USA

Driving From Oregon To Oaxaca

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After finally getting the title and registration to the Toyota, I drove down to Klamath Falls Oregon from Salem to see my second family Bea and Sal Florez who are being well-taken care of by a couple in their home. Then took a long boring drive to Las Vegas to see my son Greg. Didn’t wait in Salem for the title to arrive in the mail so my friend Lyn said she would fedex it to Las Vegas while I was there.

When I informed him that the woman who was going to drive down to Oaxaca with me had reneged and that I was driving down alone he had a fit and called his best friend Mike in LA and asked him to please accompany me. We drove to the border at the new shiny Columbia Friendship Crossing 30 minutes north of Loredo Texas. At the crossing I discovered I had a copy of my title and registration but after all the wrangling in Salem I had left the original on the copier glass in the back of the pharmacy in Las Vegas. The friendly border guards mercifully let me through with just the copy! I immediately called Greg and had him go to the pharmacy to see if he could collect my title and registration…maybe somebody had turned them in. Lo and behold, there was the original…after 3 days…still on the glass! So with the help of my iPod and new car speakers we continued down on wide empty expensive toll roads only getting good and lost once after taking a detour through the city of Monterey.

We spent three nice days visiting my friend Patty Gutierrez and her husband Jose in their little casita in San Juan del Rio south of Queretaro…a nice break. We were all invited to dinner in the home of a broiled chicken vendor…their first real contact with American tourists and after being given two clay jars as a gift I was horrified when I dropped one which exploded on the tile floor of the courtyard.

We visited the sacred Rock of Bernal…a UNESCO World Heritage site…the largest North American monolith and the second largest in the world……soaking up the quiet soft vibes. This enormous rock is considered the encounter point between the indigenous communities of the region and the mestizo society that erected the village of Bernal below. Well-known as ‘tonalita’ the volcanic rock, at a height of 288 meters from the base to the peak, became exposed by erosion.
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After ending up on a toll road going the wrong way and finding our way back in Mexico City and driving through beautiful rolling mountains back to Oaxaca I was finally “home.”

Oaxaca City

Posted on by Laughingnomad

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After three weeks in Salem sorting through 40 years of junk…one pile for St. Vincent de Paul, one pile for the dump, one pile to sell at the Assistance League and the rest in boxes to be stored in the basement until the house is rented out again…I took off for Oaxaca Mexico leaving Bob with the house.

Inhabited over a period of 1,500 years by a succession of peoples – Olmecs, Zapotecs and Mixtecs – the terraces, dams, canals, pyramids and artificial mounds of Monte Albán were literally carved out of the mountain and are the symbols of a sacred topography. The nearby city of Oaxaca, which is built on a grid pattern, is a good example of Spanish colonial town planning. The solidity and volume of the city’s buildings show that they were adapted to the earthquake-prone region in which these architectural gems were constructed. Oaxaca City is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Monsoon season here for the next couple months…hot and humid but not as bad as Thailand…rains buckets several times a day then sun comes out.

Houston airport is huge and I nearly missed my plane connection. No problem getting off the plane here…small plane from Houston configured with two rows on one side and one row on the other). 32 pesos or about $3.00 into the city from the airport on the shuttle.

Oaxaca City, pronounced “wahaca,” is generally referred to as Oaxaca and that is the way addresses read…Oaxaca, Oaxaca Mexico. The Zocolo (central plaza) and the streets for blocks around it are closed from traffic due to a teacher’s Oaxaca State union strike. DSC00616.JPG

Teachers are here from every region. They are camped out in pop tents and under plastic tarps…just sitting with piles of belongings and food. There is a big inequality of teacher’s pay…they get anywhere from 50 pesos to 600 pesos a day. (about ten pesos to dollar). Here is one brushing her teeth. brushing teeth.jpg

But Gerardo (apartment manager) said many of the teachers are under- educated and the strike is bad for the city. Someone said the unions are very powerful here…teachers are forced by the unions to sit in the streets or they won’t get union benefits. Teachers still receive full pay even though they are striking. Kids are the losers. The government apparently isn’t listening. Heard last night that they took over the airport and all the planes are grounded. So guess I got in just in time.

