WIM

laundry rage

2008-05-16T19:18:00.004-05:00

I had assumed it was an isolated incident the first time it happened.

In my building, there lives an old lady. Every now and then I would see her in the elevator. She always walked with a walker, and her walker had a basket, and inside the basket sat her 14-year-old blind-in-one-eye poodle-terrier mutt. Both the lady and the mutt have dirty gray hair. Both seemed frail. Both were pitiful.

Whenever I saw them, because of the guilt I felt for feeling sorry for them, I tried extra hard to be friendly, as if through the power of pleasantry they would grow strong and young and healthy again.

That is until one day I met them in the laundry room. I smiled and nodded and went to load my dirty wash into a machine. A few minutes later, behind me, I heard the most angry, bitter, savage vitriol.

"Fucking fuckers. Fuck! Filthy shit. Bastards. Disgusting, filthy shit. Fucking bastards." And on and on it went. She was flipping open the lids of the laundry machines, examining them, and becoming furious. Apparently, the laundry machines were dirty. Though I'm not sure how that could be. I left and stopped feeling sorry for her.

Then today, I was folding freshly dried clothes and a middle-aged woman wearing baggy pajamas and frown-wrinkles started to ram the driers with her laundry card. The card wasn't working and she was muttering hateful curses that made me uneasy.

I began to wonder if there was such a thing as laundry rage, or if the two women were simply miserable and if I should start feeling sorry for them again or if one day I would become like them and how I could prevent that.

sick lucy

2008-02-12T14:13:00.000-05:00

Lucy is near death. Her temperature is low and she is severely dehydrated. She's been hospitalized. The vet thinks she may have kidney disease and is performing tests to confirm the diagnosis. The best case scenario is that Lucy will respond to treatment in the next three days. After that, she will need long-term home care, including pills and fluid injections for the rest of her life. Worse case scenario is that she won't respond to treatment and will die in the next few days.

snow, aphids, semester

2007-12-13T12:01:00.000-05:00

It's snowing, the aphids are winning, and I'm done! My first semester in graduate school is finished. Now I can spend the winter break working on my master's project.

of aphids and ladybugs

2007-12-03T11:51:00.001-05:00

My greatest enemy today is the aphid. They are sap-sucking, nasty-looking, parasitic pests. They've killed my sage and now they're killing my rosemary. But I think I can win. Every day, I inspect the leaves and branches of my rosemary for the little red and black crawly things. When I find one, I squeeze it between my thumb and index finger to leave behind a streak of bug guts and exoskeleton. I also have a plan b, which is to enlist the help of a ladybug, the aphid's natural predator. My only worry is if the ladybug is successful, she might just die of starvation for want of more aphids. Then, I would feel terrible.

pumpkin ravioli

2007-11-28T23:31:00.000-05:00

1. Boil ravioli and drain
2. In a pan, on medium-low heat, melt butter
3. Add brown sugar and a pinch of salt
4. When the sugar is completely dissolved in the butter, add fresh sage
5. When the sage turns dark green, add ravioli
6. Brown on both sides
7. Serve with cheese shavings

division of labor

2007-11-19T01:03:00.001-05:00

Did I tell you that I moved in with Carlos? Since September I've been living in southern Manhattan, in a sunny studio with partial views of the Brooklyn Bridge and surrounded by architecturally unremarkable skyscrapers.

I like not having to wonder if we'll see each other on a particular day because now, as busy as we are, we can see each other every day.

Another way our living arrangement is working is the division of labor. Carlos, though a true artist at heart, is shy in the kitchen. But, I like to cook and Carlos makes an attentive and eager sous chef. I also like to wash dishes. Carlos hates washing dishes. I hate mopping, vacuuming and scrubbing the floor. He loves it. I also hate to do laundry, but I love to fold. Carlos loves to do laundry, but hates to fold.

If only he wasn't allergic to cats, I would rate him a 10.

three months and one day

2007-11-09T00:27:00.000-05:00

Today is the three-months-and-one-day-versary of the start of journalism school for me. I think of you, my dear, loyal readers, often, and how I have shared nil of my experiences with you.

I'm sorry. Truly.

In a nutshell, I have good days and I have bad days.

On bad days, I think, this is silly. I can't be a journalist: It's scary to talk to people, and writing is a bitch. I don't want to be a journalist: I don't care about "trends" and won't presume to decide what is "newsworthy."

On good days, I think, this is cool. I get to walk around on beautiful autumn days and talk to interesting people I would never have talked to otherwise.

Writing stories has been the most difficult for me. I don't like it. And I am never satisfied even when I am finished. This is not me being a perfectionist. This is me resisting the part of journalism that requires me to be a pseudo social scientist.

I've discovered that I like reporting and producing sound pieces, like for radio or audio slideshows, best. That's when people can tell their own stories. Don't mistake me. I am still author and editor. But, it's their voices, not mine. And that's what journalism is about I think.

bix & ferdie

2007-11-03T23:02:00.000-05:00

Meet Bix Beiderbecke the Amazing, Fantastic Trumpet Player and Ferdinand the Bull, Ferdinand for Short. Bix is the big one and Ferdinand is the little one. They're Bengal mixes.

Bengal cats are bred from the wild Asian leopard cat and domestic cats. I wanted spotted kittens, but ended up with a marbled teen and a tween.

I picked them up from a woman in Baltimore, MD, who rescued them.

We're still getting to know each other. I have my doubts. But then, I didn't bond with Lucy, my first cat, for months, not until she ran away and I knew I wanted her back.

rock and cock

2007-09-30T10:54:00.000-05:00

From the television show Cops:

Woman talking to a police officer. She says she gave $20 to her neighbor to buy something and her neighbor didn't buy it. Now, she wants her money back.

The police officer asks the woman what she asked her neighbor to buy. She wouldn't say. When pressed, she says, "Rock." Crack cocaine. She says her neighbor gave her plaster instead.

Police officer goes to talk to the neighbor. Neighbor is indignant and says, she came around and said give me my $20 back, give me my $20 back. "Don't come disrespecting my house. This is my house. My child is here. I don't sell crack. I'm a prostitute!"

monday number two

2007-08-13T23:27:00.000-05:00

Today began another week of J-School. I'm inundated with work already, but I'm also having a lot of fun. I've already had two assignments where I had to go out into the street and find a story to photograph or record on video. I'm still uncomfortable pointing a lens at strangers because I don't want them to be uncomfortable. Two people were uncomfortable enough to refuse to let me record them. One professor told us that we have to try to be charming beggars and to use flattery if all else fails. Next time.

wait

2007-08-08T22:19:00.000-05:00

So I'm trying to apply for a student loan. I called up a bank (one of the largest in the world) and requested information. My question was, "Can I apply for a loan on line?" Tony (maybe Tonie? Tonnie? Toni?) said, "Well, I'm not sure of the answer. Can you call back tomorrow between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern Standard Time?" And I said, "Well, no. Can you ask someone, like your supervisor?" And she said, "OK. Can I put you on hold?" And I said, "Yes, please put me on hold." And she came back and said, "Mam, I checked with my supervisor and he said that you'll need to call back tomorrow. You can also check our Web site to find the information." And I said, "Well, I was on your Web site and I couldn't find the information. That was why I called."

At first I thought that Tony was extremely unhelpful. Then I wondered if I was being unreasonable. Maybe 24-hour service isn't always possible. She did tell me exactly when I could call back to talk to specialists who can help me. I can wait 12 hours.

be like marty

2007-08-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

Aside from our celebrity journalist deans and professors, we had our first celebrity journalist speaker. Marty Smith from Frontline showed us clips from his documentaries on Iraq, the Taliban, and Katrina and answered questions.

Marty is tall and frank. His work speaks to the kind of thinker, humanitarian, and craftsman he is. He is the kind of journalist I aspire to be.

vice-dean cheney

2007-08-06T23:09:00.000-05:00

After a long day of orientation, I am poopered. In the end, I didn't do much. Didn't do anything really. Just sat around and listened.

The Vice-Dean of the Journalism School spoke at length. He was grave and entertaining. "Think of me as a friendly Dick Cheney," he said.

He told us about the mountain-load of work we can expect (Journalism School "will eat your life."); gave us tips on how to graciously excuse ourselves from parties ("It's midnight and my study group is waiting for me and they'll kill me if I don't show up."); warned us against drink, excess, and relationships ("Try to abstain from whatever you've normally been putting into your bodies.").

He made us giggle when he made fun of the business students who, like us aspiring journalists, are also on campus earlier than the rest of the students. "If you want to take a break and see great theater, go watch them outside. They're here for math camp. You can tell they're business students because they're all dressed up and carrying the same bag. They're doing bonding exercises, like throw water balloons at each other from ever increasing distances, to break down their high self-esteem so they can be taught something."

He made us pause when he introduced the next speaker then said (when we were about to give him applause), "Before you do it, get out of the habit of applauding the administration. We don't want our journalism students too respectful of people in authority."

He gave us hope when he assured us that everyone else is also terrified, but that we will also form close and lasting friendships. "It's ten months of hard work. So magic happens."

jitters are for sissies

2007-08-05T21:01:00.000-05:00

School starts tomorrow. According to my deans and professors, I can expect to have classes Monday through Friday (starting at 9 a.m. each day); additional seminars, lectures, and workshops most evenings and weekends; and homework, projects, and study meetings during free time.

Am I nervous? Well, I figure why be nervous when I can stay in denial. It feels so much nicer.

little keys

2007-08-04T13:01:00.000-05:00

Words are like little keys, and the process of writing is the process of unlocking doors.

silly story three

2007-08-03T16:15:00.000-05:00

"The Story of the Shameless Sloth"

It is not unusual for people when they board a bus to want the entire row onto themselves. Oftentimes, however, there are enough passengers to make private rows impossible. Yesterday was such a time.

The bus was already crowded when I boarded but there was a seat available in the front row. I said "excuse me" and asked my future row-mate, who was occupying the aisle seat, if I may sit.

She threw me a scornful look and yawned her knees to the right to permit me to squeeze past. Then I asked, "Are those your things on the seat?" She looked at me with hatred and, with the speed of a slug, collected her umbrella and juice bottle but left the dirty napkin.

I wedged myself past her knees and sat, noting that half of her left buttock remained firmly planted on one-third of my seat. I didn't complain since I had more than enough space. But I did think about all the fun I was going to have writing about her on my blog.

The moral of my three stories is that there are silly people everywhere. We can't hope to escape them, but we can laugh at them.

silly story two

2007-08-02T21:20:00.000-05:00

"The Story of the Unapologetic Boob"

On Tuesday morning a secretary from my doctor's office called me about a CT scan of my head I had recently undergone.

I explained that I had never had a CT scan performed on my head nor any other part of my body.

She then proceeded to accuse me of having undergone the procedure and declared the name of the CT scan specialist I had undergone the procedure with.

When I told her I had never heard of the doctor, she did not believe me, perhaps thinking that memory loss prompted the procedure in the first place. She asked me my name and when I confirmed that it was indeed Elaine, she became convinced that I was batty.

"You came in on July 25 for an office visit."

"I haven't seen my doctor since 2006."

"But you came in and we referred you for a CT scan with Dr. [So-And-So]."

"I don't know who Dr. [So-And-So] is and I never came into your office on July 25. I was home."

"Our records show you were here on July 25."

"Your records are wrong. I was never there. Are you sure you're looking at the right patient chart? Or maybe you made the entry in the wrong chart?"

"Your name is Elaine [This-And-That]?"

"Yes."

"Is your birthday [blah-blah]-1954?"

"No. My birthday is [blah-blah-blah]."

"Oh. Hold on. Um. Sorry. Bye."

silly story one

2007-08-01T21:20:00.000-05:00

When I was living in Peru, I heard many complaints from natives and expatriates about the bureaucracy of Peruvian institutions, the incompetence of Peruvian workers, and the laziness of Peruvian citizens.

