HITCHHIKING diaries - London/Naples

Here I go, on foot, first across the Westminster bridge, and then, after passing in front of the South-bank center, there I go already advancing along a narrow lane following just on the side of the Thames, this is, on the go eventually I come to pass under the Blackfriars bridge, and under the Southwark bridge, the London bridge, the Tower Bridge, and then, as I get to the Queen Elizabeth one I turn left and here I’m, presently walking by the A282 motorway in Dartford, a motorway also called the London Orbital, and thus, it is here, at some petrol station, that actually I start hitchhiking, I mean, I do not stay on the side of the road showing my thumb, I just approach the people moving between the cars and the petrol pumps asking if they are going south, I mean, between here and Dover it is only sixty miles, so, in a while I’m already inside some Mercedes Benz being driven by some polish guy, actually accompanied my his cousin, on the side seat, and me on the back, yeah. This is, actually, they are driving all the way to Warsaw, from here, I get o know, and well, it happens that on the way they would actually show me the kind of English music they like, and so, on the stereo they would play things like Massive Attack, Prodigy, Joy Division, Happy Mondays, Chemical Brothers, stuff like that, say, music I used to listen in my teens, and so, in a while we start a talk about Bristol and the origins of trip-hop, and, at some point I actually decide to say, “I read somewhere that Tricky, one of the vocalists of Maxive Atack, didn’t have a father and his mother committed suicide when he was still a child”; “Yes mate, that’s wicked story, they say that his father actually left the family before he was born and his mother, Maxine Quaye, committed suicide when he was only four… so he named his solo album - Maxinquaye - and plus, I have heard that once he has said that despite he hardly knew her, sometimes, he actually feels like she's speaking through him with his words...” And thus, on the going, as we actually began to outstrip a very long truck apparently transporting some kind of beauty products, for the face, for the hands, for the feet, by now we actually start listening the first seconds of “overcome”, that that is actually the first track of the “Maxinquaye” album, and so, there we go, slowly outstripping the so said truck while listening this percussion sample like a train in slow motion, some kind of mellow-dramatic flute sound, and then, the voice of Martina Topley-Bird, actually whispering this words, “For one for someone… for he, for she… for one for someone… for him, for me…” And so, after a couple of hours I’m already getting out of the ferry boat in Calais, France, but, instead of going in the direction of the city, I walk by the sea, this is, by the south banks of the English Channel. I go through some unpaved roads, and then, just a path, at the top of the hill, by the sea, and so, at some point, I actually start to hear some kind of noise like cans tinkling, something like that… and then, down there, say, between some big boulders, I eventually come to sight a few awnings shaking with the wind, and also, some silhouettes moving around it, therefore, there I go, walking stealthily, already moving in the direction of that makeshift constructions, and, well, as I’m actually getting closer and closer to it, I’m already hearing some people talking, Arab and African languages… it looks, and then, as I reach the place, I eventually come to join a small group of people around a bonfire,  say, some Somali guys even offer me what they call “Lizard drops tea!”, and then, as they watch me, a couple of Iraqis are already talking to me in Turkish thinking that I’m perhaps a Turkman, and also some Morocco guys are actually talking to me in Spanish and French, thinking that I’m perhaps Spaniard or Francophone, but no, “I’m not Turk, I’m not French, I’m not Spanish...” I say, “I’m not even European, nor American, nor Asian, actually I’m coming from the Caribbeans… you guys know where that is?”, and well, as I say this, accordingly, I instantly show them my passport from Puerto Rico, and then, my other passports from Dominica, Guadalupe, Martinique… this is, in a while I start to distribute passports around, and as I do it, some of these guys even want to pay me for it, while others, want to exchange some of them for certain goods, but, “No, no!” I say “It’s all free, you can choose your favorite ones, I mean, choose your favorite identity, take whichever is more suitable for you…” I say, and then, eventually, a guy from Afghanistan dressed as Elvis Presley come to me offering me some kind of spirit he calls “raki-raki”, and thus, as we drink, there we go on a conversation