meeting very interesting and stimulating subjects may be downloaded from here teaching materials used by Rita.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
How Is An Afn Antenna Polarized
The blog as a marketing tool
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Quotes For Bachelorette Party Cards
In Sri Lanka, at the time of the tsunami and job
Along the coastal road from Colombo to Hambantota port until two weeks after the tsunami of 26 December 2004 in a few minutes you took away more than 40,000 lives in Sri Lanka alone, more than the rubble has not been seen much. Boats, smashed against the remnants of some houses, and tiles, potsherds, rags, pieces of wood, motors, water tanks.
I had arrived on the island on the morning after the tragedy, accompanied a group of Italian tourists on a journey of Responsible Tourism. These trips are always a matter of solidarity, but we did not expect some amount that would be needed this time!
Now the group had returned to the vacation ended and I had a little ' speditimi of money from friends from home who wanted to lend a hand to local families affected and they had entrusted to me since I was there and I know the country for several previous trips.
"Do not you see people " he kept repeating his friend Tamil humanitarian organization in Kandy, HDO (Human Development Organization) with which we were making a long journey by bus to Tangalle on the south coast.
few people in fact, only someone who rummage through the pieces of walls trying to find pieces of the house.
Debris, for five continuous hours, the images I have in the eyes of the bus trip along the coast. Piles of rubble and broken bricks and beams and pieces of furniture and remnants of broken tiles and rags and scraps of twisted bicycles and motorcycles and bits of boats arriving from across the street. And an old woman sitting outside a makeshift tent, staring into space images of memories that remain. And people trying, in the midst of all this, to find something that was still usable. In time, before the arrival of the caterpillar to open a new space for an uncertain future.
"They are in the fields " he said, " are afraid to return."
All schools on the coast and many Buddhist temples were used as fields for refugees. Speaking with people who lived there is still perceived in the eye wall of water that swept away all that 'he found, people who drowned, their parents, their children, the elderly and children in particular, slower to seek refuge on top of the palm trees or on rooftops. Life rimastagli was now waiting for the daily flag of a truck with some stranger who came in to bring food rations, the night, lying on the bare earth, often insomnia, memories, nightmares and screams of fear from the tents nearby.
" a little while, then begin the monsoon that will flood everything on time once a day. Life in the camps is difficult because many people with the death of the family-based structure of society has collapsed: in these fields live close to people before the tsunami were of different social conditions, and here the castes have their own importance: they were not all poor, not least equally, and for young unmarried women and widows is often desirable to seek refuge with relatives rather than live in the area so even if they lose the right to food rations.
Then there are many who have lost their homes but have lost all the tools, especially the boats, and are not considered refugees, but did not earn the same as that living. "
"See, they are the only ones here who are organized, and they show up." Nada, the Tamil friend, I pointed to a tent which had been set up under a table, a group of women wrapped in saris for cheap, some with the baby in her arms, and some man with a sarong tied on his stomach lined up to a series of pots which was distributed rice and curry and side waving the blue flags with white writing of the JVP.
Every now and then crossed the road trucks loads of activists with the same flag. The Janata Vimukti Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) and 'the party Communist-nationalist who triggered the late eighties, especially in the south of the country, an insurgency that has made thousands of victims by the revolutionary government, which responded with a bloody repression. He subsequently became a party institution is the third largest in the country, deeply rooted in popular in the southern provinces. It 's still a party rather than combative, a counterweight to the liberal trends and highly favorable to foreign investment than the other two major parties, the PA and in this sense, especially the UNP (in Sri Lanka there are some export processing zones with special status among those with the worst working conditions in Asia and is one of the few countries in the where foreigners can buy land and buildings have 100% ownership). He was also, along with the conservative-fundamentalist party of the Buddhist clergy, one of the main obstacles to a peaceful solution to the conflict with the Tamil separatist forces in the north-east.
The civil war between the national army and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam, known as the "Tamil Tigers") ended in 2009 with the defeat of the separatists had been ongoing since 1983 and has caused over 70,000 deaths. Over the past three years before the tsunami was to observe a ceasefire achieved through the mediation of Norway and the policy dialogue Ranil Wikremesinghe, prime minister at the head of the previous government led by the UNP (United National Party). Although the state of truce had been, during this period, substantially complied with, the negotiations to reach a permanent peace that could give hope to this poor country where war has consumed a significant percentage of GDP for decades, soon stranded, and if it were not for the tsunami, perhaps in the north have begun to fight much earlier than they eventually did. Nada, for his work with the NGOs, often went in the Tamil areas of Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Batticaloa and told me that the tension was always higher in recent times before the disaster on both sides beyond the line dividing the respective areas of control of the army and the Tigers. " "The situation post tsunami is recovering the same trend: the aid coming from the government in Tamil-majority areas are minimal compared to those of the Sinhalese and there have been cases of seizure of trucks carrying food to the Tamil refugees."
E 'is also significant that during their visits to Sri Lanka in the days following the tsunami or Kofi Annan or Colin Powell or Bill Clinton or Bush have been able to visit the north-east.
The [then] President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has set up a central office under his direct control that oversees all the aid and that, as he can, trying to manage also directly funds the NGO: the attitude is basically "give us the money to use them we will". And it is perhaps a result of disagreements that I've even read the newspapers more than 100 containers of aid blocked in the port of Colombo that NGOs target could not withdraw because of excessive customs duties also maintained on donations.
"But the Tigers are not to be less" Nada continued: "They made their central aid to victims, the TRO (Tamil Rescue Organization) and pretend that everything must pass in their areas under their administration. The management of money and goods are distributed is a great source of power and a powerful means of propaganda, the decisive period that will follow. If you notice, all those who bring aid have their flags prominently.
Nada, himself a Tamil, belongs to another school, his NGO, HDO, is convinced a group of peace activists, inspired by Gandhi, and engaged in interethnic dialogue, a rarity in this context. The mission for which I was taking him to the Tangalle shows clearly: it was a visit to arrange a shipment of aid from an organization in a totally Sri Lankan Tamil. , "We'll take our flags" I said with a grin "We want them to see who we are."
"Conversely the JVP in the south, the LTTE is the only truly local force organized in the north (though beset by a series of murderous feuds interaction with other Tamil factions splinter)" Nada yet explained to me as we descended from 'crowded bus and crossed the square of the bus station dodging stray cows, beggars and hawkers in arm with boxes of peanuts, fried and served hot chick cones. "They are organizations with a paramilitary structure, capillary and disciplined, while the two major parties institutional (PA and UNP) are more media, more image, less motivated frameworks, and lack of organization: people do not see them equally in the distribution of primary goods in the fields and roads. Local politicians seem to be especially attentive to the picture: there are those who has been photographed while shoveling rubble or delivered rations in many affected villages have been made are the foundation stone laying ceremony for new homes, with services in newspapers and TV but then the work stopped there and it even happened that checks for assistance by the government are then distributed to refugees in many cases the results discovered. "
"and this' his weight. Have you seen in the district of Gampaha, Negombo near? It is traditionally an area of \u200b\u200bthe JVP, but these days there are local elections and won them. These things have their importance if there are conflicting developments after the turn which is taking the policy of the here after tsunami. It 'a historic step, which is crucial for us: an unimaginable catastrophe that broke the legs of a poor country already, yet now a flow of money and resources than the annual GDP and all at a crucial time for a conflict that has lasted more than two decades! "
After giving a hand to Nada and his colleagues in the distribution of aid had been Tangalle to see what could I do with this money. Rather than being primary
aid such as food and water - to take care of the big organizations anyway - I wanted to help someone back to work. And since the people affected in the area, like the rest of the coast, were mainly fishermen, I thought I'd see if we could provide some fishing equipment.
After some research on the internet I came into contact with NAFSA (www.nafso.lk), a local union of fishermen on a small scale related to the global network of farmers and fishermen Via Campesina. They showed me their written reference to Tangalle, mr. Vipulasena, a fisherman and he himself a victim of the tsunami, in fact I said they stayed in one of the refugee camps and therefore could not give me a phone or a contact to find it. "But you know Tangalle is not great, and people you know."
I remember the time when the road in front of the port of Tangalle I asked a man wearing only a dirty shirt and a sarong, sitting under one of the buildings destroyed, if he knew some of NAFSA Vipulasena and he responded that it was him. And when, in front of my reaction a bit 'cautiously suspicious (you knew I was there to bring help and maybe money) extracted from a pile of rubble, a ripped banner half was written in Sinhalese characters welcome you to the "conference 2004 for the rights and welfare of the families of fishermen "... or something like that.
remember the other fishermen who immediately approached and their stories: boats entering the water pressures inside the houses, co-workers dead, afraid to return to sea after day, people who did not want to buy fish for the fear that it was contaminated by dead bodies and those who took advantage of a price to pay for it by hunger. And those who were on the larger boats that are out several days and did not realize anything because of the high seas the wave had not destructive power and when they returned they found the city destroyed and the dead in the streets.
Vipulasena explained to me the difference between the different boats and different systems of fishing boats are one, two and many people and one day or several days of fishing and in this case take the ice in the hull to conserve the fish. The first are those at the family level, the fishermen who work for themselves, many of whom adhere to NAFSA, the other property owners, fishermen and people who work there are paid by the day.
