Lima II- tinny singing christmas trees, mime artists and rightous old men.

"We wish you a merry...."

"jingle bells, jingle bells..."

Rudolph the red nose ...

Silllllllllllleeeeeeeeeeeent niiiiiiiiight*

te de deee ti de deee ti de di de deeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee..... beep bip bip. bip bip bip bi.....

*in spanish!

December 27th- Lima's historic centre and night markets.

It was a few nights after Christmas, and still they sung on in the 30 degree heat. Fairylights adorned trees singing sugary sweet, tinny music into the hot night.. Out of date Christmas songs that must have grated the ears of those working those post-Christmas nights.

We were wandering round a city centre park, sporadically lit up by lurid lighting amongst the singing trees, colonial churches, food sellers and street artists.

Having checked out the night craft market, we wandered until we found a crowd. Holding fort were a couple of mime artists. Half baked jokes washed over us as we sat in the flickering half-light.

Couples promenaded, children ran and we chuckled along with the crowd. Eyebrows raised every so often to reassure the other that the reason for the laughter sometimes went right over our heads, even as the laugh itself tugged at the sides of our mouths.

And the mimes jumped and squeaked and ran and fell. And the crowd tittered and oohed and aahed in all the right places and the coins went in the pot.

We were in a mini Colosseum- a round, seat tiered hole, with our non-violent black and white adorned lions running riot in the middle. In amongst the youngish crowd, a benign Cesar sat, up on high, aged, wrinkled and worn, apparently half dosing as he lent on his wooden sta..stick.

Yet not all was well in the land of this little amphitheatre. Even as we sat beneath our weathered Cesar, all smiles and laughter and with his metaphorical thumb definitely up, usurpers were gathering forces round the ringside. 

Security guards, no doubt driven to point of bureaucratic madness due to the incessant tinkling of drivelly electronic xmas-trash, stormed our little theatrical haven, declaring an end to to the show as the black and white lions weren't officially registered, had paid for no licence, and were as thus being illegally gainfully unemployed.

[- security guards should really know that storming mime artists' turf tends to lead to mimicry and jokes at their expense-]

With half a serviant face, as the other roused the crowd, the artists slowly mimed the slow process of packing up. No food on the table tonight. Painted smile tuned to off. The slow trudge of the repressed. And the hands silently orchestrated the crowd's protest.

The Guards were firm- you have got to go, 

the law must say, and the the Law says no.

Cheeky hidden smile as the crowd shouts their plea,

 they were bringing us smiles, all smiles can't you see?

And the guards are uneasy, not sure what to do. 

The law is our job, but they have this crew

of happy belligerent watchers- 

now watch as they shout out this fight...

argh- !get reinforcements!- a phone call 

and then the strategic flight...

soon a blackblue uniformed huddle- 

and then a brave one comes forward-

no look here chaps, he starts to say, 

this is all quite untoward

a civil disruption, we must keep the flow

of people here promenading, 

and then off into the night they go.

Uncomfortably standing by 

the limits of reasonable force,

just one more unfair action- 

part of the city's nightly sauce?

Yet. now here our Cesar raises his weathered head

"now enough is enough, and enough is what I've said

be off, you show stealers, and leave the smiles to us"

all punctuated with the walking stick, now arbitrator of all this fuss.

And the Arena's played out it's nightly play- comedy to morality- and all to say

the crowd sometimes wins, the crowd's sometimes right,

. this is a travelling memory, warm... and bright .

Late December 2007: Lima

Having left Chile veeeeeeeeery early on the 26th Dec, Jenny and I started the first leg of our trip with a stop-over in Lima, capital of Peru, before continuing the trip proper, which really started in Caracas, Venezuela.

In order to not to spend 12 hours in transit in Lima, staring at institutional walls until we decided to climb up them in delirious boredom, we decided to stopover for two days and see what the city had to offer.

As turns out, it was a brilliant idea. From the off, Lima grabbed us and took us with her- we were both sad to leave and venture into far scarier Caracas.

Lima. Well, Lima, where you don't hail buses, buses hail you.
Where the trees sing: tinny Xmas songs that must drive all those working nearby to the brink of nervous exhaustion and beyond.
Where the plums taste of caipirinha (no, really). Home to amazing ceviche, friendly locals and as much colour and music as you can deal with.

So far, so guidebook. Where to start really?

For us, 'Lima' started right at the airport : no taxi, no tourist bus, but straight out onto the motorway with our "worlds" on our backs and 'hidden' (sort of...) bound round our waists.

We were promptly hailed into a noxious gases and reggaton spewing mini-bus and spirited right into the centre. For all the Espanol going on, we, suffice to say, stood out. Jenny is very blonde by South-American standards (as am I, coppery brown hair notwithstanding), and apparently person-sized backpack wielding, blond(ish) girls aren't quite de rigour in Lima, as it soon became quite apparent.

