The Drums, The Drums

Even the citizens of Rio find Salvador exotic. Gareth Mason arrives on a Tuesday…

While we wait for our weather to decide between winter and spring, it’s little consolation to see pictures from across the world illustrating the hottest of parties. Swallowing unnatural quantities of chocolate at Easter hardly compensates for that lost fun. But with a little planning, you could exchange this year’s frown for the widest smile on the next. Shrove Tuesday means church or pancakes to many.

To others, it is the hook on which carnival is hung, drawn out and quartered around the world. And cities, like Rio de Janeiro and New Orleans host one huge annual bash that tends to keep the flame burning for the rest of the year. This month we are focussing on one such place which even the proud inhabitants of Rio admit, under their breath, to being wilder than home...

In Salvador, second only to Rio for visitors, the crowds have swollen well before carnival. On land and sea, people come in their thousands, first to venerate their saints, later to dance till daylight on its beaches. Salvador, a city of two million, is state capital of Bahia. It’s often dubbed ‘Africa in exile’ – a legacy of the slave trade installed by their 16th century masters, the Portuguese. Here, African rhythms mingle with the smells of its food amid the hillside colonial architecture of the old fortified town.

While the Catholic churches are truly impressive – compared to the regular one’s agnostic tourists feel compelled to visit – it is Candomble, an Afro-Brazilian religion performed with elaborate ceremonies, dancing and drums, which has 1,000 temples dedicated to it. And if the drums don't get you, the berimbau will. You will hear this one-stringed instrument twanging along to another local institution, Capoeira. This is a bizarre part-dance, part-martial art developed by slaves from Angola now gaining currency in Nokia phone ads and leisure centres worldwide, and practiced by the New Yorker who took himself rather too seriously in the corridor outside my dorm.

Arriving towards the end of the (not very) rainy season in mid-August, what could I expect from a Tuesday night in Salvador? Preferring to be lost in the middle of an unfamiliar place than on its outskirts, I found a friendly bustling hostel in the Centro Historico, heart of the old colonial centre. The pastel coloured colonial buildings, now protected by UNESCO, have been fully restored and contribute the visual appeal to a city, which otherwise looks rather drab. The main churches are grouped around the square, one of which has a huge ceiling covered in gold leaf, another, built by former slaves, houses wooden effigies of black saints.

The bigger musical events usually take place here – one night here I saw local boys, Olodum, a carnival drumming group who starred on Paul Simon’s Rhythm of The Saints. This surreally beautiful quarter is part of the upper half of the city which looks down from high on the coast most directly connected by cable car. The docks and commercial area of the lower city look out upon a bay which extends over 1,000km and encloses 38 islands.

Up top, wandering early evening about the craft shops, bars and eateries of its close, cobbled streets, I met, without trying, my first half-dozen friends. Each one wanted to share a drink. And around now, I heard the first drums. I stopped for a kilo of food. In Brazil, you can buy your dinner by weight so you only have one person to blame for small portions. By sundown, bands popped up on the stages dotted about the quarter playing various samba strands including the home-grown Axe. Like most of the local music, it relies heavily on African rhythms pounded out by large troops of drummers. Swaying harmoniously down the narrow streets, the drummers face off against rival groups. All are backed by mobs of dancing followers picked up along the way. They didn't finish early. Nothing ever did. By the time the drumming stopped, the berimbaus of the capoeira classes heralded a new day.

During carnival in Bahia, they say there are one and a half million people dancing at any one time. And if you’re not around for Shrove Tuesday, you can’t go far wrong with a regular one, or a Wednesday, Thursday...

After seven such nights, through a surfeit of good times, I fell ill. I took a bus to deep inside the country and rested for a few days. But the drumming remained with me for some time.

Fashionline magazine spring 2002

The Complete Bankers

Wine, women and song are popular local options to part visitors from their money, but there’s a less fun and more expensive alternative. Gareth Mason learns the hard way…

Credit card fraud is big business in South America and many of the exponents in Quito are masters of their craft. And when you compare the Ecuadorian minimum wage with what can quickly be extracted from the average gringo bank account, the sophistication is unsurprising. Hidden cameras, false card slots, and well-practiced sleight-of-hand head the favourites. And a drug that removes the willpower of those whose drink it’s slipped into sounds like a collaboration between Fu Manchu and Professor Moriarty. (But actually it’s made in Colombia.)
My own personal financial tragedy transpired one afternoon at Banco de Guayaquil on Avenida Amazonas. It was a classic combination of audacious, planned teamwork, and criminal technology.

As I strolled to the glass-fronted annex housing its cash machines, a young woman drifted alongside me. I held open the door for her and she entered first. But instead of approaching one of the machines, she stood instead in the rear corner with her back to the wall, while waving me towards one of the vacant dispensers.

A minute later, cash in hand, I went to leave. But the door was blocked from the outside by a sweaty, gurning man, who pointed inside to a swipe machine on the wall beside the girl. With her encouragement, he gestured for me to swipe my card to open the door. Ever keen to help, I did it seven or eight times, up, down, back to front – I’d have performed a traditional dance if it helped. It seemed to work and the man opened the door as if I had successfully triggered the lock...

It didn’t seem quite right, so the next evening, I checked by bank account just in case…
Wealth redistribution is all very well, but 2,000 dollars in less than 36 hours exceeded my charitable instincts. My card had clearly been copied in the machine temporarily ‘installed’ in the bank. Every few hours, withdrawals were made up to my cash limit and well into my overdraft. Only on an academic level am I interested in how large the deficit would be if I had not pursued my paranoia instinct.

Less surprised were the bank staff where the heist took place – or in its main branch on Avenida Colon. My tale of criminal genius didn’t raise an eyebrow, let alone an apology, or the effort to pick up a pencil and record the details. ‘Your bank can get the money from our bank,’ I was told in a flat monotone by the woman from customer relations as she contemplated the more urgent state of her fingernails. We agreed on one point only – that the bank generally didn’t mount swipe machines on its walls.

Thankfully, she was right about the money. Within a few months, I got it all back. Many others have lost much more, and never seen it again depending on their bank and how quickly it was reported. Perhaps it helped that I wrote my own police report – stamped without being read – and in Spanish so deliberately bad that it wouldn’t make sense to anyone in England, even if they spoke the language, and knew where Ecuador was.
Not all card-carrying gringos are so lucky.

