Zé do Rock was born a damd long time ago in Brazil,
livd 6570 days, drank 1357 liters of alcohol, playd 940 ours of flute and 648
of soccer, hichhiked 200.000 km in 1457 cars, planes, ships, tranes, ox carts
and tracters, visited 116 cuntrys and 16 prisons, fell in love 8 times, made a
film, invented an artificial languej, created simplified spellings for sevral
languejes, rote 3 books, didnt studdy eny enything and he’s stil alive,
spending moast of his time in Munic, Germany.
In case this is tu short, reed the folloing pajes.
BEFOR BIRTH
The father of my fathers father came to Brazil as a
baptist pastor from Lithuania. My fathers mother was a grandauter of german
immigrants. My mothers parents came from Russia. All my granparents wer
farmers, my father was an acountant and my mother a housewife. On my mothers
side of the family, my great-granfather was stabd to deth in Russia, my
granfather died of cirrhosis, an uncle was kild wile hunting by a frend who
said he didnt see him, another uncle died wen he was six, playing with a gun,
and my mother was kild in a hold up. Brazil isnt less dangerous than the US,
but such a family history isnt normal even in Brazil. In Europe thay ar
atacking foreners, in Brazil there is no discrimination, thay atac foreners and
nationals regardless.
0-5 yeers – YUNG KID
I was born and ferst lernd seeing, smelling, eeting,
walking and speeking, aultho i’v never really managed to speek properly.
5- 10 yeers – OLD KID
I went to scool, lernd piano, playd soccer, etc, and
later forgot it all.
10 - 20 yeers - YUNG YUNG
I kept going to scool and then i finished it. In my
free time i was quite a rowdy, i did a lot of shop lifting, left bars and
resterants without paying, threw stones on cars from bridges. At the age of 15
i could stil walk reasonably after drinking a liter rum with 50% alcohol in 10
minutes. I also tried a lot of drugs, but like President Clinton i never
inhaled. Thay arested me sometimes, and sometimes i went voluntarily into
prisons because i was travling and didnt hav the money for a hotel. In between
i werkd in offices: personel department, travel agency, perchasing department,
and as encyclopedia salesman. I studied theater, body expression, english,
dance, german, russian, flute, chello. Wen i was 17 i left my pairents house
and my cuntry. I wanted to hichhike around the werld to be shure that the werld
is really round, but after a yeer i was robd in Ecuador and lost my passport,
so that i had to come bak to Brazil. In the Amazon i was arested for 2 months,
because the military suspected me of being a spy or a terrerist.
20 - 30 yeers – OLD YUNG
I made a mistake and married. I werkd for a wile as
translater for german and english and then i went with my wife to see the big
werld. Of corse we just hichhiked. On cars, truks, ox carts, bikes, tranes and
eeven planes. We had some littel jobs in the US, in Germany, France, Norway,
and in Europe my wife got fed up with travling, so i went alone to Africa. In
Africa sometimes i had to walk hundreds of miles without a lift, because thair
was no trafic. I was in prison quite offen, for nothing. After a yeer i got a
leter from my wife telling me that she had fallen in love with an austrian gy.
So i was forsed to fly bak and try to save the marrej and the onner, altho i
didnt hav the money for the flite. In
Germany där vas nott mutsch tu save ennymohr, butt ennywäi wie still livt
tugedzer für 2 Monaths, der austrian Gei und me. Up to this Point i
had werkd as a masheen washer, asembly line werker, truk driver, mooving
company werker, TV-tower assembly cheef in Africa, clerk, coorier driver,
jiggolo, gide, kichen helper, film extra, cammera helper, etc
30 - 40 yeers – YUNG ADULT
In Germany i made a lo budjet film on video with a
frend. The titel was NO ELEPHANTS, becauz thair wer no ellefents in the film.
It was shoen in one sinnema for a few weeks, had a good public reseption, and
later was shoen in festivals. The revews wer good, aultho thay aulways mentiond
the bad tecnical quality. No wunder, without money, equipment or cru.
I went bak to Africa. I travveld thru Maroc,
Mauretanie, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinee, Guinee-Bissau, Senegal, Gambia, Algerie,
Tunisie, Niger, Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Cameroun, Gabon, Congo, Zaire, Zambia,
Angola, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya,
Somalia, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt. In Djibouti for exampel evrything is
imported and thairfor quite expensiv. A littel can of beer cums from Germany
and costs 5 dollers. The toilet paper cums from China, and thair u realize that
eeven tu produse toilet paper u need sum kno-how, and the chinese dont hav it.
The choclat is from Brazil and dusnt taist as good as swiss choclat but much
beter than the chinese toilet paper.
Then i went on tu Asia and Australia. In Australia i
lernd evrything u need tu kno tu servive in this cuntry: hunting boomerangs and
throing cangaroos. Hunting boomerangs is easy, especially if thay’r lying
around in a corner. Throing cangaroos is a lot harder, especially throing them
in a way that thay cum bak agen.
Tuvalu, a tiny republic in the South Sees, is 30 km
long and 300 m wide. Wen the cuntry has lo tide it is twise as big, because it
is twise as wide. Thair is oanly one resterant and wun street, very easy for
taxi drivers: the passenjer cums in, the driver asks: for- or bakwerds?
I eventually arived bak in Brazil. Aultugether i had
had 35 difrent jobs, visited 102 cuntrys (now 116...), hichhiked 200.000 km
(the same as 5 times around the werld, duing it at the Equater, wair the Erth
has its big belly). The trip took 13 yeers and i had a lot of trubbel with
robbers, poleese and wimmen.
This is the story of my ferst book ‚fom winde
ferfeelt’, wich shood be cauld ‘Eezy Riter’ in english. Or maybe “Pissing in
the Rane”, “The last samba in Kyoto” or “Winds up”.
I stayd haf yeer in Brazil but ended up going tu
Germany agen becauz of a wooman. I rote my ferst book, ‘fom winde ferfeelt’. It
was publishd by Edition Diá, Berlin. Thair wer mor than 100 enthuziastic revews
and around 40 TV feetures/intervews about it. Insted of selling millions, it
sold “just” 30.000 (and is stil selling a few hundreds a munth, after 8 yeers),
becauz wen the book was publishd, the publisher had a financial crisis, so that
he coodnt aford eny distribution eny mor. Peepel had tu order it and had tu
spel the titel the “rite” way (“fom winde ferfeelt” insted of normal german
“vom winde verfehlt”). In the middel of the meedia boom the publisher went mor
or less bankrupt. Later on an importent publishing house, Gustav Kiepenheuer
Verlag, Leipzig, baut the coppyrite and anuther big publishing house, Piper
(München) made the paperbak, but the meedia boom was over.
By the way, the book ends with a luv story. I didnt
get the gerl i wanted, but got anuther wun, hoo was fine tu. Later she gave me
a lot of trubbel, wich is wat usually happens wen peepel stay tugether (and
we’r stil tugether – a reccord), but thats not in the book eny mor...
40 - 50 yeers – OLD ADULT
My seccond book is cauld ‘UFO in der küche’ (UFO in
the kichen) and apeerd 1998 in the Kiepenheuer Verlag, Leipzig. It is an
autobiografical siense-fiction. The biggest part of the story happens in the
yeer 2019, wich was quite a hard yeer for me. The story is about a kidnaping by
a UFO and the kidnaping of the moast famus literary critic in Germany. It is
ritten in ‘wunschdeutsch’, wich we cood translate az ‚wish-german’ or ‚faverit
german’: in my shoes (shows...) around Germany and the uther german speeking
cuntrys i’v askd 18.000 peepel tu vote on spelling chainjes. It has far less
chainjes in spelling than ‘ultradoitsh’, but stil 10 consistent chainjes insted
of 10 inconsistent chainjes, wich is the case of the reesent german reform.
Enyway it is the oanly really democratic reform propozal with consultations far
and wide.
In 2002 my folloing book was published at Kunstmann
Verlag and it was cauld DEUTSCH GUTT SONST GELD ZURUCK (sumthing like ‚german
gud, odawize moni bak’). It is a colection of tru and invented storys, made az
a teeching and reeding book for SIEGFRIEDISCH and ‘Kauderdeutsh’. Siegfriedisch
is a german languej with oanly germanic werds, wich meens that a werd like
‘Tisch’ (tabel) has tu be replased by ‘Essbrett’ (eeting bord), sinse it cums
from latin ‘discus’ (az dus english ‘dish’). ‘Zwiebel’ (unnion) cums from
latin, so it has tu be replased by ‘Heulgemüse’ (houling vejetable), ‘Bus’
becums ‘Vielwagen’ (Menycar), ‘taxi’ becums ‘Zahlwagen’ (paycar), etc. The
uther languej of the book is ‘Kauderdeutsh’ and it is a super internationaliset
deutsh, it is a mix de varios linguas, aber meiste wordes come del english.
Besides i rote for 11 antholojys, along with Günther
Grass, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Stan Nadolny, Patrick Süskind (The Parfume). And i rite for aul majer german newspapers,
like Süddeutsche Zeitung, FAZ, Die Zeit.
I was aworded the
Munic Litrature Award 1996, the Schloss Wiepersdorf Stipendium 1996, the
Pfefferbeisser Satirepreis 2001, the Literaturstipendium des Märkischen Kreises
2002, amung uthers. I performd around 300 litrature shoes in majer german
opera houses, theaters, TV proagrams, etc.
And how
wil my ajing continnue?
50-70 yeers – YUNG OLD
70 - 80 yeers - OLD OLD
80 - 90 yeers – YUNG AINCIENT
90 - 100 yeers – OLD AINCIENT
Over 100 – THE POPE, MAYBE
Wel, i dont beleev that i’l make it that far if i keep
this rithm.
Zé do Rock
EXERPTS FROM ‘EEZY RITER’
Coppyrite Zé do
Rock, coppyrong also Zé do Rock
***
CHAPTER 1
THE MAMAS & THE
PAPAS OF THE MAMAS & THE PAPAS
He came, came, and
left. For a long time she stood in
the doorway, her eyes still fixed on the spot where the road makes a curve and
disappears into the Lithuanian countryside. Nine months later she realized that he had really come and
left something with her. One day,
this little being was to become a big man, get married, and spawn many more
little beings. Among them was my great-grandfather, who, in turn, spawned a
couple of children of his own. Then he was converted. Before, he had been a
Catholic; now he was a faithful Baptist. Without going into the advantages of
this decision and the moral preferences that influenced it, I would have to say
that this forever altered the course of my life. It never would have occurred to him otherwise to take a job
as a minister in a dinky little burg in southern Brazil; to settle and preach
the Gospel in a small town with square garden plots and a neo-Gothic church. If
he had stayed in Lithuania, I never would have been born. But if I was born there, I would now be
standing in the bread line and complaining about the Russians. You can do that in Brazil too, but it
won't do you much good. I mean,
it's not the Russians' fault that things aren't going well for the Brazilians.
In Brazil he spawned many more children. One of them
was my grandfather, who grew up and got married too. My grandmother, like my
grandfather, was a little slow, but I just got to know them when they were 80
and maybe they were a bit quicker before. She was Brazilian, but the most she
could say in Portuguese was "thank you". Her maiden name was
Schmidtke, a very popular Indian name meaning
"dances-with-anteeters". Because my grandparents were strictly
religious, they neither drank nor smoked on their farm. Their main crop was tobacco.
It
was in this environment that my father grew up. I don't know too much about my
mother's family: her ancestors came from Russia, her great-grandfather was
stabbed to death, her father died of natural alcoholic causes, one of my uncles
got killed playing with a pistol when he was 6 years old, another uncle bit it
when he was out hunting (his friend allegedly confused him with a deer).
***
In the beginning
there was no word. Then a man wanted to sit down on the floor and sat on a
hedgehog. He said „shit!“ , language was born and the man couldn’t sit for a
few weeks but swore for many years.
There is no record of what the hedgehog said, but it doesn’t matter. For
us at least. For us it matters that the languages grew to be very complex
systems. At some point in history, as the vocabulary kept growing, the grammar
began to get simpler again. In some languages more so, in some less. Some
apparently stopped their evolution thousands of years ago, and some others,
like English and Chinese, had a very fast development and are almost completely
naked of „grammatical clothes“.
Thank God the international language is English and not Chinese, because
Chinese has a simple grammar but also a phonetic system that is as easy to
learn as martian and a writing system that is probably more difficult than all
the other languages of the world put together.
English has been
the international language par excellence in this century and will probably
remain so for a few centuries to come, even if the main English speaking
countries lose their importance. I suppose, as do many people, that Asia will
be the central point of the world in the relatively near future. Even if their
inhabitants don’t become richer than people in the west, they don’t need to be
so rich to be so powerful. Having half of the world’s population would mean
that at least half of the world’s wealth will be there. The only country with
enough mass to dominate the world economy would be China, but no foreigner can
learn the language, not even other Asians, so they will be forced to use a
lingua franca to communicate between themselves, and that will be English. This
happened to Latin, too, which survived many centuries after the fall of the
Roman Empire. I don’t know what this English will sound when most English speakers are from
Asia.
Unlike Latin,
English has a very simple grammar, even if there are quite a few tricks to
speaking it really well (eg the use of prepositions like in, by, on, etc). Any
foreigner can learn enough to make him or herself understood, but it is not so
easy for him or her to speak it perfectly, as there are quite a few difficult
sounds, eg the th and the many vowel
sounds you don’t find in other languages. The greatest problem in this language
is the spelling, which also creates problems for pronunciation (for instance I
used to pronounce ‘answer’ with ‘w’ until a few years ago, and I know English
professors who discover very often that they’ve been pronouncing a word the
wrong way their whole lives). No language in the world (except for Chinese and
Japanese) needs a spelling reform as urgently as English. Some languages have
an almost fully predictable spelling, like Italian, most of them have a few
sounds that can be spelled in 2 or 3 different ways, but english has usually
more than 10 ways to spell a vowel. Think of the word ‘late’, that could be
spelled ‘late, lait, leit, layt, leyt, laight, leight, laet, laot (as in gaol),
laut (as in gauge), leat’. A word like ‘anticipate’ has more than 1000 possible
ways in which it could be pronounced (you just have to multiply all the ways
the single letters can be pronounced). Look at the words weird, their, veil, forfeit, height, heifer; or at the words police, notice, device. If you
want more: wore-word-women-woke-won-wolf-womb. One spelling, 7 pronunciations.
G. B. Shaw went into a restaurant and wrote what he wanted on a piece of paper:
a ‘ghoti’. Of course the waiter didn’t know what that was: he wanted a fish. GH
as in ‘laugh’, O as in ‘women’ and TI as in ‘nation’, thus ‘f-i-sh’. No other
language in the world has had so many people trying to „repair“ it – even many
famous people - and no language is
so difficult to „repair“. There are studies showing that Italian children aged
7 can spell as well as English or American children aged 9. That doesn’t have
to do with the teaching quality and it doesn’t mean English speaking children
are stupid. It just means that you need much less time to learn 26 information
bits than 26,000. Italian is regular, English completely chaotic.
CHAPTER 9
A LITTLE DICTIONRY TO BREAK UP
THE MONOTONY OF THIS BOOK
baby-sitter - people who hav the bad manners to use
small kids as seats
baroque - modern music playd in pubs
beatnik - order to hit Nicolas
belly - with many bels, eg 'this church is quite
belly, isnt it?'
blakout - sign at the dors of racist pubs
bodybuilding – hall for corpses
bookkeeper - person who doesn’t like to lend his books
boycott - bed for male children
cannibal – clever globe
caraway – vehicle theft
carnation - USA
carpet - animal that is easy to carry in a motorized
vehicle
CHAPTER 10
MISFIRE
In my zinglish i proposed that
spellings wich corespond to the coloquial language should be at least as
oficial as spellings coresponding to the formal language, so i used to spel ‘i
wanna’ insted of ‘i want to’. But later in the discussion groups we found out
that this would lead to very different spellings in different cuntrys, since
slang tends to be regional. English is the oficial language of mor than 40
cuntrys, and it is the great advantage that u can read the same english
everywhere in the world. We cant prohibit people to spel acording to coloquial
language, but we wont encourage it either.
PHASE 2 – GH/PH – One of the
most activ members in the Society, Masha Bell, rote a book shoing where the
main problems in english spelling ar: redundant double consonants, long ‘e’
(lead, meet, receive, believe, people, etc), and a few others.
But here we wont work by the
order of importance, we’l work the sounds alfabetically. The exeption is GH/PH:
acording to Masha, corecting the gh/ph-anomalies isnt a big relief for lerners,
because gh’s and ph’s ar not very frequent. Stil, it is the first change people
think of, since it holds the most absurd spellings, like ‘though, hiccough,
rough, plough’, etc.
I said it befor: we only change
if the resulting word is the final RITE form. But in the case of GH/PH, we
change it anyway, and make all the necessary changes to make a RITE form of it:
‘though’ is easy, it becomes ‘tho’. ‘Hiccough’ is speld usually ‘hiccup’ anyway.
‘Eight’ is speld ‘ate’, and ‘right’ becomes ‘rite’. ‘Thought’ becomes ‘thaut’.
PH becomes F. We’l spel ‘ruf’
for ‘rough’, but sometimes we’l double the F, as in ‘laffing’ for ‘laughing’.
See the ‘a’-change later... or leave it, if u dont care.
***
At the age of 15 i hichhaik thru
Argentina , Chile, and Uruguay. These cuntrys and suthern Brazil constitute
european South America. Argentina was one of the welthyest cuntrys in the
world, la opera in Buenos Aires was alredy world famosa at the beginning of the
20th century, even then they had a subway sistema. To this day
Argentina has a haya per capita número of doctores than almost all cuntrys in
the world. In suthern South America la populación is almost exclusivamente wait
(white...) and there is hardly any illiteracy, besaids la rate of meat consumo
is probablemente la hayest in the world. In Buenos Aires there ar mor people
aut on la street at 2 in la nait than there ar in London at 5 in la evening.
Argentina and Chile can be as hot as the Sahara and as cold as Escandinavia.
To finance my trips, i hav to work in between. My father doesn’t giv me
money for travling around. With 15 i work at a travel agency, with 16 i work in
the office of a construction company. One day 3 gys come running in, they hav
little pistols and big ies. They want our money, is this a joke? Wel, beter to
just do wat they say. I hav 100 dollars in my pants pocket, 10 dollars in my
jacket pocket. I giv them the 10 dollars, maybe they'l be happy with that.
Evryone put their money on the counter and i hope that they wont serch me,
because then they mite get mad. They rummage thru all of the drawers - but miss
one of them. It is payday, and in that very drawer ar the pay envelopes for 200
workers. They go to the safe with the boss, there isnt much for the taking
there either. We all get forced to squeez into the lumber room and there isnt
much room, because there was a lot of people visiting the office. The robbers
take off, drive too fast, draw the atention of the police and get chased. By
the time the shootout is over, one of the robbers is ded and 2 of them hav been
arested.
After that i work as a bying agent, then taking poles for Gallup. Good
evening, ma'am, wich do u prefer?
Peca-Cola or Copsi-Cola? - I prefer Poca-Cola. - Wy? - Because it tastes
beter. - But wy does it taste beter to u? - Uh, go fuk yurself. Then as an
encyclopedia salesman. And i’m constantly spending mor money than i ern.
Nevertheless, i want to go from Brazil to Brazil, around the other side. I want
to find out if the Erth is really round.
From São Paulo to Campo Grande, about 1000 kilometers, the roads ar good,
from Campo Grande to the boliviano border they deterioran to little mor than
beaten paths. From the border to Santa Cruz de la Sierra there is no road at
all, there is no choice but to take the tren. And thats no great luxury.
There’s an enorme número of suitcases, crates, cloth sacos, chickens, and
people. U habe to keep yur ies open to make sure that no pig or child pees on
yur nek. The landscape of smels is oberwelming, the best plaza is riding on the
roof. There is almost no room to sit there either, but at least u ar breathing
fresh air.
From Santa Cruz i can start hichhiking again. I stay in a hotel one nite
a weec so that i can bathe. Evry
other nite i sleep on the street.
Bolivia is like a staircase, the farther west u travel the hyer up u ar.
Santa Cruz is way down in the swamp, Cochabamba is at a middle altitude, and La
Paz is way up hy. Hichhiking is a bit complicado there. The few carros that there
ar dont stop for me. The truc drivers stop for me, but wont take me along
unless i giv them moneda. Yeah, and wat am i supposed to do? If i pay, even if
it isnt mucha moneda, then it isnt hichhiking any mor. So wen trucs pull over
for me, i asc the driver if they'd take me along for free. Some of them say
yes, some of them say no. If they say no, i dont go with them. I dont get upset
if they say no. They need to suplement their income with the money they make
off hichhikers. And if they take me along for free, then the other pasageros
mite complain. Sometimes they let me ride up front in the cabine, other times
in bac in the cargo area. I prefiro riding in bac, because i’m usually tired.
I’m frecuentemente on the verge of falling asleep, and if i sit up frente i hav
to entretener the driver. In Bolivia a lot of truc drivers believe that fatiga
is transmissible. If the pasagero falls asleep, then the driver mite fall
asleep too. There is a cierta lógica to that, since the driver doesn’t hav
anyone to talc to. But these drivers believe that sleep is a condición as
infecciosa as the flu.
The villages ar pretty poor. Sometimes u run into turistas, and they
speak of these villages as if they wer the only Soud America. Yeah, yeah, Sud
America is very primitiva. They could go to Buenos Aires or São Paulo, but
they'r not interesados in that. I could sey, in Europa ther is nothing but hard
times. The poverty that u see ther is incredible. It gets cold as hel in el
winter and the heating doesn’t work. U cant get enything u need. No bred, no
meat, no beer, and wen u run out of maches u hav to stand in line for a haf
our. Even educados people ern little mor than a pittance, but thats not so bad,
since Europa is cheap and there’s nothing to by enyways. And wen i sey Europa,
i dont mean that i hav landed in Paris or Berlin. U can go to suthern or eastern Europa too. Then u can talk
about Europa el wey europeos talk about South America after they fly to the
Andes and then tel evryone at home wat South America is like.
U mite argue that the cuntryside is mucho bigger than the city. But most
people liv in the cities. In Brazil it is around 80%, and the mor populosos
cuntrys in South America arnt very diferentes.
The landscape gets mor and mor biutiful, and i become less entusiasmado
about riding in bak. The road goes uphil, uphil, and uphil, and it gets awfully
cold. It isnt too enjoyable for my nose either, a lot of the time the truks ar
fild with fish. It gets so hy up, that dogs and cows hav fur like very wooly
sheep. Then u drive for ours along a neverending plateau, with sno-capd
mountens on the horizon, and all of a sudden u come to a gigantesca cratera
that looks as if a meteoro had smashd into the Erth. Down in the hole lies La
Paz, the hyest capital city in the world (minwile, there is nowadays a city on
the top too, around the cratera).
La Paz means (the) peace,
but unfortunatly there wasnt much peace in La Paz. It's not as if the
bolivianos ar constantemente declarando war contra other cuntrys - they'd
rather no. They alredy lost a good pieza of land to Paraguay and their accesso
to the oceano to Chile. As is often the caso in Latinoamerica, the wars ar not
faut between cuntrys but rather internamente. The powerful people contra the
resto of the populación or a few powerful people contra a few other powerful
people. Usually the winners ar the
ones that hav the CIA on their side. On average, Bolivia jas jad little mor
than one presidente por year since it gained independencia in 1825, even tho
the presidente is supposed to be electo to a 4-year termo. Good república. Lots
of presidentes.
Wel, it’s gon calmer now over there.
Peru. I visito
Cuzco and Machu Picchu. Machu Picchu is the moust
magnificente inca ruina ever found.
It is at the top of a steep montaña and is a great plaza to cometer suicidio. The clifs ar
precarios, deth is garantida, and the landscape is, as i said befor,
magnificente. Unlike the hichhiking here. Once i had to ride in the bak of a
truk por 3 days, it was like being in a wolk-in freezer with sevral fans
blouing. The truk was fild with cacao, so i ate nothing but cacao beans por 3
dias. They taste like chocolate without sucar. Kind of bittersweet, but just
entirely without azucar. On this truk i couldn’t shield myself from the wind.
Thank God the driver rarely drouv very fast, because the roud was sou bad.
On this viage i soon lern how disapointed people get wen i tel them that
i am brazileño. How monotono, he's from a
nabering cuntry and wont even be rico (with lots of monedas) like the reales
gringos. They want to meet people from far away, from the USA, Europe, or some
plaza like that. So i tel them that i am deutsh. I dont hav any beter idea of wat to tel them. I could say
that i am ruso, but then they'd just think i'm a spy. Or i could say i'm americano. But then a lot of people
would be able to tel that english isnt my nativa lengua. Only deutshis would be
able to tel that my deutsh isnt the real thing, definitivamente no, but they
arnt so many. Befor long a peruano asks me if i was in the war. "Wich war
ar u talquing about?" i ask. "About the Segunda World War,
naturalmente." I’m 17 years
old, with the face of a 14-year-old, and we ar in the middle of the 70s. How could i hav possiblemente
participado in WWII? "Wel, i
mean, u'r deutsh..." I find
myself having this conversación quite frequentemente, and eventualmente i come
up with an anser that is apropriada to the level of the questión. "Hav u been in the war?" "Wich war?" "In the Segunda World War."
"No, no, i only faut in the First World War. I was too old for the
Segunda."
Evrywhere on the Altiplano there ar coca leaves for sale. The first time
i herd someone yelling "coca, coca!" in the plaza del mercado, i was
mor than a little shokd. The
leaves ar available in big sacos, by the kilo. I hav tu try it and go up
tu a salesman. I by 1 kilo of coca leaves and start chuing away. It's a pretty
tiring afair. I chew, and chew, and chew, and nothing happens. It is supposed
tu keep u awake, but as tired as i am, i hav no chance tu tel how efectivo it
is.
On the costa del Pacífico in the norte the towns consisten almost
exclusivamente of villas. Somewhere or other there should be some huts or at
least normales houses, but ay dont see any. Ay hed to Guayaquil. During the trip
ay'v been eating watever ay could scavenge: warm milk strate from a cow,
avocados, carrots that ay stole from fields, crab cakes, patata cakes, meat
pockets, melones, chicha (an indefinible pink drink), café, beer, rice with
goulash. That evening in Guayaquil, ay feel sik, dam sik. Ay look por a toilet,
but there arnt any in Guayaquil. None of the bares or restaurantes has one, and
ay cant find a publica toilet to save may life. None of the hoteles let me in
unless ay take a room. Absoluto desespero. Ay hav only two opciones: shit or
day (die...). In the middle of a boulevard there’s a tráfico isla with a hedge
around it that is meybe 30 or 40 centímetros (meybe a little mor than a foot)
hay. Ay pley va-banque and relieve mayself of a couple of kilogramas on the
spot. People stop to look at me, incluyendo two policías. They come over and
ask me wat ay’m doing. "Wy, shitting!" Of corse they notify me that this isla de tráfico is no a
shitter. "Then please, can yu tel me where ay could find a shitter in this
town?" They hav as little a clu as ay do and so they leave me alone. Ay
think the hole town is a shitter.
From Guayaquil ay meic may wey norte up la costa until ay araib in a
godforseiquen plaza cold Esmeralda. La gran mayoría of la populación is of decendencia africana and la taun jas a
respectable amaunt of naitlaif. Ay luc por a hotel, but ol of them ar itha ful
or tu expensiv. Ther’s no otha choice for mi but tu slip on la bich. Ay asc a
passa-by if ther is a hotel in la vicinidad. Hi cant direct me tu a hotel, but
ther’s a neibi bilding just ouber ther. Los oficers ther luc cul and just mait
let me spend la nait. Ther’s a couple of drunquen seilas siting in frente of el
geit, ay thinc abaut it por a segundo and decido no tu asc - ay'l just slip on la
bich after ol. Ay faind mayself a spot and ley daun. Ther’s stil a lot of pipel
woquing araund, sou it isnt such a gran plaza tu slip. After a wail ay gou tu a
restaurant on la bich tu sit, drinc a bir, and weit until things calman daun.
There’s only 2 people in the restaurant, the waiter and me. We talk a
little bit and he offers to let me sleep in the restaurant. The long benches arnt as soft as the
sand, but then again they’r not as sandy either. And it seems a lot safer,
since the gy has to stay up all nite.
I sleep like a fallen log. The next day i wake up and soon realize that
evrything that was worth anything in my bakpak has vanished. I go to find the
waiter, but he’s vanished too. There wasnt much to steal, but my flute and my
camra ar gon. The flute was covered by my fathers insurance. My cash reserve
was so wel hidden that the thief never found it.
The owner of the restaurant and the police come. The owner tels me that
the waiter just has got out of jail 2 weeks befor. The owner wanted to help him
get a start on an honest life. It was actually a good thing that i never woke
up - not only did the waiter take my stuf, but some of the restaurants stuf
too, including the gun.
I send the form that i got from the police bak to Brazil and hav to wait
in Ecuador until the money for a new flute arives. So i go to Quito. I thum a
ride from an american couple. They invite me to stay with them in their giant
villa. The garden is almost as big as Texas, if u'l permit me this
exaggeration. I got a bedroom that is as big as a hangar. There is room on the
bed for me and 10 women. A bar with evry imaginable kind of bottle is there
too, and on the curten there’s a bel that i could ring to call the maid or the
butler. Evry meal is a banquet. Sometimes i get bord in my room, so i go
downstairs to get something to eat or to chat with my hosts. Wile stil in my
underwear and slippers i got to meet some ambassador or maybe the director of
United Fruits. Helo, how ar u
doing? Hows business? The hole
thing has just one cach: my hosts ar such radical rite-wingers that Jesse Helms
couldn’t see them with a telescope, thats how far to the rite they ar. And it's
not like they wer racist or anything like that, they couldn’t care less about
race. No, they ar sectarian capitalists. Not only do they make a lot of money
logging the ecuadorian jungle, but they belong to an atheist cult that takes
capitalism to be the hyest form of morality and ultimat justice. They hav
brochures like the Jehovahs Witnesses and ar of the opinion that there’s
communist infiltration evrywhere: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon - evry last one of
them a commy in disguise.
O wel, but life is good in this house, i try to enjoy it and just keep my
mouth shut. But the arguments start to get nastier and mor frequent, so i end
up moving out. From miserable riches to miserable rags. I find the student
housing complex, make frends with Ramón, and move into his room. I sleep on the
flor. U'r not supposed to stay too long at a frends place without paying, but
wat else am i going to do?
I do my eating in the kichen. Unfortunatly i dont hav a meal card, so i
hav to make frends with the kichen staf. I dont get anything normal to eat,
just watevers left over in the pots. I eat a lot wen there’s a lot left, i eat
very little wen there’s very little left. One time i ate 2 kilos (almost 5
pounds) of fruit salad. Then i drank about 2 liters (2 quarts) of strong blak
coffee to wash all of it down. U can imagine how that ended up, i wont go into
detail in case u'r in the middle of brekfast rite now.
Ramón thinks I'm fun to hav around, but he tels me i should maybe take a
shower evry so often. Wen i come
home late, he notices my arival even if he doesn’t hear me or see me come in.
Thats a problem. The dormitry doesn’t hav a bath or a shower. U hav to go to
the public baths around the corner. And it is fucking cold there. Beter to just
be a pig wen the outside air temperature rarely gets abuv 10°C (50 F), i say,
and the water isnt much warmer. But eventually the social pressure to bathe becomes
too great and i cave in.
One flor above us livs Pablo, a short gy with a dark complexion and a
very nasal voice, whose glasses ar so thik that u'd almost think he'd be beter
off blind. Together with him and his frend Joaquín, who looks like a skinny
viking, we climb Mount Cotopaxi, 6000 meters (20000 feet) hy. At least we
intend to. On the second day we ar in the middle of a cloudbank with sno under
our feet and we cant tel if we’r going forwards or bakwards. We dont even kno
for sure that our next step wont be off a clif. We lose site of each other and
stil manage somehow to get down and come bak home. The next day i run into them
in town, they act as if nothing happend. Random gys, yes, they ar.
Then we travel north, and on the way bak we run into a police chekpoint.
I didnt bring my passport with me, and so it takes me some time befor i can
convince the cops that i can be an exemplary citizen even if i dont hav a
passport with me.
In Quito i do a couple of translating jobs and become a little bit less
poor. Soon after that the insurance money arives from Brazil. I by a used
flute, a used camra, and am redy to hit the road. But Ramón wont let me go. He
insists that i come with him to visit his parents' farm. I dont want to, i dont
want to, i just want to get away, but i end up going with him. This time i’m
not stupid, i take my passport along. We take the bus to Riobamba in the south.
