Extreme Makeover: The Cupula*

This past weekend I worked hard. I mean physically hard. Restauration of my future house has become a difficult task, especially when I realized that when I needed help, there was noone around to offer it to me. (Only Fernanda, my friend from the gym came for a couple of hours and gave me a hand, and a shoulder when I collapsed with tears after burning my eye with paint...my heart in pieces).

I asked myself, when did I become so weak? I used to do everything by myself (ok, I have never painted a 18 feet wall before) and then I started dating a man, Jenry, who took care of everything, all kinds of hard work and made me believe that I will always have that kind of support around me. Not this time, and not in Uruguay (I did not choose too wisely this time, in terms of men I mean).

Instead of crying I said to myself, I am going to do this and it is going to be gorgeous when I am done with it. The before and after pictures are there to show us whether or not I manage to do so, at the end of this week. (I feel like I am in an episode of one of those DYI shows on BBC, without the cute experts who can re-decorate shitholes, as mcgyver used to save the world with a needle, a banana and cheap women's perfume!)



*I am going to post those pictures when I finish everything, I dont want to scare you with the before pix!

I wish I was an uneducated beachbum.....?

Or a secretary, nurse, a housewife...one of those women who do not threaten the male ego, on the countrary, those that most men are used to loving, just like their own mothers.

"Why this subject, why now?" you may ask. What does it have to do with South America? Well, indirectly this journey has been--since I left New York for Cuba--an enlightenment for me, discovering myself in many dimensions, and growing up faster, learning from my experiences alone in strange lands.

I don't want to get too philosophical, boring you and me as well, but thanks to a great friend, Alex, an amazing woman herself, I discovered a very important fact about myself and maybe for a lot of woman, last night, so here I go!

It all started when my dear friend Mauro was telling me that woman, in general, fell for jerks, men who don't care about them, etc, when I was bitching about something that my "boyfriend" did recently. Yesterday when I was talking about the same little incident, Alex pointed out, while questioning my previous relationships, and my boyfriends characteristics, she said that I was going for a certain kind of men, those who don't show their emotions, those who are not fully reliable, those who are egotistical and selfish. The only male love patern I am familiar with is that one, just like all the other women who grew up without proper father figures, therefore I keep falling for different versions of this figure. I am sure there are many women like me, who end up being with these kinds of men, and procrate and give birth to daughters who grow up to be like the rest of us, and in this vicious circle, yes, Mauro is right, we keep falling for jerks! And probably will continue doing so for a long time.

I have a lot of friends who have been through therapy trying to break this bad habit, and some are happily married with the kind of men that used to give them the "iyk" (nice guys). I thought of all the nice guys whose hearts I have broken, including Jenry (who was so heart broken that married a good cuban girl, a teacher, probably dying to give birth and become a quiet housewife in 5 years, with huge latin hips, within 5 months of our break up)What did I do while rebounding from my relationship? Fell for the most emotionally unavailable person around me!

I always denied that my relationship with my father affected my life and choices, claiming that because he was never around me, how could I can be influenced by him?; I guess I was wrong. My dad is a great guy, and I love the way he is, and I am sure if I was growing up with him I would be different. I always remember the fun things we used to do together when I was little: parties he threw, to his many friends, laughs, good food , eating salty lemons with him, huge sunday brunches with sucuklu yumurta (fried eggs with turkish sausage) and fresh turkish bread (mmmm), and I remember he was full of ideas all the time. He still is, a total adventurer and fun to hang out with.

The problem starts when the men you like are not attracted to the kind of woman you are (they are used to a diffrent femal figure) in case of my "boyfriend". He has no idea of how to love and be loved by a woman, because he has never experienced it. So I might be his kind of "iyk" woman: the one who only knows how to love and nourish (just like my mom and granma are) others and he probably panics around me, he does not know what to do; probably scared that he is going to get used to it and suddenly will lose it--knowing me and my track record of globe throtting lifestyle, I don't blame him--therefore he does many stupid things, childish, trying to keep my attention on him all the time.