He showed me the damage to the boats and I understood immediately that we wanted very different resources than I had available to think to mend or re-purchase new ones. So we opted to buy fishing nets for those whose catamaran (traditional boat with rocker) could still going to sea. But there was no way to buy networks because even retailers and factories of these items had been overwhelmed by the disaster. I had to go further north, in Negombo, and I should be able to meet the national secretary of the union has its headquarters there.
The Secretary, Herman Kumara, we went to a wholesaler of fishing equipment. I bought the networks necessary for the work of 100 families, 50 networks, each working with two fishermen and then the rest of the family selling the fish, the dry, repair the nets, etc ... So I spent € 2000 I had available, then they would deliver a list of all recipients agreed with Vipulasena.
Then mr. Kumara invited me home. Negombo lives outside in an area planted with coconut palms and banana trees, is a Christian, but Buddhist married to a wife, as pointed out to me and rested her home and went to the gift to the altar with a statue of Christ and a Buddha . An interfaith marriage relatively common in the area of \u200b\u200bNegombo that has a significant presence of Christians. Partnerships between Buddhists and Hindus are much more rare because of the twenty-year ethnic conflict between Sinhalese (Buddhist) and Tamil (Hindu).
In the house there was a lot of children and relatives and neighbors, the family there is something bigger than here.
While we were eating the ubiquitous rice and curry, Herman Kumara gave me a broader view of what was actually happening. In essence, according to him, what happened to Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami is that the political power and business of the country's top law sought to use funds earmarked for reconstruction for a series of "great works" such as new roads, railways and new ports through which lead to a modernization of the country that made him attractive to both foreign and local investment. This will be called to create the necessary infrastructure development - and normally occurred elsewhere - would go largely to the benefit of investors and would have eradicated a large proportion of the population from their traditional social and economic status.
I took a very clear example of the process that was configured with the situation of fishermen: the government put a ban "for reasons of security" along the coast to build or rebuild houses within 100 meters from the beach which is where the majority fishermen lived, but permission is still only for the big hotels. The intent seemed to deliver the beautiful beaches of the island for the exclusive use of the entrepreneurs of luxury tourism, which is largely foreign-owned (in Sri Lanka foreigners can buy land and buildings while maintaining its 100% ownership - something almost unique in this part of the world - and big investments are strong tax exemptions and the possibility of re-export the profits). Until then, however, tourism was largely at the level of entrepreneurship family of small pensions and earnings which were distributed among a large number of people involved in various capacities in related services to visitors. Parallel to this
donations of boats and fishing equipment that arrived as tsunami aid from the European Union and FAO (the things that we have not used any more for the increasing scarcity of fish) would have made, together with the construction of ports modern economics of the fishing island increasingly dependent on imports for with spare parts and accessories. And it would put the fish available in the networks of these boats imported larger and more efficient and require a larger crew and specialized structure which is alien to the social and economic and entrepreneurial capabilities of traditional Sri Lankan fishing families whose members would soon found to choose between paid work and precarious future of the vessels and a new citizens unemployed in the slums of Colombo.
And the most ironic - I remarked Herman - is that all this would happen "thanks" to the funds that were not donated to "modernize" the country, but to restore the lives of disaster victims (most of these very small-scale fishermen) in the same way it was before: for the deaths of tens of thousands of these people who were given the money, not to transform the economic profile of the country!
On the other hand it was clear what the stakes were high and as we are already taking sufficient measures to ensure the success of the operation if, as reported in the Sunday Leader on February 20, in all the affected areas 'authority over the camps had been placed in the hands of the military and placed under special emergency legislation. This allowed to arrest anyone at the discretion of law enforcement "Disturb the functioning of essential services going so against the interest of national security." Under this Act (No.12 of 4 January 2004 - nine days after the tragedy - but only made public on 25) the president could declare an "essential service" any service, and acts which constitute crimes against those services included "the strike, the 'incitement to strike, the distribution of posters and leaflets and even the spread of false information likely to cause public alarm or disorder. " When I greeted
Herman Kumara wished him good luck for the heart because the next day we were all over the island a series of protests organized by their unions to oppose this policy and require that resources were used to help the victims in what they really need to return to their normal life. "
five years have passed since then and I returned to Sri Lanka only once briefly in 2007. Along the coast, much had been rebuilt, although many families were still living in refugee camps. Small entrepreneurs in the tourism of the coast have built massive borrowing as much as possible, without taking into account the so-called "buffer zone" in which he was forbidden to build, so that the government had to reduce it up to 20-30 meters or implicitly accept abolition of done. The fishermen of the Nafs
continued to carry out their battles, reaching even to get a major success recently with the ban on more invasive techniques of fishing (http://www.asianews.it/index.php?1 = en & art = 15870).
To me, the experience of that period, he remained skeptical as to the major operations of "humanitarian aid" and the cooperation organizations which are often one of several areas of international business. I think today that is worth making contributions (I mean by people rather than governments - which necessarily, in emergency situations, should move on other proportions) only projects small scale, possibly run by people of which there is a direct and that the scope of an audit on what is actually done. Upstream projects that have an overall view and critique of what it means to "help" and "development" and not merely focus on generic aspects "humane" without considering the effect, the integrability and the sustainability of these in the specific context of single country.
Along the coastal road from Colombo to Hambantota port until two weeks after the tsunami of 26 December 2004 in a few minutes you took away more than 40,000 lives in Sri Lanka alone, more than the rubble has not been seen much. Boats, smashed against the remnants of some houses, and tiles, potsherds, rags, pieces of wood, motors, water tanks.
I had arrived on the island on the morning after the tragedy, accompanied a group of Italian tourists on a journey of Responsible Tourism. These trips are always a matter of solidarity, but we did not expect some amount that would be needed this time!
Now the group had returned to the vacation ended and I had a little ' speditimi of money from friends from home who wanted to lend a hand to local families affected and they had entrusted to me since I was there and I know the country for several previous trips.
"Do not you see people " he kept repeating his friend Tamil humanitarian organization in Kandy, HDO (Human Development Organization) with which we were making a long journey by bus to Tangalle on the south coast.
few people in fact, only someone who rummage through the pieces of walls trying to find pieces of the house.
Debris, for five continuous hours, the images I have in the eyes of the bus trip along the coast. Piles of rubble and broken bricks and beams and pieces of furniture and remnants of broken tiles and rags and scraps of twisted bicycles and motorcycles and bits of boats arriving from across the street. And an old woman sitting outside a makeshift tent, staring into space images of memories that remain. And people trying, in the midst of all this, to find something that was still usable. In time, before the arrival of the caterpillar to open a new space for an uncertain future.
"They are in the fields " he said, " are afraid to return."
All schools on the coast and many Buddhist temples were used as fields for refugees. Speaking with people who lived there is still perceived in the eye wall of water that swept away all that 'he found, people who drowned, their parents, their children, the elderly and children in particular, slower to seek refuge on top of the palm trees or on rooftops. Life rimastagli was now waiting for the daily flag of a truck with some stranger who came in to bring food rations, the night, lying on the bare earth, often insomnia, memories, nightmares and screams of fear from the tents nearby.
" a little while, then begin the monsoon that will flood everything on time once a day. Life in the camps is difficult because many people with the death of the family-based structure of society has collapsed: in these fields live close to people before the tsunami were of different social conditions, and here the castes have their own importance: they were not all poor, not least equally, and for young unmarried women and widows is often desirable to seek refuge with relatives rather than live in the area so even if they lose the right to food rations.
Then there are many who have lost their homes but have lost all the tools, especially the boats, and are not considered refugees, but did not earn the same as that living. "
"See, they are the only ones here who are organized, and they show up." Nada, the Tamil friend, I pointed to a tent which had been set up under a table, a group of women wrapped in saris for cheap, some with the baby in her arms, and some man with a sarong tied on his stomach lined up to a series of pots which was distributed rice and curry and side waving the blue flags with white writing of the JVP.
Every now and then crossed the road trucks loads of activists with the same flag. The Janata Vimukti Peramuna (People's Liberation Front) and 'the party Communist-nationalist who triggered the late eighties, especially in the south of the country, an insurgency that has made thousands of victims by the revolutionary government, which responded with a bloody repression. He subsequently became a party institution is the third largest in the country, deeply rooted in popular in the southern provinces. It 's still a party rather than combative, a counterweight to the liberal trends and highly favorable to foreign investment than the other two major parties, the PA and in this sense, especially the UNP (in Sri Lanka there are some export processing zones with special status among those with the worst working conditions in Asia and is one of the few countries in the where foreigners can buy land and buildings have 100% ownership). He was also, along with the conservative-fundamentalist party of the Buddhist clergy, one of the main obstacles to a peaceful solution to the conflict with the Tamil separatist forces in the north-east.
