annika del quinto

More details

2009-05-22T14:51:00.000-07:00

Next Wednesday will be my final day (for now) in Vale do Capão... I am feeling somewhat anxious to conclude the research that I have been trying to focus on typing these past days. At the same time, I realize that I have been introduced to so much throughout my weeks living in this community, in this valley. Naturism (not the nudist kind;) is a new topic that is really interesting me, and at that, one which I have begun practicing. Have you ever had a medical doctor read your irises to see what is going on inside your body and emotions? I experienced this last week and was something of astounded. Energy therapy is practiced a great deal here, also. The health is practiced and viewed as holistic, encompassing all dimensions of the person and her or his spirit... Every Tuesday, too, I have participated in the Grupo das Gravedas - a group of pregnant women who practice natural birthing methods for preparation for their own birthing processes. The wind here has been picking up, as winter really gets strong in August. With this has come the rain... not too much, but enough to make the skin feel cold. I had my first visit with a chiropractor today and am starting to see more the importance of knowing the body´s structure... my body´s specific structure...
ALright, here are my tid-bits for now while I can...
Fortaleza will be such a change but with this will come refreshed perspective.
Much love.

Getting out and in touch

2009-05-22T14:47:00.000-07:00

When I have gone on walks here, I cant even believe that I´m in Brasil many times... For example, this afternoon I went walking and it was misting out... gently thick clouds fogged the surrounding mountains over... I came upon a smaller path to my left that was just big enough for a car to fit through... I knew I only had an hour or so before dark would come, and i didn´t have my lantern, so I decided to explore that unknown path which ended up bringing me closer and closer to Morro Branco, one of the famous mountain peaks here that easily forms cachoeiras (waterfalls) when it rains here... I spun around many times with my arms outspread and I breathed in deep more times than I could count... really I was so touched from nature, feeling something such as disbelief at how land is formed and powerful but graceful and calming all at the same time....
I just wanted to share this with you... I am trying to take pictures and videos here to bring back some pieces to share.

2009-05-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

I just wrote down that film title (´The Business of Birth´) - I am getting more and more interested in natural birthing processes and preparations, especially on a cross-cultural bases. I have been here in Vale do Capão for a little over a week, and I will be here for a week and a half more. This is my research time, but in all reality I have been doing more self-focus and nature-integration time. What I have written down for this ´pesquisa´ (research) is very little. But I believe there are many things that come to us without awaiting them, and this time and these experiences have definitely served as examples of just that. This is my time... within this community... So throughout these vivencias, experiencias, that are becoming engrained in me--- through this I will try to make my research into something tangible and somewhat academic.
We shall see, ay....
But this is said with a positive (and a tid bit nervous) heart;)
Those 10 days in Salvador were some of my favorite. The ambiance is definitely unique, as well as the lifestyle in many ways. I did feel a more comfortable sense in Salvador. In many aspects to me, the life in Fortaleza seems very industrial and not as varied. But, I have found some great gems in Fortaleza, too, which cannot be dismissed.
So the focus now--- read about different caring-healing theories, shamanism, meditation, and to write down the different forms of healing I have witnessed and experienced here through the community´s (and valley´s) alternative/natural health options....
Maybe in the future I will be on my way to being a partera!
I am really hoping I can whip something quite good up...!!! It is so unknown right now, but I have got to embrace this wonder, no..?? I want what I write down and present to encompass the sacredness that exists in practice and community here... including spirituality, coexistence and participation with nature, transforming health and healing...

research and something like it

2009-05-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

Vale do Capão is gorgeous and every morning I have woken up and been greeted by the presence of the large surrounding mountains... Lothlorien is a sacred place that has a rich history of people passionately dedicated to community, alternative/natural health and healing, spirituality, and community involvement/integration. It was started as a community in 1984 by two Brasilian couples enrooted in such lifestyles and now has grown, through the épocas, to be a community in spirit and a location of heath, healing, and spirituality. The history of this nucleus of people has formed the valley as a whole greatly and now today the valley is, although with a small population of approximately 1500 people, an area that offers and emphasizes alternative/natural health and healing (encompassing not only physical health, but furthermore emotional, mental, and spiritual health). Throughout my times traveling these past years and living specifically in Latin America, I honestly say that this open focus on and prioritizing of such elements of health is incredible for a small rural community. There are so many rural areas, and also of course urban areas, where mental, emotional, and spiritual health continue being plagued by tabus and/or people do not have access to such outlets. Now I do not disregard the vast and different sacred indigenous practices that take place in many (specifically rural) locations, but the problem of non-attention and non-access is widespread regarding such themes.
So this is a new emphasis that i think my research is going to take on...
The people living in Lothlorien are genuinely caring and they have a way of reaching different elements of people in sentimental and human ways.
My second day here I hiked with two new Brasilian friends to a waterfall called Rio Preto and we swam there among the water-encompassed rocks. The water felt so refreshing and just good --- a good that I couldn´t remember before feeling in water. ..
Mom--- Thank you for your selflessness and attention and care and help and on and onnnnn that you have specifically put into the OGC housing application. It was beautifully written and your voice sounded as I read the words...
Belleza you are. In all ways sem dúvida.
The internet actually isn´t so hard to get to here. So I will email again in a few days.
Much of the life here is so relaxed in such a way that I am even fully used to. This is a little ´dangerous´ for getting work done... for example, when I ask people when I could interview them, a set date and time is never set... ´ a gente se fala depois ... ´ (oh, we will see one another later and talk... maybe today... maybe tomorrow... maybe that would be better... we will see...;) seriously though! But there is soul in this, you know. I do not say this in a mocking way... It is just unique here... But I did have a good, uplifting talk with my advisor today. She has been at Lothlorien since the beginning and is the only remaining founder living here.

Bolivia

2009-04-22T15:59:00.000-07:00

Evo Morals is off his hunger strike. What will happen now? Was this act by Morales really a form of ´blackmailing´ as opposers claimed? Was this necessary of Morales, being that he is the leading force as president?

2009-04-22T15:58:00.000-07:00

Holistic Health & Healing: Alternative Practice at Lothlorien

Health and healing based off the ontological caring competencies (self-reflection, cultivating stillness, receptivity, imagination and reverie, focusing attention, energetically creating space, recalling the sense of compassion or agape, and centering and expressing intention through touch/energy work)1 provide a base for creating a new reality, a refreshed world view. These unique realities and world views derive from Martha E. Rogers’ theory of the “Science of Unitary Human Beings.”2 The healing arts,3 as Doctor Cecilia Wendler calls them, (such as the ontological caring competencies) are enrooted in history, yet the connection of holistic healing and health to society is fractured and perplexing. Despite this there continues to exist a “holistic, unitary nature of human beings and their environment.”4

This research will investigate and analyze how the alternative community of Lothlorien, located in Bahia’s interior (Vale do Capão), supports the philosophy of the Science of Unitary Human Beings through its methods of practicing holistic5 health and healing. How does Lothlorien embody an alternative6 reality? In what ways does Lothlorien promote a distinguished world view? How are interconnections of health and healing made in Lothlorien’s coexistence7 with nature? A further focus will be upon the ways in which meditation, nature, communal living, and natural birthing8 are transformed as healing arts. Ethnographic methodology will be used throughout the research to conduct principally informal interviews (approximately 15 – including one group interview) with Lothlorien’s guests and leaders, participate in communal activities such as daily meditation and weekly natural birthing classes, and work as a volunteer for the community - fulfilling any farming and/or administration needs. Participatory observation will be used more than interviewing. No tape recorders will be utilized. When interviewing, interviewees will be asked why they chose to live in Lothlorien, how they view and experience health and healing at Lothlorien, and how communal living (with others and nature) has affected their (well) being.

