トマト ~ 토마토 ~ 托马托 ~ tomate ~ kamatis leejz: a box of tomatoes!

The World Cup

10 days of utter intensity and no secure internet connection left me no room to write, so I must suffice to write one month after the fact, after the colors and smells have faded and washed out. Still, it helps the memory to rethink recent events, to stand apart and re-evaluate things once again, and in doing so making it more a work of art than true travelogue. Call it the Bill Bryson method of writing.
On June 23 Hicham picked me up on a roasting Colorado's summer day and dropped me off for the quick (2.5 hour) hop from Denver to Houston. Of course, I had totally forgotten how utterly hot Houston is this time of year and appeared wearing long pants in the 5pm heat (having intentionally not brought shorts since I was going to the Southern hemisphere). As always, my amazing dad picked me up without any complaints despite the years and years of arrivals and departures, some at the oddest hours. We caught up on the way back home and I spent the day at home packing and getting ready. Unfortunately, the next evening as we left about the same heat of the day to get to IAH, about an hour away, my dad's AC died in the car, and we had no choice but to silently suffer the heat, me in my long pants again.
A trick from endurance hiking that I've picked up over the years. I mentally split each trip up in to legs, based on continuity. For example, in The Philippines the Tuguegarao City to Manila trip was in 8 parts, Home to departure, Departure to Santiago City (first bathroom break of 20 min), Santiago City over the pass to Solano, Solano through the Nueva Vizcaya valley over Dalton's Pass, Dalton's pass to San Jose, San Jose to the outskirts of Manila traffic, and finally the early morning light of arriving into Manila, the last leg of getting off the bus and into my guesthouse. Door to door 15 hours for about 180 miles. This method seems to make long duration trips much more bearable, if only mentally. On this trip I had 8 legs, going from Houston, to waiting for the flight, to landing in Doha, overnighting in Doha, and continuing on to Johannesburg and to the friends who were waiting for me. 36 hours total, my longest. On leg one (going to the airport) I was already soaked with sweat! On these kinds of trips minor annoyances tend to seem graver than they actually are. I distinctly remember the check-in lady telling me that my 'carry on' was over 7 kilos and therefore had to be checked. In hindsight, given how annoying the layover was at Doha this was a blessing in disguise. During these times though you just get so incredibly angry or annoyed, you really have to force yourself to stay calm, pretend you have a crazy buzz going on and not let anything touch you. That's the hard work of travel, after all.
I coped by telling myself I had much to look forward to. Qatar Air flys the best planes (777s) and I had the most luxurious seats that economy tickets can buy, complete with headrest entertainment system. Settling into the flight I attempted to start my pre-acclimatization trick to reduce jet lag. The second you step on the plane you switch to the landing time zone. Force yourself to sleep, force yourself awake, and before you know it, the jet lag is gone, leaving you more time for fun at your destination! In theory. I have to say, after 3 years of trying this the results aren't that great. Mostly because it's so hard to no sleep on an airplane when you've been sitting for 8 hours straight and the lights are off! The sad thing is, I can't help from doing it now. As soon as I get on a plane, I find it completely useless to keep the old day-night cycle going in my head. Best way to leave a place is to forget it, a little bit slowly, in your mind, I suppose. Suffice it to say, after this flight I faced a loud bright and uncomfortable 12 hours overnight at Doha (I highly UN-recommend it) I watched the sunrise through the large terminal skywindows overlooking the hazy red dawn desert and got on another plane towards OR Tambo International airport. On the flight I had the delicious luxury of having no one sitting next to me, and I a nice talk with a Kenyan Indian (and Canadian naturalized citizen) who had left with his daughter from Winnipeg and come on the same flights through Houston just to see the World Cup. He was a pest-control specialist. Always try to talk to a pest-control specialist if you can, they tend to have very interesting stories. He and his daughter would travel 48 hours total. Just goes to show that there's always someone worse off than you!
And here's the part where we finally make landfall. The relief! Both physically and mentally as you touch ground, as you successfully clear customs and collect your baggage. As you check off, leg 7 out of 8 over! I walk out of the terminal absent-mindedly mentally checking all the errands I had to run before meeting my ride, and Sunny and Yono pop out from nowhere! And with the news I'd been secretly hoping would arrive. Sunny, on passing through Lisbon, met groups of Brits bitter at having bought the wrong game tickets erroneously thinking that England would win the group. Instead, Landon Donovan scored a deciding goal after 91 minutes of nailbiting, eliminating Slovenia and winning the group. Sunny got 6 tickets to the game that night, 3 hours away, in Rustenburg, to see the USA play Ghana. Yono asks, do you have your jersey ready? And I'm like "Yes. No, hell yes." I barely had time to wolf down some food, dizzyingly jet-lagged, and we hopped on Greg's (our Joberg contact) 4Runner and zipped away on a harrowing and confusing drive through the rural unlit South African countryside searching for this town and stadium without good directions. Thankfully the traffic lit the way. This stadium is a tiny little thing (by soccer standards) set in the Bafaokung nation, an indigenous group that sits on much of the world's platinum supply. This place is so remote the entire valley was covered with smoke from subsistance farming agricultural fires. We got to see the US lose spectacularly for the second World Cup in a row to Ghana, smack in the middle of a Ghanian cheering section. And it was cold. And there was only Bud to drink. Over the course of the next two weeks I could often be heard saying "I came halfway around the world to drink Bud Light?" By the time we dumped my bags down at Greg's place in Johannesburg, I wasn't even forming coherent sentences anymore. Greg's place was an older house in the nice Melville district of the city. Like every other, the house was ringed by a high wall and electric wiring. Over the course of the trip I would be continually amazed at the obsession South Africans have with security and crime.
