Dealers and the Dealee

* this entry from 5/11 *
Fruit Dealers & Eaters, Mariscal Sucre

They're notorious here -- The Fruit-Dealers, a pack of little kiddos with dirt smudged cheeks and eyes that twinkle. They run the streets of Mariscal Sucre, walk around town touting bags of limes, lychees, and apples. They make their rounds, down slim alleys, into the Salsa Studio, past tour agencies, and farras. Their selling tactic -- they have this keen ability to morph their faces into wounded expressions, to make their voices sweet and soft. "Por favor", they say, drawing out the or in "por" and "favor".

They've crossed my path quite a few times. I might have succumbed earlier, but reason kept me strong -- what would I do with 12 limes? How do I peel a hairy lychee? But today, they succeeded...

Minding my own business, I'm strolling the street licking the sides of a tall ice cream cone, when suddenly, The Fruit-Dealers appear. Startled, I murmer a quick "hey". With eyes to the ground, I try to walk around them. They match my footsteps -- to the left, to the right. Soon I'm cornered against a brick wall. I want to hide the icecream cone. It makes me look like someone who eats; they could use this to their advantage and say I know you eat, now buy our fruit. Por favor(twinkle eyes). They hold bags of small apples above their heads, close to my face. Waving a hand, I signal that I don't want any trouble. I hastily dig in a pocket and hand over money. The exchange is fast, and in no time The Fruit-Dealers have vanished and I'm left with a bunch of apples.

Down another block, I run into The Fruit-Eaters. They're sitting on the concrete sidewalk, leaned against a building side, the soles of their feet darkened ash, their hair knotted, tangled and long. After offering weed, they ask for an apple. One apple leads to two and soon everyone in the group wants one. "Hippies share everything," they say smiling.


* this entry from 5/17 *
The Shoe Dealer, Old Town
I made a friend today at the shoe shop; I’d like to call her can’t-stay-still. This little creature was dressed in a spotted fur coat, a rather morbid fashion statement. Her caretaker who made the ensemble is also the owner of a shoe shop. While can’t-stay-still stayed true to her name, the Shoe Dealer sat in a comfy chair and talked about Texaco and the oil spill in the Orient, talked about Ecuador’s slice of the Amazon and pink dolphins, talked about Oregon, Montana and Washington; she talked about her preference to classic literature, talked about Sheba (her other cat) and took me to the back of the store to show me her hiding places. And then, she talked about a special sale on a pair of shoes -- high heel shoes, the kind of shoe that is pointless while on the travel road; the type of shoe that takes up space and adds to backpack weight. But once on feet, reason faltered, and in the same manner as encounters with the Fruit Dealers, I forked over the cash and added the shoes to the hordes of lychee, apple, and tamarind candy I’ve succumbed to.

from hairy lychees to high-heel shoes…

...The Flight of Feathers

* this entry from now *

Just a moment ago I was sitting at a wrought iron table in the middle of an atrium, when suddenly, a small feather landed in my lap.

The Flight of Feathers

* this entry from now *

One new message appears in my email inbox. It's from Captain Mo, written from Afghanistan.

She describes her accomodation in a shipping container, describes the F18 jets that roar overhead, describes the many landmines left behind by the Russians, how due to this walking in certain areas requires following local kids familiar with the terrain.

From my room with two blankets, mint tea and chocolate, a desk lamp that casts a warm glow, I read this.

Earlier, I read about the parents whose children were buried beneath a poorly constructed school that collapsed in China's May 08 earthquake, how one mother said in regards to being compensated for her loss, "what kind of justice can we have? There is no way to bring back my daughter".

And currently reading in Murakami's After the Quake, the unsettling undertone of distance and the intangibility of events...


At least, there's thoughts, there's prayer -- and perhaps it works in the same way that Shanley's Doubt interprets gossip: as feathers shredded from a pillow that take flight, past walls and fences, on such a course that even if attempted could not all be gathered.



... at the moment, Hotel Alcala, Quito
sending out feathers



(new song added; it conjures images of feathers in flight)

On the Road -- Cusco to Lima

* this entry from 5/1 & yesterday *

Read something this morning about May -- the 1st of May -- being "the new start of your life". I'm celebrating with a MilkyWay bar; it got smashed beneath a water bottle, but the flavor's still the same. On the road, same routine -- metal detectors and videotapes of bus passenger's faces. The only difference though, is that this is a fancy bus -- leather seats, blankets with gold embroidery, a lady dressed in a black pant suit walks up and down the aisle asks passengers to buckle their seatbelts, hands out hot food (Lomo Saltado), Bingo cards, and little bags of toothbrushes and paste. I'm waiting for a yellow facemask to come dangling from the ceiling, for the bus to lift off the ground and sprout wings.












19hrs later an arrival to Lima.

After showing up on the doorstep of a no-vacancy Hostel, walking, then hopping in a cab and going in circles looking for a non-existent address to accommodation attempt #2, then settling at random Hotel, I went out for some fresh air... and then started running, with a book and cigarettes. Forrest Gump came to mind, and I tried to embody his spirit by continuing to run to nowhere in particular for no particular reason.

Unlike Forrest, the run ends maybe thirty minutes later on a rocky shore embedded with bright soda bottle tops, plastic bags, and crab claws. A man and a small boy with a long line cast out to sea stand on a thin peninsula. A fellow is skipping stones. Further along a group of surfers congregate, their bodies half out of wetsuits like peeled bananas. Small black bodies straddling surfboards dot the water, rise and fall with the swell of the ocean.

What's it like to be out there sliding along the crest of waves? When the ocean is gliding under them, are they thinking about their technique or does everything flow, like the ocean is giving them a piggyback ride. And when the waves roll on top of them and they dip below the surface does it muffle out the traffic of noise, is there a peaceful quiet in that underwater world? Rather than set, the sun seemed to take a mysterious route out, disappearing behind a rolling mass of clouds and leaving in its place nighttime.



...at the moment, Residencial Alfa
In the morning news -- swine flu possibly ebbs, Japanese couples wed more economically in US, and Captain Mo leaves for Afghanistan.