Well, the same holds true of New Yorkers. Here are three examples of silliness I have been the victim of in the one month and two weeks since I have returned to live in New York.

"The Story of the Snaggletoothed Raven"

It all started two years ago when I bought a bicycle. I spent months searching for the perfect fit. I searched online, in used bike shops, and in fancy boutiques. I called stores in North Carolina that imported Pashleys and schemed to visit England to bring one back in my luggage. Finally, I bought a baby blue Ross cruiser refurbished by Recycle-a-Bicycle in Brooklyn and promptly had a metal basket installed in front while I continued my search for the quintessential bell, headlights, and helmet (and perhaps even a honey-tanned Brooks saddle).

I was infatuated with my new gadget. At last, I would be among the bicycle-riding crowd; I would no longer need to explain and apologize for my freak status as a Chinese who didn't know how to ride a bicycle. Yes, you heard right. I didn't (and don't) know how to ride a bicycle.

After a few lessons, and many more falls, I stopped trying. My excuse was that I until I found the right helmet, I couldn't ride the bike anyway, so I wouldn't. While I (half-heartedly) searched for a helmet, I stored the bicycle at work, in a file closet.

When I left for Peru, I still didn't know how to ride it and had no other place to store the baby-cum-bane. I asked my friends at work if it would be all right if it stayed in the file closet until I returned, next year. They said, grudgingly, yes, but hurry.

So I went to Peru and came back, the next year, to retrieve my bicycle. With Carlos's help, we picked up the bicycle, exited the office suite, and, doing the responsible thing, we went to use the freight elevator. After waiting and repeatedly ringing the bell for 20 minutes, we realized that the elevator wasn't going to come. We didn't hear the elevator belts move nor doors open and close from other floors, and we couldn't get back into the offices. In short, we didn't know why the elevator wasn't working and we were stuck in the small, windowless room, surrounded by four locked doors and one non-functioning elevator. We used our cell phones to call security for help.

That's when the snaggletoothed raven came swooping down on us and ruined my day.

She was incredibly tall, a giant with a big bust and big hips and a teeny, tiny head. Her hair was coiffed in a chin-length bob and eyebrow-length bangs and dyed in a shade so impeccably orange that it could only be a wig. (OK. She wasn't a raven, just a security guard, but she did have a snaggletooth.)

Immediately she informed us that we could not bring the bicycle down the regular elevators, how it was building policy, and that we weren't allowed to leave the room. She insisted that we should wait and that she was just on another floor and heard the elevator working. She made pronouncements into her hand-held radio in educated-speak like "they have been made aware" instead of human-speak like "I told them." And whenever she finished telling Carlos another rule we weren't permitted to break, she would swoosh around, tilt her head, and smile at me in a have-a-nice-day kind of way that made me wonder if I should have been making her aware of her snaggletoothedness.

"This is the building's policy. We have no control over that," she said.

"Well, that's obvious," I said.

"You are not permitted to transport the bicycle from the building other than via the freight elevator. You can leave your bike here while I investigate the matter further."

"Can't we just wait inside, where there is air-conditioning, while you find out?"

"No."

"But we just want to wait inside with the bicycle. We won't bring it down the other elevators."

"No. You may leave the bicycle in this room if you so wish."

"But I don't want to. Someone might take it."

"It will be safe. I assure you." (Snaggletoothed smile again.)

"Will you guarantee its safety?"

"It will be safe."

"But will you guarantee its safety?"

Thank goodness someone interrupted us. Jumping to the end of the story, it turned out that the freight elevator operator was on his lunch break (which meant whatever elevator sounds the security guard claimed to have heard must have come from inside her head). The company's division president vouched for us, escorted us to his office (with the bicycle), and let us keep the bicycle there until after the freight elevator operator came back from lunch. The security guard left us in peace. And finally, two hours after I came to pick up my bicycle, we were able to leave the building.

(This was a really long story. I'll continue with the other two examples in separate posts.)

characters

2007-07-28T23:28:00.000-05:00

I have a friend who is a fantastic storyteller. After my mom, he is the best. He went to the New York Public Library today, the City Hall branch, and made these observations:

"Elaine, everyone in the city's crazy. There are too many characters. I got to the library right before it opened and there was a line of people waiting outside. There was this man with a suitcase. Probably carried it with him everywhere. Probably filled with newspapers. Then there was a woman. She had lots of little bags. You start thinking what the hell are people carrying in these bags.

We get inside and one dude falls asleep. Then he farts. And this other dude with big, long hair, he had been there yesterday. He was reading a book called The Curse. I just wonder what they're all doing in the library.

Then some other guy, decent-looking white guy in his sixties with a big belly, he came in with twins. They both had white sneakers, old-man sneakers. They had white, knee-high socks. And short shorts. One twin was wearing blue short shorts and the other red short shorts pulled up to here [indicating an area directly below his pectorals], and white short-sleeved shirts that were tucked in. I thought, man, they're losers. I just didn't get it. How can you dress a kid like that. Like an old man."

officer's small

2007-07-26T23:21:00.000-05:00

It took man five days to go from Houston to the moon in 1969. It took Swiss Army 34 days to replace the battery in my watch in 2007.

On June 22, I visited the Swiss Army store in SoHo because my watch had stopped. With a straight face, the clerk told me it would take a minimum of four weeks to replace the battery. I didn't ask questions and submitted to the insanity. I left the store with a lightness in my wrist I hadn't felt for 11 years.

For the first two weeks I felt strange and incomplete. I kept glancing at my left wrist only to find a pale oval where my watch once rested. I didn't feel loss. Not the panic of sudden and permanent separation. What I felt was closer to longing, as if my lover had been sent on assignment overseas. By the third week, I learned to tell time by lifting my head and searching for wall clocks, asking other people, and looking at my cell phone. I had grown used to the absence of my watch, but I didn't forget it. Longing turned into missing, as if I was a mother and my children had stopped writing to me from summer camp.

When I finally retrieved my watch, I was surprised by how big its face was. Of course it hadn't grown. That would have been impossible. But the band did hang looser. (Had I lost weight? How had they managed to stretch the metal?) I thought I saw more scratches. (Was it this battered last month? How could I not have noticed?) It felt heavier. It felt like falling in love with an old love all over again.

the meaning of present

2007-07-20T10:32:00.000-05:00

If you don't believe in a past and you don't believe in a future, then you must be lost, for a present without anchors can only float aimlessly.

If you don't believe in a past and you believe in a future, then the present is like a burden. You are impatient to die.

If you believe in a past and you don't believe in a future, then the present is a pioneer, mitigating the nostalgia for a vanished past and the terror of an uncertain future. Be brave.

If you believe in a past and you believe in a future, then the present is a frontier, the imaginary time delineating your memories and your hopes. When you can remember and still hope is when you know you are in the present.

this is why

2007-07-18T22:16:00.000-05:00

Why I love Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red:

On my second visit after twelve years, she didn't show herself. She did succeed, however, in so magically endowing me with her presence that I was certain of being, somehow, continually under her watch, while she sized me up as a future husband, amusing herself all the while as if playing a game of logic. Knowing this, I also imagined I was continually able to see her. Thus was I better able to understand Ibn Arabi's notion that love is the ability to make the invisible visible and the desire always to feel the invisible in one's midst. (Black 115)

"It is the story that's essential," our wisest and most Glorious Sultan had said. "A beautiful illustration elegantly completes the story. An illustration that does not complement a story, in the end, will become but a false idol. Since we cannot possibly believe in an absent story, we will naturally begin believing in the picture itself. This would be no different than the worship of idols in the Kaaba that went on before Our Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, had destroyed them. If not as part of a story, how would you propose to depict this red carnation, for example, or that insolent dwarf over there?" (Black 109)

"To God belongs the East and the West. May He protect us from the will of the pure and unadulterated." (Enishte Effendi 161)

Seeing a woman's bare face, speaking to her, and witnessing her humanity opens the way to both pangs of lust and deep spiritual pain in us men, and thus the best of all alternatives is not to lay eyes on women, especially pretty women, without first being lawfully wed, as our noble faith dictates. The sole remedy for carnal desires is to seek out the friendship of beautiful boys, a satisfactory surrogate for females, and in due time, this, too, becomes a sweet habit. In the cities of the European Franks, women roam about exposing not only their faces, but also their brightly shining hair (after their necks, their most attractive feature), their arms, their beautiful throats, and even, if what I've heard is true, a portion of their gorgeous legs; as a result, the men of those cities walk about with great difficulty, embarrassed and in extreme pain, because, you see, their front sides are always erect and this fact naturally leads to the paralysis of their society. Undoubtedly, this is why each day the Frank infidel surrenders another fortress to us Ottomans. (Storyteller 353)

"My mother, may she rest in peace, was more intelligent than my father," I said. "One night I was at home, in tears, determined never again to return to the workshop because I was daunted not only by Master Osman's beatings, but by those of the other harsh and irritable masters and by those of the devision head who always intimidated us with a ruler. In consolation, my dearly departed mother advised me that there were two types of people in the world: those who were cowed and crushed by their childhood beatings, forever downtrodden, she said, because the beatings had the desired effect of killing the inner devils; and those fortunate ones for whom the beatings frightened and tamed the devil within without killing him off. Though the latter group would never forget these painful childhood memories—she'd warned me not to tell this to anybody—the beatings would in time enable them to develop cunning, to fathom the unknown, to make friends, to identify enemies, to sense plots beings hatched behind their backs and, let me hasten to add, to paint better than anyone else. Because I wasn't able to draw the branches of a tree harmoniously, Master Osman would slap me so hard that, amid bitter tears, forests would burgeon before me. After angrily striking me in the head because I couldn't see the errors at the bottoms of pages, he lovingly took up a mirror and placed it before the page so I could see the work as if for the first time. Then pressing his cheek to mine, he so lovingly identified the mistakes that magically appeared in the mirror image of the picture that I never forgot either the love or the ritual. The morning after a night spent weeping in my bed, my pride violated because he chastised me with a ruler before everyone, he came ad kissed my arms so tenderly that I passionately knew I'd one day become a legendary miniaturist. Nay, it was not I who drew that horse." (Olive 377)

As she recounted, I thought about where my unfortunate father was. Learning that the murderer had received his due punishment at first put my fears to rest. And revenge lent me a feeling of comfort and justice. At that instant, I wondered intensely whether my now-dead father could experience this feeling; suddenly, it seemed to me that the entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising our memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room. (Shekure 407)

No more. Or I shall give everything away!

2007 saja convention

2007-07-16T13:07:00.000-05:00

I attended a conference organized by the South Asian Journalists Association on July 12–15. Here are some of the things I heard and learned:

"Learning a skill doesn't count until you do something with it."

"Become a better writer by reading."

A good story should be internally cohesive, have good transitions, and contain a healthy dose of suspense.

"Old news" that follows the inverted triangle model is only good if it is explanatory. "New news" need not review the whos, whats, whens, wheres, and hows of a story, but instead should be forward looking; it should answer the question, "So what?"

"Write a headline in your mind. Ask yourself, What is this story about?"

Interview, research, and writing are essential journalism skills across all specialties. Also, be well-read and knowledgeable. This will be a fount for ideas and provide direction.

Differentiate pitches, as you would your resume based on the organization you are applying to. Practice the "art of the possible." Ask what is possible, logistically, economically, and otherwise.

Be mindful of proportions when it comes to digesting news: "be informed but not consumed."

Quotes can be dangerous. In representing another person's way of speaking, we can reveal our own biases. Use quotes to illuminate the way someone thinks, the way someone talks, and to show something characteristic about that person or his personality.

