Reflecting on El Salvador

With the bros in the rat's nest in San Salvador. 

So this a post I wrote for the company I was working for in El Salvador, Vittana.  As such it's missing the coke and hooker parties (minus the hookers), raves, unbelievable women, tales of my chorizo family, cruising through the countryside, soccer championship throwdowns and other lil bits n pieces of my last six weeks in El Salvador when I moved up to the capital.  Needless to say I loved every minute of it.  I'm back home now which feels comforting and odd simultaneously, as always. Leaving in six days for más. 

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Me and Sarita in Ataco for the day

I woke up at sunrise in Juayua, a small mountain town of primarily coffee farmers.  I had spent the weekend with my good friend Sara and her family in the village, where families live in humble, mostly mud, houses and depend on the land for a living.  In recent years, a fungal outbreak, known as "coffee rust" has been devastating plantations in Juayua and across El Salvador.  Though it doesn't kill coffee plants, coffee rust dramatically reduces the plants' production and this year's harvest is predicted to be the lowest in 80 years.  The effect is palpable amongst Juayuans, and many farmers are calling for short term microloans to cover their living needs for the next year while they remove infected plants and effectively replant their farms.  But with uncertain future earnings, these microcredits have dried up and farmers are stuck in a difficult situation.

I rode back to El Salvador's bustling capital, San Salvador, and met up with my tour operator friend, Luis.  We hopped over to the beach to do some parasailing and general R&R along El Salvador's impeccable coastline.  You know, whoever said black sand beaches are inferior has obviously never seen a sunset on black sand.

Flying!

That night I found myself in a hillside mansion overlooking San Salvador dining with a coffee plantation owner and his family.  We chatted about a range of topics but inevitably got to talking about "la roya" or coffee rust.  Quite honestly, he didn't seem too concerned about the plague but rather was more interested in where he'd scuba dive next.

For such a small country (roughly the size of Massachusetts), El Salvador certainly is a land bursting with diversity and extremes.  I came to El Salvador to work with Fundación Campo and Apoyo Integral and help them design, implement and launch their student loan products. Before my Vittana fellowship, I had only spent a handful of days in El Salvador and really only heard two things about the country:

1) It's an incredibly dangerous gangland.

2) It's like an American little brother with strong immigrant ties.

As I've come to learn, however, this black and white perception is far from the truth and though yes, there is a gang presence, violence is almost entirely relegated to intra-gang activities and the country's violent reputation is grossly exaggerated.  Gang activity primarily manifests itself as extortions, basically demanding a "tax" from small businesses.  The word on the traveler circuit, for example, is to use San Salvador solely as a layover between Nicaragua and Guatemala and that if you don't surf, there's nothing for you in El Salvador.  Well friends, in my opinion this is a grave miscalculation.  Not only does El Salvador boast beautiful and unexploited beaches, bountiful fresh (and cheap!) seafood, mountainous jungles and magnificent volcanoes, but the capital itself is a diverse, metropolitan city rich in culture and international influences.

But that's not to say that delinquency and American dependence don't exist.  Especially with high youth unemployment and an average salary of $260/month (closer to $150 in rural areas), it's easy to understand why kids look to illegal means or dream of moving to the U.S. to find better opportunities.  And remittances are really what keeps the country afloat, representing 16.5% of El Salvador's annual GDP.

Besides the USD, the other major American import is of course MS-13 or Mara Salvatrucha. Originally founded in Los Angeles by El Salvadoran immigrants, the U.S. government began deporting convicted criminals back to their country of origin, and hence it began the Mara invasion here.  And though foreigners almost never have issues with gangs, their presence saturates the country.  In fact, El Salvadorans no longer use the Spanish word for gangster (pandillero) but rather use "marero" regardless of whether affiliated with MS-13 or another gang.

Delinquency and the El Salvadoran dream in America have a marked impact on higher education in the country.  The universities are located in centralized cities, meaning that the majority of students, who live in rural areas, have to pay a small fortune just to get to school. So where you can pay around $10/month in school fees, you might end up paying $150-$200 for transportation and lunch every month.  Tack on another 25% to that number if you take private transportation, which the director of the National University in San Salvador told me is common practice to avoid delinquency issues on public transportation.

Take my friend Sandra, for example.  I went and stayed with her in Intipucá, a beautiful rural town nestled in the mountains about 2 hours from where I was based with Fundación Campo in San Miguel.  Census says the town's home to 7K people but the vast majority of houses are shuttered as some 3K-4K odd Intipucans live in the U.S.  The town has a great, friendly vibe, where neighbors sit on their porch chatting throughout the night and people leave their houses open.

Making pupusas - El Salvador's national dish

Sandra's brother is a watermelon farmer and depends on a $500 annual microloan to stabilize his year's earnings.  Her parents wanted her to quit school at age 15 to start working around the house or to move to the U.S. as her sister had done.  She refused, and with the help of remittances, Sandra commuted to San Miguel everyday to attend university and is now an architect in Intipucá.

