Thursday, September 20, 2007

Bolivia and other adventures

“Пол года плохая погода. Пол года - совсем никуда…”
из к/ф "Мэри Поппинс, до свидания"

“A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing”
Ecclesiastes 3:5


Today is six months like have left New York. Tomorrow is Yom Kippur, time to draw some conclusions. Dates and numbers were always important to me. New years and birthdays, assigned seats in the bus and airplanes, just numbers which randomly appear throughout life, they seem to play some kind of role. I’m not really superstitious and happily look forward to Fridays 13-s and 666-es, however, I do acknowledge their significance.

I have not been writing for some good while. I wanted to but could not. The main reason was Kevin. We met shortly after I have returned from the jungle and somehow end up traveling together for well over a month. I have never traveled with anybody for such an extensive amount of time. Surprisingly, that was a lot of fun! It was somewhat cheaper, more interesting and you always have someone to share your thoughts, or just talk to. Even though sometimes he did not want to talk but sleep, yea you know man (I know, sounds funny). Well, I had to force it, when I feel like talking, there is no stopping me. But seriously, it was great fun; however, I could not really “talk” to myself: write. So, I just postponed it till now. Now I can tell you what was going on for 2 months. But first, I’ll tell you what is going on now.

I made it to Argentina yesterday. I’m hating it, well not hating but seriously disliking it. I was looking forward to get here, the wine, the meat, beautiful women. Well, I must confess, I like them dark. I mean it, I love Latin America and Latinos but Argentina.., well it appiers to be fake. They are all either too white or bleached. Argentina is too civilized, too clean, too European and too expensive. Who said that Argentina is cheap? It is cheaper, not cheap. Everything is way too comfortable and overpriced. I say overpriced, because I have just returned from Bolivia. It is my first day here after about 30 hour journey on a very dusty Bolivian train and then a costly Argentinean bus. As far as wine and food go, well the wine is really cheap, the bad ones, the normal ones are reasonably priced but I have not tried them. I am a victim of my own “Jew-ness“, the culture shock hit me hard and I went “economical” yesterday. Medium-cheap wine, plus my favorite brie cheese, under a dollar, then a cheap (by local standards) steak. Entonces, (a trash-lingvo Spanish word, which means: so, then) terrible stomach ache next day. The noises my stomach was making this morning could be translated like this: “Welcome to Argentina, where cheap (but expensive) food will make you as sick as a dog, where the famous Malbec wine will be so bad that you will be able to finish only half a bottle, where chicks look like white-washed eastern Europeans and boys like the worst kind of Israeli “arsses”... Well, maybe it is just Salta, or most likely me. I’ve been having some quite and sad time lately. I have hardly spoken 2 complete sentences for the past several days. Nothing seems to make sense. I’m discharged, got no energy and/or desire to move on.
I know it’ll pass. The only useful story I’ve picked up from my early years of yeshiva was the story of King Solomon's ring: "The King asked his wise men for some single thing that would make him happy when he was sad, but sad when he was happy. They consulted and came back with a ring engraved with the message 'This Too Will Pass'." I suspect that me being discharged would sound irrational to my new friends: Stu-Jew and Irish Potato-Butt.

We met in Uyuni. Kevin and I were having lunch in one of local restaurants where I spotted 2 boring looking gringos. Later that day I have confirmed that observation, when we saw them in the same agency that we were supposed to have a 3-day tour at the Salar. Next morning we were sitting at the plaza having a quite breakfast before the tour; this is when I saw the boring ones for the third and last time. We have had the most amazing and crazy time together, but before I proceed, let’s see on their perspective: “Two, very cheap Israelis, one even took a doggy bag out of a very bad restaurant (I took my cake to go to the train cemetery). Then, next day, they looked so dead peaceful, having their bread and jam.., this tour will be dull and boring”. And then, as an old Russian commercial used to say: “Yuppie”.., we all could not have been further from the truth. We’ve had a wild fun. There were several groups going the same route, god they were boring. They were so boring that one night I got a bit drunk and began talking about “ze Germanz” (read: Nazis) with 2 nice German girls. Little did they know, getting involved in this silly conversation. After about 20-30 minutes of a very powerful but ridiculous monolog I found myself in a almost empty room (there were about 15 people, including ze Germanz) facing Sabrina and Stu (Potato-Butt and Stu-Jew) trying to calm me down. Calm me down after ze Germanz killed ze Jewz!? No way, but there was a rescue, I found myself a match. A Frenchman named Tibo (I know it is spelled wrong, but god knows how French spell it). Anyway, he was almost as crazy as me, and even more, listen to this: he actually spoke English. And not just English, he was making a horrible but hilarious French accent (I don’t even know whether he actually speaks like that or was pretending). Not only we embraced verbally but we actually wrestled as well. Even more so, we made everybody else (there were no Germanz in our room) wrestle and fight throughout that night. After Tibo got tired, like a true Frenchman, he ended up in bed with an Austrian girl, trying to convince her that he was “ze peellow” (her pillow). Nobody got to sleep that night. Next morning I have entertained everybody by pretending to shoot ze Germanz from the thermal bath with my imaginary Kalashnikov. The German girl never made it to the pool. Well, it was her fault that she left without letting me explain, how it is partially her fault that they have killed my people… Yea, I know this sentence doesn’t make much sense, nor does my explanation. Yom Kippur is coming, I’m sorry the German girl. I don’t even know her name… They all look alike zis Germans.