"We've programmed our own audience. We've lowered their expectations." (Bill Weir)

"We give them too much of what they want and not enough of what we need." (Bill Weir paraphrasing Charlie Gibbson)

"Whatever your story is, it's a great one." Find the right buyer later.

Let your cultural identity be your opportunity, not your opponent. You are not defined by your cultural identity or membership in elite institutions. You are defined by the quality of your work. Your cultural identity accords you an outsider status that will allow you to be impartial and insightful. Let your strength be your ability to see across continents. Let your creativity stem from a balance of fear and curiosity. (Martin Bashir)

Negative space is useful for the eyes to rest on, and then move on to the rest of the page.

A designer is concerned with aesthetics; an editor with a customer's perception and cost; and the reader with the ease of use or functionality.

Principles of Good Design:

Visibility. The user can tell how to operate the device, and what it is currently doing, just by looking at it.

Mental Model. The designer provides a clear conceptual model of how the device works.

Good Mappings. The user can determine the relationship between controls and their effects.

Feedback. The user receives full and continuous feedback about the results of his or her actions.

(Adapted from The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman.)

on forgiveness

2007-07-04T14:09:00.000-05:00

When your lover betrays you, how do you forgive?

First, there is no forgiveness, only attempts at forgetting, denying, or rationalizing the cruelty and humiliation you've suffered: Let's not speak of it anymore; let's move on. He could never do that; don't say such lies. He's sorry; he's changed; he didn't mean it; he was drunk; he wasn't thinking clearly; he was confused; he still loves you.

The most spiteful consequence of betrayal is not the hurt feelings from the act itself, but the dehumanizing manner in which your free will has been revoked. In an instant, your ability to be an equal participant in your relationship is ended. You are left with a false choice (if any choice at all): to stay or to leave.

If you stay, and you don't wish to forget, deny, or rationalize, what do you do? If you leave, and you don't wish to forget, deny, or rationalize, what do you do?

I believe betrayal is a brand our lovers burn onto our hides. It serves as a constant reminder and acknowledgment of the offensive act. Nevertheless, we should also be reminded and acknowledge that it is an act that has lived and died in the past, like recalling the incurrence of an injury that has long healed. We need not forgive nor need we spread the betrayal like a cancer and infect our potential for happiness in the present.

a note on the type

2007-06-30T11:22:00.000-05:00

I quote, from the end matter of the hard print version of Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red:

This book was set in Fairfield Light, the first typeface from the hand of the distinguished American artist and engraver Rudolph Ruzicka (1883–1978). In its structure Fairfield displays the sober and sane qualities of this master craftsman, whose talent had long been dedicated to clarity. It is this trait that accounts for the trim grace and vigor, the spirited design and sensitive balance of this original typeface.

Unquote.

One can almost drink it, this Fairfield Light.

a daily feast

2007-06-27T13:10:00.000-05:00

One of the pleasures of staying home is watching my dad eat. When I used to work and come home in the evenings, I would worry about him because he worked so hard but ate so little (and it would take at least two hours for him to finish dinner). Now that I am home also during the day, I am privy to a different aspect of his daily routine.

It is a few minutes past 1 p.m. and my dad is already eating his third meal of the day. There will be at least two more to come later today. The meals are small: coffee and crackers for breakfast, noodles or rice at mid-morning, beer and sundry dishes for lunch; then the same, except with sake, later in the afternoon and, finally, dinner which includes beer, sake, rice, various dishes, and fruit.

about my flight

2007-06-26T11:56:00.000-05:00

At 19:30 on 20 June I stepped into a taxi to Jorge Chavez International. My flight home, scheduled for 22:50, was delayed one hour and we wouldn't take off until almost two hours later.

I was vaguely informed about the ban on liquids on US-bound flights. However, I didn't know that it extended to dulce de leche. I watched in horror as the security agent opened the factory-sealed can and fed the best caramelized milk in the world to a giant trash can. A trash can with a wide mouth and no teeth, that gorged but couldn't digest. It would be constipated with the sweet creams and savory liquids I wanted to share with family and friends, to communicate a little of what my life was like, a little of what I love and admire and will desperately miss about South America.

The security agent did the same to the lucuma jam, to the algorrobina. With all his manly strength, he couldn't open the two jars of onion and passion fruit delicacies. After 5 minutes, he discarded them whole into a bin already piled high with other terrorist-friendly contraband, like capers, toothpaste, and pisco. When he tried to discard the anchovies, the fish got stuck in the neck of the bottle and only the oil drizzled out. He took pity and let me keep the remaining fish since the jar was drained of its liquids.

I was traumatized, but not angry. The flight eventually boarded and took off. The two women who sat next to me talked too much. By then I was already numb and exhausted. I wanted to leave Peru, I already missed Peru, I wanted to come home, I didn't know where home was.

estival ether

2007-06-25T11:11:00.000-05:00

I do miss the smell of summer in Raleigh, when the trees sweat and the humid air carries the scent of their sweet sap in the languid breeze.

he vuelto

2007-06-24T22:58:00.000-05:00

After almost nine months of living and traveling in South America, I'm home. Other than the shock that my already obese cats have doubled in size, everything is as I left it.

My dad has yet to ask me anything about my adventures. When the shuttle from Newark dropped me off at our house, he helped me with my luggage, urged me to eat the 2 lbs. of cherries he has bought and washed, and reminded me that there was also watermelon in the refrigerator. Then he turned to watch the Chinese knockoff version of Larry King Live on satellite TV.

It is not that my dad doesn't care about me or what I do. Nor is it because he is an incurious person. I think it is just that what is important to him is that I am safe and that I am home. The details of how I spent the past 9 months are irrelevant—I am his daughter and there is nothing more he needs to know.

For my mom, a cactus in the desert, I am the rain. Because I am her daughter, she wants to know everything, most of all what I will do with my future and when I am getting married. I deftly dodged both questions.

I loved that I arrived on the longest day of the year. The sun rises at 5:24 and doesn't set until 20:31 and twilight lingers well past 21.

I still love my library. I visited it the first day I got back and checked out four books. It turned out that I had a fine of $1.40 from last September. When I tried to pay it, the librarian waved his hand, said "pfff" and "don't worry about it," and asked me wait at the counter just long enough so he can confirm that my record has been cleared, which took 2 seconds.

Everything else is strange. No one greets you with a kiss on the cheek. Everyone communicates in English. Cars aren't trying to run pedestrians down. I miss the music of Spanish being spoken, laughed, and sung. I'm trying to let go of the tension in my muscles when I walk in Greenwich Village after midnight carrying my laptop; I have to remind myself that I'm not in Peru anymore.

Indeed, I am not.

lima's garúa

2007-05-28T16:12:00.000-05:00

In winter, a fog, called the garúa, envelopes Lima.

The garúa holds Lima in a steady twilight throughout the day, so you can never know if the sun is rising or setting just by looking at the sky. It is thin and easily dissolves into the near background to reveal a world intensely detailed and surreally decontextualized, like having your picture taken in the third grade in the school gym, sitting in front of a gray plastic poster with a rainbow painted on and hot lights warming your cheeks.

Kenji Mizoguchi liked to use fog, as thick and meaty as merengue, to blur the boundary between reality and dream worlds. Can fantasies and desires nourish the corpus as an apple does? The garúa—a sinister, luminous blank—is not so generous. There is only one world, the garúa says. Here it is, on a silver platter, I can show you, reveal all, in minutiae, that in the one world you live in, there is no mystery, only ignorance and denial.

You are born of dying flesh, the garúa says. The moment you take breath, the only certainty in your so-called life is death, and yet you insist on calling what you do "living" instead of what it is: dying. You are born to die. There is neither mystery nor miracle to your existence.

But no, you are not satisfied with calling the period you spend dying "existence," the garúa says. You require meaning for your living, in your dying. You think existence is devoid of meaning, of purpose. And your meaning is defined by, driven by, those ephemeral dreams, fantasies, desires. In your self-estimation, you are too important to exist.

Can't you see? the garúa says. To exist is enough. Do not attempt to discover meaning in your dreams, the unsavory cud of a diseased and deluded mind. Your meaning is that you exist. Or else you will have died without ever being.

Do you want to know your future? the garúa says. Do not try to see beyond the fog. All you will find there is death. Turn your gaze to me, while you are still dying, while there is still time to die, and let me show you that you exist, in all of your splendid details.

prometheus un/bound

2007-05-24T22:16:00.000-05:00

These are men doing restoration work in Chan Chan, a tremendous complex of palaces built by the Chimu.

I think there must be a difference, difference between ordinary workers reconstructing indifferently and artists creating with vision.

I wonder how these workers can begin to comprehend what they are working on, if they understand the sanctity of their work, so out of context as they are. Which part of their souls are they offering? How many pieces have their hearts been cut up in to throw into the fire?

What does an artist ask of god and what becomes his art if his plea does not risk divine wrath and retribution?

perfect day

2007-05-23T18:18:00.000-05:00

I think I miss my friend, Valerie. I think I know this because I am obsessed with a song by The Cranberries. Yes, another one. Unless you are one of the two people who lived with me in a triple room for two years in university, you probably have no clue what I am talking about. Let me explain.

One sunny day, Valerie, cheerfully and unsuspectingly, played a CD by The Cranberries. Instantly I became addicted to "When You're Gone." It made me feel so sad. And I felt sad at the time, most of the time, at university. Listening to a sad song helped because I could hear the pain echoed back, just a little.

Valerie and Khanh can swear to the fact that I played that song over and over and over, to no relief. Hundreds, thousands—no it must have been millions!—of times I played "When You're Gone" (and to this day, I still don't know the words to the whole song).

I recently returned from a trip to Argentina. On my previous trips out of Lima, I had always been glad to return: from Venezuela, from Cusco, from Chile, from Cusco again, from Trujillo and Chiclayo. Not this time. This time is different. I am not glad to be back in Lima. Instead, I want to be back in Argentina.

Who knows why this is. In any case, I've been in a slump, for more than a week. I have sequestered myself in my room and have been playing—it seems endlessly—this second song that Valerie gifted me (accidentally).

For Valerie:

I had a dream
Strange it may seem
It was my perfect day

Open my eyes
I realize
This is my perfect day

Hope you’ll never grow old
Hope you’ll never grow old
Hope you’ll never grow old
Hope you’ll never grow old

Birds in the sky
Feeling so high
This is my perfect day

I feel the breeze
I feel at ease
It is my perfect day

Hope you’ll never grow old
Hope you’ll never grow old
Hope you’ll never grow old
Hope you’ll never grow old

Forever young
I hope you’ll stay
Forever young

the fox's secret

2007-05-18T15:34:00.000-05:00

The fox said to the Little Prince, "What is essential is invisible to the eyes" and "The time you wasted on your rose is what makes your rose so important."

Finding what is true, what is essential takes time. And the time you waste on finding that which you seek is what makes your search so important.

But never be fooled into thinking that what you seek does not already belong to you, is not already by you, does not already reside inside you.

two birds

2007-05-17T13:59:00.000-05:00

Two birds on a rock
who would sing sang not
in stillness they kept
in silence they wept
alone together.

one night of lovin'

2007-05-16T19:08:00.000-05:00

Actually, more like 30 seconds of doggie humpin'.

Humo, my canine housemate, doesn't realize it yet. He thinks that Elizabet found him a novia (translates to girlfriend but in this case a bitch) because she's being nice. She is, sort of.

You see, Humo has been getting more and more aggressive, especially during his daily walks at the neighborhood park. He tries to fight and bite any dog in sight and once even broke loose from Elizabet's lead and got into a tumble with a much bigger feral dog. Lucky for Humo, his opponent wasn't interested and no dog got hurt.

But Elizabet has had enough: enough of the barking, the pulling, the yelping, the dry humping. She got Humo a novia so he could sire Humitos and then she's going to take him to get his testicles lopped off.

