SUFUS HUFUS - migration is not a crime

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I'm a ghost and I'm in the most visited city in the
world, here where the amount of recorded reality exceeds by far the physical
reality. The area with more number of clothing stores and mobile-phone shops
per square meter. No dark corners around here. All the spaces are taken.
Everything is business. Even the surveillance cameras, are a kind of business.
The entrances to some bigger buildings in the back of the shops are barricaded
with security codes, there are no escaping streets, all kind of alleys are surrounded
with railings and in the main street, the construction works, are covered with
huge placards, hiding the excavations, like the this ones on the back of the
Totenham Court subway station. I\u2019m already peeking through the breaches, I want
to see some real reality, some chaos, mud and scrap metal. Little mans with
helmets and green waistcoats, the striking of pneumatic hammers, the thrusts of
underground backhoe loaders and the welding machines, dropping their sparks
over all this wreckage, construction and deconstruction. I wish I could be
there, improving their methods of work, but no, I have to return to a more
ordinary reality. I notice that in this area, one of the ways for the traffic
is cut off, follow only one direction, and the red double-decker buses passing
slowly, one after other, almost touching, the people inside watching the
tourists, and the tourists watching them. And this monochromatic red of the
buses, also present in public works or telephone booths, it\u2019s depressing to me.
But let\u2019s forget that. Let\u2019s get away from here. Getting through the masses.

Oxford street

. I try
to differentiate the bodies, observe their movement, their apparently
standardized actions. Now passing in front of the blue \u201cCarPhone Warehouse\u201d.
The front of the store advertising \u201ca year of free home broadband'. Here, a
dude in a Jamaica-colored hoodie, speaks on his cell phone in front of the shop
window, ignoring the people around, forced to bump against him in order to
pass. Many Asian tourists, European
tourists, African tourists. Everybody can be a tourist. Wanna-be tourists.
Pseudo businessmen of all nationalities, bluish suits; girls in cleavage and
knee out; T-shirt boys with letterings like \u201cJust do it now\u201d; \u201cGood girls go
to heaven Bad girls go to the moon\u201d; \u201cSometimes pretending to be normal\u201d; \u201cI'm
not rude I'm just saying what everybody is thinking\u201d; \u201cNot perfect, just
limited edition\u201d; \u201cWarning! explicit contention\u201d; \u201cStop following me!\u201d; \u201cPizza
princess\u201d; \u201cBlink if you want me\u201d; \u201cObey\u201d; \u201cToo much self control\u201d; \u201cetc.\u201d and
so on. Some of them with colorful haircuts, sharp hair, curly hair, no hair at
all. All kind of accessories attached to the clothes. People looking inside
shops. Others waiting in corners. Munching. Chatting. Yawning. No one caring
about my presence. The only thing they care is their phones. Some of them
pushing suitcases. Suitcases pushing them. Polished jeans carrying legs with
gait that reflect the personality of the user, sometimes manly, sometimes
nervous, calm, confused, relaxed, curious, late, pre-mature, disintegrated,
attentive, sleepwalking, tired, greedy, sly, self-centered, bizarre,
normal-looking individuals\u2026 From \u201cThe Tottenham\u201d pub, big-bellied Englishmen
come out with haughty eyes, and others with minor bellies and shifted eyes,
some enter in the next Mcdonald's. Meat hungry, after a day of work organizing
information, serving as a fitting piece in a virtual hierarchy fed on
petrol-coffee, lewd looks, black humor, and an authoritarian desire for
self-realization through the usage of various types of plafonds and bank cards,
trading and recreation membership cards, discount-bought happiness cards and
premiums for the worker of the week and the tourist of the month.

But,
also me, go into this Mcdonald's to ask for numbers, numbers that even the
store manager can't say now, or he's not too put up with me, but then he goes
inside his office, maybe to use the internet, and when he sees that I'm already
consuming something, a pig's vomit ice cream, he comes goes back to me and confides
that this M. brand, is able make about 190 hamburgers a second worldwide. And
every ten hours a new store of the group is inaugurated somewhere in the world.
And more this more that, numbers and statistics about human repetitions. So, I
offer the ice cream to a lap dog and sneak out from there. I\u2019m now in
front of the \u201cCornish Bakehouse\u201d, where we can pamper ourselves with flour and
sugar imported from South America to China
and from China to the States
and from the States to Oceania and from Oceania finally into Europe,
exclusively to this shop decorated with a collection of torture instruments,
recontextualized as art. And if I was a gypsy, I would spit on the floor, after
eat this bread, but I don't worry about politics now; let\u2019s rather go for the souvenir
shops, here you can get the London-eye made in china, or a London-eye made in
India or a London-eye made in Indonesia, the more funny and cheap. Or of
course, the famous \u201cbig-ben\u201d working as a radio-alarm, a dwarf \u201cbig-ben\u201d tower
that can serve also as ash-tray. And next to the souvenir shops, some t-shirt
stores showing off pop-rock icons, slogans of freedom, mysticism at the price
of rain, not forgetting that the weather is also a big deal. But for those who
don't want to spend a lot, we have one-pound shops where you can buy a Buddha
with magic glasses like those on the display at the

