Postcards from Tino

From Bogota I headed northeast to Villa de Leyva, a meticulously preserved colonial town in the Andean highlands. Declared a national heritage landmark in 1954, Villa de Leyva is the Colombian equivalent of Williamsburg, where all modern architecture is forbidden. The Plaza Mayor is the country's largest public square, 120 by 120 meters, and the only structure on the cobbled expanse is a small fountain at its center that once provided drinking water for the town. The irregular cobble rambles for blocks in any direction from the square.

Villa de Leyva is a popular weekend retreat for the Bogota elite. Several portals off or near the main square open up into a series of immaculate courtyards and nooks housing a half dozen gourmet restaurants, bars and cafes. Many artists have been attracted to the town and the surrounding Andean highlands and a number of them have opened galleries about the town.

As peaceful as the town center is, I had heard many excellent reviews of a guesthouse a mile uphill from the square. The cobble gives to asphalt for a few blocks and the last half mile runs up a dirt road past the army barracks and then right up to the base of the surrounding mountains. The dorm room was only three beds in a cabana above the guesthouse. As I was the only guest upon arrival, I had the cabana to myself with its view of the valley beyond the floor to ceiling windows.

On my third evening at the Renacer Guesthouse, a backpack appeared on the bunk next to mine. There are many brilliant and entertaining backpackers on the road, and hearing their experiences is one of the many pleasures of travel. There are also some real morons out there. By the way the new arrival had settled in, the floor already was strewn with dirty clothes, trash, and other junk, I was fearing my roommate for the night was in the latter group.

I was watching the sunset from a hammock on the porch when my roommate appeared in the doorway. His name was Tino, a young German with blond hair curling down past his shoulders. His face seemed pinched horizontally around his eyes We spoke Spanish for a moment, but he was having difficulty expressing himself and quickly switched to English.
Tino looked younger than his 19 years, too young to be travelling the world. He had been in Bogota for a couple months, working for the YMCA with street children in the barrios. He was headed to a national park along the Atlantic coast where he would get room and board for helping the park rangers.

When I said I was from the States, Tino did not hesitate with his opinions of America and her citizens abroad. He does not like American travelers. He finds Americans to be arrogant, rude, reticent to discuss politics, and worst of all, he finds them everywhere. He likes the American government even less. At least here we had some common ground, though Bush bashing is a tedious conversation piece given all the ideas and places that could be discussed with a fellow traveler. I steered the conversation away from politics for a moment, but Tino either did not get the hint or did not care, and in the next breath was criticising a political system represented only by two parties, "You only have Democrits and Republics, you don't have a Green party... America always is talking about Democracy, but the elections aren't real, it's all for the television."

I went to bat for our congressional system. At the cost of representation for minor parties, there is greater stability in our goverment than in a Parliamentary system. But mostly I wanted to get away from this kid for the evening. I told him I was going back into town for dinner. With the look of a bare bones backpacker I assumed he'd be cooking for himself. To my disappointment he said he would join me.

We aren't a dozen yards from the guesthouse when Tino pulls a cigarette carton from his bag and from it a joint the size of his middle finger.

"Are you sure that's a good idea, away from the hostel?"

"Don't be paranoid," Tino replied.

He takes a half dozen hard drags and soon is talking about Alice in Wonderland and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the cartoon and the movie, respectively. There didn't seem much point in riffing off his thoughts, as it was evident he was unable to follow conversation, his own included.
He insisted I take a hit. I declined, and suggested he be careful as we were walking along the low stone wall and past the sand bag pill boxes of the army barracks.
"Don't be paranoid, no one is watching."

I missed the next turn in Tino's monologue. Something about The Doors. He was asking me if I had heard of Idpusus. I hadn't.

"You know, man, the Trojan Horse."

"You mean The Iliad?"

"Yes, he sleeps with his sister and then, he, ah..."

"Killed his father," I finished, "Oedipus."

"Yah, the song about Oedipus."

The dirt road kicked out into the pavement and Tino continued smoking as we passed a group of kids playing soccer in the street. He extends the joint to my chest.

"You must try some. It's not that strong. And I've got plenty more," he said, patting the cloth purse slung over his shoulder.

He is probably right about the weed. The stuff our parents smoked in the 60's had about 15-20% of the THC levels, the psychoactive compound in cannabis, as the weed grown in the States today. In a place like Colombia, where pot grows everywhere with minimal cultivation, the stuff is likely to have the 3% THC--versus 15-18% in hydroponic strains grown today in North America and Europe--level found in naturally occuring cannabis. If a puff of today's hybridized strains is enough to send one flying (it is), then Tino should be doing fine by the several dozen hits from a fat joint

At the point we hit the cobble of the town center a jeep a few blocks down started moving in our direction, jiggering along behind low beams.

"It's the police." Tino said, contemplating a last hit, the joint pinched between his thumb and index finger.

The jeep bumped towards us, and once the headlights were at an angle we could see a middle aged driver out on the town, his shirt unbuttoned to display a gold chain and cross in a nest of chest hair.

Tino was proud of himself that he hadn't panicked and thrown his roach into the gutter.

"Way to stick to your guns, Tino," I said..

"What?"

"I said, way to stick to your guns. It's an expression."

"That's another thing I don't like about Americans, they are crazy about guns. And the death penalty."

"Have you ever fired a gun?" I asked.

"No."

"You should try it sometime, it's fun."

A couple of gringos were walking up the street opposite us. Tino clearly liked the look of them. He quickened to a jog while shouting out to them, in English.

"Hey, where are you from?"

Canada and Sweden, they replied.
"Great," Tino said, "I'm tired of meeting so many Americans here. They are everywhere."

And who exactly did he expect to meet working for the YMCA?

"Yeah, man, we were on a vision quest with some Californians," The Canadian replied.

I hadn't noticed Tino's clothes in full before this moment, his back now turned to me as he spoke with the non-Americans. With his hooded cardigan and its green, yellow and red stripes, baggy pastel pants and brightly colored cloth sack, Tino had the stoner look down cold. He was a blond haired version of myself twelve years ago.

Next yet to his companions, Tino was a DARE poster boy. The Canadian had a decomposing beehive of dreadlocks piled on top of his head. His eyes were in free float, and his jaw kept working a few seconds beyond his last syllable. The deep tan suggested months, perhaps years, on the road. He was what Tino wanted to be--the White Rasta. Yet after all these years--he claimed to be 27--he could not escape his accent. Beneath the stoner falsetto he had a (now scrambling) precision in his diction that suggested upper-crust Connecticut boarding school. Tino should really hate this guy, the "I'm Canadian" American.

"What kind of vision quest?" Tino asked.

"We went up into the mountains for 7 days without food or water. It's so cleansing. On the third day I started to see these spirits! They were buzzing around my skin," the White Rasta acts out this routine, pinching up and down his arms while looking around everywhere at once. "I said, 'Hello sprits! Would you please give me some knowledge?' They wouldn't. They're tricksters, those spirits."

"You went for a week without water?" I asked.