The civil war between the national army and the LTTE (Liberation Tigers for Tamil Eelam, known as the "Tamil Tigers") ended in 2009 with the defeat of the separatists had been ongoing since 1983 and has caused over 70,000 deaths. Over the past three years before the tsunami was to observe a ceasefire achieved through the mediation of Norway and the policy dialogue Ranil Wikremesinghe, prime minister at the head of the previous government led by the UNP (United National Party). Although the state of truce had been, during this period, substantially complied with, the negotiations to reach a permanent peace that could give hope to this poor country where war has consumed a significant percentage of GDP for decades, soon stranded, and if it were not for the tsunami, perhaps in the north have begun to fight much earlier than they eventually did. Nada, for his work with the NGOs, often went in the Tamil areas of Jaffna, Mullaitivu, Batticaloa and told me that the tension was always higher in recent times before the disaster on both sides beyond the line dividing the respective areas of control of the army and the Tigers. " "The situation post tsunami is recovering the same trend: the aid coming from the government in Tamil-majority areas are minimal compared to those of the Sinhalese and there have been cases of seizure of trucks carrying food to the Tamil refugees."
E 'is also significant that during their visits to Sri Lanka in the days following the tsunami or Kofi Annan or Colin Powell or Bill Clinton or Bush have been able to visit the north-east.
The [then] President Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga has set up a central office under his direct control that oversees all the aid and that, as he can, trying to manage also directly funds the NGO: the attitude is basically "give us the money to use them we will". And it is perhaps a result of disagreements that I've even read the newspapers more than 100 containers of aid blocked in the port of Colombo that NGOs target could not withdraw because of excessive customs duties also maintained on donations.
"But the Tigers are not to be less" Nada continued: "They made their central aid to victims, the TRO (Tamil Rescue Organization) and pretend that everything must pass in their areas under their administration. The management of money and goods are distributed is a great source of power and a powerful means of propaganda, the decisive period that will follow. If you notice, all those who bring aid have their flags prominently.
Nada, himself a Tamil, belongs to another school, his NGO, HDO, is convinced a group of peace activists, inspired by Gandhi, and engaged in interethnic dialogue, a rarity in this context. The mission for which I was taking him to the Tangalle shows clearly: it was a visit to arrange a shipment of aid from an organization in a totally Sri Lankan Tamil. , "We'll take our flags" I said with a grin "We want them to see who we are."
"Conversely the JVP in the south, the LTTE is the only truly local force organized in the north (though beset by a series of murderous feuds interaction with other Tamil factions splinter)" Nada yet explained to me as we descended from 'crowded bus and crossed the square of the bus station dodging stray cows, beggars and hawkers in arm with boxes of peanuts, fried and served hot chick cones. "They are organizations with a paramilitary structure, capillary and disciplined, while the two major parties institutional (PA and UNP) are more media, more image, less motivated frameworks, and lack of organization: people do not see them equally in the distribution of primary goods in the fields and roads. Local politicians seem to be especially attentive to the picture: there are those who has been photographed while shoveling rubble or delivered rations in many affected villages have been made are the foundation stone laying ceremony for new homes, with services in newspapers and TV but then the work stopped there and it even happened that checks for assistance by the government are then distributed to refugees in many cases the results discovered. "
"and this' his weight. Have you seen in the district of Gampaha, Negombo near? It is traditionally an area of \u200b\u200bthe JVP, but these days there are local elections and won them. These things have their importance if there are conflicting developments after the turn which is taking the policy of the here after tsunami. It 'a historic step, which is crucial for us: an unimaginable catastrophe that broke the legs of a poor country already, yet now a flow of money and resources than the annual GDP and all at a crucial time for a conflict that has lasted more than two decades! "
After giving a hand to Nada and his colleagues in the distribution of aid had been Tangalle to see what could I do with this money. Rather than being primary
aid such as food and water - to take care of the big organizations anyway - I wanted to help someone back to work. And since the people affected in the area, like the rest of the coast, were mainly fishermen, I thought I'd see if we could provide some fishing equipment.
After some research on the internet I came into contact with NAFSA (www.nafso.lk), a local union of fishermen on a small scale related to the global network of farmers and fishermen Via Campesina. They showed me their written reference to Tangalle, mr. Vipulasena, a fisherman and he himself a victim of the tsunami, in fact I said they stayed in one of the refugee camps and therefore could not give me a phone or a contact to find it. "But you know Tangalle is not great, and people you know."
I remember the time when the road in front of the port of Tangalle I asked a man wearing only a dirty shirt and a sarong, sitting under one of the buildings destroyed, if he knew some of NAFSA Vipulasena and he responded that it was him. And when, in front of my reaction a bit 'cautiously suspicious (you knew I was there to bring help and maybe money) extracted from a pile of rubble, a ripped banner half was written in Sinhalese characters welcome you to the "conference 2004 for the rights and welfare of the families of fishermen "... or something like that.
remember the other fishermen who immediately approached and their stories: boats entering the water pressures inside the houses, co-workers dead, afraid to return to sea after day, people who did not want to buy fish for the fear that it was contaminated by dead bodies and those who took advantage of a price to pay for it by hunger. And those who were on the larger boats that are out several days and did not realize anything because of the high seas the wave had not destructive power and when they returned they found the city destroyed and the dead in the streets.
Vipulasena explained to me the difference between the different boats and different systems of fishing boats are one, two and many people and one day or several days of fishing and in this case take the ice in the hull to conserve the fish. The first are those at the family level, the fishermen who work for themselves, many of whom adhere to NAFSA, the other property owners, fishermen and people who work there are paid by the day.
He showed me the damage to the boats and I understood immediately that we wanted very different resources than I had available to think to mend or re-purchase new ones. So we opted to buy fishing nets for those whose catamaran (traditional boat with rocker) could still going to sea. But there was no way to buy networks because even retailers and factories of these items had been overwhelmed by the disaster. I had to go further north, in Negombo, and I should be able to meet the national secretary of the union has its headquarters there.
The Secretary, Herman Kumara, we went to a wholesaler of fishing equipment. I bought the networks necessary for the work of 100 families, 50 networks, each working with two fishermen and then the rest of the family selling the fish, the dry, repair the nets, etc ... So I spent € 2000 I had available, then they would deliver a list of all recipients agreed with Vipulasena.
Then mr. Kumara invited me home. Negombo lives outside in an area planted with coconut palms and banana trees, is a Christian, but Buddhist married to a wife, as pointed out to me and rested her home and went to the gift to the altar with a statue of Christ and a Buddha . An interfaith marriage relatively common in the area of \u200b\u200bNegombo that has a significant presence of Christians. Partnerships between Buddhists and Hindus are much more rare because of the twenty-year ethnic conflict between Sinhalese (Buddhist) and Tamil (Hindu).
In the house there was a lot of children and relatives and neighbors, the family there is something bigger than here.
While we were eating the ubiquitous rice and curry, Herman Kumara gave me a broader view of what was actually happening. In essence, according to him, what happened to Sri Lanka in the wake of the tsunami is that the political power and business of the country's top law sought to use funds earmarked for reconstruction for a series of "great works" such as new roads, railways and new ports through which lead to a modernization of the country that made him attractive to both foreign and local investment. This will be called to create the necessary infrastructure development - and normally occurred elsewhere - would go largely to the benefit of investors and would have eradicated a large proportion of the population from their traditional social and economic status.
I took a very clear example of the process that was configured with the situation of fishermen: the government put a ban "for reasons of security" along the coast to build or rebuild houses within 100 meters from the beach which is where the majority fishermen lived, but permission is still only for the big hotels. The intent seemed to deliver the beautiful beaches of the island for the exclusive use of the entrepreneurs of luxury tourism, which is largely foreign-owned (in Sri Lanka foreigners can buy land and buildings while maintaining its 100% ownership - something almost unique in this part of the world - and big investments are strong tax exemptions and the possibility of re-export the profits). Until then, however, tourism was largely at the level of entrepreneurship family of small pensions and earnings which were distributed among a large number of people involved in various capacities in related services to visitors. Parallel to this
donations of boats and fishing equipment that arrived as tsunami aid from the European Union and FAO (the things that we have not used any more for the increasing scarcity of fish) would have made, together with the construction of ports modern economics of the fishing island increasingly dependent on imports for with spare parts and accessories. And it would put the fish available in the networks of these boats imported larger and more efficient and require a larger crew and specialized structure which is alien to the social and economic and entrepreneurial capabilities of traditional Sri Lankan fishing families whose members would soon found to choose between paid work and precarious future of the vessels and a new citizens unemployed in the slums of Colombo.
And the most ironic - I remarked Herman - is that all this would happen "thanks" to the funds that were not donated to "modernize" the country, but to restore the lives of disaster victims (most of these very small-scale fishermen) in the same way it was before: for the deaths of tens of thousands of these people who were given the money, not to transform the economic profile of the country!