New Bond Street

's Emporio Armani shop
51-52. This, behind the YB bus stop where you can take bus 10 to Hammersmith,
or the 98 to Willesden Gare, or the 73 to Vitoria, or the 7 to East Acton, or
the 390 to Notting Hill Gate. Not Now. Still on oxford street, next to a Thai
massage shop, we have that green and yellow sandwich shop, the current sandwich
leader in the world, according to their advertising. I also went in to look at
the honor rollers and learned that there are about 38,000 equal restaurants in
98 countries around the world, so I figure that it is represented in only 21
countries, less than the Donald\u00b4s, but with about 4000 more stores than the
previous one. And that's it, I'm a tourist like you, but I eat no sandwiches
without money. I go through some exchange offices, and try to exchange some
Russian coins, they laugh in my face. I do the same. And not even ten meters I
have walked and we are facing another world\u2019s leaders, ladies and gentlemen,
that\u2019s the magnificent "Starbucks", the largest coffee shop in the
universe, according to the sky-news, this obviously reveling that the number of
hipsters is already surpassing the number of tourists in some developed
countries. That is, all that remains from the hippie world peace campaigns of
the sixties is now here in this ultra-tasty-biodegradable-caffeine. Brown sugar
and boredom, that\u2019s what is it all about. And directly across the street,
making direct competition with the Americans, we have the English brand
"Caffé Nero", frequented more or less by the same type of people as
the previous one, but with a more look classic look, perhaps, still attached
with a certain Italian glamour. Muffins, croissants, paninis, exotic sandwiches
ready to pick up and take away, from the red rubbish bags, at the front door.
And a sign remembering you of

Soho
Street

, and Chinatown.
Not now, not now, let\u2019s rather watch some publicity on the TV screens of the
Halifax bank. It\u2019s all about buying a car, and a house and a pair of rain
boots, and travel the world without getting out of your bed. Across the street,
the headless mannequins of \u201cThe London Perfume Company\u201d are here to remind us
that perfume promotes creativity of the mind and freshness in the soul. Then
you can skip the \u201cBody Shop\u201d, and the \u201cPizza Hut\u201d, and the \u201cCurrys Pc World\u201d.
Already on the intersection of

Newman
Street

, I notice the thongs of the \u201cIntimissi\u201d
store, right in front of the heartbroken \u201cHarmony\u201d, two blond-haired ladies in
long silk dresses pointing the latex instrumentation. Now passing through the
\u201cFoot Locker\u201d, \u201cUnited Colors Of Benetton\u201d, which has balloons saying \u201c70%
off\u201d, then there's "Clarks" that reminds me of the movie of the same
name, the "Claire's" with the chalala style. Then the commons
"T-Mobile", "Phones 4 u", "Vodafone" and
"Virgin Media". A bookstore named 'Waterstone's where people doesn\u2019t
look like book readers, more like sports people, and I don't know how many
souvenir shops more after this, so, I\u2019m getting bored. But the description will
continue in your head as I come across one of these taxi-bicycles with three
wheels. The driver wink at me while slurping spaghetti, long beard, tanned
skin, pieces of spaghetti getting stuck on his beard. He says that it\u2019s not his
bike, he only receives commission over each fair, but he can charge what he
want, it\u2019s not the distance that makes the price, obviously, that are many
other differentials in that equation. Anyway, he is talking on the phone now,
video conference, it\u2019s his girlfriend, she is in Kuala Lumpur, on the other
side of the world, he shows me her face, on the video, a kind of fluffy face,
her eyes exuberantly painted with black shadows, I say to her some words in her
language, she gets all enthusiastic, revealing that she also want to come to
Europe, but not to London, she want to come to Berlin, \u201coh, why Berlin\u201d, I ask
\u201cbecause the big angel\u201d she says \u201cwhat angel\u201d I ask, \u201cthe one the was moved by
the Nazis and survived the war\u201d; \u201chave no idea about that\u201d; \u201chaven\u2019t you seen
the movie Wings of Desire from Win
Wenders, with Nick Cave, the Australian singer\u201d; \u201cNo, I guess, but it says
something to me\u201d; \u201cwell, well\u201d interrupts her so-called \u201cboyfriend\u201d, taking the
phone away from my hand and moving it closer to his ear, he speaks softly now,
no more swaggering,\u2026 he even moves bit away from me in order to get some
privacy, then he turn to me again, covering the phone with the hand and saying
\u201cshe is a professional singer\u201d, and keeps his communication, again hiding, and
smiling, smiling to the showcases. I get away, not wanting to be there