His routine finished, it took the White Rasta a long moment to respond.
"That's nothing, man. There are these yogis. In India. These yogis can live for 500 years. They touch their pulse," the Rasta demonstrates, "and stop, their hearts. Just like that. I saw this yogi, man, who bent a spoon. With his mind."

"Here come the Police," Tino said.

A dirt bike approached from the square.

"The police are just in your head," the Swede said.

He was right. Even from a block away, it was clear the helmeted rider was not a policeman.

The young man from Sweden was not as ostentatious as his fellow traveller. His thin and wispy beard made his baby face look even younger than was possible, though he had to be least 18. Of the three, he was the most clearly zonked. The deep red in the whites of his eyes blended into his sunburnt skin. I enjoyed for a moment the irony of running into personified examples, according to Roman, of the two characters most likely to stick out on a Colombian sidewalk. Villa de Leyva is as laid back and secure as Colombia gets. Still, four ridilculous looking gringos speaking loud English in the street at night were bound to be asking for trouble.

"Hey, we'll trade emails. Then we can meet up. On the coast." Tino suggested to the Rasta, mimicking his companions glacial cadence.

I figured this was my out so I turned to make my exit.

"He's a writer, he should have a pen." Tino said.

I turned back around and dug in my bag for a pen.

"Hey, here come the police," Tino said.

"You've got to get the police out of your mind, man," the White Rasta replied.

I fished out my pen. Looking up from my bag I saw four men with reflective vests approaching from the square. The police were now in my mind too.

Tino grabbed the pen from my hand asking in the same breath if I had some paper too. Something was telling me to walk away. But now he had my writing pen.

I looked back toward the square. The police were a block away. The Swede had produced a card from his wallet and the three were exchanging their information. Slowly. I snatched back the pen as Tino lifted it from the m in '.com' and pivoted towards the square. But the police were now upon us. The lead officer announced that they wanted to search our bags.

I am probably the only one who understood, and terrified about what they might find on the three clowns behind me, I immediately held out my bag for the search. This was more than the weapons check I was accustomed to on the road. The officer who performed the search, no older than Tino, unzipped every last pocket on my bag. He even thumbed through my papers and looked in between my un-mailed postcards. This one was definitely looking for drugs.

I was cleared. As casually as possible, I began walking in the direction of the square. I made it ten feet when Tino screamed in broken Spanish.

"Travel together!"

I look over my shoulder to see Tino's outstretched arm and finger frozen in a bird-dog point in my direction. For the first time I saw his face unpinched, his eyes were wide open, full of terror and hatred. One of the officers, also young, was holding Tino's rasta satchel in one hand and a smaller bag, what must have been his dope, in the other. A third officer, at least my age and likely in command, held up his hand as he approached me.

I took a breath, and in the cleanest accent I could muster, began, "Disculpe me...(Excuse me officer, but this boy and I are not travelling together. He arrived tonight at the guest house Renacer where I have been staying for several days. We walked into town for dinner, but I do not know him)."

The officer did not reply. He had stopped a few feet from me and did not move closer.

"May I?" I asked, motioning towards the square.

He nodded.

I wasn't ten more more feet when Tino yelled, this time in English.

"I need to borrow your pen!"

I was tempted to reply, "I don't think they have postcards in prison, Tino."

I thought it wiser to minimize my connection to the boy.

Tino did not return to the hostel that night, nor the following morning. He either didn't have the means or the guile to bribe his way out of custody. I hadn't stuck around long enough to find out what happened to the White Rasta and his friend, though I can only guess they found something on them.

If I were a stoner in Colombia, I don't think I would advertise the fact decked out in the international symbols of pot smoking. I would also make sure to speak near fluent Spanish, in the event I had to talk and bribe my way out of trouble. Tino's pidgin wasn't even good enough to bring someone else down with him.

In Israel, they don't recommend that immigrants spend money on Hebrew classes--the army will teach them the language. I wonder if the same holds for a Colombian prison. Maybe his new rasta friend will teach him. To bend the bars. With his mind.

Please write, Tino. I am sure you will have some interesting stories to tell. Click Here to Read More..

Bogota and Growing Up with Pablo Escobar

Santa Fe de Bogota gets a bad rap. I only heard the negatives before arriving: dangerous, dirty, polluted, cold and dreary. Some travelers avoid the capital entirely, never stepping out of the airport while en route to Medellin or Cartegena. That’s a shame. Bogota might not have the romantic architecture of Buenos Aires, the dilapidated charm of Montevideo, or the sunny clime of Santiago, but if I were to choose a place to live among the South American capitals I have visited, I'd take Bogota in a heartbeat. I'd be pressed to think of a major city abroad I'd rather spend the next few years. And with half my reason for returning home having just evaporated, I've added the real estate section of El Tiempo to my daily reading list.

Bogota is a city, like the country as a whole, clearly on the upswing. The mayor and police force have made great strides in security, and anywhere of interest to a foreigner is perfectly safe in daylight hours. The cabs are a cheap and safe means to access the vibrant nightlife. And Bogota has a strong cosmopolitan current, more of a San Francisco chic than the Miami vibe of Cali and Medellin. The student population and twenty-somethings tend to have an artistic and intellectual aesthetic which I find much preferable to the plastic and silicon set that dominates the other major cities here (and a good portion of Latin America for that matter).

I stayed in the neighborhood La Candelaria, the expansive colonial old town nestled at the base of the mountains towering over the city center. La Candelaria has been sufficiently spared the 20th century: narrow cobbled streets, many of which are closed to traffic, and bright colonial facades representing distinct colonial styles from across the country. This motley array rivals the beauty of the (tiny by comparison) San Telmo district in Buenos Aires, and without the sense that it has been preserved for the sake of the tourists. The museums, led by arguably the best gold museum in the world, are outstanding. Colombia pays a great deal of respect to its artists and writers, and many of their homes have been preserved as monuments to their work and times. Even better, all the sights can be taken in peace as the crowds of camera wielding tourists have yet to flock here.


Even the hostel was outstanding. On a hill that overlooks the museums and government buildings, Hostel Anandamayi is set around two large garden courtyards strung with hammocks and with an even larger garden in the rear of the building. The 8 bed dorm room I shared with two other travelers was in a cavernous room with clean hardwood floors and a fireplace that we put to use on account of the freezing alpine nights. In the evenings I pulled a comfy leather reading chair up to the fire and caught up on the books I've lugging halfway around the country: The Poet of Tolstoy Park and then Under the Volcano. The Confessions of Nat Turner is next on my list.

I assumed the new guest in the hostel on my second to last night, blonde haired and blued eyed, was European. In the standard traveler’s greeting, I asked him where he was from, and was incredulous when he replied Colombia. He explained his mother was German, but he had been born and grown up in Medellin. After a short conversation about my travels, Roman transformed into a self appointed ambassador for his country. He swung around his laptop and started showing me hundreds of pictures from the countryside and the heterogeneous citizens of Colombia. He was full of travel advice and potential itineraries. More fascinating were his stories about his childhood in Medellin.

