Lousy hotels I visited

I name the city if I don't remember the hotel's name
1. Luba, Bioko Island: hotel rented your room to couples during the day, a colleague went to hers to take a shower and found a couple having sex in my colleagues' bed!
2. Hotel du Port, Cotonou: unless you tip staff in advancer they give you a lousy service. When I told a colleague about this, he advised to tip hotel staff beforahand: someone dialed his room at 3am and when my angry collague asked why he was being bothered at that time, hotel staff at the reception said because he tipped them so generously, he had been called fist- the hotel was on fire.
3. Iquitos: the maid removed pieces from a toy I had purchased to my kids, they got an incomplete set
4. Monrovia: the roof leaked (even during the dry season) and my room was flooded
5. Juliaca: a storm broke a window's glass, hotel wanted me to pay and because I refused I was asked to check out.
6. Arequipa: I saw Loxosceles reclusa spiders on the wall (its bite can kill you). Also, hotel rented rooms to sex workers.
7. Managua: Hotel hosted a noisy show for adults at night
8. Quetzaltenango: Hotels' disco put speakers at max volume to attract customers, noise leaked to reception that acted as an amplification box
9. Boaco: Rooster awake everybody at dawn
10. Lancaster Hotel, Buenos Aires: a cloud of mosquitoes kept me awake

Going tribal : fete de la musique, Paris

For one day, the hyper-regulated French society went nuts : people parked anywhere, ignored traffic lights, drank, smoked pot and danced in parks and streets at the sound of rock or ethnic loud music. Sister Lili invited me to a soiree organized by her social group, comprised mostly by intellectuals, artists and professionals, active fighting Le Pen`s xenophobia and other social ills. The party was at a small plaza surrounded by cafés. The one I sat by was ran by North Africans. All walkways were rapidly filled with small tables. and neighbors –blacks, arabs, French came for 18" sandwiches of arab sausage or kabob. Some asked the price (3 euro each) but bought none. Most drank beer, some wine. I ordered Moet & Chandon to impress Lili`s friends. Lili said the only occassion she saw Champagne being served in that watering hole was when a North African neighbor was released from jail. I did not care champagne failed to bring sucess with the girls, as quid-pro-quo is frowned upon there. I was the only there wearing a jacket, one guy walked barefoot as he always did, even in winter. Lili`s friends gossiped about one girl snatching boyfriends from her peers. Musicians played mostly rock in French while people from all ages, colors and socioeconomic levels danced or clapped hands. Lili's club paid musicians with money made selling sandwiches , and the cafe kept the income made selling drinks. Before going home toured the Belville / Menilmontant neighborhood, where homes belonging to the Parisian proletariat had been renovated for the burgueois bohemes. Rode a taxi as the Metro's door were closed by 2am- they are kept open on winter nights to prevent clochards from freezing.

Going tribal: Malawi

People addressed me as "bwana" and that reminded me Tarzan comic books. Went to the grill restaurant (watch video later), friend Yamo ate with his hand as my wife's grandma used to do. Poor kids retrieved leftover french fries ("chips") served in humongous amount. Regrettably I had already eaten most of my share.

Filled up with diesel the Totoya landcruiser- almost two hundred dollars in fuel! Then crossed croc-infested Shire river in the Zambeze basin, not difficult if there was a concrete bridge as in our case. Crossed Mozambican border. Tried to get some Portuguese wine there. Bumped on a Peace Corps volunteer from MD, advised not to buy that cheap wine. I had tasted cheap Spanish wine in Equatorial Guinea, the worst ever, so we returned empty-handed.

In our way back, we told jokes. Most jokes I heard in Africa are about infidelity, I asked my colleagues what was funny about infidelity when AIDS was killing so many here. They insisted infidelity IS funny. That reminded me of an occasion when I told my mother-in-law (MIL) that I had barely managed to flee when a female colleague entered my hotel room and insinuated herself. MIL laughed hard and said the man capable to flee under thse circumstances had not been born yet. My Malawian colleagues said that MIL thought I was a liar. I had concluded MIL believed me but lost all respect for me because from her perspective, I was not a manly man anymore.

Complete sentence: I am so old that when I was a kid...