After Uyuni, four of us went to Potosi, where we go to blow dynamite! How often do you get to blow one?! Well, in Potosi you can do it every day and it costs only a $1.25 with the cord. We did not trust ourselves after we heard the story about ze German couple who actually killed themselves by blowing the dynamite (I wonder how many sticks they bought). Stu-Jew and P.Butt carefully checked that there would be no Germanz around and we went to the mines. It was scary, existing and horrifying, all in that order. To add to that, we had the craziest guide ever, we did not like each other from the first sight. He thought I’m a cheap Israeli (a lot of people seem to think that, I wonder why? What can I do with my fucking Sephardic appearance?) who just wants to blow a lot of dynamite and show disrespect to the guide. We barked at each other for a while in the beginning, but after all he end up to be quite a nice guy, after I convinced him I’m actually not Israeli, Ok, nice is an exaggeration but dissent. I only whish he did not say: “Thank you, gringos” all the time. We blew the dynamite (see video) and had a lot of fun. Then we went to Sucre where I got tear gas poisoned during the riot. These fuckers wanted to move the capital from La Paz to Sucre, just because it was so historically and obviously will get more federal money this way. Fucking pisses me off theses students – don’t want to study? Don’t fucking study! But burning tires and throwing dynamite and fireworks at the police, just to have something to do?! while poor tourist (me) had to suffer? I imagine Philadelphia going the same direction; after all it used to be a capital too. Anyways, there is an interesting video footage from my hostel (were I got stuck for 12 hours because of these fuckers) and some after riot pictures. We got out of there as soon as we could.

Santa Cruz is a Bolivian version of paradise. It is hot, it is large and it rich. It is also, the most diverse region in the country. There are settlements from all over the world here, including ze Germanz, Japanese and of course, ze Russianz. Before I will reveal my encounter with ze Russianz, I want to tell you about Samaipata. It is a true paradise, the climate is great the views are awesome, the food is great and, hear this: it is full of Germans! Huh, I wish I can entertain Stu-Jew and P. Butt with this phenomena but they were gone to Brazil. Kevin did not want to hear more about the Nazis. But the funny fact was that they were some Nazi hideouts in the Samaipata area (a clue to Massad). In any case, we had wonderful time there, as Kevin put it: it was a vocation from the travels. There was a nice German (what a coincidence) restaurant called “La Boca Loca” (Crazy Cow) where I had invited everybody to have a Rosh Hashanah meal with local peach honey, bread and Argentinean apples and wine. See everybody; I got nothing against ze Germanz… Hmm.

BoliPусь
I can’t say it was a complete shocker to me but they did surprise me. Picture this: 4x4 Suzuki 2005 stopped at the corner, the back door opened and from there two white little angels flew down the street. They did not, however, had wings, but instead had unusual purple dresses, deep blue eyes and blond hair. I almost instantly recognized the Russians. They could’ve been ze Germanz (there were plenty of them) but then their parents came out: their mother dressed in sarafan and their father (Ivan) with old-fashioned, almost folklore Russian shirt and a cell phone. Kevin’s jaw popped out. Staroveri (Russian Conservatives). Ivan was not surprised that I spoke Russian to him, however was very cautious almost suspicious. I asked him how to get to the Russian village (they call it colonia in Spanish). He said that Lyuba should be able to direct me and showed me where to find her. Lyuba had an Optic shop down the corner, she had been living in Santa Cruz for 18 years and she looked exactly like a Lyuba would look like somewhere on Brighton Beach, except she did not speak broken English but good Spanish. There was another starover in the store who asked me why I speak Russian and look like.., well as he put it “dark”. I told him I was Jewish. The conversation abruptly stopped for a moment and then continued he asked me questions about my travels and so on. And then, I don’t exactly remember how we got to that but he said “Хитрый еврей” (A sly Jew). That took me some time to swallow. I quickly got out of that store considering my options. I did not really have to go to that village, what did not I see there old Russian anti-Semites? Perhaps, they don’t really know what they are talking about. Their language is about 100 years old, their traditions are even older. Most of them are Brazilian born, some even Chinese born. I’ve decided to give them a chance.