For the past 5 years tourists have begun to trickle into Colombia past the quick visit Cartagena, though a bleach blonde Scandinavian or a dreadlocked whitey-Rastafarian will still draw stares in the smaller cities and towns. When Roman was a child in Medellin 25 years ago his European genes drew bewilderment about town. He remembers times when old ladies would crowd around him to touch his hair and look at his eyes up close. Sometimes older boys would challenge him on the street. It wasn't until he opened his mouth to speak that they realized he was a native paisa. Quite the opposite of my experiences here; I’m assumed to be Colombian until my Yanqui twanged Spanish droops from my tongue.

Now 34 years old, Roman´s childhood coincided with the wild-west Mafia years in Medellin. Assassinations, bombings and kidnappings were so commonplace that everyone had a story about a friend or relative, or even their own experiences with the urban Mafia and the guerilla groups dominant in the countryside. Roman recalled the first time it angered him. For ages the violence had been reduced to small talk at friend and family gatherings. One evening he realized that this was because they had come to accept that the violence as commonplace as the eternal springtime weather.

Still, not until Roman attended University in Berlin did he realize what a special childhood he had lived. People were fascinated that he came from a place with such mystique. His birthplace made him more exotic in Germany than his coloring had made him in Colombia. He quickly tired of the typical first encounter in Germany. He would first be asked if he had any cocaine, second if he had ever seen Pablo Escobar.

Of course he had seen Pablo Escobar. Everyone in Medellin saw Escobar because Escobar was everywhere. In the 1980's Pablo Escobar was the de facto mayor of Medellin. Roman remembers one time going to the shopping center with his mom and seeing Pablo seated under a small tent in the parking lot behind a table stacked with bricks of money. A line wrapped several times around the center of people waiting to shake Escobar's hand and receive a hundred dollars or so from his cash mountain. Another time Roman remembers passing through a road block set up by Escobar’s men on the outskirts of town. Heavily armed henchmen were checking all the cars while Escobar sat in the backseat of his Bentley. If the thugs didn't like someone, they yanked him out of his car and into the woods.

I asked Roman if the violence ever made his parents worry about raising their children in Medellin. Yes, there was one evening, Roman remembered, when a nearby explosion shattered all of the windows in their apartment. That night his parents said, “enough, tomorrow we will get plane tickets out of here."

The next morning came and his parents shrugged. Just another cartel bombing, only the windows had been broken. So they cleaned up the glass and went about their day.

His parents couldn’t leave Medellin for they had fallen in love with the country. Neither of them were born Colombians. Roman's father is from Chile and was working in Frankfurt when he met Roman’s mother. They decided they wanted to live together in Chile, though right around the time of their move Allende was overthrown by Pinochet, and given his father’s family alliances, they decided it was unsafe to return. So they chose Colombia instead. By the time the terror of the 80´s was in full swing, they had been living in Medellin for nearly 15 years and it would have been prohibitively expensive to buy their way back into the German health system. Though Roman believes that last bit was just an excuse. The real reason for staying was that they couldn’t just up and leave the family and friends they had acquired over the years, and they were truly happy despite the very real risks of the times. His parents, like Roman, are nature lovers and Colombia is one the most beautiful and climatically varied places on earth, an outdoorsman’s paradise.


After five years in Germany, Roman came to a similar conclusion that his parents had made and decided it was time to move back home.

"In Germany, I had some close friends, and Berlin was great, but there were a lot times I found myself lonely," he said. "In Colombia, I am never lonely. That's what is so cool about Colombia. You can’t be lonely here."

Roman is proud to be Colombian and loves his country. He is a believer in President Uribe. Five years ago he couldn't have made the trip from Medellin to Bogota by car. Now he and his friends travel anywhere in the country, even the remote and long isolated Pacific coast towns inhabited by the descendants of runaway slaves.

Roman is in the overwhelming majority of the eighty percent of Colombians who support Uribe. His legacy is truly remarkable. Before his reforms, many Colombians feared the army as much as the rebels and drug traffickers. Corruption was rife, and it was nearly impossible to travel without doling bribes to soldiers who did little to make the journey safer. Most of the army recruits were young men who hadn't finished grammar school. Their lack of education, coupled with what seemed a hopeless fight against rebel outfits flush with cocaine dollars, left them undependable at best and at worst a danger to the people they were supposed to be fighting for. Now there are strict educational requirements for entering the army, and soldiers attend many hours of additional education and seminars. Uribe's platform focused on the elimination of corruption in the armed forces and the government, a never ending struggle and one rarely achieved by a politician. Uribe has delivered on his promises. Reduced corruption has paid clear dividends in everyday security and economic vitality.

The change in the military alone is amazing. Soldiers are friendly and helpful and do their jobs with efficiency. The majority now see the army as a force for the good of the country. As recently as five years ago, when soldiers used stop to check a vehicle they would start taking apart the car piece by piece until offered a bribe. Now soldiers only check documentation and make an honest search for weapons. I've been searched for weapons, along with all the other male passengers, twice a day on average when traveling. It's a quick procedure. We file out of the bus. They search our bags and pat us down. We’re back on the road inside of five minutes.

"Sometimes I’ll give them 10,000 pesos (5 USD) for beer money because I am happy to see the change," Roman said.

Roman sees the guerilla conflict as intractable. There is just too much money in the cocaine trade to ever truly weaken the rebels. And he laments the lost promise of Plan Colombia. Originally, Plan Colombia was designed as a multi-national aid scheme to improve rural transportation links and provide crop subsidies to poor farmers willing to make the switch from coca to other crops. Unfortunately, though the Bush Administration has promised billions for Plan Colombia, the aid is conditional, and the bulk of it is allocated to obliged military acquisitions. US aid also come with mandates for controversial fumigation of the countryside and the portion remaining for agriculture requires the purchase of expensive herbicides and non-regenerative seeds from Monsanto and other US based agricultural firms. It’s similar to Vietnam; no amount of herbicide/napalm is going suppress the cocaine trade and the billions that flow to rogue groups inside and outside of the government. Short of outright drug legalization in consuming and producing countries, it is unlikely we will see an end to the evils of the cocaine trade.

Problems aside, Roman articulates the same sense I got when making plans for this trip--that after decades of turmoil Colombia is a place truly on the make. Problems remain, but the world is taking notice and offering a hand. And the beauty and warmth of the people here will not be a secret for long.

Roman is an articulate advocate for his country. If he’s not already drawing salary from the Ministry of Tourism, he should be. Click Here to Read More..

San Agustin- Casa François

I have been in Bogota a week now and about the only negative here is the shabby internet cafes. I might have to wait till I get back home to finish posting my Colombian entries. I left off last week promising the story of Francois, owner of a idyllic guesthouse on a hilltop overlooking San Agustin.

