Like Glass in the Belly

Like Glass in the Belly

Sep 25, 2012 | #noticed

Whenever I’ve landed in a new place, I’ve tried to understand the local culture as if it was a system. Mexico was one of my first experiences and there I learned that a cultural system is underpinned by a network of stories and narratives—Bruce Chatwin’s songlines–that run through cultural cornerstones such as language, food, architecture, and the feast day of the Virgin of Guadalupe. But last Sunday, in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakharia, author Salman Rushdie sent my thoughts in a different direction when he referred to a “culture of insecurity.”

Rushdie posited that the “rage machine” we’ve seen reacting to a cheap independent film trailer and cartoons unflattering to the prophet Mohammad—which most of those in the Arab street have probably never seen–is easily cranked up in cultures that are built on insecurity. A culture secure in its identity can dismiss criticism and stupid films.

But if the songlines of a particular culture are defined by what is lacking and resentment toward what others have, then there can be little cultural confidence and emotional security.

To define one’s culture only in terms of what it lacks is a large and disturbing concept. Is a culture built on negativity and rage sustainable?

Well, rage is cheap. Cheaper than fast food, nice cars, sports franchises and higher education. Cheaper than running water and reliable electricity. If rage stems from what a culture is thought not to have—and alternative ideas are weak and no one moves to tamper the rage—it probably can be sustained through several generations, especially if education rates stay low.

But rage on a cultural scale is a huge loss in terms of productivity, economic growth, educational development—the list is endless. Unless someone is profiting by it, common sense would say that profound efforts would be made to reverse the culture of insecurity.

So who profits from a culture of insecurity and the rage it can promote?

Unfortunately this isn’t a hard question to answer and Rushdie noted that the deliberate use of rage is a “political act.” Throughout history we’ve seen people attain and retain power by manipulating populations with negative messages of external threats. Iran. North Korea. East Europe during the Cold War.

I didn’t realize this was ultimately what I was writing about in this conversation about a presidential candidate from THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY:

“This country’s entire social system is predicated on the majority of the people being tolerant. Educated people find things out and aren’t quite so tolerant after that . . . “

Luz blinked at him, struck by the intellect behind his words. “So how do we change that? Make the country . . . healthy.”

“Reform is hard.” He seemed about to say something else, but stopped.

“But if nothing changes,” Luz said, thinking about the dwindling opportunities for Juan Pablo. There would be even less for Martina and Sophia. “What will happen?”

Eddo shrugged. “The leftovers will remember Lorena’s catchphrases. That’s all she wants them to do.”

He was saying such hard things. Luz leaned forward. “Do you mean to tell me Lorena is happy to cry for the pain of the people if it means they’ll stay uneducated enough to vote for her?”

And as for those trapped in a culture of insecurity, to paraphrase a poem by the late Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes; the children in the street will eat glass if there is nothing else to fill their empty bellies.

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CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

A 9/11 Story

A 9/11 Story

Sep 11, 2012 | #truestory

I was sitting in a small auditorium at the Colegio Americano in Mexico City waiting for the meeting to start. The room was full of women and the occasion was the annual meeting of Mexico’s Secretariat of Education with the school’s parents. I knew I wouldn’t understand most of it; my Spanish listening skills were still feeble although I’d temporarily mastered numbers. But the school administration had sent home shrill notes insisting that parents attend, claiming a correlation between continued accreditation/funding with the number of parents that showed up.

9/11We were new at the school that year. I didn’t see anyone I knew from my vantage point near the rear exit. The murmurs around me were all in Spanish.

As I leafed through my Filofax, a soft exclamation in English sounded from the front row. A blonde women turned to someone behind her as she waved a cell phone. “A plane hit the Twin Towers in New York,” she whispered loud enough for me to hear.

A small plane. A Cessna, I thought. A private pilot must have had a heart attack and veered off course. The plane would have splintered into pieces against the skyscraper. How sad.

With great ceremony, some school officials and a large man in a glen plaid suit mounted the stage and crossed to the podium. There were introductory remarks. The glen plaid suit started speaking on behalf of the Secretariat.