Quito Sun 2004

The Art Of Noise

Several years ago, snoozing in my sleepy English country village, my dreams were broken by the piercing scream of a car horn. It was the driver’s way of saying goodbye to his kids. He did it most days – each time around half an hour before my alarm clock went off. I didn’t own a shotgun (it was Kent – not Texas), but soon formulated several drastic (and violent) plans to bring this peace-wrecker to justice. By not getting around to it, I remained at large in the community for the daily loss of those precious 30-minutes of sleep.

Woken by barking dogs in Quito, the other morning, I realised I had learned some measure of tolerance. The dogs had been happily duetting with the cockerels since dawn – a cacophonic chorus supplemented by wailing car alarms. If excess noise is an occasional by-product of Western life, in the Latin world, it’s just another form of expression.

Conversely, in Rio one morning, I once sat outside a café while some huge paving stones were being dropped off the back of a lorry. As each concrete slab crashed against the pavement, workmen breakfasting alongside me banged their fists on the table and cheered, before returning to the excited babble of their pre-work conversation.

In Quito, meanwhile, the main players in this Latin symphony of noise are the cars and motorbikes. Their horns alert the surrounding world to everything from ‘Don’t even think about it,’, ‘I’m behind you,’ and ‘I don’t entirely agree with that overtaking manoeuvre,’ to a plethora of unfathomable philosophical outbursts. While Tarzan yodelled ‘Ungawa’ when he needed to herd elephants or get Cheetah to put the kettle on, the horn is used here as an equally flexible tool of communication.

Off-road, the pavements resound to the noise of street vendors selling their wares in voices pitched to distinguish themselves from the Latin audio soup. A man walks by broadcasting the English alphabet on a tape recorder at a volume which hurts more than it educates, while from a nearby bar, the extended bellow of a football commentator suggests the world ‘gol’ is spelt with 16 ‘O’s.

And as the global population grows and mingles, the noise pollution too spreads unstoppably. Even in faraway London, the soundscape is subtly changing. Now the embarrassed silence of passengers on its buses and underground trains is slowly being broken. The odd whispered sentence here, the occasional bellow of laughter there, and sometimes, outrageously, a full blown animated conversation. But these aren’t spoken in the accents of the home counties! For London has a growing Latin American population and this tide of immigrants flows with more vigour than the stiller waters of older inhabitants.

Golden silence is clearly an increasingly rare commodity. I recently disturbed my neighbours with some late-night music and conversation. The ensuing loss of neighbourly love and the break-up of my beautiful relationship with my landlord led to my seeking alternative lodgings.
Clearly, there are complex exceptions to the rules that I have yet to learn.

Quito Sun 2004

Plumbing The Depths

Sharks and deep water terrified Gareth Mason – so he enrolled on a scuba diving course off the coast of Mexico. Positive thinking or seaside suicide?

The island of Cozumel in Mexico claims to be the world’s most beautiful diving spots. After a couple of months backpacking through central America, I was tempted by its exotic Caribbean waters and budget-priced scuba diving courses at rock bottom prices. Mexico’s best, according to the guidebook, offered me the chance to confront two phobias: sharks and deep water. It was fuzzy logic from the ‘confront your fears’ school of thought.

Shortly into my first day’s training, laden with pipes and tanks, I wobbled unsteadily into the sea at Villablanca beach. After all, learning in a swimming pool with this wealth of underwater richness would be like hiring Pavarotti to play the spoons. Just six feet under and a new world exploded into life. Bright coloured, strange-shaped fish, sponges and gargonians drifted lazily past me with only half an eye on the floundering, clumsy figure who had joined them. Everything the ocean cradled seemed to sweep right up to the shoreline.

Cozumel’s waters are known for the intensity and shades of blue but the tableau becomes more dazzling when you dip beneath the surface where the brilliant sunshine illuminates the wide expanse of life. Snorkelling, let alone diving, is a spectacular experience. Those I recognised included a moray eel coaxed by my instructor Luis from beneath its rock-home and a barracuda with its dentist-free zone of razor-sharp teeth. These had gained local notoriety after the recent death of a woman snorkeler whose twinkling necklace was mistaken by the barracuda for the silverfish it usually dined on.

Underwater, my vocabulary was reduced to a dozen or so hand signs steered the chat more to ‘See that!’ and ‘Me no breathe’ than intelligent debate. One time, 30ft under, I was internally debating how to say to Luis: ‘You appear to be switching off my air supply. Can we can discuss this?’ His smile while I signed ‘out of air’ didn't encourage me. Fortunately, it was Part 3 of my latest test and he turned it back on soon after my breathing became laboured. In water, my mind struggles to retain more than two instructions. I learned to recognise Luis shouting underwater without hearing the words or seeing the lips. It was in the eyes and usually followed my latest attempt to drown the pair of us.

Around 20 years ago, I’d sneaked into Jaws underage. I still carried the mental scars. I'd find bungee jumping into a pit of giant cockroaches more appealing than being lost at sea wondering what just scraped against my right foot. But the first time I gently settled on the ocean floor, it all changed.

Cozumel’s stunningly clear waters offer visibility up to 80ft while water temperature, averaging 80 degrees Fahrenheit, matched the sweltering and humid temperatures above the waves. With the depths unveiled, there was no unknown to fear. And once comfortably gliding back and forth, the false gills of my aqualung seemed almost natural. A crap fish, perhaps, but a fish nonetheless. An off-shore hammerhead drifting in for a spot of gringo baiting would not have fazed my new-found confidence. Luis humoured me by telling me how to face an aggressive one. I practiced shark nose-bashing enthusiastically. Whether this aquatic machismo would have lasted if faced with anything bigger than the one which came with my action man deep sea diver, I may never know.

After three days training at the beach, we took the boat out to two of the 30-odd reefs to plumb the depths. The first, Palancar, is probably Cozumel’s most popular and like most of the island’s reefs is a drift dive. It’s around 30ft deep before disappearing into the gloom. The second at Chancanaab varied between 50-90ft before sharply cutting down into an abyss. Amid the scattered coral and sponges, shoals of small fish twitched this way and that dodging the larger mouths of indigenous creatures such as sea turtles, rays, groupers and amberjacks. Elsewhere, lurking out of our sight was the nocturnal Toadfish, unique to the island’s shores and a myriad of evocatively named associates from the Honeycomb Cowfish, Queen Parrotfish and Trumpet Fish to the Foureye Butterflyfish, French Angelfish and Cherub Fish.

