On the Road, Part II

Since I left the blog without giving the South American wrap up, here's a quickie. Cusco was great, the parts that I can remember anyway, and Machu Picchu is a must, but the Inca Trail is not (unless you feel the need to atone for something terrible you've done, like voting for the junior Senator from New York).

Now that that's done, it's time to focus on more recent history.

I had expected that the Korean experience would start about twenty hours after leaving New York, hoping that I would remember very little of what was in between during the 24+hour trip. When I boarded the plane in Newark, I had planned to engage in my usual sleep strategy - be out cold before the plane moved. Sadly, as it turned out, I ended up seated next to someone whom I wanted to fall asleep before I would feel comfortable doing so. Unfortunately, he decided not to sleep during the flight, resulting in my sleep being both light and spotty.

The trip from San Fran to Korea wasn't much better. First I watched a movie. Then I stared at the map of where we were. Then I slept for five hours. Then I watched the same movie again. Then there were still over four hours left to go. Wrestless doesn't begin to describe it. Needless to say, I was happy to get off the plane and finally go settle into my apartment, sleep, take in my immediate surroundings on my day off, and get started on Thursday. Things didn't quite work out that way.

After having some initial trouble finding my employer, we met at the airport. I quickly discovered two things. The first was that it was not the director of the school, as I had been told, who interviewed me. The second was that my new boss does not speak English. Fortunately, he was with another of the English teachers at the school, who at least spoke a little.

The two asked if I was hungry and, less hungry than not wanting to offend, I said yes. So they took me out to dinner. In the airport KFC. That might not sound good, but having been traveling for over 24 hours already, that was perfect. The last thing I wanted was to sit down to a long, formal meal with my boss. Or so I thought.

When we finished eating, we walked to the school van and I began my half-blind (there was a banner ad covering the window on the left) trip to my new apartment. Or not. After driving for about an hour and a half, we arrived at what I thought was my new apartment. We moved all of my things in and, when we opened the door, there was my boss's wife and someone who I thought was his daughter. The one I thought was his daughter said that she had spoken with me on the phone and asked if it would be alright with me to stay with them for a few days until my apartment was ready. Awkward moment #1. Thought: "HELL NO!" Answer: "That's fine."

The follow-up question was also a good one. "Do you like Asian women?" Awkward moment #2. Thought: "There's no right answer to this." Answer: "Yes". Response: "Oh, because he (the boss) told me that American men fantasize about Asian women. Do you like me?" We're now up to AM #3 and I've been there for less than half an hour. The first attempt was covering my tracks because, like any other answer I could've given to the previous question, mine was wrong. "I mean I like the Asian women I've met." Then I fumbled something else about her that was an attempt to fall somewhere between "No really, you're not ugly" and "I'm really not ready to hit on my boss's daughter in a foreign country."

After what seemed like days, I finally retired to my room. This room had a window that led into a closet that opened into the living room, but more on that later. It was a bed, and it was good.

For the next five days, I was with my boss and his family, either in their apartment or in the school, at all times. As it turned out, the one asking all the awkward questions (only because nobody else spoke enough English to ask them) was not my boss's daughter. Instead, his only children are five and seven. On one of my nights in his apartment, I was using the private bathroom that was attached to my room when a knock came at my door. I responded in English with "Just a minute," which, considering that the knocker didn't speak English, didn't do me much good. When I opened the bathroom door, a five year old was climbing in through my window. I was not amused, but there really wasn't anything I could do about it.

Anyway, the five days with my boss were incredibly, painfully long. At one point, the teacher who had met me at the airport said that my boss's wife wanted to offer me a homestay. As tempting as it was to continue this life of freedomless servitude and constant inability to communicate with anyone, I declined the offer and moved into my apartment at the end of the first week.