One of the many benefits of the improved security situation in Colombia is that San Agustin and its enigmatic monuments are once again accessible to the greater public. Though less than 100km from the white walled colonial town of Popayan, it is a tortuous six hour bus ride over the mountains on rough dirt roads. It had rained the day before I departed, so the trip was seven hours through the mud.

I was treated to a typical South American journey. The dirty short bus that gasped and shuddered up to the terminal an hour and a half late was already full, a peasant in every seat and the aisles stacked with sacks of various goods. Two bird cages, also occupied, were resting precariously on the dry goods just behind the driver. It did not appear there was room for me or the Swiss woman who also had a ticket in hand for the 7am, now 8:30 bus. There was no way I was willing to risk a later departure; it is still not safe to travel after sunset. The ticket agent squeezed the Swiss woman in between the driver and a passenger riding shot gun, and I was offered a sack of corn where I was ear level with the parrots.

Still, I was glad I had taken the second bus of the morning. Two hours into the trip we passed the 6am bus broken down in the middle of the road on a steep and muddy incline. A couple hours later the rain started and before long we reached our first impasse. All the men on board, myself included, got out and helped another bus in front of us that was stuck in a mud hole. We dug up large rocks from the shoulder and threw them into the stretch of mud-bog until there was a sufficient bridge for the vehicles to pass.

The ride was worth it. San Agustin is one of the most spectacular sites in Colombia. The town is set in a hollow one rise of hills away from a gorge containing the headwaters of the Magdalena River, Colombia´s longest running almost a thousand miles north before emptying into the Caribbean near Cartagena. Several hundred shades of green make up the hills and gorges dropping off into the river. At scattered sites around the town lie the remains of a people that disappeared around the time the Spaniards first planted their flag on South American soil. Little in known about these people, though archeologists suppose that the statues left behind can be attributed to several different pre-Columbian groups. The hundreds of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic stone monuments sprinkled over the hills are thought to be funeral markers.

San Agustin is the kind of place one could linger for some time. This is exactly what Francois decided. He came to San Agustin seven years ago, long before a tourist footprint existed in the town due to the FARC control of the area. Francois had previously been living in Nicaragua, and did not consider the rebel army much of a threat. So he dropped his backpack and opened what quickly became the town's most popular bar. In time he earned the money to purchase a dilapidated farmhouse.

On the afternoon he went into town to settle his deed, there were three men waiting for him on the bank´s front porch. One of the men greeted him and asked if he`d care to join him for a drink. They directed him to a jeep, blindfolded him, and headed off on one of the bumpy roads winding into the hills.

Francois admits he was little nervous in the back of the jeep, though not panicked. The local commander of the FARC had visited his bar and by word of mouth Francois had gathered that he had liked it. Maybe this would count for something, he thought, as he was led out of the jeep and into a farmhouse. His escorts helped him to sit in a chair, and then undid his blindfold. He found himself seated before a spread of juices, cakes and other sweets. A group of soldiers sat around him at the table. One of the soldiers he recognized as the commander, who said,

"We want nothing from you only that you know that we exist."

Though he crossed paths with guerrillas several times while hiking in the mountains, he never once was hassled after his welcoming party to the region.

With seven years of construction experience in France, Francois set to transforming his crumbling homestead into a comfortable home and guesthouse. With knowledge of carpentry, masonry, and electricity, he did most of work himself, only slowed by the time he needed to purchase materials. And the materials are eclectic. He added a second story to the farmhouse with a guadua frame, the largest variety in the bamboo family. In the masonry of the enlarged kitchen and extra guestrooms, he added all sorts of recyclables to the stucco additions. The glass bottles he inserted into the kitchen wall add colorful light during the day, and various plastic objects can be found throughout the main house and the guest rooms. A cabana stuck on ten foot high guadua stilts is the four bed backpackers´ dorm. The room has thirteen sides, producing a round room with five pairs of large wooden shutters and a double door opening out to vistas of undulating hills and mountains.

I arrived to Casa Francois at sundown. By luck the Swiss woman was a old friend of Francois and convinced me to climb the hill and have a look at his place. The other inhabitants of the cabana, a guy from Norway and another from Canada, were rolling their evening joints while staring out into the darkening landscape. I settled into a hammock on the porch and appreciated the quiet. The parrots had squawked in my ears the entire ride from Popayan.

I spent three days hiking trails to the monument sites. The most spectacular of the lot were carvings made directly into the rock face of a gorge that bottomed out into the Magdalena. Four waterfalls were visible along the opposite wall of green and impossibly steep fields of coffee bushes.

I would have stayed much longer than I did if it hadn´t been for a resident kitten who had lathered the beds and blankets with her dander. I got very little sleep, sneezing the night away on my hilltop paradise. This was probably for the best. I saw most of the major archeological sites, and my bunkmates were so stoned for the duration of my stay that they had little to contribute in conversation.

So I caught a 5am bus to Bogota, a twelve hour trip through the mountains and then along the opening of the Magdalena Valley. We passed through the Tatacoa Desert one of the smallest by area in the world, an 80 square kilometer stretch of sand and scorpions where the sky is blue straight above though mountain-blocked clouds are visible in all directions on the horizon. Then the long creeping climb up into the high plateau of Santa Fe de Bogota. Click Here to Read More..

No Worries

The difficulty with posting on the road isn´t just the hassle of working with clunky computers I haven´t seen the likes of since college. With a lack of editing there is always the potenial that things don´t come out right. After my last post about uncle Hugo, I received several mails from people concerned about my security.

When I suggested that the FARC was intellectualy bankrupt, I did not mean to suggest they are now in the business of grabbing anyone they see with money off of the streets and holding them for ransom. Rich Colombians are a target of the FARC, foreign tourists are not. And there is a clear distinction from the FARC´s point of view. The FARC pursues persons it considers responsible parties for the political situation in Colombia. Almost all of their hostages are Colombians, and the few foreign nationals are also somehow involved in the country´s politics. The three Americans held by the FARC, for example, are likely CIA operatives, either field directors in the greater Plan Colombia, or intelligence types working to subvert the leftist groups still hiding out in the jungle.

And my lament for Chavez´ meddling was purely for Colombia´s sake. There is nothing that Hugo could do in the short term to change for me the security situation on the ground.

For the record, Colombia is and should continue to be a safe country to travel in. Now, if I told you I was heading to Caracas, well, then you could start worrying for my safety.

When I arrive to the big city this weekend, I will tell the story of François, a Frenchman (obviously) who decided to make his home in Colombia six years ago. His experiences here with the rebels will illustrate what little interest they have in foreign nationals. Click Here to Read More..

Hugo the Clown

I remember looking up a word last January when giving my opinion of Chavez to my Spanish teacher in Guatemala. Clown: n. Payaso. Hugo the Clown can entertain; I have enjoyed some of his more puckish moments. Deriding George Bush as the devil before the stiff suits of United Nations General Assembly was classic. Even better was his assistance a few years back to poor Americans with the gift of cheap heating oil. There he stole a page from Eva Peron's guide to political theater. With thousands of her own citizens destitute, Evita showed up Washington by sending clothing and other supplies to poor children in the United States.