The next morning we all woke up late and explored the main Melvilile drag, with it's host of shops and cafes. After running errands we sat down and proceeded to watch another game, eat at an amazing restaurant appropriately called Wish!, and tried to get a ride to the game. Haha, screw you tourists, turns out nobody wants to take you to the game because everyone is already going! Greg eventually hatched a plan where he talked his way through parking security at a park and ride, dropped us off, and we took the "Free" park and ride which wasn't, to and back from the stadium. We saw el-tri go down in style, playing hard against Argentina. It was during this game I noticed a disturbing trend. Its always easy to get beer, but try to get food you have to stand in line for a while, and both times I tried, I never even got any. Service was slow, if operating. It seems like there were a lot more tourists in the country than they were expecting. People were serving up some of the most basic foods poorly cooked and with long waits. I sure hope the price of basic stables didn't go up on account of us tourists, it almost seemed like we were locusts eating them out of house and home! Still, most South Africans were polite to a fault with us. The next night someone even drove us back home from the game! (notice how I'm skipping over the silly SAB World of Beer amusement park). Sunny struck up a conversation with a couple of Portuguese descent who had gone to see the Brazil game (which they handily one over out-matched Chile). This couple, and about 5 others, told us never to walk around at night as it was dangerous. Even though all our forays out we rarely saw anyone. It was hard to tell if fear-mongering was the rule of the day, or if things were actually that dangerous! By this point things were getting pretty exhausting. I saw 4 games in 4 days, and watched 4 more on television. The Japan- Paraguay game wasn't even worth mentioning, really. Some of the most boring soccer on earth. By this time, Sunny and Yono and I were joined by Benno and Julie and Vivek. Benno, Julie and Vivek and I went to Pretoria for the 4th game, ate at a really interesting upscale pancake place near the stadium in the embassy district, and got whisked back to Joberg to catch the second game of the day (Spain-Portugal) at Melrose Arch, an upscale shopping district in central Joberg. There we saw ecstatic young rich fans of both teams oohing and ahhing in front of the largest jumbo-tron in the nation, with live music, and no readily available street food. Again, we ate late and poorly.
Up at the crack of dawn. Packing and in a rush. Trying to catch our cab, "Wait he's already here!" We flew out of Joberg in a rush and landed in Capetown, and drove our rented cars (rather humorously) to our tiny lipstick-red old town style rented flat in De Waterkant, an area just off the main waterfront district. The place was tiny, but also filled with the junk of an old lady's life. It had the musty smell of an old lady too, and we debated as to what might have befallen this woman, since she was clearly gone for a while, but all of her stuff was still there under lock and key. There were so many singing angel dolls, crosses, bibles, and paintings of grandchildren as well as smelly old embroidered tablecloths and antique furniture that it was physically difficult to fit inside that place! Coupled with the fact that the second full bath was actually a child's sized full bath fully visible from the construction site off the street and you really got the feeling you weren't getting your money's worth. Oh well, at least they weren't picky about the parking and we could walk all around the waterfront and downtown Capetown. We explored the area for the evening and tried to enjoy our first day without games in the trip. I resolved to spend as little time in the dead lady's house as possible. Sad to say, on the off days, downtown Capetown wasn't that fun to be around. Everything seemed to shutdown after dusk, and the streets would clear out except for the few wandering tourists. After pubbing around a little we went to sleep as best we could in the tiny place.
The second day in Capetown Julie Benno and I took a wonderful side trip to Hermanus to go whale watching! The drive down the coast was spectacular and interesting, complete with hills, vineyards, rocky wave lapping coasts, and for the first time I saw a whale! We made the last trip at the last second, and essentially stalked the dorsal fin of a lone shy humpback whale for about 2 hours. Still, it was a nice sunny green detour from the drab brown dryness of Johannesburg, and I loved every second of the long forgotten coasts. We even ate kingklip at a local seafood restaurant and took a wild night drive back along the shore to Capetown, arriving late in the evening. Keep in mind that it's still cold and wintery.
This is when my old friend the travel flu hit. In Colorado I never seem to get sick, which probably means as soon as I leave I get exposed to all this crazy stuff with my immune system out of shape, and my poorly executed jet-lag acclimatization routine stressing my body out already. This time I went down pretty hard. By the third day in Capetown I was basically bedridden. I spent a day inside and watched the Netherlands take down Brazil at a fan zone, but that was all I could muster. The next day wasn't much better. Me, Sunny, and Yono drove around the city a bit, but I was getting worse. At least my fever broke that night. The next morning I tried to walk around with Yono and Brita, who had arrived with Sonal and Emily the previous night, but I just couldn't move. Staying in, I two games, the very contentious handball of the Uruguay Ghana game, which saw the last African team lose, and the German victory against the self-destructive Argentina. The day after we took the day to climb to the top of Table Mountain overlooking the city. It was a steep hike, but completely flat on top with some amazing views. I was feeling better by now, but not much. I don't even recall what we did afterwards. An ethnic dinner place I think. The next day in Capetown we all went on a winery tour to Stellenbach, just south of the city. I crashed hard. I'm also tired of writing this blog entry. Rusten Verde, De Vriers, etc etc, I can't remember half their names. I basically spent the next two days in bed, going out briefly, coughing and sneezing constantly in that horrible house. There's an outing to Cape point somewhere here with good seafood and penguins. When we left I was so relieved. I ended up visiting Xanthe's place for a day. I met her family and she took me on a mock safari where they shelter animals. Finally I got on the plane, still sweating from the safari, and began the long road home.