You see, Koreans think foreigners are completely, utterly helpless. At one point, they took me shopping and told me all of the things I'd need for my apartment, including the colors that they should be. When I said that I could pick up some of the stuff later (when I didn't have three people all over me telling me what I should get), they said that I was very "confident", at least that was the translation given to me by the teacher. Lord knows what the actual word was. They were also incredibly impressed that I managed to get on the subway, go change money, buy a few things, and start exploring without their help.

As to what I've been doing with myself otherwise, the teaching is going rather well. My school is part of a chain and the lessons are pretty much ready-made. I don't have a full schedule yet, as it is a new school, but I have to be there for the contractual hours anyway. I would complain, but the last hour is always reserved for dinner, for which my boss foots the bill. I've also begun teaching a class for my boss, his wife, and his sister-in-law.

This weekend I went into Seoul to practice Spanish with a South African, an American, a Canadian, and a Korean-Chilean (if there is such a thing) and made it back to my area in time to hit the pub with some other foreigners in the area before watching another tragedy unfold. Sunday was devoted to sleeping it off.

Although things are still relatively new and I haven't gotten around too much, I expect that with my 2:00pm start, I should be able to make some more trips to see what there is to see before work during the week. I'm about an hour outside of central Seoul, which is a pretty spread out city, and that probably means that some trips will have to be reserved for weekends, but I have access to some of the city during the week. My one major (and it is major) complaint outside of the fact that Weis has not yet been fired is that the Seoul subway closes. That's right. It closes. I don't get it. How can any place actually call itself a city when it's primary means of transportation closes - at midnight no less. Something must be done.

Anyway, that's all for now. Stay tuned for future installments of the blog, which should become easier once I have internet in my apartment. Supposedly I'll get that today, but that remains to be seen.

Getting Charged by Police

Yes it`s been a while since my last post, but I`ve been workin here.

I arrived in Lima in the wee hours of the morning (around 8) and immediately headed for a hostel near the sportsbar I had found during an internet search. The plan was to get a little rest, shower, and head out to watch me Irish take down Purdue. That day I discovered my home away from home. The Corner is much like any sportsbar you`d find in the US, complete with screens around the room and plenty of Americans watching their favorite teams and a Latin American staff that doesn`t speak English. All but a very few of the bar`s customers are Americans. It didn`t take long for me to establish my status as a regular. That, as it turns out, was also the place where I spent the dark, dark day that was November 25.

The following day, I headed over to the house where I would spend the next three months. There were two other volunteers who were just leaving as I arrived. They had been waiting for me, but were about to give up, as the head of the organization had informed them that several people who reserve spots end up not turning up. As it was Sunday and many places were closed, we decided to have lunch at the house. I took a walk to a local tienda with one of them and asked him how he knew the other guy. "We`re partners." Needless to say, I almost croaked.

I spent the next couple of hours finding out just how interesting the situation would be, as his "partner" was more effeminate than Elton John. As it turned out, the two were nice enough, but the American (the one with whom I took the walk to the store was Dutch) frequently went too far in discussing their relationship. What`s more, neither one spoke Spanish, but this didn`t stop them from making the effort. As such, my espanol rapidly deteriorated from listening to them. The combination of these factors made frequent trips to the Corner all the more appealing.

A week later, two friends, one American and one Limey, arrived. They soon became a couple and ended up spending most of their time with the other two. (Don`t ask me how.) The Limey liked kids, but the American chick was concerned only with a photo project. She liked having things completely under her control, so needless to say, we locked horns quite a bit.

As far as the actual work was concerned, only one of the five of us likes kids. Combine this with the fact that it was never made clear to any of us what exactly we were supposed to be doing in the classrooms and it was a reciepe not quite for disaster, but close enough. The NGO is terribly organized, leaving all of us to kind of wing it. We just kind of went to the schools with lunch for the kids and spend the following two hours each day trying to figure out what the best way we could help was.

As there were three schools, we`d divide up. I usually ended up flying solo because it seemed as though having more than one volunteer in that school provided more of a distraction than a help. Going to that school, I had to take an extra hike to pick up four students who really didn`t belong there. They had no interest in studying and, because their parents had no interest in their studies either, were really beyond help. We`d take about a five minute bus ride, then take a walk that should take ten minutes. They usually took twenty to thirty.

