Taken by the Wind » Life Abroad

Imagine if You Could Start Your Own Country…What Would You Do?

Reannon Muth — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 05:35:23 +0000

"Carte Au Tresor" by Tonton Copt

There are people in the world that for whatever reason, have started their own countries. Some of these countries are located on abandoned platforms in the ocean, others on man-made sandbanks and at least one is located right here in the US, (on 1.3 acres of land outside of Reno, Nevada). Most of these ‘micro-nations’ as they’re called, aren’t officially recognized by anyone other than the people who’ve started them but still, it raises an interesting question: What would you do if you could start your own country from scratch? What requirements would you have for those wanting to become citizens? What laws, if any, would you put into place? Where would you want this country to exist?

Entering Molossia by Ryan Jerz

Of the items not allowed into the Republic of Molossia (a mirco-nation in Nevada), for instance, are incandescent light bulbs, walruses and anything from Texas. Passports are required upon entry into Molossia and all visits must be pre-approved by the president, Keven Baugh. The country has a constitution, a national flag and even a national anthem.

My friend and I are planning a trip to there sometime in the next few weeks. It’s about a seven-hour drive from where I live in Las Vegas and being that the country has no hotels, we’ll probably stay in Reno (the capital of Nevada and the closest major city). I have to write their government and request permission for a three-hour visa first though.

Although it may seem unbelievable, judging from the videos made by former visitors and the country’s official website, the president of Molossia as well as the country’s two other citizens (one of which is the First Lady) seem to take their ‘smallest republic in the world’ status seriously. You can watch a promotional video for the country as well as a clip of a tour that was filmed by the Chicago Tribune.

I love this idea. I think that if I were to own my country, I’d want it to be on a tropical island. Meditation classes would be required in all of the schools, as would petting zoos and animal therapy sessions. There’d be a free, volunteer-run massage booth on every corner and community gardens in every neighborhood. Every weekend would be a three-day-weekend, the first Monday of every month would be declared “National Bring a Desert to Work” Day and every house would come with a built-in hot tub. Coffee would always be free.

Dicky Days by Samuel Sharpe

What would your country be like? Would you ever seriously consider creating one?

Here’s the trailer for a documentary entitled “How to Start Your Own Country”. The film (which I have yet to see) features a number of micro-nations and explains how and why they were created. Pretty fascinating stuff, no?

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Why I like Living Abroad

Reannon Muth — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 21:05:39 +0000

Today my Dutch roommate told me that he doesn’t like living with expats.

“At home I’m special,” he explained. “But here, no one cares that I used to live in Curacao,” naming the Caribbean island he lived on for five months before moving to Guatemala.

It’s true. I live in a house with mostly other foreigners who work for an NGO here in Xela. Before Guatemala, they’d lived all over the world. The British guy taught English in Korea and Thailand. The Belgian artists lived in London and volunteered in Nicaragua.

But that’s precisely what I like about it. I love that I can say that I used to live in Japan or Germany and no one even bats an eye. And if they say anything at all, it’s to ask me if the snow festival in Sapporo was as good as it was when they went there.

Some people live abroad so that they can feel different or special. I live abroad because it’s the only place I feel normal.

Roughing It

Reannon Muth — Mon, 31 May 2010 02:05:16 +0000

If I could only use one word to describe my life in Guatemala, it would be this: rustic. Well, maybe it’s not rustic by some people’s standards. I mean, I have a roof over my head after all (although I use that term loosely), electricity (well, most days), cable TV, hot water (sometimes) and most importantly, Internet access. Certainly by Guatemalan standards, I’m living the high life.

But I certainly don’t feel that way on mornings when I trek to the bathroom in the pouring rain (our bathroom is located in the courtyard outside) or when I haven’t washed my hair in five days because we don’t have hot water and it’s too cold in the little outdoor shower shack get my hair wet.

Or when I spend 45 minutes hand-washing my clothes in the basin outside (we don’t have a washing machine) and then it rains so hard that I have to hang them from the rafters in my room and three days later they’re still damp and are beginning to mold.

