Journal 1822-1863, de Eugène Delacroix

I loved reading the Journal de Delacroix. He was an intelligent and sensitive man, an extremely keen observer of the world around him, its beauty and its flaws, and always questioning everything. His dedication to and seriousness about his art is touching, and if sometimes the technical details can be a little boring to the non-artists like me, it's always interesting to "watch" a great artist at work, it makes us see so much better and understand his vision. But he thinks and comments about much more than painting, he was a curious mind aware of all that surrounded him and a very cultivated and intelligent man. And he writes in an extremely elegant French, which is a real pleasure to read.

I leave some of the passages I liked the most.

L'homme ne place presque jamais son bonheur dans les biens réels; il le met presque toujours dans la vanité, dans le sot plaisir d'attirer sur soi les regards et par conséquent l'envie. Mais, dans cette vaine carrièrre, il n'en atteint point ordinairement l'objet; au moment où il se réjouit de se voir sur un théâtre où il attire les regards, il regarde encore plus haut; ses désirs montent à mesure qu'il s'élève, il envie lui-même autant qu'il est envié; quant aux vrais biens, il s'en éloigne toujours davantage: la tranquillité d'esprit, l'indépendance fondée sur des désirs modestes et facilement satisfaits, lui sont interdites.

L'homme est si bizarre qu'il trouve dans le malheur même des sujets de consolation et presque du plaisir, comme celui, par exemple, de se sentir injustement persécuté et d'avoir en soi la conscience d'un mérite supérieur à sa fortune présente; mais il lui arrive bien plus souvent de s'ennuyer dans la prospérité et même de s'y trouver très malheureux.

Le vulgaire croit que le talent doit toujours être égal à lui-même et qu'il se lève tous les matins comme le soleil, reposé et rafraîchi, prêt à tirer du même magasin, toujours ouvert, toujours plein, toujours abondant, des trésors nouveaux à verser sur ceux de la veille; il ignore que, semblable à toutes les choses mortelles, il a un cours d'accroissement et de dépérissement, qu'indépendamment de cette carrière qu'il fournit, comme tout ce qui respire (à savoir: de commencer faiblement, de s'accroître, de paraître dans toute sa force et de s'éteindre par degrés), il subit toutes les intermittences de la santé, de la maladie, de la disposition de l'âme, de sa gaieté ou de sa tristesse. En outre, il est sujet à s'égarer dans le plein exercice de sa force; il s'engage souvent dans des routes trompeuses; il lui faut alors beaucoup de temps pour en revenir au point d'où il était parti, et souvent il ne s'y retrouve plus le même. Semblable à la chair périssable, à la vie faible et attaquable par tous les côtés de toutes les créatures, laquelle est obligé de résister à mille influences destructives, et qui demande ou un continuel exercice ou des soins incessants, pour n'être pas dévorée par cet univers qui pèse sur nous, le talent est obligé de veiller constamment sur lui-même, de combattre, de se tenir perpétuellement en haleine, en présence des obstacles au milieu desquels s'exerce sa singulière puissance. L'adversité et la prospérité sont des écueils également à craindre. Le trop grand succès tend à l'énerver, comme l'insuccès le décourage. Plusieurs hommes de talent n'ont eu qu'une lueur, qui s'est éteinte aussitôt que montrée. Cette lueur éclate quelquefois dès leur apparition et disparaît ensuite pour toujours. D'autres, faibles et chancelants, ou diffus, ou monotones en commençant, ont jeté, après une longue carrière presque obscure, un éclat incomparable, tels que Cervantès; il en est qui n'ont pas subi d'éclipse.

Travailler n'est pas seulement pour produire des ouvrages, c'est pour donner du prix au temps: on est plus content de soi et de sa journée quand on a remué des idées, bien commencé ou achevé quelque chose.

Ma passion pour les voyages se refroidit quand je considère qu'ils se composent uniquement de départs et d'arrivées: mais que de plaisirs et d'avantages on achète par cette peine! N'y trouvâ-t-on que la facilité de s'instruire sans étude, on ferait très bien de feuilleter les divers pays de la terre en guise de lecture: d'autant qu'on est toujours forcé d'en joindre quelqu'autre à celle-là. Quand je me sens près de me décourager au milieu de mes pèlerinages, je me dis: si je veux le but, il faut vouloir le moyen, et je continue Je fais plus, à peine revenu chez moi, je pense à recommencer. Le voyage perpétuel serait une douce manière de passer sa vie, surtout pour un homme qui n'est pas d'accord avec les idées qui dominent le monde dans le temps où il vit. Changer de pays équivaut à changer de siècle, etc.

