Brotherhood Of The Cock


DAY 18: Maybe it’s because I am a descendant of a Filipino farming family that I have this insomnia problem where I can’t sleep if it’s light out.  Even with shades or curtains, there is always some hinting slit of daylight somewhere, and my body knows what’s really up.  (It also knows when you are trying to cheat it if it feels a sleeping mask against its face.) This explains why I woke up at sunrise around seven in the morning after only sleeping about three hours after a late night out.  “You’re a rooster!” Steph said to me on Gchat as I leeched off the area wi-fi in my hotel room that groggy morning.  I told her, “my Chinese zodiac should be the cock”—and I hate being a cock.  (I’m a tiger, really.)

All day I hated being a cock.  I tried to get some sleep—hiding under the covers, burying my head in a pillow—but it never happened.  Instead I just sat around my room and watched TV.  It was actually just what I needed, a “time out” alone to myself, but with connections to the outside world to avoid feeling in seclusion.  I bummed around, tried to sleep, chat on-line, and was even productive, catching up on Blog duties.

JP was supposed to call me around 12:30 so that maybe we could hit some sights, but he didn’t call until two—to tell me he’d meet me at four.  With that said, most of the day was a bust, although I did get the much-needed rest I needed, minus the sleep.  JP was definitely not a cock—or rooster, if you don’t care for that pun—he did sleep in and even took a nap, passing out on the couch between his phone call to me at four and him actually arriving around six.

“Sorry it’s been a boring day,” he apologized when I hopped in the backseat.

“It’s okay, I needed it.”

To compensate for the lack of daytime festivities were more nighttime ones, but not one as tiring as the night before.  “We’re all smashed,” Tatiana told me.  It was Saturday, December 8th after all, the night of the big Floyd Mayweather/Ricky Hatton boxing match on HBO Plus (it’s not a PPV event in El Salvador), and the Salvadorean couple were going to have a gathering of friends over to watch it at their apartment. 

“That’s cool,” I said.

The first order of business was to get some provisions at the Super Selectos for the party.  “You’ll get to have a tour of the supermarket,” JP joked. 

“I already saw one in La Libertad,” I answered.

“Oh right.”

We drove through the city streets, in areas not mentioned in my guidebook.  “This is Escalon,” JP told me, playing tour guide.  “It’s one of the biggest residential areas of San Salvador.” Primarily housing the college-educated middle class, Escalon had two-bedroom condos for rent for about $450/month in nice gated developments like the one JP and Tatiana lived in.  The average income for a college-educated person ran from $1200-$1500/month, and without a degree, “you could get by.” “Getting by” was a different case on our way to the supermarket, when some guy in an Audi convertible revved his engine to drag race JP in his Volvo down the block—much to Tatiana’s chagrin.

“He was playing with me!” JP argued in defense, racing the Audi part of the way, avoiding collision with another car.  Perhaps Tatiana was just grumpy from being hungry as she went immediately to the snack food aisle when we got to the supermarket, and opened up a bag of Combos.

“I’m so hungry,” she said, sharing some of her Combinations to me.

Her hunger was even more satisfied when the two of us went out for a light dinner/snack at the Multi Plaza mall after we dropped JP off at the apartment to get things ready for company.  We sat down at a table at the Croissant Cafe, a place with a menu in French and Spanish, and chat over light fare.  “We should eat light since we’ll be having a lot of meat later,” she said.  I told her about my insomnia (without using any puns) and for some reason, she mentioned she had high cholesterol—perhaps an ongoing theme of this trip. 

“Me too,” I told her.  “It’s hereditary.”

“For me, it’s [weird].  There’s no family history.”

While on topic, I ordered a smoked salmon baguette sandwich, which she argued was bad for me—high in cholesterol.

“But it’s fish,” I defended one of my favorite foods.

“No, salmon’s high in cholesterol, like shrimps… and oysters.  You have to go for the other fish with blue tones in the skin,” she said, the sudden nutritionist.  “They have omega three.”

Our trip to the mall was not to discuss the healthy qualities of seafood (contrary to what you were starting to believe), but to get me my ticket to Honduras for Monday morning.  It was easy enough to do at the travel agency within the Mexican Sears-esque department store chain Dorian’s, and with ATMS in the mall to avoid credit card surcharges.  Getting the ticket was a snap, and soon we were on our way back to Escalon.

“NICE PLACE,” I complemented JP.

“Thanks.  Next time, you stay with us.”

Juan Pablo’s boxing party was more like a tailgate party before a football game.  Out of the kitchen of their third floor apartment (picture above), JP set up a little grill on a patch of grass in the complex parking lot, next to his car and a lit-up wire Christmas reindeer.  He fired up coals of regional oak-like copinol wood—“None of that synthetic shit,” he said—to provide extra flavor as he grilled up big juicy steaks of prime Argentine beef (one being a big, tender skirt steak like my brother Markty makes).  “The secret is in the marinade,” JP said, having already let the meat sit in a blend of white wine, a little beer, lime, pepper and seasonings.

