Octubre, mes de la revolucion de 1944!

:: No hay respuestas magicas ni metodos milagrosos para resolver los problemas que enfrentamos, simplemente los de siempre: busqueda de entendimiento, educacion, organization, accion... y la clase de compromiso que persiste apesar de las tentaciones de desilucion, apesar de los tantos fracasos y pocos exitos, inspirado ...por la esperanza de un futuro mas brillante (Noam Chomsky)

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A finales del siglo XIX la economía guatemalteca comenzó a depender enormemente en la industria cafetera. Dicha transición intensificó la explotación colonial, el racismo y el autoritarianismo en el país... A través de medidas legales y sociales los campesinos se vieron obligados a dejar sus pequeños cultivos y a comenzar a trabajar en plantaciones. En las plantaciones los campesinos estaban a la disposición de los hacendados (dueños de las plantaciones)... Los hacendados usaron la autoridad que tenían sobre los campesinos para meterlos a la cárcel injustamente y abusar de ellos física y sexualmente.

Al comienzo del siglo XX, distintos grupos campesinos demandaron que el gobierno interveniera en contra del mal trato de los hacendados... Por diez años, entre 1944 y 1954 el gobierno intentó de una manera tangible responder al clamor del pueblo...

En junio de 1944 estudiantes universitarios y maestros de la capital, desafiaron el poder del dictador Jorge Ubico con una huelga y manifestaciones públicas a las que pronto se agregaron elementos de todos los sectores sociales.

Los movimientos pacíficos de junio derrocaron a Ubico. El triunvirato militar que les siguió en el mando, entregó luego la presidencia al general Ponce, a quien la Asamblea Nacional nombró presidente provisional. Pero como el pueblo de Guatemala ya no estaba dispuesto a soportar otra dictadura militar, el 20 de octubre de 1944 el Ejército Nacional apoyado por las masas trabajadoras, se sublevó y derrocó al general Ponce.

Después de las elecciones democráticas celebradas en diciembre de 1944, dos presidentes reformistas, Juan José Arévalo y su sucesor Jacabo Árbenz, restringieron muchas de las prerrogativas y privilegios de la oligarquía cafetera... Los nuevos gobiernos ratificaron una constitución social-democrática, restringieron el trabajo forzado, legalizaron los sindicatos, promulgaron un código de trabajo, expandieron el derecho al voto, y aprobaron una reforma agraria de gran escala...

El periodo de reforma terminó abruptamente en 1954, cuando la CIA derrocó a Árbenz.

blogs, blogs, blogs

In the past months I have really got into using Google Reader to follow news and read about crafts, home decor, everyday fashion, recipes, and other academic blogs regarding Latin America and development. Every now and then I "discover" a new blog that I found worth reading and I add it to my Google Reader so I can check it out whenever I'm bored at work or have some spare time (ok, I check Google Reader more often than that... but I'm trying to control the addiction!)

Today I found a blog with a topic that is very similar to the reason why I started this blog (tho I blog much less than this girl does!). So I thought about sharing here: 

http://makeundermylife.com

Here is a little bit of what Jess wrote in the "About" section:

Even more important to my philosophy is the idea that everyone is a designer of their life and we use intentions (conscious or otherwise) to guide and shape our actions and environment. Sure there are lots of things we cannot control in our lives, but how we respond and design our lives accordingly is up to us.

I have added it to my Google Reader and I hope to learn some and share the fun of designing and improving our lives :)

someday we'll live our lives out loud

"Someday"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYh3olR9xKA


You can go
You can start all over again
You can try to find a way to make another day go by
You can hide
Hold all your feelings inside
You can try to carry on when all you want to do is cry

[Chorus:]
And maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
Try to put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to make things better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

Now wait
And try to find another mistake
If you throw it all away then maybe you can change your mind
You can run, oh
And when everything is over and done
You can shine a little light on everything around you
Man it's good to be someone

[Chorus]

And I don't want to wait
I just want to know
I just want to hear you tell me so
Give it to me straight
Tell it to me slow

Cause maybe someday
We'll figure all this out
We'll put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to just feel better now and
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow
Someday

[x2]
Cause sometimes we don't really notice
Just how good it can get
So maybe we should start all over
Start all over again 

Remember the Immigrant

We serve a God who directs us to care especially for those most vulnerable in society. Our Scriptures tell us of God's special concern for the "alien" or the "stranger," or as more contemporary translations say--the immigrant.