And the last of his paintings I saw, in the Musée des Augustins, in Toulouse:

Mr.Mani, by A.B. Yehoshua

A very interesting book I found in Jerusalem. It's about the story of a Sephardic family, from 1848 until 1982, narrated backwards through a series of dialogues. It's an original method, and very accomplished, because it's simultaneously intriguing and fetching, extremely well written. Through every episode, Jerusalem's presence and magic lingers, as one of the main characters of the book. One gets a sense of Jewish history and the strong connection to Jerusalem, the characters seem alive and real; I'm not sure what the author means with the recurrent theme of a certain fascination with / attraction to death and doom. A very good read, I really enjoy finding new good books by different writers, it's another of travel's joys.

Vies des Dames Galantes, de Brantôme

A picaresquely funny book, in a lovely ancient French. One can see how the joys and pains of sex are eternal - I remember also Ovid's Art of Loving, always up to date - and how little human nature has changed on that regard over the centuries.

What's Left?, by Nick Cohen

There are some things I didn't like much about What's Left?, but it certainly is an important book. The tone is too much of political journalism pamphleteering, his opinions often too simplistic and some comparisons a little far-fetched (regarding Virginia Woolf, for instance; well, one can dislike the working classes but still contribute to make their condition better, which she did). But, some details aside, he's mostly right about the decline of the Left and its causes. And that's very depressing. I consider myself a man of the Left, and that's why I'm so disappointed with the way so many left-wingers lost their way and became embroiled in petty hates and byzantine discussions while letting such important conquers as the welfare state being destroyed by the Right. I hate the silly sense of post-colonial guilt and loss after the collapse of the socialist illusion of the 20th century that led to so many despicable double standards regarding Western policy and the wrong notion of "multiculturalism" that has been so catastrophic to Western societies. And the primal mistrust of Western democracies (embodied in the fierce hate for the US and everything American) is ridiculous and should be laughable, were it not dangerous and disgusting.

I think there's still hope though, and maybe the only good thing out of the present economic crisis will be to remind people the worthiness of the true leftist values that were so hardly fought for and gave us so much prosperity and well-being - unfortunately, they're not guaranteed anymore, and that's what the Left should be worried about.

Winter Journal, by Paul Auster

I always liked Paul Auster's books, ever since I read Leviathan many years ago. Some are better than others, and I wouldn't say he's one the best novelists I read, especially since I tend to forget his books not long after reading them, and to confuse the several plots. But he's still a very good writer, a great story-teller, and I feel especially identified with the way he looks at life, his recurrent themes of chance and serendipity and simultaneous strangeness and familiarity of life. So, I was curious to read his latest memoir. I liked it very much; it's a nostalgic reminiscence of his life and family and places where he has lived, sometimes sweet, sometimes sad, in some points somewhat repetitive, and with several very good stories masterly told as usual. His writing is excellent as usual, even if the choice of the second person becomes sometimes a little tiresome. Something also appeals to me: he's not an astounding writer (meaning the kind whose books change literature or the world) and he hasn't lived a particularly remarkable life, had never influence in politics, society or mores. So it's just an intelligent, sensitive and cultivated man reflecting and reminiscing on his life; somehow I like to think that if ever was to do the same, I would do it that way.

Dancing Arabs, by Sayed Kashua

A nice book by an Arab Israeli author, about the tribulations of a young Arab growing up in Israel, caught between the two cultures of his land, desperately trying to become like a Jew, since he thinks it's the only way to better his life and self-esteem. Through a series of small chapters, very well written in a dry and ironic humor, one gets the sense of the plight of the poor Arab citizens, their difficult situation and the many obstacles they have to surmount until they can become full citizens of Israel. Besides the problems of poverty, lack of education and being an ethnic minority, and the consequent sense of inadequacy and frustration, common to many other disadvantaged minorities in many countries, there's above all a problem of troubled identity, due to the particular history and politics of the region, the sense of being betrayed by the other Arabs that have kept them in an intolerable situation for decades and don't do anything to really help them. There are no answers or solutions in the book, only questions and a vivid portrayal of the situation, through characters sometimes endearing, sometimes despicable, not always likeable, but eminently believable.

Professional joys...

"Hey, doctor, how are you?"; I turned around, and there he was, a young man, smiling at me, Simon. And I was so happy to see him, a young man looking good. I remember the first time I saw him, a 17-year-old boy, so lost and desperate, not understanding what was happening to him, asking from some kind of reassurance. He landed in the hospital Nephrology clinic, sent from another hospital, where they had nonchalantly told him he had to start dialysis and hinted he should be a drug addict, since he was HCV positive. He was angry, he had never used drugs and he didn't understand what was happening to him. It turned out he had a congenital disease, that had caused him to have hearing impairment and severe low platelet counts since childhood, reason why he had received multiple blood transfusions as a child (and caught the hepatitis C virus), and progressive renal failure, that had been overlooked then and had just been detected in the near end-stage phase. And that's where I met him, this dirty-blond kid dressed in black, in a grungy urban-depressive look. He went by himself to the hospital, and it was extremely delicate to explain him about his condition, the imminence of dialysis, etc. He didn't seem to understand, didn't want to understand, and, even if it's relatively common to have to explain this kind of situation to people who never knew they had any kidney problem (it's very frequently undiagnosed until the end-stage), it was particularly hard to tell it to this fragile, upset and lonely kid. I asked him in the end to bring his parents to the next appointment.

