Merigoesaround

Reporting live from Manila. I love the feeling of crossing the world in a plane. Even when the sleeping pill overdosed-Scottish middle age gigantic man sitting in front starts delirating and suddenly raises his skirt and decides to urinate in the middle of the plane. I thought we were landing in Mongolia. The face of the Dutch stewardess trying to reanimate the guy first, and making him feel ashamed second went from Munch's The Scream to Hitler in a matter of seconds. Human craziness apart, I love the feeling of flying through borders. Overflying Poland brought me back to 2001 and those days boyfriend husband and I were young and that first time we kissed in the garden of the Warsaw school where we spent a year of fun. The flight through Russian small villages (or at least they looked small from up there) flew me back to communism. In Kazakhstan I felt I was visiting a new country, even if all I could see was the vast blackness of unknown land. China, Mongolia, India...I don't ...

Inspiration comes when it comes. I know I am disappointing some of you and the snowball of blogless days becomes bigger and bigger, heavier and heavier on my shoulders. I'll be back very soon, I am in the process of planning what's next in life and putting thoughts in order. As boyfriend husband would say, there is no correct path, just yours. And I agree. He is always right.

This American proverb hanging from a kitchen fluorescent light bulb in a friend's house might be the best driver to live happily ever after. Don't blame yourself, don't blame others, things happen for a reason. All things. You didn't get that job. It had to happen. You found prince charming. It had to happen. You haven't yet. It will happen when it has to. This weekend we spent time with a new guru, a person I rediscovered, the eclectic kind of guru. We hit the Swiss slopes close to where he lives, we hit them so hard that boyfriend husband damaged his elbow badly. We ate immense amounts of cheese, rolled in the snow after sauna, inhaled as much fresh air as possible, and rediscovered the streets and the cafes of Geneva, a tiny elegant welcoming town that according to Borges is a place favoring happy lives . I tell Borges that the best place to visit is home. This weekend I saw small and big pictures of life.

Two nights ago a sophisticated, extremely cultured, lovely person who might become a good friend revealed to me a secret probably too secret for sharing with an stranger: "when I make love in a language that is not my native one it is never the same", he said. The funny part is that my potential friend is trilingual. So, or he gets lots of pleasure, or he is lost in translation. Maybe I am too. This blog should be about development economics and not dictionary ergonomics. But, multilingual couples of the world, speak out...I am listening.

My friend the ex-corporate-guy-now-converted-into-photographer is really good at his new occupation. He dreamt once of becoming a photographer, of expressing right out of his gut what he had inside after life gave him a kick off straight into his heart. He is succeeding. And recovering. He is so good that I want a picture with him very soon, this guy has a lot inside. Beyond all this free February love, let me explain his occupation. He takes pictures of pain. Not a very good way to relieve his, indeed. He does development porn, an irreverently ironic term that does not give credit to so many dozens of photographers around the world telling us what is beyond the Galerie Lafayette in Paris. So my friend the photographer is as good as having one of his pictures shown in the huge publicity banners of the Parisian metro. It was almost like a dream. I took line 9, my daily commute...and when I got to "Bonne Nouvelle" (literally, Good News) metro stop there she was, one of his Viet...

When I had too much food for thought at work. Courtesy of US colleagues.

This morning I met Lady Pigeon. I was sitting in the metro, half slept and hungry. My mornings are always in a rush. Always. I am fascinated by those who manage to have full continental breakfasts, with warm toasts and everything, at home before going to work. Seldom are the days I remember to grab a cereal bar. Sooo, hungry, sleepy me sat in front of a lady who was talking to her closed bag. I sometimes talk to my open bag...specially when I psychologically lose my purse inside. Girls' bags are artifacts to make you suffer. But there she was, Lady Pigeon talking to her closed bag. "Shhh. Don't move". She whispered. "Shhh. Behave". And suddenly she unzipped her leather interlocutor and a fat, grey sparrow animated my commuting today.

While it is boyfriend husband who lives in Africa, I am the one who sees (and smells) the lions and tigers every day. This are some of the externalities of living by the Circus. It all started a couple of months ago, when the season was launched. Suddenly misterious trucks covered by white overalls and a mild-to-intense smell of horse dung invaded the surroundings of the Cirque d'Hiver (the Winter Circus). One of my three windows in my micro studio was opened and suddenly I heard: Rrrrrrrrrrrrooarrr. It was a lion. A real one. From then on, the love story started and my wish to go to the Circus increased roar after roar. On Sunday me an boyfriend husband finally went to see our wild neighbors. We were probably the only couple without kids, but we were kids ourselves.

Oh la la. Shopping time in Paris. Taking advantage of the winter sale I went for a walk through the Marais. I purposely avoided those shops with dozens of French girls and loads of annoying tourists fighting for the bargain and went for a chic version of designer, hyper expensive shops that I can’t afford. Dreaming is free. I entered one of those exclusive places that sell only two or three samples of each piece. I tried on a couple of eccentric shirts, did not really like them and stepped outside of the shop heading home. I passed through “La Cactusserie”, the only shop I know of that sells only cactuses. To my left, Café Rouge, to my right, another cute little shop with socks at over 50 euros. The shop attendant inside looked at me directly, for more than 3 seconds. French looks are intense. There is a 3-second rule. 2 more than in the rest of the world. I entered the shop and while I was browsing the clothes hanging in the little shop I noticed that what I was holding in my arm was...