On the other hand it was clear what the stakes were high and as we are already taking sufficient measures to ensure the success of the operation if, as reported in the Sunday Leader on February 20, in all the affected areas 'authority over the camps had been placed in the hands of the military and placed under special emergency legislation. This allowed to arrest anyone at the discretion of law enforcement "Disturb the functioning of essential services going so against the interest of national security." Under this Act (No.12 of 4 January 2004 - nine days after the tragedy - but only made public on 25) the president could declare an "essential service" any service, and acts which constitute crimes against those services included "the strike, the 'incitement to strike, the distribution of posters and leaflets and even the spread of false information likely to cause public alarm or disorder. " When I greeted
Herman Kumara wished him good luck for the heart because the next day we were all over the island a series of protests organized by their unions to oppose this policy and require that resources were used to help the victims in what they really need to return to their normal life. "
five years have passed since then and I returned to Sri Lanka only once briefly in 2007. Along the coast, much had been rebuilt, although many families were still living in refugee camps. Small entrepreneurs in the tourism of the coast have built massive borrowing as much as possible, without taking into account the so-called "buffer zone" in which he was forbidden to build, so that the government had to reduce it up to 20-30 meters or implicitly accept abolition of done. The fishermen of the Nafs
continued to carry out their battles, reaching even to get a major success recently with the ban on more invasive techniques of fishing (http://www.asianews.it/index.php?1 = en & art = 15870).
To me, the experience of that period, he remained skeptical as to the major operations of "humanitarian aid" and the cooperation organizations which are often one of several areas of international business. I think today that is worth making contributions (I mean by people rather than governments - which necessarily, in emergency situations, should move on other proportions) only projects small scale, possibly run by people of which there is a direct and that the scope of an audit on what is actually done. Upstream projects that have an overall view and critique of what it means to "help" and "development" and not merely focus on generic aspects "humane" without considering the effect, the integrability and the sustainability of these in the specific context of single country.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Images That Give You Erections
The blog as a marketing 2.0 TeamWork
Tuesday, November 3, 2009 at the Delegation of the West Hills Confinustria Padua from 17.00 to 19.00 with a pill Training Rita Bonucchi that will show us how to navigate the jungle of new opportunities of postmodern marketing.
Registration form can be downloaded at the following link.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
First Response 8 Weeks Pregnant Negative
Aiku
________________________________________________
Aiku at work.
If you do not find a word I struggle a little more
':
bones and muscles
tell me when I'll stop
_______________________________________________
Prune,
from year to year, prune
.
of olive trees is the right form.
of us ... ..
... .. the Essential
_______________________________________________
the smoke begins to rise from the pyre of damp
twigs of olive trees pruned. Denso
Like my memories
if I think about all these years
_________________________________________________
The ax hits the show log,
inevitable. His
thread resumes
rightful place between the two halves of wood
sketched on.
_________________________________________________
still collect
... the autumn leaves, of which nothing remains today.
_________________________________________________
BREATH
Since no-where in which everything is born
takes my hand and wrote the words:
"Whence are made
wind and breath." Then
him back, and prune low oil
these jets.
__________________________________________________
Above the pile of pruned branches
wings of flame dancing in the dense cloud of smoke.
The devil twisted trunks of olive
again free to ascend to heaven
_________________________________________________
I look at the greed of the fire
eat the twigs and
a stream of smoke escape
chased by the flames. This year I pruned
:
lifted something that was more
________________________________________
Sometimes I smoke a pipe and look at the sky.
When life is a moment to sit down to catch his breath
_______________________________________________________________________________________________ 
________________________________________________
Aiku at work.
If you do not find a word I struggle a little more
':
bones and muscles
tell me when I'll stop
_______________________________________________
Prune,
from year to year, prune
.
of olive trees is the right form.
of us ... ..
... .. the Essential
_______________________________________________
the smoke begins to rise from the pyre of damp
twigs of olive trees pruned. Denso
Like my memories
if I think about all these years
_________________________________________________
The ax hits the show log,
inevitable. His
thread resumes
rightful place between the two halves of wood
sketched on.
_________________________________________________
still collect
... the autumn leaves, of which nothing remains today.
_________________________________________________
BREATH
Since no-where in which everything is born
takes my hand and wrote the words:
"Whence are made
wind and breath." Then
him back, and prune low oil
these jets.
__________________________________________________
Above the pile of pruned branches
wings of flame dancing in the dense cloud of smoke.
The devil twisted trunks of olive
again free to ascend to heaven
_________________________________________________
I look at the greed of the fire
eat the twigs and
a stream of smoke escape
chased by the flames. This year I pruned
:
lifted something that was more
________________________________________
Sometimes I smoke a pipe and look at the sky.
When life is a moment to sit down to catch his breath
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
What Does Xanax Cost On Black Market?
Happy Hour
If you pass by the parties of Padua next Wednesday at 18.30, stop for a drink and a chat on informal training, we will be guests at Forem . Here the invitation.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Ikusa Otome Valkyrie 2 Onlines
In most bombed country in the world - Laos
few kilometers outside of Luang Prabang a kind of local farm, beautiful wooden bungalows and thatched roof in a large garden. The traditional buildings on stilts well saved by snakes, but not by insects: I left a package of peanuts on the table last night and today I have ants here on your computer, between the keys on which to write. The forest teems with life everywhere: the "primordial soup" still in business.
___________________________________________________________________________
One thing that immediately strikes in Laos is the sense of balance, a Buddhist middle way between the understandable drive to a certain degree of development and love for their ancestral way of life, slow and relaxed.
bordered to the west, Laos to Thailand, now projected into the consumerist dream was lawful even by selling out to hordes of tourists every day means much more limited than they are their claims and, to the east with Vietnam, rampant, totally dedicated to employment and growth plans on which he transferred his indomitable fighting spirit and with the same enthusiasm today, in a capitalist not declared, yesterday, in the previous communist ideal. To the south is Cambodia, never resurrected from the thick layer of human ashes with which the Khmer Rouge have covered, which recovered from the blows of ideology ever applied to the letter and out of context by Pol Pot and his (some of which saputi recycle are still enough to star in parliament) and the foreign exploitation that has become chronic - especially since the lives of Cambodia NGO programs and investment in Vietnam and Thailand. In the north, two dictatorships: the bold and bloody, but little weight internationally, Burma (Myanmar) and the huge and always a little 'indecipherable China, the giant of the future which has already begun.
Located in this setting, the greenish Laos shines in the eyes of the traveler, for his apparent equidistance from all excesses.
Cambodia does not have the misery and destruction, or difficult to heal the deep wounds within the society, Thailand has its wealth and infrastructure, nor the race to income and consumption at any cost and with Vietnam shares the single-party communist political system, but in the case of the Pathet Lao gained power was - even after years of fighting - in a bloodless coup when fifty soldiers "took" symbolically the capital Vientiane and its stage of centralization and statist economy with planned abolition of private property actually ended before he had taken the first five-year plan. Burma has not, luckily for him, a gang of murderers in power, China. ... Could it be that a very small province.
There is a well-known popular adage, coined by the French when they colonized this part of the world that the Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians are looking to grow, the Laotians listen to the music of the rice growing ( and - one might add - .... The Chinese collect and sell it). Like every adagio the emphasis would be a cliché, but - as with all clichés - you can also find the truth.
, Laos has great resources: a bit 'agricultural and timber industry but insignificant - up to standard "development" - and no access to the sea, for a total of about 1500 euro in annual revenue per capita. But he has a small population, less than 6 million people, and there are no large cities of the three largest Vientiane has a population of 250,000, Luang Prabang and Pakse 30,000 60,000; the other towns we would be little more than the little town. In total, the urban population that can be said does not come to 10%.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
In the bus from Pakse to the south, sitting in the right place close to the average height in Asia, I look a bit 'video clip on the TV set above the place of the driver. The picture freezes often broken down into colored squares, but it rolls show the global dreams came here sung by a funny character in bright jackets, which suggests that a seller of balloons at the carnival, surrounded by dancers dressed in a style vaguely moulin rouge that hint Lao traditional movements. The videos tell yearning of love, jealousy and betrayal that travel via SMS to mobile phones and latest model motorcycles and are resolved with intervention of Facial Plastic and body building. The happiness on the cheap which is everywhere being human illusions. Outside the window
farmers, buffalo and rice paddies and a Buddhist monastery surrounded by a pond full of lotus flowers.
_____________________________________________________________________________
This means that most of the population remained in the countryside, in villages, which has remained a farmer, that there had been uprooted from the ground and a traditional life and ecosystem adapted to flooding in the metropolitan suburbs and impoverished that devastated many Asian societies and the Third World.
I believe this to mean that the people here has a strong identity tied to their land and their lifestyle and it is not so ready to run after the first red herring: the Laotians are known for loving some enjoyment in life and see suspicious activities aimed totally stressful and selfish profit.
it must be a sign that even the government's policy choices have allowed these people to continue to live off the land and their traditional lifestyle, which are created (protected maintained) the conditions to make this possible, namely that, contrary to what has happened more often than anywhere else, created the conditions are not opposites.
With the establishment of the communist system are confiscated and redistributed the land not cultivated, but who cultivated their own plot of land directly in the retained beneficial interest in property and then the first reforms of its new "post-statist orthodoxy "have been running to help the villagers to improve their condition. And still today the caution against the government following the opening - still quite limited - to foreign investors, keeps the country with a very small industrial sector (although there are important resources such as hydroelectric and mining gold, silver and coal) and agricultural economy fundamentally not broad, and because the conformation of the hilly territory will not allow it anyway.
