.001-05:00

So after 4 glorious days on the coast, where it’s always a delightful 20 degrees or so, with a cool breeze and nice cloud cover, I took the city hopper shuttle to Windhoek this morning. Here, it’s 35+ degrees. Quite the difference and so much so that my body kind of shut down in the afternoon, my lethargy easily turning into one big siesta. When I woke up two hours later, I had that same zombie-like feeling that I used to get when I took marathon naps in Valencia way back in ’89. Ha ha, I can still hear Silvia’s voice chiding me over the phone when she’d call: "Pero Bob, la siesta es corta. De dos horas, no se hace…"

The trip here was uneventful and followed one of the two best roads in the country. I did have to ride along with some of the most verbose Germans I’ve ever met but in the end, managed to stave off their incessant questioning and dig into a nice chunk of Zizek. Yes! A happy side benefit of my sojourn in Swakop was that my academic brain has finally come back to life. I made headway on a couple of essays and was actually excited to read about the "negation of negation" – thanks Slavoj!

Windhoek is not the most beautiful place in the world but that’s fine. The place where we’re staying is very nice and comfortable so the wait until Moz will be nice. Tomorrow, we’ll go a conference centre outside of town to watch Philippe Talavera teach the visiting UK hip-hop troupe some of the Namibian dances, etc. And I hear that there’s air-conditioning… he he.
Oh, and before I forget: we had dinner at the swankiest KFC you’ve ever seen this evening. I wanted to thank Alpha for looking after Helene during their days out in the field so he came over with a friend and I told him I’d treat them to dinner. Their instant choice was KFC, so that was that.

From the "What Was I Expecting?" File...

2008-10-29T15:08:00.004-04:00

On my own for a few days here in Swakop and so I decided to do some research for the hotel book -- namely, seek out the best place in town and see if I could finagle my first martini in almost a month... : )

So there I am at the Swakopmund Hotel, which is nicely housed in a beautiful old train station... the lobby is fine, with the requisite big comfy chairs and, oh, there it is, the lobby bar! And it appears to be fully stocked (not always a given here in Namibia) and there's more than just Amarula (Angelique...). I approach and tentatively ask whether I can have a martini... the barman says yes and as he pulls out a dusty martini glass (first bad sign), I offer that I would like one of the dry and gin variety. He looks at me perplexed... I decide to not push and resign myself to my luck. Herewith (a favourite word in Namibian English, along with "whereas") the formula:

Asking for a martini in Swakop = receiving a martini glass full of straight white vermouth ("Martini brand") with ice and a slice of lemon... otherwise known as = a tight temple headache roughly 30 mins later...

Happily, my gastronomic luck was better than my alcoholic chance and after consulting with two very nice ladies in a bookstore that I had happened to wander into (one the owner, the other, the Italian proprietor of a local cafe) , I was directed towards the Grapevine, a very popular restaurant for which reservations were de rigeur... lucky for me that one of the ladies happened to be a good friend of the chef and so, having taken a liking to me, I suppose, she armed me with a simple note to transmit to him. It read: "Please find a space for him. Thanks. Paola." Thirty minutes later, there I was sitting at a table enjoying some great wines and two wonderful courses: local asparagus soup (no cream!) and oryx medaillons with spaetzle and gooseberries... yum! wines: a delightful sauvignon blanc (Minelle...) and a rare Merlot/Pinotage mix that had some bottle age on it. A very good recommendation!

Dinner at Grapevine's...

Field Trip

2008-10-29T04:23:00.006-04:00

Straight-to-the-point detail on the OYO mini-van

Yesterday, we went out to a local school with the great people from OYO, the group that we had contacted before we left Toronto. They do HIV/AIDS awareness programs with youth via the arts. Luckily, the regional boss from Windhoek was in town so rather than hitchhike, we got ot roll out there in a really funky mini-van that has been painted with all sorts of slogans and images... It gets a lot of looks!

Uh, I think I get it... maybe...