How am I going to close this entry? or break this bad habit? Like smoking, you know it is bad for you, but it is so damn tasty, especially with a glass of wine or coffee, after a good meal, in a party...you keep smoking that one last cigarette, next to that last-semi-jerk-you-are-in-love-with...


*Photo: Human heart (Mutter Museum in Philadephia, PA). The Museum's collections include over 20,000 objects, including fluid-preserved anatomical and pathological specimens, medical instruments, anatomical and pathological models, items of memorabilia of famous scientists and physicians, and medical illustrations.

Sun, Street concert, World Cup Preliminary, Lunapark and La Teja: what a weekend

What an ordeal this cupula has become! I was anxious to get started with the restauration of my future home this weekend, and eventhough it was a sunny 30 degree day, I did not go to Pinar, I stayed and went there to meet with the plummer friend of mine, who did not show up again to fix my bathroom! I was almost in tears from rage when my cute downstairs neighbor said, "che, want to go see a concert for the political prisoners?" I knew he was talking about the one that we all were sure Manu Chau, who is in tour in Latin America at the moment, would sing there. So I said, well, what I am going to do, so I went.

A couple of beers and warm sun touching my face, Manu really showed up and sang a couple of tunes, we all danced and cheered and unfortunately he stopped to give the word to a speaker who went on and on about the human rights...well I left at that point because my neighbor asked me if I wanted to go see the Uruguay-Australia World Cup preliminary at the stadium! Hell yeah, I said. I was not going to miss another opportunity to go see a partido, especially as the future-productor of a soccer show in a turkish channel (ojala!)

Anyways, the game was AWESOME. The public was quiet for my taste, I am a turk, we scream our lungs out when our national team is playing for the World Cup. I saw moments of euphoria there but even though Uruguay went, the city stayed very very quiet during and afterwards. Shocking....

The next day, sunday, I woke up early enought to order freshly baked sorentinos (huge raviolis filled with jam and cheese) as a good girlfriend, and made a delicious tuco (a classic tomato, onion, pepper, garlic based salsa for pastas) with bacon and chicken, for Juana and Javier who were coming to pick me up to go to La teja, a working class neighborhood, where our dear friends Leo and Davich are from. Their band, la Teja Pride was going to have a small concert and Javier wanted to film the thing together with swedish film students who are in town.

Lunch was awesome, and Javi had to go early to put the stage together, so me and Juana stayed and decided to go to a theme park! I think last time I was in a themepark, I was 16, we used to go to the one close to Dolmabahce palace in Istanbul, at the end of the school year! I am about to celebrate my Tenth anniversary of graduation from HS this year, so go figure!

Juana pretty much decided for our rides, I loved the elephant thingy but the first time we were in it, as a person too old to hang out at theme parks and as a single gal without kids, I did not know that I needed to push a button to go up! I thought we were in a broken ride, but when we got out and I went over to bitch I realized it was my fault but played it so that they kindly offered me a new ticket--one more observation, when you are with a kid, looking like a parent especially, people treat you much nicer, especially if you have a cute kid! After being in almost all the rides and ate enought cotton candy we went back home, changed and wento to Teja. The band was waiting for us to take the stage.

It was a lot of fun, guys giving a concert in their neighborhood, with their granma there knitting while they were rapping hardcore about the social problems and discrimination, etc. Juana was instoppable, running around, dancing, having a ball! No wonder she fell asleep at 9 pm, in the car on the way back from there.

That is how my jungla was this weekend! Next weekend: Cupula or Bust!

No Solo de los Paneles Vive el Hombre*

Said one of my co-workers, Marcelo Pereira, I think after the third day of the summit, while I was telling them about all the 'cultural activities' we were missing by working so many hours!

I did not mentioned before, but one of the best things about mar del plata was presence of my friend Gunes, another crazy turk, who lives in Buenos Aires. I think if it was not for him, I would kill someone before the end of the week!

I found Gunes at the opening ceremony of the Summit. He came with a friend of his from Baires, and then made another friend, who became the focus of our entertainment rest of the week. Jerome, a quebecois, was a person of few words, he was more like a statue, or a lamp, in most cases. He only smiled, and seemed to me that he did have a clue of what was happening around him there or anywhere!