I lose my passport in a bus where the driver is also the owner. Big businesses
ar easy to find, but there ar hundreds of small bus companies with only one
bus. My frend doesn’t kno wat kind of bus it was either, but that is no
problem, since u’r required to enter yur name on a passenger list. There’s a
carbon copy of the passenger list, the original is given to the first police
chekpoint wen the bus leaves Quito. The other copy is given to the last police
chekpoint, rite befor u get to Riobamba. So all i hav to do is go to the first
police chekpoint, find the list, and i'l kno the name of the owner and his
adress.
The police sort the stak of lists by date and time. We left on saturday
morning, now - the lists for friday evening ar there, so ar the ones for
saturday afternoon, but there arnt any for saturday morning. Officer, wats the
deal here? Where is the list for saturday morning? The policeman looks thru the
pile, doesn’t find it either. This cant be, i mean hundreds of buses hav gon
thru the chekpoint on saturday morning! He explains: sometimes they run out of
toilet paper. I go to the other police chekpoint in Riobamba, they ar totally
disorganized there. I get a big sak cramd full of lists. I dump them all on the
ground outside, the police station is too small. After i get thru 1 kilo of
lists it starts to rain. By the time i’v gon thru them all, i’m so wet that i
could swim in my own skin. I look so desprat that even a little boy comes to me
and givs me a sweet. I’l never find my list.
I call the brazilian embassy and tel them that i lost my passport, wat
should i do now? The man at the embassy tels me i beter find it. And wat should
i do if i cant find it? Then i need to bring them 8 fotocopies of my ID card, 8
copies of my voter registration card, 8 copies of my military ID, 8 copies of
my income tax return, 8 copies of my marriage license if i'm married, 8 copies
of my deth certificat if i'm ded. Then i'm supposed to pay them a couple
hundred dollars and wait 5 months. Nowadays u get yur passport on the same day
or the next day, but in the 70s the military was stil in power and they wer
pretty paranoid.
I hunt hy and lo thru all of Ecuador, sometimes i think i'v pikd up a hot
trail, then it turns out it was the rong bus. It's hard to find a bus in a
cuntry about as big as Oregon. Especially wen all i kno about the bus is that
it's green with blak stripes. After a week of uninterupted serching,
practically without sleep, i giv up. Ramón tels me it was stupid of me to bring
my passport along. They only chek
in the north of the cuntry, but never in the south, where Riobamba is. Great,
now he told me. Wel, i gess i had never askd befor.
So i could either hang out for 4 or 5 months or go bak to Brazil and get
myself a new passport in much less time. I arive at the final decision: bak to
Brazil, get a passport, work a little bit, and hit the road again. The only
problem is that Ecuador is one of the 2 cuntrys in South America that dont
border on Brazil. I hav to go thru either Peru or Colombia illegally. I call
the embassy and ask them if they cant giv me temporary papers, a
laisser-passer. No dice. We brazilis ar kind to one another and ar always redy
to help a cuntryman in need.
If i had found a hotel in Esmeralda, i wouldn’t hav had to sleep on the
beach. If i had decided to spend the nite with the navy, i wouldn’t hav slept
on the beach either. If i hadnt decided to drink one mor beer at the
restraurant, i wouldn’t hav gotten robd. If i hadnt been robd, i wouldn’t hav
stayd so long in Quito to wait for the insurance money to arive. If i hadnt
stayd so long in Quito, i wouldn’t hav gon to the north without my passport, i
would hav been travling alone with my baggage in the direction of Colombia. If
i hadnt gon to the north, i wouldn’t hav gotten chekd. If the police hadnt
happend to chek me, i wouldn’t hav had the unpleasant experience of landing in
a police chekpoint without a passport. If i hadnt told Ramón that i was just
going to take off, i would never hav gon to the south of Ecuador. If i hadnt
travelled to the north without my passport and gotten chekd, i wouldn’t hav
taken my passport with me to the south either. If we had taken a bus belonging
to a bigger company, i would hav found the bus and probably my passport
too. If the policeman hadnt wanted
to take a shit and used my list for toilet paper, i would hav also found the
bus. So now i had to go bak to Brazil, where my life had taken a sharp
u-turn. The probability of
evrything happening just as it did is rufly a million to one. So mor likely
than hitting six numbers in the lottery. But not much mor likely. And that happens
all the time. To many people.
I hav to get thru Colombia illegally, get into a shared taxi, and hope.
Most of the people in the shared taxis ar people who liv on the border, so they
probably wont get chekd too intensely.
My baggage is in the trunk, so by myself i'm not too conspicuous.
Peris and ecuadoris always warned me: wach out that u dont get mugd or
pikpocketed wen u'r in Colombia. I hav a lot of paranoia. Even the dogs ar
looking at me in a funny way, as if they wer just waiting for me to turn my bak
on them so that they could quietly naw open my ruksak and make off with my
jewels and credit cards. In Cali i figure it's beter to be safe than sorry.
Befor anyone gets the chance to steal my hole bakpak, i leave it at the luggage
chek at the train station. Later on i pik it up, leave town and realize that my
camra is gon. They stole it at the luggage chek. The road goes down, down, down
to Puerto Asis, on the banks of the Putumayo. The Putumayo is one of the major
sources of the Amazon. From Puerto Asis quite a few boats go down to Brazil. But
it is a fairly dry season, the river isnt navigable. There isnt enuf water, so
there’s nothing to do but drink tea and wait.
I meet 2 USis (u can say it az the plural of ‘use’), who ar also waiting
or who ar just hanging out there. The one of them has a glass ie and wil cach a
flite soon. The other one, with whom I spend quite a wile, is named Ken. He
doesn’t hav a glass ie. This is where i become aquainted with magic mushrooms.
The area is ideal for them: humid, warm, and full of cows. The fungi gro in cow
shit. They told me that 3 big ones ar enuf for a trip to cloudcuckooland. Wat
they didnt tel me is how long it takes to feel the efect. I eat 3 and dont feel
anything. 10 minutes later i eat a couple mor, and a couple mor, until i hav
eaten 12. I keep waiting until i finally notice that i hav wings. I never had
noticed i had those befor. Wel then, if i’v got wings, i’d just fly a little.
The planet becomes too boring and i fly further away. I fly faster than the
lite, leaving the Erths surface, i look at the lite coming from the Erth and
follo its histry bakwards, until i see mammoths peacefully grazing, a
pterodactyl, and stone-age birds squawking madly. Later on i come bak and meet
Ken on the paddle boat. He just returnd from a stroll around the Andromeda
galaxy. In the here-and-now it is time for a movie. The screen is 360 degrees
around us, the sound isnt too loud, but all the mor impressiv. The
projectionist is God, just like the movie. The world is intelligent, the world
is concius.
This hik town in the colombian primordial rain forest is pure sience
fiction. It's going great for us. But sometime in the evening i want to get
some sleep and i cant. All these questions ar being askd of me, but i cant
anser so many questions, even in a state of hyer conciusness. At nite the
questions keep coming, i dont even make an effort to anser them any mor. Wy am
i lying there at all, with this body that ways tons? The next day i’m redy to
finally fall asleep, but the sho must go on. Another day goes by, the pictures
and questions keep on coming. I'd like to go chek on Ken, but it is impossible
for me to put this armored shel, my body, into motion. Ken doesn’t come to me
either, it doesn’t seem to be going much beter for him. On the third day things
calm down a bit and i start to get hungry.
"Some food?" "Yeah." We cruise over to the pub. "Some smoke?"
"Yeah." We cruise a
couple hundred meters away from the village and twist ourselves up some.
"Some beer?" "Yeah." Bak to the pub. "Some
mushrooms?" "Yeah." We go to the meadow and get some. But no mor
than 3. "Some beer?" "Yeah." same procedure. "Some
pussy?" "Yeah." And we cruise over to the brothel. In the
brothel nothing is aroused in me, as loaded as i am. The room, altho primitive,
is majestic. Under ordinary circumstances i would describe the flor as solid
gray, now i notice how colorful it is. It is not that i’m having a
hallucination. I dont think that it's colorful, i notice it. And
there ar so many intresting shades of gray. The girl is lying there not fully
comprehending wats going on with me. She is a miracle of nature, a double
miracle even. First of all, she's an insanely complex life form, and second of
all she's a woman, wich means even mor complex. She blooms forth like a plant
in the springtime, wich shows off her genitals for all the world to see. It may
be that men do not reincarnate, but women do for sure. They carry so much
wisdom in them. The hor is glad to ern her money without doing any work. Ken is
waiting outside and asks me wy i took so long. "Some food?"
"Yeah."
Colombia
is like a gigantic Rio de Janeiro, the hole cuntry is hy life. And by hy life i mean really hy. The famly that smokes together stays
together. A 14-year-old boy makes frends with me. He proposes we hav a joint
together. "Okay," i say, "where?" At his house, he says.
His famly livs there and i think we’l about to disapear into his room or into
the basement, but no. The hole famly smokes with us. Practically evry business
in the village is a front. Dope is the main export of the cuntry. Altho i bet
that no mor than 10 percent of the colombian population has anything to do with
dope, after all.
Pedro is colombo and is frequently acompanying us. He's the kind of yung
gy who doesn’t work and is always on the lookout for some kind of deal. He
talks and smokes a lot. He wants to smuggle cocain to Brazil with the two of
us. Ken is supposed to provide the venture capital, Pedro the kno-how, and i’m
supposed to translate, since Ken only speaks english and Pedro only speaks
espanian. Pedro is ded certain
that we'l be able to pull this deal off. U send the package over, riding along
in the ship. The parcel is adressd to a non-existent person. If evrything goes
acording to plan, u get a fake ID made and go to pik up the stuf. But if Pedro
is ded certain we'd be able to pull off this deal, i keep thinking mor about
the "ded" part than about the ‘certain’. I stay out of it, even if i
stood to make 10,000 dollars. I value my time far too much. I can always make
money one way or another, and if i lose it, i can always try again. Money loses
value with inflation, but time doesn’t. The time i hav left to liv cant be
extended with money, exept maybe in a good hospital, where they can keep you
alive for years, but then a life in hospital isnt the big hit, is it. I'd
rather be out 10,000 dollars than 10 years. All the same, i translate. One time
we’r walking down the street, i'm walking sloer than the others. Ken is having an animated conversation
with Pedro, sometimes they slap each other on the bak, they’r getting along
famusly and i think to myself: wy the hel do i need to translate anyway? They
dont need my translation at all! With a bit of good wil u can make yurself
understood anywhere at all in the world. But then i come nearer. One of them is
talking about the deal in Colombia, the other is talking about his family in
Oregon.
In Puerto Asis i want to resolve my illegal situation. I go to the mayor
and tel him that all of my papers hav been stolen, would he be so kind as to
giv me a statement confirming the theft, so that i could at least make it to
the brazilian border? He directs his secretary to issue me a permit that would
get me to São Paulo. He mite as wel hav given me a permit to cross the United
States to New York, i just dont kno if a cop in Philadelphia would accept a
permit given by a mayor of a colombian town, insted of a visa.
Evry day i go to the harbor to try and find out wen the next ship is
leaving. Nothing. A couple of weeks later i'm walking along the bank of the
river and i see a ship disappear around the bend. I run to the hotel, get my
gear, and run thru the jungle after the ship. I'm in luk - the ship stops 1 or
2 kilometers farther down to load a couple of cows on. I’m perfectly willing to
pay, but no one asks me for money. Not even the capten, who must hav seen me
bording the ship in among the cows.
They think i borded later so i wouldn’t want to pay. Wel, i wont pay if
no one asks me to. At one point the capten says i could at least help out in
the kichen, if i'm not paying anyway. Okay, capten, no problem.
On the ship they get their meat by either hunting or fishing. Monkeys,
piranhas, turtles, one time even a crocodile. There’s a blak gy who does most
of the hunting. He has a rifle that looks like it must hav come from the conquistadores
in the 16th century, heavy as a cannon and loud like a King-Kong fart. He got a
flamingo in his sites, shoots, the bird falls over, and we go to get it with
the dingy. It is stil breathing and doesn’t hav any bullet wounds. It just
fainted from the shok the noise gave it. The blak gy rings the flamingos nek,
breaks off its leg at the nee and pulls the tendon bak and forth. The birds
foot opens and closes and he lafs: "o-ho! o-ho!"
The water is very shallo and the ship gets stuk in the sand a lot of the
time. We tie one end of a rope around the mast, the other end around a tree on
the shor, and pull the ‘propellers’ around the mast, so we turn around the
mast. We’r making the chain shorter, and since the tree cant come to the boat,
the boat goes to the tree, out of the sand. I’m tuf going, i join in and put
some rhythm into it:
"Uno! dos! tres! HAAAA!
uno! dos! tres! HAAAA!"
From now on they call me "El Tigre". And not for no reason. I mean,
i look like a tiger. Yello skin and spots all over. The comparison falls short
wen it comes to my speed, tho. In that department i'm mor like a duk out of
water. Now, after all these years, i discover my tru calling: slave driver.
Altho i hav to push tu.
Up until then we havnt been travling at nite, the capten doesn’t feel at
ease about the shallo water. Now the river is getting wider and deeper. We’r
redy to giv it a try. The wonderful sunset is over, now we’r enveloped by a
peaceful darkness. I sit all the way up front and we can see 20 meters in front
of us with the spotlite. Suddenly a giant tree comes at me out of nowhere. I
jump bak and there’s a loud crash. The tree sweeps a couple of tons of frate
into the river and then it’s behind us. Or we’r in front of the tree. Wat was a
giant tree doing in the middle of the river anyways - now there’s a hole in the
ships hul, it's sinking fast. The lifeboat only has room for 100 people,
apocalypse now, the piranhas ar tying on their bibs alredy, some of the
passengers ar singing "Hallelujah" or "A strong fortress is our
God", others ar singing "But it's aaaaalll rite...." No, no,
this isnt the Titanic in the North Atlantic, just an anonymous boat on the
Amazon. A little bit of panic breaks out, but the crew is litening quik to pach
the hul with cement. Good work
boys.
A few days later it’s late at nite, the capten is having a look around
and sees a blak hed swim past in the water. Was that a mirage or reality? So as
not to take any chances, he cheks with the blak famly on bord. The mother
notices that one of her kids is missing. So the rescue team goes out into the
nite with the motorboat. Now finding a blak gy in the river in the middle of
the nite is dificult to start with. On top of that, the 8-year-old boy cant
swim and there ar piranhas. After
a length of time passes, the boat comes bak, no blak kid in the boat, the
mother colapses with sorro. The boat pulls up to the side of the ship, there he
is, lying on the flor of the boat. Not in tip-top shape but stil breathing.
One nite 2 gys invite me to join them for a beer. There’s no bar or
canteen on bord, but there ar plenty of cases of beer, wich u'r not supposed to
help yurself to but can anyways. One nite a group of gys from the crew invites
me to join them, we steal some bottles and drink. A few days later evryone is
agenst me. I’m accused of drinking
a couple cases of beer, and they want to deliver me to the police at the
border. The timing couldn’t be worse, especially since i hav no passport. I
discover a few inconsistencies in their story and provide an alibi to defend
myself with, playing the star attorney. I prove that it couldn’t hav been me
who drank all of those beers, until the capten interupts me. He decides in my
favor and wants me to shut up. Good. I'm shutting up. It was a plot on the part
of the crew, who wanted to make a scapegoat out of me. So they hav to come up
with another story to explain the disappearance of the bottles.
At the border town u'r supposed to report to imigration, i quikly
transfer to a smaller boat and disappear over the border insted.
CHAPTER 11
FLYING AND SITTING
FAZE 3 - /ae/ - ‘a’ as in ‘cat’
is speld ‘a’: the man with the plad hit the bad cat with the bat.
***
I’m very glad to hav made it
thru Colombia without a passport, and now i’m bak in the cuntry where i dont
need one. Wonderful. But things dont go as i expected.
I want to surprise my famly.
Now i’m in a bit of a hurry, since i havnt ritten in almost 2
months. They'l start to get
worried. The brazilian border town
really only consists of a barracs and a couple of stors that ar there to supply
the barracs. Supposedly an air
force airplane ocasionally lands in this town that takes people along for free. I go to the comanding officer and ask
him if i can fly on the next plane.
"Yes," he says, "next tuesday." We chat, i tel him a
little about my trip, we hav a couple cups of coffee together. Then i bid him
farewel. Befor i made it outside,
a soldier comes in and makes a comment about how full my ruksak is.
"Yeah," i say, "clothes, books, stuf like that." The comander perks up his ears wen he
hears the word "books", he wants to hav a look in my bakpak. He finds
an english translation of "Das Kapital" by Marx. I baut it in São Paulo, in english so
that i could practice my english. Now it turns out not to hav been such a good
by, especially because i cant prove that i baut the book in São Paulo. And
there ar sevral books from other authors that the comander isnt familiar with,
all of them in foren languages. Then he finds my notes about my language. He
asks wat thats all about. I can only tel him the truth: it's a language i
invented that could be a world language someday. Bad news. He thinks it’s a
code. People who invent their own
languages must seem pretty fishy to a military officer in the Amazon
region. Plus i hav leters from not
altogether normal frends of mine, like Ski, who talks about the Kabala or
quotes Wagner in his original language. This is also completely
incomprehensible to the comander. And to top it all off, after spending almost
a year in espanian-speaking cuntrys i cant speak proper brazilian any mor. And i dont hav a passport. I explain wy
that is, he doesn’t believe me. We ar in the Amazon region, where a handful of
gerillas is stil activ, since 1968. The military is especially afraid that the
jungle wil be captured by other cuntrys, their motto is INTEGRATE IT SO WE DONT
SURENDER IT. The comander makes
his decision: "I dont kno wat we should do with u, because from out here i
dont hav many ways of finding anything out about u. Next tuesday u'l fly along
to Tabatinga. Thats where the hedquarters for the region ar, they'l chek u out
and let u go if u'r innocent."
They place me under arest and on the next tuesday, i fly in a Catalina, a
seaplane that is almost as old as Abraham. The plane flies very lo and slo.
There is a link between the airplane body and the wings on the top, the
navigator sits there usually but there is no navigator, so i sit there. I can
open the windows, and so a lot of the time i’m able to stik my hed out the
windo. One of the soldiers who is riding along makes a comment about how old
the airplane is. The pilot givs some words of encouragement: "Last week it
was a close call. One of the engins conkd out. We had to thro all of our
baggage out to liten the load. But then the other engin gave up too. We wer
just about to start praying, wen both engins started working agen." The
soldier is thrild. I am too.
In Tabatinga i’m detained for a couple of days and interrogated. The sergeant looks like he has a case
of Down's syndrome. "I see in
the report that u wer travling for almost a year. A long time. Wy?"
"Wel, i wanted to see
cuntrys and people with a different cultur." He doesn’t say anything, so i keep talking.
"Thru getting to kno other
people, I can understand myself beter."
"How come? Dont u kno
yurself? Dont u kno wat u want? Yur abilities?"
"Yes, of corse. But as
Einstein once said, we only use 10 percent of our brains capacity."
"Wel Einstein mite, but i
use 100 percent of mine."
Yes, that seems altogether
possible in this situation. My 10% tel me I'd beter not continue the discussion
with this sergeants 100%. I’m not
in a cel, just an open room that has a bedframe but no matress. For 3 days and
3 nites i hav to sit. There’s always a soldier at the dor. On sunday there’s
one there who’s constantly fumbling with his nitestik and complaining about me
and how i spoild his weekend.
The military men cant prove anything against me, but they also cant find
anything that speaks in my favor. This time they send me to Manaus. I got
lodging, transportation, and escorts, all paid for by the brazilian government.
In Manaus i’m put up in a jail belonging to the military police. A cooly
smiling gy interrogates me and givs me food to eat at the same time. He usually
asks wen my mouth is full, he’s really only trying to get me to break down. He
fires unrelated questions at me about my trip, about my frends, about my
relatives, and is constantly telling me how i tangled myself up in
contradictions, and wen i try to contradict his telling me that i had
contradicted myself, he goes bak to my invented language. After 2 ours of this
he dismisses me with the warning that the interogation wil be resumed tomorro.
Only without the good service and not so nice this time. Because he’s not going to stand for any
mor of my lies.
The next day, no one comes, nor does anyone come on the day after that.
The days go by and the only people who visit me ar the gys who bring me my
meals. I ask wats up with the boss. They tel me he’s gon. The next time i ask
wen he’s coming bak. They tel me he hasnt come bak yet. I wanna talk to the
boss, dammit! They cant just leave me here to rot! After 2 weeks of this i’m
almost at the end of my rope. By now the rite time for me to let my parents kno
that i'm OK has come and gon. My mother has a hart condition, surely this wont
be good for her. I rote them a leter, but i hav no idea if it is even going to
get mailed by this people. I take constantly cold showers to keep my hed and my
body cool. I get closer to insanity and start a hunger strike. Maybe something
wil happen then. Nothing happens, exept i’m really at the end of my rope. It
hurts me to the bottom of my soul to turn down good food. And that is the only
diversion that there is. After 5 days i giv it up. But i dont stop being a
nuisance to the people who bring me food. At some point they get sik of it and
take me to the fedral police. New interogation, i spil my guts to them. "U
hav to listen, i’v done nothing, really nothing, i mean, i kno i hav a couple
of things with me that mite hav seemd suspicius, but i can explain evrything. I
alredy did explain evrything sevral times, but it seems to be that evryone
thinks they can put a gy behind bars, wile no one has the authority or the guts
to set him free." The gy from the fedral police is fatherly and tels me:
"U wil hav to explain evrything all over again. Dont try any dirty triks,
we'l chek up on evrything. I'm
going to send inquiries to all of the proper authorities in Brazil, until we
find out if u'r wanted for anything. If yur record is clean, u'l go free."
There i hav roommates and i’m not completely isolated. But then it is
really a hygienic disaster. It’s not a prison, but rather a holding cel in the
basement of the fedral police station. Directly above us is the toilet, and the
drainage pipe goes down thru our room. The pipe has a leak, and so wen someone
flushes the toilet, we get a minor flood. Nothing solid comes out, to be sure,
but it is stil pretty unpleasant, especially since we dont hav any beds, only
ripd-up matresses. There is no cleaning lady and no wisky. The food is bad, and
the one-ied atendant who brings it tel us idiotic stories that spoil our
appetite.
At least there ar three of us to comfort each other. There is a blak gy
from Guyana who has been strugling as a musician in Brazil, and we hav a blond
perian (peruvian...) hippy who grew up in Alaska, and there is me. Both of them
ar being held until their deportation, because their visas hav run out. We make
music, i lern a hole lot of different caribean rhythms, and not even the
brazilian national anthem is spared. At that point we hear from upstairs wat a
crisis of nationalism that is.
To wile away the time, i invent a kind of superchess. Modern and megalomaniacal. With 400 houses, airplanes, tanks,
bommers, missiles, soldiers, spies, ministers and presidents. One round takes
at least 2 days. But we hav the time.
One day, after many translations, explanations, and inquiries with the
proper authorities, i’m freed.
Befor leaving, i’m permited to take a proper shower first (the tap in
the cel wasnt much), and i realize my hole tan is not a suntan but rather a
dirt-tan. I’m suddenly wite like a
mozzarella cheese.
I go bak to the air force, maybe i can stil get a flite to São Paulo for
free. Somehow i hav a rite to one,
after being held for so long. Completely by chance i run into the gy from the
military police who interrogated me and then disappeared. Wy didnt he take any action on my
behaf, wy did he leave me to rot?
I want to ask him, but he just says helo and disappears behind a dor.
The air force cant or doesn’t want to giv me a lift. All the same, in the end it was a
luxury stay. Not even 2 months in
jail, wen some people in this world spend their hole lives in jail for no
reason at all (in some cuntrys, like the US, sometimes they'r
executed...). I also never got
beaten and didnt get tortured. I’m
in luk that by 1975, the truly repressiv time in Brazil is over. Torture is no longer sanctiond. There ar isolated cases of torture even
in todays democracy, just as there ar stil unexplained deths in prisons, but it
is not the system behind it. And keep in mind that Brazil was one of the first
cuntrys in the world to abolish the deth penalty, in the 19th
century. It is also to my advantage that my brown skin came from the sun (and
later from the dirt), and not from my genes. Most of the time in this cuntry,
race is equated with class, skin color with social standing. To be sure, some
blak people ar rich (one soccer player, Pelé, and one singer, Milton
Nascimento), and some slum dwellers ar blond (i dont kno any of their names),
but as a rule of thum, the liter the color, the hyer the class and the fatter
the pocketbook. U hav to giv a middle- or upper-class kid some respect, who
knows if he doesn’t kno good lawyers, who knows who his parents kno at all.
Onward to São Paulo. A truk
brings me as far as Porto Velho in the state of Rondônia. The next driver is a neffew
of the president of Parlement in Brasília. He drives me to Brasília, 2000 kilometers to the southeast.
This strech of road starts in the jungle and ends in the savanna. Sometimes u
see indians on the side of the road selling souvenirs. The driver suffers
greatly on my acount. Ever since i got out of jail, it has been going badly for
my digestive tract. It is an endless burpery, and the gases ar absolutely
inhumane. Evry time i burp, he
wants to die: "God dammit, Zé!
U just farted again! Roll
down the windo!" "Dude, i didnt fart at all, i just burpd. U dont wanna kno wat it's like wen i
fart."
We stop at restaurants along the hyway, the gy only orders the best and
lots of it. At long last i could
hav some decent food, but i cant keep one bit down. Evrything putrifies in my
stomach. I think i hav malaria. He thinks so too. In Brasília the gy bys me a
bus ticket to São Paulo (1000 kilometers). Thank u kindly.
Once i arived in São Paulo i take the subway. I get off the train and see my sister, who is just getting
on. I get bak on, she sits down, and i sit down next to her. She hasnt noticed
me yet. I come on to her in a sleazy voice. "Hey baby, how about it? Do u
hav anything goin' on this evening? Hey baby, i'm not wat u think, but i’v got
wat u like..." At some point she has to turn around to face me and tel me
off, she sees me and is mor than a little surprised. With good reason. They
suspected that i had been either swalloed up by the colombian jungle or made
into goulash by the indians, and suddenly i'm sitting there rite next to her.
Wen i get home my father is pulling the car out of the garage. I’m
wearing an eskimo parka that i can hide my face in, only my ies ar visible. The
parka looks a little out of place with the 30 (86) degrees and the humidity, i
walk up to the car and my father is wondering wat this wacko wants from him. I
sloly pull down the zipper and on his face i see a smile that i wil never
forget. He baut a plane ticket for
the next day, so that he can try to trak me down in Colombia. He would hav to
look for quite a wile. My mother
cries a lot, but wat can be mor butiful than tears of joy?
Author travling
New York is very racially mixd.
Blaks, puertorikis, vietnamis, iris, blaks. Hichhiking is a complicated afair. If
u want to leave a big city, u hav to find out where the hyways begin and how u
get there. If u leave New York on foot, u hav to walk for 2 ours befor u can
hich a ride. Once upon a time i
did that, nowadays i take a bus or a trane to the next smaller city, in this
case New Jersey.
Now i'm not of the opinion that drivers who dont giv me a ride ar
assholes. Of corse i prefer drivers who giv me a ride, but on the other hand,
it is an entirely personal decision. Evry person has the rite not to trust a
stranger or just to want to be by himself. Hichhiking is an oportunity for me
to come into contact with people. It's only cheap if u liv cheaply, since in
general u take a lot longer to get where u'r going. U hav to sleep in a tent or
a sleeping bag and eat sparingly. That is no longer the case for me, i sleep in
hotels and eat like a normal human being. In the US that means hamburgers,
cheeseburgers, double cheeseburgers, woppers, and double woppers. In short,
evrything that the diverse american cuisine has to offer.
I used to go up to people wen they’r filling their gas tanks. Not any
mor. Forget about the fact that most people simply ignor u, others discourage u
with a hate-fild look, and most of them just lie ("i'm only going a couple
of miles" or "it's not my car, i'm not alowd to giv anyone a
ride") - going up to people like that misses the point. I want to ride
with people who want to giv me a ride, not with people who giv me a ride
because they cant say no or because they’r not quik enuf to think of a lie. I
dont even feel like hichhiking nowadays. But it is my goal to hichhike around
the world, and i wil see it thru to the end. I could take a bus or fly, but
that would be as if u ar climing a mountain and after putting in a weeks effort
to do it, u let yurself be carried by a helicopter for the last 20 meters.
I go to Washington, DC. Here liv only blak people. Statistics say that
blak people make up only 10 percent of the american population. But wen u ar
walking around in a city, especially at nite, that statistic strikes u as
inaccurat. They say of the US that the wite people liv in the suburbs. I only
see blak people in the suburbs too.
Today i go siteseeing in the government district. The americans hav
delusions of grandeur. I look for the Wite House and find many wite houses.
Unfortunatly none of them is the rite one, but then each one is even bigger
than the one that comes befor it. The National Art Gallery is bigger than
Nederland and Belgie put together. The Capitol is about as big as the EU plus Jugoslavija,
if u alow me that little exaggeration. The sole exeption is the Wite House,
wich is not much bigger than a modest villa. Even here they offer tours, as is
the custom in the US. No wonder the americans hav such bad governments (altho
not worse than ours...). How ar u supposed to get any work done, wat with all
those scoolchildren and japanese tourists standing around gigling in the
hallways? The Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI, until now only abstract concepts
for me, become bildings that u can visit in tourist groups. The subway stations
ar named acordingly: Pentagon Station, CIA, etc.
Author travling
The day befor yesterday i
hichhiked 1000 miles, from a northern snostorm to a suthern springtime in full
bloom, wich mite as wel be summer. Yesterday 70 miles, today 400 miles thru
Florida. The Florida section of the I-10, the suthernmost east-west freeway, is
simply swarming with queer retirees who hav nothing beter to do than to drive
up and down the hyway on the lookout for willing hichhikers. Many of them ar
shy and/or prefer indirect come-ons. If someone pays me mor than 2 compliments
in less than 10 minutes, it's clear wats going on. Others look between my legs,
stil others ar direct: "How's about we pull over up there by those bushes?"
Wat they all hav in common is that not a single one of them wil clearly tel u
where he's hedded. They just keep driving until it dawns on them that they dont
stand a chance. Or until their target warms up to them, asuming the target can
be warmed up. The one driver must hav taken me at least 150 miles. Then he
drove bak home to Jacksonville.
Author travling
A blak gy asks me if i wouldn’t
like to stop off for a refreshment at his house befor we get bak on the road.
Later on he gets mor to the point: he’s wondering if i happend to hav a sperm
clog that mite need to be cleard? Later stil he apologizes for making such a
crude proposal. He explanes that his mother died 2 months ago, and now he feels
so alone. Oh, now i got it. And here i'd been thinking he’s up to no good at
all.
For 2 days it's been pouring rane without an interuption. Today i
abandond my principles and started aproaching drivers personally. I cant take
it any mor. First victim is a gy from Switz, his wife, and his mobile home. He
couldn’t think of a suitable excuse fast enuf. U cant say no to a haf-cuntryman
in distress, he thinks i'm deutsh. He lets me off at the middle beltway of
Houston and i fite my way thru the rane until i make it into the city. Then
this gy brakes rite in front of my nose. Like, tires squealing to a stop.
Policeman? Hyway robber? Wy is he staring at me so intensely? He must way at
least 450 pounds and is wearing a hedband with corian riting on it. A ninja? A
dangerous samurai looking for innocent victims? My bak is cold from the rane
and from his gaze. He hollers: "D’u wan a ride?" I tel him, it's all
rite, i'm just hedding around the blok to a cheap hotel, he shouldn’t worry
about me. He tels me that he knows of a cheap hotel, and can drive me there. Wel, all rite, then... i get in the
car, no time for a quik hale Mary, he tels me how to get bak to the hyway from
the hotel and asks me if i'm a cristian. "No, not exactly...
yurself?" "I'm a
cristian, but the churches ar full of shit. They tel u cant smoke. And meanwile
u cant find anything in the Bible that says u cant smoke. If living an unhelthy
life was a sin, then we'd all be damd to hel." He givs me a pamflet that
tels of a minelayer who died, experienced a fiery hel and the devil incarnate,
came bak to this life and became a cristian. Then he lets me out in front of
the hotel.
Author travling
U can alredy start to get
acustomd to Mexico wen u make it to Texas. Houston is bilingual, after driving
south for an our it gets monolingual again, because english is a foren language
here. I want to speak espanian with them, but they’r the only USis who kno that
brazilis dont speak espanian and speak english with me.