Yet there was such a "beginning" feel to the whole ride, sitting sandwiched, balancing the precious camera-case on the bag tower and trying to hold on for dear life using my abs, as I had no holding hands left.

This was more a tourist than a traveller stop: Miraflores is quite a gentle introduction to Lima.
We hadn't the time to do more than just skim the surface, and decided that our first two days should ease us in, not leave us staggered by the culture and poverty gap. This doesn't mean however that we didn't see the "real" Lima, or "real" Peru. Or at least, I don't agree with such concepts. We saw how a certain, reduced slice of the population lives: and that sometimes sheds interesting light on a country, when reading between the lines.

Miraflores is a calm, residential area on the sea, with nice bars, cheap 'almuerzo' shacks, good restaurants (for a westerner, anyways) and a few "too cool for you" size zero fashion shops.

We had a great time in said shops gasping at the prices, ranting at the ridiculous body-shape ideals propagated by the designers and, in my case, being convinced out of spending £2 on cute, if pointless and DIY-able strawberry earrings. As far as the prices were concerned, they were still at least less than a third of London prices in similar shops, but wages are... significantly lower-- it seems that it's around £80 a month minimum wage - and often in the informal sector the legal minimum wage is but a distant dream.
[ Funnily enough i recently spent £2 on a pair of cute, if pointless and DIY-able strawberry earrings in one of the bricklane markets here in London.]

Miraflores also has a 'conveniently located' Inca relic: the Inca pyramid for city-dwellers too time poor to leave the city walls. perhaps?

Our themed dwellings- the Inca lodge, no less- were a pleasant base surrounded by cheap cevicherias and a nice walk from the sea.

The Miraflores seafront really brought home the difference between poor and middle/upper class South America. A far cry from the inner city trade area we'd just visited (although walking distance we'd been advised, nay begged, to take a taxi, rather than cross the invisible line between affluence and poverty unprotected), the sea-front felt like we'd walked into an "exotic" family sitcom on a day trip to the beach.
This Miraflores isn't the Peru I had been told of, it isn't the Peru one expects to see: it was sleek modern architecture, and groomed open spaces. Sculptures and a mosiaced wall covered in love poetry. Caucasians in high class sports gear running along the cliff front as radiant expectant mothers waddled and exercised the bump, with babies and toddlers playing on the lawn and riding along on brand new Christmas tricycles.
It was powder-puff-pink sundown over the ocean, with adrenalin junkies paragliding and europeanate Peruvians and tourists alike wondering what restaurant to have dinner in.
It was the glittery facade of dusk's lights, recorded for posterity by hundreds of identically whirring, shiny, automatic, walking, talking, singing and dancing brand new Christmas cameras.
And although calming, and soothing, and interesting in its own way, It isn't what I travel to experience.

Indeed, the inner-city trade area we'd seen that day, full of bargain markets and the kind of shops that are seen as bric 'n brac in poor neighbourhoods, and called retro or antique when wishing to sell to higher bidders, gave us an example of those fuzzy feel-good chance encounters that one does travel the world to feel, if only to experience them all the more when they happen at home.

part II pending

10th December 2007- boats and memories

The 10th December 2007 saw me at the beginning of my 2007-2008 southern hemisphere summer/christmas (!) holidays.

I was with my parents at this point, on a utterly bizarre Chilean cargo-cum-passenger ship. The Navimag

I run up to the top deck, the wind shocking me with its force.
Buffeting my hair this way and that, baggy trousers flapping, alive at the cold touch of the icy air through the crocheted holes of my jumper.

It has a surprising force. With some difficulty I get up to the front top deck- dad's the only other person up there. I run past, staggering slow-motion, and lean over the front.

I'm completely permeated by the wind- its sharp coldness, its strength, its roar.Rushing though my holes and around my whole.

I turn to dada, take his headphones- stylishly cordless of course. The music is calm, majestic- rising...

The ship form where he is standing- somehow protected by the wind- is proudly sailing over the great expanse of grey. No longer a small, flaming-dolphin adorned cargo-passenger ship, she is a HMS special, flanked by mountains, rolling clouds and golden rays breaking through from the new blue above.

I try and lean over the front but it doesn't work- her majesty is lost in the infernal roar- this wild me contrasting with the sleekly designed headphones.

"It's not what I would have chosen."
Dada considers, taking them back. Half-smiles. "It's incredible. The music is in time with the boat"
I smile back "Not from where I was standing."
I flee.

The back top deck is all mine. I skit about marvelling at how the mood changes.

My wild boat, the wind molding it and manipulating its inhabitants.

Dad's space of calm- Stravinsky's 10th Symphony

A man joke screams as he scuttles to the cover of his warm AAA cabin.