The warm air in the auditorium thickened with a mixture of boredom and expensive perfume. The speaker’s face was moist above the microphone. I had no idea what he was saying.

Whispers again rippled out from the front row in a language I could understand. A second plane had struck the Twin Towers.

No one left. The sweaty Secretariat man droned on for another 30 minutes until finally the school officials thanked him and dismissed the meeting. Maybe he took questions. I don’t remember.

I drove home and turned on the television. It was 11:30 am. At 11:32 I realized the world had fundamentally changed.

And that’s my 9/11 story.

Click here for the 9/11 digital archive. The Archive contains more than 150,000 digital items, a tally that includes more than 40,000 emails and other electronic communications, more than 40,000 first-hand stories, and more than 15,000 digital images.

Click here for the 9/11 memorial website.

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CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

9/11

5 Ways to Save What Matters

5 Ways to Save What Matters

Jun 14, 2012 | #noticed

historic preservation

A recent walk through Panama’s Casco Viejo–with its alternately sad and hopeful mix of gutted buildings, slumdog shacks, churches, and newly restored upscale shops and hotels–reminded me of the importance of cultural preservation.  While this historic district goes through a transformation that will ultimately preserve the best of it, other cultural legacies have disappeared and those are sad stories, as if cultural practices and language and architecture are endangered species.

So, based on a wholly uninformed point of view, here are some ideas for preserving what matters:

Repurpose

The world is full of examples, notably of buildings, that get converted to another use in order to preserve them. When I was in college, we converted a local firehouse into a theater and the highlight of the season was the lead actor sliding down the firepole to make a grand entrance in Scappino. I was the stage manager for the production and still have scars on my right hand from the scene in which the pole was transformed into a flagpole with a series of distress flags hooked to a rope. As I worked the mechanism on the top floor above the stage, the hooks snagged my hand when the actor yanked too hard on the rope.

Example: The Hardware Store in Charlottesville, VA is a former Depression-era hardware store transformed into a restaurant. The original fittings have been preserved and the ambiance is right out of the 1930’s. The concept was so successful that the restaurant anchors the modernized downtown area of the city. Oh, and my main characters eat there in a thriller I’ve been working on set in Charlottesville.

Symbolize

historic preservationUse the item we want to preserve as a logo or symbol to prompt interest and identification. While this may sound like a test for graphic designers, it is a good way to place the reminder of the thing to be preserved in alot of places, including social media pages, brochures, etc.

Example: Canning Across America is a clever website dedicated to preserving (sorry, just was too perfect) the art of home canning. The site uses a logo of a canning jar that manages to be edgy and hip even as the site showcases homey pictures of gorgeous jams and veggies and such.

 

Pedestrians Only

Many spaces we want to preserve have narrow streets. Stop putting cars through the area and convert to pedestrian use only to prevent damage to buildings and facilitate tourism so people can stop and linger. Put parking and access to public transportation nearby.  This is what I hope is eventually done to Panama’s Casco Viejo, where both streets and sidewalks are narrow. Pedestrians frequently end up walking in the sreet, endangering life and limb. Buildings are so close that drivers can’t see around them as they approach intersections. Driving through can really be a game of chicken.

Example: Most old European cities were smart enough not to stuff historic plazas full of cars. There are many beautiful open spaces that invite folks to walk through and find treasures in restaurants and shops. Brussels’s Grand Place main square is a great example. In Italy, a pedestrian square is an isola pedonale and Piazza Navona is my favorite (there’s a Furla store there, so not hard to see why I like it.)

Hall of Fame

Create a showcase of the best examples of culture in certain categories. There’s the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Baseball Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, the Pro Football Hall of Fame, the Nascar Hall of Fame, the National Air and Space Museum, etc. Obviously, this is a versatile concept.

Example: The Library of Congress has a National Recording Registry that functions as a sound-based hall of fame. As recently reported by Huffington Post, they inducted  “25 sounds that shaped the American cultural landscape.” How cool is that?!

Make it personal

Often, people don’t respond to a concept unless it becomes personal to them. Preservationists have to find a way to tie preservation to something that is personal to the audience in order to build interest and support and even participation.