Despite the worldwide existence of differing alternative communities, there is a need for a furthered academic vision encompassing the ways in which health and healing can be uniquely explored within these communities. This alternative outlet provides the potential for health and healing to not solely be medical, technological matters, but further linking them to nature and defining them as experiential, energy-requiring processes in which space is created through caring relationships in a process of expanding consciousness, resulting in a sense of wholeness, integration, balance, and transformation…9 As the increasing extinction of natural resources occurs, it is vital to learn how different communities are living with and amongst such resources in sustainable, peaceful ways – offering not only natural health alternatives but also emphasizing conscious connections with mind, body, spirit, soul, and earth to foment an alternative meaning for progress and an interesting contrast to everyday society.

-Ethical Issues: The primary ethical issues with my research regard community members’ boundaries, specifically dealing with respect for space. Since Lothlorien bases upon communal living, it will be important not to impose an overly-professional dynamic into the space – where people could feel they are not being recognized for the wholeness of their being. I will work to prevent this potential issue through my participation in community activities, as if I were an average guest. Informal interviewing will also allow greater flexibility that will acclimate to the mood of the environment as well as people’s needs and wants. Additionally, before attending the natural birthing class permission shall be received from each participant to allow my presence, and it will be voiced beforehand that I can be asked to leave at any time throughout the sessions if necessary. Prior to each interview and/or research interaction, participants will be informed of my study’s focus in addition to the goals I have set, allowing questions to be asked.

- ISP Format: The format to encompass the whole of my research will be a combination of art and formal writing (a formal paper). The method/type of art used will depend on what I experience and what resources I encounter at Lothlorien.

-Bibliography:

Cowling, Richard W., Smith, Marlaine C., Watson, Jean. “The Power of Wholeness, Consciousness, and

Caring: A dialogue on Nursing Science, Art, and Healing.” Advances in Nursing Science. Vol. 31,

No. 1, pp. E41-E51. 2008. Wolters Kluwer Health; Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.

Dias, Maria Djair. “Histórias de vida: as parteiras tradicionais e o nascimento em casa.” Revista

Eletrônica de Enfermagem, v. 09, n. 02, p. 476 – 488, 2007.

http://www.fen.ufg.br/revista/v9/n2/v9n2a14.htm

Villoldo, Alberto. “The Four Insights: Wisdom, Power, and Grace of the Earthkeepers.” Hay House, Inc.

2006.

Villoldo, Alberto. “Shaman, Healer, Sage: How to Heal Yourself and Others with the Energy Medicine of

the Americas.” Harmony Books. 2000.

Wendler, Cecilia M. “Understanding Healing: A Conceptual Analysis.” Journal of Advanced Nursing. 1996,

pp. 24, 836-842.

-Timetable:

Week One:

--Activities: Settle in, explore Lothlorien and its surroundings, volunteer work 3 hours/day, 1 natural birthing class, daily meditation class

-Conduct five interviews (specifically one associated with the natural birthing class)

--Goals: Learn community history and philosophy from leaders, observe functioning systems of community (who does what, what are demographics of community members, how is daily rhythm, etc.), develop a personal base with community members

--Participatory observations will be recorded daily in the afternoon (for approximately 1.5 hours) and every other day records will be organized by the categories of: events, observations, feelings/thoughts

-Additional reflections of the day will be recorded before bed

Week Two:

--Activities: volunteer work three hours/day, 1 natural birthing class, daily meditation class, participation in any additional events offered visit surrounding community (weekend stay?)

-Conduct ten interviews – one of those being a group interview – (with guests, leaders, a different participant of the natural birthing class, and a gardener and/or farmer of the community)

--Goals: Learn a greater extent of community members’ life stories from their time at Lothlorien, come to deeper understanding and wider perception of how Lothlorien embodies the word alternative, explore various ways in which nature is used in healing (medicine, meditation, exercise, etc.)

-- Participatory observations will be recorded daily in the afternoon (for approximately 1.5 hours) and every other day records will be organized by the categories of: events, observations, feelings/thoughts

-Additional reflections of the day will be recorded before bed

Week Three:

*All interviews finished

--Activities: volunteer work 3 hours/day, 1 natural birthing class, daily meditation class, participate in any additional events offered, complete any unfinished obligations/wants, wrap-up conversation/s with (advisor) Sônia

--Goals: Spend much time with specific community members whom I have most connected with throughout prior two weeks, compare and contrast answers from research/interview questions – look for patterns

-- Participatory observations will be recorded daily in the afternoon (for approximately 1.5 hours) and every other day records will be organized by the categories of: events, observations, feelings/thoughts

-Additional reflections of the day will be recorded before bed

It has been too long

2009-04-22T15:57:00.001-07:00

Hello dear people!!!
Recife, Pernambuco, greets you along with me as I am here in a dark internet cafe on an unknown street that has ´Better Together´ by Jack Johnson playing on the stereo... Oh good language connections through music.

The group and I arrived yesterday afternoon to Recife where we dropped our luggage off and went straight to do some touring. Supposedly we saw the first synagogue to ever exist in the Americas. Recife is known as the Venice of Brasil... after hearing this, the reasoning was obvious. To the left and right water ran under bridges - homes and apartment buildings stood to each side, overlooking the rivers. Even just after being here for one full day, Recife already gives me a good feeling -- something more ´home-y´ and comfortable than the industrialized feel that Fortaleza gives off. There are more trees here, more green space in general is present to the eye.
This morning we met with a rabbi at a different synagogue. Initially I wasn´t sure why we were focusing so much on visiting a synagogue; the program has no Jewish emphasis... Then we were told that it was because the leaders wanted the group to see more how different religous groups and movements have formed communities here in the NE while still being ´minorities.´ The discussion was something of interesting... It is funny to note how many times the importance of things said can pass you by while trying to understand a different language... For example, today the rabbi was talking about eliminating hunger. He kept saying that he did not want to ´get political,´ but numerous times he emphasized how ´hunger would not exist if Israel´s neighbors would stop attacking them...´ My ears stood up seconds after processing these words. Following such comments, the rabbi went on to say something to the sort of ´There is discrimination, but in Brasil we are all one; if someone wants to do well and vencer, they can. (kind of sounds like the capitalist thought of ´pull yourself up by your bootstraps´... But what about the neoliberal politics that come in the way of such statements being true for society (especially for the marginalized)??
Hm...
Tomorrow we will be spending the day at an indigenous community. There we will see and learn about how social action is manifested among different communities.
In the back of my mind rests the knowledge that in already less than two weeks I will be going to the interior of Bahia (Vale do Capão) where I will stay three weeks by myself to do research about health and healing. I will attach my final independent research proposal to this email in case you want to get a better idea of what I will be doing.
I feel like I need some rural in me. Although, in a few days we will be in Salvador, Bahia, which is famous for its Afro-Brasilian movements and pride. So that area may be hard to leave but I think my time will be coming.
Alright, next time I won´t take so long to write.