disturbing anything, or holding the candle, as some people say\u2026 I pass
\u201cH&M\u201d; \u201cBoots\u201d; "Gap", "Mango" and "Zara",
looking the dead mannequins, and still thinking about that angel conversation,
I have been to Berlin yes, but did I miss the angel? \u201cWas it big? And why was
it been moved by the Nazis? Were the Nazis trying to save an angel? And a movie
with Nick Cave, cave like cavern? What was she talking about? Well, I know Wim
Wenders, now I remember, I have seen that movie \u201cParis-Texas\u201d, but I just
remember the beginning, the guy walking on the desert, on the railway\u2026 or was
it the end? And what kind of woman was that? A cinephile? Wasn\u2019t she too
cultured to be flirting with that guy? But did I know the guy? Were they
really flirting? Maybe she was just a random internet friend\u2026 and he? Who was
he? What was he pretending? Was he trying to convince her to come in
London? Did she understand what his job was? Was she ok with that? And why
am I bothering with all that?\u201d Over. I need to change shoes. My feet are
hurting. I\u2019m about to enter inside \u201cZara\u201d, but as I stand here, wondering, the
guy with the taxi-bicycle catch up with me again. Now he has a Dr. Peppers can
in the hand, drinking and dropping it out, as he drives the bicycle. Right now
he stops his Mercedes by my side and
invites me to get in. \u201cFor free\u201d he says. He takes me to Hyde park. The park was established
by Henry VIII
in the 16^th century and used as a hunting ground. Now, not so
different. We seat on the grass. Smoking a spliff. I
take off my shoes. He tells me his story. Actually he came from the
Caribbean\u2019s, in a yacht, with some a rich guy, a Dutch. \u201cThe journey took ages,
we stopped in all the islands, the Dutch were looking for some kind of
treasure, yes he was crazy, in the middle of the sea he would get drunk and
start yelling at nothing, we fought a lot, we almost killed each other, finally
the yacht sank, result: we finished up in a kind of desert island, we thought
it was desert in the beginning, but no, there was police there also, result:
and we ended up in jail, both arrested for trafficking, I didn\u2019t even know what
we were trafficking at the time, but after I came to understand, the yacht
didn\u2019t sink because of the big waves or the weight of the big wine bottles, we
were attacked, from underwater\u2026 that\u2019s what it was\u201d; \u201coh you guys were attacked
by, let\u2019s say, a submarine? \u201c; \u201cI guess you can say so, something like that, I
never came to understand totally\u201d; \u201cand how it was in the jail?\u201d; \u201cterrific,
and good too, but I don\u2019t want to talk about that, pardon me, what about you,
what you doing in this city? Are you a tourist?\u201d; \u201cYes, affirmative, you can
say that, I\u2019m a big tourist, have been around for a long time, not in this
country, mainly in Africa\u2026\u201d; \u201cso are you from Africa?; \u201cI guess you also can
say so\u201d; \u201cfrom where precisely?\u201d; \u201cI\u2019m not from a country, I\u2019m more like an
orphan, I don\u2019t know where I was born exactly, and it\u2019s not important\u2026 but I
grew up in the Heliopolis\u201d; \u201cwhat\u2019s that?\u2019\u201d; \u201cthe city of the dead\u201d; \u201cWhat?
Camon\u2026 you joking with me just because I told you a true story about desert
islands!?\u201d; \u201cNo, relax, I\u2019m not very flabbergasted by your story\u2026 this things
happen\u2026 I accepted it, and about Heliopolis, you can check the veracity of it
in internet\u2026\u201d; \u201cI will do\u201d; \u201cso should I tell you more?\u201d; \u201ctell me!\u201d;
\u201cHeliopolis, al-Qarafa, it\u2019s the
biggest slum in the world... also a huge cemetery, or a group of cemeteries
transformed into a city, the original dwellers of this city were Sufi people
actually, the tombs were also shrines, and they still are, there was treasures
there, treasures that were looted by the westerns, through the centuries,
despite the presence of the tomb guardians, this person, tomb guardians, or
tomb keeper, would live in a shack adjacent to the shrines, and would take care
of the dead and would talk with the spirits, etc. After they brought their
families, they made their shacks bigger, other kind of people came to live
there, errands, pot greasers, copper craftsmen, women that made business with
flowers and embroidery, hawkers, artistically trained luncheons, mausoleum
decorators, desert storytellers, retired people, orphans of various kind of wars,
\u201cmororrhea\u201d sellers, a kind of vine
leafs, and \u201crass\u201d, lettuce leaves, goat herders, transporters, well diggers,
scissors sharpeners, bicycle mechanics, bakers of dark bread, astrologers, and
other kind of people without fear of the death. I was an orphan in this city,
after I became a messenger\u2026\u201d