Honestly, it's not that I have made extensive research on the economy and society of Laos, but I can record what I perceive from my point of view of travelers to some extent also professionally involved in tourism.
in the whole area of \u200b\u200bnorthern Indochina, a major tourist activity consists of trekking and hiking in the mountains and villages inhabited by the so-called " Montagnards, tribal or ethnic groups in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and the Yunnan region of China: real "attraction" voyeuristic because of their cultural and traditional customs of their craft and their typical houses.
Around the presence of these ethnic minorities running a business on which they earn a lot of operators and tourism workers, money - in one way or another - are fed also the general economy of these countries and government finances, but that does not bear almost no gain to the affected populations which remain at the center of this phenomenon only as subjects Photography in costume, hard core - despite themselves - in the whole business.
Travelling in Vietnam, for example, I often thought it would be fair if it were established by a tax on photographs to charge to every tourist that comes with a strong presence in the tribal territories and the proceeds were allocated in full to local communities (and especially women, which are those who still regularly bring the traditional dress - that is the real reason why tourists go that far - but that even those who disliked being photographed).
Such a tax would have a back who can with the sole presence significant gains to entrepreneurs often completely unrelated to the place - while avoiding the humiliation of asking a few dollars to each visitor to leave photos - and would also be a recognition of the value and appreciation of international (at least aesthetically) of certain cultural traits and of who holds them in addition to being intended for local grassroots organizations and their projects instead of going - as for the charity - to individuals who agree to sell from time to time their image (even manage to get paid something about it - which is not granted).
In Thailand, the situation is even worse: Tourism in the North was born and grew up in part due to tribal and ethnic groups has grown without any regulation or planning to work with entrepreneurs mostly from big cities and are unrelated to the peoples concerned. In an area that could not take advantage of the beautiful coastline that abound in the rest of the country, the presence of ethnic minorities in the mountains with their distinctive culture has been exploited in the same way to a gold mine until exhausted in fact the trend, instead which still bears the signs of plundering the many tribes who continue to mimic their own traditions for the consumption of tourists (though there are also groups that move in the direction as opposed IMPECT (Inter Mountain Peoples Education and Culture in Thailand Association
- see:
http://www.indigenousportal.com/Self-Determination/-Promoting-and-protecting-the-rights-of-Indigenous-and- Highland-Ethnic-Peoples-in-Thailand.html ).
In face of the neighboring countries of Laos, in opening up to tourism, has opted for different lines. From Luang Nam Tha Province (northern and mountainous, with a strong presence tribal) government took over the situation some years ago all the hiking and trekking tourism activities private have been banned and was founded Ecotourism Project ( http://www.unescobkk.org/culture/our-projects/sustainable-cultural-tourism-and-ecotourism/namha-ecotourism-project/ ) has established a code of conduct (in line with the Responsible Tourism) for both operators and for the same tourists and villagers concerned, the guides were formed with specific courses and had to get permission province to work, planning and management of trekking routes have been agreed together with the communities of the villages: only those who've shown interested in welcoming tourists. Were laid down rules for the disposal of waste and for the redistribution of profits, there is a maximum for the size of groups of visitors. After several years of experimentation and project implementation and attention to feedback who came from various parties we have passed from public monopoly to the authorization of a number of private agencies, however, remain bound to comply with the same code of conduct and must use only licensed guides. DIY tourism in the areas of tribal communities, is not allowed. The project has had considerable success and is expanding to several other provinces throughout the country. ________________________________________________________________________
I always look out the window of the bus: the countryside, villages and small towns. Laos is all a big province, a province of the country entirely, without a metropolis, but it is a provincial country, so why not try to be something that is not no monkey no one considered this to feel better as soon as you acquire a tract similar to his, even one of the most controversial. In this sense Italy, a land once of a "caput mundi", and today is always careful to keep up / run after the "large" in the West, it is much more provincial forgotten of this small republic on the outskirts of the empire - maybe just to keep it aside to his health.
______________________________________________________________________________
In this way can Laos so far to preserve both nature and culture of these areas which also means keeping them as an economic resource with permanent dual effect of developing in a sustainable and durable its resources in the tourism sector and to ensure that this offsets the gap that c ' is more, such as industrial - two aspects of one maintaining the quality of life. It is, cleverly, in order to enhance what we have forward-looking, squeeze it without style "disposable" and avoid disrupting the ecosystem in which we live and the lives of people, without chasing mirages strangers to their own situation, to their possibilities and also to their culture.
Intelligence Laotian administrators has been to take the phenomenon and give a firm approach when he was still in its infancy because, once the business uncontrolled tourism has taken over and has brought its impact environmentally and culturally whit and rooting, there is not much to do.
When people are convinced that the only way to improve their condition is a little to throw to the winds what you have and what it has always been, can only be the cycle of the consequences showed the heavy side effects of this choice, a cycle that can take several generations during which it will burn the necessary resources to pay for the salt that the reality of the facts presented at the end.
The Laos seems to have observed and understood what was happening in neighboring countries, seems to have learned their lesson from the mistakes of those who have previously faced the same steps and acted in time: the best of each of the so-called "countries developing countries "should do. But before that we can not but wonder if this has not been possible only in the economic and political conditions in which a country like Laos can be found: those of a country not yet "developed" and guided by a single party that won a popular revolution. Could do the same for a system modeled on those in a Western country in the Third World? I could do even one of those rich Western democracies? Govern certain processes before they get out of hand does not allow much room for prevarication, and, once they have brought their changes in society and mentality, there is not much that can be done to recover what was lost.
This is not to ignore that there is corruption in Laos and that there have been sold against the H'mong ethnic minorities (who fought the Communists for the account and the pay of the CIA with the promise of a state then independent territories subtract from Laos and Vietnam). Nor can we deny that there have been violations of human rights, especially in the past against the supporters of the king and the forces of right (interned for years in camps for "reeducation") or that, to date, no is given to the people to know what are the choices of the government for the foreseeable future, nor what the internal debates in progress. But - and without forgetting that even in our developed democracies is not all gold that glitters - register the fact that the reality of Laos shows some conditions that, when thrown together in the reality of a country, can afford to follow a "path half of "balanced development and poverty and to a certain extent necessary to maintain control over the processes of historical transformation at the local level.
These features that the case of Laos shows us is that it is:
- basically an economy based on agriculture family on a small scale (and where, consequently, the other economic sectors are calibrated to measure this central segment - which is also the living conditions of the overwhelming majority of society);
- a limited number of population;
- a culture in which there was an irreparable split with tradition;
- a form of government in which the system background and vision can not be questioned.
to ease the horror that some people may cause the fourth point I would add that:
- I think it is conceivable that in every single party, from time immemorial, there has never been a defined, uniform views, but, even there, there is always an internal dialogue between a variety of locations - although, of course, a number only within certain limits;
- the fact that the political unity corresponds to a population limited in number and even to a limited area - that remains in the size of the room - along with a simple economic system, not very developed and therefore not too complex - that remain within reach - as well as understanding its inner workings - from the general population - might allow some degree of control in a democratic political system with a constitution that does not allow margins too large to put into question some basic principles. This is a hypothetical model, and I do not know what the case of Laos comes close, but could be a possible system in a nation / political unit of small size (in territory and population) governed by a single party regime in which there is room for different lists, motions or applications specific.
This type of democratic control local level can not say that it is present in Laos, honestly, and I can imagine that there will be much, but this is not to enhance the paradise of some utopia built on duty and therefore do not believe that detract as we can draw from this country as an element of inspiration and reflection and to find something to learn.
In addition to not ask if all this is still possible beyond a certain level of development: the Laos have a population in which the company is recognized in a traditional common culture shared by the majority of people of substantially different backgrounds and different generations of local and beyond this the same relative poverty, a self-regulating principle of necessity, makes visible to everyone the importance of a degree of solidarity, mutual respect, social harmony, given the need to cooperate and a certain mutual dependence and common needs (this should be added that apparently exists in the country a some degree of leveling the economic and social differences are not seen striking examples of status symbols and do not meet almost beggars or prostitutes - except a minimum in the tourist area of \u200b\u200bthe capital).
These two elements ensure a more important social compact with higher levels of wealth go to mine then, and for the disappearance of the need to give a hand to each other for both the open spaces of individual and cultural diversity of the reference values \u200b\u200bdivergent and sometimes opposing within the same company.
Perhaps those processes that a country like Laos is still able, with intelligence and foresight, to manage, we have them already out for a while and will come first, by the objective conditions that we've created the lesson ( yes I'm afraid this is not so "democratic" nor attentive to the "human rights") of the consequences of our short-sighted to teach us about wealth. ________________________________________________________________________
Turning cycling between the rice fields and palm groves on the island of Don Khon, I note the intention to replant the rice farmers, children who place traps for small frogs and women in the shade to the frame under the floor of the houses on stilts . For some window that is hung to wave the red flag with hammer and sickle you hear commercial music video clips I saw on the bus.