Muito paz e abraços,

Anni/ka

Lula letting it all out.

2009-03-30T14:54:00.001-07:00

Last week Gordon Brown was in Brasil visiting and just the day he arrived, President Lula made a public statement declaring that it is due to greedy blue-eyed, blonde-haired Westerners that Brasil is suffering from the economic crisis hoy dia.
This was a gutsy statement, although true, to make - specifically when the description fits pretty well PM Gordon Brown. Did Lula speak without thinking of the possible repercussions or do we need more people denounce publicy what is already well-known and unsaid..?

Some vacation time

2009-03-30T14:53:00.000-07:00

Here is an email I sent out to friends and fam March 22:

I just arrived back to Fortaleza yesterday from a vacation that began last Wednesday night. I traveled to Canoa Quebrada, a beach town, with some others where we rented out a small house (good connections work out great;). The number of people inhabiting that space was quite substantial... we had at least four hammocks hung, people sleeping on floor mats, and others taking advantage of large bed space by scrunching bodies onto the mattresses. The only somewhat noticeable air flow was via open windows. More than that, the flies are undeniably attracted to sticky, beach-worn, street-exploring skin. On small budgets and flexible mindsets, we made communal meals and specifically went for the cheap, quick-to-boil carbohydrates (aka pasta)... We did agree, though, that guacamole was a necessity. After all these weeks of reminiscing about the splendidness of avocado back home, guacamole was made and devoured. I should mention that it has been largely brought to our attention via our homestay families that avocado is a fruit, although it is treated like a vegetable in the US. For the majority of Brasilians whom I know here, to even think of mixing salt with avocado is strongly distasteful. Here, avocado is used to make juice, ice cream, and it is also cut open in order to be doused with sugar and eaten as so. Yes - quite the difference. I had to laugh when my grandmother here outwardly scoffed and walked away as she saw me pouring salt into my smashed avocados as I was making guacamole for my host family to try. PS my dad and aunt Jackie love it - got ´em;)
Anyway so live music was ever-present in Canoa... we ate our last meal there with the tunes of even Michael Jackson seeping through the open windows (Brasilian man eloquently singing ´Billy Jean´). Saturday was ótimo (awesome) - via another connection some friends and I got to go out on a small, wooden sailboat for free. At our farthest point out we were given the ´ok´ to jump out and float. It was pretty amazing to be at that depth with the ocean, feeling the rhythm of the waves in a totally unique way. When we returned back to shore, a Colombian couple came upon us and we chatted with them for a while, later buying some jewelry they were selling. Spanish was so refreshing to hear! It is pretty great to realize all the people you meet when going on spontaneous excursions like this... One of my favorite aspects is hearing where people have been in their lives, what they have encountered, and how they have found different, alternative ways to sustain themselves throughout these processes... this Colombian couple had come from Medellín to Venezuela and then finally to Brasil (which will not be their last stop). It is so interesting to see this bartering, ´troca´ (exchange) process of business being lived out... alternative options from using hard cash - people relying on people in good faith and supporting one another without fully knowing each other (especially when looking for a place to sleep and eat).
Soon it was time for sunset, so we headed to the sand dunes. A friend´s sister here brought out her sand board for us to try out... gliding down the steep sand hills on something like a mini snowboard. I would say it went pretty well. Then a guy from Salvador, Bahia, with whom we became acquainted earlier, brought over his guitar and we sang/played out some Hootie and the Blowfish and Bob Marley. The night took us into the morning all while enjoying a reggae fest on the beach. It was pretty surreal to look up into a deep sky where stars were so prevalent, seeing the ocean and its waves washing in at the bottom of your eyes, and hear the reggae beat in the background.

Events coming up this week: visit to and stay with the MST (Movimento Sem Terra).
More to come.
PS I have to drop this in quick--- My experiences here thus far with SIT have been unique and very special with much value, but the [Augsburg] Center for Global Education has something understood - it has something not able to be fully worded-out that very very few other programs have. I personally have much authentic saudade for CGE and moreover for its professors, leaders, and mentors.

I hope everyone is doing so well and I want to congratulate and send out all my love to my brother, Luke, and new sister-in-law, Abby, on their marriage.

reflections.

2009-03-25T15:47:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was sincerely a refreshing day. I was challenged and I think it was a challenge that I innerly had been yearning for and NEEDING on this trip. I presented a visual ethnography and in it I featured my host sisters - Bia and Nany. Nany is actually my cousin, but she is like a sister.
The photo is so touching. I will actually attach it to this email right after I finish typing.
The ethnographic topic I focused in on was family and the different perceptions and treating of family on a world-wide (more specifically Brasilian-US base). Then I realized more that it would be better to make the topic more personal and rather than focus on the broad US-Brasil comparisons, I zoom-in on doing a case analysis, for example, with our family and my Brasilian family. It is intriguing to see the amount of extended families who live together here and/or who also live in such close proximity to one another (I'm talking like two houses or so away). I have also witnessed this in other Latin American countries. But then you take into account economic circumstances, solidaridous ties amongst family, definitions of "family" (are cousins defined as "extended family" to some or are they treated/referred to as "brother" "sister" in different homes?) Also to think about: privacy, respect -- I read a Chicago Tribune article the other day and it emphasized those two words when talking about extended family living with one another. According to the Times, 60 million Unitedstatesians have a grandparent living in their home... But then it went on to talk about how a lot of families choose to build on to their homes in order to have extra space and privacy... With my Brasilian family specifically, this is not an option. In order to get in to my room (which I share with my sister) I must walk through my parents' room (which is also my grandma's room, too) . And then how is communal space defined? How does putting up walls (literally) affect solidarity and communal relationships?
Ok, so I am not covering all that I detailed yesterday in my presentation but hopefully you can follow this mind madness. ..
One more thing on this note: How is the word 'family' defined by each member of my host family? What are the values and emotions people attach (or do not) attach to that word?
How is this in our nuclear family at home in the US?
It is so complex here to just begin to think about how not to speak with blanket, generalizing statements... We each are trying to grasp where it is that we are coming from and how those roots innately affect our perceptions of what we are seeing, living, learning, and analyzing here... It is simply reality now that one cannot say "We from the US..." --Because who is the "we"? An immigrant family from Latin America? An Asian, Black, White community??---And even in such 'communities' each person has their specific history, philosophies, perspectives, norms... Of course, "I statements" are very important... but to go further than that is what is key... And then also sometimes feeling like I don't have validity to make some statements because of my European-Scandivian origins... But then I think of mom--your stories about working across-culture throughout a large portion of your life and living in housing ... But then I also realize that I have experienced deep realizations and learning also across cultures, and I do have my own experiences and emotions tied in with those and those ARE valid... So how do we speak and open up vital, difficult dialogue without allowing the political correctness to hinder what needs to be said..??"

