Pies Descalzos Fundation (Barefoot Foundation)

Proudly, one more of our colombian singers, who is recognized internationally found a foundation when she was only 18 year-old.  She understood many people live in very bad conditions, especially many children.   In 1990, Shakira compromised herself to help children and their families to give them a better quality of life, education and a better position on the society. Shakira used the name Pies Descalzos because many people have to live in this conditions for the poor conditions they face in our country, a underdeveloped country with violence struggles every day in places where mostly poor people live and loose the few things they have, including mostly their lives.  Besides this, this name also represent for her the music album that sent her to be known internationally as an artist, a colombian singer, and helped her to find more contributions for the children the foundation helps.

Fortunatelly, the foundation has opened five schools in Barranquilla, hometown of Shakira, Altos de Cazuca, and Quibdo, places that have been strongly affected by the violence, foced movement of people to big cities, and where more than 4000 children can receive education, food and psicologic treatment.  Besides this, more tham 30000 people and their communities are help by the programs the foundation offers.  This is one more reason to be proud of being Colombian, not because of the violence, I feel proud of my people, because they are strong to face those problems and restart their lives, and other to help those to continue among the adversity!

Mom at Home

 

Since two years ago I don't see my family in Colombia. They came in 2009 to stay with us and wait for the birth of my niece.  Since that long, I couldn't see them in person, hug them and kiss them.  I miss them a lot, so my mom decided  that this year she could travel to USA to visit to us. My sister and I were very happy to heard that, so we prepared to receive her at home.  We move some months ago to a new apartment and it it very nice, and we really like it.

We received my mom and she has been sharing all her time with my niece because she saw her when she born, then when she was one year old in Colombia, when my sister travel to visit my father who was sick in that time.  Now, when my niece is almost two, we thought maybe she would be distant, but since the first day they started to be very close.

Now, we are planing to send my niece to Colombia with m mom to visit my sister and father.  They couldn't travel because my father is still weak of the illness he faced, Cancer, but he is now cure, or at least that's waht doctors say. I hope they get very excited when they can see my niece Camila dancing, singing, and playing as she does now...I will love to go to visit my family also very soon, maybe next summer! So I could visit my family, friends, and places I love. I miss my country with everthing it envolves about my life! 

A Hustler's Wife

A Hustler's Wife is the book I chose to read in my Reading and Writing IV class. This book introduced readers in a love and drama story, and really liked to find a interesting book to read. It tells the story of a 15 year-old gilr called Yarnise, who was a daugther of a well-know woman of a old-fashionated society.  Yarnie, as family and friends called her, met a guy, who was a hustler. They got married when she was still 15, and against of her mother disagreenment.  Her husband got in jail for a crime he didn't committed,  but she waited for her real for for the 10 years he spent on jail.  During all that time, Yarnie's husband, Des, allowed her to live her life in a free way because he did not want her to wait that long for him.

She started her own life dating with boys and hanging out with friends. She met a guy who loved her and whose she loved. One day she went to jail for 8 months to cover him of a gun the police found in hid car, and lost the big opportunity to go to the law school, which was her biggest dream. When he had the opportunity to return the favor, paying to get her free of a kidnap, but he left her for dead. With this she understood only Des would be the one to be loyal with her. She faced many street problems in her own skin, while her mother was always trying to help her. Ten years later, Yarnie could be mature enough to help her man to get out of the jail with the help of her mom and her law firm job's boss.  She promessed her mom to go school again and give her grandchildren, after she got married with Des in a very formal way, far away of the hustler's world.

Tips for Pronunciation

In my Speech Communication 68 class  we learned about the sound of the words, voiced and voiceless consonants, among other things.  Wit this class I  could get better in the pronunciation of some words that we usually use, but we never pay attention on. My teacher taught us that voiceless consonants are P, T, K, F, TH, S, SH, CH. On the other hand, the rest of the consonants are voiced.  Besides this, we learned which part of our mouth use to make the perfect sound.

For example, to pronounce the 'TH' sound, we have to blow air between the top teeth and the flat tongue, so 'Thanks' is not pronounce as 'Tanks', 'Zanks', or 'Zenks'. The blowed air let us pronounce the the word 'Thanks' we want to say. One more thing we learned is that words, such as could, would, and should omitt the 'l' sound, and the 'ou' sounds as a short 'u'.

Finally, the English language has three different endings for the past tense of the words: 'T', 'D', and 'ED'. We only need to follow three rules to know which one to use in each word.