Pretty much the only way I’ve been able to adjust to this life of ‘roughing it’ has been to just pretend I’m camping. Because checking your shoes each morning for spiders, using an outhouse, cooking by flashlight…these are all things that under normal circumstances might seem like a pain, but when you’re camping, are all just part of the adventure.

View of Terrace

Before my mom came to visit a few weeks ago, I was worried that Guatemala might be a bit underdeveloped for her. I explained that my room was small and that if she stayed there, she’d have to share a bathroom with a Guatemalan family of seven and two Christian missionaries (which was the situation at my previous apartment back in Antigua).

“Well, it can’t be worse than that place we stayed in Europe,” she said, meaning the windowless room we’d shared in Prague. “Or that hotel in Tokyo.”

Here’s a picture of the hotel room we stayed in when I first moved to Tokyo:

Would you believe that this is the ‘Medium-Sized’ room?

“Yes, it’s worse.” I told her. “It’s smaller and there are bugs…ants, termites, cockroaches and spiders.” Which is something you’d almost never find in a Japanese hotel room. And then I added the part that would surely be the deal-breaker: “And, mom,” I paused for dramatic effect. “You can’t flush the toilet paper down the toilet.”

Well,” she said dismissively. “I just won’t follow that rule then.”

“Mom!” I yelled into the phone, astonished. “You can’t just not follow that rule…You’ll brake their plumbing. The pipes are too thin for toilet paper…They’ll have to replace them if you flush it.” I didn’t know if that last part was true, but it sounded about right.

It’s not that I didn’t want my mom to visit. I did. I just wanted to be sure that if she came, that she’d be prepared to rough it. Because although my mom’s a fairly capable traveler, roughing it isn’t something she does very well. Or as she says, there are just certain luxuries that she can’t live without. Namely, clean, private toilets, organic vegetables and cream for her coffee. And Guatemala just happens to be lacking in all three of those things.

But despite my warnings, my mom came anyway. And you know what? She did pretty well! She didn’t complain once. Not when we had to ride a Chicken Bus (it’s a public bus, with chickens in it…and goats, pigs and about a bazillion Guatemalans). Not when she was kept up all night by buzzing mosquitoes. Not when we both came down with severe food poisoning from some bad nachos. And not when we had to hike for 45 minutes up a mountain and she was nearly bitten by this:

Guatemalan Godzilla

I was really proud of her! Although I’m fairly certain she won’t be coming back to Guatemala anytime soon (or any developing country for that matter) she’s proof that you never can tell what a person can or can’t handle until you throw them into it. They just might surprise you.

Anyway, what about you? What do you consider ‘roughing it’? And what are your bare essentials; the items that you just can’t live without?

The Hippies in Guatemala

Reannon Muth — Sun, 23 May 2010 02:39:05 +0000

If you’re sitting in some cafe in Haight-Ashbury and wondering to yourself where all the hippies have gone (like the REAL hippies, not the third-generation-urban-outfit-wearing posers), well, I have an answer for that: Guatemala. While Guatemala doesn’t even register on most people’s radars (“like, is that a city in Mexico?” – is the usual question I get from friends back home) it’s apparently, like, the ‘in’ place to run away to if you’re into yoga, meditation or marijuana.

My mom and I discovered this when we visited San Pedro, which is this lake-side village in the mountains, about three hours outside of the capital.

Besides the heaps of Israeli restaurants (a sure sign there are hippies nearby), there were free yoga and meditation classes, AA meetings, an organic grocery store filled with imported health food and a reiki massage center. And intermixed into all of that (lest you forget where you were for a minute and mistook San Pedro for Woodstock) were the Guatemalans. If I had stayed there longer, I would have loved to have asked some of them what they thought about all grungy gringos that had taken over their village. According to my ferry boat captain (a native of San Pedro) he loved them.

“I love the hippies. Lots of paaaarties,” he said, laughing. And then he tried to sell me some weed.

But the head of the tourist information center thought differently. “Mech,” he said making a face. “Those heeepeees!” He shook his head. “You shouldn’t go to San Pedro. It’s not real Guatemala.”