With the exception of Dr. Patch Adams, who gave an electrifying speech one October night at Wesleyan and then proceeded to a student lounge where he continued his happiness sermon well past midnight, clowns frighten the hell out of me. And Hugo is one dangerous clown. Chavez has Venezuela well down the road to economic collapse. Inflation is rampant, and Chavez willfully fritters his country's oil wealth by meddling anywhere in the Hemisphere that will lend his red beret air time. All the more tragic for a continent that in most quarters has emerged from decades of economic stagnation.

Though Chavez has initiated many projects for the poorest Venezuelans, most are myopic stopgaps. Hiring Cuban doctors to work the understaffed Venezuelan clinics might alleviate current suffering, yet by not investing resources into medical schools, hospitals, and other public infrastructure, these gains are only for the short term. Venezuela might be better off if Chavez kept away from serious policy initiatives altogether. His proposed education reform, a Bolivarian Education System, would mandate a Marxist (genuine Marxists would be insulted with the comparison) curriculum light on practical applications and heavy on Hugo worship. The initiative threatens to shut down any private school that resists a classroom centered love fest for the great leader.

Worse, Chavez poses a real threat beyond the Venezuelan border. In his most recent foray into foreign policy he has parleyed his leftist credentials to insert himself as an intermediary in the Colombia's conflict with the FARC. The headline negotiations had focused on the release of Consuelo Gonzalez, Clara Rojas and her son Emmanuel, born to a rebel father, three of the more than seven hundred hostages believed to be in FARC custody. Both Hugo and the FARC looked foolish when it turned out that they were not in possession of Emmanuel. FARC stalled, claiming security concerns, then the three year old boy turned up in an orphanage in Bogota.

After Clara and Consuelo's orchestrated release last week, Chavez revealed his hand. Yesterday he asked President Uribe and the Colombian government to stop classifying the FARC as a terrorist group and recognise it as an oppositional force with political ends.

What exactly are the FARCs political ends? Long ideologically bankrupt, the FARC has resorted to kidnapping and the cocaine trade merely to keep its soldiers afield. Not even the rank and file are fooled. When given the chance the men, women and children that comprise the stock of FARC forces often seek to desert their dead end cause.

Chavez clearly would like to use the FARC as another spearhead in his 'Bolivarian' insurgency. While he may have little credibility in many Colombian eyes, he does have a Leftist following and may yet sow tensions in a country weary of conflict. Meanwhile, six more Colombians were kidnapped Sunday while on holiday in a remote region of the Pacific coast. The guerrillas chose six out of the 19 tourists, and released the remainder. They selected their captives based on whom they felt had the most money for ransom. Ideological, in a fashion.

Stay tuned. Click Here to Read More..

A night in Cali. A day in Salento.

The locals I meet always want to know who I am travelling with. When I tell them I am travelling alone, eyebrows raise. The men usually say, "How Brave!"

The women ask, "But what does your mother think?"

There are hundreds, if not thousands of backpackers making similar treks through Colombia these days. The security situation has improved dramatically, and that is no longer a secret in the travelling community. With normal precautions anywhere but the most remote mountain trails or the sultry jungles along the Pacific coast and the Amazon Basin are under government control. This is not a limitation for me. I am not an alpinist, and I have no interest in hacking my way under a dense canopy shrouding a foreboding array of noxious vegetation, disease bearing insects and venomous reptiles. Nature is competition, and I have no illusions as to how I'd fare in nature´s big leagues. The only way I´d travel through the rainforest would be in a bulldozer, with air con.

I didn´t understand all the hype surrounding the Colombian cities I´d heard so much about in my research for this trip. In Medellin I spent my first couple of days wandering around the sites only impressed by the lovely spring-like weather. Most people don´t travel here to visit the museums. In Colombia, nightlife is the draw. And Colombian cities are transformed after dark. Medellin´s Zona Rosa doesn´t open its metal blinds until after dark. Poblado begins to bustle after 10 pm or so, when the patio restaurants fill up and the young and the rich crowd the sidewalks and pack the ubiquitous bars and discos. The students and starving artists bring their own booze and drink in the park squares within view of the action. In Cali, clubbing is the official pastime. The beautiful people throng into large halls of smoke and lasers and pounding bass lines. One club resembled the inside of an enormous space dome, everything in white, with no corners, throbbing lights, together created the illusion of an unending plane of gyrating bodies, bouncing silicon. The dancing continues into dawn (so I am told).

As much as I enjoyed the city spectacle, I have been more impressed with the Colombian countryside. I visited the small town of Salento, which save for the motorcycles and the odd car, is stuck in the 19th century. Town life is centered on the wide open Plaza, de Bolivar, or course, and there are vistas of green mountains in every direction. I was looking forward to my first full nights rest in the sleepy town. My hostel in Medellin was off a major thoroughfare whose motorists cranked a constant din through midnight and resumed their roar at 5 am. No cars to contend with here. Yet in Salento, it was even worse, I was bolt awake at 430 am when the roosters anticipated the dawn with their moronic shrieks. (My new Colombian friends seemed astounded that roosters had never before been a part of my morning ritual)

East of Salento stretches the Cocoro Valley which is said to have no parallel on earth. First imagine a fertile valley of Swiss pastureland, add dark green patches of tropical forest, and then sprinkle in the impossibly tall and slender wax palm, Colombia´s national tree, onto the open pasture that remains. Finally pour a thin shroud of mist and let it trickle down from hill tops.

I met a Colombian couple, Diego and Claudia, on the road through the valley. They asked me the usual questions and were astounded by solo trip. They complimented on my Spanish, which I got to practice without interruption as neither of them could speak a word of English. In Cocoro the three of us toured a fish farm that serves the Valley and beyond with sweet pink fleshed trout that we had for lunch just up the road from the farm. My fish was served in an iron skillet bubbling with a milky sauce of garlic and peppers. The fish was accompanied by plantain pounded into a thin sheet and fried golden brown. From the restaurant we took horses into a national park bordering the village. I would normally prefer walking, but heavy rain from the night before left the paths thick with mud. Besides, it was easier to contemplate the scenery when I wasn´t the one doing the walking.

Diego and Claudia were very excited about visiting Colombia´s two much hyped theme parks, both within an hour of Salento. They suggested I travel with them for the rest of the week. I had been planning to head on to Cali, but I wasn´t on a schedule and was looking forward to the opportunity both to see what Colombians do on their holiday and to practice Spanish intensively. So I agreed. The three of us met on the Plaza de Bolivar the next morning and caught a bus for Armenia, from where we´d catch a bus to the first of the two parks. Click Here to Read More..

Medellin

Just a short note to let everyone who is interested enough to tune in know that I am safe and sound in Medellin. If only becasue the name Silicon Valley is already taken this place should be known as the Silicon Basin. The number of augmented chests could support a Hooters franchise on every other block in the city. The tallest building I saw on my first day of exploring was a hospital devoted exclusively to plastic surgery. Granted there is some surgical tourism that takes place here, but the majority of the young women in the massive registration hall appeared to be locals.