1. If the base word ends in a voiceless consonant (P,K,F,S,SH,CH) except T and TH, the past tense is pronounced as a 'T' sound.  (asked, laughed)

2. If the base word ends in T or D, the past tense is pronounced as a 'ID' sound. (minded, lasted)

3. If the base word ends in a voiced sound, except D, the past tense is pronounced as a 'ID' sound. (followed, changed).

Gay Adoption

 Every day we get surprise for the changes in our society that make us think sometimes the world is getting crazy; however, some of those changes are consequences of what we do at home and how we face life. One of the most controversial topics to talk about is the gay adoption because many people have many reasons against of it, mostly the reliogious community. On the other hand, many other people have reasons in pro of this, as personally I do. I think every human being is free to live life in the way we think is better for us if we don't affect anyone else.

In this special case, many people think gays are not a good example of a citizen at any place on the world, even worst that they are not a good image for a child who is growing up close to them. Well, I think that if we respect their rights as citizens and they keep rising children with love, education and a home where they have whatever they need, they deserve to be parents.  Every day we can see at the news how many "mothers" or "fathers" abandonate or kill children because they dont want them, because the don't have the facilities to rise them, or because they are inmerse in drugs and alcohol. For myself, parents are not who make you, parents are the people who give you happiness and love, and many gays have this for many foster children who need it.

Mi Sangre Fundation

Juanes is a Colombian singer, Juan Esteban Aristizabal, who started singing with some friends in the city where he was born, Medellin. With the time they started a band that sang Spanish Rock and became famous in our country. The name of the band was Ekhymosis. They were together for many years, but once they decided to disolve the group.  After this, Juanes became a soloist and his career grew up fast. Now he is a excelent and famous artist know all over the world, winner of 17 Grammy awards and a social leader, know for his big philanthropy sense and proximity to the social and humanitarian conflicts in the world, especially in Colombia.

As many people know, my country lives a ongoing war between the guerrillas and the militia, but not only them suffer the consequences: hundreds of innocent people die every day victims of the violence, but many others had to face the violence with a trace on them for their whole lives; children and adults every day fall down as victims of landmineslosing their lives or loosing a tip body, such as a leg or arm.

All this situation motivated Juanes to stablish a foundation in 2006, where he could help people affected by this violence in any way, and is here when Fundacion Mi Sangre (Por los hijos de tus hijos), or  My Blood Foundation (For the cildren of your children) in English, born to contribute to children to be the main characters at peace making.

This foundation works as a link between the local community and the national and international community investing economic and technical resources for social investment. Its outstanding work is based on to identify, formulate, manage and monitor high impact projects, and their rigor and transparency in resources management.  To visit his website and check it out go to http://www.fundacionmisangre.org/ .

Freedom Parade

Everybody know that Colombia has having big narcos who have broken our image of a good country for the whole world.  All of us also know we have "guerrilla" or militia groups that go against of the government and have their own rules. They were suppoused to protect the people from the unfair treatment from the government; however, they have been hurting innocent people more than the militia they were suppoused to fight against.

Those groups have killed, raped and kidnapped thousand of people, and worst, they ask money to save or return individuos to their families.  Many countries may think people don't fight against of them, but they are very strong and powerful. Nevertheles, people and government have taken the control of the situation eliminating the biggest head that lead this big team, made of many others groups lead by little people that follow the big leaders.

Before to come back to the United States in July, 2008, there was in Colombia a special parade that make us feel proud of where we live. The parade was thought for the people that was tired of this criminals and want kidnapped people to return home with their wives, children, husbands, parents... That day, July 20, was our independence day, and we decided to march for the independence or freedom of those groups.

My two sisters were in this country and they couldn't go with me, but I found a good company in my peruvian friend, Andres, who went to meet me personally to Colombia after almost five years chatting online, and before I returned to the USA. I also went with some cousins and friends to protest for a good cause. That was an historical day where the country had the biggest demonstration of love for colombians and the rejection of militian groups that whant to hurt innocent people.

July 20, 2008, was one of the days that I firmly felt proud of being a Colombian Citizen!!

The Carriers' Parade

The carriers' parade - or the "silleteros" parade - is a main event of a big festival in Medellin, Colombia. In this parade we can see young and old people showing the artistic vein they have inside, even thought they never visited a school to learned about this. Their schools have been the farms were they live and rise their families, in most of the cases in basic conditions.

Long time ago, the parade was prepared to show the beauty of the flowers, the colors, and the happiness they bring to people, so the person in charge decided to invite some carriers to show their "little" art on it, but this was a common tas theiy everyday have done to sell flowers and decorate the churchs. The carriers use to "carry" their art in their backs, no matter how old the person can be.