Say wat u wil of the USis, they hav an inexaustable creativity with
names. U can visit towns called Alexander, Alfred, Anton, Carlos, Charlie,
Claude, Fred, Helena, Irene, Jean, Joaquin, Katy, Louise, Lucas, Natalia,
Patricia, Ricardo, Sebastian or Vera. The only one i havnt seen yet is Zé. U can travvel the globe in a day, as
long as u stay in Texas: there ar towns called Athens, China, Edinburgh, Egypt,
Geneva, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Liverpool, London, Malta, Milano, Moscow,
Münster, Nederland, New Baden, New Ulm, Oldenburg, Paris (ahh, u kno it?),
Sebastopol, Sydney, or Sudan.
Texas has simply evrything: if u'v got small shoes, drive to Bigfoot. If u'r in
the womb and someone wont let u get out, try Birthrite. If u'r a racist, take
yur pik, u can go to Blak or to Blanco. If u'r tired, try Blanket or Goodnite.
If yur travlers cheks hav run out, chek out Cash or Dinero. Thirsty? Coke is
it. If u'r bord, go to Impact or strate to Cut and Shoot. If u'r late, rush to
Erly. If evryone around u is speaking nothing but espanian, go to English. If
it's monday, try Friday. Feeling down or depressd, then get to Energy, Joy, Smily,
or just Happy. Hungry? Oatmeal is wat u need. Gotta get out of the city? Then
how about Pampa or Paradise? Maybe Tarzan is in the naberhood. If yur car
brakes down on the road, theres Tool, and then u make it to Mercedes, so u can
vote for Reagan. But maybe u'r not sure and want to try Uncertain? Or far, far
away, to Venus. But Venus is hot and u come bak to Erth. Erth is stil too big a
place, so u go bak to Sweet Home. But first to Telephone to let them kno u'r
coming. By Telegraph u find out that Unity has arived at home. And u thaut
Utopia is far off?!? Anyway there's stil time for a hedline in the paper, since
there is a town called Fertile and another one called Climax: FERTILE WOMAN
DIES IN CLIMAX.
At the border i’m confronted with bitter disapointment: the mexikis wont
let me in. I hav to get a visa, today is sunday, the embassy is closed. The
USis stole haf of Mexico, marchd into the rest of it a couple of times, make
mexikis get visas to come over, and hav thousands of police posted along the border
to hunt down mexikis. The mexikis say that they feel nothing but hate for the
gringos. But the gringos can cross the border into Mexico without paying 1
cent. The brazilis havnt helpd mexikis out that much, tru, but they never
occupied it either, Brazil would never make mexikis get a visa (they just ask
visa from cuntrys that ask visa from brazilis), and to top it all off we call
each other brothers. And wat do we get? I hav to shel out 25 dollars. The rich
get by for free, the poor hav to pay up. Third world cuntrys discriminating
against third world cuntrys.
author travling
In Mexico at long last. The border gards ar very unfrendly. The cars ar bigger
than in the US, ocasionally a little bit older too. The food taists beter in
the mexican restaurants in the USA than it does here. The hotels ar a bit
cheaper, but much mor expensiv than in a typical third-world cuntry. Mexicanos
look like Sancho Panza: short, fat, dark-skind, and with mustashes. But there
ar also mexicanos who look different: no mustash, tall, thin, and lite-skind.
The only thing mexicanos dont hav is sombreros, at least not in the english
sense. In the mexican sense they do, since in espanian the word simply means hat. All mexicanos hav one: a cowboy
hat. One mite be tempted to conclude that USis, for their part, wear mexican
sombreros; not so. The yanquis wear baseball caps. Sometimes mexicanos wear
baseball caps too. It is very intresting to be able to report on the cultures
of other cuntrys.
Hichhiking
is easy in Mexico. I start off at the border in Matamoros— thats Killer Of Moors in english. In Swits
there used to be candies named “moors heds” and “nigger kisses”, but nowadays
they call them something like “choclat drops” and “cream fluffies” in order to
avoid any potential acusation of racism. If this city was in Swits, its name
would hav to be changed to El Choco.
Farther
south evrything becomes mor normal. The cars ar a normal size, the people ar
normally frendly, even the food gets beter. I’m talking with one of the drivers
about famly. I ask him if his parents ar religious. “No,” he says, “they're
catholic.”
Guanajuato
is a butiful city surounded by steep mountains. There is an up-and-down here
like i hav rarely experienced befor and wich reminds me of towns in Italia. Evrywhere
there ar very cute tunnels, if u can call them that. Many of them ar actually
underground streets with benches and entrances to houses. The tunnels ar not
really all that old, but they look very old. They go very wel with their
suroundings. There ar sevral mines, including one with a café on the 13th flor
belo ground.
Something
really unusual about Guanajuato ar the mummies. OK, so there ar mummies in lots
of cuntrys, at least in museums. But brand spanking new ones? The city had no
cemetery plots left. The city government had no choice but to remove the
skeletons whose relativs cant pay rent. Wen they went to dig them up, tho, they
didnt find skeletons but mummified corpses insted. They hav been preserved by
the good air. So the city government had an original idea. How beter to pay for
the cemetery than with corpses? So the mummies wer put on display. It’s easy to
see them - just take the Mummy Bus Line. The road that leads to the cemetery is
Mummy Street. U cant miss it— to yur rite is the cemetery, to yur left is the
Dulceria La Momia, The Mummy Candy Company. There they sel taisty treats,
perfect copies of the mummies. Bon appetit.
U
cannot deny that the mexikis hav a real apreciation for the macabre. Most of
the mummies ar from the end of the 19th century or the beginning of the 20th. A
lot of the time there wil be a fotograf of the departed, so u can see how
they've changed: BEFOR — AFTER. Lots of yung people who no longer look so yung
as mummies, even if they stil hav hair. Some of them ar dressd, with others
their clothes seem to hav evaprated. A lot of them even stil hav their pubic
hair. And others ar in perfect condition. They lie there quietly, arms folded
neatly across their chests, doing the best they can. Others ar lying in the
most outrageus positions, on their sides, legs spred, legs crossd, and look
rather like they’r scared to deth. I’v got to wonder if they laid the people in
their graves in those kinds of positions and with such unusual facial
expressions, or if the people get into a beter position post mortem? Do ded
people hav nitemares? A dozen mummies of children ar there too, and look! It’s
the littlest mummy in the world. Not much bigger than an open hand. Looks like
a mini-E.T. Must be a mummy of an embryo.
hero travling
At the venezuelan border town we ar 7 people now: an USian couple from Seattle,
2 fransos, an australo and we both. We go to the barracs and tel the comandant
that we hav to move on but we cant because the migración-oficials ar on
vacation rite now. Cant he giv us a permit to get to the next big city, and
then we can get an entry stamp there? He givs us a permit to get to Ciudad
Bolívar. The problem is that we only get one permit for all of us. The USis
that he issued the permit to want to fly, we want to hichhike. Bak to the
comandant, who tels us to go to hel. So we hav to tag along with the USis if we
dont want to spend the rest of our lives in this helhole.
The
airplane is due to take off on the next day. At the reception desk of the hotel
the USis sho their passports and complane to the ladies behind the desk about
the hassle at the border. The ladies explane that it’s all thanks to the
brazilis who ar constantly sneaking over the border ilegally to look for gold
in Venezuela (at the brazilian side it is almost evrything indian reservation),
wat a problem it is. Those bloody brazilis. The fransos and the australo get to
the front of the line, the ladies keep on complaning about the brazilis. Then
we get to the front of the line and giv them our passports. U should see the
look on the ladies faces.
We
fly from Santa Elena on the border to Ciudad Bolívar, the big city in the
jungle. One of the few flites that is worth the price. The airplane has to fly
under the clouds, so between the mountens, and these ar no ordinry mountens. We
ar in La Gran Sabana, with one of the most astounding landscapes in the world.
Here it looks mor like a wiches kichen than a mounten range. Amazingly
symmetrical roks groing out of altar-shaped mountens. From these stone blok summits
there ar tons of waterfalls plunging into the abyss. I wonder how waterfalls
can get started at the summit of a mounten, since there cant be sources of
water there. The waterfalls, i later lern, ar fed exclusively by the rane, wich
there is tons and tons of.
The
airplane is not large, u can always wach the pilot and his accomplice. They'r
not all that serius. They never stop talking, always with gum in their mouths.
They dont talk about taking off or landing, only about women and soccer. And so
it comes to pass that wen we’r taking off after one stop, the airplane veers
completely off the runway and jets along thru the bushes. No problem for the
pilots, they hang a curve and up we go. This happens quite often. We stop off
in 5 indian villages. The landing strips ar mostly muddy clearings with about
as much water as there is in the Pacific. Last stop is Ciudad Bolívar, where we
ar finally supposed to be able to get our entry stamp.
We
go to the barracs. The comandant tels us that we need to make an appearance at
la migración. But it’s friday evening, it's pretty definitely alredy closed. No
worries, says he, we can go there tomorro. Yeah, but wil they be open tomorro?
On saturday? Of corse they wil be, says he. On saturday we go there and they’r
closed. We dont want to wate around all weekend. We get the fone number of the
boss and call him up. We tel him that we'v got a visa but no entry stamp. He
says we need no entry stamp if we alredy hav a visa. Now the big question is:
did he just say that to get rid of us, or is it the truth? We go to the Federal
Police to make sure and ask them. They look at our passports, yes yes, there’s
yur visa. Of corse we’r alowd to go on.
We
hichhike further on with the australo. I think his name was Stuart, maybe John Stuart,
or was Stuart the forname? He has the tiniest luggage that we'v ever seen. A
shopping bag with a pair of underwear, a toothbrush, and an umbrella. His pants
and his shirt ar so big that they dont stik to his body. We hav evry kind of
clothing, a tent, sleeping bags, a stove, books, riting materials, and
evrything else that our household requires. We’r pretty new at this, after all.
In
Caracas we go to the airport. We want to hichhike to the USA with an airplane,
since Central America is too hot for us. War in Nicaragua, gerillas in El
Salvador. The Caracas airport is a big airport for little airplanes. One is
landing just about evry minute. We dont stand on the runways sticking our thums
out but rather go up to the pilots and ask them. Ar u flying to Miami? The
anser is usually no, sometimes even yes. But they'r not alowd to take anyone
along. And so we wile away our days. At some point the police takes an intrest
in an indian musical instrument that the australo has been carrying around with
him. It is a 1-meter-long instrument that u can lay down a rhythm with. They
serch him and open up the instrument. It is fild with wite sand, for the astute
cops it’s a clear case of the smuggler’s blues. They consider us accessories
and drag us along. In the police station at the airport evrything is thuraly
serched. They find all kinds of tea on us, wich also makes them rather
suspicius. Tamu has to explane evrything: tea for an upset stomach, tea for the
kidnys, tea for the sniffles, good thing there is no tea for the brane on us.
Evrything is exammind by experts and they find that evrything really is
harmless. Sand and tea. Then we hav to sho them our passports. “Aaaaaah! U hav
no entry stamps, u ar in this cuntry illegally!” “Now hang on just a minute. We
alredy inquired with the hed Migración gy and the Fedral Police. All of them
told us we dont need one. U can ask them yurself!” “U can save yur fairy tales
for my granma. Clearly u ar illegal aliens.” They want to send us to the
slammer and start making all the necessary fone calls. The only problem is,
there’s no jale where we ar. It just happens to be the thursday befor easter.
Most of the officers ar on vacation, some ar just getting redy to take off. Our
investigating officer is not exactly welcome. Locking someone up means work,
and no one wants to work during their vacation time. Finally he has to giv up.
Not without warning us that we need to go get our entry stamps next tuesday.
We
giv up trying to hichhike by plane, leave Caracas and the australo and start
hedding in the direction of Maracaibo, where lots of ships ar hed in the
direction of the USA. We walk along the freeway and try to get somewhere. A big
car with air conditioning piks us up, 2 gys ar sitting up front talking and we
sit in bak surounded by the music of Jean Michel Jarre, wich so fils the car
that we imagine ourselvs to be in an orbiting space cathedral. We reach
Barquisimeto. The driver is an english teacher who only speaks english with us,
even tho i can speak reasonably good espanian and Tamu has lernd to get along
in this funny language. He invites us to stay with him as long as we like. He
has a big house and is an adherent of the cult of the guru Maharaj Ji, a guru
who was alredy a guru wen he was 10 years old and is stil a guru today, altho
much fatter and richer. In his past lives he was alredy Buddha, Jesus, Krishna,
and wil probably be Frank Sinatra soon too. His pictures hang evrywhere in the
house, even wen u'r taking a shit u cant escape his grin.
The
next morning the gy’s not there, only a note on the table. “I went out, i come
bak tomorro. Please feed the fish.” My english is not yet 100%, but i
understood evrything: he's gon, wil come bak tomorro and we can eat the fish.
The word feed is not familiar to me,
but it must hav something to do with food.
Therefore, feed must mean eat. So nice of him, and i was just
thinking i could go for some fish. Open up the refrigerator, wel, where’s the
fish? No fish there. We look evrywhere, no fish to be found far and wide. The
dude must'v eaten the fish himself. OK then. We’l eat something else. Later on
we find a fish in the aquarium. Wat the...? Ar we supposed to eat that
fish?
In
Maracaibo we alredy hav an adress, also folloers of the guru Maharaj Ji. Very
nice, cool people. A franso who was born in Marocco, grew up in Uruguay, and
who now plays the basoon in the Maracaibo city orchestra. His wife, a tiny
woman from Uruguay, plays the contrabasoon, wich is 2 times as big as a regular
basoon and 3 times as tall as she is. They ar vegetarians (like evryone in this
cult) but they liv wel. A very creamy cup of coffee in the morning (wich they
make in the blender), ratatouille for lunch, and dozens of mangos, wich they
pik from trees on the street on their way home, for dinner. The only thing i
dont especially like is their guru.
One
time we ar spending the nite with some frends of our frends. Their apartment is
on the tenth flor. We ar standing in the kichen havving a conversation, i want
to lean against the dor but it wobbles. I lean against the wall, but it’s not
particularly stable either. Wat? A wall that wobbles? I must be drunk. I stand
stil without leaning against anything. The flor doesn’t want to stand stil
either. I look at my conversational partners, they look at me, as if they
wanted to kno wat i think about this wobbly flor. In the kichen sink there ar
waves. That can only mean that we’r havving an erthquake. From downstairs we
hear the noise of a gigantic tractor or a giant jakhammer. I suggest that we
run downstairs really quik, but there ar children. I dont get how they can be
so chil about this. One kid stil has to put on his shoes, the other one needs a
sweter. We go downstairs and the erthquake is over. Evrything is stil standing.
We wer a bit far away from the epicenter.
Evry
day we go to the harbor and talk to the ship captens. All of them say
categorically: no way. The company wont alow it. Not as a saler, not as a
passenger. They'r always nice to us, we’r a welcome distraction for them. But
not one of them wil take us along. Those days ar long gon. If we want to, we
can sign up at an agency. We mite get a job. And get stuk on a ship to
Australia or Madagascar.
We
giv up on shipping, want to go bak to Caracas and try our luk with the
airplanes once mor. Maybe one wil fly there from here. We go to the airport at
the crak of dawn. Just then there’s a gy pulling his airplane out of the
hangar. I go up to him and ask: “excuse me, ar u flying to Caracas?” “Yes.”
“Can u take me and my frend along?” “Yes.” “Wat???” I run bak, we grab our bags
and fly away.
In
Caracas we cant stay in hotels any mor, we only hav 400 buks left. As it is,
we’r worried the USis wont let us in with so little money, so we hav to pinch
evry penny. We sleep on fire escapes, in parking garages, in old cars. Tamu
doesn’t complane, as long as she can sleep. And she can sleep anywhere. She
makes herself comfortable wherever she is, all thats missing is her PJs. The
woman's admirable to start with. She’s actually a hole lot mor organized too,
she has a beter time, and no matter how lo the budget is, she’s a beter travler
than me. The only problem is that she's not really all that into travling.
Venezuela
is relatively rich, the richest cuntry in Latin America (now, wen i rite this,
it’s not anymor, but it was), stil not perfect. Altho the government has alredy
made atempts to free the cuntry from its petroleum adiction and to
industrialize it, it only goes in fits and starts. Venezuela is a first world
cuntry in terms of its consumption but a third world cuntry in terms of its
mentality. It hasnt succeeded in the relm of social justice. Altho most
venezuelis liv wel or semi-wel, there ar also very poor people. Sevral car
companies bild cars in Venezuela, but most of the cars ar imported from the
USA. The cuntry has a grater proportion of road boats than the USA does. And
it's no wonder wy with these gas prices: not even 25 cents a gallon. Caracas is
a modern city and a living paradise for drivers. For pedestrians it’s a living
nitemare.
Again
we go to the airport evry day. From 6 in the morning til 6 in the evening. We
notice one gy who is constantly going from one area of the airport to another.
One day we ask him if he mite happen to be flying to Miami anytime. He says
he’s not planning to, but he has frends that go there a lot and so he can ask
around. Later on he comes bak and tels us that a frend of his is flying
tomorro. The only thing is, he cant take us along for free, we'v gotta pony up
a little for the fuel. He wants 150 dollars. We consider it. It would get us
out of this city and it’s a hel of a lot cheaper than an airline. Okay, say we.
He says there’s just one problem— we'v got to pay in advance, rite now. The
hole thing sounds kind of fishy, but this gy cant be a con man, evryone knows
him here. We giv him the money and ar supposed to come bak at this time
tomorro, he’l come with the pilot and off we go.
The
next day we’r there at the rite time, but he's not. Nor is he one our after
that. He doesn’t sho up all day. We hav to admit we'v gotten ripd off. But that
just cant be, the gy spends all of his time at the airport. We go to all the
different divisions of the airport and ask around. A blond gy with kind of an
afro, u’v gotta hav seen him. Yeah, he always just sat there. Never said a word.
We sit on the stairs and dont kno wat to do any mor. We’r not feeling too good.
We ask around with the pilots, the pilots get all worked up about it and start
looking for the gy themselvs. Turns out he’s the airport directors son. We end
up finding the director and his son. He tries to deny evrything we say about
him, the father biches him out and thanks us for handling the hole thing so
discretely. We get our cash bak. Then we find a pilot who is flying to Puerto
Rico and who would giv us a ride. We think about it quikly: Puerto Rico is
hafway and then we’d finally be thru US imigration. OK, it’s now or never. We
get a hotel room and wash our things. We’d beter be clean wen we arive in the
USA. Time to go, only my pants arnt dry yet and the cabbin pressurizer is
broken on the airplane. It’s cold, especially if u hav wet pants. The outside
temperature is the same as the inside temperature. Good thing we’r flying at
10000 feet and not at 30000.
At
the beginning evrythings grate, the sky is clear. After a haf our we hav a wall
of clouds in front of us blocking our entire field of vew. We plunge into this
soup and see absolutely nothing at all. I’m sitting next to the pilot, and
Tamu’s in the bak seat. The pilot says i should let him kno if i see an
airplane coming from the rite. Not much to see, tho, the other airplane would
hav to be 10 feet in front of my nose. And i dont kno if it would help things
if i told the pilot then. The airplane shakes, rattles, and sometimes feels
like it’s in free fall for an eternity. We lose radio contact and the pilot
doesn’t look so chil any mor. To top it all off, we’r in the vicinity of the
Bermuda Triangle. I ask the pilot if this plane wil float on the water in case
we cant stay in the air. He thinks, on average probably one minute if it’s a
soft landing. And do we hav a lifeboat here? Nope, no boat, no swim vests.
Good. Just checking. The only calm one in the hole story is Tamu, who is
wondering if she should take her shoes off or leave them on if we’r gonna
crash. I’m feeling sik and i cant do anything. Nothing for my nausea, nothing,
to help the pilot. He's trying to calculate the routes, but because of our
unstable situation he doesn’t kno where to start. 2 ours this torture lasts.
Then the pilot comes into contact with the airport, we see the iland of Puerto
Rico from an altitude of 300 feet and we can land. The pilot tels us that this
was his ruffest flite in 16 years of flying a plane.
Author travling
I
go to Colón and get all uneasy. I dont want to walk one meter in this town. I
keep taking taxis in the hope that the taxi driver wont want to jak me. At the
harbor i ask around evrywhere, just as i’m about to giv up i find a boat. It’s
going to Puerto Obaldia, on the border to Colombia.
10
pm is the departure time. I go bak to my hotel, the taxi driver is a colombo
from Barranquilla. I ask him if he isnt afrade to drive a taxi here. How come,
he asks. This city is a church by comparison to Barranquilla. That makes me
glad, since i'm going to Barranquilla. Maybe then i wil meet a brazili who tels
me that Barranquilla is a church by comparison to Rio. At 10 pm they tel us
that the boat isnt departing until 3 am. On the boat there ar 20 indian crew
members, 3 mulatto passengers, and me. It’s thursday, one of them tels me we
wil arive tomorro. Later on, that we wil arive on monday. Shit. If i’m not in
Caracas soon, the post wil return my male to sender. And male is to the travler
wat air is to the human being. In the beginning we hav normal waves, in the
vicinity of the first of the San Blás Ilands the sea becomes very stil. The
water is smooth like jel-o, the boat is just suspended in it. Wen u aproach an
iland and the water is less than 10 meters deep, u can see the ocean flor. Good
diving for sure. The first iland is the cappital of the San Blás Archipelago.
One somewat larger, a haf dozen smaller houses, and a hole lot of coconut
trees. The man who is there to greet us wants to see my passport, just because
i’m wite. Yet another case of race discrimination. All the same, it’s the first
time a governor wants to chek my passport. This is a proper caribbean paradise.
Sun, sand, palm trees, bacardi rum. The ilands ar exclusivly inhabbited by the
kuna indians. They used to liv in the panamian interior, that is until the
mosquitos braut them yello fever and the espanis braut them sifilization and
drove them to the coast. On the coast they stil didnt feel safe, so they
resettled on the ilands. They liv on the ilands, fish around them, and the land
is used for agriculture and hunting. The kuna ar self-assertive indians who
achieved autonomy a couple of years ago. They’r very activ against the
celebration of the 500th anniversary of the “discovery” of America— they ar of
the opinion that the “discovery” was, nicely put, a meeting of 2 cultures, not
so nicely put, it was a massacre. On one wall in the harbor there hangs a
picture where u see a couple of indians and Columbus, who has just stepd off
his ship. One indian says to the other, “he says his name is Columbus and he’s
come to ‘discover’ us. Ha ha ha ha ha!”
The
kunas bury their ded in a bowling-pin shaped grave, wide end down. On top
there’s a thin opening that u can get thru, if u'r not a sumo fiter. On top of
the opening they lay a lite slab of wood so that the ded can get bak out, in
case they'r not quite ded.
hero travling
Miami. The english that my english teachers spoke is decidedly easier to
understand than the english that the bus driver is speaking. “Is this bus going
to town?” “Ar whrifhwam bluam bluam rr r tchvonfoidmmmnn j’d ride! Ha ha ha ha
ha!” “Sorry, i dont understand. Is this bus going to town? “ “Ar whrifhwam
bluam bluam rr r tchvonfoidmmmnn j’d ride! Ha ha ha ha ha!” “Sorry,
i didn’t understand again. Is this bus going to town?” “Yes.”
In
central Florida we visit 2 uncles. Both pure WASPs. Not entirely anglo-saxon,
but so much the mor wite and protestant. 2 baptist ministers. Totally in favor
of the deth penalty. We visit Disneyworld. Very USian. But evrything in the US
is just very USian. They cant help it. Here i find work as a truk driver and a
lawn moer operator. I can only deal with that for one day, too much dust and
stress, and then i dont like the boss.
We
hed north to Chattahoochee, swing past Tallahassee, and finally reach the I-10
all the way to California. The only people who stop ar drunks, hermits, queers,
and blaks. Under ordinry circumstances, the USi is quite disciplined in trafic,
the people who giv us lifts, on the other hand, ar the exact opposite. They
drive thru woods, over fields, up mountens, and bakwards on the freeway. Of all
the drivers that pik us up, one third hav a case of beer next to them. We get
in and 3 cans ar opend. One for me, one for u, one for u. Another third wil
immediately take out a joint and there wil be a session. The rest hav a case of
beer and a joint. Hichhiking is easy. The lifts ar seldom long, but then again
people stop in droves for us, even if we dont want them to. In Mobile, Alabama,
we cach a lift all the way to New Orleans, Louisiana. The gy talks like a real
sutherner, like a frog. Ribbit ribbit ribbit. The car is big, but
constantly braking down. First a flat tire, then the motor wont start. It
starts to rane and the windshield wipers stop working. We go on for a bit until
we’r driving blind, and the driver pulls over. I joke that we should take off
our shoelaces and tie the wipers. He’d pull one way and then i’d pull the other
way. Being an USo, he finds this to be a cappital idea. The going is a bit ruf,
but we manage to drive 60 miles in this manner. In the vicinity of New Orleans
he lets us off. We’r standing on the freeway at nite. 2 shitfaced drunk gys giv
us a ride. They drive on the left, on the rite, on the curb, in the grass. They
take us strate to a bar in a blak naberhood of New Orleans thats pakd full,
where us and the 2 shitfaced gys ar the only wite people in the hole place.
They all kno the driver and his friend, and evryone is euforic. Not becoz thay
came, but just because thay’r euforic. We get introduced to each and every one
of them. A few days later we go on to Texas. A woman givs us a lift in her old
scool bus, wich she and her 6-year-old son live in. Clean and neat as a pin.
She’s been travling the cuntry for years and home scooling her son. Really
funny cuntry.
In
Texas we do as the tourists do and visit NASA. Then we go from Houston to San
Antonio. We spred out our sleeping quarters on the benches behind a McDonalds,
but dont want to go to sleep until the store has closed. Sometime after midnite
it’s quiet, all the munchers hav gon home, we get in bed, the crew comes out
and givs us the leftover hamburgers. 7 big macs and a couple apple pies. It’s
mor than a funny cuntry.
We
get one of the longest lifts that we'v ever gotten. All the way to Los Angeles.
The driver just got out of jale and wants to settle an old scor in California.
We make it almost 1200 miles without stopping. We swich off at the steering
weel, there’s no time to eat. And wat for, there’s plenty of beer in the car.
In West Texas he has to shel out some buks for getting caut speeding, they even
take us to the police station. In Arizona it’s my turn. It is nite and i find
it funny that these mountens around us get blu evry 2 seconds or so, until i realize
after a few minutes that it is a police car behind us. Good thing that both
times, we get away without the cops caching a wif of our breth.
California
is simply swarming with hermits. They'r coming bak from going shopping and giv
us a lift on the way. They'r USian hermits, of corse they all hav cars and hav
to go stok up on their hamburgers. It’s not like the stuf grows in the field, u
kno.
author travling
Today a reef ran into us. The ships propeller is broken, but it keeps running,
just mor sloly. This trip is taking longer than i would prefer. The boat is a
floating supermarket, it suplies a dozen ilands. If we had gon directly to our
destination, we would hav been there a long time ago, but sometimes we hang
around on one iland for a hole day. These people arnt in any grate hurry. How
many miles did we loop bak to pik up a sak of sugar that we forgot?
The
ilands ar all very different. Some of them ar gigantic with just a few
inhabbitants, wile others ar very small and completely bilt up. Wat they all
hav in common is a basketball cort. I mean, wats an indian without basketball?
On all the ilands u see blond indians. They ar wite blond with red skin. These
ar the real redskins. They ar so numerus because evryone is related to evryone
else. Albinos ar named sipu here. I
tel them i’m not an USo but rather a sipu. The regular indians always laf,
wether the sipus themselvs would find that funny i dont kno.
It’s
starting to be a problem for me that the other passengers and me ar now an
inseprable group. We’r the only ones that arnt working. My new frends ar all
rite, but they dont hav any money. Wat little they do hav, they dont want to
spend, in the hope that i mite finance them. I’m in the same boat as them, so
to speak, so i just eat on the ship. The food is a giant plate of rice twice a
day with a little spoonful of cand sardines each time. I can barely stomach the
site of it any mor. I hav money left but it’s running out, and it’s certainly
no simple matter to cash a travlers chek on these ilands.
Speaking
of wich, Panama does not hav pesos.
All business is done strictly in US dollars. The national currency of Panama is the dollar, the
government calls it the Balboa, but the people call it the dollar, probably
because thats wat it is.
We
want to get a good nites sleep. A hotel is not an option, because there isnt
one. Maybe the scool? We go to the chief and explane that the ship is so full
of hammocs that there’s no room left for us, considring that we hav no hammocs
of our own. The chief promises to put our request on the agenda of the daily
village meeting that evening. We wate and wate. Then we go to the meeting and
wach from outside. My frends can understand a little kuna, the local language,
and someone is giving a speech condemming the invasion of outsiders. Thats us.
We go bak to the warf and wate. And wate. Then i lie down on the quay and fall
asleep. The others sleep on the ship. The next morning they tel me that a gay
indian kissd me. There’s definitely a gay indian, i’v seen him. Wether or not
he actually kissd me, i dont kno. In any case, he didnt get anything mor from
me. Nothing ever happens with me wen i’m asleep. Not actively, at least.
Nothing happend passivly either, i slept on my bak. Yet again u dont believe
me.
Fulo
has left us. His name is not even Fulo, thats just a term for a coffee-colored
gy. Or a coco-colored gy. He is a mormon and he is on a mission to bild a
temple in a village. All the bilding materials hav to be gotten piecemeal from
one iland to the next. He has no one to help him. So it ends up being our job.
I wonder if it’s the rite thing to do, helping out a frend who is doing the
rong thing. At least as far as i’m concerned, it’s rong to bild a mormon temple
on an indian iland. Wat it is as far as u'r concernd, i dont kno. Even if the
indians can then play ping-pong and the mormons belong to a religion that says
that the hole story of the Bible took place in the America, in paralel. Wen i
say ‘America’, i mean the continent, because this is the way the continent is
called. Watever the case, we help him load, unload, and reload from one iland
to bring it to another iland. Scool motorboat warf ship, from one iland to
another. Once we cant dok to unload because there’s no place to hich to, and
besides there ar cases of cholera on the iland. First one canoe comes, but
thats definitely not enuf. Then one of the people on the beach shouts, and
suddenly here comes a hole flood of canoes rushing toward us. With a grate deal
of effort and caos all the stuf is transferred. U go, Fulo. Bild yur temple.
In
a stor in another of the larger villages i see a butiful wite woman. She looks
like an engla from the beginning of the 20th century. She looks me over
intently and leaves. I ask the proprietor where she's from. She is a persa, an
irana, a missionry of the Bahai cult. The proprietor is also a member of the
cult and says that it’s not a cult. Thats wat evryone says about their own
cult. And wat else does he hav to say? The bahais worship a guru who livs in
Persia, and if thay dont worship him, they at leest follo him. The religion has
4 temples spred in the world, one of them in Panama. The bahai says u hav to
gro in evry direction and become a beter person. Materially, socially,
spiritually. He says that it must be lernd and that u shouldn’t take his word
for it, but rather u should look within yurself and in the world. Yes, sir, in
that case i too am a bahai. At least in principle. And i dont even need to
follo this guru. The proprietor thinks i’m rite.
An
old indian with a suit, tie, and walking stik is chatting with me in english.
He asks me a lot of questions, our exchange is very lively. Then it’s time for
me to go and i ask him his name. Charles Smith, he says. On a panamian indian
iland.
There
ar butiful indian women in abundance here. U start to think nauty thauts,
especially with those shorts, wich ar very short and tite. Stay cool, man. This
is apache territory.
To
keep the ship running, u'v gotta fuel it evry once in a wile. There’s no
filling station for boats in the San Blás Ilands, fuel has to be pumpd from
reserve barrels into the tank. There’s no pump either, someone sifons the fuel
over by sucking on the hose. Today one of the salers had a little too much of
the stuf to drink and had to go to the infirmary. Again we wate. I ask the
capten if we cant just leave the gy at the infirmary and they can pik him up on
the way bak. No, he says. No. As to wy not, he doesn’t kno or doesn’t want to
explane to me. He has time. I dont. Unfortunatly i am not the capten. Much mor
lively is the pace of the dolfins that come up to us. First they giv us a
circus number without us even paying for it. Haf a dozen of them fly hy and wen
they hav almost come down again, there go the others, all in perfect symmetry.
All together they look like a wandring water weel. They come, encircle us, do a
couple of somersalts, and then swim in front of us, leading the way. Wats up
with that? We kno where we’r hedded. Most of the time, at least.
The
toilets on the ilands ar really something. Little cabbins on the water. The
flor consists of a couple of bamboo stiks and holes between them. U hav to wach
out that u dont fall thru. Down belo is the water, as u would expect it’s
pretty unsannitry and not someplace u'd want to swim. Tonite i used one of
them. Dark and thrilling.