They call Medellin the city of eternal spring. The weather is beautiful, the surrounding hills verdant, and the ghost of Pablo Escobar has little to say in a metropolis that has made a dramatic turnaround from its days of cartel notoriety. The central plaza and an entire floor of the city museum are devoted to the corpulent sculptors and bright paintings of Paisas most celebrated son, Fernando Botero. The city also boasts Colombia´s first metro. The clean and convenient trains run on elevated tracks that afford excellent city views. Recycle bins can be found on many sidewalks which are noticeably cleaner than any I´ve been in Latin America--much cleaner than the sidewalks I tread in New Orleans earlier this week.

There might be a volunteer opportunity for me teaching English in the Bogota schools. The YMCA is the sponsor. I interviewed with their regional coordinator this afternoon. They would organize a homestay in exchange for my services. A much better way to work on my Spanish than another round of language classes. Click Here to Read More..

Nashvillians in Nicaragua

Hardly a new story, yet one looking back I'm perplexed I didn't jump on as it was unfolding an hour's bus ride away. At the time I had no idea the story contained a local connection.

One of my daily pleasures in Nicaragua was a leisurely second breakfast while reading the daily Sandinista rag, El Neuvo Diario, at a cafe overlooking the church where William Walker once made his headquarters. Political slants aside, the Diario was heads and shoulders above the standards of the Guatemalan and Honduran newspapers I had become used to which were essentially tabloids, so my vocabulary was challenged and I found it tough to get all the details in a piece. If subtleties were lost on me, I could pick up the gist of what I read.

One story in the paper almost every day was about a young American named Eric Volz on trial for the grisly murder of his ex-girlfriend Doris Ivanez Jimenez. Jimenez was a beautiful young Nica from the seaside townof San Juan del Sur where Eric was a player in a booming real estate market. Later also started a magazine based in Managua. At the time he was arrested, the police had drawn on reports that Eric acted the jealous lover after their breakup and had been seen on several occassions using abusive language with Doris after their relationship ended. Or so says the Diario. He was accused of showing up at the small shop Doris ran near the ocean, raping and strangling her with the aid of a thug he had paid to be his accomplice. Doris’ mother made sobbing statements to the press that she feared Eric would use his greenbacks to buy his way out of the trial. She claims he offered her one million dollars to support his innocence in the case.

The papers had daily photographs of Eric emerging from court wearing a flak jacket and led by officers brandishing kalashnikovs. The armor and firepower appeared necessary to protect him from the hysterical mob jamming the streets outside the courthouse. My first reaction was disgust for this ugly American, the photos caught his ugliest expressions, Volz looked plenty capable of murder. But perhaps some of my judgment was made in self-interest. The maelstrom surrounding his case would make it uncomfortable for any American in Nicaragua for the foreseeable future.

I tried to get more facts about the case, but by the time I had tuned in the trial seemed a foregone conclusion, and coverage focused on the minutia of the proceedings. I made the assumption he was guilty, along with most everyone else in the country. I would have forgotten about him save an article the day before the verdict was released. This story revealed that while the DNA evidence showed another person other than Volz or his ex at the murder scene, Eric’s DNA was not found. So I was a bit surprised when the guilty verdict came in the following day. Regardless of the last day of testimony, the Diario seemed satisfied with the veracity of the verdict and the 30 year sentence Volz received.

I didn't think about the case again until I got back home and mentioned it in passing to a friend in Nashville. To my surprise he knew immediately who I was talking about. He had heard much more of the story than I had gleaned from the Nicaraguan press. Volz was also from Nashville, and he had a large support network here that swore to his innocence. They fought successfully to get Eric's story out and now they are working to keep it, and him, alive.

It turns out there are call records from Eric's phone that place him in Managua, a long, bumpy two hour drive from San Juan del Sur, at the time of the murder. Also, a distinguished local journalist claims to have had lunch with Eric that day. The major point of evidence against him, used by judge during her reading of the conviction, is the scratch marks on his right shoulder. The judge believes the marks prove he was engaged in a struggle around the time of the murder. However, video shows Eric as a pallbearer in the Jimenez funeral. He carried her coffin on the same shoulder, and the straight-line marks do seem more consistent with the indentation from a wooden box than from fingernail scratches.

The Volz family was stunned by the conviction. Now Eric lives a nightmare. He has a whole country incensed that he brutally murdered a cherished daughter. The Judicial system was likely under pressure to find him guilty and is now similarly pressured to delay his appeal and keep him in prison. I’d rather not contemplate the daily horrors he faces in his Nicaraguan cell.

Anderson Cooper did a supportive piece on Eric this past summer and a follow up where he attempted to interview him from prison. Even though the CNN crew had obtained a court order to speak with Eric the Warden personally turned them away from the gates.
There's nothing you can do to help Eric but to remember that he is still in a Nicaraguan jail cell and hope that in a different political climate he might get another trial. The political climate at the moment could not be worse for Eric. Though Daniel Ortega claimed to be a new man upon election, even his sympathizers have noted that he quickly returned to the populist ways that kept his previous regime in power, a regime that was the sworn enemy of the United States. The pro-Sandinista press claims that Eric’s family is somehow manipulating the world press to cast unfavorable light on the Nicaraguan judicial system, and make a farce of their country. Until the Sandinistas have run their course a second time, Eric is screwed.

Given the evidence not considered at the first trial, the phone records and the eyewitness alibis, I do think Eric deserves another hearing. I believe the claim that he never set foot in San Juan del Sur on the day of the murder. It is not clear, however, that he is innocent. Little attention has been given by the free Eric crowd to the accusation that he paid a thug to kill his ex and then he made those phone calls and lunched with a prominent Managuan to cover his tracks. What else would have been the motive of the hit man, Julio Martin Chamorro Lopez, pinned to the murder and convicted alongside Eric, if not blood money? Lopez confessed to the murder, and though his story that Eric was there beside him does not make sense, it seems equally implausible that he killed a shop girl without the $5,000 cash motive he alleges Eric gave him. Eric’s defenders only argument is that no record was ever found of him withdrawing that sum from a bank. Impossible to prove a negative, sure, but this is less than convincing rebuttal. Also, there remains the bizarre testimony of Hertz rental employees who claim that one of Volz' employees tried to coerce them into signing an affidavit which stated Volz picked up a rental car around the time of the murder. He did in fact rent a car that day, but it was picked up by one of his employees. This alleged cover up was used by the Judge as evidence against Eric. The defense only countered that the employee had been acting on her own volition.


Even if you are swayed by Eric's defenders, a couple of ready lessons can be taken from this story: 1) stay away from business ventures in parts of the world where the United States has a recent history of bloody antagonism against the ruling government, 2) especially if it is a dirt poor country where you could draw the envy of the populace for being too successful. 3) If you must speculate, do so through local partners that share a vested interest in your success, and do make your life there.

From Eric Volz to William Walker, Nashvillians have not had much luck in Nicaragua. Click Here to Read More..