Number 5, is alive!

Tissue paper, check. Ciprofloxin, check. Money, check. pasu-poruto, checku. All the old memories and lessons-learned come flooding back. For the first time in 2 years, Jackson is on travel baby!

This page is active again! I'll be checking out the World cup in wintery South Africa, with stops in Pretoria, Johannesburg, and Capetown. The night we get in the US will be playing Ghana for advancement to the semi-finals. On Sunday we'll be watching Argentina vs. Mexico. Paraguay just won so we'll be seeing them next week, but the remaining competitors are still fighting it out today and tomorrow. The playing is getting intense and finally reaching world class level. The France team has already self-destructed. Italy sank in dismal performance. England squeeked out with second in Group C and will play Germany (what a game!). And just now, Japan scored on Denmark 1-0. If they win they'll advance. It's a fight to the Round of 16!

Someone is taking an afternoon dump and it stinks

Now that I'm 30, I realize I have never actually considered life after 30. I figured I'd be dead or fabulously wealthy by now. Unfortunately, neither has happened so I'm left with trying to figure out what the heck will leave me satisfied over the next few years. Thankfully, Colorado is a great place to learn about what I don't like in humankind. Hopefully within a year my search can begin again to find peace and happiness. To that end, based on a series of failures and trials here in Colorado, I decided I needed to draw up a few guidelines on how I should move my life in the coming years.