Example: The endlessly creative website yesterday.sg is devoted to preserving Singapore’s cultural heritage. A campaign in January to raise awareness was a call for people to submit wedding photos taken at Singapore’s 64 national monuments.  People who sent in wedding photos would qualify to win diamond jewelry from a local store.

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CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

historic preservation

The Girl on the Other Side of the Earth

The Girl on the Other Side of the Earth

May 29, 2012 | #truestory

When my daughter was little I wanted to give her a sense of her place in the world. We got a globe and calculated the exact opposite spot if one drew a straight line through the center of the earth from where we were.  We hit China.

We started to tell each other stories about a Chinese girl who lived across the earth from us.  She would be my daughter’s exact age, of course, and we wondered what she’d be doing. What clothes would she wear? What season was it for her? What food would she like to eat? If it was bedtime for my daughter was it morning for the girl in China?

Each time our family moved, we imagined a new girl on the other side of the earth from wherever we found ourselves. The globe has some pen marks on it now and we weren’t terribly geographically precise, but we still talk about where is the girl on the other side of the earth from us and what she is doing that is the same or different. Which was the whole point of the exercise, I think.

Right now, she’s a girl in Indonesia.

Where is that girl across the earth from you?

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CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

other side

Wicked Culture

May 24, 2012 | #EmiliaCruz

A stroll through an outdoor book fair lining Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma boulevard a few months ago gave me the inspiration for the third novel in the Emilia Cruz mystery series. Most of the vendor stalls offered beautiful art books but what caught my eye was a cheaply printed pamphlet adorned with a drawing of a muerte skeleton figure wearing a long robe and holding a set of scales and a globe.

The dark side is alive and well . . .

Mexico’s Santa Muerte

Santa Muerte has become a cult figure in Mexico and is increasingly hailed as the patron saint of drug gangs, cartels, and violence. The saint is always a muerte, or skeleton figure, in a long robe with a hood. Sometimes Santa Muerte has a halo or a crown and carries either scales or a long scythe akin to the Grim Reaper. There are also images that meld Santa Muerte with the Virgin of Guadalupe. Murders associated with the cult of Santa Muerte made headlines last month when three people were killed in a ritual dedicated to the saint in northern Mexico.

The little pamphlet that I found was a collection of prayers to the Saint of Death, including a prayer to bring in money, a curse against jealous people and a prayer to dominate a husband, an invocation for a man not to look at any other woman, and a prayer to make a man forget another woman. In the next book,  Emilia will read the wrong prayer, of course . .

Papua New Guinea’s Sanguma

A spiritualism known as sanguma in this remote Pacific nation is widespread and most homicides in the country are thought to be related to it. 85% of the population lives in rural communities where belief in black magic is especially strong and passed down through generations through storytelling. Illnesses, sudden death by natural causes and other unexpected developments are often thought to be the result of sanguma. As a result, to erase the black magic, villagers often kill someone accused of being a sorcerer. Check out this report from ISP for more.

Haiti’s voodoo

Voodoo was acclaimed as a real religion in Haiti and revolves around in a distant and unknowable creator god, Bondyè. According to Wikipedia, Bondyè doesn’t intercede in human affairs but has a set of lesser dieties called Iwa who direct specific aspects of life.  Adherents to voodoo “cultivate personal relationships” with the lwa through offerings, personal altars and devotional objects, and elaborate ceremonies of music and dance, which are the means for possession by an Iwa. Supposedly being possessed by a diety is something to be desired.

Hmm. Creepy stuff. Time to go to church and light a candle.

Rude in Any Culture

May 22, 2012 | #noticed

Back when I started this blog, I talked about what it means to be a World Citizen, someone who can go anywhere because they understand and embrace the culture in which they find themselves. I identified a few things that go into the making of a World Citizen and Manners was one of them.

Related: The Right Fork

Manners differ considerably from place to place. Often rudeness is one culture is the norm in another. Differing views of standing in a line, for example. But some things are universal.

If you’re a World Citizen, you shouldn’t find yourself doing any of the following:  6 things that are Rude in Any Culture.