***

Heavy afternoon, I sit on burning stairs of
Syntagma square, Athens, the Hellenic parliament on my back, a pink building
that I have nothing to talk about. Not so much people crossing the square at this
time. It\u2019s really hot, and quiet, you can feel the boredom hovering, like in
many other squares of Athens, at this time of the day. This heavy stones should
melt, but no, a failed promise from the sun. There is a metro exit on my side,
I face the people getting out, not many, but their faces are not that bored
actually, they express some equilibrium, and they dress casual, not pretenders,
you can\u2019t judge them by the looks. So, from where is this feeling of boredom
coming? I\u2019m not sure, perhaps from the openness of the place itself, or the
lack of enthusiasm showed by the people moving on the surroundings gardens\u2026 and
the heaviness of the wall containing the square, may help\u2026 more this sun, full
of empty promises\u2026 thus, I have no problems about sprawling my loneliness here,
like a viscous, pouring from this imposing staircase, and spreading through the
veins this stony floor, blazing veins debouching around the neoclassic
fountain, installed on the middle of the square, yellowish water being
projected, from time to time, randomly. By the side of this fountain, an old
bearded man hangs around, sometimes a murmur, a kind of speech, or a cry,
coming out from his camouflaged lips. A weak speech. He carries a stick with
him, a stick with some plastic bottles and other sort of plastic packages
attached to it. Sometimes holding the stick over his shoulders, other times
waving it around, a kind of flag hanging from it too, you could read the word
\u201ccancer\u201d on it, coz that is written with big letters, and other shorter letters
from the Greek alphabet. Some tourists approach the fountain from time to time,
seldom, but when they see the man, they stand back and leave the place. But the
locals, passing by his side, are not shocked at all, they just pass by him,
informally, some even smile to the man, but no one stops by his side. As I said
the square have two gardens, or green areas, one on my left side, where is the
metro exit and the man with the stick, and other on my right side, with bigger
trees and benches under it, some people seated on, mainly alone, one per bench,
some looking inside themselves, some looking around, some dozing while eating
that kind of circular sesame bread you can buy on any corner here. I approach
some youngsters settled on the scarce grass, they offered me beers; we talk,
informally, like we are happy about everything, nothing matters. Then I move to
the garden on the other side of the fountain, the one almost without grass and
withered trees. The man with the stick is close by, but no one pays any
attention to him. The ones wandering through this part of the garden have
darker skin, and some of them are carrying baggage, like me. There is a silence
in between. Everyone is alone here. I can say, Georgian, Armenian, Albanian
migrants, and others, you may not understand the color of the blood. But the
Pakistani, or are they from Bangladesh? always find a mote of conversation,
even if they are just whispering, it\u2019s easy to them to find a point, they don\u2019t
care about desolation, bad humor, crisis, to them, all opportunities of meeting
are good opportunities to be now, on the moment, an affirmation of brotherhood
that is not just that. They give me strength, so I come back to the metro exit,
by the big staircase, and begin unpack my stuff, my percussion stuff, buckets,
pots and pans, cymbals, singing bowls, a xylophone, a few contact mics, an
effects box, some speakers. It takes me time to unpack and set everything, and
I do it slowly and at ease. People don\u2019t care about what am I building there.
No questions, almost no looks. After doing some body exercises, I seat properly
over a bucket (once there was olives inside, so still greasy), and I look
around. Despite the headache, I\u2019m ready to start my performance, and I go
through it, kinda awkwardly in the beginning, coz it\u2019s too hard sound for such
a desolated square, anyway, I don\u2019t care about expectations, I do my job. It
takes me no more than five minutes to start sweating, and after a while I\u2019m
already changing my clothes, right there, in the middle of the square, without
any problem. People bring me coins, people bring liquids, many tired faces, but
also some smiles, help me keep going. As the sun goes down I get more
enthusiastic, even more melodic, less banging, more people coming out of the
underground, I\u2019m not making big money, but I keep going because now I\u2019m totally
inside it, I reached that trance that make it automatic, I\u2019m the thing now,
just need to express it. Some people sit on my side, absorbing it, making
questions that I answer with other questions. I\u2019m all on this place now,
totally landed. This is my dwelling now. Night came but I didn\u2019t notice, I see
nothing of what is happening around, I keep exercising, going through mountains
of oomph, cleaning the sides. But the climate of the square changes. There are
people protesting on the other side of the fountain. I don\u2019t understand what
they are vindicating. They have flags with slogans, and carry traffic signs
with them, it looks, the people coming out of the metro move in their
direction. No money at all are coming now, but I don\u2019t stop playing, not just
because I\u2019m totally inside it but also because I don\u2019t have a better place to
go. Some youngsters give their support, making enthusiastic gestures like \u201ckeep
going, keep going \u2013 harder harder\u201d. The police arrive, they come through the
big stairs on my back, passing on my side,
not caring about me, they come in groups, not rushing, and all protected
with sticks, helmets and armors. They reach the protesters and try to avoid
them of disturbing the traffic passing on the avenue in front of the square.
Ok. I keep playing, rarely raising my head to see what is happening. More
people are coming out of the metro. The protesters move around the square, they
form different groups, some have covered faces. And I keep going, banging on.
No one cares. I don\u2019t care about them too. This is my ship, and I\u2019m already on
the bottom of the sea, they can\u2019t sink me. But there are bomb explosions, now.
I keep going. Spray and gas. Wonderful smells. All I wanted is to get more
dizzy. Choirs. Some screaming. Until that, one girl dressed with leggings and
skirt over comes by running and sits in front of me, touching her curly short
hair from time to time; she is also not worrying about the clashes. But she is
not really smiling. And after a while watching me she decides to steal part of
my instrument and joins me in this musical allegory. And yeah, she knows what
she is doing, she is able to catch my rhythmic patterns and impose her own way
of playing. We are jamming now. Some protesters left the manifestations and
came to us, they are into dancing now. But bombs are getting closer and closer,
well, damn it, it\u2019s enough boys and girls. We start packing. She helps me. We
staff everything inside two big bags as fast as we can and run away from there,
laughing, going through the stairs of the parliament, crossing that rich area
with all the embassies, giving fast kisses in front of this or that republic.
But this is not a very inspiring area of the city, we should turn to the other
side, she remembered a friend was giving a party in the other side of the city,
and so we should come back to the place we just left, not far from the
