What Does Hen Tie Mean?

Pa Divorce Song

I recently read Blindness of Saramago and I was quite depressed with the descriptions of that world of darkness where the survivors who did not die of hunger wander apprehensive streets full of garbage, excrement and rotting corpses.

"Les Amants" by Rene Magritte

The deep philosophical message that concludes the book left me thinking about the little value we give to all what we have, and we misuse of resources, electricity, water, food and of course our senses. The hallmark of our societies waste, arrogance and superficiality in behavior makes us blind, blind us to what we have become.

The blind Report Ernesto Sabato, who read many years ago in his monumental On Heroes and Tombs , the blind were the others, the underground, the conspiracy from darkness to life the narrator. But we are all blind Saramago, it's terrible. We are all actors in the dark, not human deserve to see because we have failed to appreciate the clarity, live in the light.

All this and the title gives me the book of short stories by Carlos Fuentes, is a case for some time in La Paz I met a group of blind people in the context of the assessment I made of media projects supported by the WACC in several Latin American countries. What is the WACC ? An organization that has few resources, but places where they can be better used: the right to communication, to generate social change through participation and commitment of the actors.

Alfonso Gumucio and José Luis Aguirre

In this case, the project supported by WACC has been brought to fruition by the SECR (Service Training for Radio and Television Development, the Universidad Católica Boliviana San Pablo), led by my friend Jose Luis Aguirre, one of the leading specialists in communication for development in Bolivia, valiant defender of the right to communication, a concept that many people sounds subversive.

The SECR has developed the project "Training of communicators with disabilities to build their communication rights" a workshop production of radio programs directed especially to a group of blind, I had the chance to meet. The first thing that struck me is that not mince words, the blind themselves and claim that word in place of other politically correct terms, as the blind or visually impaired.

Roxana Roca

The group, assisted by Roxana Roca and SECR technical team, chose the themes and radio formats (news, drama, documentary, interview) developed scripts and programs recorded their own voices. Opened training experience for each participant a new perspective on life.

"I hope to engage in communication, social communicators and an actor, not just a receiver of messages. The right to exercise communication means communication decisions, not just consuming information. Be actors means that we will deliver the messages to show how we can be useful to society, "says Ruben Pomacahua.

and Ruben Alfonso Gumucio Pomacahua

Rubén

I am surprised by the ease with which he handles the laptop that accompanies him everywhere. Programs installed in her voice that let you write and read with the same solvent that makes a person who enjoys the sense of sight. While typing quickly a voice repeats what you just typed. His fingers fly over the keyboard, the voice is accelerated to the point that I ask to make it more slowly, to understand better. He's already used that voice to demand maximum speed automatic.

Reuben and his fellow blind people ask me to send texts on communication rights, a topic that interests them greatly. "Texts? "Yes, text in Word or PDF, our computers can read them perfectly, "I respond.

Ruth Aguirre

To Ruth Aguirre, the training course in radio became a family environment "in addition to what I learned about communication, has changed the way we communicate with my children, which is something I wanted to achieve in order to help them. Some barriers faced in my life and not limit me. "

The learning process for all participants, is coupled with the desire to use what they learn to help others. Ruth, like her other colleagues, is very clear: "I work in radio, to express thoughts and feelings of people with visual disabilities to help them in their lives. I like to do role plays to give some lessons and raise awareness among people who know little about disability. "

Amilkar Castillo

Amilkar Castillo, who lost his sight and adult, I realize that until then working at the Sheraton Hotel in La Paz (now Radisson). I wonder if he met my mother, who also worked there. Sure, she remembers. This point Amilcar conversation with reminds me that in the early 1960's my mother spent part of their weekend social service at the Lodge for the Blind which then remained in the Obrajes curve, a few blocks from my house . Both also remember Alberto Zubieta, who my mother was very fond. Alberto I recognized the voice when, many years later, I found Commerce Street, selling lottery tickets at the door of the National Art Museum.

"We have lost the hat, but not the head. We lost the light, but our other senses are intact, "he says Amilkar. And with that sentence I close this note.

Relieving Bloatedness

blind over the toothpaste

My colleague and friend Alan Fowler, an English intellectual who lives on a ranch in South Africa and divides his time between crops and their international consultancy, I got a few months ago on a new adventure: writing on NGOs and Communication for his book NGO Management, which was recently published in Europe, published in collaboration with Chiku Malunga.