But he came back alone; his condition was getting worse, we had to make some treatment decisions, and he was not even of legal age. I pressed him, asking about his parents, finally he told me his mother was severely bi-polar and his father was deaf and aloof and he couldn't count on them. There was an older twenty-something brother though, and I urged him to bring him with him as soon as possible.

Then, what I feared happened: he turned up an afternoon severely uremic in need of immediate dialysis. His brother was with him then, totally bewildered, he hadn't told him anything until then. I was glad it was me the nephrologist on duty, at least I was familiar with the situation and the boy seemed to trust me. I tried to comfort him and the brother as best I could, and silently thanked I was experienced enough - one doesn't put a dialysis catheter in a patient with 9000 platelets with a relaxed mood... Fortunately, everything went smoothly, and in a few days he was feeling much better. His father showed up, and things became calmer. He then opted for peritoneal dialysis, and didn't see much of him for a couple of years, since I was not in that department.

By chance, it was again when I was on duty that a kidney turned up; I was glad to call Simon and to assist him after the procedure. It was successful and, as I was working then at the transplantation unit, I saw him very often for a few years. By then I knew him pretty well, and it was a pleasure to watch him grow. He played the drums in a rock and roll band - he gave me the link to their musics, which were an extremely noisy kind of punk rock, and I joked they were like that because he was half-deaf - then he studied computers and started to work. From a depressed and mixed-up kid he turned into a self-assured young man and, being so used to care for old people, he's one of the patients for whom I always had this kind of paternal feelings.

A few years ago I left the transplantation team, so now I only see him if by chance we meet when he goes to the hospital for blood tests or appointments. I'm glad his transplanted kidney is working well 11 years later, he's now about 30 and leading a full productive life. I really feel professionally and personally fulfilled when I meet him, and just hope he keeps being well and I won't have to put him on dialysis again.

The Yellow Wind, by David Grossman

As usual when I visit a country with whose literature I’m not familiar, I go to bookstores and search for books by national authors that can help me to get into the national mood and preferably enjoying good reading at the same time. And I’m very unfamiliar with Israeli literature, of which I only know Amos Oz, from several essays and the beautiful A Tale of Love and Darkness. So I perused the shelves of a couple of bookstores in Jerusalem, and bought three books, two by Jewish Israelis and one by an Arab Israeli.

The Yellow Wind, by David Grossman, is an impressive and disturbing account of the author’s dealings with people in the Occupied Territories in the late ‘80s, but probably it still applies to the present day. I had my opinion about the Israeli-Palestinian question before, and it hasn’t changed much after going to Israel or reading this book. But it’s always interesting and enlightening to read from different sources and to see some of the places one reads about.

I don’t feel like I have the right to take too strongly sides in complex questions that don’t concern me directly and about which my knowledge is always second or third-hand, and the Israeli-Palestinian problem is certainly one of those. But I have my opinions nonetheless. I think that, historically, and today, the main responsibility for not reaching a reasonable solution lies with the Arabs – from the unspeakably vain and conceited Al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem, who maybe bears the greatest responsibility for the present situation, to the murderous and foolish Arafat and the terrorist Islamic organization Fatah, and a series of ambitious Islamic leaders, who undermined and lost a succession of opportunities through the years. Their intolerance never allowed for a reasonable solution, they keep denying to recognize the State of Israel, they were the ones who started all the wars, and they never did anything to improve the situation and lives of the Palestinian refugees, preferring to kindle their misery and hatred, which they use to their own political purposes. There is no “right to return”; especially after wars who were started by them – what about the millions of displaced persons after World War II? Should they have demanded the right to return to their former homelands? To think that millions were displaced, and the last refugee camps were closed in the early ‘50s, and the Palestinians keep living in camps 40 years after 1967… War is awful, but obviously the effects of their war are purposefully prolonged, and that’s unforgivable.

But I also stand here […] as a human being, rising up against this education in blind hatred, and against such tremendous energy being expended for the preservation of malice, instead of being spent in an effort to get out of this barrenness, this ugliness in which this kindergarten lies, these little children who are so good at hating me.

But I cannot condone either the prolonged Israeli occupation of the Territories, and certainly not the policy of the settlements. Israel is a democratic and admirable country, and it’s being corrupted by its behavior as an occupying power. In my opinion, they should annex whatever land they deem indispensable for their security and let go of the rest. I cannot believe it would be more difficult to defend the country, and their moral standing would be much better, and I believe they would actually be a model for the region, since I’m sure that Israeli Arabs live better than Arabs in any other country of the Middle East. I sincerely hope the younger Israeli generation will steer away from Jewish religious intolerant bigots and support the reasonable and morally right conduct – to end the occupation. I know it won’t be easy, no less for the absence of any credible and reasonable Arab Palestinian organization to deal with, but one of the things this book shows is we’re dealing with people, and human beings are much the same everywhere, and we must struggle for the basic rights of everyone to happiness and well-being.