Another source of aggrevation was the inaccurate representation of the program that I had seen on the organization`s website. That claimed that we worked with the parents, not against them. As such, it was quite a surprise to discover that most of the kids here are pretty much on their own. Among the three schools, there were about 45 kids, maybe five of whom live with both parents. Many of them are abused, some of them sexually, and our social workers frequently had to visit the childrens` houses to attempt to solve attendance problems. Needless to say, this was seldom successful. My favorite instance of this was with a six year old who attended the school at which I spent most of my time. The social worker went to his house to ask his mother why he hadn`t been attending school. The response? "He doesn`t want to."

The areas in which the schools were located were among the poorest in the city. In both cases, the streets were not paved. In one area, most of the houses had running water. In the other, water was brought around in a truck and poured into garbage cans. So what happened with waste, you may ask. It was dumped onto the street. This is especially bad in a city like Lima where it doesn`t rain. The "houses" in the area where the water is delivered were shantys, complete with tin rooves and walls falling apart. Pig sties are scattered throughout the neighborhood, and sometimes it can be difficult to tell the difference between a sty and a house.

Due to the nature of the neighborhoods in which the schools were located, school lasted only two hours a day. The organization wanted us out of there by noon, as that`s when the drunks (read troublemakers) apparently start getting up. His wife had apparently been kidnapped, after which they became stricter with the hours. This left us with afternoons free. Even so, it was somewhat difficult to explore the city during this time. We`d get back to the house between one and two, have lunch, and then teach classes in the evening. With Lima being as spread out as it is, getting to another part of the city, exploring, and then trying to make it back in time in rush hour traffic was not necessarily a great idea.

In the evenings, teaching was painful. I had a class of about eight students, usually four of whom showed up. I`d ask questions. They`d offer blank stares. I`d ask them if they had questions. They`d offer blank stares. I`d try to explain things in English and in espanol. They`d offer blank stares. Perhaps the most frustrating part of this process was when I asked them to write down three topics that interested them and give them to me so that I could find articles about those topics rather than read about human-dog communication as the book I had been given suggested. In two months, nobody did it.

Now for the part you`ve been waiting for. The tinkerbells and the American chick left the day of the second Christmas party in the schools, about a week and a half ago. That left me and the Limey here to have our own fun. Last night, that fun was supposed to involve attending a football match. Well, we tried. It was the championship between Alianza Lima and a team from Cuzco. We got there about 15 minutes before kickoff and got on the back of a very long line. When they kicked off, we were still standing outside, though at least nearing the gates. Cops on horseback attempted to keep the lines straight. After a while, though, the crowd got unruly. At this point, the cops actually started charging the lines, using their nightsticks on at least a few. My friend and I started to retreat, but waited a little to see if there might still be a chance of getting in. One of the horses started making another run in our direction, at which point we hightailed it onto the next block. We went to ask a cop who wasn`t on a horse whether we might still be able to get in, but she informed us that the door had been closed and that that would not be possible. As we moved away from the situation, a police truck carrying tear gas passed us going the other way. We don`t know if it was ever used, but considering the fact that I had attended a match in Quito, it was just another part of the Latin American experience.

Bringing You to Lima

So my time in Panama City was well spent. The hostel in which I stayed was a block away from a sportsbook and casino, meaning that I was able to watch me Irish, even in the debacle against the yellow and blue. Evenings, of which there were more than I had planned, were spent largely in the hostel attempting to conquer the world. (Anyone besides me find it a little ironic that RISK is a french game?) While I was there, though, I did manage to get to the Panama Canal and see a couple of ships pass through the Miraflores locks. It´s kind of boring to actually watch that, but seeing the sped up version of a trip through the canal in the museum, along with all of the planning and construction that went into it, you can´t help but be impressed. Among the articles in the museum was the tally sheet used during the Senate roll call that okayed giving the Canal to Panama. So many of those dinosaurs are still in there, except now they´re trying to give the rest of America to the Muslims. Oh well.