On
the one warf there’s a little boy fishing. He throws his line way out. Some
pretty blu shiny long fishes ar swimming happily around. They ar elegant and ar
named tabu. The tabu is just merrily
swimming along, wen he comes upon a wonderful looking erthworm stake. He digs
in and discovers that there’s a cach to it. The hook sinks into his pallat and
wont let him go. It pulls him in one direction, and he feels that the other
direction would be beter. He pulls the hook and line in the other direction and
the boy lets him rage for a bit. The tabu has no hands, he does the only thing
he can, wich is move his hole body and try to free himself. His girlfrend is
waching the tragedy. She can do nothing but swim around him despratly in the
hope that he wil free himself that way. After an unequal struggle between hand
and pallat he is yankd out of the water. The boy pulls the hook out of the fish
and throws the fishing line rite bak into the water. The tabuess realizes that
it’s over with her boyfrend, senses that it’s a precarius situation for her
too, knows that the stake is a murderous trap, and hy-tales it out of there.
The tabufish is now lying in the hot sun in this terrible world where he cant
even breathe, and he has to look at this laffing crowd standing around him.
Then the primary intrest of the crowd shifts to ms. tabufish, and mr. tabufish
feels like shit. He has to die but he cant. One minute, two minutes, and he
doesn’t die. I jump out of the ship and giv him a good kik. Now it’s over. The
crowd looks at me with astonishment.
Altho
the villages hav motorboats, each inhabbitant has at least a canoe and the
ilands arnt far apart from each other, there ar stil major cultural
differences. Some ar open to the world, “westernized”, others ar closed and
conservative. The big hit with the kids on one of the ilands is the handstand.
They get around almost exclusively upside-down. But it’s only that way on one
iland, the others havnt ever seen it.
Of
the passengers, now there ar only 2 left, me and Bunga. Thats not his name, but
i'v got to call the gy something. He calls me Brazil. To me he says he’s a
fisherman. Then he tels the next gy, within earshot of me, that he owns a
stereo stor in Panama City. And the next gy, that he's in the military. Evry
time he asks someone for something, he garnishes it with a mile-long story. He
is a compulsiv liar, like so many that this continent is richly blessd with. We
reach Tubuala, the home port of our ship, the last iland befor Puerto Obaldia.
The inhabbitants of this iland ar the shareholders of the ship. Now we ar told
that this is the last stop. The ships propeller is haf broken and there ar
cases of cholera in Puerto Obaldia. I can only get there with a small motor
boat. That costs 40 dollars, 20 for each of us. I demand 20 dollars bak from
the ship company, they ar only willing to giv me 8 dollars, the price of the
last leg of the trip. I explane that i cant just take another ship the rest of
the way, they sold me a ticket to Obaldia and so they hav to make sure i get
there for the agreed-upon price. Nothing works with them. Indians hav no
concept of customer service. As a brazili i would protest once and then take my
business someplace else. But i hav become somewat deutsher, make a big scene
and argue with the crew and the assembled shareholders. To no avale.
The
boatsman isnt alowd to pilot us, the chief wont alow it because of the reported
cholera. We explane to the chief how u get infected with cholera, that u dont
get it because u spent 5 minutes at the harbor. He sends us bak to another
iland where a doctor livs. If the doctor thinks it’s all rite, he should rite a
confirmation. We go and find another boat insted of a doctor.
In
Obaldia there ar no indians. There ar wites, blaks, browns. The boatsman
promises to start in 5 minuts and stays 5 ours. I go to the police to notify
them of my departure. The officer is mad: “U cant just walk into this cuntry
like that, u need a visa for Panama!” “The visa is there, look. And besides, i
want out, not in.” “Oh, i see.”
I
reach Colombia. Brazil isnt much farther. Colombia is cool and causes no visa
problems for me. Venezuela takes 4 days and a lot of nervs to issue a visa. I
hate this cuntry. Mathilda dont run Venezuela. Now i am with
Peter, an easy-going austro, in the Gran Sabana.
author at rest
I changed my shirt. Hands in the air, electric fan down belo. But i stil hav my
fingers.
hero at rest
Los Angeles has a lousy downtown, compared to New York or São Paulo. But it is the center of a gigantic
conglomeration of cities, practically all of suthern California. Wat other city has suburbs like
Hollywood or Disneyland? If
California wer independent, it would hav the 7th biggest gross domestic product
in the world, bigger than China.
Uncle
and antie ar nice and helpful. They tel us that u ar supposed to say excuse me wenever u leave the table. In
their evryday life they speak english, with us they speak americatarinian, a
deutsh-brazilian-american mixture: er is über die fencen gejumpt um rápido in
die cidade zu kommen (he jumpd over the fence to come quikly to the city). Evry
day they stik us in tour buses, the drivers ar constantly trying to be funny,
and we get to kno Hollywood Disneyland Beverly Hills San Diego. They get us a
job. Tamu packages lenses, i scrub machines. One day we hav a brazilian party,
wat would u expect there? Samba and tanga girls? Corect. Who shows up for the
party? A bunch of brazilian sutherners with names like Schmidt, Hofmeister,
Blaskowski.
Not
evrything is burgers in the US: now we hav money again and can aford to go to a
seafood restaurant. Evrything possible is offerd here: fish and chips, shrimp
and chips, oysters and chips. If thats not enuf for u, there’s also fish and
oysters, shrimp and oysters, and even the triple combination of fish, shrimp, and
oysters. The beverage selection is dizzying: coke, tea, and coffee. Now people
hav told me i just go to the rong place, that u really can eat wel in the
States. There ar japanian restaurants, chinan, indian, arabian, italian etc. Of
corse, and they’r good. But not specially easy to find outside the big cities.
USian
television is not much difrent from brazilian television, lots of entertanement
and advertising. The news ar very much concentrated on the US and u hardly hear
anything about the rest of the world. In this house we hav to wach TV sermons,
wich ar very popular. One time the minister complanes, “i tel u that we need 1
million dollars to bild the church, and wat do we hav altogether now? A measly
700,000! Is that all u hav left over for yur God? If i wer God, i would giv u a
kik in the behind!” The operators behind the minister hav to work like mad
then, all the lines ar busy, and soon enuf todays million ar in after all.
Thank God.
Regular
protestant churches ar somewat unique too. The service begins with the national
anthem, then the minister tels a couple jokes to get the ball rolling. Anyway
it’s a good way to get the public atention. The US flag stands next to him, the
line between religion and nationalism is blurd. They never come rite out and
say it, but frequently u get the drift: God’s chosen people used to be the
jews, but they kept fucking up, so God went and found himself a new favorit.
The USis, who else.
There
ar less religious USis too, but stil many of them believe in good and evil, and
wen there is a problem with another cuntry, they think they’r the good ones. Of
corse, thats wat evrybody wants to hear, and the media giv them that. I’m not
anti-USi, and i think they’r usually very polite, frendly and tend to be
helpful. Politically i dont think
they ar the bad ones. But they’r not the good ones either. I think they ar
human beings. They ar idealists, and the world needs that. They ar creativ and
gave many good things to the world, and they eeven faut some wars that wer
“good” and necessary. But not evrything they gave to the world was good, in my
opinion. But then u should never confuse the government with the people.
Nowhere in the world.
Sumtimes
USis ar just normal people, but often they ar like the cliché of themselvs.
They often hav an incredible drive, they’r crazy, sometimes even in a good
sense...
hero travling
We visit the Grand Canyon. Quite imposing. We hav no permit to camp at the
river, wich means that we hav to go 14 km down, hav a look at it and walk up
the 14 km again in the same day. It gets dark, and sometimes we hav a rest and
swich on the torch. Then we see a scorpion coming in our direction, but we’r so
tired that we’r not hungry any mor.
On to
the Grand Canyon Cavverns. There an elevator wil take u 20 stories into the
deep. Befor, there wer just stairs, at some point they found 2 bodies on the
stairs. The bodies belongd to indian ex-citizens, so the indians declared the
cavverns to be cursed. They demanded the closure of the caves, the caves wer
sealed. At least at the original entrance. Now we ar in America and tourists
hav rites too. So a hole was dug elsewhere for the elevators. Otherwise the
tourists would never come.
Annimals
hav no fear of humans at the campgrounds here. Bears dont and neither does the
cat that bit one gest. Then the victim wants to get revenge and the hunt begins
other gests form a posse it gets louder the cat is nowhere to be found a woman
is sleeping in her tent hears the noise and gets uneasy someone in the hunting
party has a bb gun someone else shouts “shoot her in the hed” the woman thinks
it’s a mass murder grabs her kid and vamooses in a cloud of dust later the hunt
is over someone notices that the woman has disappeared evryone serches for her
and her kid the woman hears that people ar looking for her that only reinforces
her conviction that a band of mass murderers is out to get her and she flees
even farther away. They find her a week later, exausted and starving.
Thru
the desert toward Las Vegas. The drivers always ask us where we’r from. “Brazil.”
“Missouri? Really? Grate!” “No, no Missouri. Bra-zil!” “New
Zealand? Really? Grate!” “No, no. Brazil! Bra-zziiilll!” “Oh,
Brazil? Really? Grate!”
In
Las Vegas there ar a couple casinos, maybe u'v herd of them. The air is very
hot, the wind is even hotter, so u immediatly hav to hed into a casino, where
the air conditioning wil provide u relief. Soon we discover the coupons that ar
being handed out on the street to lure people into the casinos. With these
coupons we drink free beer, eat the free or cheap food (to all intents and
purposes), call up an uncle in Michigan for free, get free pictures taken of
us, and squander our one-armd bandit tokens. Then we get some mor for the next
casino. And then we leave befor we hav to leave our pants there. We sleep in
the Greyhound Station. As always, i just sit around, wile Tamu makes herself
comfortable in her sleeping bag. She sleeps as if she wer in a dol house.
Ma’am, this is no dol house, this is the Greyhound Station.
On
the hyway u see very strange vehicles, even hole houses that ar being
transported from one town to another. The best is a DC-3 without wings, but
with car tires, wich functions as a mobile home. The hichhikers u see, as a
rule, ar not the sharp college students u see in Europe, but usually
broken-down outsiders. Sometimes they dont say a single word and leave the car
as if they had never been in it. One time we see a hole famly hiching. Father,
mother, 2 kids, and a big dog. Never seen this befor. Or after.
In
some states hichhiking is prohibited, wich doesn’t mean that u'r not alowd to
stand on the side of the road. U'r just not alowd to stik yur thum out. U hav
to just stand there and smile at the drivers, or, depending on yur mood, do a
couple of clown routines. Once we see a Rolls-Royce, and we kid each other that
our further passage is garanteed. The car actually stops. No sooner hav we
gotten into the car than the gy, who is dressd in a suit and tie, offers us a
joint. Like i said, USis ar always very polite. Later on a funny-looking and
-acting gy stops for us. The hole way, the car is fild with smoke. We take a
brake at a rest stop, he drinks a beer and we eat cookies. The gy goes to the
bathroom and is taking a long time in there. Little by little we start to get
worried, even if in theory, nothing can really happen. He cant go bak to the
car without us seeing him, Tamu is suspicius anyway and goes for a chek. Turns
out there is another exit from the bathroom, the gy’s alredy sitting in the car
and starting the motor, Tamu runs over, opens the dor, pulls out our bakpaks as
he’s alredy driving away. 2 seconds later and it would hav been too late. Good
thing i'v got a woman by my side. The USA hav two sides to it: the one side has
the penetrating aroma of detergent, the other side reeks like the gutter. Nowhere is the contrast as extreme as
it is in this cuntry.
San
Francisco, unlike Los Angeles, is a real city and not a giant colection of
little cities like LA. It reminds me a lot of São Paulo, especially because of
the steep streets and the varius modes of transport such as subway, streetcar,
cable car, trolly bus, and bus. In LA u see nothing but cars, cars, and cars.
San Francisco is full of queers and junkies. U can get evrything that yur hart
desires. Cocaine, acid, weed, h, o, and all the other leters of the alfabet. In
this city, 30 percent of the population is blak, 30 percent is asi, and 40
percent ar wackos.
On
the way to Seattle we visit a comune. At the entrance we ar haf expecting a bus
where the driver wil start rite off with: “Ladies and gentlemen, good morning!
My name is Gordon and this is a comunity.” Nothing of the sort. No one shows us
around, no one looks after us. Not
that people ar rude to us, they'r just cool. Lots of yung people, but old
people and children too. The people here dont sit around theorizing the way
people do in most european comunes, they just want to get away from the city,
liv a helthy life, and be able to hav some weed without any hassle. Some ar
naked, some ar clothed, evrybody does wat suits them in a way that suits
them. There ar no bosses, just
weekly assemblies where evrything is decided colectivly and where people take
turns being “administrator” for a week. Some liv and work there, some ar
constant visitors, some liv there but work in the outside world. All very
peaceful and americanly uncomplicated.
hero travling
Oregon. Washington. Idaho. In Utah almost the entire population is mormon, as a
result some things get mor complicated. Cigarets can only be obtaned from
vending machines, people under 20 ar not alowd to by cigarets. So that the law
wil be obeyd, the cigaret machines ar lokd. If u want cigarets, u hav to find
the manager (wich is not always easy) and sho yur papers. Then the manager
comes and unloks the machine for u. Then u can insert yur coins. A very modern
system. All the same, this state is only haf as puritanical as u would expect a
mormon state to be. Wherever a religion becomes the majority, it no longer gets
taken very seriously. A large
portion of the mormons in Utah ar jakmormons, that is, lapsd mormons. I dont kno if u can call lapsd
catholics jakcatholics too, since this prefix jak- seems to hav varying
meanings. Jak- can mean fake,
sudo-, lapsd, ex-, exept for wen it doesn’t really seem to mean anything. A jakass is not a sudo-ass, just a
regular ass u can make of yurself.
Speaking of ass, i keep seeing bumper stickers saying:
GAS, GRASS, or ASS
- NOBODY RIDES FOR FREE
But thats not the same kind of ass i was just talking
about.
Wyoming,
Nebraska, Iowa. Up til now desert, from here on out cornfields. From Iowa i try
to fone Brazil. The operator asks me wich Brazil i want, the one in South
America or... “Of corse South America!” I cant believe my ears. How can anyone
be so stupid? As if there wer other Brazils somewhere. Later on i find out that
there is in fact a town in Iowa called Brazil. Not far from the town of Cuba.
Canadis
dont like it one bit wen people mix them up with USis. There’s almost no
visible difrence (at least not in ‘english’ Canada), but the canadis dont try
to act like the worlds sherif, and they wish their naber wouldnt either, and if
they did, they should at least respect the law too. Itl be a little wile befor
that happens. In Quebec evrything gets rather francian. The quebekis ar much mor intrested in
world politics than the USis or english canadis ar. Montreal is butiful,
lively, and the subway tranes hav tires like cars.
Now
our heroes make it to New York, the imposingest, second-dirtiest (after Lagos),
and second-rowdiest (after Rio) city in the world. And one of the riskiest,
noisiest, craziest, and a hole lot of other -ests too. I would never want to
liv in a city like this, but u'v gotta hav experienced it, at least for a
couple of weeks or months. New York is completely difrent from the rest of the
US, and u can even get good food here. See, there ar 4 zones in North America:
Mexico and some suthern parts of the US, where they speak espanian, Angloamerica,
where they speak english, Quebec, where they think they speak francian, and New
York, where they speak bad espanian and bad english.
Our
heroes hav to make the leap over to Europe. One quik look at the New York
harbor and its sheer size, and our heroes forget about trying to hit up all 500
ship captens for a lift. They hav to fly, as much as it panes our hero.
(from heer on it is me translating, so be prepared...)
KAPITTEL 16
KRAUT TERRITORIUM
Die Heros pass die deutsche border und reach Köln (Cologne). At a Gas Station in den outskirts we ask den attendant
how we get to dem City Zentrum. We speak some Deutsch. Der attendant is
freundlich und explanes it to uns. We’r relieved that he didnt bawl at uns. We
kno that many dings they say about die Deutschen ar Klischees, but where u seh
so much smoke there muss be ein Feuer. We herd yu cant spit on die street, und
if yu do it, a Policist will immediately appear from a Gully und giv yu an
astronomische fine, if he doesn’t take yu with ihm. Besides, we herd
Deutsche ar rude und unfreundlich, but der attendant at least wasnt.
Wie take a Bus at the Endstation. The driver is rieding a Papier, then he
startet the Bus als if hie wer starting a Jumbojet. Wie dont understand: the
driver didnt ask für payment und it looks that nobody wants uns to pay. Pieple
get in the Bus und dont pay either. Ar Busse frei in Deutschland? Wie seh a sign saying that we hav to ‘entwerten’ the Ticket. ‘Ent-‘ would
bie the same als in Englisch ‘de-‘, or ‘in-‘, and ‘wert’ means ‘worth’:
“deworth”, “devalue”, invalidate. How can wie invalidate a Ticket wie dont hav?
Und wat should wie by a Ticket für if wie hav to invalidate it? The Bus stops
in a Garage, the driver lieves the Bus, talks to another driver, who resumes
the journey. Maybie the other driver told the neu driver about uns, maybie a
plot? The Bus arives at the Endstation. Evrybody gets out, wie prefer not to
take any Risiko, maybie all Alarms will sound wenn wie lieve the Bus. Wie go to
the driver und tell ihm that wie didnt pay. Hie says: ‘Yu didnt pay? Wel... pay
next time, then.’ Funny pieple.
Ve vant to werk hier, ve’r broke. My Bruder und his wife werkten hier a
Weile ago. Altho ve’r not Studenten ve hav Studentenkarten, even für the next
years. That is the advantage of havving Freunde in the Computer section of the
Universität. But in the Employment Office they say ve need an
‘Aufenthaltserlaubnis’. Vat the Hölle is that? If ve look für the englischen
Cousins of the Worte that form that Wort, it would be ‘On-de-hold-allowness’.
Seems someding like a stay permit. Und where do ve get that? In a deutschen
embassy abroad or at the Registerbüro of the City, but in yor case it should be
quite impossible.
No way tu get a Job in this City. The river Rhein luks nice, the Kathedrale
luks nice und the Atmosphäre is cheerful. Ve hav tu try somewhere els, ve go tu
Hamburg. On the way tu Hamburg a driver from Köln tells uns that people in
Hamburg ar opener und freundlicher than in Köln. In Hamburg ve dont find any
Job, so ve go back tu Köln. On the way there a driver from Hamburg tells uns
that people ar much freundlicher in Köln.
On the freivays many Mercedes und BMW’s givv uns a ride. Many execkutives
ar interessiert in vat people say, ve havv oft quite interessante
Konversationen. This happens oft in England too, but rarely in the US or in any
other Länder, since people vith Moneten dont vant to mix upp with the Mob.
Maybe this is one of the secrets of the deutschen Mirakel, that the executives
kno besser vat people like. It is supposedly also one of the secrets of the
japanischen Mirakel. Und on the deutschen freivays it seems that the Deutschen
vant to keep the japanische Kamikaze-Tradition. The nativs, who usually ar
afrade of the Past, the Präsens und the Futur, suddenly lose alle their fears
und drive like unpayd Formel-1 Piloten. I gess that the average speed on an
Autobahn is 160 km (100 Meilen) per our, butt sometimes u’r driving 180 km p/h
on the left lane und there u seh in the mirror how a Porsche or BMW comes
quickly und startet making signs that a snail like u should only drive in the
rite lane. These deutschen just expect that their branes, their cars, the
branes of the other drivers und the other cars werk alle perfekt als in a
gigantischen computer-kontrollierten Pinnballmaschine.
Anyvay ve trry again in Köln, it doesn’t werk und ve go to München
(Munic), vhere my Bruder und his wife werkten. On the vay a drriver tells uns
that people in München ar opener, freundlicher. So vat now? In Bayern (Bavaria)
they speak Bayrisch, a differrent Dialekt, und it real sounds differrent. Not ‘ein, zwei, drei’
(for 1, 2, 3) but ‘oan, zwoa, drei’ (and für ‚one eg’, wich is ‚ein ei’ in
Deutsch, they say ‚oa oa’). Again ve go to the Employment
Office, und again they vant this komische ‚Aufenthalterlaubnis’. Ve dont kno
any mor vat to do. O, ve didnt get any Entrystempel at the border, maybe thats
our Problem! Und the solution of the Problem! So ve hich to Österreich
(Austria) und come back via another landstreet after an our. At der border ve
ask the Policist für an Entrystempel. The Polizist sendet uns to the Büro. An
Entrystempel please. This Polizist looks at uns als if ve had askd für a Pomade
against foot fungi. Entrystempel? Well, he hat to finden it ferst. He opens a
drrawer, closes it, opens another vun, findet a Stempel, trries it on the
Papier, no good, trries another one. After a few drrawers und a few Stempel he
findet it und stempel our passports. Ve go back to the Employment Office, they
tell uns that an Entrystempel doesn’t hab anyding to do vith an
Aufenthalterlaubnis. But meanvile ve got a Letter frrom my Bruder, und in this
Letter he gave the Adresse of the Platz vhere they werkten. Ve go there, sho
our Internationalen Studentenkarts, prromis to werken hart und get the Jobb.
***
The deutsh language is the complicated cousin of the
english language. The spelling is the only feature that is easier in deutsh. It
is far from being perfect, there ar quite a few sounds u can spell in sevral
ways: im See sah sie so super aus (she lookd so good in the lake (See
means ‘sea’ and ‘lake’, but in this case it is masculin, and wen it is masculin
it is the lake...)), but actually u could also spel ‘im se sa si so super aus’.
So they hav 4 ways to spel long vouls. Tal, Zahl and Saal ar perfect rhymes,
but hav difrent spellings. U can spel the sound /f/ with F, PH and V. On the
other hand the V can be pronounced /f/ or /v/, depending on the word and on the
region. Thay invented an extra leter (ä) for a sound thay cant pronounce: thay
say the word ‘jäh’ should be pronounced /IE:/ (as in english ‘yeah’), wich is
difrent from ‘je’, wich would be pronounced /Ie:/ (like english ‘yay’ but
without the second ‘y’), but then thay pronounce it /Ie:/ all the same. The
sound /aI/ (as in english ‘my’) is usually speld ‘ei’, but sometimes ‘ai’.
‘Papa’ and ‘vater’ hav the same final vouls. U can spel /ks/ as ‘x’, as ‘ks’,
‘cks’ and ‘chs’. Stil, all these problems ar peanuts wen compared with the
english or the francian spellings.
But then deutsh has
hundreds of punctuation rules. There was a spelling conference in 1901, thay
oficialized some reforms and told the public that in case of dout the Duden
(the deutsh Oxford or Webster dictionry) is the decisive instance. The Duden
had a popular version for the general public and a version for publishers,
experts, proofreaders, etc. In 1915 the Duden just decided to hav one version,
the one for publishers and revisors, wich means that little scool children ar
theoretically supposed to lern all those things that wer actually intended for
experts. Since thay start evry noun with a cappital and sometimes words in
other gramatical classes ar used as nouns (she liked the Rich), there ar a few
pages of rules just dedicated to the cappital/loer case rules. There wer 54 rules
on how to use the comma (after the recent reform stil 9...).
The pronunciation
doesn’t hav as many dificult sounds as english, but deutsh is probably the only
language that has syllables with 10 leters (du schleichst, du schmauchst
(‘u creep’, ‘u smoke (comfortably)’ – re ‘thou smokest’). And the grammar is
terrible: 3 genders, masculin, neutral and feminine, but there is no logic in
it. The Computer is a ‘he’, the Zigarette is a ‘she’, the Sonne
(sun) is a ‘she’, the Mond (moon) is a ‘he’. The germanic word for
feminine is weiblich (‘womanly’, “wifely”), the germanic word for
neutral is sächlich (‘thingly’), but the weib (‘woman’ (re
‘wife’) is not weiblich, not feminine, it is “thingly”, wile the sache,
the thing, is not ‘thingly’, it is ‘womanly’. So u hav 3 articles. But then
there ar the 4 cases (declensions), wich means that u say ‘Der Hund biss
den Mann’ (the dog bit the man), but ‘Der Mann biss den
Hund’ (the man bit the dog), and then there is the plural, wich means that
deutsh has 16 words for english ‘the’, and 9 words for english ‘a’. They ar
often the same, stil u hav to lern wich article u take in those 16 cases. The
adjectivs hav different endings depending on the gender and number of the noun
and depending on wat comes befor them (ein blaues Haus (a blu house),
das blaue haus (the blu house), in einem blauen Haus (in a
blu house), blaue Häuser (blu houses), die blauen Häuser (the blu
houses), etc. The Sentenceconstruction is absolutely misleading:
Ich sah die Katze.
Ich gab ihr Milch.
I saw the cat. I gave her milk.
Ich habe die Katze
gesehen. Ich habe ihr Milch gegeben.
I hav the cat seen. I hav her milk given.
Da ich die Katze
gesehen habe, habe ich ihr Milch gegeben.
Because i the cat seen hav, have i her milk given.
Nachdem man ihm
sagte, dass Banken an den Sonntagen zu sind, und er nur an diesen Tagen frei
hatte, gab er seinen Plan, die Bank auszurauben, nach einigen Erwägungen auf.
Afterthat thay him said, that banks on the sundays
closed ar, and he only on these days free had, gave he his plan, the bank
offtorob, after some “beweighings” (considerations) up.
So ‘gave’ and ‘up’, wich ar together a single idea, ar
seprated by 9 words.
The deutshis like to say that their language is
dificult but exact. And i like to say that it is dificult but totally caotic.
In a sentence like ‘Die Kuh, die die Maus biss, war dick’ (the cow, that that
mouse bit, was fat), u dont kno who bit who: the cow the mouse or the mouse the
cow? Is it ‘the cow that bit the mouse was fat’ or ‘the cow the mouse bit was
fat’?
Sometimes deutsh
sounds mor exact, but it is actually just redundant, as wen they say sometimes
‘Speiserestaurant’, wich means ‘Eating restaurant’ – hav u ever seen a
restaurant where u dont eat? For ‘shark’ u can say ‘hai’ (as english ‘high’),
but offen u hear or reed ‘haifisch’, wich meens ‘sharkfish’. As if there wer a
shark that wasnt a fish.
Deutshis often tend
to be mor exact, but this is not the language itself. Once i was on a
ferry-boat to Iceland, and there was a sign in english, danish and deutsh. The
deutsh version was much longer than the english one, so i thaut, i kno deutsh
words tend to be longer than english words (wich ar usually quite short
anyway), but is the difrense that big? Then i red the deutsh version, that said
mor or less:
‘Falls Sie siebenmal die Sirene in gleichbleibender Tonfolge hören,
begeben Sie sich bitte unverzüglich an das Deck 8a (backbord, neben dem
Restaurant Viking), dort, wo sich die Rettungsboote und -ringe befinden. Da
warten Sie bitte auf die Anweisungen des Kapitäns oder der Crew.’
Wich means:
‘If u seventimes the alarm in equalstaying toneorder
hear, move yorself please immediately to the deck 8a (bakbord, beside the
restaurant Viking), there, where ar the salvationsboats and –rings located.
There wait u please for the captens or the crews instructions.
And then i red the english version: ‘If u hear the
alarm whistle, go to the boats and wait for the captens instructions.’ So the
anglis wil alredy be in the boats wile the deutshis ar stil reading the
instructions.
CAPITOLO 18
Wi meike good frends with a clique of 7 persone, wi
parti a lot, but after a fiw months wi just want to live for Italia. To go to Italia
u hav to go thru Austria. There is not much differenza to Germania, except for
the facto that it is not so isi to hichhaik, but Germania is quait good at
that.
Venezia is butiful
butta colda. Firenze (Florence) is butiful butta stil to colda.
Sicilia is worm
enuf anda the sun shines. Mani grechi templi, in the storia of Sicilia u see
how this continente is mixed uppa. Ciclopi, den sicani, siculi, grichi,
cartaginesi, romani, bizantini, arabi, normani, iberi, gali, burgundi hava
settled on the isola, until it became a parte of Italia.
In Roma we visitiamo il Papa, il capo of
i catolici. We hava to do thatta. Wel, atta this tima we stil
donta kno much abouta him, how mani problemi he stil wil causare. We visitiamo
il Vaticano and i millioni turisti. Everiwhere lini of several kilometri,
like in a communista cuntri. We see all wat il travela guida tels us to
visitare anda hitta la road again. La Leaning Torre of Pisa is veri
disapointing: it is lop-sideda! In Brasile we wud immediatamente demolire it anda
construire a new anda moderna torre. Butta gli italiani are too lazi. Even
their torri are leaning, probabilmente because dei are too tireda. On l’other
handa, popolo still speak sometimes of la miseria italiana, but Italia has il
sama grosso nazionale prodotto as Inglanda, anda more freeways than Inglanda,
Francia anda Spagna togetha. Il worst is la burocrazia, atta lista in la posta. If u
wanna send a lettera, u go to la posta and il clerka rites something on itta. U
keep wating for him to putta la stampa, butta no way. U musta by la stampa
in a kiosco or ani shoppa. Then u go backa to la post anda putta la lettera in
la lettera-boxa.
Once ai made a gama
with mai brotha-in-law, who liveda for a wail in Germania witha me. Since we
neva gotta posta, we hava decidato to send each otha lettere. Butta there wudda
be no fun if we gave to the otha the lettera in the handa. So we preferimo to
senda the lettere to assurde (absurd) adressi in the worlda: Joe Takatuka, rue
du Shit 137593745, Fiji. Or: Hee Ting No Go, Pepsi Street 2,35 – Omsk – Russia.
As the senda we giva the adrezo of the otha. So if ai wanna senda him a
lettera, ai send it to veri far away anda then the lettera come to him. We
senta lettere to Madagascar, Tonga, Siberia, Nord-Alasca, Lesotho, Saint
Vincent and Italia, among otheri. All the lettere cama backa, onli the lettera
to Italia neva made its way backa homa. A lettera to Italia takes lunga then a
lettera to the Antarctis.
Before ju go to
Svizzera, the nord of Italia become quita svizzo. Svizzera italiana is
veri svizzera too. The roadi are clean and all is mor organizzato than
Stocolmo in Svezia. Anda mind ju, popolo speak italiano here! Svizzera is veri
expensiva. Liechtenstein is small – and expensiva. The birra is ol righta.
CHAPITRE
22
GOÛD
WINE AND OLD CHEESE
I’m bak
in München, my sister goes bak to Brazil and now i want to go to the southwest
with Tamu, so we go first to Berlin in the north. In Berlin we take the subway
to the north of the city, where the youth hostel is. Ariving there i hav a look
at the map. On the left is West Berlin and on the rite is East Berlin. Ay just
a moment! If i trust this map, our subway went thru East Berlin! That cant be
tru, we cant hav been in another cuntry today without knoing it! A subway trane
cant go thru 2 cuntrys! And if, then we’d hav to hav noticed it! Wel, we take
the subway tumorro and chek that. Acording to the map there would even hav to
be a station there, in the middle of East Berlin.
The next morning we take the same subway trane and now we notice that we
pass abandond stations, or not really, there ar a few policemen around. And
then we come to an open station, the trane stops, people come in, people go
out, as in a normal station. This must be East Berlin, how can people get in and
out as if nothing had happend? We hav to chek this, we get out, walk up the
stairs and suddenly we hav a counter befor us with border gards. O i see. We
can visit this cuntry, but we hav to change 25 marks for each day, wich we wont
get bak. On the eastern side we dont hav time for site-seeing, evrything is
very cheap and we dont kno how we’r gonna get rid of this money, we hav to eat
and drink and do some shopping. In West Berlin the wether was nice and sunny,
here it is gray, poor people. In the evening we stil hav some money left, so we
go to a supermarket and spend the rest of it. At the border thay want to kno
wat we hav in the bags. Bred, lettuce, etc. Thay chek it and it is tru. Thay
think it is funny, people bying their bred and their vegetables. Tamu has a
deutsh surname, so thay ask wether her parents fled from East Deutshland. Just
for fun. Funny people.
I wouldn’t like to liv here, evrywhere u go u end up in front of a wall.
If u want to leave the city for a picnic, u hav to cross 8 border stations
altogether. West Berlin-East Berlin-East Deutshland-West Deutshland-then bak
West Deutshland-East Deutshland-East Berlin-West Berlin.
