Poetic Nairobi

Loads of churches and church related schools and unis

Loads of armed security men at every entrance 

Roads are like a motor-museum, as entertaining as polluting: Classic english models from the fifties to modern art graffitied glow in the dark busses 

Red earth and scattered clouds contrasting the the blue on top there 

Down here trees stand relaxed, secure of themselves , this is THEIR place

Massive woman heeling up and down, their femininity dressed up in as many colours as possible

And how do walking men keep their shoes shiny and their suits clean will forever remain a mystery

Kindness

Surprise

Sadness

Distrust 

Are some of the feelings their eyes show, from the littlest ones to the most senior ones 

Attentive and happy is what they are despite all 

Proud is how they stand 

Africa is Africa and you can feel it in its beat , a rhythm of its own 

Elephants inside the supermarket , giraffes directing traffic from atop the roundabout and the feeling that all those things that would be oh so inconvenient at home, are what give this place an air of romance, a sight of when in Africa ... 

ITS SUNDAY MORNING

   
FUCK STYLE
Stylish as we think they are, Romans have a fétiche with the tracksuits, I guarantee you. I used to think that they wore them for flights scarifying style in name of comfort, since they are confined to (or in?) a tin tube and no one can see them. But spending a Sunday morning (and a few more days) wandering around the cafés and parks and streets of the roman hoods, I scientifically proved that they just adore them! Fuck style: Wear tracksuits! Yells Rome, to my horror, in my face, this not too chilly February Sunday morning.
Ding dong go the bells, men run or ride, families and older couples pop in and out cafés for espressos and walks. And everyone seems to have a dog. And dogs seem to be frisky and friendly with each other and any other thing they can rub themselves on. People say dogs are like their owners. Maybe they get a kick from the ding dongs... Who knows?

home-made : lets remember

home-made

Line breaks: home-made

Definition of home-made in English:

adjective

Made at home, rather than in a shop or factory.

 source: The Oxford English dictionary 

 

 

the social phenomenon of parents and kids on board and aircraft

A POLITICALLY INCORRECT ESSAY ON KIDS AND THEIR PARENTS

 

(So to all those sensitive readers, stop reading here)

I had a situation which many of my colleagues will be familiar with. 

Aircraft. Boarding. 

A kid comes on his own running like he's about to miss the flight, though there are 289 souls queuing to get in behind him. I stop him and tell him to wait for his parents because on his own his not going anywhere. He might have had some sort of attention disorder, or maybe he plain simply did not understand what I was talking about, he runs into aircraft in an attempt to run up and down the aisle during the boarding process -good luck pal-. So again, this time grabbing him by the head I tell him to wait by my side until his parents come on board. In a more assertive tone. He stays three seconds before he tries to run away again. I pulled him backwards by his hair, stopped the boarding process and yelled at him to stay where he is. 

Where streets have no name

YET EVERY TREE is botanically signalled

Angkor Wat (Hindu? Buddhist? What are you, what am I?)
Trimmed as neat as a soldier's head. It commands you to relook at yourself, within this environment, to reevaluate yourself upon such an expression, such symmetry, such decadence ... such perfection. Even before you are done with the amazement, you are ordered to question life in ways have never done before.

What lies upon your eyes, the grounds in which you stand, the buildings that have been telling stories for thousands of years and never finish falling apart. No. You haven't been in a place like this before. Or will you ever do again, rest assured.

Sun can be killer. When it is, think what it was like for those erecting and maintaing this with zero robotic technology. All of a sudden your soul feels heavy (with guilt if you are a good catholic girl) or with whichever heaviness you choose to put upon your shoulders. The sun becomes colder than the arctic circle.

Many other little temples
The many other minor temples visited before Angkor Wat, each in a different way, are all screams of magnificent majesty. Only humans believing themselves gods could have, not only foreseen, but carried away such constructions. A clear reflection of what they thought they were.

Bayon(?) 
Bayon looks back at you from e v e r y   s i n  g l e   c o r n e r . Happy to receive you, stern and so imposing.


Confusing on the first level, intriguing on the second, again this questioning phenomena, doubts, imagination: it's all triggered at once in this playground for the mind. And a feeling -still wondering which one it is- cooks up slowly in your stomach. What is it? Will someone ever know ? Will I ever be able to let go form this?

