“Estación Chacao” says the pre-recorded voice. The brakes screech to a halt, the doors sigh open, and I depart. Those former lovers with whom I had been lying in bed are again strangers. They will mug me in the street and they will help me when I ask for directions. They will give me the bird when I cut them off on the highway and I will do the same when they cut me off.
When HP and I had our last romantic, candle-lit dinner before I left San Diego he asked me:
“Damn dawg, you’re gonna take your laptop and camera and ipod down with you? Whatchyou gonna do if some thugs jump you?”
I hadn’t really thought about it. By this point I had sold off or given away just about all of my possessions. Everything I could now call my own - pictures, music, movies, writings - were all 1’s and 0’s and they were all in my laptop.
“Well, I guess I’ll have to fight,” I said.
“Crazy-ass-Oso, dawg,” HP responded with his signature smile and we started talking about something else.
Unlike in Peru five years ago, this time I knew immediately what was happening as soon as I felt the weight of his body on my back, his forearms crushing into my throat; I knew I was being mugged. The entire incident is a bit blurred in my memory - more like a slideshow out of order than a flowing movie.
I ended up on the ground. At least two people were kicking my stomach and back while I heard the voice of the guy with his arms around my neck yell, “sueltalo o te voy a matar.” I held onto my bag with dear life and tried to peel his arms away so I could breath. Then I heard women’s voices and I realized that the two people kicking me were both women. One had stopped kicking me and took my wallet, then started pulling my pants down until my ass was showing.
I could feel blows to the back of my head with a hard fist. “En serio marico, te voy a matar,” was like a chant that echoed over and over. Somewhere in the sub-conciouss of my brain the calculus of self-preservation told me this was no longer worth it.
“Ok, ok, ok.” And I let go of my bag. The constriction loosened around my neck and the kicks to my stomach and back ceased. I pulled up my pants, stood up, and was amazed by what I saw. Just ten feet away was a group of 15 to 20 people staring at me blankly as if I were a daytime game show.
“¡Cómo que no me van a ayudar!” I pleaded, but no one moved. I saw the shadows of the three who had attacked me running up the alley. I started chasing after them and realized I was barefoot. One guy, two girls, street kids, all early 20’s.
For the first time my brain started to work and I realized that if the kid had a gun or knife I would have felt it like I did in Peru. When he saw me chasing after him he put his hand in his pocket and made the shape of a gun. Again he said he would kill me and I hesitated. But then - in excitement and stupidity - he pulled his hand out with his index finger and thumb sticking out like a five-year-old boy playing cowboys and Indians.
I told him I’d give him my money if he gave me my bag. He said he’d kill me. Buying time I said, “at least give me my passport.” The girls pleaded with him, but the only thing he knew how to say was “te voy a matar, te voy a matar.” And it was obvious that he was as scared as I was.
Then we started to fight.
Real life fights are nothing like the movies. They’re sloppy. The majority of punches thrown don’t find skin. And when they do, it’s a grazed cheek or shoulder. Real fights are much more homo-erotic than heroic.
A rock crashed into the wall where we were fighting and the kid started running away. And then a few seconds later a small stone tagged me in the thigh. And another. He was throwing them like baseballs and all I could do was retreat and dodge, trying not to let him out of my sight.
Let me stop here to say (as I later emphasized to the police sergeant) that by now the robbery had lasted more than five minutes. And, by now, there were more than 30 onlookers. But no one helped me out. Their inaction felt like a wave of hatred directed at me.
“No, no, aquí nadie se mete,” the sergeant would later respond, “here no one butts in.”
“But it was obvious that he wasn’t armed,” I stammered. “If just one other person would have helped me out, I’d still have my computer.”
Well, I shouldn’t say that nothing was done. The kid kept running up the alley, turning back occasionally to throw a rock at me. Finally, I saw a miracle. Ahead of the kid - at the far end of the alley was a patrol of four police officers with muscular arms and shoulders sticking out of their bulletproof vests. The kid didn’t even try to run. I shouted at the officers to stop him and, by the time I caught up, he was pinned against the brick wall with his hands behind his back. One of the two girls was there also with her head bowed down.