En then straight toe the Nederlanden. Just after the border we reach
Enschede en loek for a hotel, but they ar all toe expensiv. We go toe the
station en want to stay overnacht der. At one oclok an officer tels us dat we
cannot stay der, he wants to kik us uit. We moan as we can, we can sta nowhere,
not even de politie wil let us slaap in a cel. Plies, we maken no nois! De
officer sees dat our situatie is fataal. He lievs, komt bak 10 minuten later en
bringt us toe a trein. We may slaap in a slaap-wagon. He switches de verwarming
of de trein on, it gets nice en kozie. Nice piepel, de nederlanders.
En cosmopolitanis. But they hav kwijt a funny language, someding betwien
duits (german) en engels. Jou kan deducere many woorden, but sometimes dat
werkt not. Once Ij asked a chauffeur to let us out at de nest exit. But hoe doe
Ij say ‘exit’ in nederlands? Is it de engels woord ‘exit’ oor de duits woord
‘ausfahrt’ (“out-way”). Ik dink it is probably de duits woord, so ik just hav
to transferere intoe nederlands: ‘uitvaart’. It sounds not bad. De chauffeurs
understaan me, but een of them explanes to me dat ‘uitvaart’ meent niet ‘exit’,
it meent ‘funeral’. Anyway, nederlands is niet a language, it is a throot
dizies, de ‘ch’ is very guturaal en de ‘g’ toe, en de language is fol of them.
En dan some nederlanders spreken ieven de ‘r’ als a guturaal sound, zo a woord
lijk ‘graag’ has 3 guturale sounds in een roo!
And then we get to Paris, the most beautéfoule flower of the univers.
Nowhere else in the world you have so much culture. And i dont want tout
complaindre tout much, some frends we made in the Nederlanden lent us the keys
for their appartement, but how come there is no bathroom, no shower and only à
toilette in the corridor? We are in France, in Paris, the éssence of la haute
culture, and i cant wash myself? And then the français are not more polite than
the deutshis, but the women are more féminines. Emancipées but féminines, only
the français women canne doux that. The langage français has an orthograph wich
is as difficile as anglais, and à grammaire wich is more difficile than anglais
but easier than german... anyway the orthograph is à catastrophe. You have 32
possibilités tout spel the sound /o/, like au, aux, eau, haut, hauts, hôt,
haus, ot, heauz etc. If you count also the variantes inplausibles, like auc,
eauf, ault (renault), it is more than 80. So the français need a réforme
tout... Or maybe notte. Les français are à bit sensitives à bout dzis point.
Once i was having a dîner in thé house of à française famille. At least 20
peuple around, mostly young peuple. Dzère i started making suggestions on how
we coud improver la français orthographe. Rite aftaire i said dzat, dzère was à
rebellion. Sophie, thé girl juste beside me, asked: ‘WAT did you say?’ ‘Wel, it
was juste an idee, we coud make thé orthographe français easière, more logiq –‘
‘Did you hear wat he said? He wants tout make our sacrée langage plus simple!’
‘Wel, it was juste an idee...’ I coudnt finir la sentence, she punched me in
thé nose, and my nose came out on thé otre side of thé hêdde. I sat dzère and
had no idee how i woud be able tout get my nose bac tout la place wère it
belongs tout, wen Marc stood up. He held a fourche in thé hand in a way dzat
didnt promis anything good. Marc cant eat spaghetti with la fourche in dzat
position. And dzen he had a funny shining in his ies and came in my direction,
and i started tout get worried. I knew: otre cuntrys, otre coutûmes. But i
didnt kno wedzer i woud break eny codex if i stoppé eating my spaguetti, stood
up and ran away. Enyway dzat was wat i did, i tried tout échaper. My nabors
held mi, beut ma désperation was great and i managed tout flee, an action dzat
cost me all les boutons of my shirt. I ran for my life throu le long corridor
and arrivé at la dor, wich was unfortunately closé. Thé mob came shouting
behind me, dzère were only à few mètres between us, i dzaut with my missing
boutons: o manne, if dzey cach you, your date is expirée. Dzey make fondue of
you and spred you on one of dzese baguettes horribles. Maybe with an old stinky
cheese. I reacté quicly and jumpé throu thé windot. I had à few problèmes with
thé glass and i was bleeding à bitte, but i’d radzère bleed dzan serve as
fondue. I ran like à berserc, thé mob behind me. I ran so fast dzat i overtooc
an 8 year old girl on à bicyclette. Tout mètres feurdzère i dzaut dzat seuch à
bicyclette coud be quite usefoule for me, so i ran à bitte slower until she was
parallèle tout me, dzen i punché her in thé bêlly. Thé girl didnt feel goûd
aftaire dzat. She felle on thé flor and i tooc her bicyclette. Seau i coud
augmenter à bitte la distance between me and my persecuteurs. Wen i loocd bac i
seaux dzat dzey gotte in tout cars at à gas station wile les drivairs were
paying at le countaire. Now dzeir chances tout cach me improved à lotte. I had
nô choix, dzère was nô gas station coming ahed, so i had tout gô bac tout, dzey
passé me and coudnt make à u-tourn immédiatement. I came tout la gas station
and gotte in la first ôpen car i seaux. I wanted tout start, beut seuddenly an
unknown bloque sat in le car beside me. I preparé myself tout smash his face
and kik him out of le car wen he said: Folleau dzat car! Dzose peuple juste
robé my car!’ ‘Sorry, beut i cant chasser dzem, dzey are chassing me!’ He had
nô idee wat tout say, sô he said notzing and oui started, thé tout ôtres cars
juste one mètre behind us. Seuddenly i heurd à sirène de police, shit manne,
somebody had told la police. Now we had tout cars of our “frends” and tout cars
from la police chassing us. At thé red lite i was indécisive: ignorer it, drive
throu and risc à fine (la police woud be able tout observer le crime from quite
near) or stopper and surrender tout my destin? I decidé tout gô for thé first
solution. Oui stille drove à fiou kilomètres, who knows how meni? And à fiou
hundred mètres feurdzère dzère was à blocade de police, with 3 trucs blocking la
route. Dzat was thé end. Beut wait à minute: thé trucs were sô big dzat oui
might get throu undair dzême. At least most of le car. I accélléré, thé little
Fiat howled wildly like à dog who felle in boiling water, thé bloque beside me
shouted ‘You dont really want tout drive undaire dzose trucs? You must be mad!
Lette me offe, immédiatement!’ I didnt want tout be responsable for eni
injuries. I stoppé le car, lette im offe, 2 cars of my chasseurs crashed intout
my bâque, beut le moteur was on le front and i accélléré againe with all wat le
moteur gave, straight intoût les trucs, a coûle wind caressé my left ear, i
felte à grate peace in my hart. Le car really came throu undaire le truc, onli
les windeaux, le rouf and my hêdde staide in la place. Dammitte, i had
forgottênne tout duc my hêdde, beut i cante dzinc of evridzing at thé same
time. Dzanc God dzère weur ambulances at le site, wich toûc me tout l’hôpital.
Feurst onli my hêdde, bécause le car went on widz foul pouver bécause my foût
staid fixé on l’accélérateur. Aftaire 7 kilomètres and 3 accidents mineurs, le
car was stoppé by à maple trie. Les docteurs tried déspératement tout pach up
my hêdde widz my undaire-bôdi, beut dzère was notte meuch dzey coud doux éni
more. I died 3 days latère of lac of hêdde. Or, as les docteurs jôked, bécause
of lac of corps. You kno how dzis docteurs are. I kno, à bitte long dzis
histoire, beut dzis est my boûc, notte your boûc. Hier i rite wat i want.
Oui werc in un aille-glace-factorie againe, dzis time in le Jura, in l’est
of thé cuntry. Beut oui canne baire it ônli ouanne day dzère, thé werc est bad
and le payment est stille worse. Sô oui gô feurdzère tout le sud. Nimes,
Toulouse and Espagne. En France it est spring, thé sun shines, évéridzing
fleuri and it est warm. Dzênne oui come tout le tunnel des Pyrénées, wich est 8
kilomètres long. On de espaniol side it is winter, everycing is covered wiz
snow. It snows, and de fog is so mucho that u cant see mor dan 5 metros in
frente of u. Zaragoza, Barcelona, Madrid, we see museos, go to de muchos bares.
Grate nitelife in Espania, grate food. U mite considerar it a bit greasy, but i
love it. Den we find out dat we ran out of monedas. Befor we start looking por
a job around here, we go bak to Munic.
Andorra, a nais landlet en els Pirineus. Cuait a fiu pueblo lib hir
becos dey dont want tu pey taxas. Pueblos dat come hir du it not tu pey tajas.
Andorra is no cantri, it is a duti-fri-shop.
CHAPITRE 29
THE LAND OF THE PIGMENTALLY CHALLENGED PEOPLE
FAZE 12 - /i:/ az in ‘feet’. Uze only ‘e’ wen TS uzes
‘e’ (be, he, me, she, (the), we), or befor other vowels (real, theory),
otherwize ‘ee’. The week bee couldn’t go to the theater because of the
fateeg she had in the feet.
***
One of the two cars dont work that wel eny mor. Vontkomm
is afrade the car wont make it to Togo. So we hav to tow one car. He
axellerates in the front and i brake in the bak, or vise-versa. Mabon has been
arguing with him aul the time and prefers to travvel in „my“ car. We sing a lot
together, from flower-power to avangard. The next eevening Mabon doesn’t want
to sleep in Vontkomms car eny mor, so she sleeps in my car. I dont do enything,
i’m very shy.
We’r running out of
food, we ate aul the sardeens and we can hardly “shower” eny mor. And the
worst, worse than running out of wauter: we’r running out of sigarets. The
scroungers ar getting mor and mor, the givers fewer and fewer, until we hav one
giver for 19 scroungers. And then we see after aul that misery a town, and this
is not a mirage, it is a real town. Bienvenue à Arlit, cette aimable oase
dans le desert. In Arlit thair is plenty of sardeen cans, coffee,
omlet, wisky, sigarets and bars.
After u hav
travveld thru wite islamic cuntrys, it is a releef to arive in a blak islamic
cuntry, Niger. It is stil islamic, but it is a compleetly difrent people. Thair
is a huge difrense between USian amish people and crazy jamaikis, aul
cristians, and thair is a huge difrense between wite moslems and blak moslems.
OK, some “wite” cappital cities ar rellativly libral, but in suthern North
Africa u dont see women, just clothes. Thay look thru a little hole in the
vale, az observer u cant see a thing. Nowadays i like arabian muzic, especially
‘rai’, the Maghreb pop, but i didnt like it at aul at that time, it made me
depressd. Arlit is quite difrent, a town with 10,000 inhabbitants but mor nite
life than Manchester and Seattle together, wich doesn’t meen much but givs u an
idea. The bars ar open the hole nite, the mob romps, women hit men on thair hed
with bottles and evrything is very funny. Thairs plenty of beer and little boys
come around aul the time with skewers. We feel like God in Africa. Evrything is
so simple, and i begin enjoying Bob Marley, u dont heer something else around
heer.
This just proves
that religion has less to do with its creator than with the traditions of the
people who adopted it. The nigeris ar devout moslems, stil thay think we should
enjoy life. It is not ritten in the Coran that we shouldn’t. Women look quite
nise, and the curly hair, wich disturbs a bit the esthetic in my ies, ar
covered by a scarf. So u just see the butiful fases, and thay giv an impression
of purity and piety. If Mary, Jesus mother, wer blak, then she sertenly lookd
like the women heer.
The girls in our
convoy arnt too prim with thair sannitry nesesitys. In the dezzert thay just
pissd wair thay wer, thay didnt cair if 10 people stood around or if thay pissd
exactly wair we wanted to prepair our picnic. U had to be cairful. Now in Arlit
thay didnt get primmer. Thay ask 3 frends to make a smaul waul, eeven if it is
in the middle of the sentral plase. Sometimes thair arnt 3 frends around,
thairs only one. Wel, then that one has to make the waul alone, a one-man waul.
Graddually we leev
the dezzert. I go for a wauk in the bush with Mabon. I ask her if she never
thaut about the risk she’s taking, going for a wauk in the bush with a brazilo.
That could be dangerous“, i say. „Really?“, she asks, „and wat do brazilos do
wen thay wauk with girls in the bush?“. Shit, it would be my turn now, but i’m
so shy. In the nite we’r both in the car, the car is further away from the
other cars, evrybody is sleeping. I hav to say it agen: „And dont u get
worried, sleeping in the same car with a brazilo?“ „I’v got the impression that
brazilos ar quite harmless“. No, man, thats too much. The seet-baks ar down
enyway, i turn to her and without saying a word i start taking her nity off,
it’s taking too much time and i rip it off. Only tatters of it stay on her
skin, i take her from behind and pennetrate her. She can hardly breeth. Her
rounded body trembles under my rage and my injured pride. Thats how it could
hav been. How it really was, u aulredy kno: i finishd smoking my sigaret and
got asleep.
We stop at sevral
villages and enjoy the nigeran hospitality. The problem ar the kids: insted of
lerning to say ‘mama’ az first word, thay lern ‘cadeau’ (francian for
prezzent), and wen thay see a convoy coming, thay start shouting the word
frenetically.
In Niamey, the
cappital, we hav a brake and go on to the beninian border. At the border the
oficials want to see our cholera vaxination sertificat. Funny enuf, this bunch
of deutshis and switzis dont hav it wile the brazilo heer has one. Thay aul hav
to go bak to Niamey and get one. It’s only a few hundred kilomeeters. I stay at
the border and look a bit at life az it is heer. I love the african snaks, the
sardeen omlets ar very fine, u wouldn’t beleev it. From now on i’l aulways be a
fan of sardeen omlets. My co-travlers aparently too. And the coffee: the deutshis
would never drink this stuf at home, but heer thay love it: u boil the wauter,
por Nescafé, aulmost a hole can of sweetend condensed milk, then a few cubes
sugar and it’s redy. Sure, it is sweet. Thay aulso hav rats on the skewer.
Hopefully thay’r wild rats, not city rats, stil thay taist a bit strange. It is
like rabbit, but thay hav a funny aftertaist.
A jeografy teecher
asks me wair i come from. After i told him, he starts telling me meny things
about Brazil. A cuntry full of indians, who cant reed and dont hav electrisity.
Funny to heer this in this plase, under a candle lite.
My frends ar bak.
Thair wer no cholera vaxins in Niamey, but thay had a stamp at leest. The
tourist pays, the oficial stamps. Now we cross the border. We’r stil towing a car
aul the time. Mabon and me keep joking and playing. Sometimes a bit too much,
so that we end up cauzing an axident with the tow-rope and the lites. Vontkomm
is outraged, he cauls us names and tels Mabon she has to go in his car, so that
i can consentrate beter. She tels him to fuk off, but he doesn’t agree with
that. I propoze her that we get off and hichhike to the cappital. She thinks we
should go on in the car and get off at the next town, but i dont agree. I think
we should get off now, or go with him to the end. We end up driving to Parakou,
wair she gets off. I go on with Vontkomm to the togian border. I dont hav a
visa for Togo, we hav to persuade the oficials on both sides of the border to
let me thru for haf an our, sinse Vontkomm cant drive the 2 cars at once, and
he’s got a visa for only one entry... We sellebrate the end of a 2000 km long
towing journey with a beer. He eeven pays me some money for the driving. Then i
go bak, wich is not so eezy because at the togian border thay hav other oficials
now. But i end up managing it. At the beninian side thay dont want to let me in
because i hav a bakpak, and bakpaks ar not alowd in the “socialist” Benin. I
cant go bak to Togo because i dont hav a visa, it seems that i’l hav to spend
the rest of my life between thees 2 borders. ‘But folks, u let me out and
promisd me to let me in agen, and i had a ruksak aulredy!’ ‘Yes, but it was in
the car befor, so it wasnt really a bakpak, and it is one now. U can come in,
only yur ruksak cant.’ U need some patiense, no dout, and eventually the
problem is solvd. I hav to dismantle it, i take evrything off wat makes a bag
tu a bakpak, put it inside the bakpak. And i carry it at the belly. Thay let me
thru, and 100 meeters after the border i hav a hel of a job to assemble it
agen. From Cotonou, the cappital, i go to Naigeria.
CHAPTA 30
DANTES PARADISE
FAZE 13 – Oil and royal rhyme, sour
and flower too. Is thair a leter too much in royal and flower,
or a leter missing in oil and sour? Wel, yes and no. Thair is
something thair, but after a difthong (2 vowels together wair one is very
short) and befor an L thair is aulways something thair, in english. English
speekers cant say it in a difrent way. So should we spel oil and roil
or oyal and royal? Wel, lets make it simple: oil and roil.
Befor a consonant, we uze ‘i’ and ‘u’, otherwize ‘y’ and ‘w’. Oil and roil,
sour and flour. For ‘flour’ and ‘flower’. The poor king
doesn’t hav the pour to por the roil wauter in the glass.
***
From the border to Lagos it is 100 km and 10 poleese
cheks. Sometimes thay ar poleesemen, sometimes soldiers, sometimes robbers
dressd az poleesemen, sometimes poleesemen dressd az robbers. In Lagos i find a
hotel in a suburb for 70 dollars, the cheepest i could find. Thay say i
shouldn’t stay outside. I’d hav no chanse to wake up tomorro alive, ded
probably either.
In the folloing day
i start looking for a cheeper plase to stay. It’s not eezy. Usually evrything
is nise and organized in expensiv cities, but nobody can say that about Lagos.
It is the dirtiest, the expensivest, the hostilest, the dangerousest, the
absurdest gathering of people the plannet has to offer. The cappital of misery,
the metropolis of desperation. This is a hot and humid megasewer, a landscape
of stenches that change with evry meeter i wauk, actually not a landscape but a
stenchscape. On the streets thair ar the cars, and on the sides thair ar open
sewage canals. Between the proper road and the sewage canals thair ar no
sidewauks, thair is only a trash dune wich goes along with the road. U hav to
wauk on this trash dune and take cair that the cars dont take a peese of yor
ass with them and at the same time take cair that u dont faul into the sewage
canal. Lagos doesn’t hav electrisity quite often, good houses hav usually own generators.
In the nite it is quite dark, thair isnt such a thing like street lites.
I meet a deutsho
who worked az a saler on a ship wich was stationd neer the port of Lagos. In
the middle of the nite 4 pirats borded the ship, the security people of the boat
wer quicker and shot them down. Thay caul the poleese, thay come and ask wat
happend. “Wel, we kild thees 4 pirats, thay wer trying to atac us.” “So wat? Wy
didnt u thro them in the wauter?” “Wel... yes, wy didnt we?” “OK, then lets do
it now.” 1, 2, 3, 4, aul the bodies in the wauter. The poleesemen say by by and
leev.
Thair ar lots of
churches, like in the USA. Baptists, methodists, adventists, dentists and meny
other cults i hav never herd from befor. Thair is aulso a mosk on neerly evry
corner. Cars and buses aulways hav something ritten on them, either God, who is
the god of the anglis, or Allah, who is the god of the arabis. The buses, very
often brand new brazilian buses, dont hav dors and windows after a week of use.
Thay ar haf distroyd, increddibly full and thay never stop properly, so the
quicker and stronger u ar, the beter u can manage to find a plase to put yor
feet, at leest one of them, and somewair to hold fast. It is a kind of natural
selection. I usually manage to get a plase outside too, and the naigeris ar
quite amazed seeing a wite man doing that. Thay thaut evry wite man gets lots
of money and has a nise car. Inside the buses it is not less caotic. In evry
journey thair ar sevral quarrels, thay tend to escalate until evrybody is shouting.
Usually the discussions stop abruptly, 10 minutes later or so a new discussion
begins. It is no surprise that thay ar so agressiv. If i had to liv in this
city, i’d probably run amok after a week.
I wauk around in
the city senter, thair ar lots of hy rizes, banks and insurance companies, but
not a single bar. I feel miserable, i’v been wauking for 4 ours without finding
a plase wair i could sit down, relax and hav a beer. Thair ar kiosks wair u can
eet sardeen omlets and if u want a beer thay organize one for u, but thay ar
between the cars and the sewage canals, on the trash dunes. I feel alone, i
like to be alone but being alone among such a mass of people in thees
conditions isnt nise, really. I end up finding a chinan restaurant, it is in
the seccond flor. Thair is a blak bloke sitting at the entranse and he tels me
that the restaurant is clozed. I sit down beside him and i cant stop my ies
from letting out 2 or 3 teers. But the fite has to go on, i stand up and leev,
the blak bloke ses to me, ‘take cair, man’. The first frendly words sinse days.
This givs me new courage and i keep serching, until i find a bar in the Hotel
Bristol. Ise cold beer, ise cold air conditioned, life starts filling my body
agen.
This city has only
one advantage: wen u leev it, evrywair else seems to be a paradise, no matter
wair u go. I go to the Poste Restante to get my male. The clerk throws a bundle
of leters on the counter. Thair ar no leters to me among thees. I look at the
dates, the leters wer ritten one yeer ago. I tel that to the clerk, who throws
another bundle of leters on the counter. Thees leters ar just haf a yeer old,
but thats not good enuf for me. I complane agen and now i get a fresh bundle,
and find my leters.
I stay for a wile
in the Salvation Army, wich is a hole like evrything else in Lagos (OK, thair
ar a few rich districts but thay dont invite me thair). The cheef tries to
persuade me to axept Jesus az my savior, but aul i can do is to say ‘Jesus
Christ, wair did i land heer?’ I feel tempted to say ‘Thank God i’m an
aitheist’, but i dont kno if he likes this kind of humor. I’m broke and i’v
tried to find a job in one of the 60 brazilian companies heer, but thair is a
big crisis in the cuntry and meny companies want to close down thair naigerian
branches. I finally giv up, because after aul i mite find a job, and i’d
probably regret it. I leev.
In Benin City it is
much cozyer, and soon i find a bar. I can eeven sit down on a bottle case, i
start to chat with the owners, i feel comfortable and stay thair, until thay
end up inviting me to stay in thair plase. It is a cozy hut, with lots of
carpets and red and blu lites gloing day and nite. I stay for a few days. My
best frends ar Orji and Silvanus. Orji has a very honest aura, so much that i’l
remember him later az having blu ies. Then i’l look at his picture and hav to
conseed that his ies ar az blak az his skin. Wat do blu ies hav to do with
honesty? I dont kno, but the asosiation exists, somewair in my hed. I come from
a cuntry wair not most blaks ar criminals, but most criminals ar blaks, or at
leest non wites. This is a long story and i wont try to explane it heer. I’m
quite sure that Africa is much safer than most cuntrys in the american
continent, exepting Lagos and a few other big cities. Enyway i feel grate heer
but hav to go on, i’m running out of money. Lucky that Silvanus is going to
Cameroon, and he has a car he wants to sel thair.
His pik-up truk has
blu lite and siren, so wen he sees a poleese chek he swiches evrything on and
thay let us thru. One thing in this story is rather unplezzant: no matter who
is driving the car, people think i’m the car owner. At the gas stations thay
aulways ask me how much gassolin thay should put in the tank. Wen people want a
lift, thay aulways ask me. Wen he drives, thay think he’s my chauffeur. Then he
tels me to drive, and thay think i’m giving him a lift or he’s my employee. In
Africa the wite man is the milionair, he’s the massa. I hav much less money
than a normal tourist, but stil mor than most of the people heer. Stil, i cant
aford to be az poor az thay ar. I run out of money much quicker than them,
because i’m travling. If an african doesn’t hav a job, life goes on az usual,
thay hav a famly, frends and he doesn’t pay rent for his hut. And if he had to
sleep on the street, that wouldn’t be a big afair either. If i did it, thay’d
mug me imeediatly, and thay’d get really mad if thay didnt find money on me,
thay wouldn’t just beleev me that i dont hav money. Wen a wite man sleeps on
the street, he can be crazy but not poor. Enyway we drive for a week, a quite
long week sinse he’s got a single tape and it is Julio Iglesias. If u dont kno
wat kind of muzic he makes, fil a plate with honey and put lots of sugar on it,
and then think of the muzical equivalent to it.
CHAPITRE 32
THE BRED WAS NO GOOD
FAZE 15 - /3r/ az in ‘verb, bird, turn’, and /@r/ az in ‘leter’. We spel ‘ur’ wen the sound is
stressd and not in the ferst syllable (ocur, prefur), and wen we’d hav
to change a TS ‘c’ to ‘k’ (curnel, curv, not kernel, kerv). Aulso
we keep the suffixes with ‘ure’, like lesure, pressure, and the
werd yur (wich is yor in the UK), because of the root werd you.
Otherwize we spel ‘er’ (in the grate majority of cases). In the ferst werld
peepel dont like curnels, and wen we askd peepel in the therd werld
thair wer never eny ansers.
***
Az opozed to the
british colonies, the francian prezzense in its old colonies is unoverlookable.
U see francian teechers, businessmen and military. Libreville, the cappital of
Gabon, is one of thoze plases wair u see the most of them. The francis hav a
life heer az Gods life in France, but with sun. Thay hav thair hypermarchés az
in evry parisian suburb, thay eet, drink and fuk exactly the same way az wen thay’r
at home. Once i askd a franso who’s been living heer the last yeer. How do u
like the cuntry? Wel i like it, he sed, u’v got wat u need, including sun, and
peepel ar cooler, mor relaxd. OK,
thay’r cooler, i say, but it is hard to tauk to them somehow, u hav to explane
so much befor finishing a sentense. It’s tru, thay hav an extreem lak of
information down heer. OK, maybe it is only the lak of information i consider
important and thay dont. He doesn’t agree and finds my comment funny. At the
end we find out that he was tauking about the francis living heer wile i was
tauking about the gabonis. I meen the blak gabonis. He sed: “O i see, u meen
the blaks. Sure, then i agree. I thaut u wer tauking about the normal peepel.”
And he ses this in the middel of Africa. The francis hav heer thair own
bakeries, bars and districts, eeven an own poleese (oficially for foreners). In
a gabonian bar u pay one doller for a bottel Regab (REgie GABonaise) beer, in
the francian bars the cheepest (and usually the onliest) u can get is a
Heineken can for 4 dollers.
The ignorense, or tu be politically corect, “lak of
information” the afrikis suffer from is sometimes exelent for a good laf and a
smiling day. Once i met an africo who werkd az computer sientist and was
intrested in it. I gave him the adress of my chinan-brazilian frend in Seattle,
who has a quite good brane for this. I rote the adress, Seattle/Washington/USA.
He red the adress aloud, and ariving at USA he sed, “USA, Union Soviétique
d’Amérique’. I lafd, but he was seerius. But then u dont hav to go far to see
such cases. I get thoze e-male reports with sentenses from students in Brazil
or elsewair. A student in the US sed that aincient Egypt was
inhabbited by mummies and thay aul rote in hydraulics. Thay livd in the Sarah
Dessert and travveld by Camelot. The climat of the Sarah is such that the
inhabbitants hav to liv elsewair.
Libreville is a modern city and freequently it is on
the top of the list of expensiv cities, in front of Zurich, London or Tokio. I
spend the ferst nite in a cathlic senter. On the folloing day the preest kiks
me out, aultho thair ar 50 free beds. It’s a matter of prinsipel. The
protestents on the other hand giv evryone a shelter, without discrimination of
sex, color, age or religion. For 50 dollers the nite. I cant stay, heer the
poor ar discriminated. I’m really bankrupt now, i dont hav a peny in my pocket.
It is finished, mista. I sleep on the beech, eet coconuts and pinch some
banannas on the feelds. In Africa u dont die because of that. Soon 2 zairis
(yes, sentral congis or watever) invite me to stay with them. We like eech
other and can comunicate. We tauk about God and the werld. Thay go around with
open ies. The hut has one room with 2 thin beds, 2 zairis and one brazilo. Very
narro and hot. Of corse it is in a slum, az the rest of the city exepting the
city senter and the francian districts. This doesn’t meen that thay’r poor.
Thay dont ern bad for africa standerds. At leest 100 dollers and sometimes 500,
600 dollers a month, and thay’r stil not the boss. Thay liv in the slum because
thay cant think of something difrent. It was aulways like that, so it remanes.
If u hav some money left, u spend it for the car, for the clothes or for the
beer. Who thinks of investing in a house? The hut is perfect, it has a bed and
a roof, wat do u want from a plase u just uze to sleep? On the way to my hut i
hav to go thru a dozen of other huts. Peepel sleep or shag or cook and dont
notis wen peepel go thru thair houses. By the way, my frends hav double names.
Thay wer cristiand and got the names Thadee and Polydor. Thay grew up with
thoze names. But then Mobutu had another eskimus idea (agen, i dont think
eskimoes or az thay like it, inuits, ar stupid – i just wanted to say something
like very outlandish), he wanted his underdones to hav zairian names. So thay
say thay ar Thadee and Polydor, but in thair passports thair names ar Ungwala
and Molenga, or something like that.
Heer in Gabon the prezzident came to pour az Albert
Bongo. Now his name is El-Hadji Omar Bongo. He convurted to Islam, like Cat
Stevens. Funny religion, u can hav 4 women, but u cant see them befor u marry
them. So maybe it is beter to hav one u can chek befor. Bongo spends 2/3 of his
time in front of TV camras, otherwize he’s moving from one plase to another. U
notis it because the mane road is blokd for 10 minutes and u can heer the
poleese howling from wairever u ar in city. The area of his pallas is mor or
less haf of the city senter. He didnt kik the wites out like Mobutu, he eeven
makes an effert to keep them heer, and has francian advizers.
It is a long way
from the slum to the brazilian embasy and i hichhike. The driver asks me wair i
come from. “Brazil? Aha. I dont kno the ambassader, but i kno the ambassaders
dauter.” In the consulat i ask them if thay hav a job for me or if thay can
help me to find a plase to stay. “The ambassader isnt heer, but i dont think
he’l be keen in helping u. U beter try with his dauter, Lulu.” Aha, agen this
dauter. Thay giv me her number, i caul her but she isnt thair. At home, i meen,
at hut i tel Thadee that i’m looking for the brazilian ambassaders dauter. “O,
u’r looking for Lulu? She went to Cameroon with a japano. With her motorbike.”
Jesus, she seems to be really wel known. Next day i hich downtown and end up
telling the driver that i’m brazilian, he knows her too. It seems that she
drives her motorbike like a kamikaze. After a wile i get hold of her at the
fone, she tels me to go to frends of her. I meet her thair, with 2 fransos and
a deutsho. Thay’r aul lying around, quite stoned, a huge caos in the house. She
looks good. Rather smaul, suntand, blak hair, nise fase. U just see that she’s
not “normal” wen she stands up. She moves much mor her sholders than her hips,
and she tauks like a man. It does look a bit funny in her. Enyway i stay with
thees peepel. It is mor comfortable and fresher than in the hut. Sometimes we
go to parties or to bars, Lulu likes to tauk to me: “Look at the chiks over
thair. Not bad, ay?” “Yeah, not bad.” Later wen i introduse her to other peepel
i’l say that we hav quite a few things in common, for exampel both of us dont
like men.
After a long long
serch i find werk. It is a company that asembels TV-towers in the jungel. The 2
bosses ar fransos, of corse. It was hard to find the job, because thay just
employ wites az bosses. A wite man, werking az werker or driver, no, u cant do
that, wat wil the blaks think? This would be the same az if a Jupiter stattue
cofd. Now i’m a boss too, a littel teem boss. We’r prepairing the construction
of new towers in the jungel but hav to stay most of the time in town. I’m happy
about it, the bush is hard, millions of moskeetoes and an unbairable close
heet. U just want to stay on the top of the towers, most bugs dont like to go
so hy, and the air is fresher. It is not a job without problems. I hav the
mecanical intelligence of a chimpanzee, and the werkers under me kno mor about
the job than me. And then i’m supozed to make thees peepel werk like slaves,
wair thair is hardly werk, at the moment. I suggest to the big bosses that we
leev them alone wen thair is not enuf werk, so thay werk beter wen thay really
hav werk, because thay can see the sense of thair werk then. No way. The bosses
want to see them werking nonstop. And then i should make good frends with the
werkers and would hav to pay them some beers, thats quite normal heer. But i
dont hav the dough for that. Enyway thair is at leest one werker who knows wy
the north is so rich and the south so poor: “No wonder! The wites hav aul the
money-making machines!”
After a long long
time without seeing eny tourists i meet one at the post offis. He’s from
Deutshland, we speek deutsh with eech other, he soon notises that my axent is
not perfect and asks me wair i come from. I tel him and he starts a lafter. Wat
was that? He pulls a brazilian passport from the pocket. He was born in South
Brazil, but the pairents wer deutsh and he grew up in Deutshland. But we end up
being good frends. And we visit the zairis, in the eevening we go out, Thadee
forgot something and has to go bak, so we wate for him at the corner. Two gys
aproach us and want to chek our passports. “Wy should we sho u our passports?”
