Christmas in Aley (a Druze community)

Christmas in Aley
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

So for a Druze community, the Christmas decorations are out in full force. Little white and colored lights everywhere. Santa Clauses on front lawns. The shops in the souk have Christmas trees and garland. Red and green galore.

There were no decorations or lights during Ramadan.

The Druze say they’re not Muslim. Though officially and historically, the religion developed in the 1000's in Fatimad Egypt as an offshoot of an Ismaili Shiite sect. But to me, it seems that many are wanna-be Christian. My Druze students are for the most part very anti-Muslim and have a strong affinity for Christians. One day, a kid yelled out, "Who thinks Christian is better than Muslim?" And the whole 7th grade class raised their hands. This kid also said Christian is better than Druze.

Some Druze go to church. It might be a function of not being able to go to their own house of worship or to know a lot of the substance of their religion, unless they decide to become “religious." (The Druze are a bifurcated society where about 10% choose to become religious. It entails having to dress a certain way and attend certain religious ceremonies.)

Since the Druze religion is philosophically esoteric, Bahai-like, believing in aspects of all religions, many don’t see a problem with going to church or to mosque. Because theirs is the final revelation, all the previous revelations are shadows of the true Druze religion. So officially Druze can participate in other religious services.

However, much of the affinity towards Christianity has to do with social status and class. Christians are at the top; Muslims are on the bottom. The Druze are probably somewhere in between, even though many would claim they're on the bottom. Christian culture is associated with open, modern, Western ways, while Muslims are often associated with Palestinian refugees, Hezbollah, and the all-hated "dirty" Syrians.

Of course, not all the Druze are anti-Muslim. I have plenty of friends who have Muslim friends and Qurans and even go to mosque. But I am often surprised by how positively I am received by this community because I am a Christian. I don't think it would be same were I Muslim.

I live in a Druze community—2nd Draft

One of my Druze friends who’s reading my blog thinks that some of the posts are childish (hmmm. . . never been called that before) and many are just straight up offensive.

The sheikh is someone worthy of respect and authority, who regulates conflicts having to do with families and matters of state, not dealing with silly things like the shebab. I’m belittling the community and the religion.

And why am I dissing the Christian guy who wrote it? He's not a bad or ignorant person. In fact, why am I talking like I'm in the academy? That posturing where you always have to diss other people's work, because that's what academics do. Why do I think the sarcasm about studying strange people groups is so funny. I'm just trying to pretend that I belong in the academic crowd, but of course, it's just criticism without substance.

And Lebanon has some of the best hospitals and doctors. You don’t go to the hospital in Lebanon if you want to die. I did do my eye surgery here. And even tested the doctor. When he told me he studied in Houston, I asked him where the best Lebanese food is. “Sami’s.” Check, that’s near where my sister lives, at Hillcroft and Westheimer. Obviously he hadn’t made it out west enough towards Katy to try Phoenicia’s. (That’s so funny. Now I kind of understand the Phoenicia thing. A lot of Christians here refuse to call themselves Arab. Though they speak Arabic, they don’t want to be ethnically linked to Muslims. So they call themselves Phoenician.)

In my attempt to be witty and to make it interesting for you, my readers, I’m mocking and ridiculing Lebanon—a place which I’ve fallen in love with.

I don’t like my pictures of Aley, either. I show so many sheikhs and sheikhas. I don’t show how everyone else is dressed, which is mostly like people in the U.S. and Latin America.

Transport: Serveece and Vans

Traffic
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Beirut has a system of shared cabs called service. You stand on the street; the guys slow down; and you tell him the place where you want to go. Half the time, he makes a tsk noise, tilts his head back, and drives off. It seems kind of rude if you're an American, until you learn that this is how Lebanese people say no. If they're heading there, they tilt their head sort of down and towards the door. Sometimes they'll say "Serveecein" which means you pay 2,000 Lebanese Lira, instead of 1,000, which is what service also means. LL 1,000 = U.S. $.67.

So it's a cool idea, and obviously way cheap. But there are a couple problems. It usually takes forever. Not only is traffic in Beirut horrendous, but these guys are always looking for customers, so they slow down whenever they see anyone, and since there can be up to four people in the car, you are often taking detours along the way.

And then half of these guys are major jerks. Like once you're sitting in the car, they'll start renogiating the terms. You looked at him straight in the face and said "Service?" and he nodded down, which means L.L. 1,000, but then he'll start saying that where I want to go is farther or something. Or sometimes they just tell you a different price when you get there. One time a guy drove me literally one minute down a couple side streets, just because I didn't know where the place was, and he charged me 5,000. What the . . .??? I was like No Way, Jose. He was getting aggressive, so I just took out the 1000, dropped it on the seat next to me, and opened the door. But at this point he was grabbing my leg and yelling at me in Arabic. One woman I know was followed out of the car by the chouffer, who then spit on her. So I decided to just give him the 5,000.

But then, of course, they can be nice too. Yesterday a guy took me to a nearby street so that I could take a servicein to Solidaire. He wouldn't take the 1,000 when I gave it to him.

Now the vans are the other way of getting around. I have to take them a lot since I live in Aley. Roller derby is an understatement for the way they drive. I risk my life everytime I get into one, especially since it's on the super windy Damascas highway, going up the mountain. People get concerned for me because they're filled with Syrian workers. (The Syrians are to Lebanese what Mexicans are to U.S. Americans, but the culture here isn't so P.C.) But I've never had a problem, and usually they play good Lebanese pop music. It's just that the driving is way, way crazy. But these are things you get used to when you're not in the U.S.

Cell phones in Lebanon

Political cell phone covers
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Extortion. That's how the Swiss guy in Frankfurt described the cell phone system in Lebanon once I broke it down for him. In this country, there are two cell phone companies which are pretty much the same. People buy cards consisting of a certain number of units for a certain amount of time. A 30 day card that gives you about 150 speaking minutes costs about $50. That is a HUGE amount of money for the people here, considering average salaries might be $400 a month. So if you don't recharge your card by the 30th day, you lose your units. When you use up your units or after the 30 days, they give you 5 days where you can just receive calls, but if you don't recharge before those days are up, you lose your line. Which means you have to spend around $70 for a new phone number.

It's a horribly ridiculous system. There is no competition. Apparently it's all run by the mob. The people of Lebanon went on strike last summer, abstaining from using the cell phone on Mondays. But that did nothing.

Even landline usage is super expensive. And there's no voicemail because that would take someone's units. People SMS a lot. And there's developed a mode of communication called the missed call. People decide what the missed call is going to mean beforehand, like I'll give you a missed call when I get there. This is kind of stressful. You have to really think about if you're going to pick up the phone when someone calls because you don't want to take up their units.