!!!!!!ARRIBA EL SALVADOR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-03-16T17:46:00.002-07:00

Mauricio Funes now will be the President of El Salvador, representing the FMLN. This win can be compared to Barack Obama´s win in the United States. Change has great potential to come in El Salvador and the people have now demanded it. ..
In the 2004 Salvadoran presidential elections, Bush threatened that if the FMLN would win, remittances to El Salvador (one of the top sources of income for the country) from the US would have the potential to be gravely undercut and the FMLN would not have the full support of the US. Now, with Barack, the US´ relationship with Latin America can mejorar mucho -- but we must be conscious of the US´ historical tendency to have Latin America as its ´backyard;´

Growing in to Fortaleza

2009-03-16T17:46:00.001-07:00

Right off the bat, some of my most memorable experiences have been on the ônibus - the public buses - here in Fortaleza. Whether it is flagging down the bus and then running to the back door in order to find yourself encompassed by pressing bodies, ready to jump your back in order to hop up the steps as the bus driver starts to rev-up and the bus threatens to chug forward (the threats are overwhelmingly acted upon)... Then when you finally pass the feat of making it onto the bus´ back flat platform, your hands anxiously reach for space on the well-worn hand rails as you try to calm your swinging bag that hangs uneasily from your shoulder... Within 30 seconds sweat is felt leaving its marks upon your skin and mixing with others´ around you, leaving you aching for the bus to rapidly speed up again so that you will receive at least a short blast of wind relief from the open windows... But then the time comes just too fast when the bus slows down at a sudden speed as if it was about to get in an accident... The embarassment of having to work your way through people (aka pushing your big backpack through first, following it with your clumsy body as you nervously try to grip anything/one solid in sight in order to act against the thwarting, unpredictable movements of the bus, continuously saying ´excuse me´ and many times ´sorry´ to those whom you are forced to squeeze through just to make it to the front of the bus for your 2.5 seconds to hop off)--yes, this embarassment doesn´t ease off too easily. But you do have the potential to learn how to become more assertive. ;) So this, my friends, has been daily in my life for these past weeks. But I subconsciously adore it. I love being able to navigate my own way to school and back via public transportation. Even just looking out the windows every day it is amazing what the city streets present to the eye...
The informal business sector fills nearly every block, being one of the main sources of Ceará´s employment. (Ceará is the state that encompasses Fortaleza city) Tapioca stands are a hit. This is not Western tapioca, mind you; this is typical Northeastern/tropics food. Tapioca is made out of manioc (yuca) and cassava starch and then butter is soaked into it before it is fried and rolled up... It makes for a chewy treat that is pretty light on the stomach. It´s easy to notice the many people the bus passes - a great deal doubled-up on bikes, avoiding the big puddles from the sometimes on-going rain... More to come about bus realizations...

So these past weeks have been filled with thoughts about the Independent Study Project that each person from the group will do near the conclusion of the program... I just handed in my proposal this morning - it feels nice to have that done but yet I know there is much, much more that I have to keep up on (esp. readings for research). I am planning on living in an alternative community in the interior of Bahia, Vale do Capão, where I will study the worldview and functioning of Lothlorien (a specific community there). I am interested in how these communities establish themselves outside of the mainstream capitalist system and furthermore how they work with earth, mind, body, spirit connections to foment community and health in sustainable and peaceful ways... living in coexistence with the land and positively utilizing its resources while at the same time returning the enrichment back into the land by such alternative ways of living. So lately I have been searching for good literature on alternative living/communities, nature-human connections, capitalism (which of course isnt as trying to find vast lit. on), etc...
This afternoon we had Linda M. P. Gondin, a Fortalezan sociologist who works with regional and urban planning, came in and talked for a couple hours with us. She had some interesting input on favela programs and planning...

Independent Study Project

2009-03-11T15:27:00.000-07:00

ISP - Independent Study Project. All students on this program here in Fortaleza (Ceará), Brasil, are currently preparing - or ´should´ be - for this. We will have three weeks to live on our own and study a topic that pulls us, that we are most interested in. Moreover the plan is not to simply study, but to integrate ourselves as much as possible and to develop deep connections and realizations with the focus our study. I am feeling blundered by this right now. What does that mean, anyway? Proposals are due this Friday. I am step-by-stepping (or trying) to work this out more.

Something beautiful

2009-03-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

So some great things have been going on back at home since I´ve been gone in Brasil. This is bittersweet, even heartbreaking in some ways to realize, but at the same time it is joyous. For example, my brother just became a husband last Sunday. Wow. I finally got to see a couple of the wedding pictures today and I really could not believe that the man there was my brother.
I know, one would think right now--- Why were you, Annika, not at your own brother´s wedding?!!
Well, if only things were so simple... Let´s keep it short and say that my brother and I were pulled into two different life realities: me-Brasil, him-the Army.
But I can say whole-heartedly that my spirit was there with my family without a doubt.
How wonderful is it to know that someone you care about so dearly has opened themselves up to more love in life... yes.

Brasil Brasil...

2009-03-05T06:43:00.001-08:00

Alright,
So today is the 7th day being in Brasil - Fortaleza, Ceara, Brasil... ! Bom dia (which is pronounced "bom geea")! PS, this different pronounciation has been quite a change for me... It sounds lusciously good, though.
The time here has been a bit of a blur, especially since yesterday we just started going out and around the city. Last night I met my host family and, of course, I tried my best to mix in the little Portuguese I know with my Spanish. Portunol, my family calls it;)
Of course the weather is beautiful, but in this beautifulness the humidity does show itself... and my Norwegian skin makes sure to detox via the sweat method... It's as if my body has forgotten how the cold feels ( I say this with a little hesitation, as I know MN is sure to bring its cold truth back to me).

I am with a group of 24 students and our first days here were spent in what we figured out to be a Catholic retreat center. The many Mary and Jesus images gave it away;) I guess the center rents out rooms to various groups like ours. But anyway, there were times when I felt like I was on the show Big Brother... because we did not leave the "compound" until Monday. A five day orientation will really get you, let me tell you.
Fortaleza is in northeastern Brasil, along the Atlantic coast. It is an extremely flat city with a population of approximately 2.4 million people. Fortaleza also lies only 4 degrees from the equator.
Historically, the neighborhood that I and many others from the group live in is one of, if not the largest, favelas in all of Latin America (a favela can be translated into "ghetto"). Although, one would not necessarily be able to tell this because the area is so spread out and not every plot of land would constitute as this.

My family is very warm and my pai (father) just brought me to the university this morning via the bus service.
We have to start class now but I send you all my love and I will try to write back asap. The internet is not as available here, as it was in Central Am.