demonstrations, we bought some more beer, the clashes were still going, mainly
on Ermou street, now, the street with all the multinational cloth stores,
broken showcases here and there, people being arrested, cyborgs on the watch,
hip hop slogans, screams from upper windows, claims against capitalism, horse
shit here and there, and we, trying to get away from all that mess, but as we
reached the surroundings of the university of arts, again the same thing, she
presented me to some friends, that understood nothing from her demands, and
there we went again, running along panepistimiou street, pissing against the
national library building. Echarchia was on fire too, but we avoided the
central area of the neighborhood, we went through the back streets, full of
graffiti, even on residential buildings, we got lost, but she never gave up,
and always helping me carrying the stuff. After several attempts of going
through the insides of some building, knocking on doors of people she said she
knew, but it turned out they didn\u2019t open doors or they showed not any sign of
recognizing my friend as a relative of them. Like that we went from building to
building, stealing decoration stuff from the entrance halls of these buildings,
etc. For me all this was a game, and I was content to do it according to her
rules. Result, we ended up inside some posh restaurant in the back of
monastiraki square. Cretan food, because she was from Crete, just now I got to
know. As entrance they served us pumpkin flowers stuffed with some Chinese
rice, maybe seafood. She started her explanations about Cretan mythology. Zeus,
the father of gods and humans, was born in Crete, there, he secretly copulated
with the beautiful nymph Europe, who gave her name to our continent. It was
also there that Daedalus, the constructor of the famous Labyrinth, disregarded
the law of gravity and flew away with his son Icarus. And after the story of
the Minotaurus. Daedalus, built a wooden model of a cow, called
Damalis, which was covered by genuine cowhide. Pasiphae entered the model and
the "befooled" bull \u201cpaired\u201d with her. After the dinner we went to visit the prison of Socrates, on the
Filopappou hill, a national park, officially closed during the night. The
original name of the guy was Antiochus
Epiphanes Philopappos, I made jokes about the name but don\u2019t know if she
understood. Anyway, we missed the Socrates prison as we got all mixed up with
some shrubs. Some kisses, some touching, but it was strange, she was too mind
absented, I tried to remove her bra, but it came up that it wasn\u2019t just one
bra, she had many, I removed some, but there was more, I started to fell
ridiculous and wondered, was she suffering of the complex of small breasts, or
was she hiding some physical problem on her chest. We made a stop, she herself
finished the job, she had like seven bras one over other, but as she did it
there was some noise on the back of the rocks, between the bushes, yes I saw
their eyes, immediately, the eyes of the beast, a beast with many eyes
actually, I didn\u2019t move for a sec, and she asking \u201cwhat? What? don\u2019t you like
me dear?\u201d; \u201cwait\u201d I said, and the noise continued, like muffled giggles, then
she understood, and got all hysterical, she screamed some words in her language
in the direct of the intruders and started picking her bras from here and from
there, I didn\u2019t move, and off she went, but didn\u2019t try to follow her. Finally,
the boys appeared on the moonlight. I was not afraid. I understood immediately.
They were sleeping in the park. There was some chuckle and cackle, but not by
the ones that showed up on my side, it was the ones still hidden in the back of
the rock that were cackling. One urged me to follow her because there were bad
people sleeping in the park and she could be\u2026 I passed it. The boy that came
close to me was tall and serious, the other moved in the back picking up the bras
that were left on the floor. They presented themselves latter. I got to know
they were illegal Pakistani migrants and the one on my side was from Ethiopia.
There were also others, I didn\u2019t ask their nationalities, but they looked
Asian. Some asked sorry, some made questions about the girl, others were
playing with the bras, wearing it on the head, etc. We moved to the back of the
rock, from where they came, their stuff was hidden around there. They offered
me tea. Straightaway. They had a camping gas thing and water boiling, all
ready. So, I ended up passing the night with them. They told me their stories.
The Ethiopian was apart, he let the Pakistani talk first. When coming from
Pakistan to Europe, they said, you would have to go through Afghanistan, this
because between Pakistan and Iran, they have built a 3 feet thick wall with 10 feet of height, and more police
observation towers and fortress-style garrisons for troops. So they had to go
through Afghanistan, there was no other solution. In Afghanistan they paid to lorry drivers to keep them out of
the Bin Laden routes, or you could be kidnapped and stolen and raped. They
follow north close to the border with Turkmenistan. Some even would go further
north, through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, helped cousins and uncles, with the
idea of getting in Russia, a respectable land with tall beautiful woman riding
horses. But most of them are afraid of the Russian winter and don\u2019t do. Others
would go south, to try the Dubai dream, but that was the route from his parents,
no more theirs dreams. \u201cThe Iran police are not easy to deal with\u201d, and if you
were already caught one time is better to try a different route. Ahmin, the one
speaking with us now, tucked into a leather jacket, hair like Elvis Presley,
tells that he have been caught several times, beaten and sent back to his
country, but he always tried again, and finally he did it, after weeks walking
by the Caspian Sea, hidden in ships. And when he arrived on the border with
Azerbaijan, he says, a country he had never heard about before, he thought he
was already in turkey, but he was advised not to go there because that was a
Jew land. So he came to Tabris. In Tabris he organized his gang, they paid to
Kurdish smugglers that passed them from Maku, a border city in Iran, into
turkey through the mountains, and once they got on the train it was easy, in
two days they reached Istanbul. They loved Istanbul, but that was not their
destination. And Turkish people always looked too busy, he said. To cross from
Istanbul to Greece through the north region is said to be almost impossible,
due to the European community fence. So most of they try their luck or through
Bulgaria or southern, through the Greek islands. A friend of Ahmin confided
that \u201cBulgarians are bad people\u201d, I don\u2019t know why he said that, but \u201ctheir
head is too round and fat\u2026 like a pig\u201d someone said in the back. So the way
they managed to enter in Greece was through Eanakkale, a port city between the sea of turkey and the sea of Greece,
that\u2019s how he said it, from Eanakkale they get onto illegal boats, sometime
yatches, to the Greek islands of Limnos or Lesvos or Samos, and once they
arrive in this islands they are safe, there are humanitarian organizations to
take care of them, they will not send them back to turkey. They give them food,
asylum, or ásylo, a new word they were happy to discover. Then, to get on a big
boat from one of this islands to the capital of Greece, may not be easy, it
takes time, but it\u2019s possible to do it legally. The humanitarian agencies may
give a papers that allow you to go on board. But there are other ways. From
