tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58103138333673011532024-03-08T02:11:51.781-08:00Words and ideas are powerful tools.This page will be used to host things that I write. I write what I see, hear, read, feel and remember.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01852698672026481341noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810313833367301153.post-4818639452278381812015-09-15T13:57:00.003-07:002015-09-15T13:57:55.573-07:00Paso CanoasThis piece will form the second in a short collection of essays on the ways we interact with other people.<br />
<br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">We
are at the back of a long line of people waiting to punch out of Costa Rica,
and punch into Panama. It is an ostensibly pleasant 85 degrees, but humidity is
touching 95%, and in these conditions, everyone’s patience is evaporating far
quicker than their sweat is able to. The time is a little after half past 7,
and the border closes at 8. Paso Canoas is nothing like the famous border posts
of Tijuana or El Paso some 3000 miles to the north. There are no bars, strip
clubs and by-the-hour motels. When the border closes, everybody goes home, and
comes back in the morning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The
line is moving almost imperceptibly, as we edge round the corner of a low
concrete wall on which a number of sleepy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ticos</i>
are perched, half-heartedly trying to make their final sales of the night. We
turn down the offer of a bottle of Coca-Cola bobbing up and down in a cooler of
tepid water that may or may not have been ice at some point during the day, and
instead cast our eyes towards the front of the line to see what the delay is. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">I
have made this border crossing three times during my time working in the rural
south of Costa Rica; the visa run is a tri-monthly ritual for many foreigners
who visit this country for work, rest or play. Every 90 days hundreds, probably
thousands of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">gringos</i> head to Panama
in the south, or Nicaragua in the north. My visa is 87 days old, and in the
event that we don’t get across the border tonight, I will check into one of
Paso Canoas’s safer hostels, and try again in the morning. Another person must
have been successful in making it across, for at this second a ripple of
movement briefly courses through the line of people as we all shuffle forward a
pace or two. Now we can see, and even hear, the reason for the slow progress
tonight.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">“You
ain’t fuckin’ listening to me, I been down here twenty goddamn years, you hear
me? 20 goddamn years! And now you’re telling me I need my fuckin’ passport to
leave this shitty country?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The
border post at Paso Canoas is fairly efficient one, as these things go. Three
of the four service windows are occupied by stern faced but respectful
officials in impeccably pressed uniforms that appear to be impervious to the
sweat covering the waiting tourists and travellers. Sweat is visibly dripping
from the monstrous, bloated man who is physically and verbally taking up two of
the three windows. His legs are planted wide apart in a stance of aggression
possibly learned many years ago on a wrestling mat somewhere in middle America,
but more likely to support his significant bulk. His t-shirt is stretched taut
across his misshapen torso, extolling the virtues of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Rhino Charger Sport Fishing, Tamarindo Costa Rica, </i>and a faded and
battered baseball cap adorns his bald pate, despite the sun dipping down below
the horizon over an hour ago, as it does every day of the year here in the
Tropics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">“-Apologise,
sir, but without a passport you cannot go beyond this point, perhaps-” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The
heavily accented but grammatically flawless words of a female border official
float along the line. Those of us not already clutching our passports absentmindedly
pat our pockets and open our bags to ensure they are in reach, and of course
they are, for who would attempt to cross an international border without a
passport?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">“-You
have your <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tarjeta de residencia
costarricense</i> with you?” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">This
border official is being remarkably courteous and polite in the circumstances,
but standing her ground. Her opponent however, perhaps in the way he took on
rival wrestlers in his younger days, for better or worse, remains on the
attack.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana;">“Do
I look like a fuckin’ tee-coh to you? I’m an American!”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Verdana;">The
nationality of this gladiator man comes as no surprise to anyone in the
audience, but the way in which the words are brandished like a weapon, aimed at
this border official like a battering ram, draw sighs and looks of contempt
from some. Much to the surprise of nobody except he who uttered them, these
words hold no magic power here in Paso Canoas. The drawbridge does not open,
and the border official calmly asks the man to stand aside so that she may
assist someone who has the required documents. There is general murmur of
agreement at this and the line shudders forward another two feet or so. The
American is almost apoplectic with rage at this point, and with a final throw
of the dice, produces a battered mobile phone, and makes some threat about