Any day now the novia will be ready to receive Don Humo. But he only gets one shot. That's it. Then snip snip!

My only regret is I won't be around long enough to fully enjoy the benefits of a softer, kinder Humo. And, if he is successful, I won't get to play with the fruits of his one night of passion. Despite my complaints, I'll miss the old man either way.

tea time

2007-05-12T22:30:00.000-05:00

Our stay in Buenos Aires is drawing to a close. What I will miss most is tea time, time to sip and time to nip, time to chit and time to chat. Time to sit, time with friends. Time for seconds and minutes to work their business.

tigre

2007-05-11T22:25:00.000-05:00

If you take the train all the way north, past Belgrano (where Indra Devi has a yoga foundation and where the small—literally two blocks—Chinatown is located), past Olivos (where Valerie and the president of Argentina live and where you can find the best gelato in the world), past San Isidro (where the old money of Buenos Aires keep their quintas), you'll reach Tigre.

Tigre is the name of the town at the delta of the Paraná river. It used to be farmland and timber port. Now it is home to wealthy Argentines who can afford a weekend home or two, artists, and hundreds of poor who make their living from weaving the tall reeds that grow in the delta.

Once at Tigre, you can take a tourist boat that will show you different sights. You can also take commuter ferries that pick up and drop off passengers at docks, located in someone's backyard, instead of bus stops. Along the route, you might see supermarket boats making house calls or gasoline stations with boats parked in the water waiting to fill-'er-up-super.

We booked passage on one of these commuter ferries to Tres Bocas (Three Mouths), an area 30 minutes upriver, where we strolled along the bank, battled mosquitoes, and played with dogs before the taking of cake and tea.

On the way, we sailed past the house of Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, a president during the Argentine Republic's early years. (It's just my opinion but with a name like Domingo Faustino Sarmiento you've just got an obligation to amount to something high and mighty.) It is a quaint little yellow wood-framed farm house—enclosed in a gigantic glass and steel box. Now that's a sight!

cry protest

2007-05-10T15:58:00.000-05:00

There are frequent protests on Avenida 25 de Mayo. That's the avenue that leads to the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace.

Hospital workers, transit workers, teachers—everyone wants higher pay and better conditions. According to Valerie, many protesters are professionals, meaning they get paid to protest. The government responds to unions by giving money to the organizations which in turn use the funds to pay protesters to demand more money.

This is not always the case, I suppose. There are legitimate grievances. But my sense is that the system is corrupt and broken. There is little sympathy from the general public because 1) the tactics used by the protesters cause serious damage to innocent bystanders (like absent teachers and severe traffic disruptions) and 2) the protests are so commonplace that hardly anyone notices the reasons for the protests anymore, just the nuisance of the demonstrations.

roses at dusk

2007-05-09T17:43:00.000-05:00

Walk through the rose garden at dusk. Many are still in bloom. Like wine, each rose has its distinctive scent. Most smell like soap to me, no thanks to the many rose-scented soaps on the market.

glorified chucky cheese

2007-05-08T16:09:00.000-05:00

Back in October, I visited Caracas, Venezuela. On Carlos's recommendation, I went to the children's museum.

Though it was almost deserted of visitors, the museum was impressive. Not only was it comprehensive (it covered geology to biology to space exploration to...), the exhibits were educational and interesting and there were multiple guides on hand to demonstrate experiments and answer questions.

Because Carlos is working on building a museum in Carabayllo, we decided to visit the children's museum in Buenos Aires for ideas. We were expecting something similar to, if not better than, the museum in Caracas.

Our first clue should have been that the museum was located in a mall. Albeit it was inside the Abasto. The Abasto is a magnificent building that used to be a central market. It is located blocks away from Carlos Gardél's home and when Albert Einstein visited Buenos Aires, he made a point to visit the Abasto. Sadly it fell into disrepair and disuse and in the late-90s it was renovated and turned into the largest shopping mall in Buenos Aires.

At first, we were cheered on by the happy, vibrant colors. But quickly we realized we had been ensnared into one big advertising trap. For example, there was a child-sized MacDonald's where little Ronaldo can flip plastic burgers and serve up plastic french fries. There were exhibits by Coto (a local supermarket chain), Banco Hipotecario (local bank), Nestle, and Colgate among others.

The only remotely educational exhibit was a bit of a blooper for me. I saw a rounded white bowl and a blue ladder. I thought it was a ship. When I climbed up and saw a slide, I got excited and slid down the tube. On the way down I was eager to climb the ladder and do it again.

To my horror, when I reached bottom there was no way out. I was obliged to crawl through a plastic tube for some minutes before florescent lights shined sweet cool rays on me once more. It turned out, I had flushed myself down a gigantic toilet bowl, crawled through sewer pipes, and washed out into a treatment tank: I got to experience the life-cycle of poop. Yay! (I think.)

carlos [heart] cat

2007-05-07T15:59:00.000-05:00

Carlos is allergic to cats and don't care for them in general. But it doesn't have to be this way. There's medication he can take. Plus, he's naturally gifted with a warm, snug lap, which would be a shame if it went to waste. The cat's happy. You can be, too, Carlos.

feria del libro

2007-05-06T20:00:00.000-05:00

It is the largest book fair in the world: The 33rd International Book Fair in Buenos Aires. For two weeks, citizens of the world—1.2 million of them—descend on La Rural* and buy millions of dollars worth of books.

The crowd there was thicker than the 6 train at rush hour. We loved it. We loved browsing through shelves and boxes and piles of books, from serious academic titles to forgettable fluff. There were also lectures, discussions, and book signings, which we didn't have time to attend. What we loved most was being among others—individuals, couples, families with children**—who also loved books and loved to read.

*La Rural is like the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York, except 100 times more beautiful and 100 million times cooler. It had its beginnings as an animal auction and still hosts annual animal fairs.

**I never thought I would be so glad to see so many children at an event.

radio colifata

2007-05-05T18:55:00.000-05:00

Each Saturday from 3 p.m. until 6 or 7 p.m. the patients at the mental hospital, Jose Borda, put on a radio show.

Hospital Borda, located in the southern part of Buenos Aires, is a sprawling complex of concrete buildings and occasional courtyards. In one corner of a nondescript courtyard, underneath a scatter of trees, on a patch of shabby grass, patients interview live audience members, play guitar, sing, dance, recite poetry. Millions tune in.

Colifata means crazy, in the most positive sense, like crazy-wonderful, crazy-inspired, crazy-fabulous. Alfredo Olivera, a psychologist, created the program as a form of therapy for his patients. He produces, directs, and moderates the show.

Carlos and I arrived around 3 p.m. There was already a crowd of patients, psychologists, and the curious gathered, sitting on plastic stools in semi-circles around a fold-out table with the radio equipment. Almost immediately, patients approached us, greeted us with a customary kiss on the cheek, and welcomed us.

Three hours later, the sun set. Our fingers froze and our rumps ached. There was still a queue of patients waiting to present the materials they've prepared during the week. The doctors hung up storm lights on branches as we got up and waved good-bye.

cabaña las lilas

2007-05-04T14:22:00.000-05:00

We splurged. Cabaña las Lilas is one of the fancier restaurants in Buenos Aires. They raise their own cattle and have a reputation for fine beef. The atmosphere was casual, the service was prompt and attentive, and the bill breathtaking (especially for two unemployed soon-to-be students).

A note about food service in Argentina: It is consistently excellent. Anywhere you go, for the most part, waiters are knowledgeable and professional (though most don't smile and the real professionals don't use pads to write down orders) and the food comes quickly.

cementerio recoleta

2007-05-03T17:37:00.000-05:00

The cemetery in Recoleta is possibly my favorite place to visit in Buenos Aires. The who's who of Argentina politics, culture, and business rest here.

Each tomb is unique and the architectural styles usually reflect the period in which they were built. Underground are additional storage spaces two or three levels deep. What we see on the surface represents only a fraction of the dead in Recoleta.

The most exclusive and expensive property in Argentina, probably in the world, is in this cemetery. (In 2004, a plot sold for about $300,000.) Space rarely opens up because most plots have a perpetuity clause. This means that the land is in the family for eternity. Neither the city, the state, nor the country have any claims to that land. Families who own the plot contract caretakers to clean and maintain the tombs. Unfortunately, when family lines end, it also means that there is no one left to care for the tombs and they often fall into disrepair and there is nothing anyone can legally do about it.

Ironically, Recoleta was originally settled by the Recoleto branch of the Franciscan order who practiced poverty and extreme mortification. They built their church on the outskirts of town, some miles north of the center of Buenos Aires. When plague struck in the late-1800s, wealthy families moved north, permanently transforming Recoleta into the most exclusive and opulent neighborhood in Buenos Aires.

Thanks to Evita, starring Madonna, Eva Peron's tomb is the most visited in the cemetery. Actually, she did not wish to buried in Recoleta because of its association with the rich and powerful. For security reasons (at some point, her body went missing for 17 years and was eventually discovered under a false name in Italy) her coffin is sealed in concrete and buried four levels deep in the family tomb.

Like the fascinating lives they lead as rich and famous people, there are fascinating tales of death here too. An 18-year-old woman from a wealthy family suffered an cataleptic episode. Her doctor pronounced her dead and ordered her entombed. When the girl woke from her trance, she found herself sealed inside her coffin. The girl's grandmother, who always had her doubts, eventually was able to arranged for the body to be exhumed. They found scratch marks inside the coffin and an autopsy revealed that the girl had died of asphyxiation.

ciencias naturales

2007-05-02T17:28:00.000-05:00

Pilar is a biologist and works in the ornithology department at the natural science museum. She gave Valerie, Carlos, and me a personal tour of the bird collections in the basement where they clean, stuff, and catalog birds they bring back from field trips.

It was amazing. There were closets filled with drawers filled with stiff, puffed, and perfectly preserved birds, some dating back to the early 19th century. The smell of mothballs, too, was overpowering.

After our private tour, we visited the museum proper. There was a short hallway lined with aquariums inhabited by depressed fish. There was a room filled with colorful seashells. There were several rooms of giant marine and dinosaur fossils. Apparently, Argentina is rich with dinosaur fossils. Looking at the gigantic skeletons, I saw a resemblance between the saurians and me. Even though we have different numbers of vertebrae and theirs are generally much larger than mine, I saw that the shape and function remained similar. I never thought I had much in common with a lizard, even knowing the statistic that our DNA sequence is about 98% identical. But seeing the rib cage, the metatarsals, the jaw, the eye sockets, I felt strange and as if I was only a smaller, slightly misshapened extant version of the mighty beast.

fat cats & drunken sticks

2007-05-02T17:12:00.000-05:00

In the garden of the natural science museum are a tree called palo borracho meaning "drunken stick" and tens of cats. The cats are fixed and fat. Perhaps they are fat because they are storing up insulation for the approaching winter; perhaps they are fat because ladies who come by to feed them each day give them too much food. However fat they are, I'm sure they are still a quarter of the size of my two fat cats at home.

choripan

2007-05-01T14:10:00.000-05:00

In New York, you can get hotdogs and pretzels on the street. In Buenos Aires, street vendors grill succulent sausage, beef, and pork. We stopped at this station and ate three meatwiches while we waited out the rain.

el ateneo

2007-04-30T23:22:00.000-05:00

El Ateneo is the name of the largest bookstore in South America. There are three locations in Buenos Aires. This one is on Santa Fe street in a renovated theater.

las madres de plaza de mayo

2007-04-30T23:17:00.000-05:00

Today is the 30th anniversary of the first protest march by mothers of the Desaparecidos. During the Dirty War, over 30,000 people disappeared. In 1977, mothers of the Desaparecidos gathered around the Plaza de Mayo, in front of the presidential palace, demanding to know what happened to their sons and daughters.

Over the decades, the mothers have garnered recognition internationally for their cause as well as political leverage nationally. Many of them are now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s.