about old rock n’ roll artists, quoting American icons like John Lee Hooker, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and British groups like The Animals, The Sex Pistols, etc… and then, he also informs me about a certain Ahmad Zahir… apparently, a rock n’ roll star from his country, and so, as it goes, in this terms we would continue through the night, listening to songs from their mobile phones, talking bullshit about the modern world, drinking some more raki, and then, staring at the fire and staring at the lights of the ships passing by down there, in intervals, and so… what would happen after I don’t exactly remember. This is, I just remember waking up next morning inside this cabin, curled up in a corner, around me some niggas stretched on bare mattresses, smoking big cigarettes, staring at the broken ceiling up our heads, and well, on the course of the moment, one of them would say “les tsigane ont volé tes vêtements - the gypsies stole your clothes!”; and as he says it, actually this comment provokes some giggles on the other guys around. But, “I’m Ok” I say as I stand up, semi-naked, and then, already coming out of this hut, going down the slope, running, eventually I would throw myself into the freezing waters of this arm of sea they call “La Manche''. And so, after coming out of the water, I actually manage to gather some clothes, I even get some sort of suitcase, certainly an abandonment from the many refugees that dwell around this area, and in the meanwhile, there I go, into the middle of the road, hitchhiking again… this is, on the going I take rides with silent people, some of them actually asking me some sort of questions, some talking a bit about themselves, and so, as it occurs, we actually get into conversations about the differences between UK and French politics, conversations about french philosophers like Rousseau, Michel Foucault, Voltaire, and even, Jean Paul Sartre…  conversations about the purpose of roaming… conversations about the problems of the ex-colonies of France in Africa, etc... and, further, about two-three days after, I’m actually already reaching the southern part of the country, this is, the Bermuda triangle where France, Switzerland and Italy are getting together, and so, coming back to the present now, it’s really morning and here I am, standing at some crossroad, somewhere at the western section of the Alp mountains… this is, after hours of bouncing around without noticing any vehicle coming by, at some point, finally, I envision a very small sort of car actually coming by, and so, as it gets closer and closer, I can already apprehend that it’s one of these things you can drive with a motorbike license, say, a very small sort of car, really. And accordingly, as it actualy passes on my side, I can already see the head of the driver appearing out of the window, hairspray overflowing and bulging eyes behind fat glasses. This is, as the driver makes some kind of signal with her chin, there I go, running to the side of this jalopy, and then, as I open the door, and seat on her side, my left leg kinda touches her right leg, but she doesn't move it away… and then, as we take off, she’s already asking me custom questions like “What am I doing here / Which is my destination / Where am I from”. And to all this, I simply say that “it doesn't matter / n'importe où / Ich will überall hin / voglio andare ovunque… I want to go anywhere” and then, well, while trying to explain more properly my destination, there are some confusions with the meaning of the words I’m actually using and the meanings of the words she’s saying, and so, on the going, we wonder which would be the best language for us to speak in order to understand each other, so, well, as we keep going, quickly we come to understand that both of us are multilingual, yet, lost in translation. And momentarily, as she’s actually looking from the road to me and from me to the road, say, studying my face, I’m actually looking at the various types of teddies, cats and monkeys actually hanged all around here at the cockpit, this is, teddies swinging with the movement of the car, and plus, as it goes, the auto-radio is actually reverberating songs of caressing rhythms and light-romantic melodies, this is, just like that, “I’m actually a Russian” she eventually says, “I mean, my great-grandfather belonged to the Tsar but with the taking of the Bolsheviks he parted to the exile somewhere in what is now known as Bielorussia, but… by the way, do you know the meaning of the therm Belarus?”, “No” I say, “so, let-me explain… the name can be literally described as White Ruthenia or Baltic Ruthenia… this is, in Balto-Slavic culture, white designates north, so, the name "White Rus” originally referred to the