Thursday, November 30, 2006

Charreria.




I saw this programme yesterday on TV, about "Charreria" in Mexico. Basically, "charro" is that person that, in the times of the big "haciendas" use to take care of the cattle.
As part of their job (but also for a bit of fun) they developed all kinds of tricks with ropes, in order to handle the animals: they can trap a female horse by tying the back legs while it is running(!), stop a cow by the tail with bare hands, mount a bull or change horses in movement.

It is quite impressive. And it is a tradition here of many, many years.

For you, some images that I took from the website of the "Federacion Mexicana de Charreria" at http://www.fmch.org.mx/suertesCharras.htm

More on the political scenario...

So the story continues... tomorrow 1st of December, will be the day when the new President takes the job. But now, we do not know if it will happen at the usual place: the Congress.

Some of you may already know what the situation is... apparently it has been published in "Le Monde", "Washington Post", "El Pais", and the BBC website. The delegates of the Congress had a massive fight last Tuesday, trying to take posession of the podium: Calderon supporters with the idea of keeping it safe for the ceremony on Friday, AMLO supporters with the aim of preventing it. This was not just arguments, there were fists involved...

When the worse was over, they decided not to abandon the podium and keep guard of the "gained territory" until Friday. They are eating, sleeping and even singing there... The podium is covered with banners from both sides. It has been branded as the best "reality show" we ever had in Mexico.

It seems that, given the situation, some of the people invited (the president of Colombia for example) have rejected the invitation, due to the current situation. Does not surprise. In fact, it is quite embarrasing...

But now, the important thing is: will the ceremony take place according to the original plan?. The negotiations are going on at the moment. Some have already proposed to change the place, but this is something that the Congress has to decide. Some suggest the president should not attend the ceremony. AMLO's party have started talking about organizing a meeting at the main Square of the city (Zocalo) for tomorrow...

It will be a hard day tomorrow... some of us already wish it was over...

Yet again, TO BE CONTINUED...

Monday, November 27, 2006

...


Niña,
mi siempre niña bonita
para mí, eternamente de tres años.

No se lo digas a nadie,
¡siempre te he amado!
me creí desde el principio
la mentira blanca de existir para estar a tu lado.

Niña,
mi siempre niña bonita
el autoexilio nos ha separado...

Estando lejos
(¡no se lo digas a nadie!)
tú eres lo que más anhelo.

Y aunque yo sé que vuelas con tus propias alas
niña temperamental,
alta, hermosa y coqueta
para mí siempre serás niña
mi siempre niña bonita.

C.

Asonancia del tiempo

Si ya no estoy cuando resulte todo,
cuando el tiempo en que vivo ya no exista,
cuando otros se pregunten si la vida
es el triunfo del hombre, o es tan solo

un perenne comienzo, un grito sordo,
un rasguño en la piedra, la porfía
inútil del abismo, pues la cima
puede llamarse altura porque hay fondo.

Cuando todo resulte sólo quiero
que alguien recuerde que al fuego puse
mi corazón, el único que tuve,

que yo también fui un hombre de mi tiempo,
que dudé, que confié, que tuve miedo,
y defendí mi sueño como pude.

Waldo Leyva — Cuba, 1943

Reflexión...

Ya son meses y meses (más de doce...) navegando a contracorriente. He llegado a puerto y me he sentido agotada, con el espíritu tan seco que por momentos he pensado que se había ido dejando el cascarón detrás.

Siempre puse el alma en todo y parece que hasta ella tenía fecha de caducidad. Me preguntaba si aquéllo era lo correcto... si jugarse tanto en el camino era bueno...
Pienso que sí, que ésto es lo que yo soy y ésta es la vida que quiero vivir.
Y sé muy bien que si continúo por este camino no será la última vez que caiga y que sienta que la esencia de mí casi se pierde en el intento... pero prefiero una y otra vez recoger los pedazos de mí misma que traicionarme y no darlo todo.

No será ésta la última vez que dude, que tenga miedo. Más quiero llegar al final siendo capaz de decir que en todos los aspectos de mi vida he puesto el corazón, el único que tengo...

First Meeting of Iberoamerican Poetry

The Comitee of Culture of the Mexico City Government took the good decision of organizing a meeting for Iberoamerican Poetry last week. As part of it, some public readings took place with some of the most important contemporary poets of Latinamerica and Spain.

It was so beautiful, though I have to say that the fact that they are good poets does not necessarily make them good readers of Poetry.

I am always impressed by the way the written word can touch your heart...

