http://embed.ted.com/talks/pico_iyer_where_is_home.html
In his A Global Soul Pico writes “We travel, some of us, to slip through the curtain of the ordinary, and into the presence of whatever lies just outside our apprehension. I fall through the gratings of the conscious mind and into a place that observes a different kind of logic.” Especially when we Stand and know that we are home. Transcendence… and pure Pico.
The global expat population has continued to boom – according to the World Bank’s Global Links Report 2007, the number of people living outside their home country has more than doubled since 1980 to 190 million – despite the weakening global economic climate, with companies continuing to bear the higher costs of foreign postings. I believe it! I think this means people of all countries world-wide.
You hardly find a mention of Soi 22, where I usually stay in Bangkok, in the travel guides. Interesting. Not anything here for sightseers really. But good if you live here long term.
The well-dressed tourists in the high end hotels and serviced apartments here must just head off in a taxi because you don’t often see them on the street. The men in the high end hotels are mainly businessmen…many of them Korean or Japanese. Most of the farang (westerners) that live around here and are married to Thais or farangs. Some of them have lived and worked here for 30 years and just retire here. Hardly ever see female farang tourists by themselves, although on this trip I did meet a young Frenchwoman who missed her flight on a layover and was stranded. So here I am with the “boys” and the Thais.
I’m staying in a lovely refurbished room above the Bourbon St. Bar and Restaurant, a family restaurant owned by an American…in Washington Square…behind the Mambo Cabaret.
The guesthouse is small and they keep good track of me. If you stay a month they give you 25% off the room rate so I am paying 1000 baht (about $31) a night with free breakfast. Most of the people frequenting the restaurant are the male guests upstairs who are here on business (I’m the only woman) or farangs and Thais who live around here. The restaurant serves great Thai and western food including a whole menu of Canjun, Creole and BBQ dishes. Last night I splurged on one-half kilo of the biggest crawfish I’ve ever seen.
Read More
Americans living and working outside U.S. borders are recognizing their growing importance in the electoral process. The outcome of the last several primary and national elections could have been very different had they been able to easily register and vote in a timely way…especially since living abroad gives Americans a keen understanding on the ground of the issues facing our foreign policy wonks.
New Luxury tax on internet usage in Thailand
All internet accounts to be taxed with 970 Baht/month. ($235)
Hardware dongle required for internet use
BANGKOK: — The government has announced heavy investment to upgrade Thailand’s international bandwidth, but has introduced an internet tax to help fund investment, and control usage.
The internet tax will be based on bandwidth and would be applied on a graduated scale according to the speed of a users internet connection. The internet luxury tax will be 970 Baht/month for most users.
Foreigners without a work permit and retirees will be required to pay the monthly tax at a higher rate, 1,490 Baht/month. ($361)
Sombat Merou-Ruang, director of the Alien Internet Control Division at CAT headquarters in Bangkok says “foreigners that do not have work in Thailand only hang out on internet forums, visit pornographic sites and other website lamock, different from Thai citizens who mostly use the internet for banking, ecommerce, and furthering their education.” (Right…and I have a bridge in Oaxaca to sell you! Now the bar girls will have to pay more for writing to their johns in Germany or the US of A begging money for their grandmothers’ operation before she dies!}
In addition to the bandwidth tax, an extra usage tax of 490 Baht will be levied on those using Bittorrents and surfing foreign language internet forums.
Read More
Juanita, the Mexican-American woman I met at Pachote Market, will ride down here with me in my car in September…a road trip to Las Vegas to see Greg, to Phoenix to see friends and across Texas to the border at Loredo. On the way to Oaxaca we will stop in Querataro to visit my old friend Patty Gutierrez. Juanita now lives in Guadalajara, where she was born, after raising her children in LA…two blocks from where we lived in Highland Park in 68 and 69! She is in Sacramento now visiting her son and daughter and will take the bus to meet me in Portland.
Her daughter Veronica teaches English to children at the Colegio Motolinta de Antequera, behind la Iglesia de Los Pobres on Dalias Street in the Reforma section of town, where incidently she watched the attack of police on the teachers outside her building a few days ago. She met her husband when she came here for a temazcal workshop in nearby San Jose…her husband’s parents were the instructors and she often translates for norteno participants now.