Maybe it’s not real Guatemala, but I definitely want to go back. Besides the fact that every hotel room has a private balcony that overlooks the lake, it’s peaceful and quiet there. And dirt cheap.

My friend who lives across the lake, in another hippie village called Panahachel, says that a lot of the expats in Guatemala are Americans who’re running from the law. I got a chance to meet some of them at an expat bar. They were those same boozed, aging, leather-jacket-wearing bums you find outside of biker bars begging for change or cigarettes, only this time around they were begging for change and cigarettes in Spanish next to a lake that borders a jungle and two volcanoes. It was trippy, in a ‘I’ve just wandered into some weird parallel universe’ sorta way.

Not to suggest that they all the expats living around Lago de Atitlan are vagrant crooks. Many of them are vagrant artists, entrepreneurs or drug dealers, (ha! I’m only kidding).

AA Meeting Spot in San Pedro

Restaurant Sign in San Pedro

Spanish School in San Pedro

Spanish Classroom in San Pedro

The 999th Reason Why I Hate Kanji

Reannon Muth — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 09:58:00 +0000

I woke up this morning at seven, stepped into the shower, and sleepily pushed the button that turns on the hot water heater.

Or so I thought.

Suddenly the bathroom erupted into chaos. Sirens blared, an automated computer voice started shouting instructions at me through the vent over the bathtub and I screamed in terror.

Apparently the button located near the hot water heater wasn’t outlined in pink because it symbolized ‘heat’, but because it was the emergency call button. I’d just unwittingly notified the doorman, the receptionist and possibly the police, that I was having a heart attack in the bathtub.

Niiice

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, But Reannon, how could you have not known that was the kanji for ‘call’?

I know. I know. It’s so obviously a picture of a one-legged man holding a baby and hopping away from an erupting volcano. I mean, clearly. I don’t know how I ever misinterpreted that to be anything other than ‘call for help.’

The only thing I can in say my defense was that I was still half asleep, which is also really the only logical explanation for what happened next.

I could hear the intercom buzzing so I grabbed a towel and dashed towards the front door and was confronted with a flashing, beeping, vibrating intercom system with no less than 10 buttons, all of which were labeled in kanji.

Damn.

I did what I normally do in these types of situations and I panicked. I punched every button, pausing for a second after each one to shout: ‘moshi moshi!’ into the microphone.

I like to think that if I’d been more awake or less frantic I would have stopped before hitting the bright orange button baring this symbol:

It’s a man with an afro standing next to a tee pee…and they’re both on fire!

But as it happened, I wasn’t and so I didn’t.

Yes, I set off the fire alarm.

Cue an intense moment of cursing as I stood in my bath towel and noted the sprinkler system and the sea of fancy electronic equipment below it. A flat screen TV, a Mac laptop, a DVD player and a playstation. And none of them belonged to me because this wasn’t my apartment. I’d been entrusted with the responsibility of safe-guarding my friend’s bazillion dollar Roppongi mansion with explicit instructions to ‘not set the place on fire’…and I was about to do quite the opposite; drown it in a flood of water.

“Moshi, moshi! I yelled into the intercom. “It was a mistake!”

Damn. I forgot the Japanese word for mistake. “Misutaiku!” I yelled, pronouncing the English word with a Japanese accent.

“Chotto Matte (Just a moment),” came the reply. And then the line went dead. And two minutes later, there was a knock on the door.

I only had enough time to quickly rearrange my towel back into place before I watched in horror as the front door clicked open and in walked a police officer.

Talk about embarrassing. Not only do I have to be ‘that idiot gajin who can’t read’ but I have to be caught wearing nothing but a towel with sopping wet hair and ugly mascara tracks running down my cheeks.

Funnily enough, this has happened to me twice before. I once hit the emergency call button while looking for the ‘flush’ button in a subway station bathroom and I hit it another time while looking for the ‘open’ button to release the automatic door in a restaurant bathroom. I blame those experiences for why I’m now ueber paranoid about using public toilets.

After both incidences, I swore that I’d never make that same mistake again…and I went home that night, looked up the kanji characters in my textbook and committed them to memory.

Or…so I thought.