I specially liked the work of Waldo Leyva, Arturo Corcuera, Hector Carreto, Ricardo Castillo, Antonio Mari, Efrain Bartolome, Francisco Hernandez, Jacobo Rauskin, Ali Chumacero and Raul Zurita.

Since posting a poem of each in this same note would take a lot of space (and time to read), I think I will add them little by little. And I still have to translate...

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

A beautiful image.


This is the volcano Popocatépetl (commonly referred as "Don Goyo"), seventy kilometres to the southeast of México City. The name, in náhuatl, means "Smoking Mountain". It is an active volcano!, therefore the cloud of smoke at the top.

We are currently going through a cold wave and it has snowed in some parts of the country, including the top of Don Goyo.

The photograph was taken from the newspaper "La Jornada" and it belongs to Joel Merino.

Gorgeus!.

Pay de queso (cheese pay)



This is the baked version of the cheesecake!.

For the crust:

2 packages of digestive biscuits
165 g of butter
1/4 cup of warm milk

For the filling:

350 g of double-cream cheese (Philadelphia works well)
5 large or 6 medium eggs
1 can of condensed milk
1/2 cup of milk
1 tablespoon of baking powder
the juice of half a lime.

Make a powder with the biscuits. You can use a blender, alternatively put them in a plastic bag and use a cup to break them. Put the powder in the oven tray where you plan to bake the pay.
Melt the butter and add it to the powder together with the milk. Use your hands to mix until you make a paste and then press it against the tray to make the crust.

Blend together all the ingredients of the filling and pour over the crust.

Pre-heat the oven at 150 centigrades and bake until brown.

Delicious!.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

The "legitimate president" of México.


Here I am, on Mexican politics once more. I mentioned in a previous post (14th November) the situation we are living after the presidential elections of the 2nd of July.
Yesterday, at the main square of México City, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) proclaimed himself as the "legitimate president" of México. His position has been thoroughly critisized in México and abroad, branded as a tantrum coming from a bad loser. However, it marks an important moment in the political life of México.

For a start, this is not the first time the presidential elections are doubtful and as a result, the losers ask to open the packages of votes and promote protests. A similar situation happened in 1988, when the founder of AMLO's party Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas won the election, but things were manipulated to make Carlos Salinas de Gortari win. The third person in the battle was Manuel Clouthier, a member of the party nowadays in power.
Like AMLO these days, he claimed the election was manipulated and asked for the electoral packages to be opened. As it happened last summer, the packages were not opened at that time. He then recruited people in his party to form a "shadow cabinet", similar to what we see with the Tories in UK. But then, he died in a "car accident"...

So, what is different now?. AMLO has a huge power with people. Of course, not everybody likes him; if we rely on the results of the election, about two thirds of the voters do not support him. Of course he has some good proposals, but he can be overly idealistic and that can make you think that without a ground approach there will be no changes. This same attitude makes him look ridiculous at times.

At the same time, the country and specially the poor people (the majority of the population) seem ready to follow him and what he represents: a change. Social injustice has never been so clear, according to some "critics".

Also, the coalition of parties that support AMLO is much more powerful now than what was Clouthier's party in 1988. They are 31.6% of the representatives in the "Delegates chamber" and 28% of the representatives in the Senate. They also have governors in five out of the 32 states of the Republic, including the capital.

The idea of AMLO is to use two weapons: to promote bills that their representatives will fight for in the Chambers (the proposals are now included in a list of 20 points he emitted yesterday), and to use his popularity to promote social movements (peaceful ones, he says) whenever they want to put pressure.

He has in fact, an important opportunity in his hands to make changes. If he manages himself in an intelligent way, he will go far. But if he lets his pride and idealism go over his head, he will not only damage himself forever, but also the parties he represents.

I think the idea of the "shadow cabinet" is an interesting one. Of course, as the system is different, it will not work as in the UK.
Whether the representatives can make things happen will depend not only on how united they are, but also on how much does the party in the middle of the battle (PRI) negotiates with one side or the other, as none of them has the majority in the chambers.
As for the social movement, this can be a "double-bladed sword": it can be very powerful (it already saved AMLO from being incarcerated), but it can easily get out of control.

We will see...and yet again: TO BE CONTINUED...

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Walking around

SUCEDE que me canso de ser hombre.
Sucede que entro en las sastrerías y en los cines
marchito, impenetrable, como un cisne de fieltro
navegando en un agua de origen y ceniza.

El olor de las peluquerías me hace llorar a gritos.
Sólo quiero un descanso de piedras o de lana,
sólo quiero no ver establecimientos ni jardines,
ni mercaderías, ni anteojos, ni ascensores.