Muted, drowsy viewing from the captain's deck. This amazing light lost to dusty windows; roar tuned down to a polite murmuring.

I need to write.

I consider the scene- my permeated self, the flapping of my pin-stripes, my curls.

Patches of the grey lagoon, silver in the misty rays of new light.

I need a pen.


So here I am, perched on a bench in my ski-jacket, wielding a borrowed pen.
Sat halfway between my wild and dada's calm. Buffeted enough to feel alive, yet calm enough air to write.

My writing with borrowed pen reminds me of me- this ink doesn't seem to know if it's coming or going: faint, then strong, then lost again.


It's such a weird boat this one- Saga holidays meets a Chilean cargo ship.
The average age seems to be over 60... with about ten exceptions!

It makes me strangely restless, I have pretty much eaten two books in two days- living vicariously though their pages- slightly groggy with this speed trip through two other's worlds.

28th July 2008 Home (well almost. in tranist in Dublin)

28th July 2008

Alive and well in the British isles, having paid €15 for a full irish breakfast, including coffee, and fresh orange juice. It’s good to be in my expensive wet cold corner of the world again.

It really is. Home. Home. Home. The thought of home is a wide smile and a hardly controlled urge to cry.

It started yesterday evening, as I was walking through Williamsburg, a cidery smile on my face. Home.

Happy I saw this new New York, happy I finally made some unfinished stories for myself in the city. And Happy to go Home.

Just one hour more of flight, Dublin to London this time, and I am home.

Back to terccaota and black chessboard tiles. Back to an airy kitchen and rose and strawberry gardens. And the pub and friends and pool and cider.

In borrowed blue jeans and an old clock pendant. Ripped bule jeans to my mum’s displeasure. Wonder if I should change before I see her, yet wonder if that would be denying her the pleasure of criticising my messiness.

Home. Where some of the heart is.

21st July... in tranit.. yet definately leaving South America

And here I am. In the slightly nightmarish bubble reality known as being “in transit”.

Having left my room at 03:10am Chilean time, sans sleep as packing till the end, it is now 9 hours later and, post baggage-weight, lack of Chilean ID and too-much hand luggage troubles, I am in Lima. Hoping to somehow make it to San Salvador and then New York…

I Have thoroughly completed the undignified 'leaving-a-country-which-almost-became-home' experience.

I... packed until the LAST minute. Yes.

Was sent to the wrong desk. Yes. (although luckily the lady allowed it, as I would have looked really stupid if, after sauntering past triumphantly, I’d had to go back to the back of the queue again…)

Was made to undo bags in the airport to balance weights. Yes.

Had two bags, eventually, of EXACTLY the right weight. Yes!

Will be fucked over in New York as baggage allowance there is stingier. Yes….

Lost ID card so immigration guy actually uttered the words. “IF you haven’t reported the loss of your ID card to the police you can’t leave”. Yes.

And finally, I almost cried. Yes.

There are rumours of only one hand luggage being allowed here. I have two bags which stretch the concept of hand luggage to its very breaking point.

I have a hostel in Brooklyn which is wither a three train one hour journey away, or a $50 cab…

I have about my body weight in luggage with me (this MAY not be an exaggeration.. I have 46 kilos of checked luggage and two mahuuuuusive hand luggage bags, which could quite possibly weight ten kilo a piece. In which case I have more than my body weight with me…)

a post-post-scriptum.

And to round it all off nicely, although I did make it to New York in one piece with my 66+ kilos (146 pounds) of luggage, I lost my visa-waiver rights to combined stupidity (my own) and ridiculous bureaucratic inflexibility (US immigration, need I say more?).

Needles to say I took the taxi!

Fragments

And there I was, and am?
I want to keep my blinds on, keep on staring at the shadows, not accepting this cynical ‘real’, this undermining of my ‘feel’.
The weirdness of it all- of lives lived and somehow lost.
Did I really do that, feel this, be it? Be me?
Finding the codes of that alphabet I made up- the Rosetta stone of a lonely teen. Each stroke a key to that old me, the old ‘I’.

So here we are, now?
I like the time travelling aspect of weed- what it does not how it feels. The “Oh.. so we’re doing this now?” The implicit idea that this now isn’t so fixed.

Like a river never flows twice, neither do I. Fundaments and bases ever shifting- this ‘unbearable lightness of being’. For all the strutting and philosophising on the stage, this player’s play will only be played once.

And so we write.

Characters in perpetual search of an author. In search of actors to act out those facets of our own play that were lost on ourselves. Writing out those wrongs we let slip by the first time. The last time. Thos things we let slip by forever.
And so carpe diem. Seize the day as it is an almost extinct species..

21st May 2008: What is the political? And can we ever be impartial

As part of my thesis research I’m finally pushed into the subaltern world of the human rights activists. Most groups can be characterised by wanting to bring perpetrators of human rights abuses to justice, although recently more attention is also being paid to Mapuche indigenous rights.