For the Lord our God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes. God defends the cause of the orphan and the widow, and loves the immigrant, giving the immigrant food and clothing. And we are to love those who are immigrants, for God's people were immigrants in Egypt (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

We ask God to open our eyes to the struggles of immigrant workers, for we know that:

We must not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether the worker is a resident or immigrant living in our town. We must pay the worker the wages promptly because the worker is poor and counting on it. (Deuteronomy 24:14)

God's desire is that those who build houses may live in them,

And that those who plant may eat. (Isaiah 65:22)

And yet we know this is not possible for many in our midst.

We know of:
farmworkers who cannot feed their families,
construction workers who have no homes,
nursing home workers who have no health care,
restaurant workers who could not afford a meal in the restaurant.


We know that too many immigrant workers among us are not receiving the fruits of their labor, nor the justice required by the courts.

God charges our judges to hear disputes and judge fairly, whether the case involves citizens or immigrants. (Deut. 1:16)

But our laws do not adequately protect immigrants. Our legal and social service programs exclude many immigrants. Our education programs undervalue immigrant children.

God tells us that the community is to have the same rules for citizens and for immigrants living among us. This is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. Citizens and immigrants shall be the same before the Lord. (Numbers 15:15)

When an immigrant lives in our land,

We will not mistreat him or her. We will treat an immigrant as one of our native born. We will love an immigrant as ourselves, for God's people were once immigrants in Egypt. (Leviticus 19:33-34)

And a special word to those who employ immigrant farmworkers:

Make sure immigrants get a day of rest. (Exodus 23:12)

To those who craft our immigration laws and policies, we lift up God's command:

Do not deprive the immigrant or the orphan of justice, or take the cloak of the widow as a pledge. Remember that God's people were slaves in Egypt and the Lord our God redeemed them from there. (Deut. 24:17-18)

To all of us who seek to do God's will, help us to:

Love one another as God has loved us. Help us to treat immigrants with justice and compassion that God shows to each of us.


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This was one of the prayers that were shared last night at the rally in opposition to the new immigration law in Arizona. It was distributed in pamphlets by Interfaith Worker Justice (www.iwj.org).

More info about the rally:
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/may/29/rally-in-opposition-to-immigration-law/

Eastern and Western attitudes toward nature

A seventeenth-century Japanese haiku by Basho:

When I look carefully

I see the nazuna blooming

By the hedge!

A nineteenth-century poem by Alfred Tennyson:

Flower in the crannied wall,

I pluck you out of the crannies,

I hold you here, root and all, in my hand,

Little flower--but if I could understand

What you are, root and all, and all in all,

I should know what God and man is.

The Buddhist philosopher Suzuki (1960) observes that the Japanese poet does not pluck the nazuna but is content to admire it from a respectful distance; his feelings are "too full, too deep, and he has no desire to conceptualize it" (3). Tennyson, in contrast, is active and analytical. He rips the plant by its roots, destroying it in the very act of admiring it. "He does not apparently care for its destiny. His curiosity must be satisfied. As some medical scientists do, he would vivisect the flower" (3).

Tennyson's violent imagery is reminiscent of Francis Bacon's description of the natural scientist as one who must "torture nature's secrets from her" and make her a "slave" to mankind (Merchant 1980: 169). Principles of monism, holism, and balanced complementarity in nature, which can temper perceptions of opposition and conflict, have largely given way to the analytic urge in the recent history of Western culture.