The city is charming…two story buildings…some very colorful. Outsides often are drab but inside the outer gates the interiors are beautiful. The whole of the Centro is a designated UNESCO World Heritage Site.

My apartment is a two story building with four apartments inside an outer building. I have a key to the outer “portal” and key to an upstairs apartment. When we arrived the carpenters were literally installing the kitchen cupboards…shavings and dirt and tools everywhere. Good thing I stayed in the hostel the first night. The 5-bed hostel room was clean and lovely (Paulina Youth Hostel) but hot as hell and stuffy…apartment much better. Free breakfast was great. So Gerardo took me to his house where his mom fixed coffee. They have had over 200 guests in the last ten years…showed me a picture of the principal of an elementary school in Beaverton who stayed with them for several weeks while studying Spanish. His mom has a cooking school on a patio outside the kitchen. Patio walls painted indigo blue and yellow. Then Gerardo took me to a supermarket to get ingredients for his mom. Then he took me with him to tour the Ethno Botanical Garden. After the tour I ran into a woman about my age, Sharon, who sat across from me on the plane. She has just moved here from Connecticut. She had earlier worked for the City of San Francisco for 25 years. She also lived in Veracruz for three years and is fluent in Spanish. She will be a good friend. We are meeting at a market Sat morning. Then Gerardo and I went back to his house where we feasted on yellow mole that his mom made for us. A young guy from CA staying with them and who is studying Spanish joined us as well as a German woman in her 30’s who is here studying Spanish for the 3rd time. Gerardo’s mom and she and I are going out next Friday to a bar to listen to salsa music. Gerardo, 25, is defending his bachelors thesis on human resources on tuesday.

When we got back to the apartment it was finished, clean with huge vase of flowers on kitchen table. I couldn’t believe it!

But the beds are hard as a rock…was really sore this morning. I miss Lyn’s bed…it was perfect. Going to have to get some foam or something! Kitchen pretty sparsley outfitted…about like Greg’s! 🙂 But I do have a brand new blender, juicer, coffee pot and fan. Wish I had some of the stuff from Azalea St. DSC00658.JPG

Glad I brought my down pillows…pillows here lumpy and flat as a pancake. DSC00662.JPG

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Went shopping at the supermarket last night at 8…finished at 10 and took a taxi home in the slogging rain. Most stuff had unrecognizable labels. Places here don’t cater to tourists like in Asia. I am realizing how comfortable I had become getting around in Asia…not so confident here…but went out walking today to get my bearings and then went to Sam’s Club (like Costco) in a taxi.

Lost my credit cards twice and found them again…not good for the nervous system. Tried to buy a sim card for Thai phone but it didn’t work…didn’t work in US phone either.

Unpacked already…extra bedroom has two twin beds waiting for my son Greg and his friends…and anyone else who wants to come. Wifi works great. Bought a bottle of wine and a wine glass…guess I’ll burn some sage and celebrate.

House Cats In Las Vegas

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Flew From Thailand to Las Vegas the end of April. Then flew youngest son, Josh, who is between jobs, in from NYC to spend a week with oldest son Greg and I. After Bangkok and NYC, we just wanted peace and quiet. Just hung out in Greg’s new home…didn’t even go down to the strip. I was in my glory with the two progeny.

Then Greg’s friend, Mike, drove in from Phoenix with a car full of all his belongings. Josh returned to NYC and Mike and I hung out some more. House cats, Greg called us.

Culture Shock

Posted on by Laughingnomad

as my mother would have said.): Am taking the liberty of posting Bob’s April 3 email describing homecoming culture shock after arriving home in Oregon from Asia…very succinct.

good morning;
On Comcast internet—
and it’s fast.
What a pleasure.
The air is fresh.
It’s brisk.
Everything green.
No plastic in heaps.
Highways/byways orderly
No motorbikes
But–
the streets are dead–
nobody out
prices outasight
telephone menus on most calls
(should probably compose one for my phone)
It does rain—again and again

New Years Eve in NY

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Bob left for Thailand on the 29th. Josh had to work at the restaurant so Amy and I spent New Years Eve drinking wine and champagne…good conversation with my daughter-in-law…and watching “Wedding Crashers.” She spent the night and then left with Josh in the morning to join some friends upstate for a couple days for a little break in the action.