 Nowadays, the parade pretend to show the honor we feel to have this kind of artist on our country, in our community.   The flowers use to make the floral arrangements include any kind of flower that we can find on our land, and let me tell you they are a lot and amazing...

The tradition is passed to every generation by the family members to preserve the "Nation's Cultural Heritage".  Many people every year, colombians and foreigns, assist to this parade to admire the arrangements and to show artists their work worth enough to keep people waiting many ours for them on the streets.

Paranormal Activity?

 As I said before, I use to go to parks to walk with my boyfriend.  We started to visit those places since we started dating, and presently we like to go at least once in one or two weeks.  We like to release the stress from the whole week.  The day of halloween's eve we decided to go to the Cranbury Park, which is the one that we mostly visit. That day was still clear at 6:15, so we decided to take some photos to send home in our countries about autum and the amazing colors of this season.

While we were walking we heard something that passed behind of us, but even worst my boyfriend felt that someone touched him in his back. I thought he was jocking, but he was not.  We avoid the topic in that moment. When we got close to the castle, we noticed some "spots of light" on the photos although there were no lights toward that side; we were against of them. I tried some more photos, but only at the front of the castle we had this problem.

We started thinking in presences close to us after remember we heard about that before.  All this happened in almost 15 or 20 minutes, time very short for our regular walks, but we only wanted to leave the place at that moment. We could see that some of the spots look like they get closer in pics that are consecutives.

People that saw the photos later told us they feel something strange while they see the pics and that we shouldn't go there anymore at that time, suppously the time where the line of the paranormal world and our have a point of conection.  They also say that they can see faces on the spots that look to us. Well, if anyone think or know something about this, please I would be glad to hear about it....Is it or not paranormal? Who knows?

Hurricane Katrina

 We know that Hurricane Katrina was one of the five deadliest on the world and the costliest for United States. This was in the category five, the highest, and killed more than 1800 people only in New Orleans, Louisiana, the most devastated place by the hurricane.  A friend of mine sent me some pictures about this storm before to touch the land and they are amazing.

However, if we can see the disaster it left, we can't say it is amazing, we can say it was shocking.  People lost their belongings, they lost their style of living, but worst they lost their families, and many of them their lives. After five years we can see that people in New Orleans couldn't improve their conditions, maybe because they had to start a new life in another place, but basically because the government doesn't have enough profit to help them to rebuild their communities and lives.

Now the place looks bleak, abandonated.  I hope in a short time they can start a new project to recover the zone and bring happiness, life and good conditions for this place and their people. Now, if you like how amazing the pictures look, maybe we can think how furious and terrorific it looked for people in that moment.

December lighting in Cali

In almost every city in my country, people usually hang lights on the houses, buildings, and trees to express the hapiness for christmas time every December. Every family star preparing lights since November, in order to get houses ready since the first day of December, or at least the day we celebrate the Virgin Mary's day, on December 8... Well, we are a very religious country!

Nevertheless, many people thought it was not enough to light the houses, so people started lighting the whole neighborhoods to win a prize for the best one. Besides this, many companies decided to do it also, trying to continue with the feeling of a great time. But now, not only families, neighborhoods, or companies are doing this; now the government decided to contribute to the activity lighting the main government buildings, parks, rivers, and historical places in the cities.

For example, the pictures you can see in this post are taken in my city, Cali, in the main river and in a special park that are very important for us because they pass by the main street, which is right in the middle of the city, dividing it since north to south.

At night time, the city looks really amazing and people use and love to walk around of it taking pictures, eating snacks, or having good time with their children. I love it, but mostly I miss it :-(

Learning On-line

Everywhere we can see people studying online, by themselves, in their computers. But, is it as good as the presential class? Are you motivated in the same way? Well, I tink it depends on us. We can go to a classroom every single day but if we don't pay attention to the explanations, or we prefer to listen to music on an ipod while the class is running, what can we learn in that way? On the other hand, if we use to go online to check our homework, be sure we finish and hand-in those to the teacher, and study for the tests, surely we can get much more information than in the class with no attention.

For many people is better to study at the peace of their most comfortable place at home, in the most comfortable cloth they have.  For example, when I was working in Colombia, I was a teacher and I had to use a web plataform for online learning for my students, I also was controlling the whole application and instructing the rest of the teachers to use it in their classes, for being the computer science engineer of the same corporation.

It is hard to control it, and mostly, understand it as a teacher. Likewise, for some students those applications give hardships to the learning process; however, for some other students, those applications are the best tools they have to learn with no teachers surrounding them.  For children, this kind of applications can make easy the way they learn at home with their parents before and after go to school.

