The farm

So here's the rest. I can't wait to go back to the farm. Hopefully I can go back. Pipo promised me some quick motorcycle lessons and then I can ride around town to my heart's content. We'll see. That, and I want to eat guama so bad. It's a South American fruit that I've had a craving for the last 14 years. I will not leave until I have a guama.

I have so many thoughts pent up inside me right now. I would love to write more, but I get so lazy about it. It turns out being a short spurt of inane ramblings.
I'm still not done painting this apartment. In a week or to I'll be in Colombia, though. I'm nervous about taking my camera, so there might not be any pictures. Not that anyone really cares, but I like to pretend I have a loyal audience. That just made me laugh. I wonder why I even put this blog up. I hate blogs that aren't very interesting and I doubt I keep anyone enthralled with these pictures. I'm basically masturbating here. Maybe I'm just waiting for the moment a lot of crazy shit happens and so I can tell eveyone about it. I'm going about this all wrong. I think my intentions were to just have a travel diary that people could see and comment on if they felt like it.

Nuff said.

This is Pipo in his banana plantation. His farm is humongous. It shouldn't be hard to figure out his political opinions. He's still a very nice and generous person.

My aunt and I forget her name. She lives with Pipo's mom. She's 22 and a highschool teacher.

I took one of these home with me. We still have most of the bananas. Here they call them cambures. I also brought home a big nasty tick. That flower is huge.

Only a tiny fraction of his banana trees.

Another dog doing his thing. No one telling him what to do.

Making a new water trough for the cows.

One of the farmworkers houses on the property. The little kid lives on a hill with cows and horses and plants all around. not bad

This is the house with the little kid

Pipo's farm

I went to my mom's friend's farm in Chigüara. I got a lot f mostly crappy photos. It's too bright here and it was really hot that day. I was so hot I couldn't resist an invitation to a few beers on a roadside bar/produce stand. I was still taking Metronidasol for amoeabas, but I didn't care. Later, after four beers, Pipo called his doctor friend to ask about the contraindications of the mixture. To my luck, those pills are also given to alcoholics, so that they won't drink. The mixture gives you hives and a rash all over your body. Nothing happened though and I enjoyed a nice buzz during the drive home.  Pipo then stopped by a hamburger stand and invited me to one of the better burgers I've had. It was a good day.

I'll post a few photos at a time because I'm not in the mood to upload them all at once.

This sweet looking dog was all chained up. I was warned not to get close, but I don't think they knew what they were talking about. 

I scared the bulls away. The cows were much more confident. Stereotypes. 

They told me not to get close to this little piggy as well

I ignored them

He or she was very happy to have some company and gave me some great poses

Drying corn. Probably to make flour for arepas. I don't know

Coffee machine. It does something with coffee. I should know this. I'm a bad Colombian. Fucking stereotypes

The kitchen

The dog

The horses

and a calf

stomach pain and aggrevation

Had a tube stuck down my throat and it hurt. I tried to vomit but all I could do is choke. They gave me pills to get rid of some pest. The pills hurt. I hurt. People say things that make me hurt. I try to regurgitate the information that I have been force fed, but I just choke. I just hurt. A million miles from my dearest friends. I pace back and forth in my room, then I walk down the street and back. Nothing. Everyone speaks Spanish here. I only speak Spanish here. I don't know how to say anything anymore. I just want to stroll down the empty San Francisco streets at midnight and spew random misplaced words with my homie. It doesn't matter which ones I use because he understands. The worse things happen when you have no one and nobody loves you when you're all alone. The drugs I used to take tempered my pain and eased my miscommunication. My medication now only kills everything I have inside. My life consists of a path that takes me downtown to where I search for solace and only find parasitic infestation. I walk past beautiful human beings that belong to another way. I can only mimic their actions. I can't find the words to break through to their hearts. I love this land. Psychology sessions take place on street corners and the little telephone stands that are run by dark skinned girls who wait for the next caller. There are no head shrinkers waiting in their carefully decorated offices contemplating their leather chairs. Everything beyond the bus route into town stays far from my imagination. The Andes mountains cradle and detain me. They let the sunrise shine through their peaks only for the clouds to see and translate into colors for everyone below. The steep slopes gather the rain and deliver it brown and muddy to the streets below. It's a range that holds this continent up from all the blood that weighs it down. A man once traversed it to bring people of the same ancestors together. They rejoiced and shouted, "Viva Símon," then shot at him and chased him towards their old captors. Now there is a statue of him in every square. Another man follows his footsteps, over every peak and through every vally of this tremendous beast. His followers chear and rejoice, but for how long? Now I don't wait anymore. I just exist. I look towards another sunset to relieve this pain, but it's not pain anymore. It's just a hollowness that comes from too many miles that wisped away under my feet. It also comes from the hundreds of little changes I had to adapt to every time I came to a new land. There comes a point where you meet too many people. They all blend together and disappear, a single impenetrable jungle. It was wise for Bolívar to take to the mountains, where the sharp rock cuts through all that vegetation. He could think alone and dream for himself. Simón Bolívar died with severe stomach pains that came from deserting his well bread body. He no longer wanted to be an oligarch standing on the backs of his black and native ancestors. My pain comes from another place. My body left me for not keeping it nourished. My mind was selfish and wandered in dreams. There is no finish to what I'm saying. It just ends when I take my poison and kill my pests. I'm looking up toward the morning star to bring new beginnings.

Amoeba

So My aunt thinks I have Amoebas and the doctor thinks I might have gastritis. I think amoebic dysentery sounds way more exciting. Either way I get to have a camera "eased" down my throat to check out my stomach. I better at least get a picture or a t-shirt or something.

I went to the free Cuban clinic. That's not what it's called, but it was staffed by Cuban doctors. They get their own, much nicer, wing because the Venezuelan doctors don't treat them very nicely. One way the Venezuelans protest the Chavez government is to not show up to work. They go one vacation. People like my mom, who has a very serious, potentially life threatening heart condition, can´t see specialists because they're angry and their patients aren't a priority. Who knows.

It was interesting. There were people waiting in no particular line. I asked who was last to come and made sure I went in after them. It went pretty quick even though there was only one doctor in general medicine. I still had to hang out there for the whole day because my mom and my aunt had to wait forever to see the ophthalmologist because they had to see a few emergency cases before them. People waiting were so friendly and talkative, but that's just Venezuelans in general.

That was my day. No more beer. Not allowed. It's nice that people get free medical treatment. Less stress. I fucked up my credit because I didn't have medical insurance, like millions upon millions of United Statesians. It sucks. It really does. It lowers your quality of life. So much for those basic human rights.

More Merida

old school bedroom