Sandra was fortunate that she had a source of external income, but not everyone is so lucky. Some of my friends never even thought about attending university - they hail from rural towns and viewed higher education as simply unaffordable.  They'd rather just cross into the U.S. to find work.  Others decide to work and save money to one day enroll in college.  However, jobs for kids without college degrees are hard to come by and pay peanuts.  Not to mention the occasional low-level extortion which would complicate anyone's saving plan.  For this segment of the population, their options are limited - apart from working, the loans offered by traditional banks are too rigid or are simply not offered to them.  One girl, looking to take out a loan of $500 to pay her graduation fees, was told that the loan minimum was $1,500.  Not wanting to be saddled with unnecessary debt, she declined and was unable to graduate.

With presidential elections coming up in a couple months, we're being inundated with promises focused on three topics: education, jobs and delinquency.  Proposals range from free English courses for youth, a one child-one laptop program and simply "combatting gangs".  Locals don't expect much to change.

But one thing is for certain - starting in January our partners, Fundación Campo and Apoyo Integral, will start providing student loans for El Salvadoran youth to pursue higher education and carve their own path.

life ain't easy, audible, small town livin'

Bedroom and kitchen

It's been six or seven weeks since I came down to El Salvador so I figured I'd check-in. This has been by far the toughest trip or stint abroad I've had. In San Miguel, where I live, there's no expat culture.  In fact there's really no culture at all (locals are the first to note this) and the town closes when the market closes which is around 530/6pm. The first real adjustment was getting accustomed to the pace of life in a developing latin american country. Yeah, I got a dose of that in Guatemala obviously but I also had a madrastra (house mom) that cooked my food and cleaned my room and I took my laundry to the laundromat ($1.50 to have all my clothes washed and dried).  A big kick in the nuts was the reality that without a tourist culture, laundromats don't exist here. So Sundays are dedicated to laundry and I scrub out my clothes by hand...by the end I'm a sweaty exhausted mess and then I wait around as my clothes dry in case a ever-present thunderstorm strikes and I have to run out and take down my clothes. Market trips are nice but a time consuming process. Life is slow, but I've started to appreciate taking the time to really just do nothing. Kinda. My mind still races a million miles an hour thinking bout things.

Closet and bathroo

My room, as ya'll can see in the pics, is basic but comfortable enough. I have AC so I can't really complain. I usually come home, go on a run and then come back and cook something. Watch a bit of TV, read maybe and then pass out around 930 or 10pm. Being able to cook with my "lil stove that can" has really kept me sane. Comfort foods like bachelor pasta and the routine in preparing them make a world of difference for my psyche.

I've hung out with coworkers a few times, which has been nice, but this is the first time I've felt really alone. No one speaks my native language, which is a good challenge for me obvi, but I work in a bank and let's just say that the culture is quite reserved though I do my best to stir the pot with my two closest co-workers. I call my desk "el nido" or "the nest"cuz I sit between two chicks and I like ruffling their feathers and getting some convo going in the otherwise monastery-esque oficina. But a big lesson I've learned is that as cool as it is to meet people from other cultures, I'll never feel truly connected to them. We come from different worlds. I cringe when people ask, "how many countries have you been to?" I really have no clue but I usually just name the central american countries and maybe a couple in Asia. It makes me feel like such a jackass. Here comes this gringo volunteer having traveled all over the place and this local hasn't even left this country the size of new jersey. Clearly differences pervade mere travel experiences, but you catch my drift.

You know there's times here, being by yourself all the time, when you wanna just call mommy and daddy and watch re-runs of How I met your mother. But you can't because you have no Internet to call the rents and they don't show How I met your mother down here.

But as I learned in Vietnam, tho I wasn't nearly as alone as I am here, you need to embrace the solitude and carve your own path out of it. Don't just sit there and sulk about being alone. Your own mind can be your best friend or your worst enemy. With so much time and lack of stimulation, many turn to booze or drugs to pass the hours. And for the first few weeks here I def had a few Bud heavy tall boys every night to numb the boredom. But you can't do that, at least not in the long term. I guess in this regard, I've blended ideologies between the crawling pace of life in the developing world and the american desire for constant development, progression. I mean heck, if I have goals in my life, why not use my buffet of free time to work towards them? So I focus on building vocab and working on my pronunciation and obvi prison-style workouts are part of the daily routine.

Outside patio of my crib...waiting for clothes to dry

Not to say I don't go through swings, but I've come to really enjoy every day here. El Salvador is a really unique place. Just about everyone I've met has either lived in or knows someone living in the US. I've been getting updates on the friend of my coworker who's been making her way to the US. She paid $9K to a coyote for the trip. She went by car from here up through Mexico and now she's living in a house of 30 people waiting to cross the rio grande into Texas. Their border contact pushed back their crossing date because of increased police activity along that stretch last week. Yes, omg i can't believe it either! There's actually corrupt US government officials. OMG!!!

The largest segment of the country's GDP comes from remittances from the U.S....and the first of the month brings long lines outside of the banks. This also adds a unique twist to the higher education market that I'm working in as a lot of kids wanna burn remittances on cars, jewelry and clothes (things that get you laid) instead of education (things that get you paid). The other major US "export" is obviously MS-13, the maras, and their presence saturates the country. You can't go five minutes without seeing a tag on a wall, reading about them in the paper or hearing about something that they've done. Like other developing countries, the cities have pretty decent infrastructure but then living standards drop precipitously upon entering the countryside.