Once I’d cast myself blindly off the boat, and worked out which way up I was, I drifted slowly down into the underwater kingdom – awed by its scale, stillness and silence. The dark, looming corrals and rock formations were palaces and homes to creatures of which I’d never dreamed. The overhead hum of the motorboat drifted off till all that was left was my steady inhalation of breath and the streams of escaping air.

Here as we slowly circled down I remembered my botched attempts at a controlled emergency ascent. Ascending from 20ft my lungs had emptied barely half-way up. So, what would happen at 60ft, I wondered, if some freakish accident befell me? I recited my options, decided four consecutive disasters were unlikely to follow and descended to new depths. I knew one moment of madness could book me an unpleasant session in one of the island’s two hyperbaric chambers. This helped focus the mind. Indeed, I might have worked harder at school if I’d been told that otherwise my lungs would swell to the size of a small hot-air balloon and my blood would fizz like Cola.

Spielberg’s monster is now banished from my nightmares – I'm a far greater threat to myself. And who knows, one day I may yet laugh in the face of a Great White. But I might want to work up to that.

Commissioned for Scuba World 2000

Inside View

Gareth Mason finds that visiting one of Quito's prisons is a sobering and cautionary dip into a very alternative culture...

When the prison door shuts behind you – you’re on your own. And that’s just the visitors. You soon find that the Ecuadorian prison system is somewhat different to what you find in Europe or North America. A vaguely organised chaos prevails behind those locked doors. Prisoners and visitors are free to wander from wing to wing, from foodstall to coffee stand, while yelling children charge about the women’s prison making a playground of their closed concrete home. Most of the foreigners jailed here have been sentenced for drug trafficking. Some are lifelong criminals, some incarcerated for a one-off job which went badly wrong. A few offer compelling cases to be set free.

It is not uncommon in South America for travellers to be set up by drug smugglers unwilling to risk their own liberty taking a bag through customs stitched full of cocaine. Being a gringo offers little immunity to the drug laws – where being a gringo means you almost certainly have more money to lose than the natives. Many prisoners are awaiting sentences long after they were arrested while many have lost considerable sums of money to crooked lawyers who took the case before hotfooting it with the cash.

Money rules life inside. This includes paying for the cramped shared cells and the digestible alternatives to the cauldron of greasy slop which serves as default prison food. Fresh food, books, cigarettes, toiletries and clothes are all gratefully received by the inmates, whether for personal use or as a form of barter. Many foreigners simply want company or news from home in a place in which they will always be an outsider. Visitors are considered sacrosanct in its overcrowded labyrinthine corridors and few who go are unmoved or not intimidated by the life inside. It’s a dark flip side to the pleasurable free life of most travellers through this colourful continent. Its true horror is how ‘normal’ you may find so many of its inmates.

Quito Sun 2004

The Day Of The Dead...

It sounds like a zombie movie, but El Dia de los Muertos is a very real day with a long and serious spiritual history. Gareth Mason witnesses a day out for all the family, dead or alive, that’s taken place in Mexico and in Latin America for over 3,000 years...   

Travelling by bus through the Ecuadorian countryside, last year, I witnessed a strange phenomenon. Passing through each small village and hamlet, I saw multiple generations of families gravitating towards local cemeteries in all their finery humping picnic hampers and armfuls of bric-a-brac.

Outside the graveyards, vendors hawked wares noisily, while I glimpsed the guitars of a Mariachi band flourished with serious intent. Clearly, no sombre memorial for the dear departed. It wasn’t even a Sunday, and the colourful clothes and wide smiles seemed odd for folks visiting the tombs of their dead. It was my first glimpse of El Dia de los Muertos – known here as the Day of the Dead.

It has parallels with Halloween. Both concern the spiritual world and cover festivities beginning on October 31 and are related to the Christian celebrations of All Saints and All Souls Day held on 1-2 November. As well as honouring the saints on November 1 and everyone else the next, the first day also remembers the children who have died, known as angelitos or little angels. This explains the presence of brightly coloured toys and balloons. Large families and high infant mortality in poor rural areas make such tragedies far more commonplace than in the West.

The ghoulish costumes of Western children are not so different to the wooden skull masks, or Calacas, of Mexico. Rather than bobbing for apples, here they dance to literally and metaphorically raise the spirits of the dead. But while the Halloween celebrations play with a spirit world that provokes the ire of many, usually Protestant, Christians, the Day of the Dead is a serious religious occasion. Though serious, in a very Latin way, with an atmosphere that is fun and free of guilt.

The West, with its preoccupation for looking younger and living longer, tends to treat death as taboo. Latin Americans are generally more fatalistic. Death is more real, and predictable than the dream-like state of life. And when such ceremonies developed, dying in childbirth, battle, or even from the sacrificial knife of a human sacrifice was thought to be a guarantee of a good afterlife, if somewhat galling at the time.

The Life and Soul

The rituals emerged over 3,000 years ago in Mexico and have been practised by the bereaved ever since, including the war-like Aztecs, a relatively recent, 500 years ago. It spread with the population of Mexico into the United States and south into Central and South America. Aside from Mexico, it also has distant roots in nearby countries with large indigenous populations, such as Bolivia, Peru and Guatemala.

But it’s not just a celebration by the living, but one for the souls of the dead who return briefly home to their loved ones. Photos, diplomas and other memorabilia are displayed about the altars on both the graves and areas set aside in family homes. 

The favourite food and drinks of the departed are shared. This explains secular delights such as Tequila, beer and cigarettes being cheerfully passed around in an atmosphere that is more celebratory wake than sombre funeral. Such treats are made more to refresh the arriving dead from their celestial journey than sustain the relatives so if the set menu doesn’t appeal, don’t blame the chef! A bowl of water set aside allows the spiritual arrivals to freshen up after their annual trek much as the ancient Egyptians did for their nobles on their journey to the afterlife.
Traditional dishes fill the stores from October with many bakeries turning over their ovens exclusively to make foodstuffs for the festival. One of the most popular is a rich coffee cake called Pan de Muerto (bread of the dead). The cakes are decorated with ‘bones’ made from meringues or dough along with skull-shaped sweets and marzipan figures of the dead. Meat dishes with spicy sauces, chocolate drinks and every variation of rich Mexican cuisine is prepared.