And check out the cool cell phone covers. From left to right, there's Walid Jumblatt, the head of a Druze political party, son of Kamal Jumblatt, who was killed during the Civil War. Hafez Al Assad, the late president of Syria. Mousa Al Sadr, a Lebanese Shiite leader who disappeared visiting Lybia in the 70's. And last but not least, Rafik Al Hariri, the Lebanese Prime Minister who recently stepped down. Hariri's company, Solidaire, has been responsible for rebuilding Beirut since the end of the Civil War.

Since most of the Druze and Christian Lebanese people I know can't stand Syria, I don't know who would go around with Hafez Al Assad on her phone. If I went around with Al Sadr on my phone, I'd be considered some sort of radical Shia sympathizer. It would be like going around with Che Guevara stuff, which is very popular here also. But if I go with Walid Jumblatt, that would gain me a lot of brownie points, since I live in a Druze community.

I live in a Druze community

The Sheik's Store
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Dilek bought a book called, On Being a Druze. It's an anthropological study of the "strange" Islamic Shia, Ismaeli sect that is the predominant religious community in Aley. Practically all of my students are Druze, and almost all of the teachers. Most of the people don't seem to know too much about their religion. Druze can only go to their house of worship, the khaluee, if they are religious. Which means they have to make a big decision to live a certain way--I don't know what it all entails, except for the dress. The men wear baggy, black MC Hammer pants, with some sort of white cap. It's higher and fancier, the higher up they are in the hierarchy. Women wear long black skirts and long-sleeved black blouses, with a white head scarf that only lets their eyes show. They are called sheikhs and sheikhas.

So the book is written by a Christian guy and makes the Druze out to be a strange, to-be-studied people group. But it says something in there about how the sheikh traditionally regulates conflict in the community.

Up the street from where I live, a sheikh and sheikha own a corner store. (You can see it in the picture) I buy about a kilo of tomatoes from him everday along with khibiz (bread), laban (yogurt), canned sardines, and other stuff. Also along the street are the SHEBAB. The Arab world is full of the SHEBAB. These are groups of boys, sometimes teenagers, sometimes a bit older, who just hang out. I'm used to the shebab. They always say something or make some noises when I walk by. I had been told to just ignore them. If I respond to them or even look at them, it would get worse. And then I'd get this bad reputation in this small town for being a loose American woman.

It was fine at first. But then they started picking up more English. When they asked my blonde American friend, "How much?" as she was walking back by herself one night, we decided we had enough. And then she remembered. . ."Hey, the sheikh regulates conflict in the community."

So we went into the store, and I related my big problem to the sheikh in my broken Arabic, but he definately understood. I know how to say "Shebab," "big problem," "they say things not good." He knew what I was talking about.

So a couple days later, we told a Druze friend about what we did. He was skeptical. First of all, conflicts have to do with divorces, problems between families, not the shebab harassing women. And then he told us the Arabic saying, "Don't count your beans before they're on the scale." I think we say something like that in English about chickens.

But really there have been no problems. Three of them walked right past me the other day and said . . . nothing. SCORE! That's a big deal. Way to go for anthropological studies.

Walid Jumblatt came to my neighborhood today to open the new Druze courthouse across the street from my school. To see pictures of the festivities and my school go to www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum21.html.

Lasik in Lebanon

Lasik
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

This is Dilek and me before my surgery.

When I told my students about my surgery, their faces went blank. "You had the surgery here. . .in Lebanon?. . .Why? You go to the hospital here if you want to die."

"Miss, you can't trust the doctors here. Right now your eye is fine, but just wait, in a month or two it will explode. We can see it getting bigger. . . It's like in the souk--they put the good tomatoes on top to cover the rotten ones."

This was on Tuesday, after I had my first eye done. They told me not to go back the next day for the left eye. "Just have one good eye and one bad eye. Don't risk it, Miss."

Aren't 8th graders cute?

Field Trip #4: Zurich, Lucerne, Frankfurt

Kathy and I in Zurich
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

So the biggest surprise about my trip to Zurich was how much I missed Lebanon. I missed hearing Arabic and saying the silly little phrases I've learned and having people smile and chuckle when I say something cute or funny. Coming back to Beirut, I felt like I was home.

The big shocker was the weather. It was seriously cold, and made me grateful to be in Lebanon and not in Boston. I had to buy boots before I left because I've only been wearing open-toed shoes.

I was soooo happy to see everything decorated for Christmas. It kind of made me homesick, but grateful to be getting my fill. Seeing Kathy was great, and meeting her cool European, mulit-lingual, mostly investment banker friends. We had a fondue one night. Melted cheese in a bowl. I also had roshti, which is like a tater tot pancake. The food here is pretty heavy. I tried not to overdo it on the chocolate; I only brought back a shopping bag full.

You can check out the pictures at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum20.html.

"The Dying Lion of Lucerne" is a big lion carved into the side of a rock. According to the tourist brochure, Mark Twain called it "the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world." I wasn't so moved, but I was moved to have read Mark Twain's words. I love that guy. (He and James Baldwin are my favorite American essayists. . .I know you wanted to know that.)

I also went to the Picasso museum in Lucerne. There were a bunch of great photos of him in his last years. He was amazingly prolific, and he really comes off as a family man. Though we all know he was a philandering scuzzball and so much of his stuff is straight-up pornographic (I don't care what those art experts have to say.)

Here's a good Picasso quote (or at least my paraphrase of it): "I knew if I went into the army, I'd become a five-star general. Or if I went into politics, I'd become the President. But instead I went into painting, and I became Picasso." He's hard not to love.

Field Trip #2: Afqa

Caving in Afqa
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

We took the kids to Afqa to do caving, archery, rock climbing, and a zipline. There was also some mountain biking involved. I ended up walking my bike most of the time. But it wasn't too embarrassing because there were two other girls having issues. So it just looked like I was being a good chaperone. Ha, ha.

I guess only some of y'all have been priveleged enough to witness my Pee Wee Herman-esque biking skills. Remember when he flips in the air, lands in front of all the cool kids, wipes himself off, and says, "I meant to do that." That's one of my all-time favorite lines from a movie.

Okay, unnecessarily random tangent. I think I'm blogging too much.

Politics as usual

So I guess I´ve found myself in another country with a political situation. But it´s really nowhere near as tense or crazy as Caracas. (Did you read my Chavez blog? Yes, the people did confirm his presidency in the referendum.)

1559 is the U.N. resolution saying that all foreign presences need to get out of Lebanon. That would be Syria. Since the end of the 17 year civil war in 1990, Syria has kept thousands of troops in Lebanon. The current President, Emile Lahoud, is generally considered a puppet of Syria´s government. At some point this summer, it was decided that Lahoud´s presidency should be extended beyond the six year term limit, which goes against the Constitution. This made some people upset; they claim that Syria is running the country--imposing their guy as President and wantonly amending the Constitution.

Some of these upset people include the Druze. (See the previous article.) An important minister in Parliament from the Chouf (a state in the mountains), Marwan Hmadi, protested and walked out of Parliament. His car was bombed. It was a big deal. That kind of stuff hasn´t happened in downtown Beirut for a couple years. The guy didn´t die, but his driver was killed.