As part of my strategy to hack my way out of solitude, I met a chick named Sandra over Couchsurfing. Really awesome chick that's both older and has traveled quite a bit so we have a lot more to talk about than the average person I meet. She also understands what it's like to be alone in a foreign country after doing it herself in Japan. So here I was this past weekend, sitting in church with her and her family in a tiny rural town. Census says 7.5K people live there but approximately 2/3 spend the majority of their time in the US and most of the houses are shuttered.  I got to thinking how I came to be in this place. A church, adorned to the teeth as best they could, rife with water damage and filled with a zealous crowd in the middle of nowhere El Salvador. Over the past ~2 years I've put myself in some really unique places or situations I never thought I'd be in. And this was another. I had spent the weekend with Sandra and her family, in their rural house in the countryside. The bathroom? Hole in the ground. Brush yo teef camping style outside. The shower is a concrete cubicle a lil less than chest height. So I'm butt naked showering and the family is standing 3 feet away washing the dishes. Her brother farms watermelons and relies heavily on microfinance loans of $500/year. Obviously there's nothing to do in a town that small so you spend the time chatting with neighbors, doing household chores and cooking real "slow food". They're gonna teach me how to make my own tortillas and pupusas next time. Booyah.

Sweet graffiti by my office. 

So after the first month or so and getting some experiences like the above I called an audible and decided I can't move back to the states for at least another year. If I want to work in poverty alleviation in latin america, I need to get some big time experience under my belt and get jedi at Spanish mos def. So I'll spend the next year working with different projects - Ecuador til May 1 and then maybe Nicaragua and as of now I'm hoping to eventually move back to Guatemala and live in the field for a while...yes remote and all but I think it'll prepare me to work in this field long term. The juice'll be worth the squeeze.

Papi's Back

Back to writing the blog folks.  First day of work starts today.  I'm working in San Miguel, El Salvador, designing student loan products for kids.  Gotta say, I'm pretty nervous/scared.  I haven't worked for 2 years and now I'll be in an office for 10 hours/day speaking a language that I haven't spoken in 8 months.  I woke up at 5am this morning tho I would say that's more because I took a sleeping pill at 9pm than the nervios.  Anyway, there's really only one way to go so I spose it's time to tell the job to grab its ankles and be my bitch. adios

Where's Wallys Hiatus

The 1000 year old cave we slept in.

For news about what's been going on in my life for the next month please refer to our team blog:

http://www.whereswallysmongolrally.com/blog.html

Uncle Al's doing the writing.  If you are one a those hugs and kisses types that wants
to know how I'm feeling and what my thoughts are, then pick up a phone or type a message using a keyboard and computing machine.

borneo baby

Borneo’s been epic.  Sitting in the airport now waiting for my flight to KL where I’ll just kick it for a couple days before flying to London for the Rally.

So I flew into Kuching, in Southern Malaysian Borneo, almost 4 weeks ago.  Kuching was pretty sweet and I was blown away by the infrastructure, cleanliness and friendliness/honesty of the people.  Like it's almost scary how honest and genuine is here.  I guess I was expecting more of Vietnam or something.  Malaysia’s a cray cray blend of natives, Filipinos, Chinese, Indians and other nationalities so obvi the food is money.  Like it’s so money AND it knows it too.  Noodles, curries, Chinese roasted pork, laksa, etc…so good.

From Kuching I went to Bako National park where I hiked through pretty awesome jungle for a few days.  Saw some monkeys tide hunting on the beach, a bunch of wild boars and the night hike was cool too. 

Went back to Kuching after Bako and went to an orangutan sanctuary.  Nice seeing them in the “wild” technically but after about 10 minutes around 100 tourists showed up so I bounced.

A couple days later I road a speed boat up river to Kapit, a logging town that’s about 1 square kilometer.  I wanted to hang out with the infamous Iban people, the headhunters of ancient lore.  But I didn’t want to pay for some stupid tour and I heard two things.  First that some drunken dickhead runs all the tours and charges about 10x too much.  The other is that the Iban are so hospitable that it’s possible to get invited into their longhouse and end up paying nothing.  I opted for the latter.  It sounded more legit.  So I spent about a day doing what I had read online – cruising through the market, sparking convos at restaurants, etc…it all seemed pretty weird and I didn’t get very far.  I mean, like WTF is supposed to happen?  “Oh hi mam, how much do you sell your eggplant for?  Why of course, I’d love to come stay with your family and eat your food at your longhouse!”

So anyway I bought a couple bottles of rice wine and some cigarettes (supposed proper gifts for the Iban) and caught a minivan ride out to the most popular longhouse thinking I could navigate from there.  Well, showed up and it was completely torn down with a new concrete longhouse next to it.  So I was all like, “Nah brah, take me 15km that way, drop me off at the end of the road, and I’ll walk an hour upriver to this other place I heard of.”

He pretty much told me I was retarded, which I guess is fine and then took me to the end of the road.  He talked to the family at that longhouse and they informed us that the longhouse family up the river had gone in to town for the day.  I could spend the afternoon with them waiting for them to return to guide me back to their longhouse. 

Well the afternoon turned into evening and it became apparent that they weren’t returning (which was normal I was told as often the villagers spend the night in town instead of trekking back).  So yeah, got invited to stay with this guy’s family.  It was a modern longhouse, but in talking with them, no one really stays at wooden longhouses anymore.  The family was really awesome and generous…they took me around to different longhouses and I got to meet their extended family, had food, tons of tuat (homemade rice liquor).  They took me over to a famous wooden house with skulls and all, which promptly charged me 65RM (like $22) for just being there.  So, yeah, then I got a real sense of what the few remaining wooden houses are doing.  They still had satellite TV, toilets and cellphones though.  Their tats were awesome and scary at the same time. 