New Years for me was spent cleaning the apartment with a little time to watch “Crash,” set in LA and the best depiction of racial problems in America I have seen.

A town car arrived at 7pm to take me to Kennedy airport for my 10pm flight to Bangkok. Where are you from, the tall elegant driver asked. Oregon, I answered…where are you from? Africa, he said. Yes, I said, but what country? Sudan was the answer. Oh, I said woefully, much trouble there now. Oh, no, he said, no trouble!! Then he spent the rest of the trip analyzing Bush’s foreign policy…most of which I agreed with. He wasn’t married but said that if he ever had children he wouldn’t raise them in New York City, where he has lived for the last 12 years, but that he would return to Sudan. But his insistent denial of trouble in his country that have left thousands dead left me mystified.

Ellen Makes Happy

Posted on by Laughingnomad

One of the things I will miss when we leave for Thailand is watching Ellen DeGeneris on television. Her recent reruns of her shows produced in New York City…a stunning view of Columbus Circle through a three story wall of windows behind her…was wonderful. The windows, she said, cost $10,000 each time they are washed. That’s New York. Her stock exchange visit on Wall Street was hilarious….asking serious questions of unsuspecting brokers…and then giving ridiculous responses….like asking if she can buy “chicken stock!” Then she picked up the phone like she was ordering a stock offering but instead left all the exchange workers with delivered pizza.

A Christmas Gift Brooklyn 2005

Posted on by Laughingnomad

After rack of lamb marinated with fresh oregano, thyme, garlic and olive oil; tender gratin of baby spinach in a bechamel sauce with snow crab and east coast clams; brussel sprouts braised with bacon and deglazed with cream sherry; spaghetti squash with maple syrup, butter and cinnamon; tiny green beans with garlic and thyme; a salad with carmelized pears, shaved fresh fennel and a crumbled rare blue cheese; tiny boiled red potatoes bathed in herbs and olive oil…multiple bottles of wine and champagne, and finally Amy’s apple pie, the eight of us at Christmas dinner last night are still full this morning!

Josh and Amy arrived at our apartment Christmas morning loaded up with flowers, sacks of Christmas stocking stuffers, an “egg bake,” a family Christmas morning tradition in her family, and sacks of ingredients to be used for cooking the evening meal. This was in addition to the two huge boxes of food that Josh had ordered from http://www.freshdirect.com and had delivered to the apartment the night before!

Josh and a friend of Josh’s from Eugene Oregon, Gabe, who is also a chef here in New York City and worked with Josh when he was at the Savoy, spent the entire day preparing an incredible dinner…Josh’s Christmas gift to Bob and me. Gabe brought pink roses and a malange of rare cheeses for an appetizer. Gabe’s mother, Bonny, in town for the holidays, joined us as did Gabe’s girlfriend who brought a huge tin of cookies baked by her mother. Later, another chef who worked with Josh at the Savoy and is originally from Bend Oregon and his wife, who was at the New England Culinary Institute with Josh, came by. We toasted Oregon with three Willamette Valley Pinot Noir wines, one of which was a highly respected St. Innocent…the winemaker, Mark Vlossak, formerly a Pediatric practitioner we knew in Salem.

Josh’s restaurant, Toqueville, also has a catering business. It is not unusual for Josh and selected wait staff to provide an in-home cooked dinner for a client…usually business-oriented…costing upwards of 10 to 30 thousand dollars for parties of 10-50 people…Josh often getting as much as a $1,000 tip. Josh is proud that clients often request him personally. Fancy expense accounts. And we are in pretty fancy company!

During the conversation, the “New Yorkers” started making fun of tourists who, emerging from underground subway exits, clog mid-town sidewalks and stumble along with eyes bugged skyward…while the locals frustratingly shoulder their way forward…always in a hurry. Gabe’s bright mom, who is one of Eugene’s city councilwomen had the perfect come-back. And what about those north-bound east coast tourists who clog up the freeways at 30 miles an hour gaping at snow-capped Mt. Hood or the RV’s backing up traffic on Oregon coastal highway 101! A good laugh then!