A Temazcal is a traditional sweat bath. The word is Nhuatl (Aztec) in origin and means “steam” (temaz “house (calli). Temazcals were common throughout prehispanic Mesoamerica and an important component of traditional therapeutic and purifying rituals. The temazcal itself is a small, closed, domed structure traditionaly constructed of adobe. To produce the steam, rocks are heated and herbs and water thrown onto the hot stones. (Claustrophobics might want to think twice.) It has become the fashion, Veronica says, for many Europeans to come here and combine a Temazcal workshop with a traditional Oaxacan marriage ceremony performed by her father-in-law.
Yesterday morning Veronica and I met for a cup of wonderful organic fair trade coffee in the Friday/Saturday Pachote Organic Market. Elvira, a Zapotec woman I have made friends with is a part of a new women’s collective that grows and roasts their own fair-trade coffee…it is not certified organic yet…a long and costly process. Elvira also sells vanillan, pimiento (pepper) roasted pumpkin seeds, fresh strong cinnamon, panela and honey…all grown or made on her little farm. Sweet smiling Elvira comes to the city every week-end five and a half hours each way on the bus. She spends Friday and Sat nights with my friend Sharon before leaving 5am on the bus again Sunday morning.
At Pachote (and also found on the street and in the other markets) you can eat food prepared by indigenous women…tacos made from blue corn, drink atole, a hot frothy sweetened Oaxacan corn gruel drunk plain or flavored. You can eat chapulines, toasted grasshoppers…a Oaxacan delicacy. It is said that if you eat chapulines, you’ll be sure to return to Oaxaca. You can eat memelas, small soft torillas spread with asiento (rendered pork lard and bits of chicharron (called chitlins in southern U.S) and topped with crumbles of fresh cheese. If you are really hungry you can eat chicken mole, a sauce based on ground chiles and spices…sometimes with chocolate. There are 7 different moles prepared in Oaxaca, most of them referred to by color…colorado (red) coloradito (little red), amarillo (yellow) verde (green) and negro (black, plus chichilo and manchamanteles (tablecloth stainer.) You can eat quesqadillas, a corn tortila filled with cheese and squash flowes toasted on a hot comal or clay griddle. My favorite for breakfast are the tamals…corn masa filled with mole red or green often with bits of chicken…wrapped in corn husks and steamed. Or you can just drink a big cup of tejate…a traditional drink made of corn masa, cacao, mamey fruit seed and rosita de cacao flowers dipped by the tejatera from a huge wide, shallow bowl. I’m still learning to like this drink.
Veronica showed me those little round avocados that you can eat with the skin on…panela, dark sugar wrapped in corn husk made smoky-flavored after sitting around a charcoal fire…little mild round red peppers called canarios…small round sweet squash…baskets and bags made out of high-sierra pine…home-made Mescal, a Oaxaceno specialty made from the Maguey plant. It is recent (hot and strong), reposado (aged and smooth) or anejo (aged for several years in oak barrels with the flavor of cognac (expensive) and often above 50% alcohol. You can buy beautiful Oaxacan pottery fired without lead, huge purple flowers together with spindly orange flowers that remind me of the Indian Paintbrush that grows wild in Eastern Oregon…all good stuff…you see where my money goes.
Through Veronica I met Willy, a very sweet Swiss expat whose sister lived in her little casita for 20 some years. When she died a couple years ago, Willy, who had often visited, moved into her home. Willy cooked us breakfast of egg and tocino (bacon) tucked into grilled bollios (Mexican buns), cheese, fresh orange juice, and rich dark organic coffee made in his French Press coffee-maker in his little open-air kitchen with an incredible view of the surrounding valley. He showed us his “poleo” leaves, drying in the sun for tea…”la yerbo de boracho” Veronica laughs…boracho meaning “drunk.”
We talked about other local delicasies…like “huitlacoche” or what sounds like parasytic mushrooms that grow on husks of fresh corn that is fast disappearing because of pesticides sprayed on the corn. Veronica lamented that out of a thousand varieties of mushrooms only a couple hundred are still extanct because the locals pull up the “whole family” by the roots instead of leaving the “children” to grow larger in the future…destroying the plant…thinking of the “short term” need for subsistence.