The four days I spent in San Blas were amazing, though also two too many. The experience started at a small domestic airport from which the plane left at 6:00 a.m. Needless to say, this was not my choice, but that is the only flight that goes to the islands. One of the airport employees walked from the tarmac into the waiting area and called out the places to which the plane was going. We followed him out to a plane that had only 19 passenger seats and propellers on either wing. There was no door to the cockpit, so I could see straight ahead of us. Before taking off, they made sure that the weight was roughly evenly distributed. Once we started hopping from one island to the next - no circling necessary since no other planes used the airports, or, more accurately, runways - people started getting off. After the first two, they had those of us sitting in the back of the plane move to the front to balance out the luggage.

From the airport, I took a long canoe to the island of Carti Sugdub. There, I was taken to the dormitory, the only place on the island where outsiders could stay. The toilet consisted of a hole over the ocean; the "shower" was a tube that had water coming out of it about three feet off the ground a bowl I could use to pour the cold water over myself. The only light at night was a kerosine lamp. In the dormitory in which I stayed, I was the only one there, which meant that I was the only non-indigenous person on the island.

The community was commi, with communal ownership of pretty much everything. (this explained why many houses were essentially sticks tied together with thached rooves and without electricity.) There were two restaurants where I had all my meals. One was run by a member of the community but, as with the dorm, profits were shared by all. Fishing was the main source of food, though they also own some land on the mainland, which is their main source of fruit. While there, I witnessed centuries-old dancing and religious rituals. I also spent a day on what was essentially my own island. In the morning, I rowed out with one other person, a local, I would guesstimate about a mile and a half. Technically, there were three other people there at the time, but for the time I spent on the island, I didn´t see any of them. While I was very happy I hadn´t missed this often-skipped part of Central America, I also couldn´t wait to get back to Panama City, with televisions, showers, real food, etc.

Having unfortunately run low on time, I was unable to visit Columbia. Instead, I flew directly to Quito, where I did a bit of sightseeing and visited the equator - both the actual equator and the place that had at one time been miscalculated as the equator. Among the artifacts at the makeshift museum was a shrunken head. Apparently, the practice continues in the Amazon. I also used a blowgun for the first time. Sadly, I missed the target and hit an unwitting 70 year old woman in the toucas. (Just checking to see if you´re paying attention.)

Upon leaving Quito, once again after more time than I had planned, I had to hightail it down here to Lima. More about that another time, but at least now you´re more or less up to speed.

Surgery

I just underwent successful surgery. Go Irish!

A Personal Request

Ok, folks. I´ll soon add an update for Panama City, San Blas, and Ecuador (I´m in southern Ecuador now and leaving on a bus for Peru in less than an hour). First, though, I have a request.

My personal favorite member of Congress (ok, that´s not saying much since I really can´t stand most of them), Dr. Tom Coburn, is starting a leadership PAC. To give you an idea about this guy, he spoke with the President after he was elected to the Senate in 2004. The President said, "Tom, I´d really appreciate your help." He responded, "Mr. President, I´ll be glad to help you cut spending." As a freshman, he has done the unthinkable by challenging the pork barrel spending of the most senior members of the Senate. For those of you who don´t pay much attention to politics, that´s something that simply is not done.

During his campaign, he pledged to continue his medical practice. When the Senate ethics panel ruled that he could not charge his patients to simply cover his overhead, Coburn opted to continue his practice pro-bono. In fact, he spent his primary day in 2004 taking patients. This is not surprising since he and his associates serve more than 15,000 pateints, among which he has personally delivered nearly 4000 babies.