That day the souk in Aley closed. That was strange; nothing here was open. The event was followed by a week of no electricity from the government. The government said there was no electricity, but everyone knew that was BS. It's their method of trying to distract the people. There was a lot of tension brewing in the Druze community; some people were upset and wanted revenge. So the government tries to defuse it, by taking away the power and making life more inconvenient. These people lived through a long war (Aley was a particularly hot spot). You can see that things like this don't really phase them.

Lebanese food

I LOVE the food here. It´s super yum. Right up the
street from me is a chawarma guy. I had to lay off
though because it was just getting to be too much, and
the stuff really is greasy. But I have not been able
to lay off the Arab sweets. There are at least ten
patisseries within a 4 minute walk from my door. And
it´s all this stuff that I never knew about before--it
goes way beyond baklawa and kunafa. Namora is my
favorite. I´m eating this stuff way too much.

The typical Lebanese mezza is great. Olives, white
cheese, hommos, baba ganoush. Lots of salads and
vegetables and beans. All right up my alley.

A parent had us over for dinner. It was an amazing
extravaganza of six courses. It started with the nuts.
Then the cold stuff--salads and dips. Then came the
meat. It was like every type of meat. She just kept
bringing the stuff out on skewers. And then
desserts--not just the Arabic sweets, but a creme
caramel she had made, and cut up fruit. She sent us
home with apples and figs from her garden. That set
me off on a two week stint of eating teen
(figs) all the time. They don´t always have that in
the souk, either, so I was compromising with the dried
stuff, which is soooooo good. But again, I had to
stop. It´s too easy to pig out on that stuff.

The pizza in this country is pretty much all
disgusting. And people here seem to eat a lot of
pizza. They make little bagel size ones and make them
for parties and eat them for lunch. They´re worse
than the frozen stuff you´d get in the U.S., or at least
comparable. They also eat a lot of French fries.
Sometimes they make sandwiches out of pita bread and
just have French fries with mayonnaise and ketchup inside them. . .. ew!

They also sell ice cream on the street, which is more like rubber. Spooning it out of the cup and into your mouth is like pulling silly putty. I was going to break it with my hand before I threw it away.

There´s one Chinese restaurant in Aley, and it´s
actually pretty good. There are actually some Chinese
people who work there. The only East Asians in
probably the whole mountain. There are many South
Asians, mostly from Bangladesh, who are the ¨help¨in
many people´s homes, including my students. One of
the girls dressed in a sari for Halloween that her
maid let her borrow.

They eat this stuff called manoushe. You can get it
with zaatar (a mix of spices which is mostly thyme)
and/or jibna (cheese). So the first time I had it, I was like, I´ve had this before. And then I
realized that back in the U.S. of A. we call this a
quesadilla, except there´s all this grass stuff on it,
that gives it a kind of bitter taste.

My friend got to spend a Sunday with a Lebanese
family. And they had a lot of raw meat, like cow
brains and such. She said she couldn´t really eat it.
She used her khibiz (pita bread) to cover half her
plate. But of course the people caught on and asked
her what was wrong. We´re sure she offended them.

St. Elisha Monastery

Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

The monastery of St. Elisha is a beautiful church carved into the side of a mountain. Back in the day, as the Christians were fleeing from some people who would persecute them (probably the Ottomans) , they would hide out in the mountains.

Here's a fun excerpt from the little explanatory sign in the chapel
¨at the bottom left, St. Elisha curses the children who made fun of his baldness and delivers them over to ferocious bears."

Hmmmm. I'm not going to ponder that one too much.

Driving in Lebanon

Bcharré Car
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Lebanese people are really into cars. Somehow there are millions of Mercedes here. At the same time, about 70% of the cars on the road are older than 20 years. Someone is actually driving this around Bcharrè.

People drive really crazy here. I´ve been in many countries, and all over Latin America, and this has to be some of the worst. They say the traffic is the worst in Taipei and Cairo. Here, traffic isn´t the issue. It´s the constant near collisions. India is somewhat like that. But here there are lots of mountains, which makes the whole thing even more harrowing. But I developed a strategy a long time ago for dealing with such things--don´t look.

Field Trip # 1: Bcharré

The first weekend I was here, I went to visit my friend in Bcharré--famous for the cedars (didn't get there) and the Khalil Gibran museum. Lebanon's most famous writer lived in Boston for many years. . .who knew??? I love The Prophet, but the guy's a serious weird-oooo.

After work, I headed to East Beirut, to a Christian section called Dora. Went to the Artin gas station that has a sign called Total, which is across the street from another Total station, but if you ask people, they all call it Artin. (See how it is, finding your waz around this place?)

So I had only been here a week, and I´m already traveling by myself. It really helps to be able to read Arabic. I could make out the sign on the bus and confirmed that it said Bcharré. But that of course is never enough. I learned a long time ago to never trust signs. So I looked at the chauffer and asked, ¨Bcharré?¨ And he nodded. He didn´t do the Lebanese thing of lifting his chin and making a tsk noise. It kind of freaked me out the first time I saw people do that, especially when it was the students in my classroom answering a direct question. How rude! But then I learned that that´s just how people here say no. Like how Americans shake their heads from side to side.

The bus was one of those with fold-out seats in the main aisle, so the bus literally fills up. People kept getting on and getting off, and lots of them were standing. When we got close to the place, I called my friend and her Lebanese friend was trying to explain to me where to get off, but it was kind of useless, considering I didn´t know where I was and his English wasn't so good and my Arabic wasn't so good. So I just handed the phone to the guy next me, and asked if he understood where to tell me to get off. And I thought he did, but. . . he didn´t.

So then later I called back and I was like "Where do I get off?", and then other people on the bus heard me talking in English, and they were like, ¨Where are you going?¨ And I was like, ¨I don´t really know.¨ And this girl was like, ¨What the hell? She doesn´t know.¨ And this this guy asked me if I was Tony´s friend (in English.) And I was like, "yeah." ¨I know about you. I`m Tony`s cousin.¨ Hmm. This might seem ridiculous, but it actually makes perfect sense considering that half the guys here are named Tony (it`s a Maronite Christian town), and they are ALL related. So I handed him the phone and a minute later he was yelling at the choffeur. Next thing I know, we're stopping and turning around. Uh-oh. And then he drops me off on some random side of a mountain with no lights.

Before my eyes could even adjust, I hear a shrieky "Jane" and spot a blonde head sticking out the window of a car filled with Lebanese guys. Naturally, I hop in, and as I'm about to relate my tale of the horribly embarrassing, mortifying bus ride, Tony's cuz comes up to the car, and after saluting everyone in it, tells me I forgot to pay the bus driver the 5,000 Lira. So I have to show my face again to those people as I get out of the car and walk over to the bus. The bus that's been delayed a good ten minutes because of me. I could feel the stabs of hatred coming out of those people's eyes. All the more reason to learn Arabic. . . and fast.