northernmost settlements of the Kyivan Rus' by the shores of White Sea, which is a historical region of the medieval Novgorod Land, and… after the Novgorod Republic left the Rus' confederation, the north eastern lands of the modern Republic of Belarus became the northernmost ones and were called Ruthenia Alba in Latin… but, another theory suggests that the old Rus' lands that were not conquered by the Tatars had been referred to as White Rus…  but, do you know about the Tatars?”, “I have heard about them,'' I say. “Well, the Tatars are an umbrella term for different Turkic ethnic groups eventually incorporated into the Mongol Empire, a long time ago, when the Mongols invaded Russia… the largest group amongst the Tatars were the Volga Tatars, native to the Volga-Ural regions of Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, who for this reason are often also known as "Tatars" in Russian… and so, my grandmother was a Tatar, from the Crimean peninsula. But, do you know about Crimea?” she now asks, as we go through this zigzagging road surrounded by vivacious green forests on the edge of abrupt mountains, white at the summits, “hum, yes, I have heard about it”, I say. “OK… I see, you have heard about it, but, probably, you don't know what it is exactly?” she says, and then, as I say nothing, there she goes, “so, let me explain, the Crimea is actually a peninsula on the northern shores of the Black Sea, this is, almost entirely surrounded by this sea and to a smaller extent, by the Azov Sea and the Isthmus of Perekop which connects the peninsula to the Kherson Oblast in mainland Ukraine… I mean, Greeks colonized its southern fringe and called it Tauris, later romanized Taurica, and so, some cities became trading colonies of Genoa, until that, it was conquered by the Ottoman Empire. And so, eventually, throughout the times Crimea was occupied by a changing cast of Eurasian nomads… this is, during the fourteenth century, it became part of the Golden Horde; and then, the Crimean Khanate emerged as a successor state. In the 15th century, the Khanate became a dependency of the Ottoman Empire, so, lands controlled by Russia and Poland-Lithuania were often the target of slave raids during this period... and then, by the end of XVIII century, the Russian Empire actually annexed Crimea after an earlier war with Turkey… and later, on the years to come, this piece of land would get downgraded to an oblast… thus, as a result of alleged collaboration with the Germans, all Crimean Tatars would actually be deported by the Soviet regime and eventually, the peninsula was then resettled with other peoples… this is how my grandmother and grandfather came to live in Turkey, but my mother and father would ventually meet somewhere on the Balkans, and me, well me, they say that I was actually born in Saint Petersburg, but then, we moved to Ukraine, and Poland and Czech republic, and later... I alone would eventually come to German and Switzerland by myself, this is, initially I worked in Zurich as a house cleaner, cleaning houses of working class people… say, merchants, teachers, businessman, landowners, shop owners, doctors, lawyers, etc... then, I moved to Bern, and then to Geneva, where I actually learned the French language and started to study the Ayurveda medicine… this is, then, I even went to do a small extra course in India during some months, and later, when I came back from India I actually traveled a bit across south Europe… Italy in particular, and well, it happened that I, in fact, would end up marrying a guy in Sicily, but the marriage didn’t last… so, here I came back, into this neutral country let’s say… this is, first I installed myself in a small village really in the middle of the frozen mountains, down there, a place where I still have a house, this is, yes, the place I’m actually trying to reach now…”. And so, as she say these things, she actually begins to mess up with the radio, say, changing station after station, cutting the talking, apparently looking for her thing, and accordingly, in the meanwhile, the stereo actually starts playing some sort of minimalist pop music, the Kraftwek type of thing, this while the car is actully going down, slowly, squeaking, because she’s actually braking too much… and thus, I even advise her to break with the motor instead, not just press the brakes continually, coz if she keeps doing this, the disks that are already hot, will eventually get even more hot and then… she just continues her speech about herself, this is, “So, initially I worked as a therapist but also as a homeopath and a massagist in the small villages across the Alps… but then, in bigger cities as well, I mean, my work is peripatetic, I mean, I came to do my job in cities like