  •  Defacing national monuments or historic sites, including taking “souvenirs” which could prove to be significant artifacts, like, oh, the Elgin Marbles.
  •  Performing acts of personal hygiene in public, including urinating, picking one’s nose, clipping fingernails with the teeth, etc. One can never explain such actions in a way that is flattering.
  •  Talking in a theater, unless the movie is Ricky Horror Picture Show.
  •  Putting feet up on a table or other furniture unless invited. It implies disdain for others’ possessions.
  •  Smoking in areas where signs are posted that say–in any language–“No Smoking.”
  •  Overreliance on the word “fuck,” which is now a virtually global swear word, except possibly in France which is rude enough to stick to the time-honored merde.
rude in any culture

Finding my Audience

May 14, 2012 | #booknews

Who do I write for?

This was a simple question posed to me a couple of months before The Hidden Light of Mexico City was released and it was simple to answer.

Me.

Well, not just a readership of one! But when I started writing, it was for myself and all my girlfriends in Mexico City who watched the dance of Mexico’s social classes and wondered what would happen to the country in which we’d invested so much of ourselves.

We were smart, educated, and capable women from different countries: the US, UK, Germany, Switzerland, Portugal, Australia, etc. Although we had different nationalities, we had one thing in common: we were all from cultures that embraced and practiced gender equality.

All of us found that wasn’t the case in Mexico, although I hope things have improved since then. But at the time, we often found ourselves talking about people and situations we encountered in Mexico City that made us uncomfortable because inequality was so tolerated.

These conversations really inspired me, at first to write a non-fiction book, and then later to change it to a novel that would entertain as it informed.

My readers are

  • Interested in current events
  • Curious about the rest of the world, especially Mexico
  • Appreciative of a good action story
  • Likes a bit of spice, too

Does that describe you?

 

Padre Ricardo and the Sacristy of Santa Clara

Padre Ricardo and the Sacristy of Santa Clara

May 3, 2012 | #thrillers, #truestory

The Hidden Light of Mexico City contains a number of references from my own experiences in Mexico City.  I’ve already written about the  class struggle of simply standing in a line but also wanted to share a sadder, more compelling event that helped shape the book’s narrative through the character of Father Santiago.

Related: Read HIDDEN LIGHT’S First 2 Chapters

Father Richard

Father Richard Junius–or Padre Ricardo–was the pastor at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in Mexico City when I lived there.  He was an Oblate Missionary who had been in Mexico for years, ministering mostly to the rural poor.  St. Patrick’s was a sizeable urban parish  in a fairly tough neighborhood. It was the only designated English-speaking church in the city.

Fr Richard Junius

Years ago the church had sold off the school building next door. Funds from the sale  were held in escrow by the diocese for maintenance of the church and attached rectory.  The previous pastor had been removed due to a number of misconducts; when Father Richard arrived we were all cautiously hopeful that the new priest would set things right.

St. Patrick’s sacristy was a place I came to know well; the ladies of the parish cleaned it up for the incoming priest, removing layers of grime and polishing the few silver items the church possessed. My son was an altar server and I remade and cleaned all of the altar server vestments, hanging them in the room’s small closet.  The description of the sacristy of the church of Santa Clara in The Hidden Light of Mexico City is based on St. Patrick’s.

 

Father Richard was old and patient and tireless in his efforts to reach out to the local community and deal with their family issues. He made his new English-speaking congregation aware of prison irregularities in Mexico and didn’t flinch when an armed drug addict, stoned out of his mind, walked through the church and accosted him on the altar during midnight Mass.  He spent nothing on his clothing, wearing threadbare corduroy pants and sweaters that became the fictional Father Santiago’s wardrobe. 

Controversy

Father Richard had spent most of his time in Mexico in rural areas. Now in Mexico City, he seemed naive in the midst of Mexico’s spiraling crime and drug war. 

Twice he was assaulted and robbed while alone in the church counting  the Sunday collection. When parishioners insisted that the funds be handled differently, he disagreed, adamant that church funds were solely his responsibility and that he would not close the church at any time. 

He lent a substantial amount from the maintenance funds to an unscrupulous businessman man who never repaid the loan. Father Richard contracted for the bathroom repair without consulting with the parish council. Again, funds disappeared. The job was left half done and toilets didn’t flush.