Went to various longhouses where we were continually invited in for more tuat and assorted foods.  Someone had killed a wild boar earlier that day so I sat out in the back with the men picked at roasted pig head and downing the rice swill.  Then more visits, more chatting, more boozing and then a huge feast with 30 some odd Iban.  Borneans, and especially the Iban eat with their hands so it was a pretty messy affair for me. 

Went back to the dude’s longhouse (I really had no idea what his name was) and someone there had also killed a pig so we had a second pig roast.  The whole while the dude and his family are offering me more of everything, told me they don’t want my money and that they’re just happy to have me there.  I was the first foreigner at this longhouse they said.  

After pig roast number two and pretty sloppy by this point, we went and “showered” in the river while the dude’s dad hunted frogs along the riverbank.  Got back to the house and figured it’d be a good time for a sleeping pill and I’d call it a night.  Oh no no no.  Then they called me out for dinner – 100% hunted or foraged from the jungle.  Different jungle plants, fried grubs, fish, etc.  Pretty good.  “Cool, now time to brush my teeth and peace,” I thought. 

Nope again.  One of their neighbors was having a “going away” party which in Iban culture is a blend of pagan rituals and well I guess western customs of getting wasted.  So in I went, at this point half drunk and pretty spacey from the sleeping pill.  The kid was sat in the middle of the room with about 40 of us in a circle around him.  An elder brought me two bowls of cock blood (rooster not penis, thank you) and I had to spoon one into the other.  Then the elders smeared the blood on the kid’s hands and forehead.  They then took turns waving the bowls of cock blood over his head and then brought in a live chicken to do the same.  This was followed by wiping his hands with cock blood, placing money in them, and then hard boiled eggs on top of that.  He then had to eat the eggs with mouth only and then the ritual was complete. 

Next day I went out hunting grubs much like Timon and Pumba in the jungle which consisted of digging through rotting logs.  Cool to do it once but pretty happy I don’t do that everyday. 

So yeah, spent the remainder of the day just laying around I guess, as they do there, and then bounced.  But right before I left the dude’s uncle came over who apparently is the head of that longhouse and said that I had to pay 50RM per night…it was “longhouse” rule.  Sounds like he just wanted money.  So yeah, that left a pretty sour taste in my mouth after the dude and his family repeatedly told me I was their welcomed guest and that I wouldn’t pay.  Even upon paying the guy and his family apologized and said they had to listen to the uncle.  Watev. 

So from Kapit I went to Niah where I did a hike to a cave full of maybe a million bats and swallows.  Pretty cool.  From Niah went to Miri which felt kinda like the Jersey Shore. 

With a few days before I was to meet up with Kank and Lily in KK up north, I decided to bounce from that armpit town and head to Brunei.  Cuz I mean, what the heck is in Brunei?  Well in short, nothing.  There’s nothing in Brunei.  There’s mosques and a mall.  I watched two movies in two days.  But I DID go diving, which was reallllllly nice there…dove a wreck of a WWII American minesweeper that had thousands of barracuda circling overhead.  Even found some bullets among the wreckage.  Ironically it was sunk after it hit a mine.  So yeah, the diving was well worth it.  The staff and other divers really made the trip…they were awesome. 

From Brunei went to KK and met up with Kank and Lily.  Ate for like 3 days straight, just powering through fish, crab, shrimp, softshell crab, etc…thuper good.  Fave was the curry leaf fried softshell crab and grilled stingray.  Then went over to Semporna, dove for a few days.  Sipadan blew my mind.  The following is just a count of the things I saw to help jog my own memory.  Unless you don’t have much else to do, it’s ok you skip it:

-       Hawksbill turtles

-       Green turtles

-       Clownfish

-       Crocodile fish

-       Schooling Jacks

-       Schooling barracudas

-       Great barracudas

-       Banded sea krait (top 3 deadliest snakes on earth)

-       Whitetip sharks

-       Black tip shark

-       Moray eels

-       4 kinds of puffer fish

-       pipefish

-       bumphead parrot fish

-       cleaner shrimp

-       dove a sunken oil rig

-       cement ship

-       American minesweeper

-       Seahorses

-       Giant grouper

-       Stonefish

Had a lot of fun with them out on the islands basically boozing, eating and chatting and then now working my way to KL. 

mixed emotions, no sex but all the same problems, HCM's legacy, in Borneo

I had a nice last couple weeks in Vietnam.  Rosita and Clarita paid me a visit and it was as if no time had passed at all.  We picked up where we left off in Guatemala and had a blast.  We kicked it in Hue a bit then rode down to Hoi An with Hieu and the gang.  I surprised the ladies by rolling up at the 4 star Pacific Hoi An where we stayed for free obvi.  From Hoi An we went to Mui Ne which isn't much but it beats Nha Trang.  Then to Saigon, spent some time there, said goodbye to Rosita and then Claire and I headed to Vung Tau, a beach town a couple hours aways frequented by Saigoners.  Had a nice couple days, came back to Saigon, did what else but eat and then flew through Singapore to Malaysian Borneo.  I had BK breakfast then a bacon blue cheeseburger with a fried egg within 3 hours so needless to say I felt a bit sick.  But oh so worth it.