The symbolism is different to Halloween. Here, it is positive and life affirming. Many pre-Colombians saw the skull as a symbol of life, not death, while receiving the portion of food with one baked inside indicates good luck much as the coin does found in the Christmas pudding of the West. Along with these edible Ofrendas de Muertos (offerings to the dead), tissue paper figures, intricate wreaths and crosses, candles and seasonal flowers such as marigolds, chrysanthemums and cockscomb all appear in abundance.

Once the graves have been tended and decorated, the dead are officially welcomed home. Candles are lit; Copal incense burnt. Prayers and chanting follow to help lead the departed back often to the sight and sound of fireworks and music. The summons is often accompanied by the pealing of church bells through the night until sunrise.

Noise is rarely understated in Latin America.

Celebrations vary between places. Two of the best-known are found in Janitzio Island on Lake Patzcuaro, west of Mexico, and Mixquin, now an outlying district of Mexico City. In Janitzio, festivities begin with a duck-hunt with the birds cooked at midnight in cemeteries lit up by thousands of candles set to an ethereal soundtrack of women praying and men chanting through the night. 

Scratch a Christian, Find a Pagan

Scratch the surface and you find origins far from Christianity. You also find an event that began in August, but slipped two months down the calendar! In the Andes, August is springtime and the celebration welcomed back the rains that refreshed the earth. Before the Spanish conquistadors ‘discovered’ and claimed Latin America as its own – the Aztecs celebrated the end of summer for a month around August. The patron goddess was Mictecacihuatl, or the more easily pronounced, Lady of the Dead. The Spaniards later tried to stamp out these nature-worshipping pagan beliefs.

Undoubtedly, their motives were mixed. Like the less than subtle Inquisition that followed in their wake, they claimed their duty was to enlighten and save the souls of the natives, while knowing that destroying the old ways made for a more easily subjugated population. The ways of the West were established in a hierarchical society that placed the natives at the bottom of the heap while telling them what to think and how to act.

This was certainly the case in Latin America and its rapid success was influenced by several factors. While the muskets, horses and armour of the conquistadors were the decisive weapons in overcoming the armies of the indigenous, diseases such as smallpox that came with the white men were even more lethal. Native populations fell dramatically. With the way cleared, the colonists swarmed in increasing numbers from Catholic Europe. Massive deportation of slaves from Africa further changed society to the point that many natives were now an alienated minority.

The ‘great white warriors’ from over the sea could also thank the native mythology of the natives for their pre-eminence. The Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, usually depicted as a plumed serpent, was prophesised to return from the sea to rule over the people. The Spaniards were physically larger and stronger than the natives with weapons that spouted fire and armour that rendered them impervious to their attackers blows. Riding strange fearsome animals that charged effortlessly through the ranks of the indigenous, it was easily to see how they were first confused with gods. 

History also shows that subverting a belief system is easier when you adapt it to your own festivities rather than try and wipe it out. Catholicism is also clearly adaptable to religions worshipping more than one god. Its spread in Latin America was facilitated by the Dominican and Jesuit orders and the Catholic veneration of saints. Local deities were easily replaced by Catholic equivalents much like the Romans appropriated the gods of the Greeks with a cosmetic change of name. The practice of voodoo in modern Haiti is an example of this fusing of old African beliefs with modern Catholic ones or of the Candomble and Macumba ceremonies practiced in Brazil and imported by former slaves.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that superstition in Latin America is so noticeable in conventionally ‘religious’ people. Crossing oneself at the sight of a church or priest is normal, while great emphasis is put on the ritual and ceremony typical to Catholicism. Thus, traditional beliefs can co-exist with the new despite the seeming contradiction often with the ‘one true god’ existing in a lofty and distant role with day to day worship confined to the lesser spirits. Adherence to these very Latin celebrations today is partly a reaction against the modern cultural invasion of the US.        

Things are not always what they seem even in the magnificence of the immense capital, Mexico City. Surrounded by a wealth of grand colonial buildings and museums, you may first see only the architecture and culture of the Spanish invaders. But beneath your feet lie the well-preserved foundations of the ancient Aztec island city much like the metaphor of the melding of the ancient and modern religions. Without this ancient settlement, a city of 20 million might still be a giant duck pond.

Much may change without going away as the souls of the dead would testify.

Blood mountain

Its riches seduced empires. Its caverns stole the lives of eight million people… and counting. 

The three-hour drive from the colonial capital of Sucre to the cloud-city of Potosi, Bolivia, leads up twisting mountain roads through an increasingly barren and unpopulated land littered with the rusting detritus of old mining operations. Perched at over 4,000 metres, Potosi is the highest city in the world. The air is so thin up here that every step demands a physical effort. It’s not until you arrive and your lungs begin sucking desperately for breath that you know exactly what it means to live at this extremity of the Earth.

Stretching high above the dusty old city is a huge mound of tanned earth, carved sharply from the landscape into a mountainous cone. This is the reason I’ve come to Potosi. It’s the only reason anyone has ever come here – apart from the Indians that once lived here before the Spanish came.

Over the centuries, this mountain has had many names. To the invaders, it was Cerro Rico, or Rich Hill, to the Quechuans, it was Sumag Orko, or Magnificent Hill. These are the names given to a mountain that hid in its core thick veins of silver – natural wealth so plentiful that it inspired the Spanish idiom Vale un Potosi, Worth a Fortune. The mountain holds such prominence in the Bolivian national imagination that it is illustrated at the centre of the country’s national crest.

It was the silver in the Cerro Rico that drew the Spanish to Potosi in the 15th century. And it’s the active mines that remain here today that I’ve come to see, 550 years after Potosi was built into one of the most illustrious cities in the world, and then abandoned. In that time, imperial empires have come and gone, replaced by corporate ones and a trickle of adventure-seeking tourists. But little else has changed. Every day, many of the indigenous still descend into the bowels of the mountain though the ancient shafts are mostly anaemic today except for deposits of ore. The people mine in much the same way as they always did, which is to say in some of the worst, most primitive conditions you can imagine.

According to legend, when the Inca emperor, Huayna Capac, first discovered the riches in the mountain in 1462, a booming voice told the Incas that the silver didn’t belong to them. It was for the white men who would one day come from far away. Believing they had heard the voice of God, the Incas obeyed and declared the mountain sacred place. History hasn’t recorded whether the booming voice, was spoken with a lisping, Castilian accent.