Never afraid of controversy, he petitioned the bishop to change the church’s status from English-speaking to multi-lingual. The move angered some of the original congregation, but was welcomed by local families.

Much of the English-speaking congregation moved on, angered by his financial floundering. Several years later I was to learn that he’d been murdered.

A violent death

In August 2007, Father Richard was found stripped, tortured, bound and strangled to death in his bedroom in the rectory of Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Mexico City.  His body was found the morning after a fire had broken out in the basement of the church late at night.  Initial Mexican news reports speculated that the death was a result of “sexual misconduct,” and downplayed the fire as well as the theft of several items from the church.  The charges were heatedly denied by Catholic Church officials in Mexico, thousands of faithful, and the  Oblates, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Other reports of his death noted that he’d been in conflict with the owner of  a bar near the church whom Father Richard had publicly called out for serving alcohol to minors. The Oblate website reported that “many believe that the brutal crime was in retaliation for Fr. Ricardo’s efforts to impede the drug traffic and the sale of alcohol to minors in the neighborhood. He had reported to the police that such activities were taking place in a building near the corner of the parish church.”

From the family

Fr. Richard’s cousin got in touch with me in April 2016 as a result of this blog post. In an exchange of emails, she related how she was informed by the Oblate Provincial in Belleville, Illinois that Fr. Richard was murdered:

“After I explained my connection, the Provincial began hesitantly stating, “I don’t even know how to say this.” When I asked what he needed to say, he responded that Father Richard had been murdered between the Saturday night Mass of Anticipation and the early Sunday morning Mass. I later heard that his sister expected his body to be returned to Eagle Pass for burial near the grave of his cousin, my uncle Father Bernard C. Junius, OMI. Sadly, the Mexican authorities buried the body quickly in Mexico City.
 
Prior to his death, Father Richard had written a lengthy letter to my uncle Paul explaining all of the activities he was involved in – a thrift store, a radio show, marrying Spanish and Anglo couples. His passion for service and love of those he served threaded through the letter. His death seemed like the waste of a true servant of the people.”
 

Catching his killer

Father Richard was 79 at the time of his death and only a month away from celebrating his 50th anniversary as a priest.  To my knowledge, his murderer has never been brought to justice and the official record remains death by misadventure.
 
Not content with that, I wrote “The Angler,” a novella based on the murder of Father Richard. In “The Angler,” Detective Emilia Cruz, the first female police detective in Acapulco, faces a similar crime. This time, the murder is solved.
 

The Angler by Carmen Amato

 

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CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

sacristy

A tale of Mexico: the school bus and the thriller

A tale of Mexico: the school bus and the thriller

Apr 10, 2012 | #booknews, #thrillers

THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY is a political thriller, with characters based on many people I met in Mexico City.

And a bus.

The setting

Let me set this up for you.

Our house was at the start of the school bus route going home. My children had a 10 minute ride. In the morning; they’d be the last to be picked up for a short ride through Chapultepec Park to the American School. To give you an idea of the student body, one of the other students was the son of a Mexican diputado. His bodyguards rode in an unmarked follow car. We never saw the bodyguards in the afternoon; I presume the chauffeur picked up the child like so many other children who attended that school.

One afternoon, a late model sedan parked near our house. A woman got out of the back seat, wearing a stylish dress, heels and ropes of gold chain. She introduced herself as Marit and said that her children rode the same school bus as my children.

They lived at the end of the bus line, she explained, and while she wanted her son and daughter to have the experience of riding on a school bus, it took too long.  In future her children would get off at our house and be driven home by the chauffeur.

Related: Reads Chapters 1 & 2 of THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY

A tenuous friendship

We spoke a number of times after that, me in my jeans on the stoop and she in her designer clothes from the window of the car.  When she learned I was new to Mexico City she took it upon herself to give me a tour of the best shops and restaurants in our neighborhood. The children and I were invited to a midday meal with her husband and children.  The event included lunch at their house–about 15 minutes away–and a stop in the kitchen to view the 5 uniformed staff and present my compliments to the cook in her white jacket.