As I flew out of SGN I wasn't quite sure how I felt.  Vietnam's always fascinated me and I'm so glad I had the opportunity to spend three months there.  I left the country with an album full of great experiences and a peak into Vietnamese culture but also with a multitud of questions and sad truths that confound my perspective on Vietnam.

As tourism is still relatively fresh in Vietnam, it's still easy to get that "raw feel" lacking in places like Thailand for example.  Riding a bike not 5 minutes outside of Hue's congested city center grants you a scene of Vietnam stuck decades in the past.  The idyllic Vietnam, with farmers willing their water buffalo forward to till their rice fields, women weaving baskets from bamboo, etc.  At the same time however, the repercussions from Vietnam's lack of development undoubtedly mar your experience negatively from time to time.  From what I've learned, Vietnam was mired in absolute poverty until the mid 90s or so, around the time when Clinton reopened "friendly relations" with Vietnam.  Before then, Vietnam had forged through a handful of wars in succession (French, American, Cambodian) without mentioning their own civil conflicts during and after WWII.  The wars, coupled with the whole "communism doesn't actually work" thing, made Vietnam a pretty miserable place to live.

As a result, the Vietnamese have developed a remarkable ability to survive.  They take Machiavelli's "the ends justify the means" to an entirely different level.  When you spend time in Vietnam, it's easy to see why they won all those wars, including a beatdown of a much more powerful American army.  The Vietnamese are incredibly resourceful, making sandals from old truck tires, for example.  They're also admirably resilient, working through and overcoming obstacles that most Westerners would wilt at.  And discomfort?  Not in their genes.  You think an American citizen would live 60 feet below ground in a tunnel 3 feet high for 6 years?  Oh and you need to call reception because you think the hotel's 400 thread count sheets feel more like 300?  Chances are the receptionist sleeps uncovered on a bamboo mat on top of a wooden "bed".  So sorry if she doesn't understand your pain and agony.

But there is no war in today's Vietnam.  Yes, poverty is still plentiful and government corruption impedes the advancement of many of the lower classes.  But in the cities of Vietnam today, there is no concern for a B-52 raid or rationing of rice or complete destruction of the city's water system.

The younger generations that inhabit the cities of today have transformed, have bastardized this enviable ability to survive into a vile sense of greed that drives them.  Of course not everyone is like this, but in my experience many Vietnamese in and out of the tourism industry work under this unspoken law of "greed is king".  Nobody trusts each other.  Everybody thinks that the other is lying to them or trying to rip them off.  So they try to exploit the other person first.  Yes, it's tough to do business with that kind of environment.

Petty theft is routine, tourist agencies charge one customer double the price as another just to skim off the top, college girls work as hookers on the side.  It's not because they need to buy food for their family or because their dad has cancer.  Teenagers steal purses, tamper taxi meters, lie about guest commission, etc. not out of necessity but greed.  It's because they want to buy an iPhone or a new motorbike or a nice flat screen.

Is it that much different than Western cultures?  Yes and no.  I don't indemnify bankers that give out predatory loans or used car salesmen for example.  But the extent to which greed rules is surreal.

Which leads me back to the war...why were we so worried about this "domino effect"?  How would things be if the US had won the war?  What is communism today?  Well honestly I think communism's worst enemy is itself.  It clearly doesn't work and nobody, except for those in power, actually believe in it.  Vietnam is developing exactly like China.  It's technically communist but as lil Wayne says, everything goes "to the almighty dolla".  Communism in Vietnam isn't this "everybody shares everything" policy.  To me, communism in Vietnam means that there's only one party, the elections are rigged, they censor some things and government officials have free reign to do as they please.  Which, again, I would argue isn't entirely that far from what we have in the States, though we do a better job of hiding it.  If you have money, you can do whatever you want.  If you don't, you're a slave to the state.

I also have to wonder what Ho Chi Minh would think of today's Vietnam.  He's basically a god in Vietnam, with his face all over billboards, their money, names of schools, cities, whatever.  He accused the American "hamlet" campaign of providing infrastructure to rural villages to stave off communist influences as nothing more than concentration camps designed to indoctrinate villagers.  But he himself oversaw "re-education" camps where they sent citizens to be tortured into submission, into preaching the Communist gospel.  And what would he think about kids today putting "iphone" stickers on their helmets or watching MTV?  What about how government officials go charge random "taxes" to rural peasants?

Like most Asian countries (maybe all), respect for elders and of general customs is of utmost importance.  Things like handing money over with two hands, bowing to say hello, never sticking your chopsticks in the rice, you name it and many customs that go unnoticed to Westerners are used to show respect.  This is def something I wish would transfer to our culture.  But for all the respect given to elders and traditions, women are still second class citizens.  They need to be submissive to men.  They should aspire to be a good housewife and pump out many children (hopefully boys) for her husband as he spends his evenings chain smoking and downing beers with his friends.  Men only want to marry virgins (maidens as they call them in English) yet obviously young men need to relieve their "urge" from time to time and pay a visit to a whore.  Which of course is totally respectable somehow.

So yeah.  Vietnam continues to be a fascinating place and one I will continue to go back to.  I don't mean to paint it in such a negative light in this post, but you can refer to past posts to reaffirm my love for the country.