Well, now he´s starting a leadership PAC to elect more members of Congress who understand that social and fiscal conservatism are not at odds. He needs 50 contributions. THE SIZE OF THE CONTRIBUTION DOES NOT MATTER. I would be very appreciative if you could send a contribution of even $5 to TACPAC, PO Box 977, Muskogee, OK 74402. Reaching 50 contributions would enable him to raise his maximum contribution to candidates from $2100 to $5000, obviously a significant jump. Thanks in advance for whatever you can chip in.

A Personal Request

Ok, folks. I´ll soon add an update for Panama City, San Blas, and Ecuador (I´m in southern Ecuador now and leaving on a bus for Peru in less than an hour). First, though, I have a request.

My personal favorite member of Congress (ok, that´s not saying much since I really can´t stand most of them), Dr. Tom Coburn, is starting a leadership PAC. To give you an idea about this guy, he spoke with the President after he was elected to the Senate in 2004. The President said, "Tom, I´d really appreciate your help." He responded, "Mr. President, I´ll be glad to help you cut spending." As a freshman, he has done the unthinkable by challenging the pork barrel spending of the most senior members of the Senate. For those of you who don´t pay much attention to politics, that´s something that simply is not done.

During his campaign, he pledged to continue his medical practice. When the Senate ethics panel ruled that he could not charge his patients to simply cover his overhead, Coburn opted to continue his practice pro-bono. In fact, he spent his primary day in 2004 taking patients. This is not surprising since he and his associates serve more than 15,000 pateints, among which he has personally delivered nearly 4000 babies.

Well, now he´s starting a leadership PAC to elect more members of Congress who understand that social and fiscal conservatism are not at odds. He needs 50 contributions. THE SIZE OF THE CONTRIBUTION DOES NOT MATTER. I would be very appreciative if you could send a contribution of even $5 to TACPAC, PO Box 977, Muskogee, OK 74402. Reaching 50 contributions would enable him to raise his maximum contribution to candidates from $2100 to $5000, obviously a significant jump. Thanks in advance for whatever you can chip in.

A Personal Request

Ok, folks. I´ll soon add an update for Panama City, San Blas, and Ecuador (I´m in southern Ecuador now and leaving on a bus for Peru in less than an hour). First, though, I have a request.

My personal favorite member of Congress (ok, that´s not saying much since I really can´t stand most of them), Dr. Tom Coburn, is starting a leadership PAC. To give you an idea about this guy, he spoke with the President after he was elected to the Senate in 2004. The President said, "Tom, I´d really appreciate your help." He responded, "Mr. President, I´ll be glad to help you cut spending." As a freshman, he has done the unthinkable by challenging the pork barrel spending of the most senior members of the Senate. For those of you who don´t pay much attention to politics, that´s something that simply is not done.

During his campaign, he pledged to continue his medical practice. When the Senate ethics panel ruled that he could not charge his patients to simply cover his overhead, Coburn opted to continue his practice pro-bono. In fact, he spent his primary day in 2004 taking patients. This is not surprising since he and his associates serve more than 15,000 pateints, among which he has personally delivered nearly 4000 babies.

Well, now he´s starting a leadership PAC to elect more members of Congress who understand that social and fiscal conservatism are not at odds. He needs 50 contributions. THE SIZE OF THE CONTRIBUTION DOES NOT MATTER. I would be very appreciative if you could send a contribution of even $5 to TACPAC, PO Box 977, Muskogee, OK 74402. Reaching 50 contributions would enable him to raise his maximum contribution to candidates from $2100 to $5000, obviously a significant jump. Thanks in advance for whatever you can chip in.

Stuck in Panama, Again

Since it´s been a while since I last blogged, there´d be too much ground to cover for that much detail. Here´s a summary.

Upon leaving Managua, I headed to Granada, one of Nicaragua´s top two cities. I couldn´t tell you too much about it other than that it was a miserable experience. Although noticies appear in the paper on a daily basis, the city was unprepared on a daily basis for the regular blackouts, of which there were three in my four days there. If ever there were a city that could not afford blackouts, it is Granada. The combination of heat an humidity makes the city hardly bearable, but when the fans go off in the middle of the night, it gets even worse. As the city relies on pumps for plumbing, morning showers when the electricity is off are not an option, making everyone who isn´t French rather unpleasant until around 4p.m. when things go back on.