Four Loko

Between jobs, school, family, and bills we feel we need to drink something that supplies the energy our body needs. Here comes the energy drink, but this one has a bad reputation for the twelve spoons of sugars it contains in each can, and for the damage to the brain that it could cause.  However, now we can find a new mixiology: Alcohol and energy drink! Both of them in an unique can called Four Loko.  This drink contains 12 percent of alcoholic, the same as five or six beers, in it and as much caffeine as a cup of coffee.

The alcoholic energy drink is considered dangerous because the energy it gives to people covers the level of intoxication that they have for the alcohol, allowing people to drink more and more.  In most of the cases, the students, more than twenty, finished their schoolar and universitary parties at the hospital with a high level of alcoholic intoxication. The worst thing is that many of those were underage. This is why many states decided to ban Four Loko in their territories, while the company that own this brand, supports its rights to sell it because, as many alcoholic drinks, they have to face underage people problems buying the product, but they ask not to be banned.

Check what you drink. Don't trust only on the can, the colors and the good taste. Drive safe or give someone else your car key!!!

My pics

 

P1. Greenwich Beach

I love to take pictures! Why? I don't know and I can't even remember when I got the interest in taking pictures, but only can remember that if I have to go anywhere, I have to carry my cam or at least my cellphone to take a picture in the right moment I want it. I always take pics about my family, my friends, special events, or beautiful views of nature. Maybe, and as my ex-colombian boss' wife told me once, I chose the wrong proffession for me - Computer Science Engineering; however, I think I can mixed them and get something very interesting... I did a search about some of the pictures that I took and that I like, and as a result I got these: 

 

P2. West Haven Beach

The first one shows how the water of the sea was getting frozen by the low temperatures in  Greenwich beach at the beginnig of February this year.  That was the first time that I saw this kind of reaction of the water to the weather and was amazing. However, we can think how is it possible that our poles are melting now if their places are extremely cold, more than Greenwich? But as we read in our class's book, there are many factors that cause influence in this event. The second picture was taken, off course by me in West Haven's beach in a beautiful day while I was walking with my boyfriend in summer time, to have a relaxing moment of all things we had to do for those days.



P3. West Haven Beach Jetty

The sun was looking amazing and even I could not seen it directly, I used the cam to do it and got this pic; I love how the sun and the sky look.  And finally, the third picture was taken as well in West Have, the same day than the second one. It is one of the several jetties this place has in all his long beach. I could see those people in seated in there and it looked to me as a good moment for one more pic. Well, I hope you like my images, let me know!

Salsa Calena!

The Salsa is a combination of african-caribbean and cuban music, which was born after the cuban revolution in the 59's and the exile of cuban to the United States. At the beginning of the 70's the separation of musical development between cubans and exiled cubans caused a big confrontation, and this is why the word "salsa"  was chosen by exiled cubans to call their music, but the cubans in the island said it was only the same "cuban son" used for commercial purposes. Then, the african items were included, such as drumbs, wood boxes and some other that generated a sound. However, salsa was a hit that has spread around the world, and we can't forget that many puerto rican musicians and from other countries, who lived in New York help to create a new beat very different to the one that cubans made.

First World Salsa Contest 2005's Champions from Cali

On the other hand, the salsa in colombia came after this because of the big influence of african slaves in our land and the caribbean coast very closed to us. We took this music as our representation and we did some changes that are visible for anyone that can see our dance. In our case, the "calenos" keep the same movements between the couple, but we use more our legs and sexy corporal movements to dance salsa,  very different to Puerto Ricans who dance with their arms and cubans with their hips.

Babies dancing colombian salsa

I want to show you how colombians can enjoy every instrument of the orchestra that is playing a "salsa calena" song, no matter if we are children or adults, at the point that my people has won the first mundial contest of salsa in 2006. I feel very excited watching those videos, and this remaind me that we always say that colombian people especially from Cali, Colombia, carry the salsa beat on our blood and our heart. Let me know guys if you like this... I really do it, even if I don't have the ability to dance like that, but I do want to do it!!!

Self-dancer that follow the instruments on the music

The Miners Were Rescued!

Fenix II Capsule

On October 15, 2010 at 12:00 am and after more than two months of waiting, the miners who were trapped in the San Jose Mine in Chile, started to be rescued in a thirty-six or fourty-eight hour-planned process. The engineers team, helped by NASA specialists, built three fifty-four centimeters of diameter's capsules with eight wheels, called Fenix I, II and III, were the miners had to go in to be extracted from the bottom of the earth.