Fake Cake: My first Lebanese wedding . . .

was the bomb! They put out the Lebanese mezza--a spread of hommos, cheese, pita, olives, grape leaves, nuts, seeds, yogurt, and all other sorts of Lebanese dilectables. Not that I got to eat any of it, because I was "with the band." Considering it was in one of the chiquest (sp?) hotels in Beirut, in Adma, the people were dressed very casually. A lot of women were wearing pants, like they were going to a club; and some of the men weren't even wearing jackets. There were very few long, formal evening gowns, which I would have expected for a Saturday night wedding at a fancy hotel.

On the side stage was a huge wedding cake. It must have been over six feet tall. I was flabbergasted. But then someone told me it was just a fake cake. As I get to know Lebanon, the fake cake doesn't surprise me. Some describe this place as a culture of posers--all appearances, more than substance.

Before the bride and groom enter, about 4 guys dressed, again, in MC Hammer pants (they're very popular in this part of the world) but with headgear that was more Russian looking, and 2 women came in dancing belly-dance style and turning in circles. Then other dudes lined up on the stairs coming down to the reception hall beating their drums. The music was a fast paced Arabic dance groove. It's called the fahzaa.

After a while, out of a side door came the groom on the shoulders of another guy, with his arms up in the air bouncing up and down, followed by about eight other guys. THEN, all this dry-ice smoke came up near the stairs with big silver confetti shooting into the air, and THEN all these sparklers went off along the railings of the stairs, THEN one of the dudes took out a huge white flag and just waved it back and forth. It was an outrageous, over-the-top, spectacle. . . and then the bride and groom came down the stairs together, dancing.

When they got to the dance floor, the bride and groom were picked up and placed on the dudes' shoulders. After a while, they were let down and went into the audience and went around the reception hall dancing with people. Eventually , they came back to the middle. The women formed a circle, doing a debka dance. And then the mass cleared out for a little while, making a circle. One of the dancers did straddle jumps, and very Eastern Europe/Russian squats and arm crosses and jumps and such. And then it became all capoiera-like, when two dudes started fighting with swords!!!!

I was just so overwhelmed. The drums were awesome. The fighting was tight. The people were all participating. How is it that I've never seen anything like this? So now I'm inspired. My next career move will be as a wedding dance choreographer. Think about it. . .I could make this sort of thing happen at your wedding.

Aley

View from my apartment
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

My balcony overlooks Beirut and the Mediterranean. Aley is a mountain town, 16 km outside of Beirut on the Damascas Highway. Most of the people here are Druze. Many of the men wear white fitted hats and black, MC Hammer pants. The more strict women wear white head scarves, long sleeves, and skirts or dresses. But most of the women dress like in Latin America, tight-fitting, midrif-baring tops and super-fashion jeans.

The souk is about a minute walk uphill from my apartment. I can find anything there. Schwarma for L.L.2000, about $1.33, and a million patisseries with all the Arabic sweets--yum.

Last night I went to my first martial arts class. The school is about a two and a half minute walk from my place. It was about 10 guys, ranging in age from 12-35, and one 17-year old girl. She's a brown belt and teaches the little kids. The owner used to live in L.A. He was really cool and welcoming. I liked the workout--it was kickboxing. It's an open style, so they'll be doing karate, tae kwon do, self-defense, etc. He had me demonstrate some Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

I've been to Beirut twice and saw my friend, Dilek. This weekend I'm supposed to go to a wedding! School starts on Monday.

Frankfurt

Frankfurt
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

At one point I realized my water bottle and I were in four continents in one week.

I had a four hour layover in Frankfurt on the way to Beirut. So I went down to the local train, met some Mexicans and a Venezuelan, and quickly toured the city with them. The buildings, the people, the food--they were all very. . .German. There was a Nutellier and a Euro store (like a dollar store). I bought a sweet sesame ball from a Chinese food stand, because I'm not really into bratwurst. I also had some ice cream. There were enough other people eating it at 9:30 in the morning.

To see the photos, go to www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum19.html.

Peru

Jose's Wedding
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Do you see how lazy I am? I'm using Chris's e-mails to talk about this trip. He's a pretty good writer, eh?

Check out the photos from Cusco, Lago Titicaca, Lima, and Jose's Wedding at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum18.html. To see Tim's photos from the wedding go to ofoto.

Chris's e-mail about the Inca Trail

Chris, Ana & I on the Inca Trail
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

I had meant to write this yesterday when I got back from the trail, but it ultimately spread out over a number of days due to slow internet and a slow brain. Unfortunately, the memories and experiences are piling up faster than my fingers can type and I am overwhelmed. But I will take a deep breath (harder than you might think at 13,000 ft altitude) and try my best to string together an entertaining and nominally truthful summary of the last few days events.

First off, I should make clear that I didn't die, as two other hikers did last week. I honestly had a great time despite what some might infer from what follows. (It is too early for the twin colossi of selective memory and revisionism to turn an utter fiasco into a life-altering experience.)

So the trip began with a bit of an inauspicious start, as if the forecast of rain, nighttime lows in Cusco that were in the mid to low 30's, and a pack that weighed north of 40 pounds were not bad enough. We were picked up at 6:45 AM (sneak preview, this is the latest I was able to sleep the entire trip) and were promptly shuttled to hotel of the eight other members of our Andean Life-organized sortie, namely a group of four asian-american couples from the Bay area who turned out to be extremely cool. More on that later though.

Upon arrival at their hotel, we learned that one couple had gotten violently ill from food/drink consumed the night before, and would be unable to join us on the trail. (Sadly, these six remaining poor souls did not realize that this was only the beginning of their woe, which would include diarahea, bloody noses, constant nausea, and vicious altitude-induced headaches. From the evidence presented to us, the three of us deduced it was likely the discount bottled water the SF crew had purchased that got the other couple ill, thereby prompting their entire group to drop toxic iodine and MicroPur tablets into anything that would touch their lips for the next four days, even as our group was drinking the very same things with reckless abandon. Would have been frustrating for me, but they were Christians and likely much better persons than I :)

After about an hour long drive, we stopped in a cute little town called Ollantaytambo (yeah, all the names are a total bitch to remember) where the group bought walking sticks and stocked up a bit more on water. We finally got to the checkpoint, KM 82 as it is called, and after all the paperwork was taken care of, began the hike.

For the uninitiated, I will take a second to explain what the Incan Trail experience actually consists of. It is a 43(?) km hike through the Andean mountain range spread over three-nights and four-days. The first day is viewed as easy, and is mostly, and I do use the word mostly quite loosely, flat. I believe it measures 7.5 miles long. The second day is the big climbing day in which you scale over 4,000 feet and reach a maximum altitude of 4,215 meters or 13,800 feet (I don't have Excel on this computer so I am absolutely lost on how to do the math). The third day consists of a long walk through the Cloud Forest, followed by crossing Dead Woman's Peak and climbing down (I kid you not) the "Gringo-killer". The third day is death on the knees and the day that I feared most, given my experience with Hong Kong's infamous Trailwalker. Finally on day four, after waking up at 3:30 AM, you march the final two hours, arriving at Macchupicchu ideally by sunrise. Then you spend the rest of the day oohing and aahing over how you finished the trip, convincing yourself it wasn't that bad, and utterly ignoring Macchupicchu.