Viva North American Union!

No posts in a while, but I'm still here. I'm working on some longer pieces so please check in every so often. Also, come January, this will again be my primary travel journal site.

In a world of ever eroding journalistic standards, I am finding it is dangerous to rely on a handful of outlets to get the news. My weekly uptake includes The Economist, the SF Chronicle, primarily for the Giants coverage, and a smattering of internet sites. The past couple weeks one of my big two really let me down. The Chronicle has been running a series on the Ron Paul presidential bid, mostly to portray the motley array of disaffected Bay Area Paul supporters: anti-war conservatives, libertarian minded techies, and others fed up with run of the mill partisanship. The articles have exaggerated the impact of his Guy Fawkes Day haul of $4.2 million in internet campaign contributions while downplaying the snowball in hell odds that Paul will win even a single delegate in the primaries. I'm not criticizing the spin, journalists get bored with the status quo like the rest of us, and it is interesting to see how extremist campaigns can energize certain slivers of otherwise dormant electorate. Less acceptable is the scant coverage of his actual campaign platform. If you are going to hype a dark horse, at least inform us what the guy would do if elected. All I gleaned from these articles is that Paul is against the war, pro-drug legalization (things I would expect from a libertarian), and anti-NAFTA. Ok, but why the NAFTA slam? Is it because he is an idealistic free trader who does not believe in regional blocs and the compromises that make these pacts politically feasible? Or is he merely pandering to protectionists like the rest of the field?

Which leads to the inexcusable: in these two weeks of Chronicle coverage, not a single article has given me a whiff that Ron Paul is a total NUT JOB. Perhaps they figured the local readership would take it for granted that the views of a Libertarian Congressman from Texas (aside from drug legalization) would be mostly alien regardless of the specifics. It wasn’t until this weekend when an old high school friend, Clay Risen, editor of Democracy, gave me the story the Chronicle might have done better to include along with all the fluff pieces.

It turns out Paul is a believer in a latter day New World Order type continental conspiracy called the North American Union. He maintains that the Council on Foreign Relations along with a raft of lesser-known political groups are scheming for a super-national merger of the United States with Canada and Mexico. NAFTA was just the first step. He claims a NAFTA inspired 20-lane superhighway that would link Mexico with the United States and Canada is currently in the works, though obfuscated, of course, in the dense legislation of various transportation bills and by the machinations of a consortium of big business interests and rogue federal agencies. Once this continental highway is completed, however, it is a slippery slope into continental political union, our loss national sovereignty, and dread, mandatory French lessons.

Lunacy perhaps, but Paul hits a nerve among those dialed in to late night AM talk radio land. He has a rabid following among conspiracy theorists who have grown tired of waiting for the UN convoys to trammel upon our breadbasket with the aid of UFO cruisers (an actual report I heard on “Coast to Coast” in the late 90’s) and have now consolidated their wrath to blame Mexico for something other than her Spanish speaking exodus.

Paul supporter Paul Von Nothaus, founder of the Liberty Dollar, began minting various denominations of gold, silver and copper coins to be used as a competing currency that would simultaneously raise money for the Paul campaign. The Liberty Dollar dovetailed nicely with Paul’s call for a return to the Gold Standard. Thousands of coins were purchased by Paul supporters until the Treasury department took notice and the secret service began seizing the Paul dollars in circulation. You just can’t mock a conspiracy and hope to get away with it.

This is probably news only to me, proof that I’m far from my debate days when I scoured the political wire with the same relish I still mull over the box scores. I had never heard of a NAFTA superhighway nor the North America Union, but upon reflection, I am undoubtedly for both. Twenty lanes of smooth asphalt beats the heck out of the pot-hole riddled Pan American highway. One trip over the craters and the speed bumps awaiting at every three hut village from San Cristobal, Mexico to Guatemala City and I assure you you'll be happy to sign up for what sounds like a transportation-minded union.

And how exactly do these skeptics figure we’ll be throwing away any sovereignty in the deal? Will our thirty three million Canadian neighbors be writing the new rules? Ha! What about the new Southern overlords? The Mexicans have problems controlling their own country, (which at the moment is considerably more dangerous than my next destination, Colombia) and don’t forget our last war with the Sudenos was one of the quickest, most pain-free land grabs of all time. My bet is on Uncle Sam coming out king of the North American Union.

Sounds more like 21st century Manifest Destiny. We triple our landmass, plunder the resources of our hapless northern neighbors, and actively regulate our cheap labor supply to the south. Throw in some free adult language classes along with the mandatory French and Spanish in the new grade school curriculums, and I’m first in line.

So why can I only find anti North America Union bumper stickers on the web? Surely there is a pro lobby in the making. Oh right, the neo-illuminati types. So in the meantime I’ll have to look into getting a seat on one of these secret councils to assure a cush job in the new bureaucracy. Click Here to Read More..

Reconstructing the Big Easy

New Orleans, August 2007

We took a detour on Jack’s move from Boston to Austin to spend a week in New Orleans where he had lived the majority of his adult life until running from Katrina in typical Jack style—at the last possible moment. Jack had an agreement with a buddy of his that they’d wait out any storm less than a Category 5, at which point they’d call each other and make plans to leave the city. Katrina must not have hit the category 5 threshold by the time Jack passed out on a Saturday night just over two years ago. He woke up to the calls for mandatory evacuation. Not only had the storm intensified, it was spiraling straight towards the Gulf Coast. So he called his friend to figure out their last minute escape.

“Oh, hey Jack…Sorry man, meant to call you…Yeah, I drove up to Shreveport last night...”

By the time Jack got on the road, just before Katrina’s outer arms began lashing the coast, there wasn’t any traffic to contend with. He had a smooth ride up to his parents’ place in Memphis. Displaced from his home in New Orleans, Jack is living proof that one man’s catastrophe is another man’s opportunity. I haven’t heard of anyone who made out better in Katrina’s immediate wake.

Granted, Jack is one of the smartest guys I know, his detailed memories of conversations from half a lifetime ago can be frightening, but for years it seemed like college was something that happened to him while he was busy getting on with the more important aspects of life. Then somewhere along his several victory laps of the undergrad circuit that included stops in Nashville, Tempe, and New Orleans, he caught the academic bug, and decided the University lifestyle suited him just fine. So did the Big Easy. He continued on to grad school where he had finished his first degree at the University of New Orleans, and then Katrina hit right before the start of the school year. A couple weeks later Jack was apartment hunting in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he had been accepted to finish up his Masters degree in high style. Jack parleyed a Blutowski-esque, eight-year undergraduate spree into Harvard University. Not bad, Mr. Troutt.