Athens they must follow to Patras if you want to pass to Italy, or to Corfu
island, if you want to pass to Albania, because Albania have good smugglers
that can pass them anywhere. But Ahmin and his friends don\u2019t want to go to
Albania; they want to go to Paris, to London, to Stockholm, to Helsinki. In
Finland they will give them a house, job and the women, the women there are
eager to marry dark skinned boys, one explain, they even have heating system in
the streets, so it\u2019s not cold, as people says, he adds. Then, there was some
silence after these revelations, we share some bread. The taller one, that have
been in silence, the one from Ethiopia, comes now into conversation, he states
that he would never go to such Nordic countries, like Sweden or Finland, people
are not happy in that countries, they have no soul. The ice burns more than
fire, he says. He has been to rich Europe already, he confides. He did all the
circuit from Spain until the Netherlands, including France Italy Belgium
England and German, but he was deported, he don\u2019t say from which country, and
now he is coming back, he managed to get on a ship from Alexandria to Cyprus
and after from Cyprus to Crete, and from Crete to Athens he passed through many
other small islands, where he worked as seaman. \u201cI have the right\u201d, he says,
\u201cmy brothers and sisters are already there, I must go and joint them\u201d. He also
discloses to be on the possession of three passports: Ethiopian, Sudanese and
British. \u201cThe Sudanese passport helps me to find asylum anywhere in Europe,
because there is a civil war in that country, as you may know, the Ethiopian
passport may help when you are in Italy, and the British passport is dangerous,
but it may save your ass, if you know how to use it.\u201d Therefore, the
conversation was coming to an end, the boys kept smoking rolling cigarettes and
me too, now tucked myself inside my sleeping-bed, there was still time for some
last confidences with no importance, this were my mates now, and we your be a
gang, during the next weeks. They took me to all places to eat for free, they
taught me some Urdu, Hindi, African languages, and also some Greek. Sometimes
we would talk about American movies, we knew the same scenes. All nights the
destination was the central garden of Exarcheia neighborhood. Everything would
meet there. Here, we would come just to sleep, but not every night, here, close
to the Socrates\u2019 prison, but I guess I never got to face that prison thing. For
me that prison was just a mirage. The jokes about Socrates would go on and on.
One of the Pakistani boys was even reading a book about Socrates life; it was
making sense to him\u2026 But some weeks later the boys were gone, some to the west
cost of Greece, their intention was to pass to Italy. Other went north, they
wanted to go through Macedonia, cross the Balkan countries, to see until they
could get through. I took the opposite way of them. Actually they gave me
addresses of friends and relatives to visit in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, India,
etc. I crossed turkey and Iran hitchhiking, it was easy. Turkish camion drivers
are wonderfully hospitable. Iran a bit trickier, but still very cultured. I
wanted to see the wall, that was my fetish, that wall between Iran and Pakistan
the boys spoke about, and yes, I ended up finding it, it wasn\u2019t difficult. Once
there I felt very stupid, I have crossed thousands of
kilometers to see a fucking wall. Damn it. But now that I was there I would
have to keep going. I put myself in trouble. The Iranian military didn\u2019t let me
go through. I managed to get on a boat to Muscat. Muscat is a modern city like
Dubai. Less important economically, though. Almost no people walking outside.
Everybody uses cars to go anywhere. Many jeeps. The city is surrounded by dark
mountains, plutonic rocks,
consisting of serpentinite,
named like this due to the similarity of its texture to that of the skin of a
snake, rich in magnesium and water, light to dark green, greasy looking and
slippery feeling, formed by a hydration
and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the
Earth's mantle. Also Basalt,
darker, a kind of rock formed from the rapid cooling of magnesium-rich and
iron-rich lava exposed at or very near the surface of
a terrestrial planet or the moon. This dark aura around the city is a
strange thing; like a menace, it made me remember the Canary Islands, mainly
Tenerife. I got sick. Days later I was on the airport, trying to communicate
with strangers. An Indian gay, a businessman, paid me the flight to his
country. He was a Punjabi, and was very happy to have me as his guest at his
family house. It was a big house, almost no decoration, they didn\u2019t like
adornments, they liked it simple. Probably they were Sikhs, but I never asked.
There was an inner garden with a pool, and only one genre of plant around, with
long and plain leafs. They put me in a room with access through the roof /
balcony. It was windy, during all the days I was there I would hear the kids playing with their kites,
sometimes the thing would get stuck against the antennas of my balcony, and I
would go there and disentangle the thing, this was a cool thing to do. I also
played some steps of dance on the roof. The children loved me, once they found
me down, they followed me everywhere through the neighborhood, sometimes I had
to run away, and when I was back, they
were waiting for me, I mean the ones in the house where I was staying, they
were a bit ceremonial about the meals, they wanted me to approve their art of
eating well, but I would eat anything, they couldn\u2019t understand. Sometimes I would not eat. Well, the tie
passed, they sent me in a mission in the Himalayas, it was wonderful to cross
that mountains, I stayed in a community in Srinagar. I made good friends there.
From there I passed to China, in China I got totally lost and ended up Vietnam,
by mistake. I lived in an inland in Hanoi, an inland in the red river, under
the Long Bien bridge. There were some wood houses there, some strangers lived
there, their job was to built scarecrows and sell it in the market. I helped
them in the business. Also I learned to play
the \u0111n b\u1ea7u. After about one two
months I moved to Laos, I crossed the border hitchhiking with people from the
village around, riding motorcycles, sleeping in muddy forests. Already in Laos,
there was Japanese propaganda on the roads, advising locals to not kill, sell
or eat little animals like snakes, rats, frogs, beetles, grasshoppers etc. I
took a night bus to Vientiane without money. Vientiane concept of time is
something totally unique. A curiosity: Laos politicians refused during ages to
build any bridge between their country and Thailand, but the Chinese insisted
and insisted, they wanted a kind of motorway leading China to Singapore, and
they wanted it to cross Laos, not Cambodia, but in the end the bridge was
officered by the Australians and the Chinese motorway never came. One year
after the bridge finished, the locals had a new name for the bridge. AIDS
bridge. I crossed this bridge walking. That\u2019s how I got to know that. Once in
Bangkok I hit the Kao San area. An area full of Farangs (western tourists). In
Kao San the local merchants would pull your arm on the street to impose their
products to you. Say, street food like Pad thai, hippy clothing and travelling
packs to places like Pattaya, Puhket and Chiang Mai. Many westerns walking hand
with hand with Thai girls around Kao San street. All night the clubs in this
street blasting hip hop beats, trying to be as cool and pro occidental as they