Along the hike, the trekkers are accompanied by a team of porters and the cook, who we later learned is the behind-the-scenes alpha and the omega of the tour. Let me tell you these porters are something else. None are taller than 5' 6" or so and they RUN up and down the mountain carrying 60+ pound packs laden with our tents, kitchen supplies, foodstuff and other personal items (you have to pay extra for that). They really act as a double-edged sword, on one hand providing the starving trekkers with life-saving food, while on the other hand taunting them with the speed and non-chalance by which they run around the trail. One of the porters on our team was 53 years old!

As part of the trip, which starting last year became heavily regulated by the Peruvian government, the tour company is required to give a tour guide for each group of eight people; therefore, our extended group were given two guides. One was a guy named Washington who spoke better English than I did and never ceased to amaze us with his in-depth knowledge of Incan history and rambuctious American sense of humor. The other guide was a walking zombie by the name of Coco, a humorless young Cusqueno who had difficulty grasping the concept of language, whether it be Spanish, English or Quetchen. As luck would have it, Jane, Ana and I were assigned to be part of Coco's group, while the other six were given Washington. By the end of Day 1 we had remedied that by effectively merging with the other group, who had decided that we weren't so bad after all. Smartest move that we ever made tricking them like that.

Actually the way we did it was another story. While our group might have been grossly unprepared in a lot ways. We didn't exercise, we didn't think to hire an additional porter to carry our stuff, we didn't know the length of the tour, etc. One member of our team, who shall remain nameless, did have enough sense to pack a healthy dose of medicine. And I'm not talking about any of that soft-core shit like Advil and Tylenol cuz they had all that. I mean our medicine woman had Valium, Vicadyn and other hard-core codeine-based products to relieve muscle ache and encourage sleep. That was the bargaining chip that I think sealed the friendship, besides us being fabulously interesting people of course :)

OK, so hear is the inauspicious part, literally fifteen minutes into the hike, unfamiliar as I was with my new color-coordinated EMS actionsuit, I mistakenly inserted my brand new Canon S410 camera into my jacket vent which is sneakily located an inch or so above the pocket instead of the friggin' pocket. From there, the camera promptly fell to the ground, cracking the LCD and leaving me unable to know anything about the state of the camera. I was still able to record pictures according to the sounds the camera made, but I was unable to instantly tell what the picture looked like; I had effectively rendered my digital camera into a normal film one with a 400 picture roll of film. (Fortunately, I picked a popular model of camera and literally every other person in our group had the same camera so I was able to check and see that the pictures came out fine).

In my backpacking ignorance, I didn't fully realize how annoying it is to carry a 40+ pound pack around you while you are hiking 2.5 miles into the sky across narrow cliffs with 700 meter drops. It was up to us to carry our own sleeping bags and our own sleeping mats, which the company provided. The sleeping bags were meant for balmy 60 degree weather which pretty much guaranteed that we would freeze at night. In addition, our "five" person tent described to us by the tour organizers turned out to be a two person dry tent. The three of course managed to cram ourselves into the tent for the sake of body heat and, of course, the coarse bed-time humor that only comes out late at night. I also didn't mind that all the porters on the trip thought I was quite a stud, since everyone on the trail fell in love with my two Spanish-speaking companeros.

Can't really write too much about hiking. It is fun for a while, then you get bored looking at the rocks. Then you find yourself strangely mesmorized by the rocks until you get dizzy and need to stop walking or risk falling off the mountain. At times, you get really cold so you put on your jacket. Then the sun comes up and you got hot, so you take it off. You feel a little nauseus after you eat too much food, then you feel better. You think the altitude is affecting you, so you down some coca leaf (in my case a lot of coca leaf), then you feel better. You grow to hate anything Power bar related, and look forward only to warm porter soup and other liquid sources of nutrition. You stop and see some neat ruins, but after a while you can only look at rocks so long without thinking, shit, this is just another rock. Thousands of these types of litte moments.

As for spiritual enlightment, we were on way too tight a time schedule for that. Up by 6:30 AM latest every day, and then it is dark by 6:00 PM at night. I guess my only takeaway in that regard is that my enlightenment requires a shower. One surprise outcome from the trip was that I accidently discovered a cure from my allergy to the cold. Cocaine. To be more specfic, in case JPM/MS monitor their servers, is that the coca leaf appears to possess a very broad set of performance enhancing powers that are not well-documented in medical journals. I was hiking in very cold temperatures wearing very little thick clothing, yet my hives were never an issue.

Sadly, my most clear memory of Macchupicchu, forgive me if I sound small, is that those fuckers took away my walking sticks. I had picked up these bad-ass poles that looked like they each weighed seven or eight pounds (real pimping sticks, but for the brightly-colored Latin knitted covering on the tops), but in fact weighed only a couple of pounds. They were made from some cool Peruvian timber whose name I never did learn. But the racket in Macchupicchu is that they require you to lose your big backpacks and walking sticks upon entrance to the ruins. However, while for the bags they provide free storage, the walking sticks are not allowed to be checked despite there being ample space. Instead they must be left outside the storage room free for any indigent local or shifty Frenchman to steal.

After 45+ (notice how the number has grown) kilometers together, those sticks and I had really shared some tender moments. They got me through some really tough times, and in a very real sense saved my life on a number of occasions. They were the most tangible part of my trail experience, yet the trail authorities required me to callously throw them away like some cheap little whore. I had fancied them hung up on the wall in my new apartment, as some sort of improvised modern-day coat of arms. The long and short of it was that when I returned to see if the sticks were there, only one of them was left, and I figured deprived of his brother, it would be better if he were left their alone. It honestly was the most angry I was on the entire trail.

So on overstrained ligaments relying on lactic acid-filled muscles but buoyed by spirited hearts, we found our way to Macchupicchu and then made our way back home again to Cuzco. We had a lot of fun doing it, we really bonded with the guys travelling with us, we became infatuated with one of our tour guides and frankly scared of the other (one of those psycho brooding types, you know).

Will give a final update later, though maybe I won't because I will soon be back at work and likely crushed under an avalanche of work.

Hope everyone is well,

CJ

Chris's e-mail about Peru

Chris in a Peruvian market
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

My first vacation means my first occasion for new travel updates (Goodbye Lithuania, hello Peru). So I am down here at an Internet Cafe in the ancient Incan empire, having flown in from Lima the other day. So far my first trip to Latin America has been a lot of fun. Spent the first night in Lima at a beautiful little hotel called Hotel Antigua Miraflores. Giant-sized bedroom, full jacuzzi, spacious hard-wood ceilings, and most importantly a solid cable selection. In fact, everything was so pleasant that I could overlook the rotting proscuitto in fridge.