Twelve bottles of wine and champagne later we ended the meal with a delicious flaky apple pie Amy had baked that morning.

This was the first Christmas we have spent with Josh in the last ten years. And more Christmases than that since the whole family was together…and the first Christmas in three years that we have not spent in some foreign country alone. Thank you dear Josh! Now if only we could have had our other sons Greg, who is in Las Vegas, and Doug, who lives in Thailand, with us…

Human Rights In China

Posted on by Laughingnomad

Yesterday, as Bob and I stepped out the door of the Thai Consolate on E 52nd St. where we were applying for our visas to Thailand, we were met by about 50 Chinese people holding up banners condemning the beating of Falun Gong practitioners by police in Thailand last week. As I reported in an earlier blog, China is sending out agents to other countries to monitor the activities of not only mainland Chinese but also Chinese citizens of other countries. But we were surprised that Thailand of all countries would apparently support China in this horrendous persecution of such an innocuous activity.

Falun Gong claims it is a form of meditation with gentle exercises that cultivates inner balance by teaching truthfulness, compassion and tolerance. Falun Gong is becoming wildly popular in China and in over 60 countries worldwide. Practitioners claim that Communist Party head Jiang Zemin, fearing that Falun Gong’s widespread popularity will overshadow his own legacy, has ordered the traditional Chinese practice “eradicated.” This means that 100 million citizens are apparently cast as criminals. In the past five years, up to one million people, practitioners claim, have been illegally detained, with many tortured in slave-labor camps, psychiatric hospitals and prisons. More than 1,060 are confirmed dead with the actual number estimated to be more than 10,000. Practitioners are fined, fired from jobs, denied graduation, forced to divorce and flee their homes.

All Chinese press is state-controlled and people are told that the meditation is evil and drives people crazy. A couple years ago, Bob and I ran across a young girl who was waiting on us in a restaurant in a small southern town who was horrified that I thought Falun Gong was not dangerous!

Dr. Charles Lee, an American citizen was sentenced in March 2003 to three years in prison for planning to broadcast information on state-run TV about the persecution of Falun Gong. Dr. Lee has been subjected to force-feeding, brainwashing, beatings and slave labor, and denied contact with friends, family and U.S. consular officials. (http://rescuecharles.org).

US businesses and government officials supportive of Falun Gong have also been pressured and intimated to the extent that on Oct 4 2004, in response to the many cases of harrassment and violence by Chinese agents on U.S. soil, The U.S. House of Representatives unanimously passed House Resolution 304 that said “The Government of the People’s Republic of China should immediately stop interfering in the exercise of religious and political freedoms within the U.S. such as the right to practice Falun Gong, that are guaranteed by the US constitution.

The NY Times runs stories, many front-page, almost daily about human rights abuses in China. Today, we read about one lawyer, Gao Zhang, who travels the country filing lawsuits over corruption, land seizures, police abuses and religious freedom. His opponent is usually the same: the ruling Communist Party. As a result of his successes, he has had his license revoked and has finally fled to the hills of Shanxi where he is persuing another case against the party on behalf of Falun Gong practitioners.

Yesterday on the front page was an article about the sleepy fishing village of Dongzhou, just 125 miles north of Hong Kong, the scene of a deadly face-off between protesters hurling homemade bombs and the police gunning them down in the streets. The article says “many facts remain unclear about the police crackdown” on a Dongzhou demonstration on Dec 6 protesting against the construction of a coal-fired power plant that the villagers knew was not approved by the central government. Residents say police fired into the crowd of demonstrators killing 20 or more people. But one thing is certain: The government is doing everything possible to prevent witnesses accounts of what happened from emerging by offering people money to keep quiet.

“Rural confrontations are increasing in China as local authorities confiscate land for construction of factories, power plants and other projects,” says the NY Times.

New York City Trivia

Posted on by Laughingnomad

A friend from South Africa sent me some geography trivia:

The term “The Big Apple” was coined by touring jazz musicians of the 1930s who used the slang expression “apple” for any town or city. Therefore, to play New York City is to play the big time – The Big Apple. There are more Irish in New York City than in Dublin, Ireland; more Italians in New York City than in Rome, Italy; and more Jews in New York City than in Tel Aviv, Israel.