(from "A Critical-Interpretive Approach in Medical Anthropology: Rituals and Routines of Discipline and Dissent" by Margaret Lock and Nancy Scheper-Hughes, 1990)

Being one with life

I feel pressure within myself to become what I am not yet. I have a constant feeling of failure as I don't seem to achieve the status of who I should be. I feel guilt for not being all that I could be. I fear wasted potential in the use of my time and in the amount of energy invested. I dream of how much I could accomplish if, only if, I would do more and be more.

But the truth is that right now I am who I am, and that's all that I can be now. There's nothing wrong with that. Accepting such truth seems to be the first step to being one with life.

I don't need to be anyone else--I couldn't be anyone else! If I see the need of changing my deeds and beliefs then I should do so without fear of lagging behind. Who sets the standard anyway?

Today, I'll be one with myself; I'll be one with life.

(yep, that's a dialog with myself but you're welcome to comment on it ;)

Participatory Research

"This implies breaking the monopoly of knowledge in the hands of the elites--i.e. giving the people their right to assert their existing knowledge to start with, giving them the opportunity and assistance, if needed, to advance their self-knowledge through self-enquiry as the basis of their action, and to review themselves and their experiences from action to further advance their self-knowledge. In this reflection-action-reflection of the people, professional knowledge can be useful only in a dialogue with people's knowledge on an equal footing through which both can be enriched, and not in the arrogance of assumed superior wisdom. Altering thus the relations of knowledge ... is a central commitment of what is being termed as 'participatory research'."

(Breaking the Monopoly of Knowledge, Anisur Rahman)

undeniably you.

i dreamed you last night.
i combed your hair to my liking.
i dressed you up with new clothes.
i placed you where i could find you.
and so i did.

i dreamed you last night.
but you were still you, undeniably you.

you smiled when you saw me,
we said jokes and we laughed.
i followed you to your hiding place
but you said "STOP,
this is all you'll get from me,
even in your dreams."

============

a bit dramatic, right? well, dreams tend to be. but having dreamed of you makes me smile. i remember you fondly.

Bailey's Meatloaf

I made up my own recipe for meatloaf tonight and it tastes delicious! So I thought I should write it down so i dont forget. I named it Bailey's Meatloaf because my friend Bailey was here while I made it and he gave good suggetions! Thanks man!

Ingredients:
1 lbs. ground beef
1 green bellpeper
3/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
some cooked white rice with corn (i put as much as i had in the fridge :P)
2 eggs slightly beaten
Enough sweet bbq sauce

Preheat oven to 400° F. Mix all ingredients together (except for bbq sauce) and spread on casserole dish. Cover with a layer of sweet bbq sauce. Bake for 20mins or until meat is cooked.

Yay, I've never written a recipe before! So exciting haha... :)

Hegemony

Writing from prison during the 1920s, Gramsci compared two Marxist notions of social control: domination, direct physical coercion of the people by state institutions like the police, army, and law in political society; and hegemony, ideological control through the production of consent by unions, schools, churches, families, and so on in civil society. Civil institutions, Gramsci thought, incalculated in people an entire system of values, beliefs, and morality that he found supportive of the established order and its dominating classes. Workers identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie and  helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting. Hegemony is a worldview diffused through socialization into every area of daily life that, when internalized, becomes "common sense." Hegemony mystifies power relations, camouflages the causes of public issues and events, encourages fatalism and political passivity, and justifies the deprivation of the many so that few can live well. Hegemony works to induce oppressed people to consent to their own exploitation and misery.

In his concept of "American Fordism" Gramsci explored the development of a new kind of hegemonic regime in which trade unions would be subdued, workers would be offered a higher real standard of living, and the ideological legitimation of this new kind of capitalism would be embodied in cultural practices and social relations extending far beyond the workplace. More simply, Fordist capitalism might achieve institutional stability through the achievement of willing consent (keeping people happy) through mass consumption.