While the country opened its arms to many of the employable (or in Jack’s case school-able), there were tens of thousands of residents with no ready skills or opportunities that did not fare well in the transition. Houston grumbled about the hundred thousand plus refugees it absorbed (a saving grace for its slack apartment market btw), attributing new gang activity and a spike in crime to the influx of New Orleans’ displaced poor. Given the lack of funds or a coherent plan for how the city’s most afflicted districts will be rebuilt and then protected from future storms, some of the population displacement will be permanent. City officials estimate that roughly 70% of New Orleans pre-Katrina residents have returned. Sales tax receipts are back to 84% of pre-storm levels, and given that tourist sector is still far from its peak, the numbers suggest that the poorest residents have not returned in proportion to the city’s rich and middle class.

The biggest changes I noticed on the ground were demographic. Just off the interstate we pulled alongside a crew of construction workers loaded into the back of a pickup truck and laughing over a Hustler magazine. I asked, in Spanish, if I could take a picture. The driver saw what was going on and held a centerfold out of the window, somehow managing to smile for the camera, give a thumbs up, and keep the moving truck centered on the road. Every fifth person we saw on the street the first day was Latino. The rebuilding of New Orleans is reliant on immigrant labor, and naturally the construction workers doing the rebuilding have relocated to the city. Long term this infusion of fresh blood may provide just what is needed to shakeup the city’s stultified black-white politics.

Big Easy politics aren’t changing anytime soon. Corruption scandals covered the front pages when we arrived, and two high-ranking city officials resigned during the week of our visit. The Times-Picayune provided excellent post-Katrina coverage lampooning the daily shortcomings of city, state, and federal rebuilding efforts. After two years only a fraction of displaced residents have received eligible disaster relief, and a majority of the city owned multi-family housing units are waste pits with putrid refrigerators and rotting furniture, the carpets abloom with fungus and mold.

New Orleans may not have earned any civic leadership awards its past couple years, but City hall should receive some sort of recognition for innovative public relations. Mayor Ray “Chocolate City” Nagin is up for the Marion S. Barry spin for entertainment award. He held a press conference the day we arrived and put a positive light on the second double murder in the city within a week. Addressing the murders of the Phillips brothers, who were linked to 18 murders in the city, Nagin said, “It is unfortunate that they had to die, but it did kind of end the cycle that we were struggling with.” In other words, sometimes the hood has a way of taking care of itself.

Tuesday the paper reported yet a third double murder, and it sounded like a miracle that there were only two fatalities. At the conclusion of a basketball game at an indoor rec. center, 25 players and spectators were filing out of the building when a man carrying an AK 47 burst from the shadows between two shotgun homes and unloaded a magazine of bullets into the crowd.

Neither victim was a suspected murderer, so Nagin needed to find another angle for positive spin besides hoods ridding us of hoods. Sure enough, at his morning press conference he found the silver lining, explaining how New Orleans’ ghastly murder rate was actually a “two-edged sword.” Huh? The full quote: “Do I worry about it? Somewhat, it’s not good for us, but it also keeps the New Orleans brand out there, and it keeps people thinking about our needs and what we need to bring this community back. So, it is kind of a two-edged sword.”

Good point Ray, you’ve got to keep that New Orleans brand out there. It makes sense to a point. I’ll take my po-boy deep fried with a double on the rocks and a beer back, hell, I might even scrounge a pack of smokes while I’m at it if tomorrow I might be handing over my wallet to muggers who might shoot me afterwards anyway. Let the good times roll.


Given the news reports and my preconception of the storm damage, I was surprised that so much of the city was back to normal. Save a scattering of shuttered businesses, the stretch of New Orleans I am most familiar with, the sliver of Uptown between Tchoupitoulas and St. Charles that runs from the lower Garden District out to Carrollton just past Tulane University and Audubon Park, has almost completely recovered. Magazine Street is livelier than before the hurricane, though the upscale restaurants and boutiques that have moved in are interchangeable with those of any yuppified district from D.C. to Dallas. While this strip of the city sits on the high ground least affected by the storm, it is not the exception. On the other extreme, the Lower Ninth Ward is still something of a ghost town, though even in that neighborhood there are signs of progress. The rubbish and debris have been cleared, and on every other block there is a crew working on one of the gutted houses.

By early August, it appeared quite a few schools, windows still boarded up and walls covered with graffiti, would remain shut down this year, though it’s hard to tell without asking whether a school in New Orleans is closed or merely dilapidated. In my year spent teaching for America, I visited a fellow corps member assigned to an Orleans Parish middle school. Since I arrived late on a Thursday night, I had time to visit her classroom on Friday, yet with my first look at the place I figured I had gotten the address wrong. The grim, cement block building was set behind an eight-foot high fence topped with razor wire. I pushed through a mob of students competing for the attention of a distant eyed secretary talking on the phone at the front desk. I waited for a few minutes to see about a pass or an escort to Emily’s classroom. The secretary made eye contact, put down the phone, shooed away the kids, and then dialed another number. The conversation did not concern me. Apparently a grown man-- unlikely a school parent-- did not need permission to walk these halls. Nor did the children. There were kids running wild in the dingy corridor past the school office where all but a couple of the florescent bulbs needed replacing. The ceiling dripped into puddles that the kids splashed about in a free-for-all game of tag. More kids were hanging on the metal banister at the end of the hall and I saw the shirttails of at least two more hiding under the stairwell. I did not see a single teacher on my way to Emily’s second floor classroom. Two girls and boy, all with their uniforms tucked in and sitting up straight, were waiting on the bench across from her door.

“Where is your teacher?” I asked them.
“Miss went on an errand.”
“Then why are there kids in her classroom?”
“They locked the door so they can play on the computers.”

Her presence did not exactly restore order. When she returned just ahead of the bell the same kids were still locked inside, and now one of them was trying to keep her from unlocking the door by holding onto the knob. Eventually she threatened her way through the barricade. Her fleeting victory was dashed by a girl named Crystal who opened class with a savvy estimation of my relation to Miss that set the classroom roaring right through the bell. She did not seem bothered, as like me she had probably given up sometime before Thanksgiving. I no longer envied her big city placement. Lee High, where I taught special ed in the Delta, was a model school compared to this penitentiary-in-training. And should New Orleans ever succumb completely to its festering urban decay, know the seeds were sown long before Hurricane Katrina.

If not for the staggering crime rate, abysmal civic institutions, and an almost complete lack of vegetarian options, New Orleans is the kind of place I could make home. It is a city abounding in juxtaposition and enigma. There are few places I’ve seen in the world where the streets are so democratic, and where high society is so utterly inaccessible. Where rich and poor, black and white crowd to the same dive bars and tuck in to the same French fry sandwiches, and nearby another world lurks unseen past high walls hedged by orange trees and hanging carpets of Bougainvillea. Where jagged sidewalks rise and fall along streets of antebellum mansions that abut rows of shotgun shacks along the crooks of equally jagged sidewalks. Where wide boulevards shaded by gnarled live oaks and Spanish moss run past blazing neon liquor stores. Where the broiling summer heat stews decrepit sewers into a stench of evil and death that reach your nose just as you pass by the iron gates outside above ground tombs. Where people still practice Vodoun and believe in Vampires. A city so hopelessly broken and corrupt you can’t help loving it. Click Here to Read More..