And Angkor Thom (literally, in Khmer, The Great City) Is it the Monastery or is it the Jungle? Eclectic poem, decadent ruin, ruined while trying to ruin the jungle. Jungle keeps winning. Roots taller than people (and though yeah, it doesn't take much to be taller than me, they are taller than many other people). Roots adapting to every building set on stone and blood, bricks give up. Roots grow up. The sky is always there to reach for. Always a bit higher. There go the trees. Higher than high.

Incessantly elevating their bodies and souls to those heavens that belong to Gods that we don't know but that still look after us, minuscule beings, under their shade. Take a deep breath. Relax. Take a while and inhale it, absorb it all . These gods, these trees, they know we need a place to stop and let things sink  in, and here is where that happens.

All expressions are exaggerations, I promise I'm not exaggerating. The centipede was big as my hand, and my tears were real, as real as every day gone by here.

It's dark when I arrive and the ride is fairly short. I can't see as much as I wish. But I feel it enough. Vibrant, with a character that can't wait to show off. Seems like it will have some style too. 

The sun rises right in front of me. I sample a variety of local and exotic fruits: each one of them deserves to be savoured.

The dust of the street and the smog off the exhausts,
The lactic acid of the pineapple and the sweetness of the mango,
The freshly baked to french perfection baguettes and the amok, lok lak and other spices,
The style... NOthing else than remains of French Influence
...It all comes together in one big sticky darkish  cloud, don your light blue mask, blend in:

Welcome to Phnom Penh

Contradictions, horror, poverty, beggars, endless tuk tuk offers (scientifically proven about 472 in 3h).

I name the next bit of my thoughts DISAGREE, because you might.

I don't dine in 5 star hotels/restaurants (not all the time), I dine in USD5 beer included shacks with plastic chairs and riverfront view, only 'coz life happens in the riverfront.

At some of them the risk is that miserable poverty will walk into you. Choking you if you dare take that ready to go spoonful. I walk through this misery every day, trying to ignore as gently and peacefully as their existence. But truth is such misery, such poverty is never gentle or peaceful, not even to the strongest soul or the most stubborn mind. Not psychologically.

There they are, staring at you, them, their potential costumer's meal. Here they are, staring at mine. And yes, I am weak and vulnerable. I can't help feeling awful. Even though I have earned it. I can't feeling blessed, for the chances I had and they didn't.

I invite him in . 'Can you read? (the menu - and I hope he didn't take it bad), choose something, keep me company if you want, because I'm not getting a book from you'. And it was fine with him. And his little -what I thought: sister-

I was beginning to feel better until he started telling me his story, how one day the Khmer Rouge Regime came in, split the family and never saw anyone again. And how when it was over he had nowhere to go, no education, not a thing.

'But how old are you?' I inquired, trying to hide my disbelief. To me, before he told me the story, he was 15 years old.
'31' he shot back at me, 'and you?'
Only after choking I was able to reply my own age. How sad is it that he just looks like a 13 16 year old because he just never grew up! Not enough food. Dear me, dear you, dear all of US! And me carrying these few KG extra.... He could do with'em.

 Then, he went on with the story, a friendly restaurant owner allowed him to sell books inside his establishment, to leave a bag with a set of clean clothes, to take a shower each morning before school and wash up the other set of clothes. 

Until here we are, one evening like any other, talking as if friends. He's desperate to get another 40USD to pay the monthly school fee because he doesn't wanna let go the whole year for not being able to pay the last month. I salute him.

Oh man, you can see in his eyes how hard he tries, but even more, how much harder life tries on him. And just like him so many other "kids" (that probably are 20 years older than what they look, because they starved  so many years).

And as well as I know that comparisons apply only to bitter people (and the only bitterness in me is the sense of humour) I can't help comparing. Thinking parallelisms with my own people. There is misery, there are forgotten places. And also there is fomented poverty and happy poor people. Poor form the soul, that prefer a social plan than a decent job. That prefer free money (for drugs and alcohol, and who am I to judge?) than a decent job.  Even if they wanted to go to school, back home, it'd be free. I rest my case by saying that most people in Villa 31 -THE shanty town– have a satellite tv. Here in Cambodia: little money but a clean spirit.
"English? Is the future, I learn at school"

And that's the dark side of the city and not the annoying tuk tuk drivers. It's the misery, the desperation, the insistence. At the same time, they are respectable human beings who treat you as such and expect nothing less but the same.