Revolutionary political transformation, Gramsci said, was not possible without a crisis of ideological hegemony--changes in civil as well as political society. Socialist movements, Gramsci concluded, had to create "counter-hegemony" to break ideological and cultural bonds and penetrate the false world of appearances as a prelude to the making of new ideas and values conducive to human liberation (Gramsci 1971 ed.; Boggs 1976).
(Peet & Hartwick, 2009)

Society, crazy indeed!

Today, as I read articles for my class "Sociology of Development", I get frustrated with the state of affairs (political, economic and social) in our world and for our lack of meaningful action to change things around.

My frustration drives me to remember Alex McCandles whose story was told in the movie Into The Wild. The following quotes from the movie and soundtrack describe my feelings at the moment:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods; 

There is a rapture on the lonely shore;

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar; 

I love not man the less, but Nature more... 

- Lord Byron

Society, you're a crazy breed.

I hope you're not lonely, without me.

Society, crazy indeed...

I hope you're not lonely, without me

Society, have mercy on me.

I hope you're not angry, if I disagree.

Society, crazy indeed.

I hope you're not lonely...

without me.

-Eddie Vedder

Guatemala:

you fall heavily on my chest.
i cannot breathe.
a smile silenced by hunger.
a heart turn cold by powder.

oh hands chipped by the sun.
oh backs broken by labor.
tell me you can see beauty.
tell me you want to go on.
tell me you are still waiting for tomorrow's sun.

Critics of modern development

Ivan Illich

"We have embodied our world-view in our institutions and are now their prisoners. Factories, news media, hospitals, governments and schools produce goods and services packaged to contain our view of the world. We--the rich--conceive of progress as the expansion of these establishments. We conceive of heightened mobility as luxury and safety packaged by General Motors or Boeing. We conceive of improving the general well-being as increasing the supply of doctors and hospitals, which package health along with protracted suffering. We have come to identify our need for further learning with demand for even longer confinement to classrooms. In other words, we have packaged education with custodial care, certification for jobs, and the right to vote, and wrapped them all together with indoctrination in the Christian, liberal or communist virtues." (Illich 1997: 95)

Illich found the rational human decreasingly able to shape his or her environment because one's energies were consumed in procuring new models of the latest goods. According to Illich, rich nations imposed a straightjacket of traffic jams, hospital confinements, and classrooms on poor nations and called it "development." Yet, more people, quantitatively and relatively, suffered from hunger, pain and exposure than at the end of WWII... For Illich, the "benefits" of the modern world, even its medical systems, education, and democracy, were far from being obvious. The direction this takes is toward total abandonment of development because it inevitably involves growth that will ultimately prove falal. (From Peet and Hartwick, 2009)

Arturo Escobar

"Development can be described as an apparatus .... that links forms of knowledge about the Third World with the deployment of forms of power and intervention, resulting in the mapping and production of Third World societies.... By means of this discourse, individuals, governments and communities are seen as 'underdeveloped' (or placed under conditions in which they tend to see themselves as such), and are treated accordingly" (Escobar 1992: 23)

"Development was--and continues to be for the most part--a top-down, ethnocentric, and technocratic approach, which treated people and cultures as abstracts concepts, statistical figures to be moved up and down in the charts of 'progress'" (Escobar 1995: 44)

On Science and Spirituality

"Science, conceived as evidence and radical questioning, may advance understanding by enabling realistic appraisals of life and its circumstances--for example, by showing that lightening is a giant electrical spark passing from positive to negative cloud particles rather than an expression of anger from the gods in heaven (and hence lightening conductors save lives, while prayer wastes time, preventing escape)--without claiming omnipotence or total knowledge. Some degree of empirical accuracy may be only the beginning of understanding, as existential philosophy argues." (Peet and Hartwick, 2009)

I ask: why understanding? What's the worth of knowing the chemical reactions that happen all around  me if deep inside I feel empty and meaningless?