21st May 2008
What is the political? And can we ever be impartial?

Not quite an impartial observer now, am I? The scene, from behind the squared weave of the raglan hood, Abu Ghraib-Style, seems oddly calm. I stand, head bowed, watching the flash of cameras in the foreground, with a military ceremony behind. Berating my slowness in Spanish, as well as wondering where exactly I now stand from a methodological point of view. I am, after all, not a sociologist (not really a historian either, but that’s another story) yet being part of a protest can’t be the best way to “objectively” get a feel for the human rights group. Yet. Yet, maybe it is? Was I ever really going to be impartial? Was my work ever going to really stand back and look on impassively? And also. Would that even have been a good thing?

I arrived to the FUNA (Chilean human rights organisation) meeting point just on time and was given, well, to say I was given a lukewarm reception would be adding too much “warm”. My presence was acknowledged and tolerated. Taking the hood, and thus agreeing to actively take part in the demonstration and not just watch, may, I feel, have been a needed show of goodwill on my part.

I stood there at the meeting point for a good twenty minutes observing the scene as the crowd assembled. Everyone there had been affected by the dictatorship. Most of those present were sons, daughters, nieces, nephews and even grandchildren of the disappeared and/or tortured. I'd been told that FUNA is different as it represents a new generation, socialised to take up the fight of the old. The leaders seemed all to be around the 40-50 mark, and maybe half of those present were in or around their twenties.

The scene from behind my checked mask seems to be changing. I notice tense looks between the photographers, as the police behind seem to be swirling in increasing menacing ways. The chanting of the protesters had been getting louder, gathering momentum, and it’s obvious the Robocops are starting to see it as a threat. I feel increasingly vulnerable, standing there in my hood. I glance to side and see all the pseudo “prisoners” are getting jittery. A couple tears off their hoods, looks at each other and then the girl grabs the guys hand and they flee, jumping the police barrier as a platoon of robocops descend on the scene. SHIT! I’ve already stored the hood away and I’m considering following the couple. I can’t be arrested- as I’m here on a student visa, they can deport me for political involvement.

Is this a political act? Could I be deported for this? It’s a human rights demonstration, but anyone who says that isn’t a political act here, misunderstands contemporary Chilean society.

We’re penned in- robocops- police in full riot gear, helmets and shields in front and to the sides, and a metal fence and the Mapoche River behind. I’m blessing the metal fence as people start shouting “What! Do you want to throw us into the river?!?” and one of the organisers starts shouting into her megaphone “And now, the FUNA human rights group is being brutally repressed for trying to exercise their right to free speech” and chants go up in the penned in crowd.

I’m panicking- claustrophobia grabbing at my throat, looking around for someone to follow as we are squeezed closer together and the police start to channel us over the river.
Violently I cough, eyes prickling. Tear gas! What! I can’t believe it… this was a non-violent protest by no more than 30 people [according to the FUNA website, 100], and we are being “controlled” by exponentially more police with riot gear and tear gas… Tempers flare… I’m trying to keep my head down... (I really can’t afford to be arrested) and try and keep a clear head. At the other side of the bridge is a police bus... they can’t mean to detain us all? What are my odds if I leg it? Slim if they want to follow really… People are being “restrained” around me… four police to one protester, slammed against the metal side of the bridge... fuck... this is getting nasty.. An organiser shouts at them to not push..."we will go if we have to” she says, “Just don’t push us”… from what I can make out, she’s arrested for merely talking back…

We get to the bus and are again hemmed in- police on three sides and the bus in front. The police grab people and push them into the bus… It seems carrying a flag is a crime now. A boy, who can’t be any older than eighteen, is grabbed by three policemen,, his flag impeding the officers in their attempt to force him into the bus. It's chaos- a 3 square metre riot. People are shouting, crying from the teargas, crying due to panic and fear, avoiding batons, avoiding batons and the like hitting their very young children, trying to stop people being hauled onto the bus, trying to avoid be bundled onto the bus themselves. It eventually leaves with about half the protesters and all the commission leaders.

There is a strange lull after the bus leaves. We are defeated, as it were. Flags to the ground and tear-stained faces. A few disjointed robocops stand about unsure what to do with the remnants of the micro-riot. Market traders try to re-jig there stalls, although trade is looking unlikely.

I’m not sure what to do- the commission leaders were who I needed to talk to, yet it seems disloyal to leave now.

A Mexican women is arrested as she leaves the scene alone, and I take it as my cue to go.

This fragment is just one facet of a much wider discussion about the Chilean police and their heavy-handedness. It is especially important as the Chilean police force is held up as a South American example, yet their continous disregard for civil liberties can only be understood withihnt the context of a society that has also priveledged order, over freedom.

This is to be continued.