Alan Fowler Alan Fowler

and I, along with Dominique Hounkonnou of Benin, Louk de la Rive Box in Holland and Vasanti Rao India, are members of the International Advisory Council PSO, a Dutch organization for cooperation, specializing in capacity building of civil society organizations in developing countries. PSO has given us the opportunity to meet each year in The Hague to discuss among ourselves and with the PSO personnel, development issues, international cooperation, civil society and media.

The chapter I wrote for this new book by Alan Fowler and Chiku Malunga, "NGOs and Communications: divorce over the toothpaste" (ie, "NGOs and the media: divorce by the toothpaste ") can read files Scribd or A.nnotate , and you can purchase the entire book publisher ordered from Earthscan , which also has a catalog special for those interested in the social sciences.

Beyond my analysis of poverty or lack of communication in the internal and external work of NGOs, and Fowler's book contains Malunga in more than 450 pages 30 contributions from 40 authors from universities, research institutes and NGOs from Europe and North America and some in Africa, Asia and Australia. It seems I'm the only Latin American in the package and one of eight new texts premiered in the book.

The chapters address the problem from multiple angles of NGOs in the world of development and social change. To this end the authors have divided the book into nine parts, each with two or more texts, through which it covers the full spectrum of work of NGOs as organized spaces of interaction in civil society. The main parts dealing relations between NGOs and civil society, strategies, approaches and applications, organizational development, performance and forms to evaluate them, leadership, learning paths, and sustainability.

Although much written and published nationally and internationally on the world of NGOs, and in all languages, the fact is that very few books with the intention to cover everything, that is, from a reading guide (a "reader" they say in English) that can address all aspects, including communication, which is very rare in the literature on NGOs (which the authors prefer to call NGOs, adding a "D" for development differentiate them from those who only come in emergencies for humanitarian work.
The introduction
compilers of the book placed the issues that have not been sufficiently addressed in individual chapters, for example help to clarify the issue of identity of non-governmental development and the challenges they face in terms of political economy , and the pursuit of efficiency and transparency.

NGOs often operate with excessive confidence, as if they were untouchable and unquestionable, as if the original basis (at birth) was sufficient to justify all their actions. This book is a space for collective reflection shows that the initial good intentions that animate most of the NGOs development can be debated and questioned as is happening now in Haiti (see article in Blanche Petrich La Jornada), and that the NGOs or if you want NGDOs should be the time to reflect internally and self-critical look their actions.

Where Can I Make Thick Silicone Bracelets

Praise Women

met in the city of El Alto Bolivia several women with extraordinary hunger for justice, and equipped with everything needed to make it prevail: intelligence, honesty, enthusiasm, determination, and commitment.

El Alto is so close to La Paz and so far from everything. Is the Bolivian city that has grown rapidly (over harm than good), in just three decades, and does not end suffering growth problems, as an awkward and gawky teenager. The dusty streets and garbage, the absence of trees, the urban landscape holds frightening than when they merely exposes garish brick construction, concrete, bare metal rods. The apathy of the authorities and population, high crime rates, prostitution, drug trafficking and manufacturing, make social problems are acute and that many of the people who live there belong to the range of informal citizenship.

And yet, that same ugly and neglected urban space, is shared by a respectable amount of projects, NGOs and cultural associations to develop a social work continuing, in spite of all that just described.

One such institution is the Centre for Education and Communication for Communities and Indigenous People (CECOPI), which he founded in 1997 Donato Ayma aymara outstanding communicator and former minister of education, and now heads his daughter Tania Ayma. CECOPI and Radio Atipiri visited as part of an assessment that I made a few months from the WACC programs in Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador, and I could not but marvel at the results over those of the expected unexpected in the original project proposal, but are certainly the unexpected consequence of the expected.

I spoke with several women in El Alto, Tiwanaku and Santiago de Callapa who participated in the training courses offered by CECOPI and directed by Tania Ayma itself, and all agreed that since then their lives had changed quickly. Women who lived before delivered to the housework, locked in their communities, suffering from sexism that is prevalent in the world denied aymara and politically active, suddenly discovered new horizons.

is the case Porphyria Quispe Perez, Lidia Apaza Cheese, Juana Choque Quispe, Sonia Ramos and Marthin Alejo Cruz Osco, who told me their life stories. "Before, I did not leave my house and engaged in agricultural work, but since I started working with the radio, my life has changed, my involvement in women's organizations has been increased, and now I'm in the Women's Federation Bartolina Sisa, I was elected provincial leader Pacajes "says Lidia.