Flew down to Kuching in Malaysian Borneo yesterday.  So far I'm loving it.  They speak English, nobody's hawking me and there's a silly variety of sinfully delicious food be it Malay, Indian, Chinese, so forth.  Heading to Bako tomorrow for a couple days getting weird in a remote jungle.







                                                                                                                 

still not ted, making bread, best job ever, cross-eyed, girlfriend?

Fuck.  It's 6am.  How did I get in my bed?  Why does my mouth taste like vomit?  And why is my head spinning?

It took me a moment, but I remembered what had brought me to that point before passing out for another six hours.

I suppose last night was yet another example of why I feel incredibly blessed to "burn" these four months chilling in Vietnam.  Except of course the projectile vomiting.  It's been a month since my last post so lemme back track a bit and I'll return.

Many people have asked what I do here so let me explain.  When confronted with the reality that I had to ship my passport to the UK for two months to acquire my Mongol Rally visas, I had the option of returning to Guatemala, kicking it in Vietnam or sitting on my thumb with mommy and daddy.  So obvi I chose Vietnam.  My heart remains in Latin America and I figured it'd be good to spend time in bewildering SE Asia before I headed back to Latin America for a long stint.  So, WTF do I do here?

Well honestly I live much like any other underemployed 25 year-old but I don't do drugs all day to burn the time.  And I don't even like that term underemployed.  Let's call it funemployed.  What's nice about living in a country where I don't speak the language and don't know many people is that I do whatever I want, whenever I want.  I am, in other words, precisely embodying the virtues outlined in the Bachelor Party Year constitution.  I came to Vietnam to focus on myself and my biz.  I live like a monk.  I awake around 630am, out the door and on my bike by 730am.  Head to one of three noodle soup stands and get bun bo cha (spicy beef noodle soup with meatballs) or if I'm feeling a bit naughty bun bo cha cua (spicy beef noodle soup with crab meatballs).  I've recently found a place that serves up the Southern special, bo ne (fried eggs with meat on a cast iron skillet covered in spicy tomato broth).  I down a caphe sua daa (iced coffee with condensed milk) and hoover my breakfast.

Then it's off to one of two coffee stands.  I go to one when I want to be left alone and the other if I feel chatty as I know about half the clientele there by now.  Another coffee and then it's back to the hotel room/junkie den/office by 9am.  Then, jittery and bugged out by the multiple coffees, it's headphones in, EDM live set on and to work I go.  I spend my day working on a few projects:

1) Promoting and managing this Spanish school in Guatemala which at this point has become my main source of income.  Thanks Wikinvest for the online marketing and SEO experience - the school's killing it now.

2) Kijani Grows biz dev.  We just got funded for our Guns 2 Gardens program in Oakland and are moving in to our first real office this week.  I've decided to move back to SF in January 2014 for at least 6 months to help grow the biz.

3) Hoi An Silk Village - like I mentioned earlier, I've been doing some consulting for this new tourist attraction in Hoi An.  Got the sales manager removed, made people like us again and built a new site.  Glad that project's done.

4) Working on fellowship and research applications.

5) Mystery guest - I fortuitously found myself as a mystery guest and quality assurance spy for a 4-star beach resort in Hoi An.  Free unlimited food, private beach access, amazing room.  What was the first thing I did when I checked in?  Yep, you knooooow it!  Took a bath.  Bathtub even had a headrest homie.

6) Cunt punting this stupid bitch from Oz and rebuilding Hieu's business.  You see, this fat chick named Sarah Avenell that lives on 375 Benowa Road in Gold Coast, Australia (for SEO purposes) helped Hieu build a website and TripAdvisor for his motorbike tour business five years ago when she was living here.  Noble right?  Well not if you're this abominable whore.  So she took a 20% commish for simply forwarding online bookings to him (no translations or anything) and is such a drunk she only had about a 50% response rate to emails.  Then she went back to Oz several months ago and fell completely off the radar.  Zero responses to any customers.  She didn't even pay her hosting fees so the site shutdown.  Customers find them via TripAdvisor, click to the site, and then nothing.  So long story short, we finally got a hold of her and said look, just give Hieu the passwords.  You clearly have moved on and he has no way to earn money right now.  She gave us an unrepentant NO, which I can only imagine was accompanied by her jowls jiggling as she stuffed another Twinkie in her fat face.  She said it was her business and she would do as she pleased.  Right, so even though you're 35, live with your parents in a gated community and drive a $60K Mercedes (thanks Google StreetView), you're more important and you don't mind putting Hieu and his 9 drivers out on the street.  So it took about two weeks, but I've made a new website and TripAdvisor account and gone guerrilla on the old TA account so we're now redirecting all business to Hieu.

Then I go eat lunch, generally com thit heo (rice with pork and veggies), then charge into the countryside on my bike.  Come back after an hour or two ride, snack on banh mi op la thit heo (baguette with fried egg and grilled pork), shower and then practice Spanish before the gym and dinner.  After dinner I chill on the corner with my adopted Vietnamese grandma (I swear the most amazing smile ever) and a promoter from a local bar.  Chat a bit about culture, life, watevs.  Walk home, relax a bit, pop a sleeping pill at 9, read until 10 and then I'm out.  I drink very little and have stopped smoking pot (sorry, I cracked the other night, but no more).  My body and mind feel pretty tits mcgee right now.