During today's celebration, the mothers sat on a stage, wearing their uniform of a white head-kerchief, clapped along to music bands, and waved Venezuelan flags.

Valerie tells me that the current leader of the mothers has aligned the group with the left-leaning government. And because Argentina has allied itself with Venezuela, that was the reason for the Venezuelan flags.

The mothers might finally get concessions from the government and the government might get street creds by their association with the mothers. Call it a win-win deal. But I was disturbed.

Of course the movement has always been a political one. It stemmed from a reaction to twisted ideological policies and its main aim is to affect policy. Yet fundamentally—mothers searching for answers, asking to know what happened to their children, hoping to bury what parts remain before they themselves are interred—this has nothing to do with politics.

The event felt like a pep rally or a rock festival. I definitely expected the observance to be much more somber. But then, I've always been a party-pooper.

city proper

2007-04-30T22:48:00.000-05:00

The last time I was in Buenos Aires was five years ago, soon after 9/11 and the Argentine economic crash. Not much as changed. The city is just as grand and beautiful and vital as ever.

After a quick tea upon touch down and a weekend in the Pampas, today was the first day Carlos and I spent in the city proper.

I loved rambling, through wide boulevards and 100 million plazas, matching the physical spaces I re-encounter to the images of my memory. I didn't quite know where I was going, but I could feel what the right direction was. I imagined that an elephant preparing to die might feel this way—except I am not an elephant nor am I prepared to die.

long shadows

2007-04-29T17:22:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it is because we live in cities and tall buildings block our view and noisy traffic distract our attention. The fact is that the sun casts long shadows. Did you know?

let's go fly a kite...

2007-04-28T22:43:00.000-05:00

Arrecifes is a small town 2.5 hours north of Buenos Aires in the Pampas. Colo, Valerie's boyfriend, invited us to spend the weekend on his family's farm.

There's a lot to do in the campo. Let's see... we slept in, ate breakfast (which took some hours and when we finished, we headed into town for lunch), flew a kite, laid around, chopped wood, breathed in fresh air, petted days-old bunnies, and cooked meat.

A note about chopping wood: when I was a guest at the campo five years ago, I chopped wood and almost blinded myself when a thin branch ricocheted, flew at my face, broke my glasses, and cut my eye. Now, the woodshed is forbidden territory to me. The folk at the campo still talk about it and remember me well because of it. Back to the story...

It was Francisco's birthday (he is Valerie's friend from high school) and we celebrated with an asado and apple pie. Asado is like a BBQ—Argentine style. First, you start a fire. Then, you take the charcoal and set it aside. You place a grill atop the charcoal and delicious meats atop the grill. The meat here is so good that I have vowed to never eat (red) meat outside of Argentina.

dulce de leche

2007-04-28T10:24:00.000-05:00

Finally, I've figured it out: the difference between dulce de leche and manjar. Both terms refer to a caramelized milk product, usually sandwiched between two cookies or spread on bread; dulce de leche is the preferred label by Argentines and manjar by Peruvians.

Dulce de leche, after soup and watermelon, is probably my favorite food in the world. It tastes like caramelized sweet condensed milk. In my opinion, dulce de leche is far superior to manjar, which is sweeter and not as dense nor aromatic.

(We finished the tub in four days.)

submarino

2007-04-27T19:25:00.000-05:00

One of the best things about Buenos Aires is its café culture. Every day, around 6 p.m., Argentines take tea (or coffee). It's a leftover British tradition.

Valerie treated us to tea time. The two semi-round things in front are bolas, kind of like empanadas except shaped like balls. That drink you see is called a submarino (submarine) where chocolate bars are drowned in hot milk. Not pictured is a phenomenon consisting of a layer of thin fudgy brownie, a layer of dulce de leche, and topped with a layer of fudgy chocolate.

nontoxic poison

2007-04-27T17:14:00.000-05:00

Just before we landed in Argentina, the flight crew informed us that the cabin will be sprayed with a nontoxic insecticide.

Call me a fuddy-duddy, a stickler for language, but I would like to know how any poison can be nontoxic. Perhaps they meant that the deleterious chemical won't kill humans, only insects. But that still made the insecticide toxic.

touch

2007-04-25T19:07:00.000-05:00

My mind wanders, sometimes. Most times. Yesterday, I thought about touch and how it is the only sense we have.

Smell, taste, sight, and hearing are all passive forms of touch. The receptors in our nose are touched by gas molecules, the buds on our tongues are touched by chemicals, the nerves in our eyes are touched by sunlight, and the hairs in our ears are touched by waving air.

And then there is touch, the kind that we shun and crave, the kind that lets us reach out and hurt or heal.

ithaka

2007-04-24T23:04:00.000-05:00

I feel I am at a crossroads, and I know I have company. I offer you "Ithaka" by Cavafy and I offer my friend Sang infinite thanks for sending him my way.

As you set out for Ithaka
hope the voyage is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
angry Poseidon—don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians and Cyclops,
wild Poseidon—you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind—
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities to
gather stores of knowledge from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.

Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you would not have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

neon pink and pale mauve

2007-04-23T23:04:00.001-05:00

It is fall here in Lima. That was why when I looked up and saw a tree in bloom, I was surprised. Trees in autumn don't bloom. Leaves turn red and orange and yellow and fall.

Intensely pink petals littered the night sky instead of stars. Lights from the casino marquee cast a neon glow on the flowers. I was arrested, for a moment, by the glowing, pulsating petals floating in the yellow and mauve smog, then reached for my camera and clicked.

work for it

2007-04-19T14:58:00.000-05:00

Last night Carlos and I had dinner and drinks with a friend and his mom who is visiting Peru. The conversation turned to the prolific displays of public affection throughout Lima, which often involve fervent spit-swapping. Carlos asked Jesse and Jesse's mom, Susan, if they have noticed the ardent, histrionic lovers. This is how I remember part of our conversation:

Susan: Yes...

Jesse: In Minnesota you're lucky if you get to touch a finger to someone's elbow in public. That's why we go to the movies.

Susan: Yes, in Minnesota, we have to work for it.

If you don't get it, oh well, you had to be there.

pool party

2007-04-15T20:30:00.000-05:00

Socios volunteers and their extended family of friends and colleagues playing Marco Polo at a pool at a swank hotel in San Isidro, a nice part of Lima where I know of at least two Starbucks (and where there is valet parking at one of them).

bacteria, brisas, and bye-byes

2007-04-14T18:30:00.000-05:00

Mimi came back from Cusco on Friday morning and fell sick. It could be the change in altitude, catching up with her, or contaminated food or water, catching up with her. In any case, she spent the day curled in a fetal position in bed when she wasn't running to the bathroom.

By evening, after a remedy of soup, medicine, and rest, she felt better if weak. We had plans to celebrate her last night in Lima by going to a peña called Brisas de Titicaca and now we had to go without her.

A peña is a dance show with live music. Customers sit at tables arranged around a dance floor. When the professional dancers stop, amateur aficionados take over and party till they drop.

The dancers were decked out in incredible costumes, polyester and sequins in an array of neon colors that glittered more brightly than the dancers' sparkly smiles. And smile they did, for four whole hours, the length of the show. They smiled, brightly and convincingly, even during the most difficult dances. The most impressive, in my opinion, was the scissor dance.

Men holding prop scissors danced, jumped, and contorted. Think break-dancing with elements of yoga and the kossack dance. They did flips, stood on their head, and jumped on one foot while the other was wrapped somewhere around their bodies. When they finished, they were still smiling. Amazing.

We left at 3 a.m., and early exit since the dance floor was open until 5 a.m., but Carlos had to wake up at 6:30 a.m. to go to work.

Saturday, we had big plans for Mimi. We were going to take her to visit Carlos's work, present her to the volunteers, show her the farmer's market, and eat a giant alfajor cake before her flight home at 10:55 p.m.

But when I arrived in the morning to pick her up, she was already packing. It turned out that her flight left Lima at 5:30 p.m. (10:55 p.m. was her second leg from Bogotá to New York). We hustled. In the end, Mimi only had time to visit Carlos's work, which was enough. We hurried home, hurriedly ate lunch, and hurried to the airport. And we said good-bye.

the flavor north

2007-04-13T11:56:00.000-05:00

We noticed some differences in the cuisine when we went north.

In Chiclayo and Trujillo, the ceviche is simple–salt, lime, aji, onions–which produces a clean, pure taste. The texture, flavor, and freshness of the fish stand out. In Lima, the ceviche is more spiced; in addition to the above, cooks add a combination of garlic, ginger, celery, and cilantro.

Though, northerners sometimes make a creamy sauce from aji, eggs, and oil and pour it over the ceviche. It has a creamy, tangy flavor which should appeal to mayonnaise fans. (I'm not a mayonnaise fan.)

What surprised us most was the causa. Causa is a mashed potato dish that comes with chicken, fish, or vegetables. We were accustomed to causa Limeña, a somewhat sculpted affair: mashed potatoes in the shape of a rectangle, circle, ball, triangle, fish with filling in the middle. I've even seen it served like sushi rolls.

Causa Norteña is an entirely different matter. Underneath heaping portions of onions and aji is an entire fish (bones, head, and all). And under the fish is mashed potatoes, which is savory though somewhat soupy, unlike the grainy and tart Limeña version.

One final note, I found the best mandarins in Trujillo: seedless, easy to peel, fragrant, sweet, tangy, juicy. When I went back to find the fruit stand to buy more, the lady disappeared and I thought that perhaps it was a dream. But I looked down and saw the peels I still held in my hands, waking me, mocking me. Would it have been better to have tasted and lost than to never have tasted at all?

drive me crazy

2007-04-12T19:29:00.000-05:00

So the light changed and the little green man indicated that it was my turn to go. A woman in a car tried to make a right turn and honked her horn at me. To add insult to injury, she motioned with her index and middle fingers (like the V for victory sign) to her eyes, gesturing that I should watch where I was going. The light was green! I was walking straight!! She was turning!!! In a car!!!! I thought I was going to explode!!!!!

honey honey bee

2007-04-11T12:46:00.000-05:00

At a honey stand in a market in Trujillo. I thought bees only liked flowers.

chiclayo & trujillo

2007-04-10T14:02:00.001-05:00

In planning Mimi's itinerary, we decided to travel up Peru's coast to Chiclayo and Trujillo to visit pre-Inca ruins in preparation for the Inca sites in Cusco and Machu Picchu. Happily Carlos had four days off of work for Holy Week.

We took a bus for the 12-hour ride to Chiclayo. The bus we took was no Greyhound. We enjoyed first-class service with large comfortable, reclining chairs and a pretty attendant who hosted a bingo game. It wasn't perfect because, frankly, I thought playing bingo on a bus was weird, the food was terrible, and the beverages were unimaginative–sweet soda, sweet coffee, and sweet tea. However, most importantly, the bus was on time and we arrived safely.

I admit, I was very excited to go on this trip. I love love LOVE! pre-Inca art, particularly art by the Moche. And Chiclayo and Trujillo are abound with their remnants. So, as soon as we stepped off the bus, we headed to Lambayeque, a town 10 km north of Chiclayo, to visit the Museo de Tumbes Reales.

The Museo de Tumbes Reales displays treasures recovered from the royal tombs of two kings from the Moche culture. It is one of the most impressive museums I have visited, not just for its treasures but also for its design, display, and descriptions. The museum itself is built in the form of a pyramid. Replicas of tombs, skeletons and all, are placed inside the museum in locations that correspond to their actual locations in the real royal tomb. There is also a room with life-sized characters from the royal court–king, guards, warriors, wives, children, servants, and dog. Residents from the Chiclayo area were carefully chosen to serve as models and artisans created all the costumes and props using local cotton, wood, and metals.