Beijos,

Anni/ka

Messy

2009-02-23T19:55:00.001-08:00

My name is Annika and I have nearly all the clothes that will be traveling to and throughout Brazil with me-- on my room's floor. The benefit of this spontaneous clothes-flying-and-then-landing-on-places-where-I-should-be-sleeping is that I go with my rhythm. Going with one's aire [air] can almost always be more enjoyable, no? By amassing the cloth into indeterminable shapes then I did get to clean out my dresser drawers, try on numerous pairs of pants - 95% of which I found to no longer fit me [specifically in the hips/waist region]. This is good, though-- there is a new consignment shop in town and I am thinking of taking the now-too-tight clothes there... and I feel refreshed. ..Although I do believe I will feel more refreshed as I directly leave the area of such packing pressure - my room - for Brazil.
Eek I just said it!
I am leaving!... Wednesday... LIVE LIFE WITH YOUR HEAD ALWAYS MOVING--!!!

Reflection

2009-02-23T19:49:00.000-08:00

Wow. If you want to read a strong article that will reach to your emotions and put some rage into you [rage that always has the potential to turn into a critical analysis of the diverse world realities and then move on to transform into productive, ethical social action], then read the article previously posted.
While reading, I immediately wanted to highlight what I have copy-and-pasted below. These [below] sentences have immense reason and they have resonated a great deal with my past studies abroad in Latin America. Please Read:

The murder of women in Chihuahua state is certainly a socio-economic political issue. After NAFTA, workers from poor villages poured into Juarez, and the rise in violence in 1993 coincides with the boom of the maquiladora economy. On Saturday, the group La Mujer Obrera distributed leaflets avowing that the murders "are the consequences of a global economy that continues to promote the deterioration of the social fabric on the border." Multinational corporations take advantage of loose environmental regulations and cheap Mexican labor...

"Eve Ensler and Amnesty Int'l March on Juarez to Stop the Murder of Young Women"

2009-02-23T19:45:00.000-08:00

Originally published in:
The Village Voice
02/18/2004
http://villagevoice.com/issues/0408/chute.php

By Hillary Chute

February 14, Juarez, Mexico-"Ni Una Mas"-"not one more"-was the impassioned rallying cry this Valentine's Day as activist groups from the U.S. and Mexico converged on this gritty border city to protest the brutal killings of more than 370 women in Juarez and the nearby state capital, Chihuahua City, since 1993. Early Saturday, a rapt crowd of 500-plus men, women, and children, sharing seats and crammed against the walls, spontaneously chanted "not one more" and "you're not alone" at the local university as Mexican professor Marcela Lagarde addressed the "feminicido" that has plagued Chihuahua State for the past decade.

Between 5,000 and 7,000 anti-violence protestors then gathered at the Lerdo Bridge separating Texas and Mexico and marched down Juarez's central Lerdo Avenue, lined with wedding-dress stores and small restaurants. Screaming "justicia," protestors carried black balloons, blurry black-and-white photocopies of missing and murdered women, and decorated dresses hanging on tall pink crosses. Even a group of fraternity brothers from University of Texas-El Paso-decked out in T-shirts reading "men of character"-marched with an enormous canvas of handprints and the declaration "These hands don't hurt."

At the front was Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler, whose international non-profit V-Day co-sponsored the march with Amnesty International, which last year issued a detailed report damning the quality of the criminal investigations in Juarez and Chihuahua City. Accompanying Ensler was press-magnet Jane Fonda and other so-called "Very Important Vaginas": actors Sally Field and Christine Lahti, PBS president Pat Mitchell, Lifetime CEO and president Carole Black, and Congresswomen Jan Schakowsky (Illinois) and Hilda Solis (California). Solis wants to pass House Resolution 466, which supports the multilateral creation of a DNA database in Chihuahua state.

In the U.S., the right wing hopes to smear John Kerry for being within five feet of Fonda in 1970; for most in Juarez, the simple fact that Fonda, whoever she is, is a famous person agitating to draw attention to the murdered women is a hopeful sign. "I am rich, I am famous, I am white, and I have a daughter and a granddaughter," Fonda declared to a group of storming reporters. "If they were murdered or disappeared, I know the authorities would work very hard to find out who kidnapped them." Fonda concluded her comments by admonishing the press: "Why did it take international movie stars to turn up for you to be here?"

A little over ten years ago, according to an Amnesty Now article, the number of women murdered in Juarez-a city of roughly 1.3 million-averaged three a year. In 1993, the number skyrocketed to three a month. Many of these murders are classified by the police as "situational," as in domestic violence and drug- or gang-related violence, even though the similarities between the murders clearly point to a larger trend. The mutilated bodies of young, poor women are dumped in and at the outskirts of the city. The average age of the victims is 16. At least one-third of them work in the city's maquiladoras, or foreign assembly plants. More than one-third of the women are raped before they are killed, and most of their bodies show signs of captivity and torture. Once seen as a problem in the rough, crime-ridden Juarez alone, the murders have now spread to Chihuahua City.

Rumors about the killings identify its perpetrators variously as the state police, an international organ-trafficking ring, Satanists, organized-crime factions, serial killers from the U.S., a group of local serial killers, and the Mexican government.

So who is killing the women? At an emotional press conference in the crammed lobby of the Juarez's modest Monte Carlo hotel on Friday, one mother of a murdered girl answered, "We don't know. Why do they leave them like this [mutilated]? What are they trying to erase? . . . I am sure the state police of Chihuahua know what happened to these girls. I want to know. That's a mother's right." Amnesty's report declares that "the failure of the competent authorities to take action to investigate these crimes, whether through indifference, lack of will, or inability, has been blatant." Alma Guillermoprieto, who wrote about the killings forThe New Yorker this past fall, sees "active collusion" by the Chihuahua police as a logical possibility, and "active indifference" as the least-incriminating explanation. The police deny all involvement.

The murder of women in Chihuahua state is certainly a socio-economic political issue. After NAFTA, workers from poor villages poured into Juarez, and the rise in violence in 1993 coincides with the boom of the maquiladora economy. On Saturday, the group La Mujer Obrera distributed leaflets avowing that the murders "are the consequences of a global economy that continues to promote the deterioration of the social fabric on the border." Multinational corporations take advantage of loose environmental regulations and cheap Mexican labor-maquiladora workers are paid less than $5 a day. U.S.-run factories in Juarez-including Thomson/RCA, General Electric, Ford, and Dupont-have done little to ensure the safety of their female workers: girls have disappeared in the waste-grounds adjacent to factories, which are often unlit. Private companies have rejected the idea that they should pay for security for their workers. Claudia Ivette Gonzalez disappeared after her assembly plant turned her away for arriving four minutes late; she was found in 2001 in a ditch with seven other young women. Her employer, the Lear Corporation, stated that the company did not need to provide its workers with extra security because her murder didn't happen on Lear property.