My bag was nowhere to be seen. I couldn’t have cared less about the kid or the girl. They both looked homeless and dirty, their eyes vacant and mean. Even though I was bleeding through my shirt and my head was pounding, a streak of sympathy still flashed by when I saw how young and how old my attacker’s face looked. I just wanted my computer back.
They both told the officers that they had no idea who I was or what had happened while I ran around frantically and desperately asking every heartless onlooker where the third girl went but no one said anything. Somehow I felt more rage towards them the kid who attacked me.
I gave up and went back to the police officers. They had let the girl go (”no tenia nada”), but were threatening the kid and smacking him hard with closed fists on the back of his head.
The next morning I was in the American embassy, accompanied by a Venezuelan security guard as I waited in the marble-floored lobby. The US embassy, high up in the luxurious neighborhood of Valle Arriba looks like it was build to withstand nuclear warfare, not to process visas and passports. I explained to the security guard what happened.
“Sí, agarraron el tipo, pero … Yeah, they got him, but they let the girl go. Then we tried to strike a deal. He left his cédula (national ID card) with us and said he’d get my laptop back to me if I gave him cash and my ipod. If not, he’d have an arrest warrant on his record for the rest of his life.”
It may sound strange to you that I was negotiating with the person who just mugged me in front of the police. But in Venezuela it seemed normal. In fact, I trusted the police as little as I trusted the crook. I was furious that the officers let the girl go. If we had both of them, we could have kept one in custody while the other got my computer.
In the end, I was left with a national ID card and nothing else, not even enough money to take a taxi to the embassy. I waited with the police sergeant for two hours, first with optimism, then with resigned realism. Of course the kid wouldn’t come back. How did he know the police wouldn’t arrest him after he handed over the laptop. How did I know that he didn’t strike a deal with the cops? I clenched my teeth in anger and defeat as the sergeant told me his favorite cops-and-robbers stories and assured me I was lucky that I didn’t get stabbed. He handed me a card with his number written on it. “When you come back to Venezuela, you call me up and I can be your personal body guard. It’s the only way for foreigners in this city.”
I have no idea how late I stayed up that night, staring at the ceiling while the techno of the clubs below reverberated through the walls. I had no way of telling the time. I had no one to talk to. Nothing to email with. No pictures to look at, movies to watch, or music to listen to. All I had was incessant bass rattling the window panes while I tried to take mental stock of what I lost.
It was an interesting exercise. How do we measure our losses? In money? In time? Frustration? Sentimental value? My laptop, old school 30 GB iPod, my iPod shuffle, my electronic translator, a few ipod accessories. Then there was my wallet, the $100 or so in cash, the credit cards I’d need to cancel and replace. The hours waiting in line at the DMV. But most frustrating was the data I lost. It had been two weeks since my last backup. Two weeks of working nearly eight hours a day. 80 hours of work at least. The email drafts erased. The long essay I had been working on every day, gone.
I rolled over, trying not to think about it and trying not to let my bloodied back stick to the sheets. Eventually I woke, my room flooded with light, my bottom lip swollen, my head pounding, and my back and my stomach cramped and sore. I gathered a couple dollars of change from around my room and started asking strangers how to get to the US embassy. At an airline office some young guy about my age overheard me tell the clerk that I didn’t have enough money for a taxi and that I’d have to walk the 5+ miles. He chased after me in the street and handed me enough money for the taxi fare.
When I told my Chinese-Venezuelan taxi driver what had happened he waved off the money. “This is a dangerous city,” he told me, “but Venezuelans are good people.” At the embassy they fed me, helped me get money wired, and called my banks to cancel my credit cards.
There is a scene in the highly-recommended movie Secuestro Express when the rich girl explains to one of her kidnappers that she has sympathy for the poor, that she’s a volunteer at a free medical clinic, that she’s always done everything she can for the poor.