The Spanish heard out about the silver in 1544 and founded the city the next year. From an original workforce of 170 Spanish and 3,000 natives, by 1610, Potosi had grown to some 160,000 inhabitants – the combined populations of London and Paris. These included Old World artisans and engineers following the seductive whiff of riches from a real-life El Dorado. But the bulk of the swelling population were slaves – mostly former citizens of the Inca empire that stretched thousands of miles down the spine of the Andes from Lima to Lake Titicaca. The Spanish also brought African slaves, who fared the worst due to problems adapting to the extreme altitude.

My guide, Helen, knows most of the miners around whom she conducts her tours. Beginning in 1980, the government began transferring ownerships of the mines to workers’ cooperatives. Around 6,000 locals now work the 120 or so mines around the Cerro Rico – about half the workforce from the days of slavery. On our hike up to the mine, Helen discusses a community welfare scheme with one miner and chats with the widow of another.

At the foot of the mountain, Helen leads me and a few other tourists into a small room near the mouth of the mine, inside of which stands a shrine to the mine god Tio or Uncle. The Spanish created Tio in the image of the Christian devil to frighten the miners into labour. A garish dummy embodying this less-than-avuncular deity is surrounded by pinups of blonde models. Here, the workers drip fierce Latin firewater called Puro onto the ground and balance cigarettes in Tio’s mouth, hoping for a profitable day’s work. Bright strips of cloth mark the mineshaft in his honour.

‘This is not a museum’, Helen warns us before we enter the mine. ‘It’s a working mine and its conditions are the same as when it opened 500 years ago.’

The shaft we enter is horizontal, sometimes dipping into claustrophobic holes through which the miners, their cheeks swollen with wads of narcotic cocoa leaves, shift the largely worthless ore by hand. ‘They fill up wheelbarrows or carts and push them out of the entrance. Around 80 wheelbarrows a day on average for a 12-hour shift, or 350 bags of ore,’ says Helen. ‘If it’s a good day they make around $5.’ The miners sell their ore to refineries that ship it unprocessed overseas.

The dank interior of the mine has been hacked out by hand. Low humid corridors run off unexpectedly in hopeful new directions, their rickety, fragile progress extending crookedly for hundreds of metres. To get through the mine, tunnelers are often forced to scramble and splash about on their hands and knees in the mud. Often, the deep, shrinking shafts frighten off the more claustrophobic tourists.

‘Can you smell that?’ Helen asks. ‘It’s the smell of very old air, trapped inside until released by some new digging. It’s these poisonous gases that kill the most, usually arsenic or sulfuric acid.’
Oxygen masks are an unknown luxury. Around 20 miners die working here each year. Many more suffer from respiratory illnesses such as silicosis. Most miners don’t make it to 40. The local hospital overflows with victims of what is locally called, mine disease. Often pensions can’t be collected until the disease has developed so far that the victim can’t enjoy his retirement for long. About 1,000 children under 12-years-old also work here.

Over 300 years, the mines yielded 70,000 tons of silver, enough to pay for centuries of imperial projects, including the Spanish Armada. The English sailor, Francis Drake, plundered enough silver from the Spanish galleons to significantly underpin England’s growing wealth. The silver’s injection into the European economy stimulated trade as far away as India. Bolivian schoolchildren are told the mine held enough silver to build a bridge to Spain. They are also told that a second bridge could have been built back with the bones of those who died mining it.

From 1545–1825 about eight million people died working in these mines. That’s about the size of the current Bolivian population. The average working lifespan was six months, and it was said that for every peso coin forged, ten slaves died. Many never began their second shifts after living underground for months in temperatures topping 100 degrees. Cerro Rico is less a mountain than a mass grave.

After shuffling along for 100 metres or so, we find some workers chipping away at an unpromising piece of wall. Their shabby clothes are coated in a thick layer of dust – their expressions ambivalent towards tourists who try to soften their intrusiveness with gifts of water, dynamite and chocolate. The miners use pick-axes and lamps instead of drills and torches, as you would see in a modern mining operation. Running along the roof ahead is a thin streak of tin that, along with zinc, is now the miners’ main source of income. Mining it, we are told, could very well bring down the unsupported roof.

After the Spanish extracted 820 million silver coins, most of the mountain’s richest deposits were exhausted. But in 1572, the Spanish Viceroy, Francisco Toledo, introduced mercury into the extraction process, and the digging continued. Over the next three centuries, several hundred tons of this poisonous metal were dumped into the Potosi basin. The deadly drain-off now swills alongside the lead, cadmium, and arsenic of later deposits. The mined ores become acidic when combined with water and pollute the local water supply. The laws needed to clean up this hazard are neither tough enough nor effectively enforced.

Modern technology hasn’t touched the miners’ lives, but it has found 154 tonnes of untouched silver in the Cerro Rico – the world’s largest existing deposit. By 2007, a clutch of foreign companies is expected to overwhelmingly oppose the idea of letting foreigners profit further from the few remaining riches of the continent’s poorest country. That the mountain’s famous crown might be lopped off to more easily remove the new deposits, as has been proposed, doesn’t go well with the locals either. The Bolivian national crest would look less impressive adorned with only half a hill.

Their fears are, perhaps, best illustrated by the story I heard in the Casa de Moneda, the museum built inside the thick stone walls of the old, Spanish mint. It concerns a Florida-based salvage company that found the wreck of a treasure-laden Spanish galleon in the 1980s. Around 175,000 coins were recovered, valued at around $300 million. From the horde, a single coin, now sitting in the Potosi museum, was given to the Bolivian nation. Overlooking the museum courtyard hangs the mask of a white human face wearing a smirking smile. It looks set to leer greedily into the foreseeable future.

Internationalist Winter 2006

Office Tales: The Colonel

When our boss smugly announced he’d just made £70,000 with one phone call, I was unimpressed. Seconds earlier, he’d told me my £8,000 salary was ‘pretty high’ for a young graduate. A few months before, I’d been lured to an interview by a second-hand verbal promise that he was looking for six trainee journalists.

In reality, he wanted one admin lackey to input data and extract invoices from a clearly-possessed printer. Desperate for work, I accepted, even saying that I was sure the financial package would be ‘just fine’. I’m sure I saw a twinkle in the eye of this perma-tanned, self-loving man of the world as he registered my laughable innocence. But while he was bright enough to see my erstwhile colleagues and me coming, he didn’t realise we might one day get our own back.