... milk was delivered to my home by a man on horseback
... detergent was first introduced in my home town
... there were no plastic bags, balls or toys. The only plastic at home was bakelite
... people could buy goodies at the market and pay half a penny
... "The wizard of Oz" was shown for the first time in my home town
... people took weekly baths- as many Frenchmen still do I am told
... my nanny concocted a medicine for her arthritis using my urine as ingredient
... people made their own comic books cutting and pasting newspaper's funny pages
... the main way to travel was the train
... markets did not have carts, you hired an Amerindian to carry your purchases on his back until you got home
... radio programs were broadcast alive, with a live audience. TV had not started.
... Doris Day was the hotest girl on the movies
... photos of me were printed in sepia tone
... kids played with kaleidoscopes, little wooden guitars, made flipbooks
... chicken was eaten only on special occasions i.e. weddings, birthdays, or Christmas

How To: Give Nutrition Education to your Child

Kids are egocentric, so you better give them messages about sharing food without taking somebody else's portions. I was explaining my son Jose Miguel when he was 5-6 years old that kids grew faster than adults and therefore kids should be given priority to receive nutritious foods such as liver and meat. Jose Miguel instantly replied: then pass me your chicken. He ate my share for a long time.

Jose Miguel absorbed rapidly my educational messages and used the information to manipulate his nanny. Jose Miguel would ask her things like "what vitamins are contained in rice? After she pledged ignorance, he would tell her that since he was better informed, he should decide when to eat what and how much.

How to: explain the Doppler effect to a kid

When I was a 6- year old I visited my uncle's dairy farm near our home town. While there a whistling train passed nearby. My sisters and I noticed that the pitch was higher when the train was approaching and had a lower frequency when getting away from us. Sister Miyaray hypothesized trains might have two whistles, one to let people at a station know the train was approaching it, and other to announce the train was departing. The only inconsistency: there was no train station in sight.

Later on the same day, I fell into a deep hole in the ground and had to be rescued. My parents concluded I had been frightened to the point I could get ill from "susto" and took me to the traditional healer at the market to be prescribed herbal teas.

WANTED: Stolen Art

In or about 1975, I enrolled in an art class on Saturdays. I would go very early and start a work, then rush to the University Hospital to attend regular morning class, return at noon to the workshop to finish my art project. Sometimes I got distracted in my art project and one of my classmates would come to remind me I had a clinical conference at the same time.

Once, I finished a carbon drawing of a curtain, I had played with light and was specially proud of my job. My colleagues said looked realistic. My art, posted on the wall, was gone by next Saturday. All other projects done by my classmates in art class had not been taken away. It was possible it had been taken by somebody, jealous of a work that could have made his/her own work look clumsy by comparison, or even worse, someone could have used my drawing to wrap fish or light a fire! But as a consolation, I preferred to think that my work had been valued to the point that someone took risks to steal it. My consecration as an artist!

Going tribal: Tale of two Luandas

Old Luanda: I lost my hotel reservation, and because of the oil and diamond boom it would take four months to get a hotel room. Thanks to a colleague living in the US, I get a room at Mother Luisa's Inn, actually a large house. I get the maid's room, with a latrine-type of bathroom, while a female colleague traveling with me gets the main suite with a private bathroom. Mae Luisa sleeps in a couch for a couple of weeks. The daily rate, $150, includes a breakfast. Mae does a fusion of Portuguese, Brazilian and African cuisines of her ancestors. Her home is immaculate but lacks basic services. As it is not connected to the generator in the compound, we often lack electricity, the water pump broke during most of our stay and there was no running water, naturally there was no Internet. Extremely noisy neighbors held wild parties every night until Mae called the cops. Traffic to downtown was so bad it took me more than 2.5 hours to travel approx 5 miles. I went to the Hospital for meetings. As I left the building, I tried not to step over roadkill, a rat flattened like a pancake. I woman with a headscarve moved rhythmically while wailed- her mother had died. Some buildings at the Colonial (since their got their Independence in 1975, anything older than that is Colonial) downtown are still scarred with bullet holes, others have been occupied by squatters. Cranes build more skyscrapers at a frenzy pace. Nobody seems to be building parking, SUVs park everywhere in the streets blocking traffic. I watched at passerby's buttocks and conclude they must be eating too little because of food inflation, walking home from work, because of the bad traffic, or both, since few have fat reserves. I regard my watching as a scientific endeavor, there is no informed consent, but got OK from my wife just in case.