— Yeah, but you’re rich — Is it a crime to be born rich? — And rub it in everyone’s face? You live in a city knee-deep in shit and you drive around in daddy’s new Jeep and you wear this fucking dress? You know how many people you can feed with the price of this dress? You walk around this city rubbing your money in the faces of everyone and how the fuck do you expect that you’re not going to get kidnapped?
There’s no question that Caracas is one of the most dangerous cities in the western hemisphere. Crime, or “inseguridad,” has been the central issue throughout this fall’s ongoing campaigning. It’s the one issue Chavistas know they can’t deny. Crime has gone from bad to worse. Every day the newspapers have some opinion piece regretting the fact that no one walks at night anymore, that everyone wears a constant expression of fear.
The main opposition candidate, Manuel Rosales, says he will crack down on crime and criminals. But already the police force has been nearly doubled. Police are everywhere in Caracas. Helicopters have been purchased. And yet the murder rate keeps climbing and I’m sure that most robberies and kidnappings are never even reported.
On the taxi ride to the airport we left the mulitnational-owned skyscrapers of downtown and headed down the long grade to the airport. Crawling up the valley’s steep hillsides like a skin disease were impoverished spreads of brick and tin shacks. The same impoverished, hill-hugging shacks that spread throughout Latin America from Tijuana to Tierra del Fuego. The cola, or line of traffic, to the airport was at a standstill from all the Cariqueños heading to the beach for the weekend. Walking up and down the smog-clogged corridors between the cars were teenagers, mothers, and dark young men selling soft drinks, pirated CD’s, beach toys, and ice cream cones.
“How much do you think these guys make in a day?” I asked my taxi driver.
“They don’t do bad at all,” he said, “probably about 20,000 or 30,000 in a day.”
Ten to 15 dollars after standing out in the sun, breathing in the fumes of cars, and hawking goods all day long. Less money than most people reading this make in an hour. In front of the taxi was a brand new Range Rover. The windows were heavily tinted but I could make out the silhouettes of three kids jumping up and down and dancing excitedly in the back seat.
I can’t help but think of the scene in Secuestro Express. I can’t help but think that more equality is the only thing that will diminish Venezuela’s crime problem. And, of course, more opportunities. Whether you believe those opportunities should come in the form of government-run programs like Barrio Adentro or more minimum wage jobs at a new Wal-Mart probably depends on your politics and how you grew up. Personally, I’d like to see a lot more of both - more government programs to get kids off the street and into school and more jobs at Wal-Mart or anywhere else to give poor kids a wage other than what they’re able to rob and steal.
I have no idea what to expect of the future. Five years down the road is hard enough to imagine; 60 years, impossible. Maybe Southern California will be blown off the map by a North Korean nuclear missile. Maybe national governments will cease to exist and all we’ll have left is the UN and state governments. Maybe there will be more crime, maybe less.
60 years down the road I’ll be 86 and Hector Enrique Calderon Contreras will be 83. Who knows what the Internet will be like at that point. Who knows if this blog will still be online and if it is, who knows how significant or insignificant it will be in the sea of searchable information.
But maybe, just maybe, sometime in the next 60 years Hector Enrique Calderon Contreras will come across this post and he’ll remember the night he mugged a gringo tourist. Maybe that laptop he scored that night changed his life. Maybe he learned how to use a computer, was able to get a job, found himself inside the global economy.
Or maybe he sold it for $500 and used the money to buy drugs. Maybe he kept stealing. Maybe he wound up in jail or dead.
I’ve written all this in my paper journal: a journal I hardly ever use because most of my entries were typed into my computer. The first page in here was written on my last day in San Diego. It’s full of happiness and optimism for the exploration and mystery that laid ahead. I can’t believe all that has happened in the two months since that entry. A friend of mine recently wrote me an email saying he missed this guy. I miss him too. I miss the guy playing drums on the steering wheel and singing out loud. I miss the guy doing the running man in a Hollywood club while wearing a dress. I have a feeling he’s just around the corner.