The utterly delicious slices of cholesterol-level raising beef went down well with the other must-have treat at the party, “American Legend” beer, a special beer brewed in small towns for exportation only.  “You can’t get this anywhere!” he and his entourage raved, one having a hook up as how to get it from a distributor. 

“Have we exceeded your culinary expectations?” JP asked me. 

“Oh yes,” I told him.  “This is like a tailgate party at a football game.”

“Actually, it’s a housewarming party too,” he said.  “This is the first time we got all the friends together here” (since he and Tatiana moved in together).  All of his friends were like family, mostly a bunch of guys there for the fight, plus a couple of their girlfriends.  I was welcomed as the new guest. 

“Are you Salvadorean?” one girl asked me.

“Do I look Salvadorean?”

“A little,” she said.  “Yes.”

“[His last name is Trinidad],” Tatiana said, pointing out my linkage to Latinos.  But it was JP’s friend Enrique who really felt a sort of bond with me until I left—mostly because he was a bit drunk I reckoned. 

“I am for peace,” Enrique said in a bit of slurred speech.  “Violence only leads to violence.” He continued his pacifist rant but said that if anyone stepped to him, he’d—and then did a gesture of a gun.  “But only then.  I am not violent.  I am a very Catholic man.  The only thing you need is family.  Family is the most important thing.  This is my family.  If you [step] to my family, then...” and another gun gesture.  “JP.  He’s my brother.”

“I went to school with his older brother,” JP told me—Enrique told me his older brother had died.  It wasn’t so much a morbid conversation, but one that led me to being one of them.  “You’re Filipino,” JP told me.  “We’re brothers… [I was telling my friend I have this Asian guy coming in from New York, and he’s like ‘Chinese?’ and I said, no he’s Filipino—he’s latin.” He’d had good times with Filipinos during his time in Houston, TX.

“We’re the latinos of Asia,” I told him, telling him of our similar history—a native people overtaken by Spanish conquistadors, with many remnants of Spanish culture intertwined until this day, including some language.  (The “Philippines,” as I mentioned before, was named after King Philippe of Spain.)

NOTHING SAYS BROTHERHOOD than a bunch of dudes watching a boxing match over meat and beer, and that what kind of a night it was.  We watched Floyld Mayweather gracefully kick Ricky Hatton’s ass—while the three girls seemed less interested and spoke of other topics. 

“No, saumon es buenissimo!  Tiene Omega tres!”

The debate would continue with my Salvadorean brothers and sisters, hopefully not too late, because I’d like to get some sleep before daybreak.


Next entry: Made In El Salvador

Previous entry: Surf And Turf


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Comments for "Brotherhood Of The Cock"

  • nice title...and yes Salmon has Omega 3...it’s good...but shrimp and lobsters...high in cholesterol…

    pass the steak please.

    Posted by  on  12/13  at  01:58 PM


  • A Steak entry posted at lunch time… Thanks E.

    Posted by  on  12/13  at  02:20 PM


  • I love seeing the other side of places… neat that you got to see the non-tourist side of San Salvador! For the second day… smile

    Posted by  on  12/13  at  02:53 PM


  • Just as an FYI, eating cholesterol isn’t really that big of a deal.  Here’s a quote from a site at Harvard University:

    “And cholesterol in food? Although it is still important to limit the amount of cholesterol you eat, especially if you have diabetes, dietary cholesterol isn’t nearly the villain it’s been portrayed to be. Cholesterol in the bloodstream is what’s most important. High blood cholesterol levels greatly increase the risk for heart disease. But the average person makes about 75% of blood cholesterol in his or her liver, while only about 25% is absorbed from food. The biggest influence on blood cholesterol level is the mix of fats in the diet.”

    So go ahead and eat that fish!

    Posted by  on  12/13  at  03:51 PM


  • Enrique reminds me of my Black Belizean son, Ray.

    Posted by  on  12/13  at  06:58 PM


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  • U must be silly for you to say that Adebayor is not useless.. If we are talking about who results has been covering then Adebayor should be the first person to be mentioned. He is a pro and you silly ppl out there should stop asking if someone has played professional football before. Watch our next match and tell me,if Adebayor is the leading striker for us or a Midfielder. Damn it… Let us open our eyes before it is too late..

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Next entry:
Made In El Salvador

Previous entry:
Surf And Turf


This blog entry about the events of Saturday, December 08, 2007 was originally posted on December 13, 2007 on the trip blog, "The Global Trip: The Central American Eviction Tour* (*with jaunt to Colombia)." It chronicles a six-week journey through Central America, with a jaunt to Bogota, Colombia.




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