Munich, Grenoble, Nice, Turin, Milan, and Vienna, yes, I went many times in Vienna coz I had a very special client there…”; and so, after being listening to all this talking, at some point, it’s my time to ask, “but…” I say, “what kind of therapies were or are you doing after all?”; “well, mainly Ayurveda” she instantly says “but also Homeopathy, Acupuncture, Apitherapy, Telekinesis, etc… do you know about it?”; she actualy asks, and I, “Well, a bit, I have heard about Ayurveda, they say that it is the oldest medicine, isn’t it?”, “Yes, we can put it in that therms, but, we should not forget Chinese medicine, African wizardry and also the Siberian purification cults, they are also very old…but OK, let’s start with Ayurveda, do you know what that actually means? “No” I say “So, the therm “Ayurveda” is composed of two words, “Ayus”, that means "life" or "longevity", and “Veda”, that means "knowledge", so here we go, the therm means something like knowledge of longevity or knowledge of life and longevity, simple isn’t it?” and so, as she says this, I just nod my head, this while actually looking out of the window, in fact, watching the big cliffs passing by, still descending, and in the meanwhile, it’s already smelling like charred pork, this because she keeps breaking, even so, she continues her conversation about Ayur... “According to Ayurveda” she says, “the human body is composed of tissues, or dhatus, waste, or malas, and humoral biomaterials, this is, the doshas… so, the seven dhatus are chyle (rasa), blood (rakta), muscles (māmsa), fat (meda), bone (asthi), marrow (majja), and semen (shukra) and, like other medicines of the classical antiquity, the treatises of Ayurveda divide bodily substances into five classical elements, this is,  earth, water, fire, air and ether… and there are also twenty gunas, this is, twenty qualities or characteristics, which are considered to be inherent in all matters… these are organized in ten pairs: heavy/light, cold/hot, unctuous/dry, dull/sharp, stable/mobile, soft/hard, non-slimy/slimy, smooth/coarse, minute/gross, and viscous/liquid… and the three postulated elemental bodily humors, the so called doshas are, Vata, this is, air, which also we can equate with the nervous system, Pitta, this is, bile, fire, which also we can equate with enzymes, and Kapha, phlegm, or earth witch also can be equated with mucus… and, each dosha has particular attributes and roles within the body and mind; the natural predominance of one or more doshas thus explains a person's physical constitution (prakriti) and personality… So, Ayurvedic tradition holds that imbalance among the bodily and mental doshas is a major etiologic component of disease… and each human possesses a unique combination of the doshas which define this person's temperament and characteristics and so, we, practitioners of Ayurveda, we must determine an individual's bodily and mental dosha makeup, in order to predispose one to particular diseases… for example, a person who is thin, shy, excitable, or has a pronounced Adam's apple and enjoys the esoteric knowledge is likely to be vata prakriti and therefore more susceptible to conditions such as flatulence, stuttering, and rheumatism… Deranged vata can also be associated with certain mental disorders due to excited or excess vayu, gas, although the Ayurvedic text Charaka Samhita also attributes "insanity” to cold food and possession by the ghost of a sinful Brahman…”: “But,” I say “what kind of things do you do to your patients, I still don’t understand…”; “Well, first I have to understand their personality, I have to become a friend, and just then, I may be in the position of comprehend what is missing, what is being overused and where the scar may be… and so, my mission is to liberate this scar from their body and conscience… so, to some I may recommend certain fiscal exercises and a certain diet, and to others I may go into some kind of conversations about their inner self, about love, this is, I try to unveil what is missing in their relationships, and while talking about these things I may apply ointments, induce hypnosis etc… Well, for exemple, if you are too much Vata I will recommend you earth activities, something that would put your feet on the earth, like gardening, for example. And then, if you are too much “Pitta” you should eat foods that are bitter, sweet, and astringent can help a great deal in pacifying the “Pitta” in you. Otherwise, “Kapha” excess tends to surface in the form of hoarding, becoming too attached to people, avoiding any change and becoming inactive, and for a kapha dosha, sleep in excess is a common problem… plus higher blood sugars or cholesterol, so, in order to balance it, you should go for long walks, jogging, biking, rowing, aerobic classes, or