6 of us went to a high school in a mining town some 60 kms away and after meeting with a rather harried principal, we showed a bunch of the learners (what they call students) a movie that OYO had recently produced on a gang-rape case... heavy stuff...

There was this one girl in the assembled crowd who totally impressed me. She made a lot of amazing comments during the Q&A after the screening and really stood up for women's rights and took a bunch of the posing moron guys to task for saying that "no doesn't mean no." She was really engaged in the movie and in the discussion and was getting pretty worked up and passionate about things even though she looked shy when she wasn't in the heat of the moment.

I tried to encourage her afterward by saying that I had really liked her comments and that she looked like she was going to be a leader. The smile on her face when she told me that was exactly what she wanted but that she knew that she had to overcome her shyness first gave me goosebumps. Man, thousands of kilometres away from being a teacher and the basic fact that a few words at the right time can maybe mean a lot to someone is underlined again... I hope that she goes far; she certainly looks like she will.

Does the Pentagon Know?

2008-10-27T12:32:00.003-04:00

So out in the middle of nowhere, we came across this bio-weapons lab...

And then some joker wrote this on the back of our truck:

(everywhere you go in Damaraland, people are trying to sell you gems, etc. or key-holders. Yep, lots of key-holders. With your name carved on them. The first time a guy came up to me and asked my name out of the blue and how to spell it, I was kind of wondering what was up and then seconds later, he handed me a personalised little beauty with "BOB" etched into it. We all ended up with one. After that, whenever someone sidled up to the car and casually asked what are names were, we would tell him and then volunteer that we already had key-chains and the poor guy would look crestfallen... but one only has so many keys...

Spitzkoppe: Where Philippe Could Have Bought a Kid

2008-10-27T11:39:00.004-04:00

Savanna

We almost didn’t go to what turned out to be perhaps my favourite place in Namibia: Spitzkoppe, a fabulous mountain in the Demaraland. We were all glad that we did, though. There’s a superb community-run campsite around the base and some of the campsites themselves are soooo cool. Check the pics, if you don’t believe me. The granite rocks are easy to climb and the views out over the savanna were breathtaking, especially at sunset. Then, when the stars came out…magic.

Sunset at Spitzkoppe

We hired a guide to take us around right when we arrived and he was pretty good – although he did seem more interested in the Liverpool match on the radio… After he showed us the main cave drawings at the site, he rang the pueblo and directed us over so that we could see a real Demara village. Well, not the swankiest place I’ve ever been and when he further elaborated that we would be visiting the house where they make their own beer, my stomach had distinct Memories of Amoebic Dysentery in Honduras… The crew at that place were exceedingly friendly and we drank a bit of the beer in the end (tasted like a meady lager) and then bought a big bottle of it for 2 bucks. As I bought the suds, Philippe was busy talking to some of the more lubricated locals, one of whom first offered to give Philippe his dog and then told him that he could buy his latest baby for just 500 american dollars… ay yai yai… We booked it out of there and thought we were heading back to our campsite, which still had to be set up before it got too dark, but no, our guide told us to drive up to a nearby shed and said that he needed a drink and a cigarette! So out he hops and pops into a Namibian cantina… he told us to have one too but we all demurred although I’m sure that it would have been one helluva story had we got hammered and then driven back the few kays to camp…

Campsite at Spitzkoppe

Dali’s Giraffes

2008-10-27T11:36:00.006-04:00

Giraffes in Etosha Park

Last night at the first campsite in Etosha, I had one of those moments of overlap – not déjà vu, per se, but rather when scenes in your mind’s eye not only coincide with learned images that have become archetypes of common imagination (think: the posters in a 1st year’s university room), but also with what the retina is taking in at that very moment… This happened as two very skittish giraffes, having finally drunk after almost an hour’s equivocation, moved away from the watering hole adjacent to the camp (you can sit some 20 metres away and sip beer or wine behind a small stone wall and an inclined fence that in no way would stop a mildly perturbed lion). With the roar of an only briefly-glimpsed big cat ringing in their ears, these lanky beasts glided into the hazy darkness that marked the boundary between the yellow floodlights’ ken and the dark savanna’s inky reach. They moved further and further and in that precise instant of nether, they became for me Dali's giraffes, my mind stretching their limbs and knobby joints, elongating their necks even more than nature had already generously intended… they were the dream at the edge of an artificial day carved out of the night for tourists’ pleasure, striding shadows in negative, spotted tall yet diminishing still…