Gunes hung out mostly at the cultural activities of the summit, he was in charge of nightly entertainment, whenever we could. His main obsession was to catch Manu Chau sing--who at the end made a cameo appearence and a concert in the middle of the third day, in a plaza in the city (we both missed it unfortunately).

He also managed to find an incredible gift for my friend Conner, and we send it over to her for her bday after a long and a complicated journey I had to make to meet up with her husband: I try to crash the VIP of the stadium while Chavez was speaking to the people there, with tens of security guards and policeman! Gunes and I met with other interesting characters throughout the week, an ecuadorian kid who came to see the protests--thus the last night of our stay in Mar del will be known as "the night Gunes taught how to insult with a famous turkish gesture--in turkish nah cekmek--" to the same ecuadorian guy and to my co worker Lucas--, the son of the owner of the hostel, prostitutes, italian journalists. We shared a lot of laughs...and I am sure we will share many more in the course of our lives here in south cone!


*Men cannot only live of panels!

A week in Mar del Plata (no, unfortunately I was not sunbathing!)

We travelled, as RadioMundoReal, to Mar del Plata to cover the III People's Summit. After 14 hours of bus ride from Montevideo, we arrived here on Monday. Let me tell you, buses here are awesome, semi-cama (meaning: you can almost sleep as good as you were travelling in Business class!), DVD, etc.
We checked in to our hotel and looked desperatly for food for a while, everything was closed for siesta time!

I took a long walk around, with a couple of friends, discovering the city. For those who don't know, People's Summit is happening here because as of 4th of November in this same city 34 presidents of the Americas are going to meet in order to discuss the future of the Americas. Social movements from all around Americas are here to discuss and propose an alternative to neo-liberal policies that the United States is trying to impose on the continent. The part where the Presidents are meeting is already fenced, so while walking I got to that part (you can see from the photo) where expensive hotels such as Hermitage and Sheraton, offical hosts of the President's Summit are located.

Before I go into details about the People's Summit, I start off with the city of Mar del PLata. It is a charming balneario (I would say it looks like a warmer Cape Cod, with tall buildings) on the eastern coast of Argentina. People say it used to be a very shishi place to hang out during summer, right now it is a secondary choice after Punta del Este (Uruguay). We are here in off season, so the beach and sun are excluded from my agenda, if I could believe me I would jump and swim for a while and forget all the shit that happened here while working. Sometimes my collegues drive me nuts, everyday I say to myself "count till 10...then go look for arsenic!"

Tuesday we started really early, covering different panel discussions, about militarization, debt, solidarity, alternatives, etc. They say there is approximately 9000 people here, I am not so sure of that number, maybe if we include all the people who are here just hanging out, we can reach that number, I guess.

That night, I received a phone call from Acik Radyo in Turkey, and made a live coverage of the event so far. I think among all the things I have been doing and done there that was the most exciting part of it!

Last day, which was friday, we started early covering the peacefull march agains the presence of W and his politics in the continent. The march, with the participation of 15 thousand people started from the Center of the city all the way to the Stadium where Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, together with Diego Maradona, were waiting to reach the public. Aside from the people at the Summit and the march, thousands of locals were present, and after listening a little bit of Silvio Rodriguez live, listened to Chavez for 2 hours under the rain. It was very moving his speech, yet a bit egotistical for my taste.

Later that afternoon, after changing to clean and dry clothes and eating something, together with Davich, our sound engineer, we hit the road to see the "unpeaceful march" in fron of the barricade, behind which 34 presidents of the continent were meeting. As a pro in these kinds of protests, I lead us in front of the protest, where things seemed pretty calm when we arrived. Within the 15 minutes, the so-called black block appeared and there was a quick clash with the police, not even, and some of the protestors started to vandalize the transnational companies offices, starting with Banco de Galicia (we were in front of that one), Telefonica and some of the cellphone (movistar and CTI) stores. The foto is one of a family of small time crooks, taking with them 'as a memory' some of the items from the stores! We left an hour later, the protest was not made to kick Bush out of our lands anymore...

After a 14 hour bus ride the same night, we came back to sunny and tranqui Montevideo...