Saturday's protest ended with a free performance of the Vagina Monologues in Spanish and English, featuring the Mexican actors Lilia Aragon, Marinitia Escobedo, and Laura Flores-and Fonda, Field, and Lahti-at a packed local dance hall. Ensler made the important gesture of including monologues (in addition to standards like "Bob," about a vagina-friendly man) that spoke directly to international violence against women. There was a long, moving performance in Spanish about the rape and assassination of women in Kosovo. And Field, occasionally crying, did a piece that focused on spousal acid burning in Islamabad and female disfigurement from bombing in Iraq before she ended with the situation in Juarez. American folk singer Holly Near-leading a chant for "ni una mas"-performed a song for Juarez that also targeted violence in Chile and Guatemala.

Global in focus, V-Day and Amnesty assert that the Juarez crimes are a human-rights scandal. And so while groups like Women in White, a government-sponsored activist party-and even a selection of victim's mothers-were said to oppose the protest in part on the grounds that the vocal agitating lacked dignity, Ensler made savvy choices: pointing to the worldwide problem of gender violence, she didn't single out Juarez for blame.

The Vagina Monologues clearly inspired and often amused its audience. Fonda played a woman who regards her vagina distantly as a "red leather couch" or a "mink-lined muffler," and another piece ran the gamut of orgasm types: "mariachi," "diva," "triple," etc. But the divide between the monologues' occasionally playful content and the issue of unsolved murder at times felt awkward. While the crowd for the most part whooped and roared enthusiastically throughout the show, a group of three mothers whom I recognized from the previous day's press conference-sitting in the front row, placards of their daughters' faces hanging over their chests-silently stood up and walked out mid-way through.

The mothers remain optimistic, but not overly so. In October, Vincente Fox appointed a special federal commissioner, Maria Guadalupe Morfin, to monitor the state's work, and last month, he appointed a special federal prosecutor, Maria Lopez Urbina, to run her own investigations. But for these appointments to be effective, they have to be well funded, and there's no promise yet that Fox won't be as effectively neglectful of the situation in Juarez as he has been since his election. Asked at the press conference if she had hope in Lopez, one mother replied, simply, "We hope to have hope in her." Ensler, for her part, declared Saturday V-day for "victory": the march was the largest in 10 years of anti-violence activism in the city. As one lawyer for several mothers stated, "This is the only thing that has pressured the government." Ensler vowed, "We will keep coming back to Juarez until women are free and safe."

Thanks to a good woman, person

2009-02-18T21:53:00.000-08:00

Ali Rapp (one of my most highly acclaimed blog-runners and readers;)--
Thank you to this individual I have been introduced to Pandora Radio. You've got to get connected to this online if you're a lover of open radio stations that allow you to simply type in an artist or song and then - ya! - you will have a smooth-transitioning playlist going along with the vibe you're feeling.
Currently, for me it's Sigur Ros.

Utilizing what we can in ethical and free ways---

Pandora Radio everyone.

Thank you summer Admissions Office times ~

Being alright (all right?) with what is unknown

2009-02-18T21:43:00.000-08:00

You know, before (and I'm talking these-past-months-before) it was quite easy for me to get really, I mean substantially worked up while thinking about this upcoming summer... And this was even while knowing that I still would have a Brasil trip coming up this second semester, that I still would have weeks of time at home in Winona to spend with my parents and (partially)"stabilize" myself. But what is it that helps to change these non-stop, thinking, planning mentalities? What was it for me? Talking with people in a "real" manner helped. Trying to get the humanness into my conversations and dialogue about things that really had been going on in my life, processing them not just alone in my mind but with others... as Paulo Freire says in "Pedagogy of the Oppressed" - being in communion with the people to critically analyze life's realities and act upon a transforming reality.
Am I even making sense? Life, for me, I have realized more and more, is a lot of feeling what I learn and what I want to say... not so much being able to describe my feelings, my learnings in the most academically proficient or concise manner - but actually feeling some effects inside. I don't know if this is more frustrating or beautiful or worse or a mixture of some and all... But times like these do, at least, remind one of the profoundness of feeling and that one can do it - you know, feel.

The Beehive Design Collective

2009-02-15T20:43:00.000-08:00

I have got to promote this:
A dear friend sent a pamphlet about The Beehive Design Collective to me, illustrating a coloring book project they are doing about the Free Trade Area of the Americas, Plan Colombia, and Plan Puebla Panama. The mission is to transform education by providing provoking, young-people-friendly images that can be used as a base to critically reflect upon and potentially take transformative action challenging US foreign policy and corporate power.
The title of this certain project I received a pamphlet on is Free Trade Area of the Americas and the Global Resistance to Corporate Colonialism.
Please take a look. Especially in you're interested in (alternative, political) art - you will really like this.
Education must go out-of-the-box, challenge the status quo, and be critical while promoting spheres for transformative student action. We need MORE of this in elementary school, junior high school, high school, ...
!
www.beehivecollective.org

Looking for Flamenco Shoes? Let me know.

2009-02-08T12:47:00.001-08:00

Hand-made, black leather women's flamenco shoes from the Ainhoa flamenco company located in Madrid, Spain. Shoes made for foot size 9 to 9.5 (European size 39.5). Leather strap with slit in the middle and small portion of elastic on the side to ensure foot security. Nails located in the heel and toe-portion of the shoe's underside.
Shoes only previously worn once. I ordered them last spring 2008 and found the shoes were too large for my feet.
Original price of shoes: $150 (not including shipping and handling).
Selling price: $100.

If you're interested, post a comment to this blog giving me your email address and/or telephone number.
:)

I love NACLA.

2009-02-05T21:04:00.001-08:00

When Xenophobia Meets Homophobia

Feb 2 2009
Marisol LeBrón
An ugly blame game ensued after the passing of California’s Proposition 8, which restricted the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. With exit polls reporting 70 percent of Blacks and 53 percent of Latinos/as supporting the ban on gay marriage, many white members of the LGBT community blamed people of color for the ban’s success.

The December issue of gay news magazine The Advocate stepped into the fray. The cover of the issue provocatively announced, “Gay is the New Black.” Although the cover story's author, Michael Joseph Gross, dismissed blaming Black voters as a "false conclusion" and a "terrible mistake," comments posted to the site took him to task for other reasons. Most comments strongly disagreed with Gross' Black/gay comparison, but many others asked why communities of color and queer communities are still considered mutually exclusive in the mainstream LGBT rights movement.

A comment posted by "Greg J," pointedly charged, "Gays of color, transgender, and yes, even lesbians are missing from the larger discourse of the gay rights struggle – primarily the gay marriage issue. The gay right's movement was and remains the 'gay, white, middle class' movement!"

The Prop 8 fallout shows how much work remains to be done to connect the LGBT rights movement with other struggles for social justice across a spectrum of issues. Unfortunately, it may have taken the brutal murder of Ecuadoran immigrant Jose Oswaldo Sucuzhañay to highlight the invisibility of queer people of color – particularly queer immigrants – in LGBT rights discourse. His murder will hopefully provide an impetus for coalition building.