With Apologies to James Merrill…

2008-10-27T11:08:00.004-04:00

Last night I dreamed the dream called “Clean”…

Tonight is the last night of the “4x4 camping in the wilds of Namibia” phase of the trip. I can’t say that I’m going to miss that green tent attached to the cab of the truck. No sir. Ready for a real bed again and most of all, ready to be able to escape the heat and dust. Did I mention the dust? I feel like grass-cutting/landscaping Bob from many years back… and yes, ha ha, even my carefully cultivated “priest’s hands” are gone; those of you who have only known prissy dressed-up Bob probably wouldn’t have believed that I would eschew the Oriali and Hiltl and bespoke for desert gear and cargo pants... It’s good to change things up a bit, though—and that’s part of what this is all about—but yes, I am looking forward to being clean again… : )

What is more, these last couple of days have been especially hot and this morning in the shower (showers! a benefit of staying here in Etosha’s swank campgrounds), I realised that my core temperature has probably gone up a few degrees as I kept pushing the cold water tap to the right and then felt deflated when I realised that it was already as far as it would go… Swakopmund’s cool breezes are looking particularly attractive right now…

Addendum: Ok, so that last night in the tent was pretty brutal – VERY HOT – no air flow whatsoever and on top of it, the rains have started and with them, the mosquitoes… little bastards… and SO LOUD… it was possible to hear them buzzing outside of the bloody tent and I spent a good couple of hours battling the ones that penetrated the less-than-hermetically sealed canvas box… wouldn’t have been so bad but in your heat-exasperated, sleep-deprived state, the fact that any one of the buggers may be about to inject you with malaria gives things an added edge…

Addendum #2: Am now back in Swakopmund, where it is gloriously cool here beside the Atlantic, just south of the Skeleton Coast.

Namibia Part 1.

2008-10-18T03:51:00.012-04:00

Dune 45.

So how does one get as far away as possible from sitting in an office at St. George Campus of the U of T? By going to fucking rural Namibia… to the goddamn desert, that’s how… This very thought came to me yesterday, as I lay in bed (in a tent attached to the top of a 4x4 truck) and tried to get to sleep over the sounds of various critters prowling about outside… The fact that I had never felt so dusty and dried out only heightened the utter disconnect between my circumstances 2 weeks ago and what I’m experiencing now. And this is good. This is partly why I’m on this trip and why I agreed to do the rural Namibia odyssey: to get out of my comfort zone and to challenge myself, to deal with new things (like driving through sand dunes at 100 kph, or on a more serious note, worrying about things a little more primal and base than tenure decisions or book contracts such as “will we find a safe place to sleep tonight?” or “what the fuck do we do if this truck breaks down?” or “how do I reconcile the sheer disparity of experience between myself and the man who assured us that our truck would indeed get through the soft sand at the entrance to Homeb and that no, the jackals wouldn’t be a problem at night”). Being utterly disconnected from everyone is hard for me and man, here in Namibia, when you leave a big town, you may not see another soul on the road for hours… seriously. There is NOBODY out there, let alone an internet kiosk that lets you stay in touch. You’re lucky if there is cell coverage (we have Sarah’s unlocked Sony Ericsson phone… “you’re gonna be a rock star…”.