… and that in any case I cannot be responsible for what was done before I was born, and that on the contrary, since today we see the results of earlier wars, we must take care not to bring about further injustice.

The pregnancy that wasn't

It’s not her in the photo, but it could well be. She’s also from Guinea-Bissao, a petite very black woman, usually quiet and seldom smiling, when she does her very white teeth and suddenly bright eyes lighten her face. I’ve known her, and been her doctor, for a little over 10 years now. As many others, she had just arrived from Guinea, evacuated to Lisbon due to needing dialysis, unavailable in her country. That meant she had to leave home and family (she had a little daughter) overnight, to live in Lisbon, where she had to make a living, since the agreements between Guinea and Portugal cover just the medical treatments, and the patients have no support whatsoever from their government. It’s the plight of several people from former Portuguese African colonies – Cape Vert, Guinea-Bissao, São Tomé, Angola – who need dialysis to survive and so have to make a living in our country.

So, this girl, who was 26 at the time, found some work as cleaning woman and eventually built herself a new life, with a new partner, sending money home to her old mother and her daughter, who later emigrated herself to France. I always liked this woman; she was never very compliant with therapy, she was always stubborn and sometimes silly, but she was hard-working, she never complained, and she cared about her family. Once, when I complained about the amount of anti-hypertensive medication she kept asking for, she told me: “My mother takes Norvax… I send it to her”. – By the way, that’s not the only time I faced this situation, I remember a man from Guinea who sent his HIV medications to his wife because she wrote him she was ill.

She had lots of problems – hepatitis C, an abortion, a renal carcinoma – but she kept on working and looked always the same. And then, recently, she told me she had missed her period. Women with end-stage renal disease rarely become pregnant, but I have seen a few cases, so I ordered a pregnancy test, and it was positive. I was worried – the chances of a successful pregnancy on dialysis are thin, and this particular patient had a lot of risk factors besides her renal disease – hypertension, hepatitis C, previous miscarriage… I asked her if she wanted the baby, hoping she wouldn’t, but she said she did. Probably because it would be a child by her new partner, I don’t know. So, I changed her treatment plan, changed her medication, sent her to the Obstetrics high-risk clinic. I’ve had a couple of successful pregnancies on dialysis, but I had a bad feeling about this one, too many problems, and I feared it would all end in her losing the baby and getting worse in the way. But I complied to her wishes, and we would try.

Then the obstetric ultrasound was inconclusive, and so was the confirmation blood test, they thought she might have an ectopic pregnancy, then an ovarian tumor, then finally she bled again and it had all been false positives. I must say I was relieved by it – I knew it wouldn’t end well, and it was good she wasn’t pregnant after all.

I don’t know if she felt sorry for not being pregnant. She just looks the same, I talked to her and resumed her usual medication. I’m glad she was spared an almost certainly unsuccessful pregnancy, but I don’t know if she understands it, I don’t know how she feels. She just looks the same.

Down Under, by Bill Bryson

I always wanted to visit Australia, and I hope to do so this year. So, to get some information and the feeling of the place, I ordered Down Under from Amazon. It was the first book I read by Bill Bryson. He's funny, sometimes a little too conscienciously so, but I was glad an Australian friend of mine told me the book was "pretty accurate". Anyway, I think my goal was fulfilled, I ended the book wanting more than ever to go, and with some ideas of what I wish to see. I hope I'll have some experiences of my own to share after I've been there. Until then, I leave you with some funny quotes of this book.

I am thus able to report that the following are all real places: Wee Waa, Poowong, Burrumbuttock, Suggan Buggan, Boomahnoomoonah, Waaia, Mullumbimby, Ewlyamartup, Jiggalong and the supremely satisfying Tittybong.

One of the most cherishable peculiarities of Australians is that they like to build big things in the shape of other things. Give them a bale of chicken wire, some fibreglass and a pot of paint and they will make you, say, an enormous pineapple or strawberry or, as here, a lobster. Then they put a café and a gift shop inside, erect a big sign beside the highway (for the benefit of people whose acuity evidently does not extend to spotting a fifty-foot high piece of fruit standing beside an otherwise empty highway), then sit back and wait for the money to roll in. [...] You can, if you have sufficient petrol, money and nothing approaching a real life, visit a Big Prawn, a Big Koala, a Big Oyster (with searchlights for eyes, apparently), a Big Lawnmower, a Big Marlin, a Big Orange and a Big Merino Ram, among many others.

Australians [...] spend half of any conversation insisting that the country's dangers are vastly overrated and that there's nothing to worry about, and the other half telling you how six months ago their Uncle Bob was driving to Mudgee when a tiger snake slid out from under the dashboard and bit him on the groin, but that it's OK now because he's off the life-support machine and they've discovered he can communicate with eye blinks.