Willy says he was an industrial design engineer by trade…but here he really is an artist…designing lamps made out of sticks and branches from around his home. I told him he could market that stuff in New York City…but he is not interested. He is also helping an international non-profit based in Europe to design an eco-education program in his beloved Sierra…not building buildings…but just to take people in on treks and teach them about local ecology. Willy is bilingual and is the most respectuful of local expats I have met….preferring to leave the revolution to those who know best how they want to conduct it for themselves.
And this is just the beginning of what’s to love about Oaxaca.
I have almost finished my application for a Mexican FM3 year-long visa. Forms have to be filled out exactly right…with copies…and money paid to a bank. About $200 for the visa and another $40 for them to examine the forms. I have to show an income of $1000 a month. Four pictures, side and front. Two Mexican references, a letter of invitation (I’ll use my landlord) and a copy of his “credential” which is usually the voting card. And a copy of my rental contract. All this monkey business has taken a lot of time but my initial 90 day tourist visa I got at the airport upon arrival expires the end of August so I have some time.
At the CREATE alternative education program in Hillsboro/Forest Grove, I worked with two Mixtec indigenous cousins (see “One Oaxacan Family” entry). The parents are back in their village here.
Catalina says in yesterday’s email: “I wanted to talk to you on exactly where you are located. The reason why is because maybe you can visit my parents in Juxlataxca, Oaxaca. My mom and my dad are there now as we speak and I am not sure how far away you are from them. I know they would love to have you visit them. I know that there is hardly any tourist where they are at and my mom was saying that a few years ago they had a lot of asian tourist which was suprising.”
I am excited about the prospect of visiting the parents in their village, but can’t find it on my Oaxacan map. I will call Catalina, who is like the daughter I never had, on Saturday. She is working, going to school at Portland Community College, living with her significant other and has a little 2 year old that I haven’t seen yet. If I go back to Oregon to pick up my car as I am hoping to do I will definitely see her and her family.
Then I will be returning again to Oregon in January or February to attend to the sale of the farm in Salem.
Last night I talked to my son Doug and his wife Luk who are living in an isolated beach area of Koh Samui Thailand. They are planning on moving to the small town of Lamai. It will be better for them there…closer to things to do and they won’t have to ride his motorcycle so far in the wind and rain during the monsoon season to get to the market. A week ago, a palm tree fell on some electrical lines and shorted out their electronics and fans so hopefully they can get it all repaired.
Josh has been busy opening the “One East On Third” restaurant in the Hilton Hotel in Beijing China so don’t expect to hear much from him for awhile. Josh and Amy will be in China for at least three years so when my year is up here in Mexico I will return to Asia for a year…traveling back and forth between Thailand and China…taking an apartment somewhere as a base.
I found a great mail service in Oaxaca. Mailboxes Etc. has arranged to have U.S. postal mail go to an address in Miami and then to Oaxaca…bypassing the lousy Mexican postal service.
Update 12/2016: Mailboxes is no longer in Oaxaca
People ask me what I do all day! It is different every day. The first six weeks, since I arrived May 30, all my time was spent running errands and setting up the apartment while trying to keep track of the activities of the teachers strike.
I live in a two-story four-apartment complex inside a walled compound. There are huge red locked metal doors that open into a pebble and stone “plaza.” Visitors ring a bell and someone always runs to open the doors. A family downstairs manages the apartment and I get my apartment cleaned whenever I ask for it.
I have WiFi internet access in my apartment that helps keep me connected with my kids and my friends in the U.S. One friend, who recently moved to Querataro, north of Mexico City, has already visited me with her Mexican husband…on June 14…the day the police routed the teachers out of the Zocalo (see blog entry “Police Try To Rout Teachers.”)…which was also my birthday.
One of the first things I was determined to do was find a place that sold thick foam pads for the top of my rock-hard bed…so after several walks around the city I finally found what I needed…
I turn the corner outside my apartment and buy fresh hot corn torillas from a torilleria up the street…3 pesos or 30 cents for about a dozen.
For grocery shopping I walk three blocks to the bus stop on Periferico…kind of the main big ring road that runs south and east around this city of 250,000…to take a bus north to the Chadraui Market…a nice big supermarket that also has dry goods. Here I can buy some of the many Oaxaca cheeses.