I will not use the real name of the village because I don’t really want to abuse the “unknown” path, so I will call it the Pushkin way “Уездный город N” (provincial town N). It took me some time to get there on a very dusty road. By the time I got close to the settlement my ride broke down and I got off this truck squeaking the dust with my teeth. I got another ride with another Vanya on a motorbike. He introduced me to Mityay, his brother. Then I decided to go around town N, it was much bigger than it appeared and it took me about an hour to go to the end of the village and back. There was nobody in the village, it was Sunday. I was starving, so I picked up some sunflowers and began eating the seeds. That reminded me of my childhood when back in Odessa we ate tons of this stuff, though they were fried and salted. I spotted some Russian kids watching TV with locals. That was surprising. I don’t want to talk about their religion (I was asked not to) but that looked odd to me. Anyways, I used to Mityay’s invitation and got back to his house. I was so hungry and weak that I almost fell in the bushes (it was also very hot). Mityay’s wife, unfortunately don’t know her name, quickly got me pineapple брага (like Latin-American “chicha”). Then she put pirogi on a table. While I was eating and drinking a strange feeling captured me. I felt somewhat home but what home? I live in Brooklyn for almost a decade now, I have never had Russian-Russian parents. I guess that was pirogi with eggs and onions, my grandma used to make them, although I like the ones with potatoes...
There was something else, something very odd I could not quite grasp… Oh, I got it, they are speaking Spanish! My broken ride finally made it to Mityay’s house. Apparently, he and his wife were headed to the biggest Кулак (rich farmer?) in town (that would be Mityay). They spoke perfect Spanish (and Portuguese). Well, what else you could expect from a Brazilin born.
I kept my “Jew-ness” to myself and was invited to stay a night, I gladly agreed. I have adopted an identity of one of my friends, I became a half Moroccan (by father), half Russian. I did that to find out what exactly these people think of the Jews, since I’ve heard an interesting “A sly Jew” comment. Well, it got worse, apparently due to an old language the word еврей (Jew) have become жид (Yid). That did heart my ears but I kept it quiet, I did believe these are very nice people just using the wrong word. That proved to be wrong. Wile showing his estate (1200 “Gektars”) he told me his story. That was an interesting one but a bit too long to tell here. It did involve the Yids giving the money the wanting his land and so on. However, there was one banker, Felipe Campbell (obviously a Yid, I actually believe he could’ve been German and will check up on the story) who have helped him. Certainly not for free, as Mityay put it: “Жид не сеет, он комерцией занимается… Где это видано что бы жид помогал, за так...” (I’ll let you translate it here yourselves). Don’t get me wrong here, Mityay is truly a nice and a very hardworking person, he is just a bit too preoccupied in the stereotypes and conspiracy theories. To add to the confusion, this Felipe Campbell guy died in the plane accident observing the damage on Mityay land and there is his framed photo in Mityay’s house along with family pictures. I’ll finish by saying I have had great time there and ate a great food including fresh maracuyas, watermelons, coconuts and my favorite blintz with homemade sour cream. And all that for free! (Who is the biggest Yid here?)

Will put a little, as they put it: Букварь (Dictionary) of the words I managed to write down. Not to make fun, just to recall the past, after all it is a language they communicate to each other. Some of them I’ll leave without Russian to Russian translation. Sorry my English-reading friends. Please don’t use the Internet, try to guess yourself and post answers in the comments.

шибко противный...
шибко прогресс большой (шибко самое поп. слово)
“респонсолидада” нету (Esp. responsabilidad)
у меня достатку нету
а тебе наша кукуруза приглянулась?
Черныши (местные)
Он народ избранный, а они его и распяли...
шолохи - ?
ёшна - ?
зыбочка - ?

I’ll put some more stories soon (I have a lot of them) including conquering Machu Picchu, that was not an ordinary one too, and the rest of Peru.

BTW I’m getting closer to my roots in my adventures, whatever these roots are… Entonces, easy fest everybody and as our “Yid” tradition requires: I’m sorry if I have harmed anyone in this or any other post, and in general.