Science can make life more “efficient” and “better”, true. But efficient and better doesn't necessarily mean lasting “satisfaction” or “contentment”. (For example, I know people that have many luxuries but are always unhappy 'cause they see no purpose in life.)

If, as Geertz said, “man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun,” then I rather spin webs of meaning that bring joy and fulfillment to my life. If worshiping the sun and starts brings peace and joy into my heart, then I'll do so (even if science disqualifies my beliefs).

Rather than seeking scientific advancement, let's advance spiritually—in love, tolerance and honesty.

“What, in human life is truly richness and progress?"
(O'Conner and Arnoux, 1993: 12-13)

To clarify: I do like knowing how the natural world (including our physical body) works. Chemistry and biology are fascinating! However, I have a problem with human existence dependent on science and technology. We are a society fascinated with shinny tinny tech-stuff! But we are a society that has lost its soul, its imagination, its sense of community, its purpose.. because those are things that you cannot find thru science!

Interpretive Anthropology

I just finishing reading an article by Clifford Geerz and I really like the closing sentence so here it is:

"The essential vocation of interpretive anthropology is not to answer our deepest question, but to make available to us answers that others, guarding other sheep in other valleys, have given and thus include them in the consultable record of what man has said" (Geertz, 1973).

This week's trend: Breath Awareness

I've been thinking too much lately: what things do I have due tomorrow? what should I be doing now? or should I be doing something else? how do I achieve my goals? what if I cant? what should I do next? and what about time for my friends? blah blah...

I've been thinking too much to the point of getting overwhelmed by my thoughts and even defeated by them at times. So how to stop this constant thinking that is taking me nowhere good?

--> One way of doing this is to take a few minutes to be aware of my breathing and in that way I create gaps in the stream of thinking and bring myself back to the present moment...

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"Being aware of your breathing takes attention away from thinking and creates space...

Be aware of your breathing. Notice the sensation of the breath. Feel the air moving in and out of you body. Notice how the chest and abdomen expand and contract slightly with the in-and outbreath. One conscious breath is enough to make some space where before there was the uninterrupted succession of one thought after another... 

Being aware of you breath forces you into the present moment--the key to all inner transformation. Whenever you are conscious of the breath, you are absolutely present. You may also notice that you cannot think and be aware of your breathing. Conscious breathing stops your mind. But far from being in a trance or half asleep, you are fully awake and highly alert..."

(A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle)

Abundance

"If the thought of lack--whether it be money, recognition, or love--has become part of who you think you are, you will always experience lack. Rather than acknowledge the good that is already in your life, all you see is lack. Acknowledging the good that is already in your life is the foundation for all abundance. The fact is: Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world."

"Try this for a couple of weeks and see how it changes your reality: Whatever you think people are withholding from you--praise, appreciation, assistance, loving care, and so on--give it to them. You don't have it? Just act as if you had it, and it will come. Then, soon after you start giving, you will start receiving. You cannot receive what you don't give."

(These are excerpts from the book A New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle)
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I find it necessary to constantly remind myself of these basic principles. Sometimes I feel like my "default" state is to complain and to see the negative. Maybe is this consumerist society that teaches us to pay attention to the things we lack, the things we wish we had, and the things others should give us... and all of the sudden we forget and fail to see all the abundance that surrounds us.

I want to change my  my default state to give thanks for all the people and things that are part of my life. In that way I'll be recognizing such abundance, which in turn will lead me to be at peace with the present moment.

Civilization is not an incurable disease [Gandhi, 1910]

"The people of Europe today live in better built houses than they did a hundred years ago. This is considered an emblem of civilization, and this is also a matter to promote bodily happiness....

Formerly, they wore skins and used as their weapons spears. Now... they wear a variety of clothing, and, instead of spears they carry with them revolvers... If people of a certain country, who have hitherto not been in the habit of wearing much clothing, boots, etc., adopt European clothing, they are supposed to have a become civilized out of savagery...
Formerly, the fewest men wrote books that were most valuable. Now, anybody writes and prints anything he likes and poisons people's mind..