Jose Sucuzhañay and his brother Romel were attending a Sunday evening church party on December 7, 2008. They later decided to end the night with some drinks at a local bar in the Bushwick section of Brooklyn. The two brothers left the bar at 3:30 a.m. and walked home arm-in-arm to support each other. Three men drove up to the Sucuzhañay brothers, one man got out of the car and began to shout anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs at them.

The man then attacked Jose Sucuzhañay and broke a bottled over the back of his head causing him to fall to the ground. His brother Romel ran to call the police. Romel saw the attackers kick his brother’s prone body and beat him with an aluminum baseball bat. The beating stopped when Romel returned and told the attackers that he had called the police. Jose was rushed to Elmhurst Hospital and remained in critical condition until he passed away five days later. He was 31 and left behind two children.

Sucuzhañay's killing comes a month after a group of Long Island teens fatally stabbed Ecuadoran immigrant Marcelo Lucero; it also follows the murder of Luis Ramirez, who was beaten to death last July in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania.

The increased violence and surveillance against immigrant communities has coincided with violence against queers of color, including the murder of Duanna Johnson, a Black transgender woman who was beaten by two Memphis police officers last February. Nine months later, she was found shot to death in North Memphis.

Blogger Angry Brown Butch reflected on Johnson’s murder: “Just to be trans, just to be a woman, just to be a person of color in this country is enough to drastically increase one’s exposure to hatred and violence; when oppressions overlap, violence tends to multiply.”

Although Sucuzhañay was not gay, his murder represents the danger and uncertainty facing queers, people of color, immigrants, and other marginalized communities. For the most part, however, both mainstream LGBT rights groups and immigrant rights groups have failed to recognize the potential for collaboration and coalition, even in the wake of Sucuzhañay's murder.

Immediately after the attack, media outlets discussed the homophobic and xenophobic nature of the attack against the Sucuzhañay brothers. But as time went on, reports began to only highlight either the anti-gay or the anti-Latino/a nature of the attack rather than seeing the two as joint-causes.

“I have seen some members of the Latino community express indignation at some outside the Latino community using the attack for political gain," notes Andrés Duque of the Latino/a LGBT site Blabbeando. "I have also seen a Queens-based Ecuadorian community organization put out a call for a vigil highlighting the xenophobic nature of the crime while not mentioning that it might have also been a homophobic crime.”

Indeed, rather than illuminating the vulnerability that both Latino/a and LGBT communities face and interrogating the systemic inequalities that enable that marginalization, some are more concerned with shaping how the incident is described and remembered in the media. One example of this is Diego Sucuzhañay’s denial that the attack on his brothers was homophobic in nature. Although Romel told the police that anti-gay and anti-Latino slurs were shouted at them as they were assaulted, Diego denies that homophobia was an aspect of his brothers’ attack.

Diego told New York’s El Diario/La Prensa that, “My brother Romel told me that they shouted insults against Latinos, that they shouted 'Hispanic sons of bitches,' but not anti-gay insults.” But Romel has not publicly retracted his statement regarding anti-gay slurs. And other family members have spoken about the murder in terms of homophobia also being a motivating factor. So some observers following the case wonder whether Diego’s statements to the press are an attempt to disassociate his brother's murder from any implications of queerness.

Still, many others are people speaking out against Sucuzhañay’s murder by clearly connecting issues of racism, homophobia, and xenophobia. At his brother’s funeral in Cuenca, Ecuador, German Sucuzhañay told the Associated Press, “The brutal killing of my brother Oswaldo is the result of xenophobia, of homophobia and racism that our compatriots are experiencing in these times.”

Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa condemned the xenophobia and homophobia behind Sucuzhañay’s tragic death. Correa told the press that Sucuzhañay was “vilely murdered because of xenophobia and homophobia. They confused him for a homosexual..." The President called on the public to fight against "xenophobia, homophobia and all types of phobia, all types of discrimination, all types of violence.”

While a number of U.S.-based organizations including Bienestar, The Audre Lorde Project, People of Color in Crisis (POCC), and Incite! have all been working to address the intersections between multiple forms of oppression, both the mainstream LGBT and Latino/a rights movements remain remarkably single issue oriented.

The killing of Jose Sucuzhañay, however, challenges Latino/a and LGBT leaders to build a broad-based vision for social justice that acknowledges the linkages between various communities and struggles. Hopefully, both immigrant rights group and LGBT rights groups will begin to see the parallels between a number of these ballot initiatives sponsored by right-wing groups – whether they are anti-immigrant, anti-choice, or anti-gay.

The fight in 1994 to repeal California’s Proposition 187, which sought to prevent undocumented immigrants from accessing state benefits, can perhaps serve as inspiration for those working to overturn Prop 8 and provide an in-road for collaboration between these intersecting struggles. Though not identical, these grassroots struggles provide a crucial space for collaboration between marginalized communities.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marisol LeBrón is a NACLA Research Associate and writes about pop culture for her blog Post Pomo Nuyorican Homo. She is a doctoral student at the Program in American Studies at New York University.

Wake up Call -Mexico- by John Ross

2009-02-05T20:45:00.001-08:00

Mexico: Due for Another Revolution?

Feb 5 2009
John Ross
Never before has the contrast between the World Economic Forum (WEF), the annual clambake of the capitalist class in Davos Switzerland, and the World Social Forum (WSF), created a decade ago to beat back the corporate globalization of the Planet Earth, been quite so stark.

While the moribund masters of the universe met on their ice mountain in the midst of the most chilling world-wide depression in a century, largely triggered by the overweening greed of those in attendance, tens of thousands samba'ed in the tropical heat of the Amazon city of Belem to celebrate the demise of capitalism. Among those on hand at the WSF dance party were presidents Chávez of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Bolivia's Evo Morales, Ecuador's Rafael Correa, Paraguay's Fernando Lugo, and Brazil's Lula da Silva. Lula who is usually a devoted Davos-goer eschewed this year's funerary event to avoid the stench that inevitably results from rubbing shoulders with mummies.

"The God of the Market has been broken," the one-time São Paulo metalworker proclaimed to tens of thousands in Belem. Writing in the Mexican daily La Jornada, Luis Hernández Navarro pointed out that it was precisely the social forces represented by the WSF that propelled Latin America's social democratic presidents into power.

Indeed, the only two Latin heads of state to attend the caviar and champagne-laced charade in Davos were Colombia's widely-disparaged Álvaro Uribe and Mexico's questionably-elected president Felipe Calderón, both of them Washington's darlings – not even freshman U.S. president Obama, who recently lambasted the machinations of the same breed of bankers who gather each year on the ice mountain as "shameful," showed up in Switzerland, an event that his predecessor in power George Bush never missed.

Felipe Calderón's trip to Davos got off on an inauspicious foot. On the very day he flew out to the WEF, Bank of Mexico president Guillermo Ortiz confirmed that his country was in full-blown recession. For months, Calderón and his obscenely obese Secretary of Finance Augustin Carstens have characterized Mexico's economic health as only suffering from "a little cough" ("catarrito"). According to Bank of Mexico prognostications, the Aztec nation will suffer negative growth in 2009 (.8% to 1.8%).