After two hours, we headed to Túcume, a town 20 km north of Lambayeque. We checked into our hotel, Los Horcones, which is located in the backyard of the Túcume ruins. Los Horcones is a beautiful space. The owner is an architect and designed the rooms himself. We played on the hammocks, strolled the grounds, picked guava (looks like a gigantic green bean with sweet white pulp), and gazed at the Milky Way at night.

Los Horcones left an impression on me in other ways too. The next morning, I wore shorts to breakfast. Vicious mosquitoes attacked me and in less than 15 minutes I counted 30 bites. It turned out that I was allergic to their venom. The following day all the bites swelled into quarter and half-dollar sized bumps. Now the itchiness and swelling have subsided, but I am left with what look like jumbo hickeys on my legs.

After breakfast, we visited the Túcume ruins, which are a complex of 26 pyramids. The pyramids come in two sizes: big and bigger. This picture shows the Huaca Larga (long pyramid) on the right, another pyramid in the distance, and the Lambayeque Valley (and of course Mimi). Huaca Larga measures 700 meters (2,300 feet) and is the longest adobe structure found to date.

Because the pyramids are constructed from adobe, they looked like mountains that have melted. The Lambayeque culture built Túcume after they mysteriously fled and abandoned another city. Túcume was a sacred ceremonial, burial, and healing site. There is evidence that the Chimú, who conquered the Lambayeque, and Inca, who conquered the Chimú, used Túcume too. However, when the Spaniards arrived, they renamed the complex "Purgatorio" and claimed that it was the gateway to purgatory.

We fled purgatory shortly before noon, ate lunch, and made our way back to Chiclayo to take a bus to Trujillo. The three hour ride down the dessert coast littered with garbage, sand, villages, and ruins was uneventful; we slept through most of it. When we arrived in Trujillo, it was already dark. We ate at a cafe recommended by our guidebook. The food was absolutely awful. Mimi ordered a chicken sandwich and they presented her with a grilled chicken platter. I am sure that if we had sampled the sand on the highway to Trujillo, it would have had more flavor than the chicken, and better texture.

Our hostel was in Huanchaco, a beach town 15 km north of Trujillo. The hostel was guarded by the fattest dog I have ever seen. Yes, she is hairy. But underneath all that hair is fat. Mimi slept in a regular room and Carlos and I rented a tent and reposed in a small camping area. Next time, we plan to bring our own tent and camp on the beach, just a hop and a skip away.

Like Chiclayo, Trujillo is rich with pre-Inca ruins and we were poor on time. After an unsatisfactory breakfast at the hostel, I felt like I had woken up on the wrong side of the sleeping bag and was irritable. (We were the only customers and waited 25 minutes for three cooks to prepare scrambled eggs, coffee, and untoasted bread.)

However, once we arrived in Chan Chan, my exasperation evaporated like humidity in dessert. Chan Chan is an expansive complex of palaces built by the Chimú. (Think of the Chimú as the middle child: Moche, Chimú, Inca.)

Each palace had ceremonial spaces, living quarters, and commerce areas. The Chimú did not have doors or stairs. Instead, they had open portals and ramps. Rooms in the palace connected to each other through a labryinth-like system of long hallways. The layout of the Tschudi Palace, the most well-preserved and restored palace, reminded me a lot of the Forbidden City in Bei Jing. The Tschudi Palace, with 11 major rooms is not even the largest of the palaces. The smallest palace in Chan Chan has eight rooms and the largest has about 30 rooms. So, just imagine a city of Forbidden Cities.

After the death of a Chimú king, his palace was converted into a mausoleum. The mummified body of the king along with human and animal sacrifices, food, ceramics, gold, and other necessities for the afterlife were sealed in the palace, and the succeeding king built, lived, and governed in a new palace.

Chan Chan is so big that it would take a day to visit all the ruined palaces. We had to press on. A taxi dropped us off at the Plaza de Armas in Trujillo. There is a big fountain with a skinny naked man statue on top. Our guidebook suggested that his face resembled Simón Bolívar, the great South American liberator; I thought the man carried the expression of someone who had to pee badly. After a visit to the church and drinks at the fancy Libertador Hotel, we ate ceviche at the nearby Plaza de Recreo.

It had started to drizzle when we arrived at Huaca de la Luna, a Moche ruin 10 km south of Trujillo. Huaca de la Luna contains beautifully painted murals. The Moche worshiped the moon and considered the sun a secondary diety. Because the Moche lived close to the sea and the moon controlled the tides, the moon was important in their lives. Living in the dessert heat, they did not consider a hot sun exactly a boon. For this reason, the Huaca de la Luna was used for religious ceremonies while the nearby Huaca del Sol was an administrative space.
We went back to Trujillo and happened upon an Easter Parade, of sorts. It was Good Friday and the locals were bearing an idol of the dead Jesus through the streets of Trujillo. It was creepy and fascinating.

We followed the crowd for two blocks then ducked into Café El Museo for delicious hot chocolate. The classy and cozy cafe had a wooden bar, antique cash register, leather benches.

Above it is a toy museum, Museo de los Jugetes, with playthings that span time and distance from Western toy cars, teddy bears, and train sets to pre-Inca dolls.

Mimi was tired and went back to the hostel in Huanchaco. I was still hungry so Carlos and I went to a pizza joint recommended by a friend. We ordered pizza with salty anchovies and drank sangria while we waited for our food. Then, we returned to the hostel too. That night, like the night before, we fell asleep to the roar of the ocean.

Bright and early next morning, we exited our hostel, crossed the street, and hit the beach. The water was frigid and the waves were rough and tall–perfect for surfing. We didn't have time for surfing (there were more old things to see) but Carlos managed to get out to sea by signing up for a 10 minute ride on a reed boat. The boats are called Caballitos de Tortora; tortora is the name of the tall reed that grows in the valley.

The locals are trying to promote tourism in Huachaco. Fisherman head out to sea before dawn to catch fish. In the late morning, they mend their boats on the beach and offer rides to tourists to supplement their income. At s/ 5 per ride, it's a pretty good earning; but with so many competing ride-givers, the fishermen don't end up making much. (So they say!)

Our last day in Trujillo and there was one last, must-see museum I wanted to visit: Museo Cassinelli. Located in the basement of a gas station, it contains the largest collection of ceramics in northern Peru. The priceless ceramics were stacked on wooden shelves, protected from inquiring fingers and greedy thieves by wire netting.

Our guide explained the different styles of ceramics: Moche ceramics were sculpted or painted. They came in human, animal, and vegetable shapes, and some depicted diseases like leprosy, cleft lip, amputation, and conjoined twins. Nasca (southern culture contemporary with the Moche in the north) ceramics were painted in many different colors. Etc.

There was a collection of erotic pieces too. Our guide made a point to emphasize that the erotic ceramics were not intended as pornography. They were fertility symbols. (Imagine a Moche man waiting for the arrival of his monthly subscription of ceramics wrapped in brown paper. Well, that didn't happen.)

The erotic collection depicted heterosexual, homosexual, and animal sex, along with plenty of attention-grabbing phalli (apparently, brides drank from those on their wedding night). Sexually transmitted diseases were also represented; there was a vessel showing a man with a rash on his bum and a woman holding her nose to the smelly infection. I asked our guide how homosexual sex is a symbol of fertility when men can't conceive. He explained that conception wasn't important; the sex act was the point.

The end. My desire to behold pre-Inca art had been satisfied. Thoroughly. With the images from the Cassinelli collection vividly imprinted in my memory, like the sharp scent of sweet mandarins, I am happy as a goat.

(oh, right, and I hope my traveling companions had a good time too.)

natural gas taxi

2007-04-09T15:04:00.000-05:00

I just returned from a four-day trip to northern Peru and I have many things to report. But, first things first...

Last night, I rode in a station wagon style taxi with a gas tank stored in the trunk. Carlos had told me, just earlier the same day, that because the price of oil is so expensive in Peru, taxi drivers use natural gas to fuel their cars. I was intrigued and voluntarily made conversation with a stranger.

The taxi driver explained that a tank of natural gas can fuel a car for about 200 km (124 miles) and cost about s/ 22 ($7); to go the same distance by using regular oil, it would cost about s/ 60 ($19). That makes oil almost three times more expensive than natural gas.

Our driver drives about 300 km each day, seven days a week. Over the course of a year, he saves about s/ 20,805 ($6,605) by using natural gas. Apparently, natural gas is also cleaner for the environment.

When I think of natural gas, my mind immediately jumps to gas stoves. Our driver explained that it wasn't the case. The natural gas used for cars is very different from the gas used for cooking. There is a pipeline connecting the source of the gas to the gas station. At the station, a special machine is used to deliver pressurized gas into the car.

I don't know how safe it is having pressurized gas in a moving vehicle, especially in Lima where the traffic is relentless and the driving is aggressive and unpredictable, but having mini explosions in your engine (which is how oil-fueled cars work) seems equally dangerous to imagine.

Two things struck me when I spoke to the driver. One is how hard he works. He drives 16 hours each day, seven days a week. On and off, driving a taxi has been his career for 34 years. Though he rarely gets to spend time with this family, which includes a wife and three sons (three tigers he calls them for their ravenous appetite), he works hard in order to support them. (He jokes that each night he returns home, it's like being in a stickup. He holds up his hands as his wife frisks him for his earnings. And if the money doesn't leave him, then his woman will.)

The second thing is that developing affordable, renewable alternative fuels makes sense economically and environmentally. The Incas worshipped the sun–the ultimate renewable and free fuel. Therefore, as I am scribbling this post, I am puzzled at the notion of an energy crisis. It seems to me this is more a crisis of will. The sun is still shining and is not going away for another few billion years.

easter on the plaza

2007-04-08T20:07:00.000-05:00

Our bus from Trujillo pulled into the Lima station at 7 a.m. We were exhausted from the 8-hour ride. Even so, time was precious. Mimi, Carlos's mom, is visiting Peru. We wanted to show her all the important sites and decided on the Plaza de Armas.

(Lima, contrary to its reputation, has many hidden and exposed gems. It is worth visiting Lima for a few days if only to have room in your tummy to try all the fantastic food and first-rate restaurants.)

We took a bus from Miraflores to Central Lima and walked to the Plaza de Armas. Central Lima is dirty, crowded, and noisy. The major throughway, Abancay, is filled with black exhaust from taxis, jitneys, and buses. Rude, ear-piercing honks penetrate the airspace. Oblivious tourists and plodding pedestrians clog the sidewalks. Lights seem to take forever to change.

The stroll to the Plaza de Armas took us past majestic edifices that recalled Lima's past stature as the capital of South America. (Well, sort of. Lima was the center of colonial Spain's South American export ventures, mostly in pillaged gold and other cultural artifacts.) Underneath the grime and past the emaciated beggars, I imagined that Lima's past splendor could be today's reality. Oh well.

Once we reached the Plaza, the din from Abancay died and the air was filled with the soothing murmur of lovers, click of cameras, and woosh of car tires. The Cathedral of Lima was closed, on Easter Sunday of all days, but the small adjacent chapel was open for services.

We admired the intricately carved balconies and exquisite facades of the church and presidential palace. Though, according to the Lonely Planet guidebook, not one original building remains in the Plaza de Armas from its initial founding due to successive earthquakes.

It was already 3 p.m. before we stopped to eat lunch. We started with pisco sours and causa limeña (mashed potatoes layered with crab meat and avocado in this case, but can be filled with chicken, vegetables, fish, or shrimp). I ordered ravioli, Mimi tried lomito with anticucho sauce (filet cut with beef heart sauce), Bello got a pork thing, and Carlos chose the classic lomo saltado (filet cubes sautéed with onions and tomatoes and served with rice and french fries).