Question:
Why is ancestral country and culture so important to some Americans and not others? And why do some ethnicities identify with the home country and culture of their parents or grandparents or great-grandparents more than others? It seems to me that “roots identity” is much more important to Irish, Italians, Mexicans, and Indians (and arguably Jews) than other second and third generation and fourth generation immigrants.
Two things have me wondering this. First: Arnold Schwarzenegger’s comment that Mexicans don’t immerse themselves and “assimilate into the American culture become part of the American fabric.” (More from Cindylu and KJERRINGA MOT STRØMMEN) And also this post about “Indianness” from Aishwarya, based in New Delhi. Describing a cousin of hers who lives in the US, she writes:
She’s more up to date on Indian fashion than I am. She watches every Bollywood release, and reminds me of those women in Bollywood NRI movies where the scenery and the white people are relegated to the status of props.
Then, describing herself:
Philistine that I am, I don’t wear my Indian-ness as a sort of badge of honour. I live in India and have an Indian passport, so being Indian is obviously not as big a deal for me as for someone who lives halfway across the world. Most of my friends are Indian, simply because I’m in India and Indians are most of the people I meet. But despite living in Delhi, I have plenty of non-Indian friends as well. Because my interests and concerns are not specifically Indian ones. My taste in music isn’t, the books and movies I like aren’t Indian (some of them are. Not all).
Her post reminded me of a thought I had once while riding in the car with some friends in Mexico City. We were listening to the very latest indie rock songs from Brooklyn, wearing identical clothing, and on our way to eat, not tacos, but hamburgers. “Las hamberguesas mas ricas de todo DF,” they told me. And I remember thinking to myself, “Mexicans are more American than most Chicanos.”
I should clarify that this has nothing to do with assimilation because I don’t believe there is a static American culture that immigrants should assimilate to. American culture has always been dynamic and has always evolved thanks to the contributions of new immigrants.
Four of my favorite bloggers all happen to be Mexican-American. For Cindylu and Jennifer, their “Mexicanness” is something that is very important to them and a huge part of their identity. But from the blogs of Alejandro and Xoloitzquintle, you’d never even know that they are Mexican-American.
Why? Why the difference in identity and interests? Jennifer has already written about when Mexicanness became a central part of her identity. But why does that transformation happen to some and not others?
She opened up a book of poems and handed it to me written by an Italian poet from the 13th century and every one of them words rang true and glowed like burning coal pouring off of every page like it was written in my soul.
Bob Dylan
I’m one of those people who like to make fun of slam poetry. I have my own little personation where I snap my fingers and talk about my mother’s vagina in that unmistakable rhythm of choked-up stuttering.
But when I hear people say that modern poetry - real poetry, constructed with language, not theatrics - is dead, I ask them to listen to my iPod. When will the most talented hip-hop artists - from Uganda to Cuba to Cincinnati - be recognized as the true poets of contemporary society?
When will studying rap lyrics in an academic environment be considered something more than pop-culture indulgence by professors wanting to look cool? Tupac, Slug, Zion I (thanks Revaz), Eminem: their descriptions of modern life and of timeless human nature are brutally and beautifully expressive. They are true poets and should be regarded as such.
Downloads of the day:
Kick, Push by Lupe Fiasco
He Say She Say by Lupe Fiasco
Freedom
A couple days ago I wrote that “these days” we have too many choices and that, perhaps, those choices impede our happiness because each decision carries the heavy uncertainty of all the other options we ruled out. From the thoughtful and meaningful emails I received afterwards, it appears that the idea resonates with a lot of people.
Of course, I’m far from the first person to talk about the oppressiveness of choice. It seems like every modern anthropologist and sociologist works the theme into their contemporary talking points. Not long ago, UTNE Reader had a fantastic issue dedicated solely to the study of choice. It was also one of the “thinking democrats’” main arguments against Bush’s social security reform. (Giving Americans choice in how they invest their social security would cause them anxiety that they were making the wrong choices, went the argument.)
