PROVINCE OF JUJUY ARGENTINA

September 20th 2007

I am  three hours away from Tilcara in the Northern Province of Jujuy where Incas built places. It will be a week of shamnic rites with elders or abuelos in Spanish to denominate Indian sages. Others are called pilgrims, I don't know where I will be put in the sacred circle of worship. There is not going to be any ingestion of hallucinogenics and recording or photography is not allowed. 

 I travelled from Buenos Aires on the 12th -where we stayed three days- to Rosario, where Che Guevara was born, along the rio Parana. But only just four nights ago we arrived in the most scenic area of Argentina in Cafayate where once the Calchaqui confederation of Indian nations lived. They included the Diaguitas in Cafayate, Ululas in Santa Maria and the Quilmes in Quilmes.

The confederation numbered about 100.000 people, but after they had resisted the Incas they they waged a war of 135 years, against the Spanish conquistadors. The Spaniards succeeded in cutting off the water and the food supply after the confederacy fell in their hands. They were tortured, raped, enslaved and marched away on foot to different areas, but the majority went on foot to Buenos Aires, which by bus is about 3 days drive...imagine.

In 1812 with the independence they were assimilated into Buenos Aires' population. The place where they had been kept by the Jesuits in a reducción was called Quilmes, and so Quilmes still exists today, but the real Quilmes Indians as well as the Diaguita, I was told,  have perished or have fused with the Argentinians.

Today, the moment I was about to leave, a friendly old woman asked  me where my poncho came from - my Q'uero one if bought in Cusco-, I had a hunch she was Indian. She said she was from near the Chilean border near the Atacama desert. That rang a bell and I got interested.

"Are you Mapuche?" I asked her to avoid asking her if she was an Indian. She said;" No I am a Diaguita."

POKHARA 14 AUGUST 2007

Erwetegem 17 august 2007





Dear readers,

I am back in Belgium since yesterday, and safe at a friends home, recovering from my grueling experience in Boudanath (see 'Trashed in Nepal'); but fortunately I had some beautiful moments too.
I lived in Asia for about eight months; five of which I spent teaching English in Pattaya. Out of my three months unpaid school holidays I chose to travel for a month in Laos. Out of that month I spent two weeks with the Akhas who lived in a protected area. It was my most memorable stay of all.
Now for a shamanic meeting I will soon be travelling to the village of Tilcara in Northern (Jujuy province) Argentina. From there, after a week of rituals, I will move to Peru with a travel companion. But now there is a huge earthquake, I figured I could have been there too and gotten killed.
Below you can read what happened to me after the mugging. And for more recent updates you can surf to www.Kathmanduspeaks.com

I haven't sold a painting due to the general arts crisis in Bangkok for Thai painters and the fact that the average tourist only buys copy art. But the gallery here in Pattaya is run by an Irishman called Liam who has lived in Thailand since he was eighteen. He has become my agent so to speak and I left my paintings I had brought from Belgium with him. He happens to have a online website too. But alas I haven' been able to paint during the months I was teaching (my survival job). Among the many obstacles I acuse the climate, a depression that hit me hard.



Now here comes a previously e-mailed account of my Nepalese misadventures.
"I don't know if it is a test or his style of cleansing but I certainly don't like to be called a drama queen when all those things happen to me, whereas in Thailand all went fine as long as I was teaching.
The wound in my knee won't heal, it is so damp and although I liked Pokhara and I have met up with a few old chums I have been greatly tried in the last 3 days. I didn't see Krishna at all as he was working every day. So I just strolled through the dusty streets and (re)discovered places. Only yesterday, by coincidence of picking up a newspaper of the 6th of August, did I find out that the Royal Nepalese Airlines are in big problems and due to that they stopped flying for a week.

I was told in a travel agency that they couldn't confirm my flight back to Bangkok and I had to go to Pokhara airport to find them. There also they said I had to go to Kathmandu and wanted to give me a phonenumber; 2 employees were sleeping. I certainly did not accept to the making of a phone call to Kathmandu on my account and I wasn't going to take another taxi to another place. However, after insisting (In India either you cry, moan or blow your top, before the bureaucrates think it is serious business and (here they didn't think any different) they hung on the phone for 40 minutes to KTM, because someone picked up and then they hung up or maybe the line was broken, etc.