Right, so back to the beginning.  After helping Hieu get his business back in order, I've become a bit of a legend with his family and other riders.  So I get a free ride to meetings and such and I've spent quite a few nights with Hieu and his family at his house over dinner and drinks.  He invited me to his house last night, the anniversary of his father's death.  Apparently in Vietnam the entire family, extended family and any family friends gather to pray to the altar, feast and get really wasted.  It's not the first time I've been invited to an Asian family's gathering, so I knew what was coming - "the let's get the white boy shithoused game."  Hieu's nephew picked me up at 4pm and we headed over.  A few beers and an onslaught of incredible foods.  Appetizer of jellyfish salad (much better than Chinese jellies), then soup with fried wontons stuffed with pork and shrimp.  Beers and the omnipresent "Yo!" or cheers were of course abundant.  Then out came banh cuon, or soft rice noodles with roasted pork and then stewed pork shoulder.  Redonk.

So, feeling a bit buzzed, I sat back and soaked up the experience.  Here were 50 or so family members and friends in this tiny one-bedroom house partying and feasting, all in the name of a dude that died 40 years ago.  Pretty sweet tradition.  I felt honored to be part of the celebration.  It's one of those things that make me happy I'm spending a lot of time in one place, really trying to get to know a particular culture instead of only nibbles of a handful as typical traveling enables.

So as the plates were being cleared at around 6pm I thought to myself, "Hey that wasn't so bad, I haven't drank too much yet."  Ah but then the big boys showed up.  So I get invited over to one table.  One of the guys spoke a bit of English so we started talking.  Turns out he was a soldier for the South during the War.  He spoke fondly of those days, when he was my age, blowing lines of coke before jumping onboard a Huey and manning a 50 caliber machine gun.  Things weren't so nice, however, when the North won the war and he was sent to prison.

Anyway, he really got the drinking going.  "Cheers" isn't the same here - you don't say cheers and then have a sip.  Well, sometimes you can, but the general expectation is that you kill the glass.  So as I was the first foreigner to attend this family event, amplified by my help with Hieu's business, the remaining crew was pretty keen on this whole "let's get this kid blackout."  Saying no to older people in Asian cultures isn't really recommended and I especially wasn't going to do it at a semi-sacred event.  When I did try to suggest we merely take a sip they said something in Vietnamese which I can only assume meant "Don't be a pussy and drink honkie."

So we played that game for a bit and then they went home.  I was relieved.  They had brought out drinking food - cha, nem and garlic cloves and I thought I could just have some food, sneak a ciggie and relax as people filtered out.  But no.  Then a new batch arrived.  And another case of beer.  And so it went.  Pretty soon I wasn't even able to touch my elbow with my off hand as you do when cheers'ing older folks.  They were relentless.  It was like we were boxing and I couldn't get off the ropes.  Just taking one punishing blow after another, chugging beer at an alarming rate.

But I stayed composed.  Composed-ish.  Finally pleaded for a ride home at 9pm, stumbled into my room, spent a good 15 minutes vomiting and then passed out.  Happy anniversary dude.

The girl that works reception at the hotel next door is quite possibly the hottest girl on the planet.  Like no joke.  And I don't even like Asian girls.  Sleeping with her has honestly not even crossed my mind she's so hot.  I feel like if I did, it would I don't know, tarnish her or something.  So everyday I've said hi and we've had short conversations but I finally BPY'd it and asked her to dinner the other night.  You know, I'm pretty judgmental.  Very judgmental actually.  I've been called a "judgmental asshole" on a few occasions if memory serves me correctly.  But I admit that.  So since I judge all these white dudes young and old that come to Vietnam and Asia at large and marry a local girl that doesn't really speak English while not really speaking the native language, I thought hey well maybe they're on to something.  Maybe you can love someone without much verbal communication?  I mean, after all, who I am to judge if I've never experienced it?

Yeah, f that.  I'm going to judge the hell out of those guys.  After my experience there's no possible way one could ever have a meaningful relationship with close to zero verbal communication.  And this is like the hottest girl ever!!!  Don't get me wrong, I had a great time...we went to nhau, had some grilled meat and morning glory, drank a ton, got to know each other a wee bit better through broken English and very broken Vietnamese.  But yeah dudes, like WTF?  Don't be a creepy white guy just exchanging awkward smiles and high fives with your  "girlfriend."
  
Alright ya'll so that's what I've been up to here, jus straight kicking it.  Gonna be here for another month or so til Borneo and then London.  Remember kids - not all who wander are lost.

working with communists, travel hate, junkie den, refresh

So working here is tough.  Really tough.  I'm working kinda like a biz dev consultant for this silk "village" down in Hoi An.  First, the language barrier obviously.  Of course, it's not anyone's fault, but it's frustrating nonetheless.  Sometimes I talk to someone for 15 minutes in a really slow, drawn-out, methodical way, with the person nodding in agreement and saying "Yes, I understand."  Only to finish the process when the person asks me the original question, the one that I had just spent 15 minutes explaining.  There's also everyone's obsession with Facebook - it's as if Facebook holds the power to all life.  I just spent a week redesigning this website, but the only the concern they have is making FB more prominent or promoting things on FB.  F me.

