Most Fascinating People

"Gianni Menichetti". Photo (c) Marco Bakker

It’s been nearly ten months since I began my sabbatical/belated gap year/break from the “real world” - whatever you want to call it - and during that time I’ve met a lot of amazing people. Those who I’ve found most fascinating have been the ones living totally bohemian lifestyles completely outside the norm, shunning society’s “rules” and really just being. And then there are those who don’t know any different - they live what, to them, are completely normal lives, but lives that are completely alien to most of us. 

There was Gianni Menichetti in Positano, Italy, an artist, poet, and self proclaimed philosopher who lives in a wild Canyon called the Valley of Il Porto with his forty plus dogs (yes, he knows all of their names - I asked), numerous cats, chickens, birds, and other creatures. My friend Claudio brought me to meet Gianni one day, simply telling me in advance, “I think you’ll find him interesting”. It was quite an understatement.

Il Porto

Valley of Il Porto lies on the outskirts of Positano and is a pavilion of sorts open to the Tyrrhenian Sea but protected by 1,000 foot cliffs. It’s overgrown and completely wild, with an art deco-esque abode at one end, an animal sanctuary on the right, and a fountain type, moss covered structure carved into the cliff on the left.When Claudio and I approached the front gate, the 40+ dogs announced our arrival.

"Gianni Menichetti in his Wild Canyon" (c) Lina Eve

Gianni was unlike anyone I'd ever met, not only in looks but in character.
He had a tattoo in the center of his forehead, eyeliner-esque tattoos outlining his eyes, and a big, bushy black mustache. His hands, too, were covered with henna like tattoos. Perhaps what was most striking about him though were his black sideburns, which hung down past his shoulders, braided with little beads attached at the ends. He reminded me a little of Captain Jack Sparrow.

Gianni spoke perfect English. He told me about his efforts to preserve the canyon, and about fighting the developers who want to come in and destroy his sanctuary. But mainly, he talked about the love of his life: Vali Myers, an artist, dancer, and complete free spirit. He didn’t show me his artwork, but Vali’s. And when I left, he gave me a book he’d written about her.

Check out Gianni here - as I said, fascinating:   "His Savage Mistress" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tK1tflgkX8A

Mai and her friend on on hike to the village

Mai. Mary Logan and I met Mai in Sapa, Vietnam. She’s from the Black Hmong tribe, and speaks a tribal language, as well as English (no Vietnamese). Along with her three sons and husband, Mai lives in a two room shack that is a six hour hike from the main market in Sapa.

“I used to be poor,” she told us in her broken english. “I didn’t even have any chickens! But now things are going well. My husband and I have our own house and a water buffalo to help us in the rice fields. And soon we’ll have enough money to buy another one.”

It’s amazing the differences in the definition of “poor.”

Mai's Home

Mary Logan and I hiked the six hours with Mai to her village and her home. A family of pigs lived in the front yard. Chickens roamed about freely. The house was composed of two rooms - the main room, which was kitchen/loom room/living room, and the bedroom, which also housed the fire pit/stove. The walls were loosely built, with a three inch gap between the dirt ground and the start of the wall, and two inch gaps between the boards of the actual walls. As you can imagine, Mai said it gets pretty cold in the winter.

Mai’s mother and sister were in town visiting, and together we prepared dinner of buffalo meat, tofu, mushrooms, and rice. Mai’s sons were about five, three, and one and were all incredibly polite - the five year old even stuck out his hand and said “nice to meet you” when we first approached.

Bedroom and kitchen

We spent the night at Mai’s in a bed covered with mosquito netting, listening to the pig grunting outside, and later, to the storm that had blown in. It was an incredible experience, and amazing to meet someone like Mai and be welcomed into her home. It wasn’t even seeing “how the other half live,” so to speak. It was a complete cultural awakening, a look into the life of a tribal family  who considers themselves fortunate to own chickens and water buffalo; a family who makes a living picking rice, weaving fabrics and selling silver jewelry, and for whom a trip to the grocery story encompasses a six hour hike. 

Sundays with Jim. Jim Haynes is another bohemian I was fortunate enough to meet when my friend Duc (another intriguing character I met at the Tour de France in 2004) invited me to dinner two Sundays ago.For the past thirty years, Jim has hosted weekly Sunday dinners in his atelier, a former sculpture studio located in the 14th arrondissement.  The premise is simple - every Sunday, a different friend prepares a feast, and the first sixty or so people who call or email him are invited. Yes, sixty... although in summer he’s had upwards of one hundred fifty. As Jim puts it, he believes in “introducing people to people.” The dinners are complete melange of age, ethnicity, profession. There’s no formal seating, just a few couches and standing room. It’s all about mingling and making new friends.

Jim checking the guest list

New friends mingling

Over a delicious pre-thanksgiving meal of turkey, green beans, stuffing and cranberry sauce, I learned about Amsterdam from a newly transplanted couple from Seattle, was invited on a pub crawl with some university students, learned about a new author’s inspirations, chatted with a Parisian about what he considers the best off the grid sites in the city, and looked at photos by an artist exhibiting her work at the dinner. 

Jim has authored a number of books, and I flipped through a few, gaining better insight into his philosophies. “I’ve never worked a day in my life,” begins one of his books (I really liked that philosophy). Another demonstrates his views on formal education by stating "Schooling is not a very subtle way of brainwashing." Jim once edited a series of guidebooks to Eastern Europe and Russia, but rather than fill them with “must see” monuments and museums, he filled them with names - little biographies of people he’d met who had offered to act as guides and welcome travelers to their cities. 

As Jim puts it: “Like Tom Paine, I am a world citizen. All human history is mine. My roots cover the earth. I believe we should know each other. After all, our lives are all connected.”

I highly recommend doing dinner at Jim’s for those of you planning a trip to Paris anytime in the near future. It was certainly an unforgettable experience, and one of the best things I’ve done in Paris yet.

Check out Jim’s website here for information on how to get a dinner invite: http://www.jim-haynes.com/