Jackson's rules to live by for the next 10 years:
1. Find a community that actually has talent in it. AKA Find a community where I respect the people and the talents in it.
2. Live in a community where the people respect my talents, background, and personality, or that respects a multitude of talents, backgrounds, and personalities.
3. Find a job that I enjoy doing and that helps people.
4. Find a job that I can do well where my work skills, my heritage, and inter-disciplinary background is not seen as a lack of experience or the wrong experience.
5. Find a girl who is independent/mature, multi-cultural/ multi-lingual / multi- SOMETHING, and loves to travel and live abroad, and appreciate her for that. It would help greatly if she wasn't excessively overweight or excessively skinny or excessively nuts.
6. Never become too insulated or comfortable from what is going on in the world around me, for the world is a dynamo - figuratively and literally! Not everything I experienced yesterday might apply tomorrow.

Most of all, Jackson's number 1 rule for living life (or perhaps rule A?):
1. Always find your center and live there.

Center, what? Well, your center, a combination of knowing your place in the frame reference of the universe, knowing yourself (in the Socratic sense, you dirty bastard), knowing where you belong, and never living at an excess or an extreme to what your center of gravity is (not in a Newtonian sense). A big part of this is the Confucian and Buddhist idea of the Middle Way. Never too much pain, never too much joy, never too much stuff, never too little. At heart is the idea that when you are at your center, you are at rest. I definitely do believe that seeking the center is a natural human tendency. A big problem is that when a person feels that they are living their life at an extreme, they go to the other extreme. In this way we live our lives flitting from one extreme to another, never achieving true peace or happiness. Finding your center is the journey that could consume your entire life.

Simple, 'di ba? We'll see how silly these thoughts might be in a few years!

Both dissapointed and overwhelmed

Back in Shanghai now. I had an interesting ride back to Lhasa. On my way out I discovered I was missing some money, about 500 RMB (70 USD). I told my guide and he immediately suspected the porters. I was hesitant to say. Farmers are poor, but not dumb or desperate. He and hte cook discussed it and decided to go to their village and confront them directly. So we met up again with the two porters, who of course denied everything. However, after some sharp questioning one of them, a 26 year old with a shady look about him admitted taking the money and offered to return two crisp 100's, having spent the rest. I was dumbstruck. Never in the Tibetian conversation did he look my way or show guilt or hesitancy in his voice. I couldn't read him at all. All the while he wore the same dumb expression.

The guides wanted to press charges, but I hoped that the shame of stealing would be enoguh (How do you spend 300 RMB in the Tibetian countryside? Hopefully in useful stuff, and not in beer and women!) We headed back home in the minivan in need of a physical and spiritual cleansing and renewal. On our way back about 100 km from Lhasa in the middle of nowhere we saw some pilgrams heading to Lhasa. Thubten mentioned that they probably had come from far eastern Tibet, prostrating one body length at a time. First raising the arms above the head, kneeling, falling flat on forehead and hands, sweeping the arms above the head and back, and then standing back up, and advancing one body length. They carried nothing but the clothes on their backs and heavy aprons and wooden blocks on their hands to protect themselves. Charity and religion sustained them, their ashes would be enshrined if they fell. Man, I thought. This place is tough. I imagine myself living as a Tibetian monk, early rising, prayers, bad food, bad weather, chores, labor, then early bed, day after day until all the years go by. No wonder they have so many festivals. I also imagine my life as a nomad. Never bathing, yaks, goats, yak butter tea, boiled food, high altitude, horrible life threatening weather, sharing wives. The pinnacle of life to prostrate all the way to Lhasa. I couldn't do it. It's not surprising that Tibetians get out of that life when they can. After this, I'm done with high altitude and winter for a while!