Anyway, life goes on.  It pays the bills and it's an interesting learning experience.  I've come to realize that I don't really like traveling.  And I like travelers much less.  I much prefer living in a place for an extended period of time, getting to know the people, lay of the land, intricacies of that particular location.  Of course, I realize that it's impossible to do that everywhere you go and being a "traveler" or tourist is completely necessary if you're gonna go see places.  But what I say when I don't like traveling means that I just really don't like the 2 days in a place, on a bus, 2 days in another place, on a bus, etc.  And in Vietnam you meet a lot of people that are frankly beyond cliche.  They're wrapping up or starting their SE Asia tour and have only the most superficial knowledge of anything they're doing or seeing.  They get off a bus, stay at a backpacker hostel (cuz you ain't legit less you call yourself a backpacker), eat at a touristy joint for 10 times the price, party with other white people, take pictures of a few sites, get back on a bus and repeat somewhere else.  Or sometimes I meet the Henry David Thoreau's of SE Asia travelers, the ones who wear the baggy cotton pants that only westerners wear, go meditate on some dude's tomb and claim that they're a child of the earth.  All equally awful.

So it was nice when I met Aki, a fluid (read sexually free) Canadian chick that's been living here for 6 months working for a charity that's reviving traditional paper flower making (i couldn't make this stuff up).  Not only is she a much appreciated fluent English speaker, but she's been living in Asia for the past 5 years or so and we have pretty similar thoughts on living out here.  Thuy and I rode out to the village she works at and it was a pretty sweet lil Saturday.  We rode out through the back roads, racing through rice paddies, listening to the evening Commi news on public loud speakers, the usual.  Stopped for a quick snack (a whole roast duck) on the way back into town.  Pretty coo.

Being by myself and frustrated with work started taking its toll on me.  Not that I was depressed or anything, just a bit down.  So it was nice when a new acquaintance Hieu, a motorbike driver, invited me over to his house for dinner last night.  Riding over the bridge with the hills in the background at sunset reminded me how beautifully awesome this place is.  Went over to his place and experienced the male/female segregation for really the first time in Vietnam.  The men sat on the floor drinking and eating as the women cooked and then sat in the back part of the room gossiping and knitting.  Well, I guess it's how it is.  Anyway, dericious food and a much needed break from life in my bubble.

Going to Hoi An on Monday for a week of work down there.  Adios.

Oh yeah, just got a job in September in TBD Latin America to work with a microfinance institution providing student loans to kids (don't worry, it's not the same system as the US).  So going back to a place where I understand the language.  Thank Hey-zeus.

ghost riders, traveling man, employment and beyond

So been in Hue for 3 weeks now.  And I'm really loving it.  In particular, I don't speak the language and have few friends here.  So I'm able to be alone for 95% of the time.  Which I was unsure about at first, but I've come to realize how much I love being alone.  Not being anti-social per se, but having the opportunity to think and self-analyze.  It's really a luxury.  And I have no one to report to.  Being with some of my married friends here I've re-remembered how lucky I am that I don't need to field calls of "where are you honey?" or "i'm waiting for you at home, when are you coming back???".

So I've been spending my endless amounts of free time working out, reading and practicing Spanish, applying to fellowships and working on other side projects.  It's awesome, especially considering I spend about $10/day living like a king doing it.  One of my fav activities is going for long runs into the countryside, through rice paddies and by mud huts, with everyone looking at me like an alien.  Time will tell if I turn into Teddy Kaczynski but so far so good.

My friend from Guate, Shelley, paid me a visit a couple weeks ago and we had a good time traveling around Hue and then motorbiking it up to Paradise Cave.  We got to hum through the same karsts and rice fields that I traveled through via train.  Of course, we ended one of the nights "nhau'ing it" as I would say, getting hammered over grilled meats and rice wine in Khe Sanh.  The concept of "nhau" btw, is uniquely Vietnamese.  The loose translation is "getting wasted and eating lots of grilled meats".  So I can't come up with a single word translation in English.

Obvi we traveled with Nam, the same driver that took me and Alby to Hoi An last year.  I'm actually staying at his brother's hotel.  So basically through a variety of connections and the ability to speak English, I've partnered with a handful of folks here in Hue and am acting like a biz dev consultant for their businesses, all related to tourism.  In fact, a "quick" biz meeting with Nam tonight turned into a booze fest (vietnamese biz meetings either leave me hyper-caffeinated or drunk, drunk in this case) where we discussed starting Hue's first real homestay.  A small but growing part of me wants to become the Shantaram of Hue, with a hand in all tourism-related businesses like currency exchange, drugs, tours, homestays, restaurants, etc.  But no hookers.  I'd never do that.  Speaking of which, the low lifes about town have finally remembered me I think.  You know, the guys that offer you weed or girls or whatever.  I started saying things like "no hablo ingles" or "nah, I'm good your mom blew me this morning" and though they didn't understand a single word, I think they got the point that I wasn't interested.

But yeah, I'm gonna keep my feet moving.  Just focused on this silk tour in Hoi An for now...which is shaping up to be a fun project.  I've found my go-to's here, the places with good food and fair prices (the amount of arguments I've gotten into over white people prices is insane) so I feel really comfortable in my lil shell here in Hue.

Yeah, that's pretty much it for now.  All quiet on the western or far eastern front if you will.  Adios cabrones.