Australia is mostly empty and a long way away. Its population is small and its role in the world consequently peripheral. It doesn't have coups, recklessly overfish, arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocative quantities or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly manner. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn't need watching, and so we don't. But I will tell you this: the loss is entirely ours.

I really want to go there.

A week in Israel

Israel is one of those places that leaves no one indifferent. It arouses all kind of passions, both pro and against it; its geography and History is deeply embedded in our culture, and its modern politics has been used as a proxy for other debates for decades. So, there are a number of motives to go there; mine were mostly to visit a historic place so important for our own history and culture and to get to know its present-day reality first hand. Of course it’s not possible to become sufficiently knowledgeable about a country after a one week visit, but I came back certainly more aware of the real Israel than I was. I had my opinions about it, and they are not much changed, but they are somewhat more solid now.



We arrived at night, and after a surprisingly quick control at the airport (we had been warned they were worse than the US immigration, but it was not our experience, maybe because we were Portuguese Caucasian tourists), spent a night in Tel Aviv and collected a rental car in the morning. We left the city and headed North by the coast.



The first impression one gets from Israel, from Tel Aviv, its suburbs and the villages along the road (and later confirmed in the countryside) is how new and dynamic it looks. There’s building everywhere, houses and apartment blocks, the roads are in excellent state, everybody is rushing about their business. The new buildings are usually ugly, one gets the impression of people caring about practicality over esthetics, a little like Portugal in the 70s and 80s. The driving is aggressive and careless, worse than here, and it didn’t surprise me to pass several road accidents, some of them quite serious.



The first touristic stop was at the ruins of Caesarea, by the Mediterranean, a small site well preserved, with a beautiful aqueduct and lots of tourist excursions. We also passed a few luxury villas neighborhoods – as someone from facebook had put it: “where the rich and famous live” – and then met for a coffee a very nice and interesting Israeli lady living at Binyamina. It was our first long conversation with an Israeli citizen and, as later meetings with others would confirm, they often have very eventful life histories and experiences that are so alien to our own “normal” and protected lives, and help to understand the meaning of the state of Israel.



We then crossed the Carmel hills on the way to Haifa, passing several lively Druze villages – again the sensation of new and old mixed, the simultaneous strangeness and familiarity of a Western Mediterranean country with Middle Eastern touches. Haifa is a busy modern city with a big harbor, we just passed it and headed towards Akko.



We arrived after dark – in Israel the sun sets too early for the season, we later learned it was because the religious conservatives don’t want to change the time zone – and wondered through the narrow streets of the old city until we sat in a small Arab restaurant by an arcaded square and treated ourselves to a gorgeous Middle Eastern meal – the food in Israel is delicious, a combination of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cuisine, with some influences from Northern Eastern Europe.



The next morning, we strolled along the old city of Akko – Acre of the Crusaders, the capital of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after the fall of Jerusalem. It’s an incredible place, a maze of narrow cobbled streets, shady arcaded squares, restaurants and cafés, minarets and small mosques, a lively souk and a beautiful harbor. The most impressive thing is that, unlike other well preserved medieval cities I’ve been to, this one is totally lively and lived in; you see the people going around on their daily chores, poor houses, ruined and renewed ones, and all the bustle of a busy neighborhood, which probably gives a more true sense of how life was in these cities centuries ago than the cleaned versions we see elsewhere. I loved Akko.



Leaving Akko, a careless driver bumped into our car while unparking; “in Israel we never call the police for things like these!” he said, and after settling the affair with the car rental company, we went on to Tsfat. It was extremely interesting leaving a lively predominantly Arab city and arriving in a lively predominantly Jewish one. Tsfat, the ancient Safed, has been for centuries the capital of Kabballah studies, and so it’s a center of Jewish Orthodox students and latter-days/New Age American hippies. Perched on a hill, with beautiful panoramic views all around, Tsfat is a beautiful place. We strolled through the Artists Quarter with its cafés, modern sculptures and American tourist/hippies, then the old Jewish quarter with souvenir shops and the old synagogues – we visited one of them, the Ari Ashkenazy synagogue. It was funny, after the Arab souk in Akko a few hours before, the Jewish souvenir shops, and the flock of Jewish kids, students at some Yeshiva, in his black hats and with their characteristic hairdos rushing for a fast food meal after class, as in any other Western city.



From Tsfat, we took a road along the Jordan valley, green and peaceful in Spring weather, towards the Golan Heights, where we stayed at the Merom Golan, formerly a kibbutz, now an inn. After an excellent dinner at the local restaurant and a good night’s sleep, we watched the landscape over the Syrian border and towards Mount Hermon, a beautiful green country. We then travelled across the Golan Heights, passing the imposing old Crusader castle Nimrod Fortress, adequately named Belvoir in the old days, until Metula, the northernmost city of Israel by the Lebanese border.