“Because we ar from the poleese.” “Can u identify yurself?” “We dont hav them
with us heer, thay’r at home, just 100 meeters from heer.” “Wel, then go and
get them. We dont sho our passports to enyone who asks it from us.” But now
Thadee arives agen, we’r discussing and he ses that we can sho our passports,
it is aul rite. Wel, he knows how things werk heer, so the 4 of us sho our
passports and documents. Thay chek it and want to sho thair poleese document
now. It’s aulrite, we dont need to see them. But Thadee ses it is beter if we
go, so we go. We go with them and look at thair poleese ID’s. Wonderful. Meny
leters and thair is eeven a picture. But now we want to go. No, thay say, we
hav to follo them. Wair to? To the poleese station. Wat the hel ar we supozed
to do in the poleese station? Thay can chek if we’r OK. Wat do u meen, u chekd
aulredy! In the poleese station thay hav beter ways to chek. We hav to go with
them. In the poleese station thay exchange some words with the offiser in
charge and leev. We hav to stay. The offiser pozes us some ruteen questions.
Who ar we, wy, wair we come from and wair do we go. Then he leevs. A few gards
take cair of us. After a wile another offiser comes around and asks us wat we’r
doing heer. “Thats wat WE would like to kno! Wat ar we doing heer?” “Dont play
the innosents! If u’r heer, thair must be a reezon for it. Nobody is arested
for nothing!” We argue bak but he’s not intrested. He pozes us the same
questions and leev. We wate for an our, a therd offiser comes and starts aul
over from the beginning. We protest energically. He leevs, an our later a forth
offiser comes around, and this one holds a speech about the bloody foreners.
After a wile thay take us to the Sentral Poleese Station. The passport control
was at 7 in the eevening, now it is 11. It is a scandal how long thay need to
transport us away.
It is sunday
eevening, nobody at the sentral poleese station has the authority to releez us.
We hav to take our clothes off, we can only keep our underpants. The prison is
in the seller and cant be confuzed with a Hilton Hotel. The sel is maybe 5
meeters x 5 meeters, aulmost 6 yards, inside the sel thair ar maybe 60 gests.
The yungest one is 12 yeers old, the oldest over 60. The sel has a toilet but
it doesn’t werk, so the flor has a laer of maybe 1 or 2 cm of piss. Not nise to
sleep on it, and of corse none of us sleeps, at leest not the ferst nite. We’r
not tired enuf. We stand around. Most gests hav no idea wy thay ar thair, or at
leest thats wat thay tel us, and sertenly quite a few of them ar telling the
truth.
In the next morning
thair is a termoil, peepel fite for the bred thay thro in, but the bred doesn’t
look that good and we dont try to get eny. Thay caul out some names, we pray to
the gods that our names ar among them. And really, after a few ours thay caul
Wolfgang, my deutsh brazilian frend, and me. We hav to wate in the yard until
the comander arives. Thay bring us to him, he’s sitting at the tabel and an
offiser stands beside him. He asks us wy we’r thair, and we tel him our story.
He looks at my passport, ses to the offiser: “Son passeport est valide?!” “Oui,
Monsieur.” He cheks my visa. “Son visa est valide?! » « Oui,
Monsieur. » He givs me my passport. He takes Wolfs passport in his hands. “Son passeport
est valide!?» «Oui, Monsieur.» «Et son visa est valide?!» «Oui,
Monsieur.» He givs Wolf his passport. We put on our clothes and leev.
We’r quite happy
that we’r out. Jesus. But we hav to do something for our zairian frends. Thay’r
stil inside thair. We go to the zairian embasy and tel them wat happend to us
and to the zairian citizens. The oficial tels us thay wil take cair of it, but
he eeven didnt ask for thair names. I hav a frend in the foreners poleese, a
franso who livd in Brazil for a wile, but he’s il and left the city. In the
folloing day we’r wauking on the street and who do we see? Thadee. O thats
nise. “Did thay releez u?” “No, i fled.” “How do u meen, u fled?” “Thay cauld
me, i went to the comanders room, but he wasnt thair, i had to wate. Then i saw
my clothes in the ajoining room, i went thair, put my clothes on and left.”
“Jesus! But wont thay make much mor problems to Polydor? Thay mite torture him
to get the information from him wair u ar!” “I dont beleev that. Or at leest i
hope it doesn’t happen.” In the folloing day we wauk in the city and who do we
see coming thair? Polydor. Funny. “Did thay releez u?” “No, i fled.” “How did
u manage?” “Thay cauld me to the comanders room, i came thair but he wasnt
thair, i saw my clothes in the ajoining room...”
By the way: az in
aul West Africa, the bred is quite good. Just around the corner i could hav
francian bagets, but i prefur to wauk one kilomeeter to get the african baget.
I dont kno how thay make it, and i hope it is nothing unhelthy, enyway it
taists beter and fresher after three days than a fresh francian baget.
Wolf leevs, he
wants to go to South Africa, he wants to meet anti-apartheid-peepel thair. By
by Wolf, we wont see eech other eny mor, at leest not in this life.
My trial peeriod in
the company expires and thay fire me. Enyway it was the best wage i had in my
life, it wood be maybe 7,000 dollers nowadays. And then the house owners kik us
out, so it is time to go. Tamu rites that evrything is aulrite with her.
Evryday she goes to parties and discos. Often with Suley, one of his fello
occupents. OK OK, i didnt want to kno it with so meny deetales. It is time to
breeth new air. It is stil a long way to the Cape of Good Hope.
CHAPITRE 34
WAUKING TAUKING
FAZE 17 - /aI/ az in ‘bike’ is speld ‘i’: dial, mity. If there is nothing folloing the
folloing consonant, we ad an ‘e’: I’d like to hav a life in wich i’m on the
rite side wen the nite comes. Unstressd /aI/ is speld ‘i’: dinamic.
For /aI/ befor 2 or mor consonants or at the end of the root werd see next
chapters.
***
Wen u cross the Congo/Zaire
rivver, u leev the CFA-Zone of West and Sentral Africa. Until now i didnt hav
to change money because aul the francofone cuntrys hav the same Franc-CFA az
currensy, this makes life quite eezy. Heer in Congo-Zaire the money is cauld
zaire and has no vallue but a good wate. Wen u change 50 dollers u need aul the
pockets in the pants and shert u can get to keep the money. Meny peepel go with
big money bundles around, the biggest bil has the werth of 50 US sents.
The
boss is (was) Mobutu Sese Seko and he’s known az the Ali Baba of Africa, the
blak Al Capone or the Terrible Beegel Boy of the South. The situation in Zaire
is quite bad, but the cuntry has meny diamonds and thats wy Mobutu is one of
the richest men of the werld. His pallas in Kinshasa is bigger than a few
sittys in the werld, and to protect aul this he needs a privat army of 2000
eleet soldiers. And he’s not only a crimminal, he’s aulso a stupid crimminal,
who kikd the belgis out of the cuntry. Now thair is nobody thair to repair the mixer,
the tiperiter or the factory.
From
far Kinshasa looks like Manhattan. wen u come neerer it stil look a bit like
Manhattan, at leest thair is a lot of criminality too. The sitty has a lot of
green airias, meny streets ar nise allys with meny trees. U dont find the nise
sardeen omlets eny mor, and the times of the good bred ar over. On the other
hand the sigaret sellers with thair littel tabels on the road side offer mor
than normal sigaret sellers offer. “Wat sigarets do u hav?” “Marlboro normal
and Marlboro special.” “Wat ar the normal Marlboros?” “Thay’r normal Marlboros.” “How much do thay
cost?” “2 dollers.” “And wat ar the special Marlboros?” “20 reddy-made joints
in the package.” “How much do thay cost?” “50 sents.” So eeven if u dont smoke
a joint for fun, u should maybe smoke it heer to save money. The joints ar
really perfectly rolled, best african handicraft.
I
stay at Thadees famly, 15 peepel in a house. In this sitty most peepel liv in
houses insted of huts. The famly sits the hole day in front of the TV, az evry
other famly heer, and wach a program that never changes. Day and nite some
bands make zairian muzic, not the werst but the most boring muzic i’v ever
herd. The groops look aul the same and sing the same thing. I like african muzic,
i love it, but it is a muzic rich in vairiation. This is not the case heer.
Soon i find a plase in an evangelical hostel, my room mate is Gerhard from
Deutshland.
Once
we go to the canteen and sit down beside a blak famly. Father, mother and a few
kids. The father ses to one of his kids, ‘Peter, gibst du mir die butter
rüber?’ (translating litraly: Peter, do u giv me the butter over?) The kid
ansers ‘Ja, papa’. Wy not. We keep chatting in deutsh and now thay’r shokd that
thair ar wites speeking deutsh heer. Thay feel embarrassd and swich to an
african language. Peta, gidu mi butabuta rumba?
Ya, mpapa.
Heer
i take the final desision: i go to a hair dresser and let him cut aul my hair.
I want to hav a free hed agen, like a baby. I look at myself in the mirrer,
Jesus, i cant look at it, but my african frends tel me that i finally look
deesent.
I
wanted to go to Angola, but the cuntry is closed, at leest for the moment. I go
to the eest, the direction is Zambia. The ferst few hundred kilomeeters ar
paved, then the pavement gets werse and werse, until it disapeers. The road
becomes a path in the jungel. The trafic becomes thinner and thinner, i hav to
wauk mor and mor. Meny passers-by ask me aulways the same questions. Excusez-moi, Monsieur, ar u a touriste? Wair do u come from? Wair ar u going to? Wats the
perpos of yur trip? I cant heer thees questions eny mor. I’v herd them in the
hole continent, but heer, wair i hav to wauk so much, it is becoming a torture.
Maybe 30 times in a day. And wat am i supozed to say? The ferst question is
eezy to anser, with a truth wich is actually a lie. Yes. The seccond question,
wair i come from, is rellativ: originally from Brazil, today from the village
X. Wair i’m going to? My next goal is the town Y, my final goal is Brazil. The
perpos of my trip is to kno the werld. In an eevening i rite it aul down on a
paper. 4 questions and 4 ansers. Wen a passer-by comes in my direction, i giv
him the paper befor he can open his mouth. I gess i wont hav to anser his
questions agen, but then he asks me something like “Yeah, but wat is the perpos
of knoing the werld?” Wel at leest the comunication is eezy, if u speek
francian. Evry villager speeks francian. If u speek both english and francian
(and maybe portugalian), Africa is the eeziest continent to travvel, at leest
linguistically. Much eezier than Europe or Asia.
The
road is a sandy path now, and this is cauld the Transafricana. In average one
truk comes by evry 2 days, and thats it. The drivers aulways want money, but
sometimes thay stil take me with them. If not, i just keep wauking. Wen it gets
dark i stop wauking, once i waukd in the dark and aulmoast stepd on a snake. So
i stop at a village. Thair i tel the peepel about the wide werld, and thay
could lissen the hole nite. I’m like a martian for them. Heer u’r really in the
ass of the werld, i’v never seen such an isolated region. Thair is nothing
heer, neither radio nor TV nor newspapers. But at leest thair is me, a wite man
who loves thair palm wine above evrything and doesn’t hav problems eeting thair
fufu.
Once
a jeep stops, the driver is wite and the 20 other peepel ar blak. He givs me a
lift, we tauk francian for a wile until we found out that we’r from the same
cuntry. He’s a missionry heer, and i stay a few days in his mission.
The
ferther eest, the drier. The jungel becomes a savanna, the rivers and creeks
become rairer and rairer until thay disapeer compleetly. I wauk an average of
50 kilometers per day, from sunrize to sunset, with one or two short brakes for
some food and some palm wine.
Once
2 wimmen accompany me a hole day. Thay offer me to carry my bakpak. I hav to
refuze that, of corse. But in Africa it is normal that men do nothing. Wat do
we hav the wimmen and the kids for? In the house africos dont move a finger.
Eeven if he would just hav to stand up and make a singel step, he wont do it.
He’l caul a kid and tel him to “bring” him the ashtray or watever. And if no
kid is around, the woman has to do it. Wel, thees wimmen keep asking me to
carry my ruksak, til i giv in. Thay carry it on the hed, so my bakpak becomes a
hedpak. The way afrikis do it. Good for the spine. Of corse, to say that
‘afrikis do this, afrikis do that’ is a meen generalization. I crittisize riters
for generalizing but i do the same. It would be beter if i sed that meny west
and sentral africanas i’v seen do it. If i had to take off aul generalizations
found in this book, it would be a hel of a job. On the other hand, most
opinnions we hav about cuntrys ar generalizations. And if u’r very corect, u
wont be very spontaneus.
Sentral
Zaire is quite poor and primmitiv, but thair is no mizzery. The inhabbitants
only eet casava-fufu with a sause made of casava leevs. Very simpel, aul made
from a singel plant. And stil it taists quite good. And wen thay need fire,
thay fech it from another fire. U dont see meny maches around, and wen thay see
my liter thay get impressd. Of corse thay kno wat a liter is, but i hav one.
One day i cach an old truk. Maybe from the WW II,
maybe from the WW I. On a good road this wouldn’t be too much of a trouble, but
heer it is awful. We rairly go for mor than a few hundred meeters without
getting stuk in the sand. Evrybody get out or down, some dig around the tires,
some fech wood and stones to put around the tires, and evrybody pushes.
Actually the truk doesn’t carry us ferther, it is we who carry the truk
ferther. In the late afternoon the passengers, or should we say the pushers, ar
quite tired. We got stuk in the sand agen, just in the middel of a village. The
driver shouts: “Ay kids, whoever helps us to get out of heer can hav a ride
with us for a few kilomeeters.” Suddenly thair is a big termoil. Fifty kids
dig, seek, bring, push, and we’r off in a few minnuts. Aul the kids clime on
the truk, and we wernt few on the truk befor. Now u couldn’t get an ant on it.
The truk starts and the kids start singing. I cant trust my eers. It is a
cannon with a dozen parts, i’m fully out of the houselet. Wich is how deutshis
say wen thay get into a flap. Heer, on this jam-pakd truk in the middel of the
bush i suddenly feel like in a catheedral. In Europa a directer would need 20
yeers with top muzicians to acheev this perfection, this magniffisense. Thees
kids heer in the crossroads wair no-wair meets no-way do it just because thay
hav nothing else to do. Enyway, from 6 AM to 6 PM, in 12 ours we made 15
kilometers, 9 miles, aultogether. This must be a new sloness reckerd. We sleep
in the village, in the next morning the truk starts moving and i start wauking.
Soon i leev it behind and never see it agen.
Once
peepel ar eeting raw termites. And then it’s my tern and i cant flee. Gotta eet
it, noblesse oblige. The raw termites taist like raw termites, how else should
thay taist? In one village thay sel sweet juicy pineappels on a stik, like ise
creem. I eet a haf, the other haf fauls on the ground. Shit, such a good
pineappel. I take it from the flor and ask the peepel wair i can find some
wauter. Wat for, thay ask. To wash the pineappel. The hole village brakes out
in a lafter, and somebody brings me a new pineappel for free. Now i understand:
thay hav lots of pineappels, but just a plip wauter. To waist wauter to wash a
pineappel would be the same for them az for me uzing a 100 doller bil to make
fire.
I
hav a bakpak, wornd out boots, wornd out shorts, a beerd and a bauld hed. I
wouldn’t be a normal apeerense in eny cuntry, but heer it is werse. A wauking
wite man. Az the deutshis say, it is strong tobacco. Thair is a cherch in Zaire
cauld mor or less ‘The Cherch of Jesus Christ on Erth in the Person of the
Proffet Muala Lumbu’. Evrywair in this cuntry u find cherches of this cult.
Once i’m wauking on the “road” and see suddenly such a cherch a few hundred
meeters ahed, i wil pass it in a few minnuts. The cult freeks sit outside on
benches and sing thair lungs out, wel az thay uze to sing. I come neerer, now
it is maybe 100 meeters. A singing woman sees me and stops singing imeediatly.
She just stairs at me. Her naber notises her astonishment, sees me and stops
singing too. Then the next, and the next, the singing dies down until the quire
becomes compleetly silent. By the time i pass the cherch, thair ies ar aulmost
bersting out of thair holes. I can imagine that if i went thair now and told
them that i’m the new Messiah, thay’d beleev me. I could tel them that the new
Muala Lumbu is wite. But i wouldn’t get rich with that, i gess. Not a good
plase to get rich heer.
In
another village a gy tels me that he’d like to send me a leter and asks me for
my adress. He piks up a peese of paper and starts riting. Nil three, dot, nil
six, dot, he’s riting a date. But this is my berthday, how can he kno my
berthday? But then he rites the current yeer and i understand, he was just
riting the date. Aha. It is my berthday tuday! I had no idea i had berthday
today, i had no idea of the date. And how can i sellebrate it? Thay wont hav
champagne heer, maybe a beer? Thay dont hav a beer either. The next beer is 100
km from heer, 2 days later i drink the beer.
Wen
u reech Kananga, u hav the werst behind u. West and Eest Zaire ar mor or less
sivvilized, the problem is the middel. Heer u can take a trane to the southeest
and i thair is a good road too. Meenwile i’m quite in a hurry, Tamu could come
to Zambia and i wouldn’t be thair. I get a ride on a trane, i go in the front
in the locomotiv and the engine driver is happy to hav somebody to tauk to. In
the nite it gets quite cool and for the ferst time after the Sahara, aulmost a
yeer ago, i freez agen.
I
move ferther on a truk full of oil and sugar. I was in the front, the bakpak
in the cargo airia.
We drive thru the hole nite, in the next morning we arive and now i notis that
thair wer liks in the oil cans and holes in the sugar saks. Aul my clothes,
evrything in my ruksak is full of oil and sugar. Shit! I stand alone thair on
the side of the road and shout and kik the trees around me. Then i notis that a
few yards inside the bush thair is a smaul village, and the hole population is
waching me. I cool down. Wat do i need? Wauter, to cleen my stuf. I go to the
village, evrybody disapeer in thair hut. Jesus, thats wat i was needing. I
shout frendly that i just need some wauter, but in Eest Zaire very few peepel
speek francian, thay aulmost only speek swahili. I ask for wauter in swahili,
it is neerly the only werd i kno in this language. Eventually a dor opens
quikly and a hand puts a bowl with wauter outside, the dor is imeediatly closed
after that. Thanks.
In
Lubumbashi, not far from the zambian border, i vizzit a deutsh couple who werk
for a deutsh ade agency, thay’r Gerhards frends. Now i can take a bath agen
(and i gess thay cauld the disinfection servis after that), and thay put my
clothes in the washing machine, aultho it is thair opinnion that i should by
new clothes.
In
this cuntry i waukd 500 km, something like 300 miles. Neer to the zambian
border i thum my 1000th ride. I want to pay the driver a beer, but
he’s got mor important things to do.
SLEEPING IN NO CUNTRY
And down tu Zambia. Sloly we desend from the platto
and it gets hot. And hotter. We hav 42°C (107° F) and the driver ses: “Heer it
is quite aul rite, but wate until we come down. It is hel.” And thats wat we
du, we drive down tu the Zambezi dam, one of the biggest in the werld. I cross
the zimbabwan border, wich is maybe 500 meeters from the dam. It goes down,
over the dam and a kilomeeter uphil tu the zambian border. The oficial thair
tels me that i cant enter Zambia tuday. How so, i ask. “Coz u hav tu pay an
entry tax.” “And wats the problem? I can pay the entry tax.” “No, u cant pay
the entry tax becoz u hav tu get a reseet.” “And wats the problem? Giv me a
reseet!” “It’s not possable, becoz the reseet blok is in that drawer thair.”
“So?” “The drawer is lokd.” “And wy dont u unlok it?” “I dont hav the kee.”
“And wair is the kee?” “It’s with the officer hoo left aulredy.” “And wen is he
coming bak?” “Tumorro.” “...look, u must be kidding me. I cant enter Zambia
becoz u cant open that drawer? Becoz i need a reseet? Dont giv me a reseet,
then.” “I’m not alowd tu stamp yor passport without giving u a reseet, just
look at that sine at the waul, it’s aul ritten thair.” I must be crazy. I try
tu persuade him, i try tu by him, no way. He sends me bak. But it is just a few
minnuts befor 6 PM, and until i cross the dam and get tu the zimbabwan side,
thay’r closed tu. So i go bak tu the brij and thair comes the soldier asking me
wat i’m duing heer. I tel him that i can neither go tu Zambia nor tu Zimbabwe,
so i wil sleep in no land tuday, for a chainj. He tels me that i cant stay
thair, so i ask him if i shood beem myself tu another plannet. He realizes
after a wile that thair isnt much i can or he can du, and i sleep on the brij.
The next day i try agen: the oficial has the reseet blok now, i hav no zambian
money, oanly Zimbabwe dollers. No coins. The oficial is “not alowd” tu chainj
foren money, so i hav tu pay 10 dollers for a tax of 20 sents. And then i wauk,
wauk, wauk. It is mor than 45°C, sinse yesterday i dont hav enything tu drink,
i feel terrably dry, and then a car full of sverigis comes by and saves me from
perdission. In case u forgot hoo the sverigis ar, thay ar the swedes.
CHAPTER 47
RUN BABY RUN
FAZE 28 - /^/ az in
‘but’: we uze ‘u’. Between a short stressd ‘u’ and anuther voul the consonant
has tu be dubbeld. Just befor the
milionair met his sudden deth, he wanted tu by anuther munth of life with aul
his munny, but nobody was selling it.
***
The zambian econnomy is havving a hard time.
Prezzident Kaundas guvverment is neether cappitalist nor communist, it’s
humanist. I dont kno wat this
meens but it’s cleer that it dusnt du eny good tu the cuntry. Thair is a lak of
evrything heer. In the resterants thair isnt enything tu eet or tu drink. No
coke, no beer, oanly wauter. Eeven so thay’r open, coz the oner and the waters (waiters, not wauters...) dont
hav enything else tu du.
I go tu the
Yeelding Tree Farm, wair i’v been a wile ago. Wun day i’m riting leters, run
out of maches and hav tu go tu the sitty, nobody is at the farm. The sitty is
13 km away, i by maches thair and start wauking bak tu my plase. I pass a
resterant, 50 meeters later i feel that a cup of wauter for the long wauk
woodnt du me eny harm. So i go bak and see that it’s clozed. It’s sunday. I
tern bak twards the farm, soon a truk stops beside me. 3 blokes sit inside,
thay ask me wy i’m wauking up and down the rode like that. Wat du thay meen, up
and doun the rode? I passd the resterant, then i rememberd that i’m thersty and
went bak, but it is clozed. „Exactly! The resterant is clozed, so wy did u go
bak?“ „Coz i didnt kno it is
clozed, thats wy.“ „Now giv a beter explanation, man: wy did u go bak, if the
resterant was clozed?“ „I sed it aulredy. I cant kno that the resterant is clozed on sundays.“ Thay repeet the
question and i dont see eny sense in repeeting the anser. Thay wanna see my
passport, i ask them if thay’r the resterants oners or if thay’r poleesemen.
Thay repeet that thay wanna see my passport and i get fed up with the silly game.
I start wauking, thay cum out of the truk and try tu stop me. I push them tu
the side and make my way free, thay try tu hold me, and wen i count them agen
thay’r not 3 eny mor, thay’r 6, and 2 hav stones in thair hands. This story
dusnt look good eny mor, i run away and thay start chasing me. I’m faster than
them, but thairs mor and mor of them, wile i stay in the singuler. Now thairs
about 30 peepel, running and shouting „Cach him! Stop him!“ I begin tu get
tired of the rase, i pass a factery, the dorman asks me wats happening. I tel
him a groop of crazy or drunk peepel is chasing me and want my scalp. He ses i
can go intu the factery, i’m safe thair. Then cums the mob and the dorman lets
them all cum in. Oh yes, that makes me realy happy.
Thay suround me,
sum of them yel „Bern him! Shoot him! South-african spy!“ I dont feel wel eny
mor. Then a soldier arives and saves me. But then: “Thank God u came, thees
peepel must be crazy!” “U shut up!” He wants tu see my passport and i sho it tu
him, i want tu tel the story but he dusnt want tu heer it. After a few minnuts
a truk arives and a duzzen soldiers get out and suround me, the rifels pointed
at me. Just cool down, fokes! Thay take me away in the truk, the mob cums with
us tu the sentral poleese station, but oanly the poleeseman at the entrense is
thair. It is sunday, we kno it aulredy. Nobody thair tu investigate my case,
the oanly thing he can du is thro me in a jale. No, ses the “leeder” of the
mob, thay want my case tu be investigated. Thay complane that nobody with
authority is werking in the Sentral Poleese Station. Thay take me tu anuther
poleese station. Enyway thair ar sum poleesemen heer. The comander lissens tu
the “leeder”: “We wer neer this man and wachd how he went up and down the rode
in a very suspect way. We stopd him and askd him wy he was duing that and he
coodnt giv eny satisfactery anser. We wanted tu see his passport and he
refuzed. And werse than that, he fled, but we chased him and caut him.” Aul the
uthers tel thair story, at the end i can tel my vertion of the story tu. And i
really hav tu giv my best, utherwize i’l hav a really bad time agen. I kno how
african prizzons look like. I tel them that i cum from a cuntry wair nobody is
chased becoz he has a difrent skin culler (tu ly or tu dy!). “I like Africa
very much, i hav meny frends heer and i dont understand at aul wats happening
heer. I just wanted tu by maches in town, heer thay ar. Then i came by a
resterant, wanted tu drink a cup of wauter, went bak and saw that the resterant
was clozed. Then thees jentelmen apeerd, thay lookd very agressiv and
threttening, i became really afrade, etc etc bla bla.” The comander givs me a
lesson: “I kno about Brazil: the 3 rases liv peesefully with eech uther, the
american indians, the europis and the afrikis. Now u made 2 big mistakes: u
shood kno that Zambia is a democrasy, so if a zambian sittizen wants tu see yor
passport, u hav tu sho it! And then u ran away, and u shood never du that!
Oanly the gilty run away! Now we hav yor passport but we dont kno if it is
authentic. Nowadays evrybody can fake a passport. We’l caul yur embassader, and
if he tels us that u’r OK, we’l releez u.”
Thay caul the
embassader, and it would hav been dificult tu fynd him on werking days, let
alone at weekends. Thay want tu caul in the Yeelding Tree Farm, unfortunatly i
just hav the old number, so thay must fynd it out from the zambian “telecom”.
Asking the zambian telecom about a fone number must be mor or less like asking
a 5 yeer old tu explane in deetale the quantum theory. It cant werk, so thay
tel me that i’l hav tu wate til tumorro. O no. I cant beleev this. In my
desperation i hav a simpel idea: thay cood take me in the car tu the farm and
ask the farmers personally. Thay agree that this is a good idea, but thay dont
hav eny transport. I think quikly: we cood go thair with a taxi, i pay the trip
thair and bak. Agen thay think it is a good idea. The comander and 2 uther cops
prepair tu go with me, unfortunatly anuther comander arives, and this comander
seems tu be hyer than the comander we had so far. He scolds around and ses
nobody is going enywair. The plase of a poleeseman is in the poleese station,
thay’r not payd tu strole around. He scold for at leest an our. Meenwile i’v
been 4 ours in the station and i’m not supozed tu moov at aul. My hopes
dwindel, and i start prepairing sicolojically tu stay for a nite or for a yeer
heer. But then a cop arives with a car and brings me tu the farm. On the way tu
the farm i tel him my situation. He looks a bit mor intellijent than the
uthers, and i tel him that. I’d really like him tu like me, if he cums tu the
farm and sees my old passport on the tabel with the south african vizza, wel, i
dont kno wat cood happen. We arive at the gate of the farm, thair is a sine
saying BEWAIR OF THE DOG. He dusnt like that at aul. Dogs dont like blaks, and
the dogs of wite peepel hate blaks. He reeds the sentense aloud and sounds
wurryd. I hav tu be quik now: “Wel, u dont hav tu take me inside thair, i can
wauk the last few meeters.” “Really?”, he ses releevd, “OK”. He lets me off and
is away.
CHAPTER 50
THE THIN PEEPELS REPUBLIC OF SOMALIA
FAZE 32 - /yu:/ at
the end of a root werd az in ‘new’ is speld ‘ew’: Dew tu the lak of dew in
the last nite, a few peepel had tu kew for the wauter tuday, and mite be
intervewd by newspaper reporters tu say sumthing about the wauter shortej and
wether thay want tu sew the guvverment. At the end of a root werd after CH,
L and R we spel ‘u’, befor suffixes an ‘e’ is insurted: blu, blues, bru,
brues, glu, glues, chu, chues.
***
Wen u cum tu
Somalia, u hav a lot of trubbel at the beginning. Later, wen u kno the cuntry
and the peepel beter, u hav mor trubbel. At the border thay try by aul meens tu
fynd sumthing rong in my papers. Thay dont fynd enything, so thay charj a
special tax for the extra-ours thay hav werkd for me on a friday afternoon. I
tel them that thair wer at leest 50 peepel crossing the border and not wun of
them had tu pay an extra tax, besides it’s not friday afternoon, it is wensday
morning. Thay get stil angryer.
I
cross the Equater. On the suthern hemmisfere it was summer, in the north it is
winter. In the south it was 37°C, in the north it is 38°C. Somalia is anuther
werld, u cum from the cuntry of the lions and ellefents tu the cuntry of the
cammels, big ostriches and ugly vultures, of the sand and the dust. I red wunse
in a book that the somalis ar the moast butiful peepel in the werld. Wel, this
is a matter of taist. The wimmen hav butiful fases indeed, and u can considder
this length and this thinness
butiful, if u like. The somalis ar blaks but arnt neegroes, thay’r a
rase for itself, thay hav a copper culler, curly hair and fine fase feetures.
Sum somalis look like ethiopis, like wite peepel hoo cum bak from a dusty wor.
Wimmen and men wair a bath toul. U think aul the time that thay’ going tu a
bath or cumming from a bath. The rode tu Mogadishu goes thru a quite barren
airia, and sumtimes i see shepperds. The peepel in the truks stop tu giv them
sum wauter, and i take a real plesure seeing thair plesure from poring wauter
on thair one dry and dusty fases and heds. It is aulmoast mor lust then
plesure. And i ask myself how peepel can liv heer. Thay cood go tu the sitty,
wair thair is wauter evrywair, but thay dont du it. “Wy du u stay in such an
inhospittable corner of the werld?” “I liv heer, i’v aulways livd heer. But wy
did u cum from so far tu be in an inhospittable corner of the werld?”
I
arive in Mogadishu very hungry and thersty. I eet 3 mane dishes, spagetty, fish
and anuther spagetty, and then 2 dezurts. And 4 beers pleez.
Somalia
is ugly, but i like it sumhow. It’s charming uglyness, a raw uglyness, it is
special. In the south the quite dry savanna streches along the coast, huje sand
dunes, but swimming isnt recomended becoz of the meny sharks. In the middel it
becums tropical and lushy green. In the north it is dry agen. The south and the
middel ar az flat az the fase of a japani, the horizon is endless. The north is
mountenus. Unplezzent ar the meny rode bloks of the poleese and millitry. I
counted them, thair wer 200 controles on 2000 km of rodes, and thair ar no
toorists on the rodes. I’v seen a singel toorist in Somalia, and oanly in
Mogadishu. Theoretically the trafic is on the rite side, not on the rong side,
but in practis peepel drive wair thay can, wair the potholes arnt tu deep and
no poes ly around.
The
old somalis keep a serten distense and hav dignity, the yung somalis ask
‘signore, sigaar!” and the kids “Signore, bakshish!”. Of corse, thay want sumthing
from me, dont think thay’r ofring it. And somalos ar tuf men, evry somalo
carrys a machetty. Wunse i get a lift in a truk, at the rode blok thay stop us
and a soldier anoys the driver, thay begin a discussion and the driver pulls
out his machetty, thay shout at eech uther, the driver with the machetty and
the soldier with the masheen gun. I’d really like tu be sumwair else. And u see
this kynd of confruntation aulmoast evryday.
The
languej is stil harder than the men. It has the rufness of arabian and the
speed of espanian. It is the machoest languej i kno, oanly for real men. If a
somalo makes a declaration of luv
tu a non somala, the wooman runs away coz she thinks he wants tu rape her.
Until the 70s of the 20th sentury the somalis didnt hav a ritten
languej. Wen thay rote, thay did it in english or italian. English and italian
ar the 2 languejes the somalis kno sumthing about. Thay cant speek much of
thees languejes, but thats thair werld: somalian, english and italian. Thay’r
aulways a bit serprized that i cant speek somalian. How cum that i oanly speek
english and no somalian? Or du thay speek italian in Brazil? And thay aulways
ask my relijon: “U cristian or moslem?” “Bad cristian.” “Cristian is bad?