Related post: Swimming lessons or how he wound up in a thriller

Soon after, Marit came over for coffee before meeting the bus. Our housekeeper, a wonderful young woman whom we did not require to wear a uniform, met us in the living room.  I introduced them as I would any two people, using full names.  To my surprise Marit immediately addressed the housekeeper using a common nickname rather than the housekeeper’s actual name. The grilling about work hours came next. It was an effective and not very subtle message: the housekeeper was getting above herself using her full name, not wearing a uniform, and leaving the kitchen instead of waiting to be assigned her work.

Related post: Itzel’s story or how she came to be in my novel

Marit also called me the next day and took me to task for not making the housekeeper work more hours–a day maid should show up to work at 7:00 am at least. By asking the housekeeper to come at 10:00 I was only encouraging her to become lazy.  I should note here that my husband generally referred to the housekeeper as the “Mexican Tornado” for her amazing work ethic. Marit’s words told me that there’s a caste system in Mexico that bottles up more people than just the Mexican Tornado.  So escape it, people will mule drugs or risk an illegal crossing into the United States.  Or both.

Be careful, I’m a writer

There were no more coffee or lunches after that but the final break came when Marit called to ask if, as an American, I could get her maid a visa. The family wanted to go to Disneyworld and take their maid to look after the children in the evenings.

The visa process took too much time, Marit said.  If the maid had to stand in line at the US Embassy she’d miss work.

I replied that I had no ability to obtain a visa for her maid and I never heard from Marit again. The car no longer stopped in front of my house to pick up her children.

But I had stored up enough from her tone, mannerisms, and home tour to cast Marit as Selena de Vega and transpose her home and servants into the Vega home. There are some differences to be sure, but the social ladder that Marit showed me became the impossible mountain that fictional maid Luz de Maria must climb in THE HIDDEN LIGHT OF MEXICO CITY.

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Mexico

CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

Mexico

Land of the Unexpected

Land of the Unexpected

Mar 19, 2012 | #truestory

Once upon a time, I took a trip with a similarly adventurous-minded girlfriend to Papua New Guinea, which bills itself as “The Land of the Unexpected.”  I doubt it has changed much since then; it is a wild, mountainous place where the wheel was never invented. Civilization burst upon it as World War II rocked the South Pacific. Geographically, it is part of the Solomon Islands chain (think Guadalcanal) and WWII left the deep waters around it a graveyard for American and Japanese ships and planes.

In the capital of Port Moresby, we tasted crocodile in the hotel restaurant, did a little shopping for tortoise shell bracelets and a breastplate-sized kina shell to be worn as a necklace, and bought beer glasses at the South Pacific Lager brewery (I actually prefered the Fiji Bitters beer I’d had in that country, but that’s another story.) We also learned about the wartime Coastwatchers, the group of valiant locals that watched Japanese ships and planes and reported back to the Allies.

From Port Moresby we headed to the Highlands in a puddle jumper plane and found ourselves in Goroka, a settlement carved out of the wilderness that occasionally shivers from volcanic aftershocks. It’s home to the now sadly commercialized Goroka mudmen tribe and some of the strongest, most flavorful coffee in the world. While we were there the town observed a depressing cycle:  about 10pm every night drunken customers spilled out of the pool halls and bars and proceeded to rampage through the streets destroying whatever got in their way. Each morning everyone put the town back together again.

In the motel, where either the door or the window locked but never both in all the rooms the manager offered, we blocked the door with the dresser and stayed up nights watching a grainy cable station from Australia and listening to the commotion outside.  We told each other that the 1 in 4 rape statistic for the country might be the result of the passivity of the women we’d seen; we on the other hand were prepared to fight and fight hard. Luckily, it never came to that.

land of the unexpected

Despite the nightly rampages, we got out and about and presently found ourselves with a translator at a local market.  There were wonderful wooden carvings for sale, fanciful animals and platters and bowls and puzzles. There were baskets coiled into shapes both practical and fantastic.

We were charmed.

An array of wooden crocodiles and seahorses caught my eye. Pointing to the largest croc, I asked how much it was. The translator queried the woodworker, a grizzled older man chewing betel nut which had painted the inside of his mouth bright red. He wore shorts and a dark shirt with the sleeves cut off and his dusty bare feet were  the size and shape of a large dinner plate.  He replied to the translator who then turned to me. “He wants to know if you’ll pay the first, second or third price.”