From Metula we drove south towards the Sea of Galilee, passing the village of Rosh Pinna, where we stopped for a lemonade and some sightseeing. At the margins of the Sea of Galilee, we passed the ugly Tiberias, a tacky summer resort, and continued south until the Roman ruins of Bet She’an, by the Jordanian border. It’s an impressive site, the old Roman city of Scythopolis, destroyed by an earthquake in 749, one of the best Roman ruins I’ve seen so far. From Bet She’an, we drove directly to Jerusalem, where we arrived at night after a huge traffic jam.



Jerusalem, at last, the uberfamous city. It was different than I imagined it, for the better. Old and modern, a cauldron of different cultures and religions – a cliché, but true. The first day, we went to visit the Yad Vashem, the impressive memorial to the Holocaust. An excellent museum, and the eerie Children’s Memorial, I went out overwhelmed as always with the enormous pointlessness of such atrocities, and wondering how on Earth anyone could still believe in a God of justice after what had happened. We met then another Israeli lady from Ashquelon, after a pleasant stroll in Mount Herzl, she treated us to a nice lunch in the beautiful neighborhood of Ein Kerem. We went back to the city center and took a stroll along the lively Jaffa Road, before meeting two Israeli guys for a beer, and another pleasant conversation.



The next day, we headed to the Old City. Traditionally, we went in through the Jaffa Gate, and walked along the touristy King David Street, a mix of Arab souk and souvenir shop street. The Old City is an incredible place, a maze of narrow streets, where in a few hundred meters one goes from a Muslim neighborhood to a Jewish one, and with churches and monks and nuns in the middle. Crowdy and touristy as it is, it still keeps the atmosphere of a cultural, religious and ethnic melting pot, very lively and surprisingly clean. We headed towards the Western Wall, the holiest of the Jewish places. It was full of people, mostly Jews and a lot of tourists. I don’t know if it was a special day, because there were a lot of Jews celebrating some religious initiating ceremony for young kids – they arrived chanting and dancing, then dressed them in religious garb and walked around chanting and taking pictures. I’m totally non-religious, but enjoyed watching the sight of happy people celebrating their culture, particularly meaningful after the morning at Yad Vashem the day before.



We left the Old City through the Dung Gate and climbed the stairway up the Mount of Olives, from where we enjoyed the spectacular view over Jerusalem, with the beautiful Dome of the Rock – the most beautiful building in the city – dominating the sights. On the top of the Mount of Olives we visited the small and neglected chapel of the Ascension, and then went back down and reentered the Old City by the Lions Gate.



I had not noticed the Temple Mount had a visiting schedule, so we got there just after closing time, and since the next day was a Friday, I wasn’t able to visit the Dome of the Rock or the Al-Aqsa Mosque – a good reason to go back to Jerusalem! But I saw the golden Dome of the Rock, and it’s as beautiful as I ever imagined it. So we wondered through the Muslim Quarter and the Via Dolorosa until the church of the Holy Sepulchre.



It is not a particularly beautiful church, but it is an impressive one. We watched the pilgrims kissing the Stone of Unction and queuing for the Sepulchre, and visited the deep Saint Helena’s chapel. I dreamt about the old times and the riots brought by the Holy Fire ceremony in the old days. We then had a pomegranate juice at a café nearby and headed towards the Jewish Quarter, with its Roman ruins, synagogues and tourist shops, and had a cappuccino at the Hurva Square.



The next day, we walked through the new city of Jerusalem – Rehavia, the Knesset, Jaffa Road, and the Mahane Yehude Market. It is a lively and cosmopolitan city.



From Jerusalem, we took the bus to Tel Aviv. It is a very modern city, no men in kipas as in Jerusalem, lots of café terraces and people walking their dogs; it was Shabbat, so most of the stores were closed. We crossed a quiet city and spent the morning in Neve Tzedek, an old European quarter founded in 1887 near Jaffa, with some interesting buildings and nice cafés; and HaTachana, the old railway station turned a pleasant zone of cafés and street performances. Then we walked along the seaside to Jaffa, the ancient harbor – again lots of café terraces, the marina, and the old quarter. Then, back to the city center, spotting some of the numerous Bauhaus buildings on the way.



We spent the last morning in Israel enjoying the café terraces and taking a look at the Carmel Market; then the taxi driver that drove us to the airport was a fitting final meeting – a talkative 40-something from Be’er-Sheva who had been all around the world in a series of jobs from trucker to male strippers manager.



All in all, it was a very interesting trip, and I liked the country very much. It was a good experience being in a young country where people are patriotic, so unlike this old and decadent Portugal, where history and the present are both so intense and all pervading. I sincerely wish them to solve the problem of the Occupied Territories, they’re such an indomitable and admirable country in so many ways, its very existence and democratic character quite a feat in such a troubled area, the occupation in its present form is hardly worthy of them. Guess things are changing though, with the coming of age of a mostly secular youth. I hope to go back – and still there is Petra, another place I always wanted to see.

Diaries, by George Orwell

I have a deep admiration for George Orwell, he had an extremely lucid mind and a seldom equaled capacity of understanding and analyzing men and politics.