The news hit Felipe like an ice ball from hell.

Seeking to put a happy face on his country's dismal future, Calderón championed Mexico's 1.5% 2008 growth rate but fooled few. Mexico's anemic performance last year put it in 24th place out of 24 Latin American economies in the International Monetary Fund's rankings, even behind Haiti, the economic basket case of the Americas. The IMF is predicting 1.1% growth for Latin America in 2009 and, like Ortiz, calculates that Mexico will fall into negative numbers.

The Mexican president's delusional optimism in the face of so bleak an outlook played to incredulous audiences at Davos. Calderón also sought to blunt the recent blockbuster report of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that Mexico is a potentially "failed" state by handing out trinkets like baseball caps bearing the ambiguous legend, "It's All In The Trust." The giveaway ("magic spikes" to keep the mummies from slipping on Davos's icy streets were also distributed) came during a session at which Calderón flogged Mexico's chances of weathering the current economic turmoil. The Mexican president's talk was slugged "Riders On The Storm," a title plagiarized from the Doors' 1971 apocalyptical anthem about a cowboy spree killer – lead singer Jim Morrison was reportedly heard thrashing about wildly in his Paris grave.

As a bonus attraction, Calderón teamed with former Mexican president Ernesto Zedillo, now head of Yale University's Institute for Globalization Studies, in an act conducted entirely in broken English that verged on tragicomedy. Zedillo, who coined the term "globalphobics" in reference to WSF types at the 1996 Davos get-down, revealed that the bank bail-out he sponsored during Mexico's mid-1990s meltdown and dubbed FOBAPROA, has drained 20% of his country's gross domestic product (GDP), bragging that the 400 trillion peso outlay was triple that of what the Bush-Obama bail-out has cost U.S. taxpayers.

As might be anticipated, the Calderón-Zedillo act did not play well on the homefront. While the Mexican presidents cavorted with the living dead in Davos, a half million of their compatriots were marching through the streets of Mexico City to protest the economic wreckage the neoliberal ethos has wrought here. On January 25, former left presidential candidate Andrés Manuel López Obrador from whom Calderón stole the 2006 election, and his Movement to Defend Mexico's Oil & The Popular Economy assembled upwards of 200,000 in the great central Zocalo plaza. Five days later, farmers and trade unionists matched that outpouring to denounce the damage done by the current crisis.

Among the crisis indicators: 6% inflation, the highest in ten years, and 340,000 jobs lost on Calderón's watch – he campaigned as "the president of employment." Just what Mexico's unemployment numbers are is deeply obfuscated. Government bean-counters at the National Statistical and Geographic Institute (INEGI) claim it is no more than 4%, but under INEGI parameters, anyone who worked for more than an hour in the informal economy during the previous week is considered employed. Utilizing such criteria, the emblematic apple sellers of the 1930's Great Depression would not be determined to be jobless.

On the other side of the ledger, Enrique Galván who authors La Jornada's "Money" column calculates that 70% of the nation's 45 million-strong workforce does not have a steady job. A maquiladora industry that assembles consumer goods for the ravished U.S. market and which generated a million jobs in the best of times has gone kaplooey and the Big Seven automakers (including Toyota, Nissan, Honda, and Volkswagen) have shut down their plants for the duration of the downturn.

Meanwhile, workers' pensions, privatized under Zedillo, have gone up in smoke with those paying in losing up to 30% of their retirement funds in the past six months. To compound the devastation, the peso has sunk to record lows, having been devalued by 32% since last August 4, when it weighed in at 9.87 against the dollar. (At this writing, 14.78 pesos will buy you one dollar Americano and the exchange rate is climbing for 15.) Nonetheless. Mexico's banks, rescued by Zedillo's 15-cypher bailout and subsequently sold to transnational financial conglomerates registered a 38% profit increase in 2008.

The current blasted economic landscape here bears striking similarities to another period of devastating downturn a hundred years ago: The 1907-08 depression was trip-wired when commodity prices collapsed and money dried up, casting tens of thousands of Mexican workers into the streets and accentuating the monstrous divide between rich and poor. To counter working class rage, dictator Porfirio Díaz cranked up repression, massacring hundreds of striking textile workers in Río Blanco, Veracruz and miners in Cananea Sonora. Synchronistically, workers at Cananea, the eighth largest copper pit in the world, have been on strike for the past 18 months in spite of Calderón's efforts to break the walkout.

Despite the shattered economy and his deep-rooted unpopularity after 34 years in power, Diaz decided to run for re-election in 1910, stealing the vote that June and jailing opposition leader Francisco Madero, a role model for López Obrador. To celebrate his "victory," Porfirio Diaz threw a huge party to mark Mexico's first 100 years of independence from Spain, expending the nation's entire social budget on useless monuments, many of them lined up along Mexico City's Champs D'Elysie, the Paseo de la Reforma. The pageantry culminated on Independence Day, September 16 with the installation of a gilded Angel of Independence on that glittering boulevard. Two months later, the Mexican revolution, led by Madero, exploded, and Díaz was forced to flee the country.

Just before Felipe Calderón took off to tete-a-tete with the dead in Davos, amidst patriotic bombast and flowery fireworks, the Mexican president announced the construction of the Arc of the Bicentennial to be inaugurated September 16, 2010, commemorating both the 200th year of Mexican independence and the 100-year anniversary of the beginning of the Mexican revolution. Following the Porfirian model, the Arc of the Bicentennial, whose cost was unannounced, will be built at the foot of the Paseo de la Reforma.

Mexico's political metabolism seems to break out in insurgencies every 100 years on the 10th year of the century. In 1810, the country priest Miguel Hidalgo launched the struggle for independence from the Crown. In 1910, Francisco Madero ignited the fuse of the epoch Mexican revolution.

At this writing, there are less than 330 days until 2010.

Thinking about the money

2009-02-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

Medical expenses...$200
Registering Brazilian visa in Brazil...$100
Books and supplies...
Independent Study Project... possible interpreter fees... extra travel...

And my father just asks me: "Did you find that you were able to be thrifty in Central America?...Thrifty when you wanted to or had to..."
--I pause to think. ..

So, of course, the kitchen is where nearly all of the big discussions go down in the Gunderson home. Today I sat reminding myself to breathe deep, or to even breathe normally, in order to lessen the effects of my father's hesitations and sometimes choppy thought processes- where, a few seconds before saying a word, his fingers would come down, sometimes drumming on the table as a prelude to his words... Man how that builds up the intensity, I tell you.
This all has been revolving around my up-and-coming study abroad experience that will be taking place in Brazil through SIT, the School for International Training. You would think that after studying abroad a few times already, I would be used to these days building up to the departure, that I wouldn't have so many questions, and even that the wonder about the trip and future comrades of the program as a whole wouldn't fill me with something of fear... Well, I must contest. The words stating that every experience is unique in itself hold reason.
I do not finish this post on a negative or even on a skeptical note; let's just say an array of feelings unable to be labeled continue to linger...

:).