“What?”

“You pay the first price, the highest, if you’re a Big Man,” the translator explained. A Big Man was someone of Importance in the tribe, a person who paid a price commensurate with the respect that was to be accorded them. The lesser second price was paid by those who either weren’t quite a Big Man in terms of respect or didn’t have a Big Man’s means. The third price, the lowest amount of money, was paid by those who were of no account. Basically, it was a system of paying in accordance with how important you were rather than how valuable the item was.

I paid the second price–certainly wasn’t the tribe’s Big Man, yet didn’t want to be in the “no account” category.

The crocodile I bought that day is still around, as is a tall seahorse and the kina shell I never turned into a necklace.  And every time I see another news story about Wall Street I think about the unexpected lesson I learned that day about the cost of being a Big Man.

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land of the unexpected

CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

land of the unexpected

At the End of the Line

At the End of the Line

Feb 21, 2012 | #thrillers, #truestory

Let’s set the scene

Luz filled out a form to cash the check at a mahogany counter then went to the end of the line.

            It moved very slowly and grew very long. Luz had ample time to look around. The bank was an elegant place of glass and darkly veined marble where people had hushed conversations. The business being transacted was too venerable for a normal tone of voice.

            Luz was only about eight customers away from the teller windows when a man wearing a beautifully tailored dark suit walked into the bank. In the midst of the rough looking laborers, he stood out, tall and good looking.

            He consulted his jeweled Rolex and eased into the line directly in front of Luz. No one he passed reacted at all. The security guards on either side of the line appeared not to notice.

            Luz stared at the finely stitched wool in front of her. Maybe it was the boldness of knowing Eddo or the check that said she was a real artist or the fear that Marisol would punish her for taking such a long time, but she tapped him on the shoulder.  “Excuse me,” she said. “The end of the line is back there.”

            The soft murmur of banking conversations abruptly ceased.

            The man turned around. He was younger than Luz, maybe in his early twenties. He looked her up and down, taking in the gray uniform, old sweater, short socks, scuffed shoes, high cheekbones, and flat hair tucked behind her ears. Luz tried not to wilt.

           “What the fuck?” he said and sniffed as if she smelled bad. Then he turned around and walked ahead of the next three people in line. They all stepped to the side to let him pass.

end of the line

Write what you know

Unfortunately this fictional scene from The Hidden Light of Mexico City is based on a real event.  Like Luz, I was in a big bank in Mexico City.  As I stood in line and watched the well-dressed young man cut in, I actually gasped at his rudeness.

No one else reacted. The laborers, maids, and others whose work attire betrayed their social class just numbly accepted that he should be ahead of them and avoid their long wait. I spent the next few minutes alternately fuming at the lack of reaction and convincing myself that this wasn’t my fight.

But the gasp had attracted attention. My check was invalidated by the teller.

My revenge was to capture what had happened in a novel.

I met alot of people like that rude young man in Mexico City.  They enjoyed the heritage of old money and were accustomed–and wedded to–to the priviledges of the ruling class and the subservience of those on the social scale far below.  The latter, in turn, appeared resigned to their status and to the economic limbo it implied.

Noticed

Happily, I’m not the only one who has noticed and stronger voices than mine are talking about inequality in Latin America and its impact on development.  The RAND website offers a great recap of a talk given last month by UN Assistant Secretary General and Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean at the UNDP Heraldo Muňoz based on the UNDP’s recent report “Acting on the Future: Breaking the Intergenerational Cycle of Inequality.”

According to Muñoz, “features of inequality have been an inheritance for hundreds of years. Inequality is very significant, very profound, very persistent, and very difficult to break. Inequality in income, education, and health pass from one generation to another.”

Although Latin America is not the world’s poorest region, it is the most unequal one, said Muñoz. It has 10 of the 15 most unequal countries in the world, when measured by household per-capita income. “Latin America is 65 percent more unequal than high-income countries, 36 percent more unequal than East Asia, and 18 percent more unequal than even the average for sub-Saharan Africa.”

The solutions aren’t easy and they won’t be fast.  But the dialogue has started.