His diaries are a very interesting reading, he was extremely observant and interested in everything around him, from Moroccan customs to the life of miners and the habits of birds or the growth of vegetables. He was an obsessive compiler of lists and registers, and sometimes these diaries are tedious when it comes to the counting of eggs or the description of the weather. He was a kind of Renaissance man of the 20th century.

One could not have a better example of the moral and emotional shallowness of our time, than the fact that we are now all more or less proStalin. This disgusting murderer is temporarily on our side, and so the purges, etc., are suddenly forgotten. So also with Franco, Mussolini, etc., should they ultimately come over to us. - 3.7.41

The English pacifist works himself up into frenzies about the concentration camps in the Isle of Man and forgets about those in Germany, etc., etc. One notices this in the case of people one disagrees with, such as Fascists or pacifists but in fact everyone is the same, at least everyone who has definite opinions. Everyone is dishonest, and everyone is utterly heartless towards people who are outside the immediate range of his own interests. What is most striking of all is the way sympathy can be turned on and off like a tap according to political expediency. All the pinks, or most of them, who flung themselves to and fro in their rage against Nazi atrocities before the war, forget all about these atrocities and obviously lost their sympathy with the Jews etc. as soon as the war began to bore them. Ditto with people who hated Russia like poison up to June 22 1941 and then suddenly forgot about the purges, the G.P.U. etc. the moment Russia came into the war. I am not thinking of lying for political ends, but in actual changes of subjective feeling. - 27.4.42

Weekend in Spain

I like Spain very much, and recently I could have another taste of it, spending a weekend in Toledo and Madrid.

I always wished to visit Toledo, ever since I've known El Greco and that he lived and painted there. So I finally went there. After a bad start - late plane, wallet lost, train missed - everything went fine. The weather was splendid - cold and sunny - and it was a pleasure to see Toledo by the Tagus, an ocher colored city with old walls and dominated by the massive Alcázar. The hotel on the Judería - the old Jewish quarter - was very nice, and we took a stroll along the narrow cobbled streets heading towards the cathedral. The town is very touristic, an important weekend destination being a short 30 minute travel from Madrid, and there are souvenir shops everywhere.

The cathedral is impressively huge, reminding us this used to be the capital of Castille. I was particularly impressed by the magnificent choir, with the amazing woodwork, and the paintings several remarkable portraits of saints by El Greco and a beautiful John the Baptist by Caravaggio.

The next day, we visited the main sights. I could finally see the famous Funeral of the Count of Orgaz, as beautiful as I expected, and that was never moved or restored. The Monastery of Santa Maria de los Reyes, built by the Catholic Kings to celebrate their victory over Portugal, was a pleasant surprise - a beautiful cloister, with an amazing mudéjar ceiling and the always enchanting diversity of gothic stone sculptures - having to decorate immense spaces, that's how the medieval artists expressed themselves, one can appreciate that as well on the Flemish town halls, for instance.

Then there were the synagogues. Santa María la Blanca is impressive, with the horseshoe arches and the sculpted capitels; and the Sinagoga del Transito as well, with its Sephardic Jewish Museum; their size attests the importance of the Jewish minority in Spain before the Catholic Kings expelled the Jews.

And then there were the café terraces at Plaza del Zocodover, and the Spanish liveliness, always so uplifting.

After Toledo, Madrid. It was my third time there, and as I know it better, I like it more. I love the crowds at Gran Via, having chocolate at the Plaza Mayor, having a snack at the San Miguel Market, buying books at Casa del Libro, just wondering along the streets.

I went to see the Matadero Cineteca, a new cultural space in an ancient slaughterhouse, and didn't like it much - the space is great, but it's been made as a kind of urban-depressive place, the kind of artsy set that is more reminiscent of post-industrial Berlin, with dreary and unimaginative "art". A waste of a beautiful space.

So, I'm glad I live next to Spain, and I'm looking forward to go there again. If one can't have a castle in Spain, at least one can spend weekends there, and that's great.

The Three Eras of Christmas

Under the Sun, the Letters of Bruce Chatwin

I think the first Chatwin book I read was The Vice-Roy of Ouidah, a long time ago; I liked it, but it didn't impress me much. It was In Patagonia that captivated me, and then I read everything by him I found, and liked him more and more. Somehow, there's something about Bruce Chatwin - both his writing and himself - that I felt extremely drawn to; some intrinsic characteristic I felt identified with and spoke to my own inner self. I wouldn't know how to define it, and there's a lot about him totally different from me, and a few qualities I actively dislike, but still there's something about Chatwin... After all, it was not by chance I adopted the word chatwinesque, that I first read in the Susannah Clapp biography of Chatwin, and named my blog What Am I Doing Here, the title of one of his collections of texts.

Maybe it's something about the way he sees the world, his permanent need for escape, his restlessness, his ironic humor, his esthetics, his restrained and elegant writing, his insatiable appetite for all kinds of knowledge, his eclecticism, his capacity to dream about places and cultures that made his observations and writings about them so enlightening and interesting... It was probably a combination of all that.