By the time we returned to the Plaza, a crowd had gathered in front of the presidential palace. Inside the gates, a navy band played traditional Peruvian ditties. Eventually, they came out of the gates, marched across the Plaza, lined up in front of the Cathedral, and played for another half hour while uniformed men with rifles joined them and did fancy things with their feet and rifles.

We went home after that.

pachacamac

2007-04-03T17:54:00.000-05:00

Mimi, Carlos's mom, is visiting Peru. Today, we toured Pachacamac, an important ruin just south of Lima.

Pachacamac was like the oracle at Delphi. Important figures from different cultures over the centuries came to Pachacamac to make offerings, seek advice, and consult the future. It was one of most sacred religious site for pre-Inca as well as Inca kings.

When Pizarro captured and ransomed Atahualpa, the king of the Incas, gold pieces from Pachacamac were melted and delivered to the Spaniards stationed in Cajamarca. Upon receiving the gold, which filled many rooms, the Spaniards killed Atahualpa. (On a side note, the Spanish king was furious at Pizarro for ordering the death of Atahualpa. Charles V believed that only a king had the authority to execute another king.)

When Pizarro learned where the gold had come from, he immediately rode for Pachacamac. He arrived three weeks later and made his way to the main temple. Pizarro found the oracle (a carved totem pole) in a small room and was decidedly unimpressed, calling the room moldy and the stick ugly.

hairless dog

2007-04-03T17:09:00.000-05:00

This is a Peruvian hairless dog. It is hairless except for a tuft on the head and tail. The breed is officially recognized by major kennel clubs.

At Pachacamac, at least two viringos, as they are sometimes called, resided at the ruins. This one followed us on our tour. Generally, she didn't like to standstill for photos but craved getting petted. I touched one while I was in Cusco and was turned off because that doggy felt oily. Perhaps it is the hot dessert air, but this dog didn't feel yucky.

care package

2007-04-01T22:11:00.000-05:00

Mimi, Carlos's mom, arrived today. With her is a care package from my dad. I had requested instant noodles (the next best thing to homemade noodle soup) and a peanut cocktail (a Shanghai specialty made from peanuts fried and mixed with seaweed).

I expected some packages of my favorite brands of instant noodles and a small jar of peanuts. Instead, my dad had packed a case full of instant noodles (he loves the stuff too) and a gigantic jar of peanuts that I don't think I will be able to finish by myself in my lifetime. He also included a small container of white pepper. I am somewhat overwhelmed and very amused. It is just like my dad to send me a year's worth of supplies when I have only a bit over a month left in Lima.

more martina

2007-03-30T12:32:00.000-05:00

She is so fuzzy. I can't stand it!

pink grapefruit

2007-03-29T18:32:00.000-05:00

The sunset today. I felt an urge to daub it with butter, sprinkle it with brown sugar, and broil it for 10 minutes until warm and the sugar slightly caramelized.

aji de gallina

2007-03-28T23:51:00.000-05:00

This is Jovana. She is 20 years old and lives in Carabayllo. Jovana has kindly agreed to be my chef-guru and will teach me to make all sorts of yummy traditional Peruvian dishes. (Carlos arranged the lessons in preparation for our imminent departure; when we leave Peru, we want to be sufficiently stocked with recipes to reproduce the fantastic meals that we've enjoyed here.) Today's lesson is ají de gallina.

Oh, and this is Martina. She belongs to the family, is incredibly soft, and has the cutest teeth. I am already in love with her, but she is only allowing me to touch her because she thinks I'm going to give her more lettuce. Back to ají de gallina...

Ají de gallina, simply stated, is chicken in a cream sauce. Shredded boiled chicken is drowned in a creamy sauce made from ají amarillo, stale bread, soda crackers, and milk. Here's how:

Stage One: Boil Everything

1. In a pot, boil potatoes with their skins on until cooked. Peel and slice in half just before serving.

2. Remove the skin from the chicken and cut into hand-sized pieces. In a second pot, add a lot of salt and boil the chicken until cooked yet still tender. Fish out the chicken and allow it to cool on a plate. Reserve the stock.

3. Remove the seeds and veins from the ají and rinse. In a third pot, boil the ají until the color changes into a paler shade of orange, about 10 minutes.

Stage Two: Soak and Blend Everything

4. Roughly chop the ají and place in a blender. Add chicken stock to the same level as the ají and blend well. Pour out the mixture and set aside.

5. Soak stale bread and soda crackers in equal parts evaporated milk and chicken stock. After 10 minutes of soaking, blend the concoction and set aside.

Stage Three: Put It Together

6. Shred the chicken by hand and set aside.

7. In a big pot, sauté diced onions in oil until translucent. Add the ají mixture and shredded chicken and simmer together for a few minutes. Add the bread-crackers-milk mixture, turn down the heat, and cook for another few minutes.

8. Plate with rice, lettuce, potato, ají de gallina, and olive.

Variations

I suppose any favorite pepper can substitute for ají amarillo, though no other pepper can truly duplicate the ají's unique combination of sweet and tangy. Though we haven't tried this yet, but I imagine that soy milk could be an apt alternative to evaporated milk, particularly for the lactose intolerant. And, of course, there's always fake chicken meat and vegetable stock for those seeking a vegetarian option. I haven't been able to confirm this, but I swear I've tasted peanuts in some versions of the recipe; you can probably add the peanuts at step 4 above.

A note about the ají. Even though the pepper is very spicy with its seeds and veins, the traditional version of this dish is deliberately not spicy. However, if there are no Peruvians around (not that Peruvians don't like spicy, they just don't make ají de gallina spicy), you could leave some veins intact to add a nice kick to the dish.

I am incredibly grateful to have been welcomed into Jovana's home and taught how to cook. For me, this was a privilege and a rare experience. It was also an experience that I actively pursued and could walk away from.

The fact is, the cooking conditions at the house were far from ideal. There was no running water to wash hands, equipment, and food. I was horrified that we used the same chopping board and knife to prepare meat and vegetables, without a thorough washing in between. While I was able to rinse my hands in a bowl, I was only going through the motions of food safety because there was no bacteria killing soap or alcohol available.

In a recent lecture by Dave Gordon on the human right to health, he mentioned the inverse care law, a term coined in the 1970s by a Welsh doctor. The inverse care law describes "the general observation that the availability of good medical care tends to vary inversely with the needs of the population served. This means the poorest tend to get the worst care and the least of it." This law, I can see, also applies to preventing illness. Those with the least means to afford and gain access to quality healthcare tend to live in conditions with the greatest exposure to catching and suffering from illness.

I just don't see why people like me should be able to use gallons of fresh running water to flush a toilet while people like Jovana can't have fresh running water to wash food. In a 1995 report by the World Health Organization, they argued that the greatest killer in the world and the greatest cause of ill-health in the world is poverty. Indeed, "7 out of 10 childhood deaths in developing countries can be attributed to five causes or combination of them: pneumonia, diarrhea, measles, malaria, and malnutrition... All these conditions can be treated for...less than a dollar."

The right to clean water is a right to life. If I think about it in these terms, then it is plain to me that I have not earned more of a right to life than Jovana. Then why is it that things are the way they are?

housemate hostilities

2007-03-13T17:30:00.000-05:00

I confess: I have hate in my heart for Humo, the dog I live with.

Last Sunday, Carlos made a beautiful sandwich with serrano ham, salami, smoked goat cheese, and sliced tomato, and Humo ate it.

We left the sandwich unguarded for two minutes, during which time he sneaked into my room and finished with it. But he didn't just gorge the sandwich wholesale. Nope, he carefully picked off the serrano ham, leaving the bread, tomatoes, cheese, and salami.

If this was his first and only offense, then I might have sighed and moved on. But tension between us had been mounting for weeks. Eating my food was the last straw. His incessant and insane barking at dogs who dare to walk on any street within his view, his daily intrusions into my room to patrol for whoknowswhat, his eating and making a general mess of discarded tissue paper in my trash receptacle, his high-pitched yelps whenever anyone rings the doorbell (leaving one unable to hear the visitor on the intercom), his aggressive grumblings whenever anyone attempts to leave the apartment — I'm fed up.

Agreed, he is one cute miniature schnauzer. But I have developed repugnance for cute miniature schnauzers (and quickly spreading to dogs of all breeds).

I have been giving Humo the silent treatment, which probably makes me feel worse than him. I hope we will settle our disagreement soon. After all, I am not a child and he is only a dog.

label me

2007-02-26T19:30:00.000-05:00

Labels are annoying. They have a way of defining you that is trite and limiting. For example, when people ask me where I am from, the answer they're looking for is not New Jersey. They want to know if I am Korean or Japanese. When I reply that I am Chinese, they give a knowing nod and say, "Oh really?!" But what does it mean to be Chinese? Obviously, I am not the Chinese from China in their imaginations, but that's not important because a Chinese is a Chinese above all else, whatever that means.

Sometimes, labels can be useful. For example, recently I discovered that I am a flexitarian. All of my life when people ask me about my food preferences I feel compelled to explain that while I love vegetables and eat and cook mostly vegetables I am an omnivore. But that is a mouthful. Finally, I have my own label. Like vegetarians, pescatarians, lacto-ovo vegetarians, I-eat-chicken vegetarians, I-eat-chicken-fish-eggs-dairy vegetarians, the-only-animals-I-eat-have-two-feet-or-less vegetarians, and vegans, I have a word to describe me (at least my food preferences anyway).

Having a label this time feels good. It feels like there may be a colony of like-minded flexitarians in the universe. That I am not alone. I may not be unique, but now I am legitimate.

girly man

2007-02-23T18:47:00.000-05:00

Riding in a bus today, my attention alighted on the back of a young man's left earlobe. He wore an earring. If he and his stud had been facing me, his face and jewel would have seemed patches of color, wallpaper on a bus. But because he had been facing away, I saw it. The earring back was silver and dainty, its two ends curling c0yly. I thought the whole business girly.

Pirates don't look girly, from the front or back. Maybe it is because the earrings they sport are hoop-shaped. Just as they don't use pretty ribbons to tie their wooden legs on, they don't need backs to keep their earrings in.

The young man was also wearing a ring. It was a brass band with carvings on it. Visualize this ring as if it had a big fat diamond or emerald or ruby protruding from it and you will understand my feeling toward the earring back.

To speak a Romance language compels one to make decisions about, or be reminded of, what is masculine and what is feminine. In a Romance language, there are no queer nouns, no sliding scales, no spectrum of beings.

Though now it is normal, even hip and sometimes uber manly, for a heterosexual man to wear earrings, to me, in my Spanish-speaking frame of mind, I was looking at a transvestite.

my favorite weed

2007-02-12T13:39:00.000-05:00

ten thousand honey
suckles suggest sweet summer's
secret solitude

torta, salt and sweet

2007-02-09T13:53:00.000-05:00

My sometimes fantasy is to open a cafe. I would serve torta and gazpacho, in summer. I would serve celery and potato soup and garnish it with watercress and lump crab, on request. Maybe I shall serve sandwiches; I would need to find a fine bakery. Definitely chocolate chip cookies. And hot chocolate with cinnamon and cloves.

tempest in a teapot

2007-02-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

I ran out of things to say. I tired of my own voice, in my head, my own words, on my screen. I found my days ordinary, my thoughts ordinary, my words ordinary. Me ordinary.

The end of December, all of January, and the beginning of February have not been ordinary: I applied to two post-graduate programs, past time with friends from New York, visited Cusco and Machu Picchu, slept with a kitten, fell sick twice, left Perú, gazed at Betelgeuse at 4,400 meters (2.7 miles) above sea level, hitchhiked to the beach with a middle-class Chilean family, and cooked gazpacho.

Yet, I am all a tempest in teapot. The source of my solitary steaming storm is secret. To me too.