Miners on the cave to be rescued


This last week miners had a special diet to fit in it: two spoons of tuna and a little glass of water every two days. When the plan started, the rescue team sent three paramedic people in the Fenix II capsule to check vital signs of each miner and sent up first, the strongest ones who were in charge of transmitting what they were seeing, doing easier the path for coming ones; then the ones who had any health problem, and then the ones in regular conditions.



First rescued miner and the president

Every movement, up or down, was taking between sixteen and twenty minutes, but then the process was faster, mostly when no one was going down. At the end, the thirty-three miners were rescued in less than twenty-four hours, doing of this an unique and extraordinary rescue that left a big trace in the history of the world.  The chilean president and his wife were supporting the miners families in every step of the process while they were waiting for the miner in the capsule. 


Second rescued miner

Although seeing a new miner "borning from the earth" was a motivation moment, some cases were special, such as the first miner whose son was really excited to see his father after a long time; the second miner who brought rocks for gifts to the rescue team and the chilean president and used his last energy to motivate people to sing with him about patriotic feelings; and finally the last miner who closed the moment singing with the whole people the chilean anthem as the end of the suffering they and their families had for sixty-nine days. One more special moment that paparazzi's were waiting for was the time when the miner with wife and girlfriend was coming out, but even his wife was happy to see he was ok, whe never showed up, instead, his girlfriend went to show him her support.

Halloween

Halloween is a special celebration was born from old ritual practices that that Celtics, Catholics and Roman religious used to do in the day before “All-Saints”. In this day the dead could come back to the earth, and for that, Celts did bonfires and wore customs to represent and invoke the devil and the ghosts around him. At this time also were practiced sacrifices of animals and people to the devil, to obtain the favor or petition that was made. This is why many of our present religious are not agree with this kind of celebrations where children are involved.

However, in our time children and adults use to wear customs that represent the character or activity they like. Children go door to door mostly early at night time asking and collecting candies in the traditional “trick or treat”, which later enjoy counting and eating for several days. In many schools Halloween is the time for dance and customs shows, instead of having classes. People decorate houses, yards, schools and offices with pumpkins in all sizes, cobwebs, unreal spiders, cats and rats; also with graves and dead people coming from the yard, in order to offer a closer celebration of the day of dead people.

On the other hand, in previous days to Halloween many cats and children get lost because nowadays many people who follow dark practices continue offering animal and human sacrifices to the devil in cemeteries or places where they can’t be seen. That’s why we have to enjoy this time but paying special attention to our little boys and girls!

Chilean Miner Rescue

Since August 5, 2010, 33 miners where buried by a landslide caused by a stone explosion in San Jose, Chile. The first prediction the engineers gave was that they must wait for three or four months. They have been waiting for two months to be rescue; however, after a couple of weeks, good news came to our ears when engineers said the rescue process has advenced very good and they can reach miners in a couple of months.

The miners had to take off their cloth because of the high temperature they have to face in the cave where they are. They only had food for two day, but they have had water that goes to them by a natural duct. After engineers could introduce some probes to find them, they started to feed them and give them the chance to talk to their families, to make them stronger while they have to hold in ther.

Many people from the rescue group are anxious to help them to reach the surface of the mine, but also the survivers of a past tragedy of a chilean soccer team that was lost in the mountains for almost three months, went to give them the support to hold. Besides them, the miners' families are waiting for them. This week, we had very good news when we knew they would be rescue this weekend! A unusual situation that has people worried about a special miner is that his wife and his unknown girlfriend are desperate to clarify this unconfortable situation.

The Andean Condor

Talking about climate changes and animals in danger of extinction, I want to talk about the Andean Condor, an animal that has a special role as the symbol in the patriotic and historical Colombian coat of arms of my country and many others in South America, such as Chile, Peru, Argentina, and Ecuador. Condors were considered important since many ancient cultures inhabitant the Andean Mountains for its power and health. People used to think they have medicinal features, and since that time, they started to hunt them trying to get condors organs.

The Andean Condor is a species of South American bird with the largest wings in the world that spans with 3.2 m and can flight up to 16000 feet, going to places where no one or nothing can reach easily. This bird can be found in the Andes Mountains and Pacific coasts of western South America. However, the human hunting activities have reduced their habitat and have caused also, the almost extinction of this interesting and imposing animal.

The condor feeds itself on carrion and prefers carcasses from big animals; it also has the longest life time, up to 50 years, and it reaches their sexual maturity at age of six years. They have two eggs in each birth doing human task a hard process to increase their population. The most sadly thing is that presently we can only find EIGHT different condors known flying in the Andean!! This is really disappointed!