My partner in counter-insurgency was my line manager. When, I had an issue with an obnoxious client, I passed the call over to her and she would sweet-talk them better. Once this was resolved, we’d spend the afternoon calling them back and playing inappropriate music down the phone. Alternatively, we’d connect them to a Radio 1 phone line in which a pre-recorded Mr Angry bellowed abusively at the confused caller. Oh, for the salad days before 1471!

During the transport strikes in London that summer, we were expected to make our way to work, wherever we lived. The first week, I arrived at my city workplace via a sardine-packed bus and several hours footslog. Walking six miles home amused me even less as I watched my boss’ taxi slip into the twilight. From then on, I was more pragmatic. I’d rise two hours late and enjoy a relaxing al fresco breakfast before ringing the office from the nearest noisy payphone claiming to be stuck somewhere completely different while sounding mortified that I wasn’t yet manning my desk. It was a sad day when the strikes ended and Lazy Thursday became a working day once more.

One day, our deluded chief foolishly asked my manager and me to stuff thousands of envelopes for a mailshot. We did just that – stuffing armfuls into the bin while only occasionally breaking into paroxysms of work when the office martyr arrived to help. She was paid even less than us, but favoured passive moaning over active rebellion. It was a heavy but satisfying load that I delivered into the arms of the bin men that night.

Whether he ever knew he got the workers he deserved, remains a mystery. Whether he ever knew I deleted almost all his subscribers from my PC by accident is another.

Certainly, he seemed oblivious of our greatest and final triumph. With the ‘name game’ we succeeded in changing his very identity. We would subtly correct the pronunciation of those that rung him – a vowel here, a consonant there, so that after several months, his public name morphed by degrees into something entirely new. The man formerly known as Brunton became Branston and Brunswick, before maturing into the more complete identities of Kelvin Beanstalk and Conan Broomstick. Finally, this stock of mixed identities was reduced to its purest essence: The Colonel. And before The Colonel left the building, we had moved on. Our work here was done.

The Guardian 2007

Office Tales: The Cleaner

The post of part-time toilet cleaner required an interview with the man from the council. Soon after we shook hands, a chance remark uncovered a mutual interest in cross-country running.

I’d competed competitively at school and he was a born-again jogger, in the honeymoon phase. He pressed me enthusiastically for training tips and about my greatest moments slipping and schlepping around the local park. He was enthralled, his bored office face melting into one of childish glee. I simply enjoyed the attention as most of my races had been witnessed by one unimpressed man and his dog.

The interview was almost up by the time I wrapped up reminiscing on my less than Olympian career. Exiting our daydream, we hastily discussed the job – he muttered some stuff, I nodded in a trustworthy fashion. Like an old friend, he waved me off, with the words ringing in my largely irresponsible teenage ears: ‘Not to take it too seriously.’ The gig was mine.

The friend who ‘recommended’ me had said it was an easy £15 for an hour’s work. I remembered hazily from the interview that I was meant to lock up the town’s one public lavatory one night and open it the next morning, before cleaning it on Sunday. But I could dramatically improve the efficiency of my labour by not locking up Friday night and circumventing the need to unlock them in the morning. This adherence to the principles of FW Taylor meant I could reduce my three visits to one, and the total task duration down to 30 minutes.

The scene of the grime was a small, unprepossessing concrete block on the edge of the town cricket pitch. Its dim, dank interior soon revealed that its few users were either desperate, drunk or recently injected – the detritus that slipped beneath the radar of a ‘respectable’ Home Counties town. Despite my regulation Marigolds, there were few things I was prepared to touch with my hands – an instinct I immediately upgraded to a working principal.

So the runner’s feet that had impressed my boss so much now worked tirelessly in the cause of civic duty kicking the untouchable flotsam and jetsam out the door into a waiting binbag. Well, for a weekly six minutes anyway, following further time and motion improvements. This made me an impressive £2.50 a minute – a rate I’ve sadly never since matched.

As well as keeping me in fish suppers, the job taught me that working success was not always about bringing the relevant skills to the task. I passed the reins onto Maria – a friend who sadly did not share my success in the public convenience world. This was a surprise as not only did she enter this Stygian bog a ‘number’ of times a week (I lost count, horrified), she even got down on her hands and knees to scrub the floors. ‘So what happened?’ I asked. ‘I was sacked,’ she replied tersely, ‘apparently I wasn’t doing the job well enough.’

I didn’t tell her about the glowing letter of thanks I’d been sent by the same man in which he’d praised my excellent work. Perhaps she just didn’t interview well.

The Guardian 2007

Office Tales: Lord Mayor's Parade

‘It’s a bit different, but the pay’s good,’ said the woman from the agency. At a tenner an hour, it tripled the going rate. But while I usually washed dishes or stuffed envelopes, this time I was dressing up as a bank safe in the Lord Mayor’s parade. I accepted, unsure if it was the price of humiliation, or a generous rate for my big break in TV.

Four of us were paid to march alongside a corporate float winding through central London. The wooden ‘security’ boxes were designed for visual impact rather than pilot comfort. The three girls who completed the team tried them out for size, but claimed it was impossible to walk in them. They elected instead to sit on the float and earn their money waving for their wages. Despite their tempting example, some misguided macho instinct persuaded me to strap on my box and walk alone.

As the parade got underway, the cramped dimensions of my wooden body suit constricted my natural stride. The supporting rope began to rub through the top layers of my shoulder’s skin. Downhill sections followed calling for bursts of speed I could only achieve by taking fast mincing steps – a comical effect enhanced by the rictus of pain brought on by each crash of my bruised and bloodied knees against the unyielding wood.

As the sun and the strain drew streams of sweat down my ruddy cheeks the reality of what I was doing dawned through a mist of mental and physical pain. A punchable child squealed: ‘What are you meant to be, mister?’ Some giant walking chocolates from the float behind urged me on with the words: ‘Pick your pace up, Safe-Boy! When someone screamed: ‘Look up and smile – you’re on TV!’ I knew I’d reached my nadir. I cast my eyes down balefully. And confronted now by terraces piled high with spectators, my life flashed before me, and anyone watching BBC1.

I consoled myself with lager in the lunchtime break agreeing belatedly with the girls to join them on the float for the return trip. We stashed beer in my grounded box ducking inside its secure walls for crafty swigs when the crowd’s adulation proved too cloying.

But after an hour of waving inanely at thousands of inquiring faces philosophical doubts crept into my mind. An anonymous man, now endorsing nothing, paid to wave at a crowd of people he didn’t know. Why? The existential angst kicked in, then the lunchtime beer. One of the girls suggested we danced along to the jazz band playing behind us on our float. Would this be the final dance on the grave of my tattered dignity or a chance to pluck some minor triumph from the public disaster recorded earlier?