Moslem good? O thank u!” Thats wat i caul wishfull heering.
Thay
aulways try tu convurt me. It wood be dificult tu explane tu them wat i think
if thay cood speek propper english or propper italian, but in this linguistic
caos i dont hav a chanse. I cood say i’m neither cristian nor moslem. Thay wil
ask wat am i then. U cant tel them u dont beleev in God, this is really hard
for a moslem. Say this in a groop and u’l heer the silense. Az if sumbody had
dyd. I gess it is beter tu say u’r a chyld merderer. Enyway this sort of
definission is aulways rellativ, i woodnt say that i dont beleev in God or in
aul thoze beings and things we cant see and cant proov, i just dont kno. So
usually i just say i’m cristian, thay dont kno wat that is either. In this case
i just meen that i cum from anuther culture. Thay axept that. Thay axept the
Bibel, and thay beleev Jesus was a grate proffet, so wy cant we axept Mohammed
tu?
And
comunication problems arnt oanly about relijon, it is moastly just a lak of
vocabbulary. “How ar u Mogadishu?” “Yes, i’m going tu Mogadishu.” “How ar u
english italiani?” “I cum from Brazil.” “How ar u toorist?” “Yes, i’m a
toorist.” “How ar u somali?” “No, i dont speek somali.” Mogadishu is the best
plase tu obzurv the linguistic caos. Wun food shop has the sine imporio, anuther
cauls itself an emporium, a therd wun is cauld machmaakanta, or rugdunta,
or watever. Thair ar minny-markets, mini-mercati and uqaraxuraddax (dont
trust my somali knollej). In Mogadishu i stay for a few days in the house of an
italo, he’s got a delly. He was born and razed heer, and wun day he went tu
Italy tu see how his “fatherland” looks like. But he coodnt stay thair for
long, the climat and the peepel wer tu cold for him. And the oanly toorist i’v
seen in Somalia is a yung englo hoo was in Nairobi and wanted tu hav a glimpse
of Somalia. He took the plane, it was full of minnisters, and at the arival
thay found out that thay had forgotten or lost the kee tu open the luggej
section. The plane had tu go bak with aul the luggej, in Nairobi thay cood open
it. And mynd u that the plane was full of minnisters. I gess that such things
can happen evrywair, the difrense is that in Africa thay’r the rule.
The
Internassional Airport is a millitry airport at the same time, and this meens
that the airport is hy security zone. The planes hedding tu Europe aulways
start in the eevening. Wun eevening a plane wants tu start, thay swich on the
lites but thair is no lite. Thay go and chek and see that the cabels wer
stolen. Sum miles of thik long cabels wer stolen from the hy security zone! Aul
the flites ar postponed tu the morning until the new cabels finally arive. And
then a few days later a plane wants tu start in the eevening, thay swich on the
lites and thair ar no lites...
This
cuntry suffocates in burocrasy. Tu get the vizza u hav tu get a leter from yor
embasy confurming that u’r from the cuntry u hav yor passport from. A passport
isnt enuf. Lucky for me that thair ar brazilian embasys quite evrywair, but
imajin u’r from smaul cuntrys like Honduras or Bosnia. And thay’r not sattisfied
that u hav a toorist passport, the leter must confurm that u’r a toorist.
Sumbody
tels me that i need a permit tu go tu the north. I ask sum peepel, sum say u
need a permit and sum say u dont need wun. OK, i’l chek this in the Minnistry
of the Inteerier. Sum oficials thair tel me that this is rubbish, u dont need a
permit, uthers say that if u try tu go tu the north without a permit thay put u
in jale for a few yeers. But nobody can giv me this permit, and evrybody sends
me tu anuther section, until sumbody sends me tu the Minnistry of Information.
Sinse 90% of aul information i get about how tu get tu the Minnistry of
Information is rong, it takes me 2 days tu fynd it. Thair thay send me tu the
Minnistry of Toorizm. I go tu the Minnistry of Toorizm, but the boss isnt thair
now. Wen dus he arive? Dont kno, maybe tuday, maybe tumorro. O Lord. Du i need
a permit at aul? Thay say thay can giv me wun. OK, u can giv me wun, but du i need
wun at aul? We can giv u wun. Tumorro.
In
the folloing day i get the permit. “So now i can leev tu the north without
wurrys?” “U want tu leev? But u need a permit!” “So wat is this in my hand?”
“This is oanly a recomendation for the imigration. U hav tu go tu the
imigration now, thay giv u a permit thair.” I fynd the imigration eventually.
And go thru 6 sections and fynd the rite section. I pay for it and get the
permit.
I
leev the sitty, hiching is rellativly eezy, thair is sum trafic, maybe a
veickel evry 5 minnuts, and moast veickels stop. For me or becoz thair is
anuther rode blok. 9 out of 10 rode bloks dont make problems, offen the cops
and soldiers ar quite frendly and offer me coke or tee but considring that
thair ar 200 rode bloks on my way, thair is trubbel enuf.
Anuther
problem is therst. U’r not supozed tu trink the wauter, the books say the risk
of hepatitis is considrable. Thay dont hav minral wauter and a coke is az
expensiv az a nite in a hotel. So i hav tu drink tee the hole day, at 40°C air
temprature. I hav a minral wauter bottel and ask them tu fil it. It is very hot
at the beginning. It is ritten that worm tee is much helthyer in the heet than
ise cold wauter, but i can just say it is not nise. I dreem of green feelds,
fresh wauter and few cops. Thank God it is winter heer. In Berbera, in the north,
the avrej maximum dayly temprature in julie (winter) is 46°C (114° F). Wich
meens that in the coldest munth u hav a maximum temprature of 46° C evryday.
Sumtimes a bit less, sumtimes a bit mor.
Kafka
wood be ashamed of his harmless storys if he saw the burocrasy in this cuntry.
Thay put me in jale becoz i cum from Brazil, and Brazil is a naber cuntry of
Cuba, isnt it? Thay just kikd the cubis out, i must be a spy. I tel them that
the distense from Brazil tu Cuba is the same az from Somalia tu Dania, but thay
wont beleev me. Anuther time an offiser dusnt trust my passport, the leter from
my embasy or the permit from the Minnistry of Inteerier. If thay wer authentic,
the Minnistry wood hav sent him a tellex telling him that i’m cumming. Anuther
time thay just want tu send me bak tu Mogadishu, and this plase is around 1000
km behynd me.
At
the border the soldier controles my currensy declaration, he starts calculating
but he dusnt kno how tu du it, he ads the dollers tu the date and takes the
entry our off. I explane him how he has tu du it, but it seems he cant subtract
either. And wat for? My declaration is perfect, and it wasnt dificult. Thay had
just givven me a blank sheet wair i rote down wat i hav and thay sined it, so
aul i had tu du was by anuther blank sheet and riting the rite sum. And hoo
sined it? Ahmed Al-Sharif, the comander. I’m the comander.
I
cross the barren feeld, i can see Djibouti. The oanly problem is that the
border is clozed. It’s friday, and friday is for the moslems wat the sunday is
for the cristians. Werse than that, aulso borders cloze down. O my God, o my
Allah.
THE CULTURE (from A CHAPTER FOR LINGUISTS AND ANTI-REFORMERS)
On the other hand,
the language is full of cases of wrong etymology. Nephew for example doesn’t
come from Grecian, it is a word common to most indo-european languages. Debt
came from Francian ‘dette’, but later a scholar wanted to show he could speak
good Latin and introduced the B. So there are loads of wrong information in the
spelling, and before we start trying to correct those, sometimes causing
endless academic discussions, we should give up the idea that the language is
teaching us history by its spelling. It does sometimes, sometimes it teaches
the wrong story and most of the times it doesn’t tell us anything. If this was
the function of the spelling, we should spell in a mix of old indo-european,
low german, old norse and non anglo saxon words REALLY as the source language
spelled it. This paragraph would be spelled more or less like this (I couldn’t
find the sources for all the words, and of course I can’t put the right
inflections):
Ana to antero handu, to lingua esti pleno
apo casi apo wrong etymologia. ‘Nepot’ per exemplum does nowiht gwem from
Graikoi, eis esti oino werdo communis the maista hindi-europaikos linguae. ‘Debitum’
gwem from Frankisk ‘dette’, but later oino scholarius wanted the skauwo he
could sprekan goda Latina hanti introducet to B. Swa thaer are lots apo wrong
informationes in to spelling, hanti beforan wei start trying the corrigere
those, sometimes causing hantlausa akademika discussiones, wei should gefa upo
to idéa that to lingua esti teaching unsaz historia mbhi eis’ spelling. Eis
does sometimes, sometimes eis teaches to wrong historia hanti maista apo to
times eis does nowiht talija unsaz any thenga. Ebho this was to functio apo to
spelling, wei should spell in a mixtura apo alda hindi-europaikos, lov german,
alda norsk hanti non angel saxon werdos REALLY also to source lingua spelled
eis. This paragrafos would bhewe spelled maizon otha lausa (ik couldn’t findan
to sources per alla to werdos).
CHAPTA 57
IN DA KINGDOM DE LA RAIZING SOL
Wen der is a comon word in al romanic e germanish
languages exept inglish, dis (half)-pan-europian word teik la plas ov el
inglishe word. Pro exemplo ‘scrib/e’ insted ‘rait’ (eg ‘i scrib a letra’). Wel
noun wordes ov otre linguas oso is introdused, laik ‘lingua’ pro ‘language’ or
‘amigo’ pro ‘frend’.
Wel, actuali dis titlo is no reali justifid. Kingdom de la Raizing Sol. I sid la
sole going daun cuait a fiu tempos in Japan, but neva la raizing sol. Meibi i
shud trai tu get up erlia. In el otre hand, wat is la pointo de si la raizing
sol in Japan, yu can si la raizing sol in eni land, exept meibi in Ireland.
Dat was IPI. E dis was la most dificult paragraf de dis
buk. Nau wi va chang ov el IPI-flaiu (airplane) tu la RITE-flaiu in da midle de
la flai. Wi meik a tub e pas la houl bagage tu la RITE flaiu, wich flai loua. Wi va du dis alfabetikli, starting wid ‘a’, den ‘b’, etc.
But if la word is stil not a completo RITE word, wi weit til al otre letras is
introdused. And den wi va start la desendasion tu TS, den flai in a super lou
altitud, until wi finali land. .
In Yokohama der is a super tal TV-tawa. I spik wid a
japano et ask im hau tal la tawer is. “Hau multi metros?” Hi undastanded no mai
cuestion, et as a gude japani hi va never ask bak. But hi undastanded dat i
pozed im a cuestion abaut numers, so hi anser iresolut: “2”.
El imigrasion come tu la ship, dei control ali. La
japanis ha no problemas, la rusis ha no problemas, ali get a stamp in half
minut. Den it mai turn, e dei wana no let mi in, becauze der is a slopi
corexion in mai pasport. It was la faulta de la brazilian ambasi secretara in
Zimbabwe, la fema had scribed somu rong, corected it wid tipp-ex e seid it vud
bi al rait. Nau la japanian imigrasion ofisis dinke
not it al rait. I nid an awa tu explein em dat i OK, ali in da bote ha tu weit
til i redi...
Yu can no change moni in da porto de Yokohama. I com aut
de la bilding et a nais biutiful mini japana wid a red ros on her wait dres tel
mi tu go intu la bus. La bus is pro turis e fri.
La bus start, la japana explein us a fiu dings, wi stop in a shoping sentro et
ali can change moni hir. I change moni e siek a bir somewer, den i come bak tu
la bus e la bus lieved alredi. Wid mai bagag. Jesus, wat i du in Japan widaut mai
bagag? Befor i become reali desperado, la mini japana come
rening, reprimand mi amigali pro mai disaparasion e wi ren tugeda tu la bus,
dat weit a fiu blokes fara (ferther). Evri gest is bringed tu la plase dat hi
ha tu go, la resto tu la trein stasion tu Tokio. La maid, a super amigale maid, explein us hau wi bai a ticket e sei gude
bai. Shi wanad no give mi her fone number. Eniwei dis land hav a super gude
turistal infrastructur. Stil it cuait dificulte tu finde yur wei hir, spesiali
wen yu siek a chiep hotel.
I wana no put oil in da faya de la prejudisos contra la
japanis. Existe
such e such japanis. Existe fatis e dinis, minis e stil plus minis, polaitis e
stil plus polaitis, existe japanis in gran grupos e japanis in stil grana
grupos. La japani is polait et amigal, hi usuali spik not a super gud inglish
but hi trai. Wen yu ask im an informasion abaut a plas, hi va no tel yu, hi va
teik yu der, wid la car o woking. Eventuali hi va
give yu a prezent, oft oso his vizit card. Hi va invite yu tu his haus e wen yu liev, hi va sei dank yu
(‘arigato’ in japanian) e bai bai (‘bai bai’ in japanian). Sometempos hi
va shou yu la siti, no mater if hi chirpi o dog-fatiged. Hi rarli spik alaud e
ha gude maners. I warn yu, if yu blou yur
nous in public, pro exemplo at a table, it la same pro a japani as it vud bi
pro yu if somi pised on yur table. Super unpolait. On el otre hand hi super
laud wen hi iet – in da restaurantes it a hel ov a nois, becaus ali iet as laud
as dei can, tu shou dat la fuda teist gud.
Tokyo
is like Sao Paulo, just safer e clina. If yu considder hau multi peepel liv
heer, der is probabli no safer e clina siti in da wold. Dis plase is a see de
lites, elevated roudes piled up in sevral flos, tunels, publisiti dat lai,
hang, flai, spik e sing, voises e muzic (usuali altempo la samu, ‘Pour Elise’,
de Beethoven – it come de vendus (vending masheens), buses et eeven toilet
paper holdus – I can not imagine Beethoven dinked de dis kaind ov utiliti pro
his muzic).
La subwei trane drivi spik non stop. He tel la publico la
10 o 20 subwei lines dei can change tu in da next stasion, den he sei gude bai,
wish la peepel dat leev la trane a gude dei e houp tu see dem agen suun. E den
he start la houl stori agen pro la next stasion. La publico transporte sistem
is veri wel organized, yu rarli ha tu wate a trane longa dan 3 minutos. Despite dat la tranes is chok-ful, e twise i dinked i
vud no servive it. Wans in a trane, dei presed me in a wei dat i dinked i can
no get eni er eni plus. Anotre temp a claudberst started autside, evribodi ran
intu la stasion, der was miliones peepel traiing tu com aut e noding moved eni
plus. I cud not imagine hau dis tragedies hapen in stadiones, etc, but dings
develope bai itself, yu stand der trapd, yu can move neida fo- nor bakwerds e
heer peepel shauting. La stasiones is gigantal, oft dei in da same tempo huge
shoping senters, et oft dei linkd tu otre 5 o 10 stasiones bai pedestrian
tuneles ful de shops. Oft der is an inglishe signal pro ‘exit’ beside la
japanian sine. But not altemp, et if el inglish signal mis wans, yu mite need
half an awa tu find el exit. La bestu yu can du is
tu lern cuikli la japanian signal pro ‘exit’.
Dei ha servises pro forenis, turis, yu vud not eeven
dreem of in, sei, Somalia. Pro exampel dei hav a telefon informasion servis in
english wer yu can get al sortes of informasion. Wer yu finde “cheep” hotels o jobs, o hau
tu get somewer in da siti (or in da land). Dis is cuait importent in dis land becaus exist noding yu can du wid
adreses. Usuali yu just get a telefone number, yu cal der e dei explane yu hau
tu get der: take subwei line number 10 on platform 8, direxion Akasaka, get aut
in da stasion Takabuka, wok in da same direxion as la trane 300 meeters, tern
rite e wok 200 meeters til yu see 3 gran trees, der yu see la sters in yur
left, wen yu arive in da top tern rite agen e wok 150 meeters til yu see a
trash conteinu, tern left e wok til yu see la flawa shop. Dat is la haus, go tu
la secondo flo, dird do (door) left. It like a trezor chase but werke wel cuait
oft.
La streets ha no names, onli la bloks ha, aldou noi nou
der names. La haus numbers is no based on da
geografik orda, dei based on el ano de construxion! La ferst haus bilded in da
blok get number 1, la secondu get number 2, etc. Wans i looked pro a scottish amigo in Kioto,
et it tuk me la houl dei, wid la help de la poleese, poast e passis-bai. It was
20 meeters de la poleese stasion! But dei nowed not it eida...
La
fud is la moast butifule de la wold, dei make an art of it. In da restaurante
windoes dei put plastico copies de wat yu get inside, so dat yu ha no tu be abel
tu reed japanian menus. Yu go aut wid la water (waiter...) e shou him wat yu
wan. La taist is sometimes super gud e sometimes a bit monotonos. Oft a taist i
neva had befor. In da supermarket i feel like in a marcian supermarket, i can
no reccognize multi productos. Yu can spend a lot de moni heer, if yu like. Yu
ha no tu spende mucho time tu finde dishes pro a fiu hundred dolas. But yu can
eet cheep, tu. Dei ofa richo supas pro 2 dolas, et if yu wan it reali cheep yu
can get la sup ov a vendu, it cost yu les dan 2 dolas. Evriding els is terrabli
expensiv. Yu get rid de yur moni cuikli, but yu ha yur amuzasion.
In
Turkiye or in Polska a mano widaut a mustash is not a mano. In Japan it is la
sute e tai. Becaus a mustash is cuait dificult tu get, pro a japano. Heer a
mano widaut a sute is not a mano, it is a pilipino. Some peepel understand no
dis werd, so i translate it: filipino. La pilipinis can no pronuns an ‘f’, so
dei cal der land erorali (eroniusly) ‘Pilipina’. Naturali el ‘eroniusly’ was a
joke. Just tu tis la preests de la politik corectitee.
Comic is la wei dei shou tu demself. Wen a westi or
eni “normal” peepel shou tu demself, dei put der hands on der brests o shou wid
el indicatu tu der harts. La japani du no dat, he shou wid his indicatu his
nous. Probabli la nous is la senter de la japanian esense. Some forenis went aut in serch de la japanian esense e
discovered dat it is like an onion: yu peel, peel e peel, et in da fine der is
noding lieved.
In
da yungitee-hostel i meet a deutsha. El only informasion she hav abaut me is
dat i brazilo. Wans i ask her de wair abauts she is in Deutshland. “De München.”
“Wich strat in München?” „Strat? Ha yu been der?” “Ya.” “It is not a sentral strat, it is caled Hansa Strasse.” “Wich number?”
“Number? Wel, 107.” “Dat must be betuin
Passauer Strasse e Westpark, no?” Nau i shoed her hu is el informd gai in dis
airia. Taxidrivo. O, tu sei it as la nativs, takushi-doraiba. Strate ov el
english languej. La fema cari la name Ania, hav a gude nous, gude bodi, a nise
charm but la skin is not spesiali gud in da fase. No problem, we make a tur
tugeda. We go wid la subwei tu la friwei. It is cuait a wei, but we com aut et
alu stil look as bizi as la siti senter. We get aut de Tokio, but get not aut
de la siti. We just realize dat dei giv dis erbanized zone anotre name. Dei sei Tokio ha 15, 20, 25 million inhabbitants. Peepel can sei wat dei wan. El administris e planis
just tuk a map, drod a line on it e sed: de hir on it is no Tokio eni plus. Yu
can du it dat wei tu. But basicali la houl sud coast is un big siti. Sometempos
yu see a rise plantasion 100 meeters long e wide betuin un siti et anotre, but
dei can no cal dat a separasion. Yu see dat inside la
sitis tu. Yu can no grou vejetables on da
cuntryside becauze der is no cuntryside in Japan, der is onli siti.
Dis
is a lai, but it sounda gud. Eniwei, la japanis is
obsesed bai perfexion. Dei consider dat la deutshis
is leizi bunglis. Derfor dei neva giv direxiones wen dei no fuli sur dat dei
rite. Dei apollojize douzand tempos pro no
nouing exactli wair it is e giv yu prezentes as a mini compensasion. Wen dei giv yu a lift, dei feel responsable pro yu pro la
resto de der laifes. Dei take yu exactli tu la plase yu ha tu go, o dei ask
otre drivis tu giv yu a ride. It vud just brake
der harts tu let yu aut aloun in a rest airia. E dei altemp invite yu tu eet wid dem. Dei invite yu cuait suun afta yu got in da car, wich make me dinke dat
dei oso invite yu et eet wen dei ha full belis.
Uni
de la drivis hu giv us a lift hav a Renault wid la steering weel on da left
side de la car. I ask him if such a car is mucho chiepa dan a nativo car. No,
he sei, his mini Renault is as expensiv as an expensiv Nissan limmuzine. So i
ha tu ask him wai la hel he had tu bai a mini Renault. Becauze he laik cars wid
la steering weel on da left side. Aldou dei drive on da left side, as in
England. Dat is el advantej, if yu bai an imported car, la steering weel is on
da left side. It is a mater de status. Not eeven Jaguars o Rolls-Royces ha la steering
weel on da rite side in Japan, e dei cars dat ha la steering weel on da rite
side in el orijinal version.
Yu
not alaud tu drive fasta dan 80 km an awa. Sinse dei obsesed bai tecnologie,
dei hav a gajet dat start peeping imediatli wen yu drive fasta dan 80. So la
car is peeping al la temp. On el otre hand moast cars hav a devise dat start
peeping wen der is a radar around, a radar-radar-detectu. Den we ha doble peep.
Ania and i sleep offen in da stasion or on da street,
becoz la hotels is so expensiv, la parks is clozed and la wales (wauls...)
super hai. And den yu va finde benches onli in parks, rarli on da streets. Dis
land is no so good tu relax, la sidewoks is made for peepel tu wok, no tu sit.
Comic, in multi otre parts of la wold peepel confuze la japanis wid la chinis.
Multi peepel sei L for R tu imit (imitate) a japani, but dis is onli rite wen
dei trai tu imit a chini. Moast eest-asis can no heer la difrense betuin dis tu
sounds, but la chinis usuali sei an L, wile la japanis sei somu much plus like
an R. Yu can see dis in werds like harakiri, Hiroshima, karaoke. Onli la car makes hav unjapanian names: no person heer
can pronounse Starlet o Corolla, dei sei Sutareto and Korora. Chinan and japanian is as far ov eech otre as dei ov
english. La japanian pronunsiasion is izi as a childes languej, la chinan
pronunsiasion is supernatural. Wans i askd a chino in Brazil hau long it vud
take for me tu lern chinan. He askd me: hau old yu? “18”. “O, den yu can no
lern it eni plus...” Chinan ha swinged un-sillable werds, japanian is like a
masheen gun. Chinan: zhà pü tóng shâng hóng pèng shî. Japanian: takaruka
shikoteko kokakora kamikaze hiroshima harakiri.
La japanian grammer, unlike la chinan, is impossable. Yu lern and lern, and yu stil not abel tu sei a singel
corect sentense. Spesiali la polaititee forms
giv me hedake. Yu can hardli ask a person
on da street widout ofending la japanis, becoz so multi ideas is expresed bai
so multi difrent werds, depending on hu yu spik wid. In english yu can sei ‘yur
fase’ o ‘yur mug’ o ‘yur kissa’, depending on hu yu spik wid. But in japanian
it is like dis al la time. It a quite vage languej, it onli exact in da
polaititee forms. Dat is wai la japanis ask so offen yur aje, yur profesion and
pozision. So dei can nou hau tu adres der werds tu yu and wich werds dei shood
uze. In som europian languejes dei hav a yu-werd for respected persons and unu
for amigis (dei tel yu no hau tu adres yur in-amigis, ie yur enemis). In
japanian yu inflect no yur conversasion partni, yu inflect yurself. Existe 30
werds for la werd ‘i’, but we no dat formal eni plus, and uze onli 6. La japanis rarli uze a werd like ‘yu’ eniwei. So he sei: villa-onnerd-tu-go-invitasion-is-question,
hut-humbel-tu-go-invitasion-is-question? He meens naturali dat he’d like tu nou
de her if dei shood go tu la nise mansion o tu la smuti hut? In good english:
lets go tu yur plase o tu mine, baby?
Hiroshi,
la japano i traveled wid in el Amazon, was from Okinawa. Okinawis ar knoen for
being off-hand in Japan, and Hiroshi is knoen for being off-hand in Okinawa.
Wans he sed tu me: “Take it izi, mano. O sori, i’m reali
sori!” “Wai ar yu seiing yu’r sori?” “Becaus i sed ‘take
it izi, mano’. If i sed dis tu Peter, it vud be al rite, becoz Peter is 4 anos
yunger dan me. But i can no sei dat tu yu, yu’r 6 anos older!”
La
riting is a nitemair. Or la ritings: dei ha 4 of dem! Kan-ji, hiragana,
katagana and roma-ji. Kan-ji is la riting dei imported from la chinis, wich
meens a fiu dauzand sines (el orijinal chinan set ha 50 000) dat ha super
littel tu du wid la pronunsiasion. Yu ha tu lern dem al bai hart. Hiragana is a
silabari, it ha sines for sillables. Yu can lern dem in un dei, dei’r mei-be 80.
And for lone werds dei uze katagana, anotre sillable
riting. Roma-ji is la riting of la romis, awa roman alfabet. Yu can no swap la
ritings as yu need, evri riting has its oun funxiones. Dei imported quite a fiu
english werds, but moast of dem vud no be reccognizable wen yu reed katagana
for la ferst time. In katagana der ar onli leters for sillables, so yu ha tu
rite werds wid sillables. Ba-su meens ‘bus’, to-ra-ku ‘truk’, serufu-sabisu
‘self-servis’, doa ‘dor’, doaman ‘dorman’, gasorin-sutando ‘gas-stasion’,
garu-furendo ‘gerlfrend’, boifurendo ‘boyfrend’, miruko ‘milk’, gurepu ‘grape’,
biro ‘buro, offis’, biru ‘beer’, supun ‘spoon’, naifu ‘naif’, foku ‘fork’, supa
‘supermarket’, teburu ‘table’.
Anotre
werd from english is ‘rabu hoteru’, wich meens ‘love hotel’. Offen dei look
like Disneyland cassels, and so is the furniture inside. Som of them ar fuli
automatic, so thair ar no witnesses afterwerds. Alu goes bai pressing a button,
the bil com in a tube. And wen the fema groans, thay get disco lite. The louder
she groans, the mor lite and mor colores com intu the room. Wen she gets reali
loud, a computer voise ses « Grate, boi! Yu made it! And nau du it agen!”
If the fema make not eni nois, or the mano is tu ineficient, the mano can
become loud himself and get the compliments.
The japanis cant
sei ‘v’, so dei sei ‘b’. Thats wai dei
altemp ask us if we ar ‘robbers’. Dei dont want tu kno if we steel moni from
the bank, dei want tu kno if we ar ‘lovers’. And un driver told us: ‘Next weeku
we hab erections for prime-minista’. Comico peepel.
In
the trane station of Shimonozeki (the plase wair the feri leeves tu Korea), we
ask at the information desk wair we cood find a hotel for a reezonable prise.
The 3 madames ar amigal, but get sort of hectic. Dei look for hotels in the
tellefone book and in aul cattalogs dei can find, dei caul a fiu plases,
without suxess. I dont understand, the japanis ar usuali so wel organized, hau
cum that dei cant organize a room for us? After a wile un of them brings us tu
a travvel agensi. Dei discuss awa case and finali deside: an employee takes us
out of the bilding and points tu the station: “Preez, go tu information desk in
the station.” “Wat du yu meen, that is the station?” « Yes. »
« So wat is this bilding wair we wer aul the time? » “This is
shopping senter, ne?” Nau i understand wai dei coodnt tel us about a hotel
room. In Brazil, if yu trai tu get an information about a hotel room at the
information desk of a shopping senter, dei va tel yu tu gro potatos.
Bai
the wei, we stei in the bak of the ferry, so we hav a ferry tail for a few ours.
CHAPTER 58
ZÉ DO ROCKS ADVENTURES IN THE LAND OF THE 1000 SLIT IES.
Corea
is a land wair the sun aulso rizes, but 10 minnuts later. It’s a sort of slopi
Japan. Japan is rich, Corea is so-so. The japanis ar polite, the coris ar normal.
The corian languej is masculin, a mix of chinan and arabian. Aultho dei aulso
uze the chinan riting, the mane riting is the corian wun. This is fonetic and
izi tu lern, eeven if it dusnt look like that at the ferst glanse. Quite a few
peepel can speek english wel. The oanly problem dei hav is the pronunsiation of
the ‘si’. Dei cant sei ‘si’, dei sei ‘shi’, and dei dont make much distinction
between short and long vouls. This is moastly understandable, but it is a
problem wen dei invite yu tu take a seet, then dei sei ‘Plis take a shit.” or
“Plis shit doun.” Eniwei i cant go tu China bai land, becoz the north coris
woodnt let mi thru. Their prezident dont like foreners. So i hav tu flai.
The
airport of Hongkong is in the middel of the siti and the pilot has tu make a
few curvs befor landing. Tu land heer, dei hav tu make a special corse. In
Hongkong yu can stei in the YMCA. If wimmen ar fed up with men, dei can stei in
the YWCA (Yung Wimmen Cristian Asosiation). The adress is 5 Man Fuk Street.
This is not a joke. Eniwei, in China i desided tu du it the wei the chinis du
it: with the bike. I bai a red mounten bike.
The
border tu China is in the middel of the sitty senter of Macao. U’r thru in 3
minnuts, and it takes so long becaus i hav a bike. In a communist cuntry. In
New York, the biggest sitty of the cuntry that wants tu export freedom tu the
hole werld, it takes an our. Just after the border hundreds of munny chainjers
beseej me. Sinse i dont hav an alturnativ, i chainj it and make a bad deel. Same
proseedure evry border. From the border tu Guangzhou (the westeners say
‘Canton’), half the freeway is made for bikes. The streets hav offen as much
plase for cars as for bikes. Enyway it is very hot and humid. Heer the ferst 7
days in a short rezumay: 1st day: i sikeld 130 kilomeeters, then i
had a sirculatry colapse. 2nd day: ate holes in the frunt weel and
wun hole in the bak (of the tire)(now u wer confuzed with the ‘ate’, wernt u?).
3rd day: the chane is broken. 4th day: insted of drinking 10 leeters
liquid i drink 15 leeters soya milk. In the eevening i vomit evrything and flud
my hotel room. 5th day: ferst contact with the poleese, i get my
ferst fine in China. 6th day: evrything broken. On the seventh day i
relaxed, thats how we du it in our clan.
Thair
ar meny chinis in this werld, especially in China. Wen u’r on a chinan rode,
far away from eny sitty or toun, u lite a sigaret and 2 minnuts later u hav 20
chinese around u, wen u just open yur ies and yu never see fewer than 50
chinese, wen u want tu take a shit and behynd evry bush thair ar 20 chinis
lying or werking around, then u kno wat i meen. I just want peese, but how du i
say this werd in chinese? I kno the werd ‘tien an’, hevenly peese, becoz of the
plase wair thair was so littel peese a littel time ago. So i say ‘tien an’, but
nobody understand me. I pronounse evry leter the rong way, not oanly becoz of
the fonetics but aulso becoz of the tones. Eeven if i let out the ‚tien’ and
oanly say the ‚an’, for ‘peese’, thay dont understand me. ‚An’ dus meen
‘peese’, but it has 200 uther meenings. Yu hav tu say sumthing like ‘an zhi’,
wair ‘zhi’ meens ‘silense’. Peese-silense, now thay understand. As if yu say
‚cha’ wen yu want a tee. Eeven if yu pronounse it rite, with the rite tone, the
chinese wont understand it becoz ‘cha’ has duzzens uther meenings. So yu say
‘yi bei cha’, wun-cup-tee, and now he understands. Of corse, aulso the werd for
‘wun’ and the werd for ‘cup’ hav meny uther meenings, but the chinis can
combine. It is as eezy tu lern as a berd languej, or a marcian languej. Just
think: on avrej thair ar 20 meenings for evry sillable. With the tone. If u say
a werd without an exact tone, thair ar 4 of them, wich meens 80 meenings per
sillable. And eeven wen thay rite with the roman alfabet, the leters hav
aulways sum difrense in vallue. The oanly leter wich seems tu hav exactly the
same vallue is ‚f’. AND then aul thees nuanses ar difrent from provvinse tu
provvinse. Wich meens that offen the chini has tu draw riting sines in the air,
wen he tauks tu peepel of uther reejons. Thay’r a big help for the chinis, but
not for me. Thay tauk tu me, and wen thay see that i didnt understand eeven
‘dog’, thay rite in chinan on a paper. I stil dont understand. Wel i’l stop
complaning. The chinis hav a nise number poem: 4 is not 10, 10 is not 4, 14 is
not 40, 40 is not 14. In chinan: shi shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi, shi shi shi
shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi shi. Naturally evry ‘shi’ has a difrent tone,
but i forgot them.