could, people being forced to party, a lot of insinuations, sex tourism, of
course, \u201cbe happy for nothing\u201d tourism. Smile or die. Anyway, it wasn\u2019t that
bad, I liked the mysterious aura of the city. Mainly in the surrounding area of
Khao San. Many locals would be outside all night. People lived liked spirits,
outside of themselves, that was my impression from the beginning. You could do
anything, they would not judge you. Or almost never. I found a very cheap
hostel, in some back streets, two minutes walking distance from Khao San, it
was close to the river, I would do my walks around the canals during the night,
visit the big lizards. After some weeks in the Hostel, I started to understand
who were the visitors and who were the ones that were staying, we share
observations, from time to time, nothing deep, not talking much, we had learn
from the locals, contemplate more talk less, and when you talk, talk like
contemplating. There was an old French man living there, mainly into reading
and drinking beer. He would speak only when not many people around. His
drinking pal was a tanned Russian, the Bolshevik talked louder, but always
waited for the French to bring up the theme. I could only see the Russian
during the night, never during the day, while the frenchie I would see him all
the time in the front lobby, downstairs. There was a huge tree with reddish
flowers between the hostel and the front street, well it was not a front
street, it was an alley that connected to a back street, and another alley
would lead you to the main street. This to say that the hostel was protected by
this tree. I understood the kind of life the frenchie was living there. He was
living under this tree, under this bless, that was enough for him. For sure
Antonin Artaud brought him there, or something like that, an Antonin Artaud in
the feminine, or without genre. He and the Russian had rooms downstairs,
sometimes another younger guy, also staying in a room downstairs, would drink
with the oldies. This guy, I didn\u2019t know him well, but I heard him exposing his
story to other newbies, saying that came to Thailand by Moto, from India or
something like that, he had a lot of problems with the police, not just because
of the Moto, but also because of the use of cannabis in open space, he had been
to jail and had fines to pay, the police kept his passport, he couldn\u2019t leave.
This hostel had only ground floor and first floor. I stayed upstairs. The
access to the first floor was made through some stairs made of old wood, weak
clapboards that would do different kind noises, sometimes hissings, sometimes
moaning, it was interesting, a kind of sound that would pair well with the
singing of that bird, the Koeli, the Koeli is a kind of cuckoo, mainly singing
mainly during the night, actually I never saw it, he was hidden on that tree,
for sure. The entrance to my room was located in an inner balcony, also made of
old wood, people that was staying in the rooms around would hang clothes in the
handrail of this balcony. Every morning, as I opened the door, and saw the sort
of clothes hanging there I could understand, somehow, which kind of neighbors I
was having. About the room, it was minuscule, just a bed and a fan on the
corner. Some scribbling on the walls, in many languages. By the ceiling there
was a small square hole, a kind of window without window, actually two holes,
one northern, making the connection with the exterior, and the other southern,
let\u2019s say, making the connection with the room in the back of mine, so, all the
sound would pass from one room to others, but it\u2019s not like we were being noisy
in this hostel, quite the opposite, the thing is, we could listen
conversations, moanings, gaspings, going from room to room. And the fan
spinning night and day, nonstop, this was my best friend. So, in the first days
of my staying, the person staying on the room opposed to mine was some Japanese
young guy, he would talk on the phone in the middle of the night. His mother
was very worried with him, he told me later, before leaving. Days after he is
gone, a German girl came to live in this same cell. She would sing, more like a
murmur, sometimes played some reggae music, from her phone or laptop, I\u2019m not
sure, but not loud, in the morning, I would wake up with her songs, it was
cool, we had similar music taste. One of this mornings, she was playing that
album \u201csuper ape\u201d from the \u201cThe Upsetters\u201d, an album that I loved and love
much, and while the album was playing we shared some stupid jokes about
nothing, it was fun to speak with someone like that, through a hole. We made
like an agreement, she would play a song and after it would be my turn and
after her turn again and so on. So, after the \u201cUpsetters\u201d I injected \u201cpanic in
Babylon\u201d from Lee Scrach Perry, she loved it too, and when her time came her
choice was \u201cmr Sun\u201d from Don Carlos. Appreciated also. It followed with things
like: \u201cblack roses\u201d from Barrington Levy; \u201cchase the devil\u201d from Max Romeu; \u201cno
no no yes I know\u201d from Dawn Penn; \u201cperfidia\u201d fom Phyllis Dillon; \u201cjava\u201d from
Augustus Pablo; and other songs from
maestros like King Tubby, Scientist, Mad professor etc. Well, I remember it
finished with something totally different, \u201clanquidity\u201d from Sun Ra. And after
this music marathon she explained the purpose of her staying in Bangkok, she
has finished with her boyfriend, her job, her family, back in German, and came
to get lost, to refresh her mind, she was doing the so called \u201csoutheast asia\u201d
tour. She came from Cambodia, and would follow until Indonesia. That was her
plan. Perhaps Bali. I advised her to skip Bali, Bali was very commercial. I
recommended her to go more east, to Sulawesi, to Maluku, etc. After she wanted
to know about me. I said, my family lived in China, I knew nothing about the
west, I grew up in Hong Kong. \u201cBut you don\u2019t look Chinese!\u201d; \u201cHow you know? You
can\u00b4t see me!\u201d Some day after she was gone. I kept her mail. She sent me photos
from Malaka. To her place came some couple from Taiwan, they were very shy, and
afraid of me, I don\u2019t know why. After the room stayed empty during sometime, until
that a Thai girl came to live there. We spoke through the wall. She had just
come from the States, she said. She went there with a guy, a guy that
supposedly loved her, but once she got there, she understood that this guy was
married, had children and everything, classical story, so, she got despised by
the guy, her situation became a chaos and she decided to return, but to pay the
returning ticket it hasn\u2019t been easy. It wasn\u2019t really easy. Now she was even
in a worse situation, she confessed. Without a job. Without money. Without
friends. She was not from Bangkok actually; she was from the Isan province, in
the north. But her whimper was intriguing; it looked too smart to be taken
seriously. One night she drank too much and start telling stuff like poetry,
she spoke good English, it went on like this \u201cSometimes I feel like a turtle that is being grilled over hot charcoal.
I am slowly dying. No matter what I do, no matter how much I try to escape, I
cannot. I am powerless to change my destiny. I wonder was I born to be
unfortunate; is this life my destiny? I pray to Buddha that this not be the
case. My life seems to be that of a country girl who has spent her days
escaping from a tiger, only to be eaten by a crocodile. You can buy me for
2,000 baht, or less. I\u2019m yours.\u201d Well, I didn\u2019t like this offer, to be frank.
Days after I ran away from Bangkok\u201d.