Going back even further, Sartre - in the middle of the 20th century - said that humans are too free. They, as in you and me, as in right now, can do absolutely anything the physical properties of the world allow for. And that limitless freedom is so terrifying that we invent boundaries and rituals, rules and commitments to convince ourselves that we are not really so free. “I must live here, I must finish school, I must keep this job, I can’t sleep with more than 10 people, I need to get married,” we tell ourselves because, frankly, life is a lot easier and a lot more comforting when we are told what we must do.
Even further back, Nietzsche’s idea of the Eternal Return essentially implied that we are free of responsibility for our actions - the choices we choose - because there is no way to know, in the grand scheme of things, which choice was “the best.”
But now, like never before, our lives are inundated with more choices than Nietzsche or Sartre could have ever foreseen. Just imagine if you were born 100 years ago in a rural Guatemalan town of 2,000 people. Imagine the choices you would have had to make throughout your life and compare that to your life today. What we study, our interests, our 13.2 careers, who we date, where we live, what we eat, the music we listen to. the way we dress, who we marry, who we divorce, who we remarry, what car to buy, how many kids we choose to have, our computer operating system, the languages we speak, our friends, our enemies. Choices we don’t even think about because if we did, our heads would explode.
Instead we use a faculty of the brain or body - what’s the difference? - which doesn’t even exist: intuition, or “the gut.” When we choose a career and when we choose to get married, it’s not because we know that we want this job or that person more than all others for the rest of our life. That’s impossible to know. It’s because we believe we’ll be happier if we eliminate the very possibility of choice from here on out.
Familiarity
There are three cafes here in Caracas where I have my morning coffee, palmera or cachito de jamón, and read the newspaper. They are: Coma, el CELARG, and the plaza of el Museo Bellas Artes. I go to these places because they are, by now, familiar. I know what to expect.
But every morning that I return to these three places I also realize that I’m not giving a chance to the other hundreds or thousands of cafes around Caracas. So this morning I chose choice over familiarity. I hopped on metro line 3 and got off where everyone else did - Ciudad Universitaria as it turned out - put on my iPod, and started walking until I found a cafe I liked. Coming out of the metro station, I was faced with a red and yellow mural of Che. Below his iconic portrait were the words “the university doesn’t belong to anyone.” And opposite the mural were about five or six booths - surrounded by Levis-wearing students - selling pirated copies of the latest DVD’s from Hollywood and CD’s of American pop music.
45 minutes later I was still walking. By this point I passed two busy McDonalds and a number of crowded indoor mini-malls. But I couldn’t find a single mom-and-pop’s bakery or cafe. I was reminded of a conversation I had with Luis Carlos just a couple days ago. We had met at one major shopping mall in Chacao only to take motorcycle taxis across town to another major shopping mall where we met with a group of bloggers on our way to a party.
Walking through the second mall’s main corridor Luis Carlos said, “you know, all these malls, they’re all new. They didn’t even exist a couple years ago. Centro San Ignacio, Sambil, el Recreo, this one, all of them are new.”
I commented on how crowded they always were.
“Yeah, because they’ve replaced the plazas and the small stores and the markets. People come here because they’re safe, and clean, and … because everyone else comes here.”
And, because they are familiar. Every mall in Caracas has the same stores with the same layouts. The same restaurants with the same menus. The same food-courts with the same combo meals. You go to a mall, any mall, and you know what you like and what you don’t. There’s no anxiety of whether you should order the pasticho de pollo or filet de atún at some hole-in-the-wall restaurant because you already know that the combo #4 super-sized is for you and you know that it will taste exactly the same every single time. There are no “bad days” at McDonalds.
Or as Megan McArdle puts it:
Standardization reduces volatility. I won’t have the highs - I’ll never have the really great meals at Olive Garden, but I also won’t have a really bad meal.
