Off to the Markets!

As a libertarian of sorts at heart, I love markets in the developing world. Read in a Dick Vitale voice: This is capitalism, baby! If you are in the market of a city of 40,000 or more and can’t find something you want, then you want something totally unnecessary, or just don’t know how to ask for it in the local lingo. It covers all the spots for errands in one place: Grocery store, pharmacy, restaurant, drug dealer, hardware store, gas station, electronics store, and shopping mall all in one. If one was so inclined, one could even get a shower, massage (with or without happy ending), and a solid mani-pedi.

Furthermore, it cuts out unnecessaries like high ceilings, good lighting, and insurance that end up in the prices you pay at a US or Western-style department store or grocer. Many travelers and backpackers, acculturated in the system of big brand stores, go to the equivalents of Wal-Mart or Kroger thinking they are saving money, but in all actuality the same goods are typically a fraction of the price in markets; I have personally bought a pineapple for 20 cents at a market that was better than the 2 dollar one at the fancy, American-style grocery store. There’re no lobbyists working to keep a stall-owner in Ecuador afloat and ahead of competition, just good products at low prices.

Another nifty feature of markets is that prices are negotiable and volatile; while sunglasses are cheaper on cloudy days, umbrella stock plummets on sunny days; the losing team’s jersey can drop 50% in value overnight, while a Manchester United jersey always takes in top dollar. Buying in bulk becomes an advantage for the buyer— perhaps that sweet Elmo shirt with ungrammatical English is 8 bucks, but add in a Power Ranger backpack, three Barbies, and 6 months’ worth of birth control pills (which I saw all at the same stall) and watch the prices plummet. It seems like those principles they teach you in economics that only come true at macro-level operations in the developed world happen at the point of sale level in a market, which I like.

Philosophy, ideals, and theory aside, markets are just plain fun. The smell is sometimes repulsive, especially to an American nose accustomed to everything being hermetically sealed or scented with grassy meadows, but awakening nonetheless. A walk down an aisle can be an olfactory gauntlet; an aggregate of kilos of cheese, stacks of dead and sometimes rotting fish, every local spice available, new clothes, plus the various body odors of all the hard working folks trying to make a living in a sweaty equatorial climate. The sights can be jarring and inspiring; men older than retirement-age lugging hundreds of pounds on their back, children playing the role of savvy business person while they should be at school, armadillos gutted on a tray and being sold by the pound, and produce sections with seemingly every possible color of the spectrum.  People screaming and bartering and losing and gaining and leaving happy and stomping off for an area the size of multiple city blocks is just plain exhilarating to me.

Even if you don’t buy anything, no travel experience to a city in the developing world is complete until you’ve visited the main market. You learn about the food the surrounding land produces, the styles of clothing people like (even if it is jeans and shirts with way too many tacky vestigial zippers and pockets), and what the people of a place truly want and need, because the market mechanism IS in working order.

Goin Goan Vol. II: Election Time

The first few weeks I spent in Goa were the build-up to elections, which provided a great deal of inconveniences to those who drink, go out, and drive without a license (which I was all 3 of).

After a few days of doing work at a Café Coffee Day© down the road (think more playful and bright colored Starbucks with lame jokes on the walls and menus e.g. ‘Pull to shed calories’ signs on the doors) and then jamming and drinking with Anirban and his roommates at night, I booked a bus ticket to head South to Kerala. The gods of bus travel disapproved, however, and my bus was cancelled.

Instead of getting another bus ticket, I decided to stay in Goa—I mean, why not? I had a place to stay with cool roommates, a motorbike, and tropical beaches all around me.

The only thing wrong with my surroundings was that they were undergoing elections.

In the few weeks prior to the bi-annual culmination of democracy in the state of Goa, the incumbent government likes to piss everyone in the state off by instating strict laws on curfews, noise ordinances, and alcohol sales, as well as an increased police presence at certain high traffic areas.

I’m not quite sure why they do this, I am convinced that no one really feels any safer when the Goan police are around; these guys pretty much just hang out at certain intersections and pull people over. They then proceed to write your name down on a clip board and usually ask for money (from the white folks, at least). I found out later that some of them like musicians more so I always kept my guitar on my back; one time I actually sang my way out of them fining some Russians I was hanging out with for not wearing helmets.  

Another part about elections that puzzles me is the dry days. In Latin America they prohibit the sale of alcohol the day before and the day of elections, presumably to have a more responsible, or at least less drunk, voter base. In Goa, they choose four seemingly random days per week in the two weeks prior to elections to ban all alcohol sales. If anything, we actually got drunker on dry days because we would stock up prior and it seemed like more of an event, a drinking holiday of sorts.