The hike to Tashi-do

Today we broke from the usual model. Normally in the mornings I'd stumble out of bed, eat almost nothing, then gear up for hiking. Thubten would hike with me, and the porter and chef Dawa would pack up and move camp onto a chinese tractor, the kind consisting of a motor driven wheel, a hitch, and a long steering arm resembling steering reins so as to fit onto existing horse drawn equipment. They would putter slowly past us as we walked. Dawa would hop out and speed ahead and the porters would setup camp at the next stop. I call it Tibetian style car camping, or perhaps tractor camping. Yesterday the porters left eager to prepare for town festival. We camped next to the only water supply in the area, but still 8 km from our destination. So today Thubten and I made the roundtrip walk from camp to the temple at Tashi-do, a peninsula fronted by two enormous massifs and backed by the lake. Distant mountains ringed a deep blue puffy cloud sky. Not a single modern thing visible except for the bright white tents of tashi-do - so white they could be mistaken for Greek capitals - situated between two giant mountains cut into the lake shore. A dirt road snaked into a thin line into the distance, but never quite touched the city. It was like approaching Gondor in the movie. The reality was much crappier. Crappy Yak dung grottoes. On the way back it rained. Another occurance is the return of my friend giardia. Just as I get over the altitude, intestinal diarrhea sets in! Giardia is common in livestock areas as animals carry it, but it doesn't die after a quick boil due to it's cyst forming ability. You should boil your water at least 10 minutes if you can afford the gas. Also, never camp down stream of a Tibetian nomad. Another useless life lesson learned!

To add insult to injury, last night it snowed half an inch, more in the mountains. We're waiting for pickup, but it's going to take a lot longer than expected. My camera is still dead so I can only use words to describe it. The mountains remind me of the bald slopes above the treeline near Aspen. It looks like the first snow of the season there, a heavy dusting 1-2". If the sun comes out it will dissappear up at this altitude. Let's hope our ride arrives safely! You can see across the lake and clearly see the snow line. The roads look ok, but the passes remain unsure. It looks like the green light was given by police, so we should get picked up in a few hours and back to Lhasa by nightfall. Shit, it's snowing again.

Random Thoughts:
1. Dawa's food is good, chinese food + yak. But salty and loaded with msg. He seems to think I want scrambled eggs every morning. Yesterday's pancakes from scratch (with jam!) was quite good, however, he smokes like a furnace!
2. Thubten keeps saying stuff starting "young Tibetians today..." in regards to them acting more and more Chinese.
3. A guy near our campsite runs a disco inside a tent. It blows thumping music late into the night across the plain.
4. Dawa keeps feeding a furry young dog that keeps yapping until 1 am.
5. The local spring is a hot place to meet young singles!
6. It's really messed up to be dreaming of hot weather in the summer.

A nice day finally

Today was a flat and long walk through sunny skies and infinite horizons. Today I was able to converse with Thubten much more. He told me the nomads I felt sorry for actually can make about 30,000 USD a season collecting mountain medicinal herbs (for a large family). He also told me that some tradtional nomads will have only 1 bride per family. Sucks if you're the youngest of 4 brothers! The eldest gets the property and the others must find other work, but are not allowed to marry. This is supposed to ensure that property and herds don't get split up. I asked if jealousy is a problem and he just laughed. We're camped next to the local spring on the edge of the saltwater lake. The spring is covered by a totem of flags and lots of flat rocks with mantras carved in it. Local women and kids come by to fetch water, and a truckload of monk boys came by to load a tank pulled by a tractor in order to bring water to the monestary on the peninsula. A hunched old lady came by to sell us cheese and milk and a man came to sell us trinkets. The old lady had a beautiful work knife hanging from her work/marraige apron. If she's right we will wake up swarming with her family herds currently migrating around this lake.

Thubten also related to me his impression of the riots in march. He said mostly frustrated low wage workers were angry at the Han Chinese taking all the jobs. He was inside all day. All of the rioting was in the Tibetian quarter, which is slowly being swallowed by the Chinese immigrating in. Some Han Chinese work crews sure do seem to have a sweet contract, usually doing work like construction or driving that doesn't really require a brain. Oh, it's hailing again. The lake is the most amazing azure in daylight and the stars hang like fat untwinkling emeralds in the night sky. That is, when the weather is good. When the weather is bad, it hails and blows. I've not been able to interact as much with locals on account of the weather. Everyone's inside! Time for bed I think! I've been practicing some simple phrases in Tibetian (tashi dele - thank you, No - meh, Yes- yu) the most useful phrase cheng-mo chaba (cold rain) keeps popping up. Also the phrase tsabo chang anmo cha (hot milk tea) is quite nice.