Campsite at Sesriem

As for the desert, I like it but shit, I would never live out there. The constant dust in everything, the parched land and skin is unreal. At the same time, the beauty of the sun rising over the giant dunes between Sossuvlei and Sesriem is something that I will not soon forget. We got up at 4:30 so that we could pack up the truck and drive the 45 km to the aptly named Dune 45 where we climbed up the spine of the sand dune (not as easy as it sounds) with about 50 other people and then watched the sun come up from the top… And if that wasn’t enough, we then kept going the other 20km to Sossuvlei proper and hiked in to Dead Vlei, a totally surrealistic landscape of dead trees in a dried lake with majestic dunes serving as backdrop… totally stunning but man, oh man, very hot out there.

Dead Vlei

Checking things out in Homeb.

Sunrise at Dune 45.

When we left that park we were headed towards to Walvis Bay and had it been me, we would have just stopped at the first empty campsite we came too because we didn’t have a permit for that night and my mind was still working on the Canadian assumption that there are park wardens, etc. Well, if there are any in Namibia, we haven’t seen them… In any event, Philippe convinced us to push on to Homeb and after some scary incidents involving sand (full disclosure: we got stuck in some soft sand earlier in the day at the popular dune site and needed help getting out, so we were very leery) we made it just in time to set up before full darkness fell. A local man from a nearby village brought us some firewood and started it up for a small fee. I cooked some venison steaks and rice and we ate well far, far, far away from anything in the rest of the world.

When Helene and I first arrived in Windhoek a couple of days ago, we had to wait almost an hour and a half for Philippe to pick us up because he had made the car guys replace the 4x4’s two front tires. I am very glad for that wait given the roads we’ve been on. Luckily for us, Phillipe is used to driving long distances on gravel roads in Quebec and when he saw the wear on the treads he told them “no way.” We went to do a grocery and then 20 km later were in the outback… only gravel roads (the graders are heroes here as far as I’m concerned…) and magnificent scenery that continually changes as you traverse regions.

The Jack Bauer in the Desert look... ha ha!

We arrived in Walvis Bay this morning and checked out the waterfront while looking for flamingos that we learned later, are still up in Etosha National Park… After a quick trip to see a salt plant, we drove to Swakopmund, a German colonial town that will be Helene’s and my base next week as we job shadow a contact who does AIDS awareness with children. This place is crazy – SOOOO german and here in southwestern Africa… Namibia is truly a diverse country…

Here, I got to use some internet but may well be incommunicado for another week until we return on Monday next. I hope not, because being slightly connected helps keep me stress-free… and writing and reading emails from friends as well as news from home helps me deal with the culture/class shock, which is not inconsequential this time round…

When Dead Space Comes Alive

2008-10-14T15:48:00.003-04:00

Driving back from the East, madly trying to get back to Cape Town in time to drop off the car and not have to worry about finding a safe place for it during the night, I saw something that utterly transformed my impression of a banal space that I had always taken for granted and thought was either wasted, or deserted or both... the grass islands where expressways meet, on-ramps converge and service roads end.

In the outskirts of Cape Town there are massive shanty-towns with very spotty entrances/exits, which means that people walk kilometres, jump fences and-- mum, close your eyes-- dash across 4 lane highways to get home after work. When you drive into these zones, the normally plain and static highway architecture suddenly becomes vibrant, chaotic and disturbing fluid... you have to avoid people running in front of you and, at the same time, resist the temptation to watch in the rear view mirror to see if the next group made it or not... because there may be more people in front of you.

But people crossing carriageways happens everywhere here in South Africa... what was singularly different about this particular area, though, was that when we passed the green verges, we saw groups of kids on them... and they weren't just sitting or hanging out, they were running, jumping and playing soccer... Simple really, given the lack of green space in the township housing area... So their means of compensating has been to occupy the most readily available piece of grass... and reclaim a space that is never used, except by grasscutters (a trip back in time for me) and illegal garbage dumpers. They have brought to life a dead space that previously only held blank aesthetic value -- a green frame for the concrete roads. Still, if the ball goes out of bounds here, it is really out of bounds... completely dangerously so...

But what does one do when there is no alternative?