This is considered the height of civilization... As men progress... Men will not need the use of their hands and feet... Everything will be done by machinery.

Formerly, when people wanted to fight with one another, they measured between them their bodily strength; now it is possible to take away thousands of lives by one man working behind a gun from a hill. This is civilization...
Formerly, men worked in the open air only so much as they liked. Now, thousands of workmen meet together and for the sake of maintenance work in factories or mines. Their condition is worse than that of beasts. They are obliged to work, at the risk of their lives, at most dangerous occupations, for the sake of millionaires...
Formerly, men were made slaves under physical compulsion, now they are enslaved by temptation of money and of the luxuries that money can buy...
Formerly, people had two or three meals consisting of homemade bread and vegetables' now, they require something to eat every two hours; so that they have hardly leisure for anything else...

What more need I say? ... Civilization seeks to increase bodily comforts, and it fails miserably even in doing so...

[The English] deserve our sympathy. They are a shrewd nation and I, therefore, believe they will cast off the evil. They are enterprising and industrious, and their mode of thought is not inherently immoral. Neither are they bad at heart. I, therefore, respect them. Civilization is not an incurable disease, but it should never be forgotten that the English people are at present afflicted by it."

Apple Cider BBQ Sauce!

Yes, ladies an gentlemen... today, in my first attempt to making my own BBQ Sauce, I created this delicious thing that tastes just like apple cider but is made with a base of tomato sauce! Ok, dont make "yucky" faces, 'cause you have to try it to be able to judge it! And c'mon, I dont have bad taste in food... so you can trust me when I say it was ~pretty tasty~

The ingredients are the following: 1 cup of tomato sauce, 1/2 cup of tomato paste, 1/4 cup of apple cider vinegar (hence the flavor!), some no-calorie sugar, lots of cinnamon!!!, a bit of garlic salt, and a bit of paprika (i'm not sure how much the paprika added to the flavor, but it def didnt make it worst hehe)

So there you go, pretty simple sauce and great flavor!

I thought it was a good idea to start blogging with this story because it touches on a topic that has become very relevant at this point in my life: cooking and eating healthy!

Thinking back to my years as an undergraduate (2005 - 2008) I dont think there were many days in which I ate three meals a day, especially since I was "afraid" of cooking! Not only did I eat in such a random schedule, but I also ate very unhealthy. Unlike what you might believe, eating baby cereal (i.e. Nestum) isnt recommended for a 20-something!!

In consequence, I got very sick in my last semester in school which ended up with a surgery to remove my gallbladder last year. Then, once I started taking medicine and eating more regularly: I gained a lot of weight ('cause I was still very unactive). This made me feel very unhealthy and I knew that I was walking into dangerous spaces... Finally after seeing what an extremely poor diet can do to you, I started being more physically active and more importantly: I became more conscious about what I ate.

Last weekend I got really excited to notice that I have lost around 10 pounds in the last 3 or 4 months. On one hand this is a result of me being more active (walking around 25 to 60 minutes a day). On the other hand, I achieved this, not by following any diet, but by becoming more conscious of my calorie in-take--I've tried to make sure that I burn more calories than I eat.

Choosing to eat and live healthier has finally forced me to cook! I swear at some point I was afraid of cooking and messing things up! But since I have had no other alternative I have at last started cooking, with a little apprehension at first, but to be honest now I love it! The idea of "creating" my own food fascinates me, plus it makes me feel really accomplished when it actually tastes good (which surprisingly is very often).

Basically, what I learned is that eating/living healthier is not impossible, but it requires determination from your part. I'm sure I'll be sharing more food-related stories in the future. For now I hope that I at least inspired you to start taking active care of yourself.

If you wanna learn more: the US Govt has a really good website that explains, in a very simple manner, how to eat a balanced diet that would help you reach your goals (whether it is to maintain, loose or gain weight). Check it out:

http://www.mypyramid.gov/STEPS/stepstoahealthierweight.html