And I think people in this gentle, supremely quiet, and its sovereignty and how the 'has gained a small revolution forgotten by history, paid a high price in lives forgotten by the news. Loyal people who supported the right side, helping a sister nation of fighters in their heroic struggle of David against Goliath. Victorious struggle, the Vietnamese people of very different pasta that Laotians, could not (despite the objective balance of forces) will not win - unless it had decided to slaughter them all to a man, until ' Last old. The Laotians have helped them, giving him food and shelter, and letting them pass on their paths in the forest, who knew only their paths and the wild animals that lived there. Paths on which the technology is well-looked by the American soldiers go - leaving to make bombs believed to have more than enough, but two million tonnes were not enough to bend these people. How three million dead in Vietnam were not enough. The Laotian
but have not taken much active part in that stage where the whole region was on fire. And so he did earlier, their government and to understand that it can not be wiped out by decree the culture and traditions of a people and replace them with imported ideologies.
Children and adults greet me at the passage: as far as I know, I might as well be American. No matter, all things come, take shape and then they go, how those small vortices that form shortly, in the water of the Mekong.
______________________________________________________________________________
On the other hand, that the majority of Laotians are quite willingly take this non-democratic regime, we can understand better if we look at what the country-western champion of democracy and its success has made the world smaller Laos.
In the province of Xiengkhouang, near the city of Phongsavan (as well as in several other areas along the border with Vietnam) passed the "path of Ho Chi Mhinh," the path that followed the Viet Cong to bring arms and supplies from North Vietnam shared by the South under U.S. control. The Pathet Lao (Laotian Communist Party) and the local population allowed the passage and helped the Vietnamese guerrillas who took advantage of the dense forest and the numerous caves to try to go unnoticed. The U.S. military was held at bay groped by a ground offensive in an area so dangerous, and belonging to a country formally neutral, but, on the ground, the CIA formed a secret army fodder by promising an impossible state H'mong tribal H 'mong (as he did then with the Afghan mujaheddhin and many other armed groups in the world) that small groups of desperate people still hiding in the jungle and are pursuing, air, dumped 2 million tons of bombs of all types (more than any other country in the world in every war in history, same as 350 kilos per capita, including both old and children or the load of a bomber threw every 8 minutes to 24 hours a day for 9 years) on this small country is not belligerent. A
Phongsavan an NGO (MAG - Mines Advisory Group = www.maginternational.org ) works even today, thirty-four years later, to defuse unexploded bombs still reap victims among the local people and severely limit the possibility of extend the arable land on the probability of dying on some device. During the time of the bombing (as for other recent operations, formally, there was no war) the inhabitants of this area had to live hidden, stored in caves and out to cultivate the rice fields only at night. The caves also served as hospitals, but this did not spare the Laotians who took shelter from being targeted by American missiles was already smart enough to catch on the hole and explode inside by hundreds of victims in one fell swoop.
All this is well documented in a video ( http://www.itvs.org/shows/ataglance.php?showID=7321 ) that this international NGO projects every day in his office in the city, as well as by the numerous remains of bombs that come into view of the traveler and the local tourist office in the various uses to which the invention of Lao was able to recycle them: from the base of support for a tank water, a long wall hung outside the home in order to plant the onions until support posts for the fences.
_______________________________________________________________________
A Si Phan Don, the "four thousand islands" in the south of the border with Laos and Cambodia.
A room of wood and bamboo floating on the Mekong, on a deck chair on the balcony on the water, let coursing off the fatigue of travel with the view of the water reddish brown. The river brings his gift of debris from the muddy Tibet to feed the vast delta in Vietnam, where farmers are able to do even three crops rice per year.
The fast and slow water flow at the same time, relentless, including me, who are passing through, and the family of which I hear the voices, whose life runs entirely in the huts that I see in front, under the palm trees and rice paddies.
Relaxation, acceptance of the passing of all, as this air bubble passing time with water, floating metaphor in a bamboo balcony.
______________________________________________________________________________
Phongsavan But I also find something very different, after all, also comes from the United States: an element of Laos does not undergo the world, but who knows how to carve out its space and its possible future version.
Loc is a woman of thirty, twenty of which spent in the U.S. where he studied and where he had a job at a big company in Minneapolis. His mother, Kommaly Chantavong, a woman from a village like many in the province of Hua Phah (the most inaccessible of the country, in whose caves the Pathet Lao had established his headquarters during the revolution), weavers are all women in the villages, without formal education, he founded Mulberries ( www.mulberries.org ), an NGO that works on the production, processing and marketing (through the Fairtrade / Supportive) of silk with many Lao villages. Loc had the opportunity to grow and study in the U.S., speaking as an American and had a good job, it has not prevented spend long periods in Laos and to know his country and the reasons for his mother in what stood behind the products that she helped to sell in the U.S. (among other things, fine raw silk scarves hand spun and dyed with natural dyes). In recent months, however, the global crisis has prompted the company where he worked to lay off a number of employees, including her. This was the thrust which has decided to come back, convinced that she can do something more interesting and useful here than looking precarious assumption in the U.S.. And 'round with great enthusiasm and tells me how the silk is still the second largest source of income for farmers Lao (after rice), is still used as the fabric of daily use in his country and that it is on the market Internal she hopes to open a space, not relying entirely on the fashions of the rich countries, knowing that artificial silks imported from China are already competing in the same powerful Laos.
The silk industry, organized to involve more villages at different stages, not just been producing a good, but - from the herd of cows that fertilize the soil where they grow the mulberry trees, the leaves of which feed the worms and then spinning, weaving, the preparation of colors and hand-dyeing, it is primarily age-old way of life, income guarantee from the size of the village, continuing a tradition of integrated settlements with the environment, rural and community sovereignty over the territories, without having to give up their children to study or pay for medicines when needed.
Loc Following his visits to producers see where fabrics come true value and great price for the Western market, from the hands of farmers who have no water at home, which always create fabrics popular in the world - even for those not have no idea where they come from.
This Silk tells the story of a people and its land, woven and integrated as the plot and the Horde of the fabric, but many families today are turning to the cultivation of maize (GM), which is supplied ( as seed) and bought by foreign companies each year at a price lower, but safe - unlike the silk, for which we need to find markets that pay for the work it requires. ________________________________________________________________________
Under headman's house chickens and children scamper around. The chief's wife lifts the cloth that covers a large basket, and here are caterpillars that move lying on a bed of chopped mulberry leaves: eat three times a day for three to four days, then sleep for as many as they grow, then eat again, then another break, grow, and so on until are the cocoon, which is silk. They have time and stages: is there time to grow and to stop. And sometimes the same is to stop growing. They know. Extinct
a monarchy which lasted more than 600 years, after the American bombardment and communism, past dreams developed, and the global economic crisis. ... I hope they wake up every caterpillars always continue to make their cocoons and silk farmers in rows and their women to weave these wonderful fabrics.
And there are those who want to live like that, still very very long time, the Laotian hills.
few kilometers outside of Luang Prabang a kind of local farm, beautiful wooden bungalows and thatched roof in a large garden. The traditional buildings on stilts well saved by snakes, but not by insects: I left a package of peanuts on the table last night and today I have ants here on your computer, between the keys on which to write. The forest teems with life everywhere: the "primordial soup" still in business.
___________________________________________________________________________
One thing that immediately strikes in Laos is the sense of balance, a Buddhist middle way between the understandable drive to a certain degree of development and love for their ancestral way of life, slow and relaxed.
bordered to the west, Laos to Thailand, now projected into the consumerist dream was lawful even by selling out to hordes of tourists every day means much more limited than they are their claims and, to the east with Vietnam, rampant, totally dedicated to employment and growth plans on which he transferred his indomitable fighting spirit and with the same enthusiasm today, in a capitalist not declared, yesterday, in the previous communist ideal. To the south is Cambodia, never resurrected from the thick layer of human ashes with which the Khmer Rouge have covered, which recovered from the blows of ideology ever applied to the letter and out of context by Pol Pot and his (some of which saputi recycle are still enough to star in parliament) and the foreign exploitation that has become chronic - especially since the lives of Cambodia NGO programs and investment in Vietnam and Thailand. In the north, two dictatorships: the bold and bloody, but little weight internationally, Burma (Myanmar) and the huge and always a little 'indecipherable China, the giant of the future which has already begun.
Located in this setting, the greenish Laos shines in the eyes of the traveler, for his apparent equidistance from all excesses.
Cambodia does not have the misery and destruction, or difficult to heal the deep wounds within the society, Thailand has its wealth and infrastructure, nor the race to income and consumption at any cost and with Vietnam shares the single-party communist political system, but in the case of the Pathet Lao gained power was - even after years of fighting - in a bloodless coup when fifty soldiers "took" symbolically the capital Vientiane and its stage of centralization and statist economy with planned abolition of private property actually ended before he had taken the first five-year plan. Burma has not, luckily for him, a gang of murderers in power, China. ... Could it be that a very small province.
There is a well-known popular adage, coined by the French when they colonized this part of the world that the Vietnamese plant rice, the Cambodians are looking to grow, the Laotians listen to the music of the rice growing ( and - one might add - .... The Chinese collect and sell it). Like every adagio the emphasis would be a cliché, but - as with all clichés - you can also find the truth.