Lima itself does not exactly overpower one with its beauty, but if you dig hard enough you find some nice spots. It is a beach town, which in principle should be cool, but verily I say I have never seen such a wasteland of a beach. For starters, the beach is inhabited by approximately 10,000 people in difference stages of homelessness and littered with garbage. There is a highway that runs along the beach one way, but this is no Californian Highway 1 by any stretch of the imagination. This being said, when you finally make it into the area of Miraflores more in the city proper, there are a couple of very picturesque streets. However, net-net, a disappointing city. More on this when I fly back on Friday late morning.

Now this is in stark contrast to Cuzco to which I flew into this morning. In addition to an adrenaline-packed airline entry that features banking approximately 200 feet from a enormous mountain peak to land on a very functional airport (old HK has nothing on this one), the city also has the benefit of being situated at approximatley 10,500 feet high. This translates into headaches and a lingering sense of nausea for the lucky, and full-on puking for the more unfortunate. Thus far, I have been a member of the lucky, but as I begin a four-day hike to Macchupicchu after only a 24-hour adjustment (suggested three-day), only time will tell how I will fare.

One cool thing worthy of being repeated is that Cuzco's special beverage is tea saturated in coca leaves. Yes, the very same leaves from which our dear friend cocaine is derived. They keep pushing this stuff on you incessantly saying that you should be munching on these suckers to help "adjust" to the high altitude, but I view this as a covert national campaign to get the world hooked on the white powder. I also snacked on alpaca for dinner, the very same beast that haunts countless pages of New York Times crosswords past (and future).

Cuzco is extremely beautiful, cheap, and tourist-friendly, and I really would recommend it to would-be travellers. I won't be able to give an update for a little while because I will be hiking through the Andes with a group of eight other Chinese-Americans (I cannot escape Asia, no?) as well as my trusty travelmates in Jane and Ana. We have rain and near freezing nights to look forward to, as well as scaling a 13,500 feet peak or two, but I went to the gym three times before this trip so everything should be OK, right?

Will update folks on the journey later.

Take care,

CJ

Pastor Timothy & Divya Shanthi: Christians in India

Unnathamanavarin Prayer House
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

I am the evil empire. I am the American Christian missionary in India. I went eight years ago with 12 other evangelicals to work with Pastor Timothy's church and the Divya Shanthi Christian Association. I went so I could really try to figure out all these issues of Christianity in a non-Western context and Jesus' Great Commission to evangelize the world. Of course, it sits bad with everyone. . .American Christian missionaries in India. Isn't that so 18th century? Aren't thinking, educated, reasonably ethical people past that?

So I went to India as a Christian, ready to give up my religion if I felt like I didn't get good answers and just expeienced things that disgusted me. Ming was like, Give it a try. See what happens. Maybe you'll see God in all this. Ming's really good like that.

Pastor Timothy's church freaked me out at first. Women and men sitting on different sides of the church. Women with their head covered. The undue and even improper respect/adulation given to the pastor. And the way he sort of slapped their heads and fell back as he was exorcising demons. I thought the loud, crazy music with people clapping all off beat was cool, though. I got into their style of worship.

Pastor Timothy is Indian. He was Hindu. At 15? he was diagnosed with liver cancer, because he was a drunk. He had little time left. There were some American Christian missionaries down the street, that he used to persecute (throw rocks, taunt, things of that nature). But at one point, he was in so much pain and so desperate, he allowed them to pray for him. And it was in that prayer session that he felt a warmth in his liver, and he was healed.

Here are pictures of the Timothy's, Unnathamanavarin Prayer House, and Divya Shanthi--Check out the pictures at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum17.html.

KW & I in the autorickshaw

KW & I in the autorickshaw
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Manjari's Wedding

The Wedding
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

I can't believe I got to spend three days in a castle in the middle of Rajasthan for my friend's wedding. It's too hard to explain how cool it all was. Check out the pictures at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum14.html.

Note my cool outfits.

It was a serious five day affair, with multiple receptions and ceremonies. Beyond the coolness of henna staining our hands, Rajasthani village women singing and dancing with their faces covered, slathering yogurt all over Manjari's face and hair, dancing in a circle with the women, visiting a Jain temple, singing Girl Scout songs and hits from The Sound of Music on the bus from Udaipur, I got to meet and hang out with some amazingly warm, sweet, and fun people.

Manjari's family is the bomb. After spending two nights with her parents in Mumbai, I felt like an adopted daughter. (They kept telling everyone I was Indian.) Her cousins and brother-in-law's family were all so welcoming and FUN. I can't really stress how hospitable they all were. From the moment I stepped off the plane, I didn't have to worry about anything. Manjari made sure all the accommodations and transportation were taken care of, along with time to do the touristy stuff and participate in all the wedding events.

The were a bunch of us internationals. The gang included: Kaniaru (a Kenyan living in the U.S.), Piu-Ying (a Hong Konger living in Ireland), Akiko (Japanese living in Korea), Soojung (Taiwanese living in Korea), Jo (American living in Manilla), Sue (Korean living in Hong Kong), her godmother (Korean living in . . . .Korea), and me (American/Venezuelan/Colombian/Indian living in Katy).

These are pictures of us hanging out in Bombay and Udaipur-- www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum16.html.

Beggars, Bargaining, and Other Blunders

Mumbai
Originally uploaded by Jane A Rubio.

I got scammed on Colaba Causeway. . .bigtime. Here's how it went down. A woman came up to me holding a baby, asking me in English if I would buy some milk for the baby. (I later found out she was 12, but she looked like a woman.) I remembered how this happened all the time when I was here eight years ago. I started talking to her and then told her, sure, let's go to a store. So she told me she'd take me to a place. Along the way, it became 2 cans of milk, 2 bags of rice, and cooking oil. I agreed to all of it. When she had her bag packed and was leaving, the guy showed me the bill, over 1,000 rupees. It was my second day in Bombay, but I still knew that was ridiculous. I told the guy that was way too much. But then he went through it, said it was fixed prices, and by then the girl had left. I decided to say screw it, busted out my credit card, and paid it.

At some point, I decided to stop stressing or caring about paying too much for things when I'm in poor, third-world countries. When I was 20, I would be a really obnoxious bargainer and show off that I paid 70 cents for a cool shirt. If Pastor Timothy approved of what I paid, I felt so proud. It was all about my pride. But a couple years ago, I decided it was just too sick for me to be proud of myself for saving a buck, when that buck meant a whole lot more to that person spending all their time on the street trying to move their stuff.

And I guess I just feel disgusted with myself when I get the salesperson to bring down their price so much, highlighting their desperation and my power. It makes me sick. And I just don't want to fight. . .So what did I do? I paid it. But that was dumb too. Because it was WAAAAAYYYY too much.