“taking this shit as high as it needs to go” as he waddles toward a bench along
the back wall of the customs and immigration area. Satisfied that this
particularly piece of street theatre has run its course, business as usual
resumes at three of the four service windows, and we cross into Panama around 9
minutes before 8pm.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01852698672026481341noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5810313833367301153.post-4198748342003122142015-08-28T14:52:00.000-07:002015-08-28T14:52:18.215-07:00This piece was written for a creative non-fiction class. It is an example of flash non-fiction.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I was across the street, and as a result, I didn’t hear the
words. The main street in the town of Luray, Virginia is in the midst of a
process of gentrification. Where once stood most likely general stores,
hardware stores, and other stores selling local things for local people, there
are boutiques, bookshops and cafes that cater for out-of-towners. It is such a
café that I am exiting at the time the words were spoken. My fiancée and I are
making last minute wedding plans, wishing we could find local stores with local
prices, but finding only smiles hastily assembled below calculating eyes. Eyes
that have narrowed more than once as my friends and I carelessly and happily
walk along Main Street reunited on foreign soil. Narrowing eyes don’t do
anything to dampen our spirits, but words? Words are powerful. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I haven’t seen my friends more than two or three times in
the last 2 years. I moved to Costa Rica, and they did not. Maybe they didn’t
need to find themselves; maybe they didn’t need to leave. I needed to leave,
and so I boarded an aeroplane alone. Now we walk down Main Street in Luray,
Virginia together, and everything that has happened has happened so that we may
be together again. It may well be true that you can’t put a price on
friendship, but my friends have estimated it at around two thousand pounds.
Luckily, the pound is stronger than the dollar, and we feel it as we drink
five-dollar lattes; we feel good. The caffeine, the camaraderie and the
occasion have infected all of us with an incorrigible joy. Our jokes are
funnier; our laughs louder, and nothing can spoil this moment.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My friend Rebekah is a truly incredible person. Warm, kind,
dependable. She is just the kind of friend that everyone should have. She has
flown from Barcelona, Spain to be one of my groomsmen, possibly the first
groomsmaid in the history of Luray, Virginia. She has skin the colour of dark
honey, and hair that cascades from her scalp in all directions, tight curls
that bounce as she bounces, full of energy and life. She has finished her fruit
tea, paid and tipped, and has taken a stroll with another of my friends, Jon or
Kieran, maybe both. We are not all specific people when we are together; it
doesn’t matter who said or did what, only that it was done. We are simply a
group, a family.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As we finish our lattes and politely decline a look at the
dessert menu, life could not feel any sweeter. As we emerge from the café and
pour onto Main Street, we see Rebekah and her attendants standing, still. They
look, different somehow. Bek has the look of someone pretending they are ok,
and Jon and Kieran look utterly helpless, so we move, as one unit, across the
street to find out what is wrong.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“A girl on that school bus called me a nigger.” Says Bek.
She is almost apologetic, as if she wants it to be a misunderstanding. And
ironically, at that moment, all the colour drains from the world. I feel sick.
It is not nausea; I do not want to vomit. It is the deep, aching feeling that
something has happened that is wrong. The feeling one gets when they witness
domestic violence, or watch a bully hit someone who has done nothing, those
viral videos that make us feel disassociated with the society we inhabit. It is
an empty feeling that grips your internal organs and squeezes. We close ranks
around Rebekah, and we mourn as if we truly are a family. None of my friends
has ever been called a nigger before, and we don’t know how to deal with it. I
want to chase after the school bus, find the child who said these words, make
them apologise, tell their parents, complain to the police, anyone who can make
amend this situation. But there is nobody. The bus has driven away, and we are
not local people.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
Maybe half of my friends from the UK who have paid two
thousand pounds to be at my wedding are not white. Sunny has a master’s degree
and is a chartered surveyor. James is an economist. Emma is an events manager.
Rebekah is a kindergarten teacher. Her mother is white. To a child in the town
of Luray, Virginia, she is a lesser being.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Somebody perhaps seven years old has the power to rob my friend of her
humanity. The shock and disgust that we feel collectively soon turns to
something else, pity perhaps; pity for a child who has already been taught to
hate in the second most popular wedding destination in the United States, a
town that sells love to lovers and their loved ones. My fiancée and I will be
married in 2 days, and Rebekah will by my groomsmaid. The town of Luray is in
the midst of a process of gentrification, but the people of Luray are in need
of much more than boutiques and five-dollar lattes. <o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01852698672026481341noreply@blogger.com0