Or I can continue on the bus…on around the corner on the right to Plaza del Valle with a collection of stores that cater to gringo expats…Soriano Market or on up a couple more blocks to Sam’s Club (like Costco), Office Depot, KFC Chicken, Burger King, Sears etc. If I have a lot of groceries I bring the taxi back to my apartment for $3. ($3 will get me around most of the city but I am slowly learning to take the buses for 3 pesos or 30 cents.) This will take up half a day. I bought a comfortable Italian black leather chair at Sam’s Club because the kitchen chair I was sitting on at the kitchen table to use my computer was killing me. Sam’s Club is the best place to buy meat….and strawberries picked in Watsonville California! But I miss my Walla Walla Sweet onions…here onions are strong and bitter.
For fresh vegetables and fruit, however, I can walk about 5 blocks to 20, November covered market…and maybe buy fresh flowers and hot tamales from Zapatec women who sit on the floor in the aisles with their baskets of food. Benito Juarez Market, across the street, is full of food booths that is the best and cheapest place to eat…hot soups…mole and freshly made corn torillas. On the way I can buy delicious ripe mangoes from a street vendor. Or on the corner of Bustamante and Colon about 4 blocks north I can go to a smaller corner market where I can buy milk, eggs and staples if I only need a few things. On Fridays there is a great market in a small park about 10 blocks north where local people shop for fruit, veges and all manner of miscellanous things…clothing, CD’s etc.
Then about 3 blocks west of there, on Fridays and Saturdays, I usually go to Pachote Organic Market where I have met several interesting expats and tourists who patronize the market. I can buy organic free trade coffee beans and honey here…fresh from the fields sold by Elvira…a lovely Zapotec lady who brings the bus in 5 hours from her farm in the mountains. Last Friday I tasted and bought three kinds of Mescal while visiting with a Mexican-American lady standing nearby. She had lived most of her adult life in LA and moved back to Durango Mexico two weeks ago. Her U.S. university-educated daughter has recently moved to Oaxaca. We plan to visit again.
The water in Oaxaca City is undrinkable, so every few days we listen for the guy on a bicycle pulling a cart with huge water bottles yelling “El Agua, el Agua!” Then we run out into the street and tell him we want water…14 pesos a bottle…about $1.50 a bottle.
Yesterday, my friend Sharon, who I met on the plane to Oaxaca, went to the huge Abasto Market several blocks east of my apartment that rivals, but not quite, the souk in Marrakech or the Covered Bazaar in Istanbul. On Fridays and Saturdays farmers bring their fresh produce from outlying areas to sell. Besides some tender cactus leaves and some zucchini, yesterday I bought some green glazed Oaxacan pottery dishes.
I found a video store on Bustamante where I can rent DVDs to watch on my computer. Also had some personal cards made up at a stationary store nearby with my name, email address and phone numbers.
For miscellanous kitchen articles I walk one block up from my apartment to a plastics store for cheap stuff…bought a plastic three shelf stand to set my food stuff on.
My landlord is 25 year-old Gerardo Alcala who comes to my apartment regularly to practice his English and answer my questions. I have made friends with his mother, who gives cooking lessons in her home, and also with many of her friends. I am their “amiga” she says…a part of their family now. Gerardo’s father is a retired judge and his 27 year-old cousin is a national congresswoman. I am slowly getting to know his politics…and he is slowly trusting me enough to tell me.
The first day after I arrived, Gerardo picked me up at the Paulina Hostal and took me to his home for coffee and then with him to the Botanical Gardens while we waited for the carpenters to finish installing my kitchen cupboards (see earlier blog entry for pictures of my apartment.) The next Friday I joined Soccoro (Gerardo’s mother) and several of her friends at the “El Pescador Restaurant (with two bands and two dance floors) for salsa dancing.
A few days after that I joined the family to watch a couple of the soccer games that Mexico was playing in the World Cup games. After Mexico won it’s first game, the whole city turned out to celebrate at one of the plazas in the Centro of the city and we joined them with flags waving from the car windows (see blog entry). Gerardo’s family usually has guests in their home who are here studying Spanish and they joined us too. Ticketmaster finally reimbursed my tickets for the cancelled government Guelaguetza and Monday, I will go with the family to watch the free Guelaguetza in the outdoor amphitheater. Then on wednesday Soccoro and I will go to her hairdresser before my hair turns grey!
I spent one morning going to the Mexican immigration office with Sharon while she got her one-year visa. I am in the process of completing all the requirements for my one-year visa and will return to immigration soon.