New Luanda: On the last night, I went to the new Luanda. Wide, straight and clean streets, new buildings with a modern look, malls and all the amenities of a piece of the US transplanted into the heart of Africa. A few people walked, most drove brand new cars (priced double than in the US, but at least fuel is cheap). Prices were outrageous, $100/person for a dinner, but those eating here -executives, high government officials including top army brass- seemed able to afford them.

Going tribal: Starving on Paradise Island

I am visiting Paradise Island (not its real name), a beautiful Island larger than France, in the Indian Ocean. Locals are friendly, most displaying a lot of hospitality. I was unlucky to travel with perhaps the only locals that have not hospitality at all.

We departed to a rural area by car Wednesday morning with the intention of returning Thursday night. I packed lunch for the first day (tuna sandwiches, cashews, and soda). I shared my lunch with the locals (driver and my government's counterpart) and invited them beverages once we reached our destination. They warned me that I had failed to bring local currency and that nobody in the countryside would take my dollars, because of the incipient tourism industry. I had with me over a thousand bucks. I asked my counterpart to exchange a few dollars for the local currency and he refused.

On Thursday I had no local currency for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My counterpart that ate my lunch on the previous day, would go alone to the restaurant and return satisfied without offering nothing but a tiny bag of candied bananas. On the return trip, the driver munched candies he bought by the package, without sharing (he also refused to exchange money or lend some currency). We arrived 11 pm to my hotel that fortunately offers a great room service, satiating my 28-hour hunger in no time.

I cannot make any generalization. I still don't know why they acted like that, since my grant's administrator had given them enough cash for fuel and incidental expenses. Read Maupassant's "Boule de suif" to learn how bad an experience like this -mine sans gang rape- can be. I clearly need to improve my negotiation skills. I should have asked "what do I need to tell you in order to persuade you to give me some local currency?".

People: My mom (3)

Mom worked hard all her life. She once purchased live chicken, gutted and shipped the birds to a highland city without industrialized coops, and where an uncle' restaurant wanted to add roasted chicken to its menu.

Mom had to use public transportation before dawn to get to the market. As her older male child (10y)I thought it would be inappropriate for a beautiful woman walk alone before dawn, so I volunteer to escort her, since it will not interfere with school time.

Mom would wake me up at 4am and after a quick breakfast we walked 1 km to the avenue where a shared taxi would take us to the main market. Sometimes there were no chicken at all at that market and we had to go to the coops outside the capital. We returned home with 30 chicken or so that Mom killed and gutted. I bought dry ice, then she packed and couriered the birds. We were left with a lot of innards and since I hated livers' taste, Mom would ask me to sell them in the neighborhood, she would not discard anything nutritious.

People: Dona Juana

Dona Juana is my belle mere. I married my wife because I really liked Dona Juana. I thought that since most women end up being like their mothers, it was a safe bet if I got to know my girlfriend's mom before making any long-term commitment. In fact, several candidates failed the test, whenever I disliked the mother-in-law-to-be, I stopped completely dating that girl.

Fifteen years ago or so, Dona Juana got very sick and was taken to the hospital. I decided to use the occasion to teach my sons a lesson. I gave each $100 or so in cash - they started immediately to make plans to spend the money. Then I told them that Dona Juana was hospitalized and that the entire clan was expected to chip in whatever money they had. Although with some initial resistance, they chip in all they had to buy medicines for their grandmother.

Dona Juana certainly deserved that. I wish all her descendants were loving, tender, generous and fine ladies as Dona Juana.

Fauna of my backyard

As of today, I watched there

Deer
Coyotes
Foxes
Groundhogs
Cottontail rabbits
Skirrels
Chipmunks
an unidentified turtle
an unidentified snake
Canadian geese, waterfowl (wild ducks), cardinals, crows, owls, hawks, woodpeckers, among many other birds

Roadkill near home include racoons, opossums, and skunks.

Very near our home black bears, beavers, wild turkey and lynxes have been spotted.

Since there is so much prey, I guess cougars and wolves will soon recolonize this place.