The bright side?
There is no violence.
There is no fear.
There is no paranoia.
There is optimism.
There is a moral to be learnt.

That's priceless.
Sorry, what was I complaining about last time we met?

Beautiful Lil' India

He smokes bidis, she covers her head.

There is a library, and people actually still use it. 

There is a colonial look, a great vibe and a romantic feeling. Utopia.

Until there were they, westerners, with shopping bags, presents. -Forgiven, because of the Christmas Season, and because who am I to judge anyway...-

Monsoon. Grey. Apocalyptic. High Clouds. Breeze. Sticky air.

Usually I would take one way to go, another way to come back, not to miss anything. But so absorbed are my eyes by just the one side of the road that I might actually come back the same way to stare at the other side of the road. And it will happen guilt free. (Oh yeah, don't we good catholic -at least in theory and paper- girls know how to feel guilty about it all?)

As I approach the neighbourhood, I feel the looks. Try to ignore is all and the best I can do: keep walking, don't look back.  Stares, flowers, masalas, incense, mangos, 24carat gold, spices, colours, lizards; they all coexist in a chaotic harmony that can only happen in Little India. There would be no harmony if it wasn't for this overly populated by men chaos. I am the only woman I can see in the streets for a long time. I am used to this.

My obsessive compulsive addiction for incense has great chances of receiving a decent fix today.  This place is home for different smokes and aromas. Might actually have to try one of each. My blood boils with excitement.

Next to the electronics' store it smells fresh grassy green, coconuty, minty. Next to the BMW parked outside a store of all wooden deities ever imagined pepper itches my nose.

Chinese platform little black shoes. They have a ribbon on top. Open toes. I am blessing the absence of rats in the streets the moment I almost step into a dead pigeon. Aick. Drops the size of who knows what start falling from heaven.

And how welcome they are. They make the air softer, lighter. 

Meanwhile I share a table at the hawkers food establishment with a group of what seems four Indian workers. They look at me eat my food -veggie curry- with my hands and they can't help giggling like little girls. I know my fingers, no matter how much I lick them (is that allowed by this protocol?) will be yellow until well into the night if tomorrow. Suck it, I don't care, it tastes delicious. 

Little India

Singapore

Sept.2012

Living in The Eternity of the Cyber Universe

I am outraged. 

Last night I found out that everything we do say and write or happens in the net, same as Vegas, stays in the net. No way to Undo. OK.  I will forget about eight out of ten of that stuff in less than a week anyway.

But what really got me, flipped me and drove me totally insane -ok, I have a life, it wasn't as bad as it sounds, but you get my point?- is that I have a gmail account, and that comes with so many others that I didn't ask for, didn't even know they exist, don't know what they are for and last but not least and worst of all HAVE a life of their own. So when I try to mutilate those parasite accounts, I can't. 

They are a pest for which I have no pesticide. Nobody has it, or maybe Mr.Google does but won't share the recipe. This is such a violation to my rights. To everyone's rights. 

First I thought I'm just a computer dummie and can't find the link to de-activate such accounts. Then I email a friend asking for advice and releasing my tension and frustration of having been publicly sharing some info without even knowing, then I sleep and today I went on with my research to find out there is no solution and a whole lotta bunch of people in the same situation. And there are heaps of forums of people complaining about the same. 

I'm talking to you Mr. Google: 

do you think because you are a stiff ass nerd computer genius with a lot of money you can do that? 

Well, you are so damned right. Because you actually do it. 

But I hope you know what you are doing is SO WRONG!!

why don't you share THAT with the whole cyber universe Mr.G?

Since when can the net decide for me to what services do I sign up for? If they at least informed me -in a way I understood that they are informing me that I am being signed up for something that I don't like, don't want, don't even know what it's for AND HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO ACCEPT OR ACCEPT- I wouldn't be so upset because at least they had the decency of letting me know they are doing with my cyber life whatever their unhappy arses feel like. But instead they rob me of such basic rights as knowledge & decision making.