Then there was the noise ordinance that kept loud music from being played after 11pm for the two weeks prior to elections, because any fool knows a rock concert 12 days before you choose your local leaders will surely cause you to make a regrettable choice. I wouldn’t have had quite the problem with this rule that I did except some popular clubs had apparently paid the cops off to have late night parties any way, and all these clubs specialized in 220 bpm bass heavy electronic shit, oops I mean ‘trance.’ I found myself at least twice at said parties, wondering why I was there and not at home getting some rest.

It’s hard to believe it, but I survived the dreaded election time with minimal emotional scarring. And it would have taking a lot more than illogical party bans to keep me from smiling whilst I sat upon my steel-horse (read scooter) and cruised around a tropical paradise.

Goin Goan Vol. I

From time to time it is a fun thought experiment to consider how small decisions we make end up shaping our fate and future; for me and my trip in India, it was mustering up the courage to jump on stage and wail out ‘Red House’ as performed  by Jimi Hendrix with a local band that would shape the next 6 months of my life.

My friends had left, and I had just gotten a new editing assignment, so I figured I would stay in my cheap and clean guest room for another few days, paying my landlord on a day to day basis as to avoid paperwork (he told me that booking for 3 days or more would warrant paper work, with a dreadful tone of voice. Between my desire to feel off the grid and his lack of desire to fill out forms, we settled on me giving him cash roughly every morning). I also met some lovely Australian girls with a fondness for partying, so my days consisted of posting up at a beach shack and editing a journal on the provincial economies of China and then drinking heavily with a posse of ladies from the land down under.

They told me of an all you can eat seafood buffet with live music that was the cat’s pajamas at one of the original beach shacks at Anjuna beach (a party destination known throughout the subcontinent). I personally feel a bit guilty gorging on food when surrounded by poverty—or any time for that matter—but the live music caught my attention.

Anjuna beach is a long stretch of beach lined with shacks that fulfill most all beach going needs: shade, music, alcohol, people, hash, food, drinking water etc. There are hippy markets on both the North and South side of the town where you can score any last minute beach needs or tapestries.

In the stead of dinner, I drank Kingfisher© strong beer—the  thicker, more filling, sibling of the ubiquitous Indian beer. Despite the more than ample energy the band was giving off, no one was dancing, so I took it upon myself to be the crowd I always wish I had; I let my hair down and rocked the F out. Before too long, a dance party had commenced.

The guitar player/vocalist was wailing, shredding, jumping up and down, screaming, yelling, and all the other –ing verbs you would want a guitar hero to be doing. I felt a certain connection with him; his licks were not unlike mine, albeit better executed. His choice of songs was eclectic and at times ironic and humorous, at least by my standards (you know, like Bob Marley at Starbucks or something). His in between song banter was dry and funny. I liked this guy; he was good people.

The always necessary blues number began—‘Red House’ as performed by Jimi Hendrix. The music was tight, but the vocals were seriously lacking; I figured I could do better. I gestured to the microphone, and the guitar hero gestured back yes.

After performing a number of songs with them that night, and having a plethora of drinks bought for me by people who appreciated what I had added to the evening, the clock struck midnight, meaning the music had to stop (this was my first experience with Goa's election time noise ordinance; I will address Goan elections at some point in the near future).

I joined the band for a post-performance smoke. I introduced myself to the guitar hero and told him I loved his style, he responded back with something similar and invited me to his apartment the next day to jam and crash for a day or two. This was the start of me and Anirban’s fruitful friendship.

I packed up and the next day hopped on a bus to Panjim, the capital and port city of Goa, as well as Anirban’s place of residence. He picked me up from the bus station on his sports bike and took me through Panjim, along the water. We crossed over a river that emptied into the bay on the right and was lined with old Portuguese style buildings to the left. Then we passed by downtown, a bustling urban area with some taller buildings to the left and casino boats in the bay on the right, all lit up with neon signs connoting royalty or luck or the likes (despite the 30 cent minimum bets and my love for casinos, I never made it out). Then we passed down a recently revamped road lined with new, old-looking, LED street lights. This long straight road was the site of Anirban’s most recent bike wreck—a comforting piece of information to hear as we are swerving through buses and cars going 60 mph.

