Fat Saturday in Barcelona

Carnavalistas took to the streets Saturday here in Barcelona for what is the biggest day of Carnaval here. For a big city, the parade is small town, hardly Rio or even N’awlins, but still fun, nice to ‘happen into’ spontaneously. If nothing else it’s nice to see the various communities show up in costume, Bolivians, Peruvians, Colombians, and even Filipinos. So now it’s a European trip, Africa just a stamp in my passport, a fistful of unconvertible money, and a mirage in my rear-view mirror. I guess it’s time to do a Joe-Bob-drive-in-movie-review style head-count denoument. Let’s see: there were thirteen days, two countries, two unsolicited parasitic guides, twenty-six approaches from ‘friends’, (at least) one stalker, one whorehouse, one live band, no alcohol, no sex (with anyone else), two physical attacks from inside, no physical attacks from outside, two hotels, two flights, one train ride, five taxis, two taxi over-charges, forty-two boobs (African women are not obsessed with covering themselves, even, or especially, on long train rides), and I only got lost once, late at night, in Dakar, got confused at a five-way intersection and proceeded off at a forty-five degree angle with a bounce in my step. That’s what one of the taxi rides was for. They usually know the way back if you’ve got a landmark. It’s also helpful to know the name of your hotel. So I guess that’s not so bad. It could have been worse. I could have been beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Actually I’ve hardly ever been robbed in thirty years and fifty countries, and all of those were in Latin America.

Africa is an eye-opener. From Bamako to Dakar you can pretty much go from one extreme to the other, from the most remote unchanging village culture to the brashest urban one, from a place that’s never really waken up to one that never really sleeps. Yes, there’s reverse racism, however benign and yielding. When an unsolicited guide latches on to you and takes you for a ride, literally, that’s a form of racism. When the train ticket office blatantly overcharges you, then that’s racism. They don’t do that to blacks, I assume, certainly not the locals. They probably don’t do it to fluent French speakers either. Interestingly enough, that’s the part of the world where Islamic jihad has been most prominent, virtually transforming the landscape back in the 1800’s at more or less the same time as the colonial powers were “scrambling” to claim the continent. This was the last prize in colonialism, long after most of Latin America had already won its independence and joined the community of nations as little brother to Europe. That ‘Islamicization’ and ‘Arabization’ continues to this day, spreading southward with the desert and investment funds from oil-rich Arab countries.

I guess I’ll have to go back. I still have over a hundred bucks worth of CFA francs and they seem unconvertible here in Spain. I’ll try again in France, but I’m not optimistic. Why would they have anything like a currency exchange booth in the airports departures area when you could deal with some scumbag in a dark alley outside instead? And we wonder why Africa is so far behind. It’s just one last little annoyance, something to stiffen my resistance at being defeated. Fortunately that same currency is used in many countries of Africa, so all is not lost. I could contact some guy named Victor whose name I was given here in Barcelona, but… naah. I doubt that Victor’s rates are very good. Do you see those little Google ads that crop up saying ‘Timbuktu- Know before you go’? I wish they’d come up before I went. And Timbuktu is supposed to be the expensive place in Mali, not Bamako. I guess rooms there are a hundred bucks a night minimum. Jeez… and to think I complained last year about paying thirty-five euros at midnight for an Arabesque room in Casablanca that the Figueroa Hotel in LA would only emulate for twice the price. It’s all relative to expectations and budget. Put me on an expense account and I’ll never complain again. All those people who love Mali must fall into that category. But Africa is a trip. Its people are one of the world’s three great races, in distinctness if not in sheer numbers. The others are the Asian and Caucasian, of course. What’s ‘Caucasian’ mean, anyway, caulked Asian? Chalky Asian? The term is a misnomer, pulled out of a hat some two hundred years ago and now we’re stuck with it. By accident it could be right, and people without pigment might have formed their original population pool north of the bottle-necked mountainous Kavkaz region. Who knows? Most sources now postulate about ten races or physical types total, almost half of them in the South Pacific region. Now what does that say about the patterns of human migration and evolution?

So now for me it’s Europe, Spain, wide boulevards and lively plazas, mercados y siestas. Most of the things I like most about Mexico can be found right here in Spain, except Indians and low prices. It could be worse, like in high season, but definitely pricier than the US, especially with Bush’s newer weaker dollar. The last time the dollar was this weak was the early 70’s. Hmm, I wonder, what did the early 70’s have in common with the current era? Once again, we’re caught between Iraq and a hot place. At least there’s Chinese food here, so I’m happy. Dakar had some, but pricey, even some Vietnamese washed up on the shores of Francophony. They probably wish they could go back now. So the trick is to find the Chinese restaurant with a buffet. I did, and so has every other construction worker in town. For no more than the price of an English breakfast here, you can get the full Chinese spread. Yes, there are the ubiquitous British ex-pats even here. Of course what they call ‘English breakfast’ here is really an American breakfast, with hash browns and eggs. A real English breakfast includes stewed tomatoes and baked beans with sausages and eggs. I guess it makes your spouse look more appetizing first thing in the morning. You wouldn’t believe the expressions I’ve seen on foreigners’ faces at B&B’s in the UK when faced with such a display. It’s not cheap, either, so most places, in London at least, go Continental-style now. But the buffet is what Chinese food is supposed to be, cheap and good and plentiful. A ‘Chinese table’ (full of food presumably) tends to be among the more expensive types of food in Thailand, strangely enough, considering the racial make-up of the country. Spain is not lo-carb capital of the world, so the choice is easy between starchy greasy Spanish food or all-you-can-eat Chinese food at half the price. That’s a lo-brainer. I’ve got a water boiler, so I could eat instant noodles in my room, add veggies to taste, but the noodles are a buck a pack here, same in Africa. In the US, they’re fifteen cents, same as Thailand. There’s no roast chicken in grocery stores here, either, my staple food. I even found that in Dakar, but not Mali, of course. Mali’s the real thing.

Barcelona is pretty nice, especially down here in ‘Las Ramblas’. This is the maze surrounding the old original city. It’s not as Byzantine as the old Jewish quarter in Seville, but yeah, you could get lost in there. It’s called ‘la Gotica’, so I guess Goths are more organized than Semites. There’s lots of Gaudi architecture surrounding the city, of course. What I like here now are all the human statues lining the ‘Las Ramblas’ pedestrian thoroughfare. I first saw these last year in the Canary Islands, humans dressed in historical garb of choice, poised like a statue, unmoving, tip jar conspicuously placed, quite convincing. Well by now they’ve multiplied like mushrooms in Mississippi cow shit, so there are dozens on this one strip (in February, mind you), but mostly uninspired, just elaborately costumed, standing there hardly even striking a pose. There goes the neighborhood. Coincidentally I’ve found a park bench on the same strip where I can get a wi-fi signal (carefully monitoring the birds overhead), so I’m a regular now there, too, and quite the novelty apparently. Yesterday a tourist came up and asked if he could take my picture. No tourist has asked to take my picture since I ate noodle soup with the little bald-headed hill-tribe girl twelve years ago up in Sapa, North Vietnam. We were a cute couple, but that hardly counts, since geeky Vietnamese tourists do little but take pictures when they travel, mostly of each other. Well, my mama didn’t raise a fool, not many anyway, so today when I go back out to use wi-fi I’m going to take my hat off and place it conspicuously. This could be a major career move. It’ll be short, though. Tomorrow I go to France. I thought about doing a day trip to Andorra just to put another country under my belt, but… well… stay tuned.