This time in Bombay was not as stressful or as traumatizing as the first time. Lots of foreigners hate Bombay. They have a bad experience. Yeah, it's not cool when cute little kids ask you where you're from and what you're name is. Then they start asking you where you're going, and then they sort of show you the way. And then after a while, they'll ask for money. Yeah, it's disturbing when the old women and maimed people just stick out their hands and mumble and beseech in a language you don't understand, but when the little kid is speaking in English (and Spanish and French and German and Italian and whatever other language) and becomes your buddy, it's worse. And then just the sheer number and constant presence of people asking you to buy stuff or to take advantage of their services. It's overwhelming.

I wasn't giving money to beggars, just because of the sheer inconvenience factor. A million people pop out of nowhere and ask and then sometimes you literally can't move. That is also pretty traumatizing. Especially when the kids start to fight amongst themselves. But today walking around, I just said no, or even better, ignored them. But what's even better was a Gulf Arab woman, fully dressed in black, who was approached by a kid. She lifted up her arm and started yelling at him in Arabic. Something to the effect of "What the hell are you doing? Leave me alone. Go away." And it worked. The little kid ran away. Hey, who would have thought? I should just get pissed off at the kid for bothering me. . . Hmmmm. But ignoring them also worked.

Either way, it's all really crappy. Jesus says to give to everyone who asks. And if someone takes your cloak, you should offer them your shirt. I just don't think that would work so well on Colaba Causeway. Besides the fact that these kids don't see the money you give them. They're run by pimps, who maim them too, just to get more money. That doesn't mean you can't buy them food. And I should have been doing that for all of them, right? But I didn't. I just ignored them.

Living in Caracas and Sao Paulo and Rio is stressful because people are worried about random violent crimes, like muggings and car jackings. Living in Bombay is a different kind of stress. The number of people. The number of kids. The number of maimed bodies. And they live right there on the street. There's no section of town where they are confined. There's no section of town that is sanitized of them. Everyone is all together. It's unbelievable.

There's no way to do this right. People who live here develop strategies. I just have to keep asking God for forgiveness and have faith that His kingdom really will come.

On Arriving to India

Manjari shopping for a sari
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

A Japanese tourist--that's what I've become, at least according to Manjari. As soon as we got to the car leaving the airport, I asked if I could do the super-obnoxious thing of taking out my video camera. It was midnight, so there wasn't too much going on. But still I wanted to film.

When I arrived to Mumbai eight years ago, it was a completely different scene. After a seven hour lay over in Rome, the other 12 Americans and I were tired. The heat and humidity hit us like a wall. One kid's nose started bleeding. Then of course our bags weren't there. (But I had an extra underwear and T-shirt with me.) The ride into the city was more than intense. There is a huge swastika on the building facing the incoming traffic. (A swastika is a Hindu symbol often accompanying the OHM. The Nazis appropriated it for the Aryan connection.) Little kids, many half-dressed, would come up to the car with their hands outstretched, saying "Uncle" and "Please" and other things I didn't understand.

The three taxis dropped us off at the Apollo Guest House, a two star hotel on Colaba Causeway. The street was packed with vendors; we couldn't see the door. And we were immediately surrounded by all kinds of people. I'm sure we were an interesting spectacle.

My arrival into India the first time was a complete assault. It was all overwhelming--the heat, the noise, the masses of people--all compounded by being with 12 other Americans, many of whom immediately shut down. People I had known for years morphed into something different. I was more scared by their reaction, than anything else.

This time was chill. Manjari was waiting for me. We hopped in the car. I busted out the camera.

The bigger assault had come from flying Air France and the stopover in Paris. They say Americans are hyper sensitive to smell, and that we spend far too much money on deoderants, air freshners, body lotions, and the like. Well the French obviously don't, not even the flight attendants. . .But the food was really good.

It's raining here, a lot. Yay, monsoon season. Yay, Internet access at Manjari's.

You can see the photos from my first trip to India at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum15.html.

High School Reunion

Reunion
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

This weekend was the 10th year reunion of James E. Taylor High School. On Friday, I picked up Denise from the airport. Denise was my best friend growing up. She lives in Taiwan, and I haven´t seen in her in at least two years. Shilpen also flew in. I´ve known Shilpen since I was 6, I think. We went to the same daycare.

So how was the reunion? Of course, it´s a surreal experience. But I at least had some experience with that from the year before, at my college 5th year reunion. A lot of my friends from high school didn´t come. I still knew it would be worth it for the people I haven´t kept in touch with or haven´t even thought about. People were chill and cool, and it seemed that everyone had a great time. You can check out the photos at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum12.html

Brian Horton and I managed to put together a booklet of Craig's writings to distribute. We posted it on line. You can go to www.geocities.com/craigs_writings for the link. It's a project that has been on my mind for the last six years. A lot of people came up to me and told me that they really appreciated it. I hope people e-mail me with feedback.

Colombia

La Candelaria
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

What a beautiful country! I took some really amazing pictures from the plane. The landscape is a patchwork of different shades of green spread over mountains. You can check them out at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum7.html.

After arriving and waiting a couple hours at the airport, I successfully met up with my friend María, who flew in from Miami. Two of her aunts were waiting for us at the airport. They were super nice. As we were driving into the city, I was struck by how calm the place seemed. It´s hot in Caracas right now, and the city is crowded, dirty, and completely loco. Bogotá is high up in the mountains with cooler air. The buildings are shorter, and they have this old, colonial style to them. It´s a big contrast to the modern concrete jungle of Caracas (though Caracas isn´t anywhere near as ugly as Manhattan or Sao Paulo). Also in contrast to Caracas, the city police seems to work. People obey traffic laws because they actually have to pay heavy fines.

When we got to Tía Ilva´s place, she offered us tinto, a little cup of black coffee. It was a bit strong for me. The next morning, her aunt Amparo took us up to Montserrate, the famous church on the mountain. It´s lovely, but unfortunately I started feeling sick. For some reason, I wasn´t really thinking about the altitude, and it wasn´t until I got back that I realized that I got the sorroche real bad. I now know that the symptoms of altitude sickness include nauseau and vomiting. I thought I had eaten some bad tuna in Maiquetia, the Caracas airport.

So unfortunately, I couldn´t eat very much the first couple days, which is pretty tragic for me. I wanted to be eating all the cheeses and the desserts they make with this pre-cheese stuff and candied pears and other fruits. I still had a little arequipe (a kind of dulce de leche) with brevas (prunes). But after the first two days, I was back in business. I ate ajiaco, a soup with lots of yummy stuff in it, and partook in a bandeja de gallina. When we went to Gaivota, I ate hot chocolate with white cheese in it, almohabanas, rolls made with cheese, chicha, a fermented corn drink similar to chicha in Peru, but totally different from the chicha in Caracas. At the market, I tried granadilla, a fruit that you open and has seeds in this gooey stuff, what Pili and her cousins used to call mocos de elefante, elephant boogers.