She said that on a brilliant episode of Christopher Lydon’s Open Source podcast. This particular show, “The End of Free Will,” was named after Clay Shirky’s recent fascinating essay, and deals in part with why we have abandoned independent cafes, restaurants, boutiques, and bookstores in favor of Starbucks, the Cheesecake Factory, Forever 21, and Barnes and Noble.
Both Jim Leff and Clay Shirky place the blame not on the consumer, but rather, manipulative nuero-marketing and brand-awareness by major chains. Each day we need to make thousands and thousands of choices, more than our brains could ever handle, but when we see the familiar green mermaid of Starbucks or freckly face of Wendy’s we’re immediately drawn in, unconsciously, because our brains know, “here is a familiar place, a place where I know what to order, how to order, how to pronounce it.” And we choose the ease of familiarity - despite the mediocre food - over the risk of novelty and uncertainty and potential regret.
I can certainly understand their argument. When Baja Fresh first came out in San Diego - when it was still it’s own small chain - I was an immediate fan. Here’s a place with real grilled chicken, quality ingredients, fresh and unlimited salsa. It didn’t taste like fast food and yet, when I was in a hurry, I could run in, grab a $5 burrito, and run out 20 minutes later. Then, they suckered me. I see their logo and I go in, not because I really want a Baja Fresh burrito, but because I think I do. And they’re not $5 anymore. They’re about $7, which is more expensive than the lunch specials at a lot of really great independent Thai, Mexican, French, Vietnamese … hell, a whole slew of quality and independent restaurants around San Diego.
The third guest on the show, Megan McArdle, does more than just hold her own. By telling people that they are wrong in their choice of Burger King over their local french bistro, she argues, you’re making a value judgement. You may have different aesthetic or culinary preferences, but you can’t tell them they are wrong when they go to a fast food restaurant.
Passing by the second busy McDonalds as I heard this I wondered if she was right. Am I really choosing what is “best” or is my own preferred “brand” an independent cafe with the NY Times and the latest copy of the New Yorker? Furthermore, the “independent cafes” I used to love so much just 5 years ago now hardly exist. And where they do, they are mostly copy-cats of the big chains. I don’t see the same pride in quality of craftsmanship. What I see are plastic wrapped madeleines from Costco - because Starbucks consumers are familiar with them and because everyone is a Starbucks consumer - and a separate menu with more than a dozen kinds of frappuccinos.
Walking Down the Boulevard
Finally I reach - via my rambling, circuitous route - what appears to be a main thoroughfare of restaurants, bars, delis, and cafes. I spot one cafe/bakery with some good looking palmeras and a real espresso machine, but it’s absurdly dark inside and the tables are too close together. Another down the road has a comfortable ambience and air conditioning, but no espresso machine. Across the street is another with a bunch of college kids reading outside. It looks like a good choice and my stomach is starting to rumble with hunger. But eyeing further down the boulevard, I can’t help but wonder if something even better awaits.
And it occurs to me, isn’t this how we make all our choices? Aren’t we always walking down the boulevard, keeping our eyes out for what’s best while wondering if something even better might lie ahead? When do we decide to stop? When do we know that we’ve made a good choice based on all that we’ve seen and all that we haven’t?
Eventually I settled on a cafe that had both fresh palmeras and an espresso machine. My palmera was dry and too flaky, but my cafe marrón (a macchiato) was heavenly. I sat outside and started reading the newspaper, occasionally glancing over at the passerby. Bolivia and Venezuela have signed a military pact to construct military bases around the Bolivian border, the Chilean paper El Mercurio discovered. The “Social Responsibility” supplement had an article on a solar energy project in the Amacuro Delta. Maybe I’ll translate the article to English and post it on the blog, I thought to myself. And I wondered if the other cafe a few blocks back - the one with all the college kids hanging out in front - would have been a better choice.
Who knows. There’s no way to. I take comfort in that. I feel the caffeine take to my bloodstream. I open my notebook and I start to write.