Sucede que me canso de mis pies y mis uñas
y mi pelo y mi sombra.
Sucede que me canso de ser hombre.

Sin embargo sería delicioso
asustar a un notario con un lirio cortado
o dar muerte a una monja con un golpe de oreja.
Sería bello
ir por las calles con un cuchillo verde
y dando gritos hasta morir de frío.

No quiero seguir siendo raíz en las tinieblas,
vacilante, extendido, tiritando de sueño,
hacia abajo, en las tripas mojadas de la tierra,
absorbiendo y pensando, comiendo cada día.

No quiero para mí tantas desgracias.
No quiero continuar de raíz y de tumba,
de subterráneo solo, de bodega con muertos
ateridos, muriéndome de pena.

Por eso el día lunes arde como el petróleo
cuando me ve llegar con mi cara de cárcel,
y aúlla en su transcurso como una rueda herida,
y da pasos de sangre caliente hacia la noche.

Y me empuja a ciertos rincones, a ciertas casas húmedas,
a hospitales donde los huesos salen por la ventana,
a ciertas zapaterías con olor a vinagre,
a calles espantosas como grietas.

Hay pájaros de color de azufre y horribles intestinos
colgando de las puertas de las casas que odio,
hay dentaduras olvidadas en una cafetera,
hay espejos
que debieran haber llorado de vergüenza y espanto,
hay paraguas en todas partes, y venenos, y ombligos.

Yo paseo con calma, con ojos, con zapatos,
con furia, con olvido,
paso, cruzo oficinas y tiendas de ortopedia,
y patios donde hay ropas colgadas de un alambre:
calzoncillos, toallas y camisas que lloran
lentas lágrimas sucias.

Pablo Neruda.

Friday, November 17, 2006

Alejandro González Iñarritu and "Babel".

I went to the movies last Sunday to watch the last one of Alejandro González Iñarritu, "Babel".
As with "Amores Perros" and "21 grams", the film is constructed by stories that entangle. The topic, as one could guess from the name, is on the situations arising from the lack of communication (in the Bible, the tower of Babel was the place where all the languages were created to punish people for being overly proud and doom them not to understand each other...).
It is very, very real. So real, that at points is painful. This is a signature of all his films. That and the colours he uses, but as I do not know of film-making, I could not tell you exactly what he uses.

If you want to watch the trailer, go to:
http://www.paramountvantage.com/babel/

I'm not yet sure if it has been released in the UK. But once you watch it, we can discuss it!.

There are two additional good reasons to watch it: Brad Pitt and Gael Garcia Bernal.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Fernando Botero and Abu Ghraib.



Today I read that the Colombian artist Fernando Botero has painted a collection of pictures to show the abuse of iraqi people at the prision of Abu Ghraib. He painted, based on the news he read in the New York Times, the Washington Post and some European papers. The exhibition is now at the Marlborough Gallery in New York, but he has the intention of taking it to Italy, Spain and UK next year. I hope I am there to see!.

He has a very suigeneris style of painting. He is obsesed with volume, therefore his characters are always plump, or blatantly obese. I personally like them, though not everybody finds them interesting.

Here is a link to the Marlborough gallery, if you want to have a look at the Abu Ghraib collection: http://www.marlboroughgallery.com/artists/botero/artwork.html

For other paintings by Botero, go to:

http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/botero.html

"The musicians", shown above, is one of my favourites.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Links

I have included some links in my profile (the right panel of the page). Some of my friends have their own interesting web sites. For example, Elisa has posted a beautiful poem by Luis Rogelio Nogueras (something we heard from Silvio Rodríguez recently), worth reading it!. Patricia writes nicely in Portuguese and Pedro has even included some cod recipes in his (yummy!).

I like Photography very much and would recommend you to have a look at Jan Saudek´s web page, his latest photographs are very kinky, but he has something!... Salgado´s are powerful!, have a look at his "Migrations" collection. And Flor´s are quite sweet... I promise I will do more research to find more interesting things to look at!.

As for Poetry, some links to Neruda, Sabines and Alfonsina. All latinamerican.

Enjoy!.

Blanco y Negro.

Esto soy yo,
soy estos brazos
estas piernas
estos ojos que se devora el silencio.

Soy la presencia que te persigue,
en los sueños, en el pensamiento
animal nocturno
ocelote dorado.

Te acecho entre las sombras...
existo aquí,
de carne gélida y olvido acumulado;
pero también allá
de ausencia ineludible y memoria entretejida.

¡Soy yo!
de corazón arrítmico
y sangre entristecida
estéril...suicida...
de miedo enquistado,
ansiedad adormecida.