Anyway, in the mean time I keep reading the newspapers in which I read how day by day the law and order is breaking down, especially in jungle and terai areas where young communists have made their own militia after they broke away from the ones who got a seat in the government. The latter is feeling the heat too as the majority of the general public want to oust them, because they can't get the thugs of their own troop under control due too abuse.. As a result desertion witnin the Maoist cadre is on the rise.

In this climate everyone fears the worst is yet to come. My friend Krishna ( whom I finally met) told me just this morning that hotels in Pokhara were booked up to 80% for November, but nothing was sure as civil war could start anytime soon, he said).
So here I am with my stories of four youngsters who had mugged me and you have the commies raiding a village and leaving a mother with 5 children jobless and hungry because they pushed her husband from a rock, just like that).




Oh yes I also got pick-pocketed of 3000 rupees by hungry street urchins while I was buying biscuits for them.
This morning as I got walking to find the bus and have breakfast first, Hindu god Indra (rain god) opened up the sluices for the whole day and it has been pissing from the sky until now. It was horrendous to arrive in Kathmandu soaked wet and having to bear all the medieval traffic and noises emanating from screeching buses who horn at random. It makes me go berserk and wanting to kill the drivers. instantly.

The moment I got myself a seat in the bus I realized I didn't have my small digital camera anymore. It was hanging from my belt with a Velcro clip. All those weeks in Thailand it remained attached and now it was gone? Another fast hand or had it simply dropped on the ground? The sun got a little too mean through the window, hence I change seats and promptly banged my wounded knee (the thugs in Boudanath had kicked me about, remember? See the article trashed in Nepal) on one of those sturdy metal corners that make up the base for the seat. I was bleeding like hell but no one who'd reach out or asked me if I needed any help; they were all too busy watching another violent gun toting Hindi movie.

I went ballistic thrice about it and yelled at them what I thought about the bsu company shoving their violent movies into my throat for hours on end. The passengers remained passive, smiled and oblivious, until we stopped for a break. I thought I'd get some help for my wounded knee from a couple of Italian girls I had just spotted in another bus. I did get help at last in dressing the wound. Then barely after our bus moved on I realized that my precious South American hat with my gorgeous red feather headdress I had purchased from the Txucahamei tribe in Brazil had gone. This was the straw that broke the camel's back. Again I went mad, I couldn't take it anymore; It dawned on me how much I hated poverty now and how I hated myself for having come over here having to endure this ordeal. Was this what Lord Shiva had in mind for me?
What was the message here? Did it come from him or was I as usual in the wrong time and the wrong place?






I arrived back at my cheap budget place where my full suitcase had been kept for two weeks and I am not too sure to have a quiet night as everything is so noisy. I had no private bathroom and two cockroaches on the rug seemed to be waiting for me...My trip to Nepal had been both a success and a disaster.






My friend Krishna from Pokhara, told me that the reason they might have beaten me up was that they were either jealous or had a hatred for people who look like they are connected with something like divine forces or some spirituality of some sort, something still very much dreaded in this feudal and tribal society."

Alann

A MALICIOUS APPROACH

Kathmandu Monday October 22, 2001 Kartik 06,  2058.

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Last week, I was approached for an interview by a journalist working with one of this country’s vernacular dailies about my complaint: "How I was being swindled by the immigration office in Pokhara?" I was also asked for my views on other matters in Nepal such as travel safety and hygiene for travellers in restaurants and so on.

The article, which I couldn’t read, started with the lie "I will never come back to Nepal" something I never said. It also mentioned that the immigration office had scolded me and had demanded 2000 rupees, in order for them to give me a receipt of the payment for an extension visa, which is far from the truth.

Many other things were put in my mouth. Now I face an angry mob of people in Pokhara. Through e-mail one friend advised me not to come anymore to Pokhara because they are very angry with me.

No one will believe my story. Everyone will believe the press. I went to their office yesterday and they refused to print an apology or the admittance of their mistakes, neither did they want to write an apology for me that I could show the people in Pokhara, nor would they give me a copy of the tape with my interview. I am appalled... and don’t know what to do. 

Not only did I face corruption at the immigration office I also have to face corruption of my words by a daily which said they would be behind me if any problem arose after the interview. I was so confident they were allowed to take my picture.