The apartment was big and covered in posters of late and great rockstars. The guy who lived above Anirban heard us jamming and came and knocked on the door and offered beers and hash; we welcomed him and his gifts. This was Antonio, a super cool and passionate Spaniard from the Basque country who was really into sustainable farming. We spent the night playing songs and watching youtube videos of musicians we admired.

I felt quite comfortable in the apartment from day one—it was definitely a quintessential bachelor pad; full ash trays, dirty dishes, burn marks on the glass table, a toilet with a thin film covering, signifying the avoidance of scrubbing, and many other tell-tale signs that very few women enter the premises. Little did I know at that point that this would become my place of residence for the next two and a half months as I continued goin Goan.

Sweet Home Chicago

Last week, I was at a crossroads; I had a week in the Midwest and I could have bounced around from crazy family to crazy family with my own immediate crazy family or lone-wolf it to Chicago and meet up with friends—I chose the latter.

I hopped on a train with my guitar and a small bag of clothes and set off for the windy city. The train conductor and I built a rapport quickly; maybe it was my long and/or facial hair, but I gave him the sense that he could vent to me (in a heavy Midwestern accent):

‘You know, you try to help people and they just fuck you over.’

‘My boss is gonna ream my fucking ass.’

‘Amtrak doesn’t give a shit, and it worries me cuz its my fucking livelihood.’

‘yeah we got food… shitty overpriced hot dogs.’

These were just a few examples of the less-than-formal tone this uniformed man took with me in regards to a hippy woman that he was allowing on the train without a ticket, and the Amtrak system as we know it.

A few conversations and a nap later and I was in the birthplace of the (commercial) blues, The Crossroads of America, The Second City, and the setting for my favorite Chris Farley skit (Daaa Bears).

My (non-crazy) cousin works full time in Indiana, but was paid to move to Chicago for reasons unclear to me, him, and probably his employer, too. As a product of this, I had a free, nice apartment in Chicago to myself for the week. Thanks cuz.

The living situation for the typical middle class Chicagoan seems to be a few rooms or a floor of a retrofitted ‘greystone,’ or Sears-era brick house (catalogue homes that were popular amongst Midwesterners striving for conformity in the first half of the 20^th century). The areas I was in had the feel of a neighborhood, despite the likelihood that most people here were probably on year-by-year leases with sublets coming and going. This neighborhoodly feeling could be attributed mostly to vigilant landlords that oftentimes live in the same house that they rent out units from. My one friend received a 300 word e-mail from her landlord over 3 cigarette butts left on the stairs, for example (a staggering 100 WPCB average!).

In between heavy drinking sessions with old and new friends alike, I did see some of the many sites Chicago has to offer. As a plus, there was an upcoming airshow, so The Blue Angels were practicing fly-bys of downtown Chicago the whole week. I couldn’t help but imagine all out urban warfare in America; it was fun and disturbing, but I couldn’t make amends with the unlikelihood of being invaded via the great lakes so I stopped imagining.

On the second night in town, I was an extra in a music video at a warehouse. It was cool, but it was in a less-than-wholesome area of town, complete with people practicing their crack fueled schizophrenic monologues on the street and cars with aftermarket wheels that would slow down to a creep as they passed us walking to and fro our destination. We did meet a pretty awesome Dave Chappellesque guy who was avid about me going to Dave and Buster’s during my stay in Chicago—I never made it.

Other highlights included ‘The Bean’: a reflective bean shaped public work that produces the most visually disorienting affect I have ever felt whilst not on psychedelics or spinning around in flowery meadows.

The Art Institute was fun; I like to laugh with joy and irony at paintings and installments that I like. There was an exhibit on Roy Lichtenstein, who is a hilarious and extraordinary artist; I would strongly suggest Googling him if you have a few minutes (and since you’re reading this, I know you do!).

The Loop, Chicago’s downtown, had a bit of a manufactured feel to it, but it is full of stunning buildings. Apparently Chicago was a playing field for 20^th century architects to flex their egos by juxtaposing their ideal buildings next to their rival’s competing, giant, functional phallic symbols of glass and steel.

After lots of long walks, rides on the CTA (the public transit system), and a variety of activities I came to a few conclusions. First of all, they like to drink in Chicago (I try to fight the urge to generalize, but I don’t think Chicagoans will argue with this one, so why not stereotype for time’s sake?). Secondly, there is way too much cheese and processed meat in the culinary traditions of Chicago (I had to try all the different Chicago-styled junk foods, but I think I had more digestive problems in a week in Chicago than I did in 6 months in India #realtalk). And thirdly, I couldn’t see myself living in Chicago (If I am going to put my body and soul through the stresses of American urban living, I’m going to go all the way and do it big in LA, SF, or NYC… @Chicago: sorry for the comparison, but you beg it by having lots of tall buildings and being in America). 