I chose dance. Not well, but with enthusiasm. A few feet tapped, the odd hip wiggled, a family swayed and a madman screamed deliriously. Soon whole sections of the mob swayed happily along to our joyful arrhythmic moves. And while we orchestrated the masses, I searched the sky in vain for a TV camera. But my memories must suffice. For what the cameras recorded, I’ll still pay good money for the tapes.

The Guardian 2007

Crap Holidays: Tunisia off-season

The all-inclusive package to Tunisia was suspiciously cheap. Discovering on arrival that the Tunisian winter was much like a British one – only colder – was one reason.

And the surfeit of building materials sprinkled about the half-built resort was eerily reminiscent of the balsa wood ‘Spanish’ set from the Are You Being Served? holiday special. Our mousy tour rep avoided eye contact as she handed us our orange ‘all-inclusive’ wristbands. We were told to put them on immediately and keep wearing them to be more easily identified. She seemed nervous.  It was the last time we saw her – even the guests’ lynching party a week later couldn’t track her down.

We were then corralled into a dining room by battle-hardened waiters, and bunched up on tables where we were more easily controlled. Happily, we were hungry enough to stomach the intriguing fusion of Anglo-Tunisian cuisine served at the bacteria-friendly warmth of British beer.  

Once free to make our own decisions, we hit the bar. We were initially cheered by the realisation that we were both British and entitled to drink any amount of anything for free. A glow of satisfaction spread within me as I choked down my fourth triple whiskey.  

It wasn’t to last. An ominous pounding erupted from the outside corridor. A thunderous warrior dirge shook the air before the door crashed open and the Size 12 that opened it was followed by three generations of British sisters, cousins and step-dads clapping in near rhythm while chanting something about Karaoke.

It was a friendly crowd, but we felt intimidated by the presence of so many singers who ‘could have been a professional’. We later dropped in on the hotel ‘nightclub’. We were the only people other than the DJ and the barman. One or the other was usually found in my seat ‘welcoming’ my girlfriend when I nipped off to the toilet. One of our fellow guests whose physique and manner earned her the moniker Sharon ‘20’ Stone made sure such romantic passes were reciprocated. Young local men seeking a glimpse of Western high-life fled the pool table when physically and culturally snookered by the ample bosom she draped over the baize.

The local Medina, and nearby French and German resorts, were buffered from each other by murky stretches of sand. Particularly distressing was the sight of one tearful English woman trying to drag her recalcitrant boyfriend past the security gate while he groaned fearfully: ‘I don’t want to go there!’

But we did, wherever there was. So the next day we got up at dawn and took an extended bus trip to the Sahara. Very refreshing it was too. But it’s nice to get away.    

Submitted to The Observer 2005      

Crap Holidays: A Blonde Romance

Heddie and I briefly met when I was living in Ecuador and she had visited to study.

Six months later, she was back at Quito airport clutching the ticket for which I’d loaned her the money. But the blue-eyed blonde I clumsily embraced didn’t closely resemble the angelic image nostalgically imprinted in my mind’s eye. Perhaps unsurprising, as our hypothetical romance had fed off emails and crackling phone calls.

Her long flight from Oregon explained the puffy eyes, and possibly the scowling face, if not the extra ballast she now carried about her waist. But surely her real beauty had been more than skin deep, however much more skin there now was. I had two weeks to find it...  

So I made breakfast the next day with a spring in my step. The night before, I’d ignored the ‘I have a problem with commitment’ comment she made entering my newly scrubbed-up flat. Much as she ignored the sparkling Christmas tree I’d set by the door. It contrasted too with the rather melodramatic flow of compliments with which she had waking me up regularly for the last few weeks.

True love, I had presumed, recognises no time zones. She had little money so I’d filled the fridge up with exotic local produce with which to deal with the yawning gaps in her stomach and wallet. But when she chose her favourite, expensive, American steakhouse that night, it was the waiter who stole her attention and contact number. I ruminated longer than usual on how large a tip to add to the pricey bill.

We developed a new personal chemistry – the original was presumably confiscated at customs. So when I say we got on like dynamite, I mean it in the scientific rather than romantic sense. We soon realised we had nothing in common. Her impressive powers of consumption needed underwriting too. One day though, she used her own money to buy a Che Guevara badge before asking: ‘Who’s he? He’s pretty.’ I was too depressed to laugh.

She made many new friends. One, a ‘totally cool DJ’, was kind enough to put her up whenever she couldn’t get home. Strange men smiled slyly in the street. It was a long fortnight, which I saw out with masochistic fatalism. Shortly before her final exit, she intercepted a text from a friend of mine on my mobile. She was borrowing it to facilitate her ad hoc social life. It read: ‘Chin up mate – only 36 hours more.’ It was the only time we empathised.

Six months earlier, I had taken her to the airport with a heavy heart and moist eyes. I didn’t understand why three other forlorn and unconnected men had been waiting in the shadows by her hotel. At four in the morning.

But only one of those men was dumb enough to edit her poorly written university essays on a Saturday night. And only one man was dumb enough to stump up for a plane ticket to bring her back.

I was the biggest blonde of all.

The Observer 2007
       

Crap Holidays: Four go mad in Marbella

When Adam leant over and whispered: ‘This trip is going to be hell,’ I probably should have marched off the plane without a backward glance.

The writing was on the wall, in mile high, plain English: our holiday was doomed. Adam and Lydia had broken up, messily, the year before. This was the first time they had met since. Loads of uncomplicated, happy people were meant to be coming with Siobhan and me to Marbella – but they had all dropped out. Now we were four.

When we pooled our money on the first day, I realised we had a financial problem as well as an emotional one. Somewhat surprisingly, the two exes had brought virtually no money. Adam had £50 cash for the 14-day holiday after Lydia made him pay for her flight – an impressive act of debt collection achieved without even speaking to him. Bizarrely, she then turned up with 30 quid – when 30 quid still wasn’t a lot of money.

On our first shopping trip, we thus stocked up on bread, booze and water. I had the temerity to ponder a carton of yogurts. ‘I don’t think we can afford those, can we?‘ snapped Lydia as she ripped them from my hand with a disbelieving shake of the head.