¡Basta, basta!
basta de hoyos negros
de salones de baile solitarios
de sonidos huecos
de sufrimientos alargados
¡Basta!
¡Basta!
¡Silencio! Shhhhhhhhh.....

------ 0 ------

Soy yo
Y-O (yo)
un pájaro que vuela alto,
el mar constantemente embravecido
¡sí! ¡un río desbocado!.

¡Soy yo!
el cuenco donde se bebe fuego
madera suave, barro nuevo
el breve espacio en que se detiene el tiempo...
cálido, invariable, cercano...
cielo profundo
tempestad en el trópico y después: la calma.

Filigrana de pensamientos
y raudal de emociones varias.

¡Soy yo!
el ansia loca de acunar al mundo

lo que no existe en palabras
lo que no existe en sueños.


C.

In turmoil.

On the 1st of December, the new president of Mexico Felipe Calderon, will take the job. The event is usually marked by a visit to the "Congreso de la Union", the place where the representatives of each of the states of the Republic gather to take decisions about the country. The new president is supposed to receive the presidential band and swear to be loyal and to take all his decisions thinking on what is best for all the Mexicans.
This time, however, the ceremony might not take place as peacefully as in other occasions.
For those that might not know, the presidential elections were very polemic this time. The favourite candidate, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, lost the elections because of a difference of less than 1% (about 200,000 votes). Since then, the country seems divided between those that support Lopez Obrador, those than support Calderon and those that voted for others: about one third of the people that participated in the process for each group.
The aftermath of the elections included the invasion of the main square of Mexico City, as well as one of its main avenues, Paseo de la Reforma, by Lopez Obrador supporters.
Lopez Obrador has not given up, even though the organism that regulates the elections in Mexico, the Instituto Federal Electoral, has already recognised the victory of Calderon. Lopez Obrador and his commitee have decided to stand in a parallel presidency, starting on the 20th of November.
Now, for the official ceremony taking place on the 1st of December, it is possible that things turn difficult. Lopez Obrador's party members are already planning not to allow Calderon to reach the podium and give his speech, and there is also the possibility of having attacks from the members of the APPO, the latest teacher's protest group.
The Congress will be guarded by members of the police, to avoid APPO members stopping the ceremony. However, nothing would be able to control Lopez Obrador's party members inside the building... nothing but a bit of common sense...

I am wondering whether we will be able to solve things peacefully and continue with life (but learn from our mistakes!, things need to change with regard to how we deal with elections) or we will just give a sad show to the rest of the world... TO BE CONTINUED...

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Detalhes...




Não adianta nem tentar me esquecer
Durante muito tempo em sua vida, eu vou viver
Detalhes tão pequenos de nós dois
São coisas muito grandes pra esquecer
E toda hora vão estar presentes, você vai ver
Se um outro cabeludo aparecer na sua rua
E isso lhe trouxer saudades minhas, a culpa é sua
O ronco barulhento do seu carro
A velha calça desbotada ou coisa assim
Imediatamente você vai lembrar de mim

Eu sei que um outro deve estar falando ao seu ouvido
Palavras de amor como eu falei mas eu duvido
Duvido que ele tenha tanto amor
E até os erros do meu português ruim
E nessa hora você vai lembrar de mim

À noite envolvida no silêncio do seu quarto
Antes de dormir você procura o meu retrato
Mas na moldura não sou eu quem lhe sorri
Mas você vê o meu sorriso mesmo assim
E tudo isso vai fazer você lembrar de mim

Se alguém tocar seu corpo como eu não diga nada
Não vá dizer meu nome sem querer à pessoa errada
Pensando ter amor nesse momento
Desesperada você tenta até o fim
E até nesse momento você vai lembrar de mim

Eu sei que esses detalhes vão sumir na longa estrada
Do tempo que transforma todo o amor em quase nada
Mas quase também é mais um detalhe
Um grande amor não vai morrer assim
Por isso, de vez em quando, você vai, vai lembrar de mim

Não adianta nem tentar me esquecer
Durante muito, muito tempo em sua vida eu vou viver
Não, não adianta nem tentar me esquecer

Roberto Carlos - Erasmo Carlos (1971).

For the music: http://robertocarlos.globo.com/cgi-bin/robertocarlos/detalhecancoes.cgi?ID=00845

Recycling your old bread.


If you are of those that buy baguettes (or similar) and do not finish them before they turn hard, here is a recipe to use them. And it is really nice!.