, Laos has great resources: a bit 'agricultural and timber industry but insignificant - up to standard "development" - and no access to the sea, for a total of about 1500 euro in annual revenue per capita. But he has a small population, less than 6 million people, and there are no large cities of the three largest Vientiane has a population of 250,000, Luang Prabang and Pakse 30,000 60,000; the other towns we would be little more than the little town. In total, the urban population that can be said does not come to 10%.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
In the bus from Pakse to the south, sitting in the right place close to the average height in Asia, I look a bit 'video clip on the TV set above the place of the driver. The picture freezes often broken down into colored squares, but it rolls show the global dreams came here sung by a funny character in bright jackets, which suggests that a seller of balloons at the carnival, surrounded by dancers dressed in a style vaguely moulin rouge that hint Lao traditional movements. The videos tell yearning of love, jealousy and betrayal that travel via SMS to mobile phones and latest model motorcycles and are resolved with intervention of Facial Plastic and body building. The happiness on the cheap which is everywhere being human illusions. Outside the window
farmers, buffalo and rice paddies and a Buddhist monastery surrounded by a pond full of lotus flowers.
_____________________________________________________________________________
This means that most of the population remained in the countryside, in villages, which has remained a farmer, that there had been uprooted from the ground and a traditional life and ecosystem adapted to flooding in the metropolitan suburbs and impoverished that devastated many Asian societies and the Third World.
I believe this to mean that the people here has a strong identity tied to their land and their lifestyle and it is not so ready to run after the first red herring: the Laotians are known for loving some enjoyment in life and see suspicious activities aimed totally stressful and selfish profit.
it must be a sign that even the government's policy choices have allowed these people to continue to live off the land and their traditional lifestyle, which are created (protected maintained) the conditions to make this possible, namely that, contrary to what has happened more often than anywhere else, created the conditions are not opposites.
With the establishment of the communist system are confiscated and redistributed the land not cultivated, but who cultivated their own plot of land directly in the retained beneficial interest in property and then the first reforms of its new "post-statist orthodoxy "have been running to help the villagers to improve their condition. And still today the caution against the government following the opening - still quite limited - to foreign investors, keeps the country with a very small industrial sector (although there are important resources such as hydroelectric and mining gold, silver and coal) and agricultural economy fundamentally not broad, and because the conformation of the hilly territory will not allow it anyway.
Honestly, it's not that I have made extensive research on the economy and society of Laos, but I can record what I perceive from my point of view of travelers to some extent also professionally involved in tourism.
in the whole area of \u200b\u200bnorthern Indochina, a major tourist activity consists of trekking and hiking in the mountains and villages inhabited by the so-called " Montagnards, tribal or ethnic groups in Burma, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and the Yunnan region of China: real "attraction" voyeuristic because of their cultural and traditional customs of their craft and their typical houses.
Around the presence of these ethnic minorities running a business on which they earn a lot of operators and tourism workers, money - in one way or another - are fed also the general economy of these countries and government finances, but that does not bear almost no gain to the affected populations which remain at the center of this phenomenon only as subjects Photography in costume, hard core - despite themselves - in the whole business.
Travelling in Vietnam, for example, I often thought it would be fair if it were established by a tax on photographs to charge to every tourist that comes with a strong presence in the tribal territories and the proceeds were allocated in full to local communities (and especially women, which are those who still regularly bring the traditional dress - that is the real reason why tourists go that far - but that even those who disliked being photographed).
Such a tax would have a back who can with the sole presence significant gains to entrepreneurs often completely unrelated to the place - while avoiding the humiliation of asking a few dollars to each visitor to leave photos - and would also be a recognition of the value and appreciation of international (at least aesthetically) of certain cultural traits and of who holds them in addition to being intended for local grassroots organizations and their projects instead of going - as for the charity - to individuals who agree to sell from time to time their image (even manage to get paid something about it - which is not granted).
In Thailand, the situation is even worse: Tourism in the North was born and grew up in part due to tribal and ethnic groups has grown without any regulation or planning to work with entrepreneurs mostly from big cities and are unrelated to the peoples concerned. In an area that could not take advantage of the beautiful coastline that abound in the rest of the country, the presence of ethnic minorities in the mountains with their distinctive culture has been exploited in the same way to a gold mine until exhausted in fact the trend, instead which still bears the signs of plundering the many tribes who continue to mimic their own traditions for the consumption of tourists (though there are also groups that move in the direction as opposed IMPECT (Inter Mountain Peoples Education and Culture in Thailand Association
- see:
http://www.indigenousportal.com/Self-Determination/-Promoting-and-protecting-the-rights-of-Indigenous-and- Highland-Ethnic-Peoples-in-Thailand.html ).
In face of the neighboring countries of Laos, in opening up to tourism, has opted for different lines. From Luang Nam Tha Province (northern and mountainous, with a strong presence tribal) government took over the situation some years ago all the hiking and trekking tourism activities private have been banned and was founded Ecotourism Project ( http://www.unescobkk.org/culture/our-projects/sustainable-cultural-tourism-and-ecotourism/namha-ecotourism-project/ ) has established a code of conduct (in line with the Responsible Tourism) for both operators and for the same tourists and villagers concerned, the guides were formed with specific courses and had to get permission province to work, planning and management of trekking routes have been agreed together with the communities of the villages: only those who've shown interested in welcoming tourists. Were laid down rules for the disposal of waste and for the redistribution of profits, there is a maximum for the size of groups of visitors. After several years of experimentation and project implementation and attention to feedback who came from various parties we have passed from public monopoly to the authorization of a number of private agencies, however, remain bound to comply with the same code of conduct and must use only licensed guides. DIY tourism in the areas of tribal communities, is not allowed. The project has had considerable success and is expanding to several other provinces throughout the country. ________________________________________________________________________
I always look out the window of the bus: the countryside, villages and small towns. Laos is all a big province, a province of the country entirely, without a metropolis, but it is a provincial country, so why not try to be something that is not no monkey no one considered this to feel better as soon as you acquire a tract similar to his, even one of the most controversial. In this sense Italy, a land once of a "caput mundi", and today is always careful to keep up / run after the "large" in the West, it is much more provincial forgotten of this small republic on the outskirts of the empire - maybe just to keep it aside to his health.
______________________________________________________________________________
In this way can Laos so far to preserve both nature and culture of these areas which also means keeping them as an economic resource with permanent dual effect of developing in a sustainable and durable its resources in the tourism sector and to ensure that this offsets the gap that c ' is more, such as industrial - two aspects of one maintaining the quality of life. It is, cleverly, in order to enhance what we have forward-looking, squeeze it without style "disposable" and avoid disrupting the ecosystem in which we live and the lives of people, without chasing mirages strangers to their own situation, to their possibilities and also to their culture.
Intelligence Laotian administrators has been to take the phenomenon and give a firm approach when he was still in its infancy because, once the business uncontrolled tourism has taken over and has brought its impact environmentally and culturally whit and rooting, there is not much to do.
When people are convinced that the only way to improve their condition is a little to throw to the winds what you have and what it has always been, can only be the cycle of the consequences showed the heavy side effects of this choice, a cycle that can take several generations during which it will burn the necessary resources to pay for the salt that the reality of the facts presented at the end.
The Laos seems to have observed and understood what was happening in neighboring countries, seems to have learned their lesson from the mistakes of those who have previously faced the same steps and acted in time: the best of each of the so-called "countries developing countries "should do. But before that we can not but wonder if this has not been possible only in the economic and political conditions in which a country like Laos can be found: those of a country not yet "developed" and guided by a single party that won a popular revolution. Could do the same for a system modeled on those in a Western country in the Third World? I could do even one of those rich Western democracies? Govern certain processes before they get out of hand does not allow much room for prevarication, and, once they have brought their changes in society and mentality, there is not much that can be done to recover what was lost.
This is not to ignore that there is corruption in Laos and that there have been sold against the H'mong ethnic minorities (who fought the Communists for the account and the pay of the CIA with the promise of a state then independent territories subtract from Laos and Vietnam). Nor can we deny that there have been violations of human rights, especially in the past against the supporters of the king and the forces of right (interned for years in camps for "reeducation") or that, to date, no is given to the people to know what are the choices of the government for the foreseeable future, nor what the internal debates in progress. But - and without forgetting that even in our developed democracies is not all gold that glitters - register the fact that the reality of Laos shows some conditions that, when thrown together in the reality of a country, can afford to follow a "path half of "balanced development and poverty and to a certain extent necessary to maintain control over the processes of historical transformation at the local level.
These features that the case of Laos shows us is that it is:
- basically an economy based on agriculture family on a small scale (and where, consequently, the other economic sectors are calibrated to measure this central segment - which is also the living conditions of the overwhelming majority of society);
- a limited number of population;
- a culture in which there was an irreparable split with tradition;
- a form of government in which the system background and vision can not be questioned.
to ease the horror that some people may cause the fourth point I would add that:
- I think it is conceivable that in every single party, from time immemorial, there has never been a defined, uniform views, but, even there, there is always an internal dialogue between a variety of locations - although, of course, a number only within certain limits;
- the fact that the political unity corresponds to a population limited in number and even to a limited area - that remains in the size of the room - along with a simple economic system, not very developed and therefore not too complex - that remain within reach - as well as understanding its inner workings - from the general population - might allow some degree of control in a democratic political system with a constitution that does not allow margins too large to put into question some basic principles. This is a hypothetical model, and I do not know what the case of Laos comes close, but could be a possible system in a nation / political unit of small size (in territory and population) governed by a single party regime in which there is room for different lists, motions or applications specific.