One symptom is that I have lost my appetite, but not my hunger. I no longer delight in food: tonight I hunted at two supermarkets and four restaurants and caught two pieces of plain crusty bread for dinner. I experience intense cravings for specific foods: scalding spicy tofu in a black stone bowl garnished with raw egg and scallions, salted raw crab with bright orange roe with leftover rice that is reheated with boiling water, creamy saag paneer with glutinous naan brushed with nutty canary ghee, sour and spicy tom yum with straw rice noodles and julienne bamboo, stir fried peanuts and seaweed with salt and sugar and beer, silver noodles with prawn and star anise in a clay pot, and everything my mom and my dad cook.

I love cooking. I miss someone cooking for me.

I love Peruvian cuisine. I hate Peruvian-Chinese food. I yearn for wantons in soup, their thin slippery skin sliding around my tongue, and the burst of flavor from the dainty ball of perfectly seasoned, perfectly textured filling in the center. Peruvian wantons, whose skin is as thick as lasagna layers and filled with SPAM-textured mystery meat, are spirit crushers. Or fried wantons. Here, they are deep fried sheets of dough; it is as if you were served two slices of bread for a sandwich. Ja gao is a steamed dumpling made with rice flour filled with chunks of jumbo shrimp. In New York, they glisten like pink opals; in Peru, they resemble burst pimples.

I love writing. I hate writing.

I will try, though.
For you.
For me.
Not to appease appetite, but to sate hunger.

taxi? taxi!

2007-01-12T19:07:00.000-05:00

Taxi?
Taxi? Taxi? Where are you going?
Taxitaxitaxitaxitaxi?

I flew into Lima from Cusco this morning and "taxi" was the greeting I received from the throng of well-wishers at the airport. Well-wishers I call them because they were concerned for my safety. It turned out that they were not offering me a ride at grossly inflated prices, they were offering security services reasonably just prices. Apparently, taking a taxi from the street (of all places!) was dangerous.

One of the airport personnel actually followed me out of the building, into the parking lot, and begged me to take a taxi from the badge-wearing driver fast at his heels. While the airport worker was saying to me, "Please, Miss, take a taxi here. Don't take one from the street," the taxi driver was shouting, "Fifty soles. Thirty. Twenty-five. Twenty-five soles."

I could look on the bright side of things and interpret this scene to mean, "Welcome to Lima. It is very dangerous here." Or, I could be a Schopenhauer and understand it as, "Welcome to Lima. Give me your money."

I thanked them, headed out of the airport, and hopped into a combi. Before I got on the combi, however, another taxi driver warned me that the ride would take at least 2 hours. The combi ride cost s/ 1.50 and lasted 45 minutes, about 5 to 10 minutes longer than a direct taxi, though I had to walk an additional 7 minutes from the bus stop to my apartment.

Lima! Home sweet home. Despite the clammy humidity, grimy streets, and menacing chauffeurs, I am happy to be back, because of the ceviche, because it is by the sea, and because I know how to get home for s/ 1.50 instead of s/ 50.

familiar faces

2006-12-21T15:17:00.000-05:00

Friends from the States arrived in Lima last night. Carlos and I meet them at their hotel at midnight, toured their apartment for a room, had a drink, and parted at 2. Already we're adjusting them to the party schedule in Perú.

house

2006-12-20T18:28:00.000-05:00

I can't wait for Carlos to arrive.

We bought the first and second seasons of House, M.D. and are addicted to watching it. I suppose I could watch it without him, but that wouldn't be very nice. Then again, Carlos has always claimed that I'm not very nice to him; so I could use this opportunity to prove him right. He would like being right. Right?

that way

2006-12-19T18:24:00.000-05:00

Trying to obtain precise directions in Lima is to feel like blood is spurting from your eyes and ears. The only fruit pluckable from such an exercise is ripe vexation.

One day, Carlos asked a man where the bus stop was. The unhelpful man motioned behind him, said "that way," and took off. I thought, What the fuck! The entire fucking city of Lima is fucking "that way." Grrr...

week of loss

2006-12-18T09:03:00.000-05:00

My phone was stolen.

My sunglasses fell and broke when I launched a surprise hug attack against a boy in Carabayllo.

My silver earring in the shape of a turtle probably washed down the drain in the shower.

Losing my earring reminded me how, years ago, I had lost the other turtle in the pair. Even as I endeavored to sever hopeless attachments, old associations surfaced like churned sedimentary rocks.

That can be nice, like looking at photographs, the ghosts of a finite instant.

Time, faithfully flowing forward, will carry more important things and people away from me in its current. Floating toward and away from each other at differentiated rates, we live in a perpetual progress of loss, losing each other and inevitably ourselves, though, all in our own good time.

happy hanukkah

2006-12-17T00:24:00.000-05:00

Evidence of the Diaspora in Lima.

thousand cranes

2006-12-16T18:11:00.000-05:00

There was a Christmas party for the children in Carabayllo and I was invited to help and participate.

There were activities like crafts and face painting, and there was entertainment in the form of two clowns, one Barney the Dinosaur, and one tripped-out Mickey Mouse.

I taught origami to 20 or 30 kids, of all ages and skill levels. Just when I was halfway through a lesson, two or three kids would show up late and ask to be taught. And just as I got them caught up, a few more stragglers would show up and beg to be taught, too. For four hours, I demonstrated how to make paper cranes and couldn't move on to anything else.

For the first time, I truly appreciated Carlos's challenge to teach these kids. And, for the last time will I make anymore paper cranes.

ají relleno de quinoa

2006-12-15T00:51:00.000-05:00

I made these.

They are ají stuffed with quinoa. Ají with their seeds and veins can kill you; without, they are mild and sweet. Quinoa is an ancient grain more potent in protein than tofu; in this context, they have the texture of steamed cuttlefish eggs.

It took me 1.5 hours to unseed and devein 16 of these suckers and 15 minutes to stuff them. (Therein lies the reason the rounder, apple-shaped rocoto is more popular for stuffing.)

here's my phone, take my money, too

2006-12-14T15:49:00.000-05:00

The morning after my phone was stolen, I went to the police station to file a report. The policeman took my information, but before the report could be official, I would need to go to the Banco de la Nación and purchase a voucher of sorts. (I guess if you can't punish the thief, might as well fine the victim for being careless.)

I finally found a branch and there were two lines that stretched out the door. I estimated a 2-hour wait to purchase something that I will then need to bring back to the police station in order to claim that I've been robbed, officially. Needless to say, I didn't wait. I decided there was no hurry and could return another day since the police didn't seem to be in a rush to find my phone either.

revolutionaries

2006-12-13T22:45:00.000-05:00

Carlos and I attempted to go to a lecture at the National Library.

There was a coloquio on Victor Humareda, an influential artist who shaped modern Peruvian painting by veering from and changing its historical direction. It has been 20 years since his death and the National Library organized an exhibit of his paintings and drawings, photo portraits by various photographers, and panel discussions on Humareda's œuvre and impact.

We arrived early to tour the exhibit and seated ourselves in the auditorium a few minutes before 19:00, when the discussion was scheduled to begin.

Five minutes past, the auditorium was still mostly empty and the stage and guest chairs were completely vacant. Ten minutes later, 15, 20, 25, nothing, not even an announcement. Finally at 19:30, the auditorium now mostly full but still no guests, we inquired when the talk would begin. The usher said "in five minutes." We left. We didn't arrive in Peru yesterday and recognized the hackneyed euphemism.

I was surprised that no one else seemed angry, or at least a little bit annoyed. I wished that the audience members were wise to value their time and demand better for themselves. But then that would require them to be revolutionaries, too.

purloined phone

2006-12-12T23:47:00.000-05:00

I was rushed, my guard was down, the bus was crowded. Someone reached into my bag and took my phone. I am angry not only because the thief violated my personal space, but took something that he did not earn.

Moreover, my phone has a security lock on it. If he ever turns it off and on again, he will not be able to use it without the password. Pyrrhic victory for me, but I am not satisfied.

mini shake

2006-12-11T17:05:00.000-05:00

Another earthquake. Just before 17:00. This one lasted under 10 seconds. It's amazing how loud these things are.

industrious idling

2006-12-10T22:11:00.000-05:00

After an activity-filled week, Carlos and I wanted to take it easy on Sunday.

We woke up at 9. A friend came over and I taught Carlos and our friend yoga on the roof of my apartment. Afterward, we brunched at a yummy cevicheria, desserted on creamy gelato, walked to the beach, chatted with friends who had just finished surfing, watched Volver, snuck in to see the last, terrible, 30 minutes of Happy Feet, and ate tamales and fruit for dinner with wine.

Even though we had fun, it still felt like hard work.

no woman no cry

2006-12-09T17:12:00.000-05:00

A.K.A. "No Yoga No Cat." Yoga was canceled. The nice lady who lets us use her house was not available today. So, no yoga and, therefore, no Silvester.

caral

2006-12-08T23:07:00.000-05:00

We took a day trip to Caral, "La Civilización Más Antigua de América." It is located about 115 miles north of Lima, situated 15 miles inland from the desert coast of Perú, in a valley of barren mountains.

Settled about 5,000 years ago, Caral's pyramids and mummies are contemporary with those in Egypt. According to our guide, researchers believe the city was meticulously planned (versus organically blossomed), which suggests a ritual function. (Think New York City and Washington, D.C. New York happened because people came. Washington, D.C. was deliberately architected to fulfill a specific function.) The inhabitants of Caral performed many ceremonies as well as traded with neighbors from the coast and jungle.

Being on the site and imaging specters walking to and fro, trading, aching, and laughing was surreal. Aside from the idea of something impressive, the sight of monochromatic dirt, rock, and sky did not fill me with cheer.

sounds of summer

2006-12-07T14:52:00.000-05:00

I am frequently reminded that summer is fast approaching by the din of ducks dying the most horrible death imaginable.

Mind you, I'm not talking about their actual demise, but the sound of moribund mallards. If one were to deconstruct the cacaphony, the individual parts would incorporate aspects of quack, whack, beep, yack, and mack.

It turns out that mallards are not being maltreated. It is the whistle of the ice cream man. Go figure. It almost makes me want to sponsor a contest with the challenge to list one reason why the dying duck whistle is a good business strategy. Just one reason. One.

p d a

2006-12-06T16:49:00.000-05:00

I encountered a large park today. Ample quantities of green grass and benches encircled a gigantic, gaudy memorial to "Confraternity" and "Victory."

Even more torturous to the senses was the throng of lovers—whether entwined or piled one atop the other—violently swapping spit. They were like garden gnomes going about their sinister business and I very much wanted to do as Mrs. Weasley does and pull them up by their hair and toss them far and away, hopefully, into oncoming traffic.

of oranges and evian

2006-12-05T17:15:00.000-05:00

Combis are pretty dirty vehicles and public eating is generally a faux pas. But I love it when passengers squirrel in the back of combis and eat oranges. When they peel the fruit, the spray of oils in the peel infuse the air with sweet spicy aromas. I feel like a Make-up Lady at Macy's just spritzed Evian mist in the air and asked me to walk into the cloud of cool detoxifying purity.

océanos y pye de limón

2006-12-04T22:38:00.000-05:00

On Sunday I went to a mesmerizing photo exhibit of marine animals and afterward ate sublime lime-pie flavored gelato.

In the warm sun, under a blue sky, breathing in fresh air, on that most perfect spring day, I watched marathon runners sweat past me, including a blind runner and his guide, and thought, I like living in Lima.

pollada y maracuya sour

2006-12-03T20:54:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning, I bought a pollada for s/ 6 ($2). A pollada is a dish that consists of chicken, potato (of course), and salad. It is the typical way to fundraise in poor communities. My donation will fund an operation to remove a breast tumor in a 20-year-old woman.

Yesterday night, I went to a posh bar to celebrate the birthday of a new acquaintance. I spent s/ 70 ($23) for exotic drinks and fancy sounding appetizers.