People- My mom (2)

Since mom did not marry a good provider, she was forced to sell her family heirloom. She sold her diamond earings to buy antibiotics for my baby brother Pepe. To make ends meet, she sew baby outfits all night in addition to her regular activities. Much later, Mom sold her gold -her only savings- to pay for my registration into a private medical school. I was privileged, even more considering that my siblings attended public colleges.

After registering, mom and I returned home in a battered, empty bus. I told her I appreciated her support. Mom responded stiffly that she had just done her duty. I told her she had done much more than that. Only then she sat back in her seat, patted my hand and smiled.

Sibling competition in Google

In Latin America, we use our paternal surname followed by the maternal surname. In the US people usually employ only the paternal surname. I "googled" both my paternal and maternal surnames combined in the same search to see which sibling appeared more frequently. In the first 15 pages I counted

Miyaray 33 times
Myself 9 times
Willy 7 times
Yadira 2 times
Lili 1 time
Pepe 0 times
Chalo 0 times

People: Miguel Reynel

See his last sculpture


at
http://www.reynelsculpture.blogspot.com/

How to (just kidding): Eradicate Japa inacue

Jose Miguel visited the Peruvian Amazon basin and got this itchy bug, locally called izango. I advised him to rub the skin with Peruvian pisco (a kind of brandy) and after a few minutes dust the affected area with sand.
The rationale for this "treatment" is this: first, the bugs get drunk and become aggressive. They start throwing sand particles and stone themselves to death. [Disclaimer: I haven't tried this, and its efficacy is more than dubious. When I got izangos near the Amazon river, I just let them die out naturally, they will not reproduce outside a tropical area].

Saying farewell is a little, like, dying

I gave my son Jose Miguel, going back to his college, a ride to the airport. Once he passed security and waved goodby, bitter tears filled my eyes and I had to hide in a secluded area. First I thought I was worried my son was going to be alone and far from home. Then I realized it was self-pity, what I really felt sad about was being far from him, unable to feel closely his warmth and love. I had thought he needed me more than I needed him, and I was wrong.

How to: revive a drowned hemoglobinometer

Grace, my secretary, greeted me a morning with a report that a female voice had called saying that "the tin can sunk" before the communication was cut. What could it be? Grace assumed she was one of the nurses working for a Child Survival project in the Amazon Basin of Peru I directed. Later, we learned that a boat -with the pet name "tin can"- transporting the nurses had sunk in shallow water. Nobody was hurt and everything that was on the boat was recovered. However, the portable photometer used to monitor hemoglobin concentrations had also been submerged under water. The nurses put photometer, wet clothes and backpacks to dry under the sun. To their surprise, when everything had dried and they turned the photometer on, it ran like new. This Hemocue photometer continued operating without trouble up to the end of the project. [this blogger does not have any financial relationship with the Hemocue company, nor recommends cleaning photometers of any kind by throwing them into the washing machine]

People: Granddaughter Isabella

Updates: My 1st grandchild, Isabella, was born in Winchester VA on Saturday Jan 13, 2007. She weighted 6lb 3oz.

Going tribal in Ouidah

We paid a fix fee at the cooperative running the transportation business. An informal boater that approached us was quickly shooed away by formal boaters. Once it was our turn we boarded the small (<12') boat equipped with an Arab sail and departed. After 1h or so we arrived to Ouidah (Benin), a community established in the marshes, completely surrounded by water. We stopped for drinks at a bar servicing tourists, I bought a quilt featuring the map of Africa. We toured Ouidah, it reminded me of Belen, in the shores of the Amazon river. Instead of walkways a few planks connected homes, and most people moved around in canoes. There was a floating market where you could buy vegetables or fruit. This is a fishing village and early in the morning the market is busting with fish catches.

Our boat passed by a home where a voodoo (animist, traditional religion) was taking place in the front yard. Tall, beautiful women with head scarves danced slowly with what seemed lighted candles in their hands. We left town. In the main entrance to the town I spied a scary wooden structure, my guide explained it was meant to scare evil spirits trying to get into town - much like crosses my people in the Peruvian highlands put in the road connecting the town with the outside world.

The return to the pier demanded the boaters to row for 2hs against the wind (I thought you could sail against the wind with those Arab sails), and they expected a tip, that we refused to give on grounds that if their cooperative had established a fix rate and shooed away competition then they should stick to the previously agreed upon compensation.