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end of the line

CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

end of the line

Celebrate Greek Culture Now More Than Ever

Celebrate Greek Culture Now More Than Ever

Feb 20, 2012 | #noticed

Greece has overspent itself to the brink of destruction and angry citizens are showing their contempt for further austerity measures by firebombing downtown Athens.  Talk continues of defaults and the downfall of a country and the entire eurozone as well.

But even if the country’s national institutions wobble, Greek culture will survive the current unpleasantness in Athens. Here are some reasons why:

1.  The Mediterranean Diet   The heart-healthy Greek menu emphasizes fish, olive oil, fresh fruits and vegetables and a splash of wine for good measure.  According to the Mayo Clinic “most if not all major scientific organizations encourage healthy adults to adapt a style of eating like that of the Mediterranean diet for prevention of major chronic diseases.” Read the full article about the benefits of eating Greek here.

2.  Kiosks   There’s a tiny outdoor convenience store every few blocks in Athens where you can buy snacks,  newspapers, bus tickets, an emergency bottle of olive oil, etc.  The kids can be sent down the street with a few euros to buy an ice cream bar and Dad can stop for a small bottle of whiskey to soothe a bad day at the office.  Friends can meet for a quick chat, read the headlines and get a sports drink when the heat roasts marble buildings to a sparkling white and all the fresh oranges and eggplants you bought at the neighborhood laiki open air market start getting heavy on the walk home.  Maybe now isn’t the time to open that designer dress shop in Kolonaki but the kiosks will still be a central part of life this time next year, too.

3.  The lemonade at the base of the Acropolis   You came to see the famous Parthenon, step in Socrates’s footsteps at the Pnyx, imagine the chariot races and salute Hadrian’s arch.  But how did democracy thrive in this heat! The antidote is the amazingly crisp, fresh lemonade sold at the ordinary-looking concession stand at the base of the Acropolis. Buy one–at whatever today’s cost–after your trek up to the Parthenon. And be careful on the way down. There aren’t safety rails and Greece probably doesn’t have the money to install them now.

4.  Storytellers  Writing and storytelling are quintessential aspects of Greek culture. This proud heritage is being carried on by the Aegean Arts Circle. Writer, sculptor and all-around Renaissance woman Amalia Melis runs the Circle which hosts an annual writer’s workshop series on the island of Andros.  Workshops are led by notable authors who help both experienced and novice writers polish fiction manuscripts. This summer’s workshop will be led by Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Olen Butler whose “. . . workshop will focus on the fundamentals of the creative process for any fiction writers, beginning or advanced, who aspire to create enduring literature.”

5.  The Greek alphabet   Fraternities, sororities, astronomers, interior designers, and the electronics industry (Coming Soon! The beta version!) are among the notables who all embrace the timeless quality of the Greek alphabet.

6.  This. Is. Sparta.  Okay, okay. Yes, it’s an internet meme and King Leonidas kept slipping in an accent that suggested he’d been thrown out of his fair share of pubs, but Hollywood loves Greek history. Think Troy.  Alexander the Great.  Beautiful scenery, low budget costumes and pre-written plots.  And then there is the fabulously genuine Nia Vardarlos who singlehandedly brought Greek traditions of family, food, and loud arguments to the silver screen.  And made us laugh.

7.  Ohi Day  There is a Greek resilience best illustrated by a unique holiday which celebrates the day in 1940 that Greek Prime Minister Metaxas refused to allow Axis forces to enter Greek territory and occupy certain unspecified “strategic locations.” The ultimatum was delivered by the Italian ambassador on behalf of Germany and urban legend has it that Metaxas answered with just the word “ohi,” or “no” in Greek. The Axis forces invaded shortly thereafter. Forced to the brink of starvation, Greece barely survived the rest of World War II and its chaotic political aftermath, best captured in My Brother Michael by Leon Uris.

So tonight, I’m celebrating with My Life In Ruins, and some feta and olives. I’ll watch the news tomorrow.

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Greek culture

CARMEN AMATO

Mystery and thriller author. Retired Central Intelligence Agency intel officer. Dog mom to Hazel and Dutch. Recovering Italian handbag addict.

 

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