You need:

300 grams of hard bread (not mouldy!)
300 grams of butter
1 cup of sugar
1 tablespoon of baking powder
500 mL of milk
4 large eggs

Crumble the bread with your hands, alternatively cut it with a knife, but DO NOT use the blender (otherwise, the cake is just like any cake...). Boil the milk and pour it over the bread to make softer.
Make the butter creamy (here, if you do not have the appropriate machine use a wooden spoon and all your might!). Add the sugar and the baking powder and mix well. Then add the eggs and mix until you make a paste. Pour this mixture over the bread and use a spoon to mix. The consistency is a bit more liquid than with other cakes, but that is because you have the bread in pieces instead of flour. Bake at 150 C for about 30 min. Et voila!. Enjoy!.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Papá rocanrolero (or My dad rolls!)


My dad has a big passion in life... ok, let's re-word it, so that my mum does not lose with the phrase!...My dad has two passions in his life: playing his guitar is one of them.
Here I am, writing for this blog, while he is at the back of the house rehearsing with some friends.
My dad learned to play the guitar when he was about eight years old. Since then it has been one of the loves of his life, and he used the gift to conquer the other one: my mum. They got married when they were 21 years old and my dad was in the first year of Medical School. I am convinced that I like the Beatles so much (and singing, the music in general) because he played them for me while I was in my mum's tummy.
While he was studying, my mum was working. Sometimes we used to stay together at home, waiting for her to come back. He would record some chapters of his books to study later in the car, and then would take breaks to play his guitar... he has a soft, velvety voice, on the tenor side. The same that can make "boleros" sound tender, and the Doors sound wild.
Now, he loves the Beatles. So the first thing he asked when he went to visit me in London was not to go to Buckingham Palace, or to see the Big Ben, but "when are we going to Liverpool". We went, and he was the happiest man.

Some things never change... and him enjoying his music, always looking for pals trapped in the same vice to play, that will never change.

Birthday party.




My mum has a big family: seven brothers and three sisters, so when there is a birthday party, it becomes a crowded one. We are, up to date, sixteen grandchildren with me being the second one.
One of my mum's brothers (the one that was born one year after her) had his 50th birthday celebration on Sunday. We ate lamb in tacos, drank tequila and my uncles hired a Mariachi. Mariachi is the name of the group of musicians wearing "charro" suits and big "sombreros" that play traditional Mexican songs like the one known as "Mexican Hat song" (here is known as Jarabe tapatio).
I do not know whether everybody experiences the same feeling when listening to the traditional songs of their country, but Mexicans are quite dramatic and every single time the music reaches their hearts.
The party, in other words, became wild. At least for one hour and a half. We danced, we sang, we laughed, we became one in our "mexicanism" (if such word exists).
Ah!, and let me show off my sister (left) and my cousin (right).

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Day of the Dead in Michoacan.






The 1st and 2nd of November, Mexico celebrates the Days of the Dead. The vision Mexicans have about Death is part of our pre-hispanic heritage. We set altars for our dead relatives with a few basic elements: water, light, salt and the flower "cempoaxochitl". We also add religious images, the favourite food and drink of the dead person and a picture of him/her. The first of November, we celebrate the dead children, whereas on the second we remember the dead adults.
We believe that they come to visit us and take the essence of what is on the altar for them.

Rather than considering this a sad day, we think of it as a happy day, to reunite with the people we love that has left us.

Many people go to the cementeries to put cempoaxochitl on the graves, pray and spend time with their dead relatives. Michoacan, a region in Mexico, is one of the places where the celebrations are bigger. The people of the island of Janitzio, and island of fishermen, go to the cementery at 12 pm with flowers and candles to pray on the graves.
Traditional of these days are the "pan de muerto" (bread of the dead"), pumpkin sweet, and the "calaveritas" (skulls made of sugar). Death is represented in many different forms: as a rich lady, as a drunken man, as%2

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Fuego Nuevo


Every fifty-two years, the mexicas (known as aztecs to everyone...) used to celebrate the ceremony of the New Fire (Fuego Nuevo) or "Toxiuhmopolli". The mexicas related the fire with the beginning of all things: the Sun, necessary for life. According to their beliefs, the world as they knew it completed a cycle every 52 years, so the ceremony represented the creation of the Sun and the renovation of the world.
First, they would destroy all their every day tools and the sources of light, to recreate the darkness before the rise of the Sun; then the priests would wear the costumes of the different Gods and would climb the hill Huixachtecatl to perform a human sacrifice and light the New Fire in its chest. If the Sun rised the next day, the world would continue at least for another cycle. The New Fire was used to light the fire in every house of the city.
Toxiuhmopolli was then, a ceremony of renewal.

Welcome!


Welcome to my blog!

It will help us to keep in touch, in spite of the distance. Feel free to send your comments and ideas!.