dancing, or just go traveling…” she says, and then, as we actually stop on the verge of a ravine, it can be seen, a huge waterfall on the other side of this earthly balcony… the water falling from the top of the mountains like coming from the sky, and, this is, as it descends, some drops of it are even coming by here, say, touching our face... and in the meanwhile, as we stay here, “my house is over there” she would eventually say, actually pointing somewhere on the sides of that waterfall, and then, as we go down, everything would get blur, this is, as I remember about it now, I’m already going through the suburbs of Milan, showing my thumb again. Thus, on the going, I would eventually get a ride with this mustached man actually talking about Italian cinema from the fifties, this is, he talks about movies like La Strada; Le notti di Cabiria; Umberto D; I Vitellone; La contessa Scalza; I soliti ignoti: Viaggio in Italia; Otello; Le notti bianche; Miracolo a Milano; Grisbi; Senso; Lo sceicco bianco; Stromboli; Il Bidone; Il Grido; Bellissima; Don Camillo; La grande guerra; Ulisse; Francesco - giullare di Dio; Europa’ 51; Il generale Della Rovere; Timbuktu; Luci del varietà; Fanfan la Tulipe; Stazione Termini; Le Amiche; Cronaca di un amore; Don Camillo e l'onorevole Peppone; Totò, Peppino e la... malafemmina; Un Americano a Roma; Miseria e nobiltà; L'oro di Napoli; La signora senza camelie; I Vampiri; Guardie e ladri; Pane, amore e fantasia; Caltiki il mostro immortale; La banda degli onesti; Estate violenta; La Paura; Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei; Il Vedovo; L'amore in città; Il ferroviere; Un maledetto imbroglio; Pane, amore e…; Audace colpo dei soliti ignoti; and finally “I vinti” in english “The Vanquished”, a Michelangelo Antonioni’s movie that consists as he says “of three separate stories in three different countries, all with the common theme of youths who commit murders. And so, in the French story, set in Paris, two teenagers decide to murder their friend, Pierre, who is always boasting about how much money he has. And so, their plan is for a group of boys and girls, including Pierre, to go to a ruined château outside Paris where there is an allegedly buried treasure. Thus, at some point… finding Pierre alone, they shoot him with a pistol they have acquired, and, he gets wounded but not dead, and so, they flee off home. The father of the boy who fired the gun convinces him to turn himself in to the police. In the Italian story, Claudio, the only child of wealthy parents,  is in a gang smuggling American cigarettes. And, when the police raids an operation, he shoots one dead and flees alone. Falling in the dark, then, he injures himself badly, even so, he makes it to the house of his girlfriend, which drives him to a hospital. And then, staggering off home, his parents find him dead on his bed. And in the English story, a crime reporter of a daily newspaper takes a telephone call from Aubrey, a young man who says he has found the body of a woman on the heath and wants payment for his story. The newspaper alerts the police, who locate and remove the body. Then they print Aubrey's account on the front page, with his photograph, and pay him. In search of further fame, Aubrey then confesses that he was the murderer but is confident that there is not enough evidence to convict him, but there are some mistakes in the middle and he ends up sentenced to death. Then, from Parma to Florence, I would get a ride with this man driving an old Fiat Uno, this is, actually passing the tongue around his lips all the time, saying nothing special. Then, from Florence to Roma, I would get a ride with this lady that works for the masonry, she says. And then, from Rome to Naples, I would eventually get a ride with this truck actually transporting some kind of chemical products, and so, as we advance, we would talk about the Camorra, say, the criminal organization and society originating in the region of Campania. Thid is, by now my driver is actually reveling to me, “the origins of the Camorra are unclear… but, this word, “Camorra” is likely to be a blend, of "capo" (boss) and a Neapolitan street game, the "morra", a hand game that dates back thousands of years to ancient Roman and Greek times…”; “hum, interesting, can you tell me more about it?” I ask. “hum, yes, well, I wanted to tell you... I mean, in this game each player actually reveals their hand simultaneously, extending any number of fingers, this while calling out a number… and so, any player who successfully guesses the total number of fingers revealed by all players combined scores a point….”, he says, and then we actually start to try it, making some figures with the hands, while already approaching the Campania’s capital.