This year’s resolution of writing more in good and bad moments is not happening. Is Paris insufficiently interesting to spark my writing? Is the French “metro-boulot-dodo” (subway-work-sleep) motto permeating through my skin? Or as suggested by a colleague, I need a boyfriend in town to get me out of the office before 8.30pm.

Simple. When the x-ray machine guy stops you at the airport, nod profusely to whatever he says. In this case he said it was sheep ham...fact that I confirmed with a big smile. All to please boyfriend husband's craves for the precious Spanish product.

Seen at any random corner, roundabout or street in Morocco. Picture taken in a taxi. If only I could understand Arabic...

Nous-Nous. Half-half. Each country has a different way to drink coffee. Americans is venti and in paper cups. Italians is small and in cute china. Spaniards is big and with lots of milk. French is with a complimentary dark chocolate and ridiculously expensive. In Morocco, tea with mint rules but coffee is of the extremes: from terrible soluble coffee that tastes like dirty water to overpriced creamy café crèmes. This is a little bit like Marrakesh, from sumptuous riads with overtanned rich occidentals to poor illiterate beggars whose lives go unnoticed in the corners of the medina.

Before finding a job in an international agency he used to sell chicken and cows in a small village 25km away from Marrakesh. The donor job is more pleasant than negotiating the price of chickens with old villagers or chasing clients. The donor job is also allowing him to build a house. A precondition to finding a wife in rural Morocco. Walid's eyes show goodness and more maturity than those of a 24 year-old boy in the continental Europe I live in. He has a plan, or many. A plan to build the house, saving dirham after dirham, a plan to use the weekends to work as a guide and make some extra money, a plan to finish secondary school while his driver job allows it, a plan to develop the fields inherited by his family in the valleys surrounding the Atlas. He even dreams of rebuilding the old riad his family owns, at 5 euros the tile he might need a third job. Over half of Morocco's population is under the age of 20. I wonder if under 20 in Morocco means under 35 in France, Spain or...

Or almost. Luggage girl's dad could not stand the strong smell of dead animal and we stayed outside inhaling mint leaves and eating mandarins.

Seen yesterday, at Yves Saint Laurent's Moroccan house. Electric Indigo (also known as 'bleu majorelle') is a mysterious color. Between violet and blue is a funky tone that makes me feel like swimming. I learned that the good indigo pigment comes from a plant, Indigofera , common in the tropics. Today, most blue dyes, the ones in jeans, table cloths or carpets is synthetic. Synthetic or not, YSL's house and open-to-tourists' garden in Marrakesh is a haven of peace and clean air. The coffee shop in the garden is not only a good gastronomical choice but if you are lucky you might come across an actor, politician or local jet-set representative.

Getting sick is always a bad thing but it can be more than bad if sickness comes on New Years' Eve, in the narrow labyrinth-like alleys of a Moroccan medina at 4am. This is a tale on Moroccan health emergency services. We ended 2010 as loyal Spaniards: eating the traditional 12 grapes following Madrid's Plaza del Sol clock via internet. One after the other, grape after grape, new dreams, new plans. We started it as panicking expats looking for a hospital. A bug attacked boyfriend husband's stomach and before I realized, he was shaking and as pale as the snow in the Atlas. Two lessons: - Get the address of a good, westernized hospital before settling in a new country - Bring a person who speaks the local language. Being able to articulate ‘thanks’, ‘good night’ and the numbers from 1 to 5 in Arabic is clearly not enough. BH is in recovery and I’ve decided unilaterally that 2010 started the 2nd of January.

...to write during periods of happiness. Up to now, I haven't been able to. Not to say that the last 200 posts have been a product of sadness but I realize that the happier I feel and the more places I see, the less I write. In order to write this blog I have had to change the music from lively African rythms to distant Russian folk music. Am I losing part of the curiosity that threw me into luggage girl life? Is this a sign of getting older? Maybe I am just scared of ending the peter pan lifestyle. Some writers find inspiration in the most miserable moments of life, others' writing reflects only the highs of their daily monotonies. I am not yet the writer I'd like to be. One that writes about the tears and the smiles of others, that portrays life as it is in many corners of the world, from the poshest mall in Paris to the darkest corner in the medina where boyfriend husband lives. So during 2010 I am planning to breach new boundaries in the art of writing/communicating. Wr...

"Oh music in the street", I said after repeatedly hearing music outside the building. "It is the rubbish collector", my interlocutor replied. I smiled politely with my embarrassed I-am-a-tourist face.

They looked at me and said "What do you stare at? we are shoes". "I know" I answered. "Are you lost?". They started weeping. Their owner had gone to buy tobacco and vanished, just like smoke in the air. They were together, milimetrically in parallel, side by side. I smiled at the random solitude of those shoes and kept on walking. Alone.