"I was very shy," he said Marthin-want to lose the fear of speaking to the public, or visit an office, and in that the course helped me a lot. Now I say 'permission to speak' and I say what I have to say. " Sonia agrees: "My life has changed in some respects, I have more facility with words, I no longer keep quiet, I lost the fear."

paths Lidia, Sonia Marthin and run in parallel. After the course became leaders of their community, and shortly thereafter was elected to political office-provincial trade union. "We have the right to land, law and policy, to make decisions. Now we work to empower women, going municipality by municipality so that they know the rights they have, "says Sonia.

Sonia I asked: "Where you see yourself in ten years? "Without hesitation replied," Minister of Justice. "

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hungry

There are books that I reread and forgetting that I read before. I'm on page 20, or half a book, and recently I realize that I had already read. It happens more often when they are books that have impressed me, that I had left no trace in memory. Therefore, a time now acquired the habit of writing, on the last page, the date finished reading it. Without

forgetful these errors, I'm not reread those books, no time in life for that. Except poetry to which one can come back several times because the lines have good light dawns that you can treat yourself any time of day. With exceptions I trials, perhaps because some have a poetic flight stimulating.

One of those exceptions, I've booked with relish to begin this new year, is "the navel as the center erotic Tibón Gutierre, which I first read a couple of decades in the library Mexican readings published by the National Council of Culture (CONACULTA) and the Economic Culture Fund (over 200 titles published, affordable price two tacos al pastor), and that gives me the same pleasure yesterday and today.

This is a delightful essay, written by one of the leading experts in Omphalos studies, ie studies on the navel. No joke, the navel is a very serious thing, is the center of the human body, but also a reference center in many cultures. Tibón Gutierrez was interested precisely through the navel when he learned that in Nahuatl, the word Mexico means "the navel of the moon." From there he wrote several books dealing with historical research from the navel relationship with religion, art, and even cooking. The navel, he says, is "the door of the mystery of our birth which closes when we reach the world. "

"was far from imagining that the navel, as well as cosmic center, geographical, architectural, psychological, had too many sexual implications. My starting point was a verse from the Song of Solomon, with whom he is related references of the Kama Sutra and The Arabian Nights. Omphale myths and Venus Cipria I opened new horizons, the Bolognese legend tortelín Venus and left me with a smile on his lips rites umbigada Carnac and the Brazilian caught my attention purely erotic aspects " Tibón Gutierrez said.

From "your navel as round goblet, which never lacks liquor," a verse in the Song of Songs, to the moon as the "navel of the sky" in Leopoldo Lugones, sensuality and poetry has invaded the literature forever, and this condensed text Tibón Gutierre very well that way. The umbilicus attached to the idea of \u200b\u200bpleasure more sublime, more delicate: "Your navel may contain one ounce of musk, the mildest of the aromas," says Scheherazade in The Thousand and One Nights. And in the Kama Sutra is talking about the kisses that are given to women "in the joints of the thighs, arms and the navel." And when I read

those references that rescues Gutierre Tibón of India, I can only remember the erotic temples of Khajuraho, where hundreds of women carved on stone, all in different poses, seem wrapped in silk and their navels appear to tremble when you approach.

There's more to the book and the artistic and political genealogy of the umbilicus, such as for the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the etymology of Cuzco also has the same meaning "navel of the earth", ie center of the empire. And Easter Island, called Te Pito o Te henua by its original inhabitants, does not mean anything but "the navel of the world."

One of the most attractive representations of the navel, which not only reaffirms the sensuality sex-linked but also other forms of enjoyment, is the navel that is eaten, ie, the "onfalofagia."

Gutierre Tibón found in Turkish culture references on some delicious pastries are called "navel of a woman", but everything reminds us that the form of Italian tortellini is inspired by Venus's navel (or Lucretia Borgia, according to other versions). There is, therefore, that some eat ravioli tortellini. In the first case you eat pasta, in the second, you eat a sensual symbol.

Gutierre Tibón classifying sports navels in shape. Vertical navel speaks like a miniature female, shaved, which he calls "cat eye" refers to the navel "coffee bean" like "the actress yanquiboliviana" Raquel (Tejada) and Welch other navels that throughout history have inspired poets, painters and photographers.



I also wrote a short poem about the navel in my book Sentímetros "(1990) and was dedicated, as it should be-a Gutierre Tibón:


crescent
midwater fish
transcendent on the beach key astral
naked knot vanishes
blind side, suture
surprised where life ends
to start,
pale tide
night at the slightest touch caught
all trembled res.