***

When
I landed in Tijuana, a city with one of the bigger homicide rate in the word, I
decided to walk from the airport to the city center; the fence with the United
States was just in my back. Two fences actually, around ten meters high, one on
the Mexico side and other in the gringo\u2019s side. A big space in the middle, with
cameras, and jeeps patrolling. Not so much cars in this national road, some
pickups, some dusty vans passing by, and from times to times a very old but
robust blue bus would pass, it looked like a school bus, people with hats
inside, dozing against the windows. And as I walked by the fence, a patrol car,
on the other side, is already following me, because I have touched the fence,
before, testing it, but after some minutes they stop and got out of the car,
they don\u2019t want to call my attention, and why they should bother, if they could
keep tracking me through the cameras, for sure. But I wasn\u2019t the only one
walking by the fence, from ten to ten minutes I would cross with another mate
with a dirty backpack, walking fast, not looking to the sides, but on the exact
moment we crossed he would stand his head and do a salute, even a smile. Me the
same. Further I got to a relatively big roundabout, if I keep in front I would
go to some industrial area, and to go to the city I should do left. Here
started the suburb. I saw the first shops, small supermarkets, refresquerias
and pulquerias, in between the many improvised car garages. As I passed no one
bothered me. There was people, but they didn\u2019t stop so much in this street,
they would quickly move into the smaller ones, inside the maze. So I came to
the hill, on my right all the ups and downs of the suburban area, people with
many chains and collars around the neck, on my left the dry river / sewage and
the city, colorful buildings, not tall, all very dusty. When I asked the
direction to the center someone answered me with all the details and more all
the other possible ways of getting there and more the buses, etc. I followed
the motorway by the sewage. Under a bridge, here was a particular graffiti that
called my attention, the graffiti showed a group of people pulling shopping
trolleys full of trash, and around the graffiti some real shopping trolleys
were parked, the plastic reality and the real reality, so closed, side by side,
it looked the same thing. Later I arrived in the city center \u201cavenida de la
revolucion\u201d and also not so much people, all kind of taquerias, well arranged,
handcraft shops with colouful skulls, hamburguerias decorated with the
imaginary of the gringos, a funky bait, but strangely I haven\u2019t seen one
American in all that main street, all the ones sited inside the public houses
were Mexicans, I could tell. I got curious, so I decided asked someone about
the gringos, he pointed me the direction of a club and said \u201cai se meten todos,
por las muchachas\u201d. Yes, the fuckers, the only place you could see them was
inside the whorehouse, typical. The city has been the stage of many riots,
between the drug cartels, he said, so they are not coming anymore, \u201cthey are
afraid of Tijuana now.\u201d This man talking was from Sonora desert, he is here on
business, arranging a contract to export meat from his providers in Sonora to
the small restaurants in downtown Tijuana. \u201cHere they like more the meat from
the desert he\u201d; they preferred it instead of the local one. Then this man,
understanding that I was a foreigner, offered me to come inside and have a
pulque with him. I accepted. This was my
first pulque, I had never heard about that, \u201cnevermind the Tequila\u201d he said,
\u201cthis is way better\u201d, and was, creamy and not directly tasting ethyl alcohol,
like some tequila. Inside I sit on a table with other men and one woman. They
all have been on the other side; I mean the \u201cAlta California\u201d side. \u201cThat is
our land, they stole it from us, but our relatives still live there, they will
never leave it\u201d one said. \u201cI worked there in a fucking pineapple plantation for
almost two years but after got tired of that shit and came back\u201d one said.
Other has been throwing chicken into hot water, same story. The younger, had
just come from San Francisco; was recently deported by the new migration laws,
after spending one year in jail. The woman also confided that have worked half
of her life there, in a Motel, as a waiter, cooker and receptionist, she has
done a bit of everything. Now she was on holydays, this side, but her husband
was an American, he was on the other side, they made jokes about it. \u201cDo you
love him?\u201d I asked her. \u201cI love my children\u201d she said. Then they made me a lot
of questions about my identity, what was I doing here, from where I came, and I
lied as I could, I was half Chinese half Spanish, half I don\u2019t know what, I
came to visit my cousins and I had a secret mission. They wanted to know more,
but I had to leave them, I wanted to go to the beach, there was a mission to be
carried out, and I couldn\u2019t drink more pulque. The beach was more than ten
kilometers distance and it was already night. I left, half drunk. Again, I took
the road by the fence, by the border, this time by mistake. No one walked along
this road, there was no sidewalks, on both sides mounds of churned earth,
almost no vegetations, some caves on this mounds would guard the illuminated
statues of Santa Morte, Virgen Guadalupe and San judas Tadeu. There was an
inhospitable valley, some fig trees, I ate some figs, a lot of rubbish, and up
the valley, the motorway leading to the border crossing, full of vehicles, both
sides, that was another world. I kept going down. In the middle of nothing a
man came walking slowly, he looked big, but after I understood, it was not all
a man, he was carrying a tray on his head and buckets on his hands, he passed
on my side, made a sound like \u201cohue\u201d and followed into the mound, through a
narrow serpentine path, sided with some tall weeds, I understood, he was a
peddler, coming home from his work. At least he had a home, I thought. I still
could see, his head and the tray, all the same now, drifting through the top of
the weeds, just a showdown. More half an hour and there was light again; I was
arriving to the beach neighborhood. I surpass now some villas, some placed
almost in the middle of the border, on the hill, excavations all around. It was
as if this houses were floating, there was no fortifications. Caterpillars were
parked all around and the border fence crossed the pit, also floating. It would
be easy to pass under it. I haven\u2019t seen any patrolling in this area. I took a
picture. Finally a perfect picture.
After the gas station the first hotels with big terraces on the back,
but the front walls are high and some have broken glass stuck against the
top. At the roundabout I turned right,
got out of the main street, into the coastal neighborhood, I passed some bars,
not many people inside, but they were noisy, noisier than in the city center. I
went down this street, in five minutes I was on the beach. Now on my front a
small amphitheater, sound of trumpets playing, a big set of percussion, like
the one you find in circus, but you couldn\u2019t hear the guitars, although the
guitarists were the more well dressed, with lines of decorative bottoms over
their jackets. A guy was singing traditional songs, and he would pass the
microphone to the passersby\u2019s, anyone would sing too, with no shame. Some
middle-aged couples were dancing, down, half in the amphitheater half in the
sand; they would jump into the concrete and fall into the sand again as the
music went on, it was funny, how they were doing it without falling, and the
trumpets were really loud. I ordered a hamburge

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