      

The Craziest Guy I Have Ever Met, Vol I

In my travels I have met a number of really crazy ex-pats (people who have, for whatever reason, opted to live in another country), but Bill definitely takes the cake as the craziest. These ex-pats are sometimes business men with serious cases of narcissism, wandering yogis, kids of travelling parents that never really fit in anywhere, or in Bill’s case, former military.

I met Bill at a hostel in Lima, where he drops by a few nights a week to speak English and play pool. He is a 5’7” American white guy with black hair and fair skin, and he is always in a firm military stance. He wears tank-tops and camo-pants and frequently scans the room his in, as if enemies may be lurking behind couches. He speaks loudly and clearly, and in as few words as possible to get his point across.

To get around Peru, it is often the most convenient option to go through Lima; it ensures you will get a bus to wherever you are going, and it breaks up the often 20 plus hour bus trips that are needed to get from place to place (Peru is a lot bigger than you would think, if you haven’t seen this, check it out…http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection… a map of the world with respect to landmass, not Northern Hemisphere chauvinism and lazy cartography). Whenever I was in Lima, I would make a point of hanging out with Bill, because he was the craziest and one of the most interesting people I have ever met. Over the course of 4 or 5 days together with me constantly questioning him, I feel like I got to know this guy fairly well.

As with any complicated man, it’s hard to know where to start to paint an accurate portrait of Bill. Bill was trained as a sniper in the army; he claims he was one of the best around. Because he was one of the best, he was selected for a very covert and very illegal US military operation in the 80s that is warmly referred to as the Contra Wars.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras#U.S._military_and_financial_assistance

Quick history lesson for those who won’t read the links: The Contra Wars in Nicaragua were a decade’s long civil war against the then socialist/communist leaders; the resistance was made up of pro-democracy soldiers within Nicaragua and a coalition force of black-ops troops from Argentina and the US, among other democratic advocates of the time. There were very few US troops, and they were off the books, under the radar, and had a nearly infinite supply of money; Bill was one of these guys. Where did they get the endless supply of money? You may ask. Cocaine (I guess it was before the US government just opted to spend money they didn’t have)

The CIA was actually going to Colombian and Bolivian drug lords, getting massive amounts of cocaine (allegedly 100 Kgs per month), and selling it to a guy named ‘Freeway’ Ricky Ross in LA, the man who was the inspiration for the hip-hop artist Rick Ross’s on-stage and on-mic persona. He applied a modern corporate business model to cocaine distribution and is arguably the cause of the crack epidemic in the 80s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Freeway%22_Rick_Ross... This is where some of the condemnations of Reagan come from, whether or not he knew about it is up to you.

The CIA would take this drug-money and supply these select US troops in Nicaragua with anything they needed: guns, explosives, helicopters, tanks, etc. Bill claimed that one time they got a tank dropped from a plane to them within 30 hours of ordering it.

Bill also claimed that none of his comrades followed Geneva conventions unless it was convenient. He described mercury tipped bullets he had custom made and their effects when shot into tanks… ugly stuff.

After democracy was sort of established in Nicaragua, Bill knew he had no shot of cutting it in normal society. He took his talents and skills to the freshly opened up Balkans, where he fought as a mercenary for the highest bidder while all the former Soviet Warlords were attempting to fix the borders for their new countries. Bill once told me, with empty eyes: ‘I’ll tell you everything you want to know about Nicaragua, but you don’t need to know about the Balkans, they did… we did… some horrible things over there.’ I didn’t ask much about the Balkans after that.

After the Balkans, Bill found himself in various Latin American countries before settling in Peru in 2003. He does what he needs to do to get by, and that sometimes includes selling cocaine to the youthful world travelers on the hostel scene.

I had my doubts about the growing background story of Bill when he started telling me about himself, but over the course of the night I started thinking that he was likely telling the truth; he taught us how to throw knives, he let us hit him as hard as we could, and told story upon story of crazy things he had done in war times and as a small time drug dealer. An Austrian guy we were with was former military and a martial arts expert; he obviously didn’t believe Bill’s claims because he kept prodding Bill and enticing him to fight. Finally, Bill obliged his constant challenges, and this big Austrian had his face firmly pinned down to the ground in less than 10 seconds. At this point, we realized Bill was legit.

Stay tuned for the detailed chronicles of 4 nights spent with the craziest guy I have ever met.