January 2012
6 posts
Do unto others...sometimes?
So I won’t lie. I basically have no real knowledge of what’s been going on in the GOP primaries for the past few months. I’m not even sure if I can name all of the candidates, or if I know who’s still in and who’s still out. But yesterday I saw a videoclip which really freaked me out. Not because of something one of the candidates said, but because of the...
“Travelling is a brutality. It forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of...”
– Cesare Pavese, Italian author
Feliz Último Año Nuevo
gentequeviene:
Por Regi Rivas
“Dios está en todas partes, pero convénzanse que está más cerca de los pobres que...”
– Leonardo Boff, Brazilian Liberation Theologian. “God is everywhere, but be convinced that he is closer to the poor than to the rich. In this he resembles lice, which are closer to the poor than to the rich.”
El cacique taíno
Excerpt from “Memories of Fire” by Eduardo Galeano
1511
Yara
Hatuey
In these islands, many are those who choose their death, hanging themselves or drinking poison together with their children. The invaders cannot avoid this revenge, but they know how to explain it: the Indians, so savage that they think everything belongs to all, Oviedo will say, are people who by nature are lazy...
December 2011
3 posts
Don't talk to me about human rights.
“I always hear a lot of hypothetical examples. But do you think you could give me an example of how the blockade has affected you personally?”
“Easy. Try to imagine this. Your daughter gets sick – a thyroid problem. And it’s serious. But you live in Cuba, so you go to the doctor and they do the exams for free. They diagnose her for free. They operate on her for free. You’re so relived, and...
November 2011
5 posts
Vamos acercándonos al fin...
Well, it was a good run, but like I predicted in August, I fear that my dedication to writing has faltered over the past month. And due to the fact that my mother seems to have blessed me with her talent of forgetting things rapidly, who knows if I’ll even be able to remember enough of what this past month has involved to write more than an introductory paragraph.
Basically for the last two weeks...
2/3
We got back from Nicaragua two weeks ago today, and it already seems like an eternity ago. It’s crazy how quickly we can adapt to different environments - it’s like we flip a switch or something. I’m having trouble remembering what I’ve even done for the past two weeks; there seems to be some sort of black hole where that time has disappeared to. I did go to my first...
October 2011
3 posts
And just like that...
…our Nicaraguan adventure is behind us. It’s weird – you spend so much time planning and thinking about a trip, and then all of the sudden your back home (“home”). I’m certain that I’m going to feel the same way come next May; whether it’s ten days or ten months, time always seems to fly when you look back on it.
We left Costa Rica on October 10 and made it to Nicaragua without any...
Happy Columbus Day
Something to think about as you celebrate the “holiday.”
*****
From “A People’s History of the United States” by Howard Zinn:
“When he arrived on Hispaniola in 1508, Las Casas says, ‘there were 60,000 people living on this island, including the Indians; so that from 1494 to 1508, over three million people had perished from war, slavery, and the...
Dos Meses
Today is October 9, which means that I’ve been in Costa Rica for 2 months. It’s hard to believe - time has been flying. It feels like yesterday that I was waiting for the new LASPers to arrive, and now Core Seminar (their first class) is over and tomorrow we leave for Nicaragua.
For me, Nicaragua was an amazing trip when I was a student, and I’m hoping that the students enjoy...
September 2011
10 posts
Aires
Last week I was ill. At night I would be struck by fever and spend the nights rolling around in sweat (while freezing at the same time), and during the days my head would throb upon standing, sitting, or looking at anything. Given the symptoms I think we all know what it was: an aire.
What is an aire, you ask? Well, if I really knew I would gladly explain. But I can only offer a vague...
2 tags
Mortification
Me: So am I supposed to be offended that not a single one of the students has friended me on facebook?
Hannah Schundler: BAHAHAHAHAHHA
Hannah Schundler: you should be mortified
Hannah Schundler: no
Hannah Schundler: they hopefully aren't using facebook too often
Hannah Schundler: i mean, i was on it 24/7, but they shouldnt
Limón
So the students have completed their first 2 weeks of core seminar, which means that last weekend we had our first trip as a group to Limón. Limón is the name is one of the 7 provinces of Costa Rica, as well as the name of the capital city of the province. It’s on the Caribbean side of the country, which means that in a lot of ways it has more in common with other Caribbean countries...
1 tag
“The phrase the ‘discovery of America’ is obviously wrong. What they discovered...”
– Noam Chomsky (via selchieproductions)
“Cuando llamamos a Dios ‘Padre Nuestro’ oimos inmediatamente su...”
– Abbé Pierre, French Catholic priest and member of La Résistance française during World War II. “When we call God ‘Our Father’ we hear immediately his response: ‘And your brothers…?’”
"They're here..."
Bueno, taking a break from translations, songs, and frightening pictures, I thought it might be time for another update about my life here. It seems like forever ago since I was describing my first week here, but it’s been less then 2 weeks. Time is a weird thing. I often feel like I’ve been here forever, and at the same time feel like I just got here. Peculiar.
My second week of...
August 2011
7 posts
The Sword of Damocles
Here’s another translation I did. It’s an excerpt from a longer speech given by Gabriel García Márquez concerning the arms race. It was given in the 80s but I think it’s still applicable. I’m not trying to be depressing with this - I just like the way that he describes “the end.” I also need to reiterate once again that I’m not a translator and that my...
“A veces pienso que Dios supo multiplicar, pero no supo dividir.”
– My host mom, talking about why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Translation: “Sometimes I think God knew how to multiply, but not how to divide.”
Translations
So I read a lot in Spanish, and often times I wish people who didn’t speak Spanish could read some of the same stuff. There are probably translations that exist somewhere, but to make things easy I’m going to start translating some excerpts from things I read that I think people might enjoy. Or at least stuff that I enjoy. I am by no means a translator, and cannot promise that any...
“We have reached a point in our evolution in which we know a lot. We know a hell...”
– Manfred Max-Neef, Chilean Economist
Así empieza...
(Here begins what is probably one of hundreds, maybe thousands of blogs which will be created today and most likely forgotten in a month. And that’s probably being optimistic.)
Saludos desde Costa Rica. Today is already Friday, which means I have completed my first week as the program intern of the Latin American Studies Program. This semester’s LASPers still haven’t arrived,...