November 3. Very dangerous. But perhaps a good believer.

A healthy breakfast in the attic. I don't understand the French guys on the table next to me, although I have said of myself that I speak that language. Don't worry, better focus on the real things, you have a mission now dearest one. The sun stands already high as I walk out and capture some of Aleppo's life with my camera. I am fond of a photograph with a bicycle in the front and a veiled woman in the back. There are hardly any women on the street in this part of the town. So, I am looking for charities. Where to start? First, let's check my upcoming travel itinerary. I walk into a travel agency to ask about the cost of traveling to Israel and perhaps visa information.
"Where's that?"
-"Israel-Palestine occupied territories."
"We don't communicate with them" he cuts me short. It's as simple as that. Any other questions?
I ask him maybe he knows about some deserving charity here in Aleppo and the travel agent happens to know a monseigneur. The next thing I know is I am standing in a church explaining myself in hoodling-doodling French to a very friendly white-haired priest. Yes, his church is working with caritas France and they are supporting Iraqi families with food, medicine, fuel, and rent assistance. I ask if it's possible to visit them and document it for my book. Of course! Two young women take it over from there, and select two families for me that are particularly needy. I am amazed as we drive off in the taxi through the crowded streets of Aleppo. It is real! I can make this my reality.

"So he is the president since 2000? How do you feel about it?"
-"I am very satisfied." she replies.
"But can you tell me some more because I only know the Western media and they stigmatize your country as an evil place and your president as a brutal dictator..."
Well, I don't get the chance to say exactly that because she warns me with a tactful pat on the knee. It is very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very bad to mention Israel or say anything bad about the regime. You run the risk of deportation, simply have to leave the country within 24 hours - if you're lucky.

In the afternoon I walk around in the historical town, and visit a mosque. It's a very nice one, I could look it up for you if you are interested, and give you the name of it. I am looking at a group of people listening to an Imam proclaiming as a student of French literature says bonjour. Our conversion is about Chateaubriand, Racine, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Nietzsche, and Marx. He has fallen in love with the old French literature, with Racine and Molière. Then he takes me to a chamber where the Imam goes after his proclamation. My French companion offers me a seat and begins:
"Do you believe God is one?"
-"Yes, what else could he be?"
"Good! And He has 25 prophets. The last one is Mohammed, but in essence they all say the same thing."
-"I like that idea. We are all brothers."
"Exactly! There is only one religion."
-"Yeah!"
"Do you know what islam means? To accept, surrender, or submit to the highest principle."
-"So true..."
"Welcome to paradise!"

We visit the tomb of one of them, Zacharia. Let me share this with you. Perhaps I am a good muslim. Let's go through the five pillars of Islam.
#1. "God" is one. If I proclaim that you cannot hear the hypens, so that will be okay. Literacy is, of course, not a requirement. I have to work on the second part though, the part referring to the prophet. My concept of "god" is more gnostic: we all carry this voice within ourselves.
#2. I have to get up early to venerate the deity. That will be hard, five times a day at heliologically calculated times. I am not so much into venerating deities, so this is a tough one. But I hope I can make it up for that by overdoing number 3.
#3. Give 2.5% of your possessions to charity. I give away the rest, 97.5% to charities around the world, and try to inspire other people too. That should create at least some goodwill on the part of the Almighty Allah.
#4. Good news. The Ramadan does not apply to travelers! Since I am a traveler in my blood, I don't need to worry about that.
#5. Being so much of a traveler, I'd probably make it to Mekka and become a Haj some day.
There are bonuspoints too. Let's say, circumcision. No comment.

I stay with a cool couchsurfer called Christophe in old Aleppo and I feel like a king, we smoke a bit of Lebanese hasj, and there are some great paintings on the wall. Christophe is a young Frenchman of very friendly, suave, character, and he is in soap. You probably heard that Aleppo is famous for its soap.

We have a great eat out with other couchsurfers, chat about our trips, some of them are on bigger trips. Murdoch from New Zealand is a fellow writer and we decide to hang around together the next day. I can establish a contact for his exhibition of photographs of Iranian prisoners in Berlin that hopefully takes place soon.

May 17. Of huts and coconuts.

We get up with the sunrise and row back to the Koala. It's only 8am when we have some breakfast and sail for some ten minutes to another island we readily agree to call "Monkey Island 2". This time, we start building shelters. DJ swiftly erects some fragile structure with palmleaves and a flagpole with his t-shirt, making him the official emperor of the island. I start digging some holes in the sand because I have bigger plans. It is my German part - pardon me - that plays up and wants to throw DJ off the trone by building a larger Speerian monumental dome. Two thick treetrunks, a connecting stick and an array of interwoven palmleaves as a skewed wall - that's all. The German engineer läßt grüßen. Jawohl. The structure I have created is inmediately dubbed "prison" for its ruggedness. I slam my feet together in jest and lift my arm just like a saluting teuton soldier. Should we destroy it afterwards as a sign of courtesy towards the next visitors, since they deserve to "discover" the same pristine pureness as we did.

In the afternoon, we move on. I steer the boat for a little while, which is harder than it seems. We have to go straight west, 270 degrees, exactly towards the sun to reach the archipelago's westernmost island where we do immigration tomorrow. Fabien, our captain, tells us he once sailed manually from Curaçao, where he had bought the Koala, all the way back to Cartagena because the autopilot belt was broken. It's a tough job. But our captain is a tough sailor. He has done three Atlantic crossings, one of which solo, which is not a bad track record.

We anchor in front of an island with huts on it and antennas on the rooftops. A Kuna with picks us up with his canoe, and we can look around their little town. A Colombian fisher boat from Cartagena has docked to load coconuts, the main source of Kuna sustainance.
It is our money they like the most of us. The streets are full of vendors praising their embroidery. Others are asking a dollar (the official currency in Panama) for a photograph. But I'm not a sack of money, not this time. I enter the island with empty pockets and speak to a man with a boat and an "Orlando pirate" cap. He tells me something about his village. 600 People live here, more ore less traditionally. Their canoes are built only recently (some 15 years ago) and the outboard engines that are mounted on their wooden sterns are a sign of pragmatism, not a disloyalty to their traditional culture.
Some kids are playing basketball and I wouldn't have been me if I wouldn't have joined them. So I dribble barefoot away between those smiling kids and place some shots in the basket. One kid has an excellent throw and manages to put the ball in from the side, several times. Will he play for the Panamenian national team, one day? Would that be possible? I don't know how Panamenian the Kuna indians feel. I know they have a remarkably high grade of independence for a tribe. They are in charge of their own islands. American and French entrepreneurs have tried to buy some islands to exploit them golfcourtwise, but failed. It gives us all a good feeling. Paradise is protected by irrevocable jurisdiction here.