As for the safety issues. . . I felt just fine. Actually much more relaxed than in Caracas. People say the situation is fine. They can travel on highways. Yes, there is still a war going on, but the situation is completely different than what it was in the early 90´s. But it was interesting having to open the trunk of the car to have it searched by armed security guards to use the parking lot at one of the nicer malls.

And everyone was so nice. María´s family is so welcoming. She has tons of cousins and we visited them around the city. One night, they threw a party for an aunt who had arrived from the U.S. She hadn´t been back in 15 years. A trío came to the house (the Colombian version of mariachis--and I didn´t sing Cielito Lindo with them, but I did sing along to La Bamba, it was about the only song I knew). Friends and family were there to welcome her. I felt really grateful to be part of the celebration.

I got to meet Liza´s family. Her dad came by with Ponchys, her little 8th grade brother, and took us around. We met her grandmother, who´s super cute. And we met up with Oscar´s brother, Pablo, in La Candelaria, a historic district of colonial buildings. We also met Oscar´s former roommate, an American missionary, who showed up 4 months ago in Bogotá, is studying Spanish, and moves around like a pez en el agua in Bogotá. I felt so welcomed by all the family of my friends. They all really wanted to pick me up and show me around.

Colombians are very proud of their country. They should be. I had some contact info of my grandfather´s family who my aunt and grandma visited 20 years ago. None of the names or phone numbers worked. I didn´t have time to go knocking on doors. I was just there for 5 days. But I plan on going back next summer. Since I have to go back to Texas for my brother´s wedding, I´ll continue to work on the family history research in Colombia and Venezuela.

Chavez

Bush Terrorista Del Mundo
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

On August 15, Venezuelans are going to vote in a referendum on whether to kick President Hugo Chavez out of office. A vote for Sí is for him to go; a vote for No is for him to stay. The city is filled with little green Sí and red No posters. Many right on top of each other. The referendum is practically the only topic of conversation.

So what's going to happen? It's really hard to tell. The media is straight-up anti-Chavista. They are constantly insulting the president, instilling fears of a future that his primo-hermano Castro might bring, talking of his ties to the Colombian guerillas, and showing melodramatic, tear-jerking clips of mayors and other politicians who have been incarcerated. Of course, Chavez speaks in cadena everyday for hours, where the only thing on the radio is his voice. Anti-Chavistas say he spends too much money buying out certain TV channels and of course stashing away money for himself and his friends. (Like that's anything new.) But as my family (practically all anti-Chavistas) ask, If oil has been at the highest price ever, why hasn't the country seen the money?

Chavistas respond that it's the fault of the esqualidos--the rich minority who run PDVSA (the state-run oil company) and the media channels. From December 2002 to February 2003, they instigated a paro, a national strike. The country stopped producing oil. No businesses could stay open. People had to wait in line all day to fill up their cars and to get groceries. The economy crashed. The streets are now filled with buyoneros, people who had other jobs, but are now selling whatever on the street.

Many claim the rich didn't suffer during the paro. My cousins knew about the paro before it happened. So they went to Macro, the equivalent of BJ's or a Sam's Club, and stocked up. They had vats of gas in their garage to fill up their cars. And they took their money out of the country much earlier. Since it's in dollars, as the bolivar falls, they get more and more rich, as the people just get more and more poor. That's how Carmen sees it. She's the Colombian woman who's the servicio (as they call it) in my aunt's house.

My family claims that the poor people didn't really suffer during the paro because Chavez was helping them out, sending them food and gas. Gas stations in the west of Caracas were supplied, but not in the east. And either way, foreign investment has fled. The economy is BAD. There is no work. Everyone agrees with that. The point of contention is: Who's fault? The rich say Chavez. The poor say the rich elite who run the country.

According to a taxi driver, a hard-core Chavista, Chavez has done a lot of good for the country. He has started educational missions in the barrios where people of all ages can learn to read and write and get their high school diploma. He's established the Universitaria Bolivariana, which allows anyone to get a university education, without paying. In the barrios are now modulos de salud staffed by Cuban doctors. He can now see a doctor for free, and he knows people who will be flown to Cuba to have a special eye operation. Chavez set up Mercantiles--markets in the barrios that sell food at a lower cost. He's provided low-cost plane tickets so poor people can travel around the country. The anti-Chavistas say he's just buying the people. It's working.

The anti-Chavistas say the Universitarias Bolivarianas have no standards. The public hospitals don't even have cotton and syringes; people have to bring them in. And on 11 de abril, about 12 people were shot in the streets. Chavez is a murderer, they say; and by keeping all these people preso, he's committing human rights abuses. But his supporters say it's the local politicians, the esqualidos, who have kept money from the public hospitals. It's the local police that shot the people in the streets. That it's the murderers and law-breakers who have rightly received justice who are now in jail.

It seems that the race is neck and neck. If Chavez wins, the opposition is going to say it's a trampa (bogus, cross reference Florida 2000). If he loses, apparently he can just run again. International observers, including Jimmy Carter, will be there. But no matter what the referendum decides, until foreign investment returns and more jobs are created, politics will be el único tema in Caracas.

You can check out the pictures at www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum11.html.

Family in Caracas

Tia Carmen
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

I'm in Houston now after spending three weeks in Caracas and a week in Bogotá. I went to do some research about my family history. My grandma has two sisters who are still alive, and they both live in Caracas. I stayed with my Tía Carmen last summer, and this summer I stayed with my Tía Hermy. From talking to them, I got some juicy stories, and found out that I have over 50 second cousins, almost all of whom live in Caracas. I hung out with some of them--went to the beach and a river where I did some cliff diving!!!, tried going on the teleferico (it was closed), and got some drinks at the super-chichi, very architecturally impressive Centro Comercial San Ignacio.

This time I was really struck by how sad and even ugly the story of my family is. People hold grudges--big time. There are so many stories of siblings fighting and then not talking for years, so cousins never see each other. Most of my cousins do not know about their other cousins, who live in the same city. I go there as the American and know more of them than they do. The work is just starting; I plan on going back next summer.

Here´s my Tía Carmen cooking me lunch--arroz, pescado, papas, caraotas. . .Yeah, I ate well.

Change of Plans

Dear family and friends,
I decided to set up a blog to keep you all posted of my whereabouts and random musings. As some of you know, I signed on to teach at the American School in Gaza after attending a job fair in February. In late May, however, as the political situation continued to deteriorate, I decided to change my plans. So starting in September, I will be teaching for the same people, but at another school-- The Universal College of Aley, Lebanon. The school is 16 km outside of Beirut on the Damascas highway. The following year, I will be in either Cairo or Gaza. I'll decide that later. One of the best things about this change is that now people can come visit me! So I want you all to know that you have an open invitation to the Middle East. You can check out the schools's website at www.ucalebanon.com.