vaga #1/8 Books

I put this photo in, though  it is somewhat blurred and in black and white because the titles do not matter, what is important is that there are many to choose from

The blog should be read onthe computer because the photos are designed fo better appreciation.

Part VIII

Well, today nothing very special to share but books are an important part of my journey and they are my company. I have never had the time to read at leisure and now I am enjoying it, I am catching up with everything I never had time to read before and now is the time for me to enjoy it. 

One of the fun things that I discovered is that hostels always have a shelf with books. Travellers passing through, finish reading their books and put them down and take another. Fantastic idea and the first thing I do when I get to a new hostel is to go straight through to check what books there are. My first choice is Spanish ........... the truth is that there are no books in Spanish, in the 11 months of wandering I have only found TWO, this is nothing ......... but they were very good and I thoroughly enjoyed them, not because they were in Spanish, but they were very good, in one of the hostels, I saw an Octavio Paz novel, and I grabbed it ....... but nope ...... it was in German ..... .in Hoi An, Vietnam I met an English guy who lived there, he is dedicated to secondhand books, he had a couple of thousand, none in Spanish though .......   surprising ........They were all in German, English and French ........ from bibles to thick philosophy books..... In this area of the world, they were in languages, I could not possibly recognise. Initially, I was looking for thrillers in English and there are many of those. I always have to have 2 books with me, because I don't know if I'm going to find anything at the next hostel. Then I  found more interesting books such as the history of the country I am in, for example, "The Exile of The King of Burma", "Burmese Days" a brilliant novel by George Orwell and being in the country where it was written is a great pleasure, I learned more and I started understanding the culture, I have been putting the Thrillers aside, but I always have one on hand in case the book is very boring or complicated. The only heavy thing in my suitcase is books; about trips, today I am reading The Massacre of the Kingdom of Kathmandu and I had two others about Tibet ...... many kilos worth.......

A story that I found that is worth sharing is from Orwell's book "Burmese Days", an autobiographical novel (1880 or so) of his stay as an English officer in northern Burma and the dialogue with his Indian doctor friend. The English said colonisation was a shame, that they only dedicated themselves to stealing the natural resources piecemeal; forests, minerals, charging for the use of ports and so on, and the Indian doctor said no, that thanks to the English they brought administration, order, laws, prisons, schools and churches, I found it interesting ...

A nice story, my friend Juan had recommended the book "Veterano de Tres Guerras" The Veterans of Three Wars, it was based in Chile, to read in Santiago, but I was already leaving and I wasn't going to finish it, I asked him if I could take it with me. He said no, he didn't want to lose it, he had liked it a lot and wanted to keep it. Three days later he called me and told me to take it with me and leave it at any hostel, "let the book run around the world" ..... the decision was not easy for him....... the book ended up in the north of Vietnam on the border with China, it is the most remote place I have been and there I was, in a village of the H'omg ethnic group .................. .................................................. ............ who will read it and where will it end up? ................................. ................. .I wrote a note on the first page recounting Juan's decision .................... Dear friend, your book is already running around the world and will make someone happy, because it is very good.

Another anecdote and one of the most extraordinary ones, happened in in Antigua, Guatemala I ran out of books and in my hostel there were none that I could read, They were all in German and the French ones were too complicated for me, so I went to the hostel in front, I found 3 books and took them with me It turns out that they caught me and followed me to my hostel to make me return them ..... !!! PLOP !!!! ....... I returned two of the books that I had with me, that I had already finished reading,  I was left with the three books I had taken from the hostel, they never found out that I had swapped them. As it turned out, I saved one to read later and at the airport before boarding in Lima, I opened it and the first page was written with the original owner's name AND WHAT DID I SEE    my mother's handwriting. My mother’s handwriting is very distinctive, as is her name, it could have been someone with the same name but along with the distinctive handwriting, it was too much of a coincidence ........

I couldn't read it there, I was too emotional. I opened and closed it on the first page ... ... it was not possible. ... as she has never been to Antigua ...... (my mother had passed away so I had no way of finding out the history of how it got there) .. It was a Thriller in English (which she read perfectly and she liked Thrillers) and a book covered with disgusting mould with yellow pages and no redeeming features., ... I took a picture of it and showed it to my sisters and they confirmed it was her handwriting ........... .................................... beyond imagination ......... Then we speculated about how it got there ......... at the end of all the possible scenarios, we thought that she had read it and left it in a hotel by mistake because there was no book exchange system, and she only stayed in hotels ... ... and that's how the book started to travel the world ......... until it fell into my hands around 50 or 40 years later. What a story….

I use this space to show pictures not touristic. the pictures below are in Myanmar and can recreate new images … It is a game for me without end, I could make 100 new images from one by cutting, duplicating, inverting to create new spaces and beyond that don’t exist, they are only visual. Three variations of the same subject. The first picture is the original, a picture taken of a metal gate with my reflection. Some have the characteristics of a painting on a canvas.