One day Sharon and I took a bus to nearby Tolucalula to visit the wonderful market there. Another day Gerardo took an Australian couple and I on a tour to the ruins at Tula and to a rug factory that uses natural dyes and original Zapotec weaving practices. I bought three beautiful rugs for my apartment!
Many days, I just walk to the Zocalo.
We are very high…about 6-7000 feet and the weather is mild…cool in mornings and evenings…warm in the afternoons. The hotter months are Jan, Feb, March and April…ending with the rainy season in May, June and July and August. September through December are supposed to be the best months for weather.
It is said that there about 350,000 people in Oaxaca City…but that just includes the city limits. There are more than a million in the immediate region.
So every day is different…
I have changed hotels. I am now at the brand new Bau-Tong Lodge with free WiFi that is down little soi 3 off Loi Kroh…for half the cost of the Galare Guesthouse where I was for the last three weeks.
The Smile Guesthouse, a few yards up the street from my hotel offers an all-you-can-eat American breakfast each morning for $2. Most of the diners are older male westerners who live here…except for “Sharkie,” a long-haired 22 year old from South Carolina that fights fires near Eugene Oregon. He has lived in Mexico and gives me good information. Some of them tell me their personal stories. Yesterday I had a long conversation with a nuclear physicist from California who is retired from a career with GE.
Today I breakfasted with a soft-spoken well-traveled gentleman from New Zealand. We trade travel tips and I try to help him with the Bangkok Post crossword puzzle. Next to our table is a German and an American who have a very opinionated debate about current Thai politics…each contradicting the other…neither listening to the other. Except for the 75 year old New Zealander, these men are all here for the Thai girls of course who treat them like gods. I sense a thread of commonality among them…emotionally very shallow and insecure…defensive…incapable of deep abiding commitment. And I wonder how they feel, or if they feel anything, about depriving their grandchildren of their presence…their love.
I tell Supoat, my tuk tuk driver, about my aquaintences at The Smile. He launches into an emotional and heartfelt tirade against prostitution in Thailand. “They all want farangs with an ATM card,” he says, “to get their money.” Yesterday he kicked one of them out of his tuk tuk, he said. “The farangs give nothing back to my country,” he says…his eyes flashing in anger. “They are ruining Thailand, his voice rising! Our men are very poor and cannot offer the young girls a life. I look at all the tuk tuk drivers and feel so sorry for them…they need help. I wish I could do something to help them. I am losing my heart,” he says…his eyes watering. I tell him I am losing my heart too.
Have been here three weeks and Chiang Mai did feel like home for awhile…just long enough to get oriented and find the good places to eat. I spent all afternoon today in my room researching Mexico on the web and then decided to go out for supper. For about 10 seconds I was completely disoriented…sights, sounds, smells…all different than what was in my head…and added to that was the haze in the air that obscured the sight of anything more than 600 yards ahead. “Slash and burn,” Lonely Planet says. Reminded me of Springfield Oregon in the fall when farmers burn their seed fields.
For excellent western food go to The Duke’s on the other side of the river from Old Town. Tender and mild white fish stuffed with lump crab with mashed potatoes on the side. Well, it came with rice but I asked for mashed potatoes instead. And apple pie for dessert…a nice break from noodle soup! I am “im” (sp?) meaning “stuffed.” I said “arroy” (delicious) to the young waiter who looked at me like I was nuts. He had on a black t-shirt and really baggy pants. Oops, I thought…I had assumed he was a Thai or at least that he spoke Thai. Or maybe he just didn’t understand my Thai such as it is.
It’s interesting to travel alone. The other day I was having breakfast in a lovely outdoor garden setting and a 78 (looked 65) year old Dane joined me…spent an hour or so telling me his life story (Denmark seems to be considerably homophobic) and then recounted his many gay sexual exploits during his seven years in Thailand…more than I wanted to know.
A couple days later in the same restaurant I was approached by an older Brit…13 years here…who had walked the entire length of Thailand. Kind of dinggy but likable. http://www.youmetdennis.com They were both fluent in Thai and I got the feeling they didn’t often talk to English-speakers. Dennis asked me to post the words of His Majesty the King…which I did in my last blog entry. He loves the King. “It’ll rock the world,” he exclaimed. I just looked at him wondering how long it had been since he had been in Europe…or the States!
Laughingnomad 