This type of democratic control local level can not say that it is present in Laos, honestly, and I can imagine that there will be much, but this is not to enhance the paradise of some utopia built on duty and therefore do not believe that detract as we can draw from this country as an element of inspiration and reflection and to find something to learn.
In addition to not ask if all this is still possible beyond a certain level of development: the Laos have a population in which the company is recognized in a traditional common culture shared by the majority of people of substantially different backgrounds and different generations of local and beyond this the same relative poverty, a self-regulating principle of necessity, makes visible to everyone the importance of a degree of solidarity, mutual respect, social harmony, given the need to cooperate and a certain mutual dependence and common needs (this should be added that apparently exists in the country a some degree of leveling the economic and social differences are not seen striking examples of status symbols and do not meet almost beggars or prostitutes - except a minimum in the tourist area of \u200b\u200bthe capital).
These two elements ensure a more important social compact with higher levels of wealth go to mine then, and for the disappearance of the need to give a hand to each other for both the open spaces of individual and cultural diversity of the reference values \u200b\u200bdivergent and sometimes opposing within the same company.
Perhaps those processes that a country like Laos is still able, with intelligence and foresight, to manage, we have them already out for a while and will come first, by the objective conditions that we've created the lesson ( yes I'm afraid this is not so "democratic" nor attentive to the "human rights") of the consequences of our short-sighted to teach us about wealth. ________________________________________________________________________
Turning cycling between the rice fields and palm groves on the island of Don Khon, I note the intention to replant the rice farmers, children who place traps for small frogs and women in the shade to the frame under the floor of the houses on stilts . For some window that is hung to wave the red flag with hammer and sickle you hear commercial music video clips I saw on the bus.
And I think people in this gentle, supremely quiet, and its sovereignty and how the 'has gained a small revolution forgotten by history, paid a high price in lives forgotten by the news. Loyal people who supported the right side, helping a sister nation of fighters in their heroic struggle of David against Goliath. Victorious struggle, the Vietnamese people of very different pasta that Laotians, could not (despite the objective balance of forces) will not win - unless it had decided to slaughter them all to a man, until ' Last old. The Laotians have helped them, giving him food and shelter, and letting them pass on their paths in the forest, who knew only their paths and the wild animals that lived there. Paths on which the technology is well-looked by the American soldiers go - leaving to make bombs believed to have more than enough, but two million tonnes were not enough to bend these people. How three million dead in Vietnam were not enough. The Laotian
but have not taken much active part in that stage where the whole region was on fire. And so he did earlier, their government and to understand that it can not be wiped out by decree the culture and traditions of a people and replace them with imported ideologies.
Children and adults greet me at the passage: as far as I know, I might as well be American. No matter, all things come, take shape and then they go, how those small vortices that form shortly, in the water of the Mekong.
______________________________________________________________________________
On the other hand, that the majority of Laotians are quite willingly take this non-democratic regime, we can understand better if we look at what the country-western champion of democracy and its success has made the world smaller Laos.
In the province of Xiengkhouang, near the city of Phongsavan (as well as in several other areas along the border with Vietnam) passed the "path of Ho Chi Mhinh," the path that followed the Viet Cong to bring arms and supplies from North Vietnam shared by the South under U.S. control. The Pathet Lao (Laotian Communist Party) and the local population allowed the passage and helped the Vietnamese guerrillas who took advantage of the dense forest and the numerous caves to try to go unnoticed. The U.S. military was held at bay groped by a ground offensive in an area so dangerous, and belonging to a country formally neutral, but, on the ground, the CIA formed a secret army fodder by promising an impossible state H'mong tribal H 'mong (as he did then with the Afghan mujaheddhin and many other armed groups in the world) that small groups of desperate people still hiding in the jungle and are pursuing, air, dumped 2 million tons of bombs of all types (more than any other country in the world in every war in history, same as 350 kilos per capita, including both old and children or the load of a bomber threw every 8 minutes to 24 hours a day for 9 years) on this small country is not belligerent. A
Phongsavan an NGO (MAG - Mines Advisory Group = www.maginternational.org ) works even today, thirty-four years later, to defuse unexploded bombs still reap victims among the local people and severely limit the possibility of extend the arable land on the probability of dying on some device. During the time of the bombing (as for other recent operations, formally, there was no war) the inhabitants of this area had to live hidden, stored in caves and out to cultivate the rice fields only at night. The caves also served as hospitals, but this did not spare the Laotians who took shelter from being targeted by American missiles was already smart enough to catch on the hole and explode inside by hundreds of victims in one fell swoop.
All this is well documented in a video ( http://www.itvs.org/shows/ataglance.php?showID=7321 ) that this international NGO projects every day in his office in the city, as well as by the numerous remains of bombs that come into view of the traveler and the local tourist office in the various uses to which the invention of Lao was able to recycle them: from the base of support for a tank water, a long wall hung outside the home in order to plant the onions until support posts for the fences.
_______________________________________________________________________
A Si Phan Don, the "four thousand islands" in the south of the border with Laos and Cambodia.
A room of wood and bamboo floating on the Mekong, on a deck chair on the balcony on the water, let coursing off the fatigue of travel with the view of the water reddish brown. The river brings his gift of debris from the muddy Tibet to feed the vast delta in Vietnam, where farmers are able to do even three crops rice per year.
The fast and slow water flow at the same time, relentless, including me, who are passing through, and the family of which I hear the voices, whose life runs entirely in the huts that I see in front, under the palm trees and rice paddies.
Relaxation, acceptance of the passing of all, as this air bubble passing time with water, floating metaphor in a bamboo balcony.
______________________________________________________________________________
Phongsavan But I also find something very different, after all, also comes from the United States: an element of Laos does not undergo the world, but who knows how to carve out its space and its possible future version.
Loc is a woman of thirty, twenty of which spent in the U.S. where he studied and where he had a job at a big company in Minneapolis. His mother, Kommaly Chantavong, a woman from a village like many in the province of Hua Phah (the most inaccessible of the country, in whose caves the Pathet Lao had established his headquarters during the revolution), weavers are all women in the villages, without formal education, he founded Mulberries ( www.mulberries.org ), an NGO that works on the production, processing and marketing (through the Fairtrade / Supportive) of silk with many Lao villages. Loc had the opportunity to grow and study in the U.S., speaking as an American and had a good job, it has not prevented spend long periods in Laos and to know his country and the reasons for his mother in what stood behind the products that she helped to sell in the U.S. (among other things, fine raw silk scarves hand spun and dyed with natural dyes). In recent months, however, the global crisis has prompted the company where he worked to lay off a number of employees, including her. This was the thrust which has decided to come back, convinced that she can do something more interesting and useful here than looking precarious assumption in the U.S.. And 'round with great enthusiasm and tells me how the silk is still the second largest source of income for farmers Lao (after rice), is still used as the fabric of daily use in his country and that it is on the market Internal she hopes to open a space, not relying entirely on the fashions of the rich countries, knowing that artificial silks imported from China are already competing in the same powerful Laos.
The silk industry, organized to involve more villages at different stages, not just been producing a good, but - from the herd of cows that fertilize the soil where they grow the mulberry trees, the leaves of which feed the worms and then spinning, weaving, the preparation of colors and hand-dyeing, it is primarily age-old way of life, income guarantee from the size of the village, continuing a tradition of integrated settlements with the environment, rural and community sovereignty over the territories, without having to give up their children to study or pay for medicines when needed.
Loc Following his visits to producers see where fabrics come true value and great price for the Western market, from the hands of farmers who have no water at home, which always create fabrics popular in the world - even for those not have no idea where they come from.
This Silk tells the story of a people and its land, woven and integrated as the plot and the Horde of the fabric, but many families today are turning to the cultivation of maize (GM), which is supplied ( as seed) and bought by foreign companies each year at a price lower, but safe - unlike the silk, for which we need to find markets that pay for the work it requires. ________________________________________________________________________
Under headman's house chickens and children scamper around. The chief's wife lifts the cloth that covers a large basket, and here are caterpillars that move lying on a bed of chopped mulberry leaves: eat three times a day for three to four days, then sleep for as many as they grow, then eat again, then another break, grow, and so on until are the cocoon, which is silk. They have time and stages: is there time to grow and to stop. And sometimes the same is to stop growing. They know. Extinct
a monarchy which lasted more than 600 years, after the American bombardment and communism, past dreams developed, and the global economic crisis. ... I hope they wake up every caterpillars always continue to make their cocoons and silk farmers in rows and their women to weave these wonderful fabrics.
And there are those who want to live like that, still very very long time, the Laotian hills.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)