Mealtimes were strained. Increasingly. Thrice daily. Siobhan and I were stuck in the blackest of black comedies. Less funny ha-ha, more funny deep psychological damage. ‘Can you ask her to pass the salt?’ Adam would say. ‘It’s not really about the salt, is it?’ came the reply to I’m not sure whom. 

Of course, we were now too poor to actually go out and seek the comfort of better-adjusted strangers. So we stewed together on cheap vodka, brewing obnoxiously. Later, Siobhan and I wondered why we didn’t reclaim our dwindling cash, flee the flat and let nature take its course in all its terrible fury. But to err is human, and we ummed and erred our way through two painful weeks of poolside paranoia, of requited fear and loathing, of festering unresolved issues.

Even a night on Marbella’s beachside strip failed to defrost the group chill. The gaudy glare of Disco Flash Pub failed to illuminate our conversation, while the saucily-titled cocktails of The Cockney Kilt stimulated little beyond our undernourished taste buds. Adam and Lydia, still bitterly divided, glared mutually while pouring bile into the ears of their designated, unblessed peacemakers. 

The four of us have never since shared a room, let alone a bad atmosphere. Waking in a cold sweat, years later, I calm my pounding heart by telling myself that I’m not on holiday, or anywhere near Marbella. It’s just Monday morning and everything’s going to be all right.

Submitted to The Observer 2007

Stargazing for Answers

‘Don’t tell me... you’re a Leo.’
‘No.’
‘I know... I know... Cancer.’
‘No.’
‘Virgo.’
‘Yes’.
‘You see Jenny – I knew he was a Virgo.’
‘Oh yeah... definite Virgo. Watch him.’

In just four attempts, she was on to me.

It was hard enough trying to impress her, and now I had to overcome her astral prejudices. Her mates shook their heads gravely communicating small feminine gestures with every Virgoan blunder I made.

‘I’m not into it that much – not like some people,’ she said lightly, secretly marking me down as a dangerously rational insurgent.

But what of this star-fated personality allotted to me from some time before the dawn of science and its obsession with common sense and facts? Within, I know, slumbers a passionate and sexy Capricorn, an occasionally gregarious Leo, a sometime courageous Airean  and a freedom loving Sagittarius. But apparently not.

And what of the celebrities with whom I share my zodiacal fate? In my case: Sean Connery, Peter Sellers, Oliver Stone, John Coltrane to name a few. I can see these, but perhaps less so Mother Theresa, Frodo Baggins and Raquel Welsh.

I wonder if people would identify with astrology so readily if it was Michael Howard or Barbara Cartland they shared a sign with. Was Hitler a Virgo tidying up  Europe with his little helpers, the panzers and Stukas? One girl I knew stayed in three weekends to avoid the professed man of her dreams – the solar system was just not conducive to nookie right then. Meanwhile he was getting off with her best mate.  I could have predicted that.

Apparently, I shouldn’t date Ariens and Aquarians and, heaven forfend, my last girlfriend was Aquarian. And yes it was turbulent – just like the book warned! But hang on, it was also mellow, affectionate, fun and loving. It’s easy to forget the good when distracted by the ‘truth’ of the bad.

And should I run screaming from the room if I meet an Aerian tomorrow? Should the possible love of my life be denied by the whim of pseudo science? For research I borrowed an astrological book from my ex, ‘my bible’ as she describes it.

Virgo: ‘Logical, meticulous and modest, Virgo’s are one of the most subtle earthly sign ruling cleverness, competence and expectation.’ Well, I have my moments. Then again I have my moments of stupidity, incompetence and pessimism.

A French researcher once placed an ad offering readers a 10-page personal horoscope if they wrote to him with details of their birthdays. The first 150 were sent an identical analysis drawn up by a professional astrologer. Ninety percent were amazed at how well it described them – as were almost all their family and friends. The real subject of the horoscope was a mass murderer. Suggestibility is the key. I remember the last time I read a medical encyclopedia. Aside from a drink problem, I discovered I had trenchfoot, yellow fever and tennis elbow.

Astrology is hesitant about making concrete promises which is very wise for its survival.
In my case, the suggestion that Virgo’s may be tall and possess extremely large foreheads would only be true if I hung around with a lot of small-headed pigmies.

Such inconvenient inconsistencies encourage astrologers to cover themselves. All manner of astral influences can justify its inaccuracies – a handy polyfilla for its rather shoddy brickwork.   
The source of all this wisdom is not so easy to find. There’s plenty about what to believe, little on why. I turned to my ex’s bible for enlightenment. It included a brief introduction for those vaguely interested in finding out why we should believe any of it.

I was surprised how compelling its basics premises could be. Certainly more plausible, scientifically, than testing the flotability of a suspected witch in a small lake or testing a womens fidelity by making her drink dust and water (courtesy Numbers 5:11, Old Testament). I was fascinated to read about gravity affecting our water-bound bodies. So simple, so obvious and  quite compelling in a nice idea, bugger-all-proof kind of way.

Then again, that flat earth concept must have seemed bloody good sense at the time too.
But strangely, none of the astral disciples I spoke with had the faintest knowledge or interest in why any of it should make sense. And instead of turning a sceptical eye to the unproven – fans prefer to listen to latter day prophets such as Mystic Meg and Russel Grant. Faith is an incredible thing and indeed listening to a word from these two surely requires it in abundance.
Astronomy has now taught us that what we thought were groups of related stars and planets  are nowhere near each other. Not only that, but we now know there’s 13 of them.

Unfortunately, Ophiuchus (whose presence should make me a Leo) crashed the party a bit late. You’d think this might be thought significant, but most star-gazers have blithely ignored it as being irrelevant.

The irony is that there may be something in it. Like most accepted ideas, which started off as heresies and half-truths, astrology may well come of age. But what truths science may later unveil are, for the moment, buried deep in the tripe served up for the gullible.

And even if there is something – is it in the hands of those that can help? Apart from the obvious charlatans and quacks – just how qualified is anyone else to interpret such nebulous matter? I’ve always suspected there’s much in the metaphysical world beyond our ken and I haven’t met the person yet whom I’d trust to give me the answers.

Perhaps it’s just a bit of a laugh which momentarily consoles or lifts its afficianados. It doesn’t ‘harm’ people in the way established religions have over thousands of years. After all, nobody’s been beheaded for being a Capricorn.

A harmless pastime maybe. But as a religion, a science or belief system? I’ll keep making my own decisions for a while yet. But I would say that, I’m a Virgo.

Women’s Health 2000