So, I was curious to read this collection of his letters, and they were indeed interesting to read. A lot of it had been quoted in his biography by Nicholas Shakespeare. Once again I disliked some of his personality traits - the maniac side, the thoughtlessness towards others, the snobbishness - but felt identified with other of his characteristics - his endless curiosity, his lust for life, his sense of humor. Somehow I felt some of the comments by his widow sounded like a late settling of accounts, which seem a little cheap. He may have been far from perfect, and probably he was a terrible person to live with, but he wrote wonderful books like In Patagonia, The Songlines, and lots of great essays like the ones collected in What Am I Doing Here, and that's more than we can say about most of people / writers.

Why wonder? [...] Why do I become restless after a single month in a single place, unbearable after two? (I am, I admit, a bad case.) [...] Wondering may settle some of my natural curiosity and my urge to explore, but then I am tugged back by a longing for home. I have a compulsion to wonder and a compulsion to return - a homing instinct like a migrating bird.

Last couple of days in Madagascar - Ambohimanga and goodbye to Tana

After a couple of days relaxing at Nosy Be, I flew back to Tana. The last two days in Madagascar were spent in a visit to Ambohimanga and strolling and shopping for souvenirs.

Ambohimanga is one of the sacred hills on the Antananarive plateau, the highest and most sacred of them all, the ancient capital of the Merina kingdom, under which the island was unified in the 18th century. These days, it’s a small village on top of the only hill that still keeps its ancient forest in the plateau (it was sacred, so the trees escaped the deforestation that consumed the neighboring country to produce coal), with the ancient fortified palace precincts, a UNESCO world heritage site. There were several doors in the ancient wall, one can see one of them today, and the heavy circular stone that used to close it, moved by 40 slaves. Before entering the palace precinct, one sees the place of sacrifices to the ancestors’ spirits, a flat stone by a huge ficus tree. The main Malagasy religion is still animism, and there are still frequent sacrifices there: chicken, ducks, zebus in special occasions, and several zebu skulls hang on the tree.

I hired a licensed guide, a short woman named Emma, that took me for the tour of the site, telling the stories of the place in her accented French – never have I heard so many times the word “sacré”. In Ambohimanga, literally everything is sacré. Theprecinct is an impressively beautiful place, with an incredible view over the plateau.

First, there are the ancient ficus trees (“l’arbre sacré!”), one of them surrounded by 12 stones, representing the king and his 12 wives (“douze, le numéro sacré!”), and the enclosure where the zebus are kept and fed before being sacrificed. Then, the king’s palace (king Andriambelomasina, and yes, she could say this word without hesitation), a modest wooden building (“c’était du luxe quand même!”), with pillars of huge palisanders (“le bois pour les rois – sacré!”); one cannot take pictures of the interior (“c’est sacré!”), where the king’s bed is by the eastern wall (“où le soleil se lève, c’est le côté sacré!”), and the king used to be perched on the ceiling while giving audience, so he wouldn’t be seen to be protected from potential attacks and would answer petitions by throwing pebbles from above, while the favorite wife entertained the guests. One should leave the palace walking backwards so one wouldn’t turn his back on the king – “mais vous pouvez sortir comme vous voulez”.

Next to the king’s palace, there’s the queen’s summer palace, a 19th century wooden building, a kind of European villa, built for the infamous queen Ranavalonna I, whose main residence was the “palais de la reine” in Tana. Small but comfortable, it’s a curious house, with the dining-room with a runaway trapdoor and cupboards with mirrors so she could watch if anyone would try to poison her, and her portraits in Victorian attire, on a stool to look taller (“elle avait seulemant 1.40m”) and heavily powdered (“elle voulait être blanche… comme Michael Jackson!”). She had lots of lovers (“meme des esclaves!”) and her son was deposed because suspected of not being of royal blood (“il est né 14 mois après la mort du roi”).

Up a few steps from the palaces, there are the royal tomb, and then the sacred pools, where the king had his annual sacred bath, with rain water carried by 40 virgins. There was a special staircase for the king, through a door crowned by a sculpted ficus leaf – “la feuille sacrée.

I loved Ambohimanga (the name means ”beautiful hill”), and after leaving Emma – who, in her dignified poise, was probably not much different from Ranavalonna – wondered in the woods watching the breathtaking view. Sacred places, here or anywhere else, are not chosen randomly; there’s always something impressive about them.

On my last day, I wondered through the city, feeling somewhat familiar with it, stopping for coffee at the Café de la Gare, having a drink with a new acquaintance, and buying some souvenirs. Chocolates, t-shirts, and beautiful wooden handicraft at the Marché de la Digue – a few sculptures and masks and a chess set.

So, all in all, it was quite a trip. Nature, culture, food and rest, and a lot of time by myself, something I hadn’t noticed how much I missed until enjoying it.