I
think thay’r stupid. How cum thay dont understand me? But then i think that i
dont understand them either. Wun of them sed tu me: “Toga!” Wat is ‘toga’?
“Ying guo hua”, he ses, wich meens that it is english. The oanly thing i can
imajin is the old roman dress. But a chinese pezzant cant be tauking about an
old roman dress. Or he can, but it is bluddy unlikely. AND then finally he sees
an annimal he can point tu. It is a dog. O, that is wat he ment with ‘toga’.
For him ‘dog’ and ‘toga’ hav the same sound. AND the comunication dusnt get
simpler becoz the chinese caul the cuntrys, the continents, the international
prodducts difrently. In neerly evry cuntry, if u want tu smoke u can say
Marlboro or Camel. If u meen a car, u can say Cadillac, Mercedes or Mitsubishi.
If u want tu describe yur root, u can say America or Africa. U stay a few weeks
in Japan and u quikly kno that u hav tu say ‘Borukusuwageng’ for Volkswagen.
Not so the chinis. Thair the logic has vacations. Donald Duck is cauld ‘Lao
Yang’, the old Yang. Toyota is cauld ‘ching zhou’ or sumthing compleetly
difrent. Africa is cauld ‘Fei Zhou’, England is ‘Ying Guo’. But sumtimes u stil
can understand it: for exampel ‘pan-tzu’ shood be cleer for evrywun: Mercedes-Benz.
Az
if this wernt enuf, the chinis cant gesticculate. Thay woodnt dreem of it.
Becoz thay had never contact with foreners. If u gesticculate yurself, thay’r
very serprized and laf. Thats aul. It was a good sho, thank u. For them thair
ar tu tipes of comunication: speeking and riting. If u dont speek perfect
chinan, thay wont eeven realize that u’r trying tu speek chinan. So thay send u
wair thay think u shood go, not wair u want tu go. I ask ‘wair is the rode tu
Cheng Du?’ Cheng Du. Rode. Wair. Question werd. Thay aul send me tu the same direction. I ask 3, 4,
5, 6 passers-by, thay hav no dout. Until i stand in frunt of a nassional park.
Of corse: toorists go tu the nassional park and not somewair else. Thair is no
rode tu Cheng Du around heer, i tel u. I try it with a truk driver. Cheng Du. Rode. Wair. Question. His
indicater points automatically tu the nassional park. I tel him i dont want a
fucking nassional park, dam it. No good. Nassional park, no! I want the rode tu
Cheng Du. I take my dictionry, sho him the werds, sho the rode in the map. Then Cheng-Du.
He’s patient. He wates til i finnish and
then his finger sho tu the nassional park. I go tu the next driver, same
proseedure az befor. I need aultugether 3 ours tu cum out of the sitty.
Direction sines dont exist. And wen, thay just say the name of the next sitty. So u leev Los Angeles
and want tu go tu San Francisco or Seattle, and thair ar oanly sines for Santa
Barbara.
Tu
get information in this cuntry is a tuf biznes. U can never say the name of a
plase, u hav tu point tu the plase in the map. Peepel point in an undefined
direction and thats it. So it happend that i wunse crossd the sitty Guangzhou
and 50 kilomeeters later i realized that i had passd it. I missd a sitty with 6
million inhabbitants becoz i never kno wair it is sitty and wair it is
cuntryside becoz the cuntryside is sitty tu and becoz the informations ar so
bad. In the big sittys u see billions of bikes, and thay cauz a lot of
axidents. Wen u cross a street, u take cair with the bikes, not with the cars.
The
rode trafic in China is an endless caos, with truks, busses, tracters, bikes
and pedestrians and and and. AND u must hoot, it is law, the sines tel u tu
hoot wen u cross a villej or a sitty. So thay hoot wen thay see a truk, thay
hoot wen thay see a bus, a tracter, a bike and thay hoot wen thay see a
pedestrian. Of corse thay must hoot especially loud wen thay see nuthing. The
chinis ar az camicazzy az the coris, heer eeven an itali wood be shokd. The
brazilis drive wel, but fast and indissiplind. The deutshis drive wel and dissiplind,
but tu fast. The englis drive wel, dissiplind and not tu fast, but on the rong
side of the rode. The japanis drive slo and dissiplind but bad and on the rong
side of the rode tu, the italis fast, indissiplind and bad. The coris and the
chinis ar the same thing az the italis, but werse. I was lucky, i had oanly wun
axident, a bus ran over the 2 big toes of my left foot. Thay’r stil thair, just
a bit smauler. In the nite it is mor dainjerus. Tracters and bikes hav no
lites, and downhil meny chinis swich off thair moters. And, wel, sinse thay
swich off the moter thay hav tu swich off the lites tu. Tu save the batry. U
dont see it cumming, u dont heer it cumming. But sumtimes u feel wen it arived.
I
want tu caul Niur in Wien. For that i need the help of a duzzen peepel in the
poast offis. How du i say ‘Austria’ in chinan? I yodel like an austrian, i
danse a bit waulse, but the chini hav no idea that thay sing that funny way and
danse the waulse in Austria. I bet thay cant tel avangard opera from salsa. I
shood theorically spel and say Österreich (pronounsed mor o less /ostraish/),
but this pronunsiation is stil rong enuf, and evrybody understand Austria, in-
and outside the cuntry, dont thay? Wel, after a long fite i fynd out that the
chinan name for it is O-di-li. By the way, the USA ar cauld ‘Mei Guo’, the
butiful cuntry.
The
chinanas look quite good. Thay hav butiful blak ies in the form of ammonds,
nise nozes, fleshy lips, and enuf fat in the rite parts. Thay need longer tu
get old (az the africanas), wich meens the wites dont hav the best jeens in
this case. In Hongkong the chinanas ar quite sexy, but u cant say that about
the wimmen in the communist China, especially becoz of the cloaths. I shoodnt
forget tu mention the outlandish habbits. U see sometimes a gorjus gerl sitting
on a parkbench. A dreem of woomanhood, and u begin tu dreem. U’r in the middel
of yur dreem and suddenly u see how in the real life she spreds her legs,
colects aul she can fynd in her mouth, so that peepel can heer it from 200
meeters distense, and then she lets the hole mush go down tu the flor. One end
is stil in the mouth, wile the other has aulredy tuchd the flor. Naturally not
oanly wimmen du that. Thay hav no idea wat a hankerchif is for. Other lands,
other customs. The chinis ar exactly the oppozit of the japanis. Wile the
japanis practis an exess of good manners, thanking for haf an our and saying
by-by for haf an our, the chinis dont say much, really. Thank u, pleez, by-by –
forget it. Thay’l laf at u. U by something in the shop, u pay and thank the
shop oner or the atendent. The chinis considder this quite funny. A waist of
time. Wy is this gy thanking? He baut something, i sold something, thair is no
reezon tu thank in such a case. And now he’s leeving and ses good-by. Wy is he
duing that? I kno that he’l leev, wat shood he du heer?
Enyway
u shood leev yur hands off the chinanas, wether thay look good or not. It wil
meen oanly trouble for u. U kiss them one day, next day thay’r oanly tauking
about marrej. If u marry her or not, it dusnt matter, u’r a case for the
poleese.
In
the provvinse Guangdong thay eet evrything that moovs, including snakes, dogs
and cats. One dish is cauld draggon-tale with tiger. The draggon tale is the
snake and the tiger is the cat. And thay enjoy an eg that has been rotten for
yeers. In the market thay slauter the annimals fresh for the client. In the
resterant u can never order something orally, u can point tu a werd in the
mennu or point at the dishes, moast of them ar a sort of stew. U order
something and then u dont kno wat u orderd. U caul the water and ask him:
“Muuuu?” “Meyo (no)” “Baaaaa?” “Meyo” “Cok cok cok?” “Meyo.” “So wat is it?”
“Bow wow”. The food taists very good, but it is not always good for the
stomach. Not eeven for the chinan stomachs. I never saw so meny peepel
vommiting from buses, truks and on the street. By the way, no chini has an idea
of wat the werd ‘chop suey’ meens.
The
toilets ar not especially privat. Moastly a few holes in the ground, sometimes
10 or 20 of them. No wauls inbetween. It’s not nise wen u go thair in the
morning and aulmoast aul plases ar occupied. Az i sed befor, moast chinese
never saw a forener, let alone a forener havving a shit. U’r the big sho. Thay
wach u with big ies. Wel, not that big, becoz thay cant. Some of them laf becoz
u need so much paper to get yur instalations cleen. The chinis themselvs suport
thair boul evacuation with vairius throte and mouth sounds, so evrybody can see
that thay’r really werking hard. And then i’m running out of toilet paper,
aulso my polsky zlotys ar finnishing. This is wat i caul a crisis.
Evry
eevening it is a fite tu get a hotel room. Az a tourist u’r supozed tu stay in
the big tourist hotels, wich ar much mor expensiv and offen just axept payment
in the tourist money. I aulways try tu fynd littel privat hotels. In some
sittys it’s not a problem, in others thay
dont axept me becoz the cops organize rades sometimes. I aulways take my bike
with me intu my room, otherwize it would be gon the next morning. The
criminality isnt especially hy in China, but u cant leev yur Rolls-Royce
outside. Thay like tu giv me a room in the last flor, so i can trane my
muscles. Thanks. It’s not eezy: it’s not oanly carrying it, u hav to push the
front down, otherwize the hevy bakside with the fixd bag would push u down. And
u never get a kee, u hav tu ask it evrytime from the “flor-made”. So u go to
the toilet and then hav to look for her to get yur dor opend agen. That takes
haf an our sometimes.
Thank
God not evrything is state-owned, aultho i dont think that has much to do with
God. Unlike Russia u can fynd enuf privat resterants, hotels and shops. U can
by quite evrything. Thair ar millions of sigaret brands.
This
cuntry is increddibly butiful, it has mountens u wont see enywair else, it has
green rivvers, blu rivvers, transparent rivvers, wauterfauls to sel and giv
away and eeven thair plantations ar a feest for the ies. Actually i didnt kno
that plantations can be so butiful. Peepel heer ar quite dillijent. Wen u think
that the chinis ar az dillijent az the japanis, how come the japanis hav 20 000
dollers per cappita income and the chinis only hav 300? Probably becoz the
japanis produse mycro-chips wile the chinis produse rise-chips. Wate another 10
or 15 yeers, tho, and u wont make jokes about the chinis publically.
In
Yangshuo i meet by chanse my frend Sepp, an old frend and naber from München. I
didnt kno he was heer and vise-versa. Yeah, nowadays it’s getting eezyer to
meet yur naber on the other side of the werld than in the bilding u liv in.
Graddualy we come to the mountenus airia, the air isnt that hot eny mor but u
get hot from pedling, it goes up and down without interruption. Somehow this up
and down isnt werth wile: u can never go down az quikly az u went up sloly. Wen
u’r coming down, thair ar potholes, curvs, trafic and men at werk. Once i was
coming down on a road full of kervs, on my rite side the abiss. I’m faster than
a car, and the curv comes, i hav to brake, one brake shoe flys away. A short time
after the other brake shoes fly away too, and i hav to uze my own shoes on the
tire. My shoe berns like Rome, wen Rome bernd. Thair wasnt much left from the
shoe. I need new shoes, but wair wil i fynd size 46 (or 12/13) in China?
My
chane is broken aulmost evryday. I cant repair it, the bike garages just repair
it sometimes, usually the yung mecanics do it, the old ones dont. The yung ones
ar curius about this funny red veickel, with geers and thoze thik tires. The
old mecanics look at it az if it wer Devils werk.
Once
i hav a brakedown and hich a ride on a truk tu the next sitty. We arive in the
eevening, fynd a hotel and the driver looks for the english teecher in town, so
we can hav some sort of comunication. The hole sitty population goes to look for
this ominous english teecher, wile we wate in the resterant. Ten peepel ar
sitting at the tabel, 100 peepel stand around and wach me. I feel like a pink
ellefent. And thair comes the english teecher. I ask him if thees peepel hav
never seen a forener. “Some hav”, he ses, “some havnt. Thair was an austrian
around 3 yeers ago, but not evrybody in the sitty saw him.” And then a cop
arives. He cheks my papers and tels me that i’m in a zone wich is prohibbited
for tourists. I hav to pay 30 kwai, wich meens 30 yuan, around 7 dollers. This
is the same az 10 overnite stays in a cheep hotel. Enyway he givs me a lisense
to go aul the way to Tibet. For only 6 yuan. He recomends me to register in
evry sitty i want to stay overnite.
I
come to the next sitty in the folloing eevening, find a hotel and go to the
poleese station to register. But how do i register in chinan? Nobody in the
poleese can understand wat i want. I can only say: “Me be heer. Me be hotel.”
Thay don’t kno wat i want, thay fone around to ask for advise. After an our i
just leev, i’v done my duty. At 2 oclok in the morning thay nok at the dor of
my room, thay’r 3 cops and an english teecher. Thay chek my papers and my bag.
Evrything is OK. Thay come agen in the folloing day, the english teecher translates:
“We thaut evrything would be OK, but then we askd our boss, he sed this must be
OK. But to be sure he cauld his boss in the cappital, and this boss sed it is
not OK. The poleeseman in that other sitty doesn’t hav the rite to giv u a
permit to travvel around. Only the poleese cheef in Nanning, the provinse
cappital, can giv u such a permit. U hav to travvel bak with the bus to
Nanning, thair u can get a proper permit. We bring u to the bus tomorro
morning.” I dont think travling 300 kilomeeters bak is funny. Then i hav to go
bak aul the way agen with the bike, aul for nothing. 600 km. The peepel ar
unorganized az in Congo but stubbern az in Japan. No, i can moan and cry,
thairs nothing thay can do for me. Thay put me in a bus, i hav to pay for it
myself. The bike goes on the roof. The ferst stop comes after 30 km, i get off
and try to hich a ride in the direction from wair i just came. I dont want to
sikel, somebody could see me. The best is to get a lift on a truk thru the
sitty. The bike can go in the cargo airia and i can hide in the cabbin. But the
drivers aulways think i’m waving to them because i like them, thay wave bak...
Thay cant imagine that i need a ride, i hav a bike. And aul the time poleese
cars passing. If one of them tels my frends who expeld me from the sitty that
i’m around, i could be in real trouble. Unfortunatly most cars just go to the
sitty but dont cross it. But after a wile a truk driver stops. I start stutring
in chinan, after a minnut he asks me in good english wat i want. He werkd in a
hotel befor. Enyway, he just wants to go to the sitty, but after i explane my
problem to him, he doesn’t want to take that risk at aul. He starts agen, after
100 meeters he stops. He desided to take the risk. And he drives thru the sitty
and lets me off after the sitty. Thats wy i never say humanity is shit.
I
get quite cautius. I dont sleep in hotels eny mor, i avoid the sittys and the
poleese az the devvil avoids the cross. It seems that 90% of the cuntry is
forbidden zone for tourists.
The
landscape becomes sort of peculier, evrything becomes peculier. I come thru
regions wair u dont find eny chinis, only peepel who look like chinis but arnt
chinis. Thay speek languejes that dont hav enything to do with chinan. Thay’d
never caul themselvs chinis. The britis wouldn’t say thay’r bulgaris, aultho
britis and bulgaris ar wite and hav round ies. To come thru thees cities is
uncanny for me, at the same time fassinating. Peepel freek out wen thay see me.
It’s a shame i cant obzurv them properly, i hav to hide aul the time. In some
regions peepel hav very wether-beeten feetures, the teeth jut out. Like Gengis
Khan. Didnt u kno Gengis Khans teeth jut out?
Kayueng,
10 PM. It’s raning and i deside to look for a hotel, for a change. It’s late
and nobody saw me. Befor i get asleep, the poleese noks on my dor. A dozen cops
in 3 cars bring me to a big hotel in the city senter. Thay interrogate me, i’m
getting really desprat. “This cuntry wil drive me crazy! The chinan tourist
information in Hongkong and the poleese in Guangzhou garanteed me that i can
sikel evrywair in China, and now i’m treeted like a crimminal aul the time! I
cant eeven kno wair it is forbidden for tourists and wair not! Thair ar no
sines telling me that and eeven if thair wer i wouldn’t kno because thay
sertenly would be ritten in chinan. And the normal poleese doesn’t kno it
either, only this sort of forener poleese, and i cant find it, thay aulways
find me befor i find them to ask them! How can i kno that this city is clozed
for foreners?” “This city isnt forbidden for tourists.” “No?? So wy ar u
treeting me like a crimminal?” “If u came heer with yur bike, and u sed u did,
then u must hav crossd forbidden airia, becoz aul around us is forbidden.” Of
corse, thay dont treet me like a real crimminal, otherwize i wouldn’t liv to
tel it. On the folloing day thay bring me to the poleese station and
interrogate me. After a few ours the verdict: “We understand that not evrything
is werking perfectly in the poleese organization, and we beleev u wen u say u
had some trouble. Stil, with yur action u broke our law, and whoever brakes our
law must be punishd. A wile ago we had an australian travler heer. He not only
broke our law, he was aulso quite unfrendly. So we confiscated his bike. But in
yur case i think it wil not be nessesery to confiscate yur bike. U wil just hav
to pay a fine of 70 yuan. So, wats yur opinion about this verdict?” I’d love to
cut thair throats, but i dont think this is a good anser in this case. “Wel, az
u sed befor, the poleese organization isnt perfect yet. On the other hand i hav
to admit that the chinan poleese aulways treeted me politely, so i dont want to
become unpolite and say my opinion about this proseedure.” The cheef-offiser
understood it. I moan and lament a bit mor, i sho him my worn out shoes and aul
the poverty i can find on me. The offiser leevs, he has to ask his leeder. He
comes bak after a minute and tels me that his boss sed i wont be punishd this
time. Not without a speech with simultanius translation: “The rules in our
cuntry ar cleer, and u broke it, so u should actually be punished. However it
is not our intent to damage the relationship between our cuntry and yurs, so
that we took the desision to let u go without punishment.”
In
Kunming, the capittal of the provinse Yunnan, thay tel me that i cant go tu
Tibet. I can only do it in tour groups with gide. I’m not supozed eeven to leev
the hotel without the gide. And then i hav tu pay 1000 dollars for a 10-day
permit. Wich meens that i hav tu make a big detour around Tibet. Ferst north,
then west. And mind u, i want tu go southeest to Brazil.
In
Kunming thay forse me agen to stay in a big hotel. For the first time i dont
pay the bil. Poleese and hotel belong to the state. The poleese takes the money
from me, i take the money from the hotel. It’s eezy: u just dont fite to pay.
At the reseption nobody is in charge, and wen the person in charge is thair,
she has to tauk to some colleag. Wel, if it is such a werk for them to get the
money from thair gests, i wont giv them extra werk. I just leev. So evrybody is
happy.
The
mountens ar tormenting me. Sometimes i let myself be towed by a truk going up.
It is a relief for the legs but not for the rest of the body. At the first time
i grabd the bak of the truk and went with the truk, but my bike stayd bak. U
hav tu work with the hole body to stik yur ass to the saddle. U can aulso press
with yur legs agenst the handle-bars, this is not such a big effort for the ass
and for the body in general, the only problem is that u hav less equilibrium
and the bike is haf under the truk. Enyway i uzed this method for maybe 200 km
in a total of 3500. The chinis ask me often if i’m an athlete. No, i say, i’m a
mazzokist.
The
police doesn’t let up. Aul the time thay keep nocking on my dor in the middle
of the nite. Sometimes in forbidden plases, sometimes in alowd plases, thay
dont cair. Sometimes it is a forbidden sitty but thay dont hav an english
teecher to translate. I pretend to be stupid. Dont understand. Thay tauk to me,
rite it down. Eventually thay let me go. I’m definitely fed up of these
uniformd rowdies.
In
Cheng Du, in the middle of the Kindgom of the Middle, i meet a scotsman i met
befor in Guangzhou. Mure is 18 yeers old, he knows only 2 cuntrys, Scotland and
China. But a very intelligent gy. We go evryday to the Flower Garden, a new
smaul little resterant for tourists. The plase has been completely empty after
the massacre on Tien An Men Squair. The resterant is owned by a famly and
thay’r quite funny. We dont giv the owner a tip, he givs us a tip. Did it cost
5 yuan 80? OK, lets make 5! Is it 12 yuan 80? 10 wil do it. Evryday we go thair
we get a beter tip, until we end up eating free in thair kichen with them. Wel
in this case we hav to do something for them too. We organize disco evenings,
we make hand-drawn posters and stik them around. We get some tourists to come,
and the chinan crowd waches the sho from outside.
I
want to sel my bike, it’s making problems evryday, the tires ar pachd up like a
poor circus and i cant get new ones here. In a few years thay’l sure hav them,
but not yet. The problem is that thay rote in my visa that i came in with a
bike, so i hav to leave the cuntry with a bike. People ar fascinated by the
bike, but nobody wants to by it without papers and without a license plate. I
end up selling it to the resterant owner for less than haf the price i baut it
for. But at least i had good food. Then i hich with Mure to the north. He’s
hichhiking for the first time in his life and is fascinated. This is much
easier and cooler than fiting to by a trane ticket! Later he wont do anything
else than hichhike thru China and be molested by the police. And for the first
time we see one of those “criminal parades”, wair thay transport the criminals
on a truk around the city to sho that crime doesn’t pay. Thay hav signs on
thair brests and on thair baks telling the population wat thay did rong. The
blokes we saw didnt hav a red X on the signs, wich is beter for them. If u hav
an X, u’l hav hevenly peace soon. The chinis dont like to waist thair time with
criminals. U come to the tribunal one day, next day u hav yur verdict. And u
cant appeal.
We
stay in a town on the foothils of the Tibet. To get thair u hav to go along a
river with numerus wauterfauls. After a few days i leave alone to the north.
Near Lanzhou u notice that the desert is coming. Or that u ar coming to the
desert. From touristic atraction to touristic atraction i reach the Grate Waul,
and going west i reach Xinjiang, wair many difrent people liv. The most numerus
ar the uigurs and i like thair language. Europe is cauld Europa,
resterant is cauld restoran, bus is cauld autobus. And not
something like gong gong chi che like in chinan. U can tauk to people,
provided u can speak some turkish. Thay use the arabian riting, wich means that
u shouldn’t hav any problems: if u cant read chinan, u can read the arabian
bit. The uigurs look like turkis without mustash, some of them ar blond or hav
slit ies, sometimes both. But u see people like that in Turkia too. Anyway i
speak a mix of chinan, turkian and ruski. Since thair ar so many languages in
Xinjiang, thay gesticulate a lot, here even the chinis lernd to gesticulate.
By
the way, the few hand signs the chinis hav ar also difrent from wat we kno. To
sho the number 5, thay put the 5 fingers together to a tip. For 6 thay sho u
thair hand baks and strech out the thum and the little finger. For 7 thay ad
the ring finger, for 8 the thum and the indicator, for 9 it seems that thay
dont hav a sign at all, at leest this was wat people told me, and to sho the 10
thay just sho the indicator. It’s a bit like english spelling.
Turfan
or Turpan is a city 150 meters belo the sea level, but thay dont hav to fear that
the sea floods the place, not far from here is the place wich is the farthest
point from any ocean in the hole world. In july the average dayly
maximum temprature is 47° C (116° F), wile in jannuary the average dayly
minimum temprature is –28°C (-18° F). Here i go to the police and tel them that
somebody just stole my bike. The policemans english is rather rudimentry, so he
doesn’t pose any questions. I get my paper. Thanks.
After
Ürümqi i turn to southwest. Brazil is in the southeast, so it’s getting beter.
I hich also rides on bikes and donky carts. Once i sit on the cargo area of a
truk, suddenly the driver stops, comes out and gesticulates wildly in my
direction. He puts the indicator and the middle finger on the mouth, then he
waves with his arm. Then he puts both hands together and suddenly streches the
arms to the sides. I look at the boxes i’m sitting on. It’s all ritten in
chinan, but the signs ar clear enuf: i’m sitting on dinamite. OK, in this case
i’l follo the drivers instructions and put out my cigaret.
The
hole area is just sand and stone, but they dont call it desert. The desert is
further east. I’m travling along the desert Taklamakan, wich meens ‘to go and
not come bak’. Sometimes i’m lucky and people let me off in the middle of the desert.
It’s wonderful. No bird, no tree, no noise and no chini. I love the desert,
here i’m free and alone with my loneliness. Me and me, undisturbd. The desert
is absolute. It is hostile, on the other hand the enemy of my enemies, wich ar
the crowd, must be my frend. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere i arive in a
village in a truk. The hotel owner wants to charge 6 times mor money from me
than from the other 4 chinos who came with me in the truk, including the truk
driver. I protest enerjically and hope my “frends” wil help me. But thay dont.
Thay dont think i’m rite. Thay think rich people hav to pay mor. I also think
so, unless somebody is considring me rich. She doesn’t change her mind and i
leave. I sleep outside. She prefers not to make a deal than to charge less than
6 times the price she charges from the chinis.
Further
west there ar tajikis too. They’r an indo-europian people, wich means that we
brazileiros, americans, svenskis can understand them beter than we can the
finns. No in their language is ney, i is mey (me, my) and
u can recognize most of the numbers. Their national sport is called boskosh,
and is a sort of wild USian football on horses. Insted of a ball they use a
hedless sheep.
The
next step is from the Sahara to the Antarctis, from 40°C to 10°C minus and lots
of sno. The Karakorum Hyway (hiway, i suppose because it is hy in the
mountens, not because it is a good rode. It’s a hel of a job, evry 5 minutes
the bus threttens to slip down the sand abyss, the road is on sand u kno, and
we hav to prevent it to do that. We hav to push. Hard. Cold) is the famus
Silk Road and takes me to the Kunjerab Pass.
DOUN UNDER
I fly from Bali to Darwin. Oy come out
and go to look for the city center, but after 5 minutes walk u’r out of town. The
plice where oy aroivd was the city center. One bank, 2 hotels, 3 bars
and 4 people on the street. Two of them aborigenes asking u for booz and
cigarets. I’m used to iesian dimensions now! U could put 20, my-be 50 Javas in
Australia, but thy hav 5 toims mor people. And if it wasnt for Krakatoa
volcano, there would be mor. There ar probably mor people per square kilometer
in an iesian desert than in Sydney downtown. In Darwin u can eat also crocodile
or cangaroo burgers. Thy tyst loik burgers.
OK, oy come to Kathrin, full of aborigenes. Thy look
loik ET’s and sometoims u hav the impression thy really ar extraterestrials.
Thy just had a stop here, desending from Dreamtime to get some gas. The
wy thru the desert isnt noice. Few people here, but trillions of floys, and
then the cangaroos, the snakes. I dont see many cangaroos aloiv, just ded ones,
flat loik a carpet on the road. And then thy hav road trines there, truks with
a trine behoind. Oy mean, it is called a trine because it is so long behind,
my-be 50 meters. It works in strite roads loik that. Any-wy in Australia i lern
evrything necessary to survoiv in that cuntry: oy can hunt boomerangs and thro
cangaroos. Hunting boomerangs is quoit easy, especially if thy loy around in a
corner. Throing cangaroos is a lot harder, especially throing them in a wy that
thy come bak.
After
Ayers Rock i come to a hotel in the middle of the desert. I ask the hotel owner
if he accepts foren currency. He says: if it is not brazilian money! He didnt
kno i’m brazilian. No, no, we brazilis arnt as stupid as to carry brazilian
money around the world.
I work picking gripes. Horrible stuf, i just sty a few
dies, and go to Sydney. Oy work washing windscreens at street crossings. Very
badly pied job. Oy distribute floyers, it is moy first racist job: oy’m not
supposed to giv prospects to blaks. Then the solarium closes down and oy’m
jobless again. Oy dont hav a penny any mor. Oy go and sel roses. If u want to
feel loik an pimple in the ass of a soldier, sel roses. U boy them for 3
dollars and ar supposed to sel them for 10. Who boys roses for 10 dollars? A
few toims some drunk people wanted to boy some, but oy didnt hav any money, and
he who has no money has no change, and thy didnt want to giv me the money so
that i could change it in a bar. Then i stand in front of the Sydney Opera,
my-be 2 oclok AM, no roses sold. Two drunk girls come around and tike a few
roses from moy basket and walk awy, not without thanking for the noice present.
Oy go after them and expline oy cant giv them those roses because oy hav to pie
for them and nobody has baut a single fucking rose so far. Thy tel me to cool
down and keep walking, until oy lose moy pitience and troy to tike the roses
from their hands boy force. One of them punches me in the oy. I dont kno wat
happend exactly, but a few seconds liter all the roses and the 2 girls wer on
the flor. Oy took moy roses and left. Then i work in the kichen of an italian
restaurant, whose owner was argentino, his wife engla, the cook canado and most
waiters kiwis. I never herd italian in that restaurant. Stil, the canado was a
divine cook, gy of corse, so my-be oy should sy canadi, or even canadana.
Oy
hav some afairs in Sydney and end up going to Brisbane. Oy distribute floyers
again... u see, the loif of a travler is very exoiting. Anywy it is an
intresting cuntry and a noice plice to be. Noice landskipes, people cool,
pleasant wether generally, with a good standard of living. And thy hav as many
murders in a year as the US in haf a die (!).
I hich with a norga on a danish ship with danish
officers and papu-niuginis as crew thru the South Sea and lern a lot of pidgin
english: yumi mit wea? – u + me meet where? = where do we meet? Or: nambaten –
number 10 – the worst u can foind. Or: nambawan – number one – the best of the
best. Man blong German – man belong Germany – deutshi. Go insait nating – go
insoid nothing – free entry. Hat smol smol – warm; pusim – push; puspus – shag.
The capten is quite often drunk and the navigator too. The latter brings a
woman on bord, the capten doesn’t like the idea, but ends up sleeping with the
woman himself. They argue a lot, drink a lot and there is nobody on the
navigating bridge. Sometimes i come and look if there arnt any ships around.
But u dont see many, really. The waves ar average, says the first officer, wich
means that u cant leave a cup on the tabel, it would fly away. Then we see the
film about the mutiny on the Bounty. In the film u see a terrible storm, but
wen Marlon Brando talks to capten Blyth inside the boat, and stands there as in
any good Hollywood studio. No swaying at all.
The
fijanis ar quite frendly people, and in the old times they wer quite polite
too. They uzed to cut the prisoners tongue off, fry it and offer a piece to the
victim. They cut one third of a womans finger wen one of her kids died (at
least in the first years). If 30 of her kids die, she hasnt any hand any mor. I
almost end up with an indian fija in the bed, but i didnt and it was good, i
found out later that she was a man.
Tuvalu is a very
tiny republic in the South Pacific. The iland is 30 km long and 200 m wide. Wen
they hav lo tide, the iland is twice as big, because it’s twice as wide. The
ilands ar atols, most people hav never seen a street that goes down- or uphil.
They’v never seen a hil at all, not even a meter high. The radio in Tuvalu is
called TBC, Tuvalu Broadcasting Corporation. The cuntry has one restaurant and
one street. The restaurant has a big menu but only one thing they can really
offer, a sandwich with 4 ingredients, but now they hav only 2: butter and egs.
And having just one street makes it pretty easy for taxi drivers: the passenger
gets in, the driver asks: forwards or bakwards?
In Kiribati we go
for a swim. There is nobody around, so we shag in the water. We finish and
realize that she lost the underpart of her bikini. We cant find it any mor. She
has tu cross the street quite naked, but there aint many people around. In the
folloing day there is lo tide, we’r walking on the beach and see the bikini in
a puddle. We take it home, she washes it and finds a little fish. He doesnt
move any mor. Deth by bikini. But i take it to the water, nothing happens for a
few seconds but suddenly he wakes up again and swims happily away.
A FEW MOR WERDS...
chekmate – rich frend
coreografer – person who studies Corea
chrysanthemum – Christopher and his mother
classick – pupil hu had enuf of scool
coknee – the leg joint of a walking bird
cold turky – middle east cuntry in the winter
condominium – condom factery
congenital – tricky body part
daddicated – a father who dus evrything for his kids
dainty – hot drink made by suthern skandinavis
delight – make it dark
disconcert - the opposite of ‘concert’, very bad music
discuss – bless
emission – electronic task
female – penalty notice received by e-male or snale
male
high noon – lunch with drugs
misunderstanding - the most butiful female
psychologist
toilet - little
toy
(this list is stil
being improovd)