Or maybe it's a generational difference? That Mr.G cool dawg here thinks he can do whatever he feels like simply because he is the boss and I am to accept simply because I am not the boss? Naye, I don't think so. I bet a lot of older than him people feel like I do too. At least if they know how it works...

We should unite forces and not let these things happen! Fight for our rights!! I wish I could cancel my Google account but if I do so I'd loose my blog. And you, dear readers, would loose me. And we don't want that to happen. I know...Sad. In the end, it's always all about me. haha.

Shame on them all!

OH MY!

I found this one almost funny. 

Islamic Woman to Launch French Presidential Bid in Opposition to Face Veil Ban

"PARIS (The Blaze/AP) — To Muslim women who wish to remain hidden behind face veils, France’s law forbidding they wear the religious garment is considered an attack on their freedoms. These women have been protesting the regulation since it was put into place back in April.

One Frenchwoman — who wears an Islamic face veil in protest — is turning heads, as she announced Thursday that she wants to run for president in next year’s elections.

Also Thursday, a French court fined two women who have refused to remove their veils. All three women are part of a growing attack on the law that has banned the garments from the streets of France since April and prompted similar moves toward a ban in other European countries.

They are bent on proving that the measure contravenes fundamental rights and that women who hide their faces stand for freedom, not submission.

“When a woman wants to maintain her freedom, she must be bold,” Kenza Drider told The Associated Press in an interview, discussing her bid to become a presidential candidate.

President Nicolas Sarkozy strongly disagrees, and says the veil imprisons women. Polls show that most French people support the ban, which authorities estimate affects fewer than 2,000 women who wore the veil before the ban.

Drider declared her candidacy Thursday in Meaux, the city east of Paris run by top conservative lawmaker and Sarkozy ally Jean-Francois Cope, who championed the ban.

But her activism is nothing new; she has been vocal for months about her opposition to the veil ban. Back in May she said, “I would rather go to prison than take off the face veil.”"

7 days, (local newspaper) Public Interest News

Bin Laden deleted as facebook friend

Al Qaeda leader had 1,000 fans

Of Heaven and Of Hell, what I can tell...

I don't know i

f I can tell

Heaven from Hell.

Sometimes, 

I believe, 

they are associates 

in the dirtiest 

of societies:

Humanity, 

dual and bizarre, 

definitely unique; 

S l a v e s   a n d   S o v e r e i g n s  

of Themsleves.

En el barrio "condenados a muerte" hierven en la hoguera de la ignorancia millones de almas sin esperanza de siquiera imaginar cuánto existe más allá del humo de la pipa más dulce o del bamboleo de una metralla. Hierven a fuego lento en el movido rincón al que llaman corazón, pudriendose, sin siquiera enterarse, de tanto rencor. Danza el temor en el estruendo y resplandor de cada noche y son detenidas, en el día a día, la inocencia y la conciencia: Que se esconden con sus ideales para no ser aniquiladas.

Y del otro lado, donde todo esto existe en los papeles de un bosque desaparecido, como cuento de hadas, fabulosa e irreal, donde brilla bañada en oro y se pasea la riqueza con tanta franqueza.

Queda congelada, en una raya de asombro, la imagen en su cabeza. Muchas veces se reconocen en el espejo, muchas otras se repelen solo con el miedo de reconocerse. Y cuantas pasa que se rompen corazones con el ínfimo e íntimo -y efímero en esta vida eterna- encuentro de las miradas, de lo real y del fiel reflejo, el encuentro del deseo corrupto y el esclavo impoluto y maloliente? O los rompen los malditos sentimientos, esos que se escapan del cuento de hadas y leen el periódico de mañana, igual que el del año pasado y que el del siglo anterior: 

         corrupción, paz, culpa, amor, odio, paz, orgullo, amor, remordimiento, paz,, rencor, amor, temor, paz,, fanatismo, A M O R , p A Z , F e l i C  i D a D ?

Düsseldorf,

Jan 2009

Reconciliation no matter what!(?)

Scary as it is, this is the society I live in.

This is the place where in a way, I am "at home".

Creepy as it sounds, I am happy here.