Upon leaving Granada, I headed to Isla Ometepe in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. There, I spent a few days in a hammock and playing cards, though that was also my first experience of swimming in shark infested waters. To leave Ometepe, I took a 10 hour overnight boatride to San Carlos, near the Costa Rican border. Fortunately, I sprung for the top deck, about two dollars more. Though sleeping even there involved a sleeping bag, as there were no beds, it was at least air conditioned and going out on the deck, where I slept, was an option. I made a brief trip downstairs, where drinks and snacks were sold, and found absolute misery. It wasn´t air conditioned, and all sorts of insects made themselves at home.

From San Carlos, a hell hole in its own right, I embarked on a short trip to El Castillo, the site of an old fort that was built to protect Lago de Nicaragua from Limey scum, er, pirates. I spent a couple of nights there before heading back to San Carlos, which I immediately left for Costa Rica. In Costa Rica, I once again visited hotsprings near Arenal, though this time the cheaper ones. For the second time in two years, I saw no lava from the cloud-covered volcano. I swear it doesn´t exist and that it´s just a ploy to attract tourists. I then went to Monteverde for a rather boring skywalk. The only wildlife I saw was a persevering mosquito that was especially intent on bothering me for the duration of the walk. I rounded out my time in Costa Rica with a few days in the poker rooms of San Jose, where bad beats ruled the day.

Upon leaving CR after about a week too long there (it´s a great country when you have a bigger budget), I headed to Bocas del Toro in Panama. There, I went diving, visited a few of the islands around it, and did a whole lot of nothing. As the whole idea of the islands is doing nothing, the idea of actually packing a bag to catch a boat and a bus quickly lost its appeal, and I spent a good deal more time there than I had planned. Even so, I managed to see a red frog, a nice beach, and a nurse shark in his own domain.

I´m boring myself here. More on Panama City and San Blas later.

Good Times Rollin

Having completed my three day course at the Factory, I am now a certified Open Water Diver. Among other things, I logged four dives during which I saw barracuda, a turtle, and a small wreck. The social part of the course could have been better, as the instructor and two of the five students were French. One of the Hondurans failed to complete the course, as he was pretty panicky during the first dive, forcing the instructor to make the decision not to allow him to come on the next dive.

During the dives, just about everything that could have gone wrong did. Two of us had trouble equalizing nearly to the point where we had to abort. I came up a bit too fast during one of the drills, then nearly ran out of air. Someone else had a totally out of control assent, forcing the assistant instructor to make a dangerously fast assent. And, on the last dive, I just about ran out of air. Nonetheless, I now have my certification and can dive without a divemaster.

Upon leaving Utila, I had a three day trip to Leon, Nicaragua. There, I met up with someone I had met in San Pedro for a few good nights of terrible pool playing and conversation about just how bad the state of American politics is. (Anyone else catch Sen. Stevens referring to the internet as "a series of tangled up tubes"?) I also went to see a few cockfights, which was quite an experience. Three of the four were rather one-sided, including one in which one of the participants had its eyes plucked out about two minutes in.

I am currently in Managua, a city with very little to see, but that is nice to walk around. Unlike the rest of the capital cities I have seen here, it is rather green, as they apparently preferred to build around the trees rather than replacing them. Last night I hit up a casino and walked out with $500 more than I had when I walked in. (No, that was not from an ATM.) $50 of that came from blackjack, the rest resulting from winning a small poker tournament.

I am currently staying about two blocks away from Dennis Martinez Stadium. Baseball being the national sport, I was hopeful I would be able to see some while here. No such luck. Winter leagues only. Oh well. At least I got to see the Met game at the casino last night. They have a sportsbook too.