Sharing articles on google reader: likely better than twitter

Last night I figured out a new element of Google Reader. You can share articles and check out articles that other people are sharing. I have long been in the habit of sharing articles on facebook, but I am sure people looking for social gossip are tired of always seeing my political or intellectual posts since they are so out of place. I am thrilled to have a new tool for sharing information among people with similar interests, so use a gmail account to check out reader and the share options, then find me at adelantesoleil@gmail.com

Get back to work!

Its time that I get back to working on this blog. It is a fine way to share information and to continue writing. From now on I am also going to translate my posts into Spanish so that my Spanish-speaking friends can join in on the the fun. For right now, I just want to throw out some links that I have been reading and enjoying. 

Es hora de renovar mi trabajo en este blog. Es buena manera de compartir información y seguir escribiendo. Desde ahora voy a traducir mis ensayos a Español para poder compartirlos con mis amigos hispanohablantes. Ahorita solo quiero compartir unos links que estoy leyendo y disfrutando.

http://www.diariocolatino.com/es/20090713/contraportada/69130/

-En Español... este artículo descata los rumores y las verdades sobre el abuso a las jovenes.

http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=3503&utm_source=jul09&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=3_Hdr

-In English... a positive and realistic perspective on our current economic problems in the US.

Elections

Salvadoran's elected mayors and legislative representatives on Sunday. Our observation went over smoothly in 18 municipalities with 85 volunteers. I was posted in Ilobasco, the largest city in the department of Cabañas. The following are pictures of the voting center there. Please see the article that Maggie and I wrote here for more information regarding the flawed process: http://narcosphere.narconews.com/notebook/maggie-von-vogt/2009/01/el-salvador-legislative-and-municipal-elections-conducted-flaws

You can see how what happened compared to what we were predicting by reading this article that Maggie and I published just before the elections: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1660/74/

Here you can see people over-looking the voting center. Check out duder in the middle with binoculars. This has to be illegal, right? People did not have the privacy of their vote guaranteed.

This is the typical vote-receiving table. Normally there are supposed to be 5 members, but many tables were made up of 4. You can see the active observers (in red vests) monitoring the process. 

We got to the outdoor voting center at 6 am, just before members showed up to start the process.

This guy is part of the local electoral board. He is in charge of counting up all of the votes turned in by the tables and ensuring a clean transfer of information from the local to state levels. He continuously pulled me aside during the day to chat about whatever came to mind. He introduced me to the chief of police and invited me to watch the final count with the rest of the members of the board. When we took this picture, I was really unsure about how close I wanted to be to him because of all the shady practices I had seen him using all day. My final conclusion: he is not a very trustworthy character, but I have to cooperate with him in order to complete a thorough observation. 

Update Time

After a super busy two weeks of traveling around the country for my volunteer position, I had an amazing trip to Seattle and now I am back in San Salvador, right back at it.

Before leaving the country, I went to several different municipalities to have formal meetings with the mayors, the other candidates for mayor, and the local electoral bodies just to clarify our observation mission for them and arrange for their cooperation if there are any problems on Election Day. Most of the time I traveled with Maggie, my good friend and co-volunteer, who made the time totally engaging and the meetings go very smooth. It was kind of overwhelming to be stuck around so many politicians who I found to be mostly full of shit, but now that I know their jive I handle it a little bit better. To be honest though, this experience is making me realize how little I want to be involved in politics. The “democratic” system is so corrupted by money and the people in search of power and fame, that there is no way I can get into it.

 I feel passionately that we should live in a participatory democracy, especially after learning about all the ways that “leaders” have screwed over the people since the inception of the democratic republic (not to mention every other political system that I know to have been enacted on a national level anywhere, ever), and instead of working in elections I want to be working with groups that foster real participation – that is grassroots popular education or something of the sort. I have some great ideas as to how to make that happen, but I prefer not to spill the beans until I am actually as productive as I want to be.

So after all the craziness of meeting with politicians and making big decisions about what I want to do with my life, I took a vacation to snowy Seattle. It was great to see the Weil family (the people I nannied for) and all of my friends, but I left reassured that I am doing the right thing in El Salvador. Of course I know that continuing the struggle in the US is of upmost importance, but I know in my heart that I need to be here for a while to share experiences, gain experiences, and learn some tactics to eventually take home.

I made it back to San Salvador with some good luck charms (my Aztec calendar wall hanging) and some special gifts that are not accessible here for my friends. I am currently greeting the new volunteers that have joined the observation mission at CIS and even welcoming a couple of them into my apartment while they figure out their living situation. As we get ready for the whirlwind that will just keep spinning faster as the elections get closer, I attempt to maintain sanity so as to get back into writing here. Pester me and you will probably see results.  

Some recent photos

There was a semi-serious tremor (fortunately it didn't cause any injuries) that sent everyone into the street last weekend. We were driving to the beach and didn't even feel it, but people started calling my friend Triby to make sure everything was okay. Then we realized why the traffic was so bad and why so many people were standing out on the side of the road. 

At Moje in Ilobasco there are workshops for people who wish to be artists. Clay is the most popular art form in the region, there are even artist co-ops for clay workers. 

The contaminated waters of this "river" are actually just sewage leaving the city center and flowing through the poor neighborhoods. Drinking water is brought to the poor area through a single irrigation pipe. Women walk with plastic jars on their heads to collect clean water for washing and cooking. 

Men cut down the rice with machetes and slam it against a metal barrel to release the grains while the women rest in the shade after bringing lunch. The birds were starting to eat the rice, so there had to be an early harvest. 

Projects

Strong winds have been occupying San Salvador for the last couple of weeks, building a layer of dust inside and outside. They make CIS impossible to work in because the dust is sure to mess up my computer and the noises make me crazy. Luckily though, a lot of my work has been in the field, where I help two different teams build profiles for the municipalities where we will be observing. Taking long bus rides has been a great way to get to know the country and meeting with the various politicians and other community leaders illuminates much about the broken democracy of El Salvador. The wind is not the only thing making me crazy. 

In each department (state) we have to meet with the State Electoral Board (JED) to inform them of our observing mission and ask for coordinating information. So far, the JEDs where I have been working were very friendly and welcoming of our mission, but other team members working in other states have been met with confrontation and an unwarranted demand to see credentials. In these cases there seems to be a personal abuse of power executed by an electoral body that wishes it had more power in the hierarchy of comissions that organize the elections. Right now the Municipal Electoral Boards (JEM) are forming and receiving training, so we will see them in the next couple of weeks and hope that they can organize more quickly and thoroughly than the JEDs have.

During our meetings we found that the members of the JEDs sometimes didn't even know each others' names. There is very little communication between the Supreme Electoral Tribunal (TSE) and the JEDs, which is compounded by the fact that the new Electoral Code containing rushed reforms and some recommendations from the Organization of American States was only released last week. So maybe we were rushing into our meetings with the JED because we wanted to give sufficient notice and have plenty of time to conduct meetings with other electoral bodies and supporting institutions, but everyone must get organized faster if they are to prevent fraud. 

Another aspect that keeps the JED and the JEM from working fluidly is that they are made up of members of the various political parties. Each party elects its most militant members to represent them in the local and state electoral boards in order to best defend party interests in these bodies. This means that in many cases, despite the vocalized effort to work smoothly with consensus, that disagreement dominates many discussions. For example, in one meeting of the JED where I went to observe, a representative of the national police came to discuss security plans but the conversation broke into accusations that in previous elections the police had forced the substitutes of the representatives of one electoral body to leave the voting center because it was too crowded. One party claimed that the police had done this in a clear maneuver to keep their substitutes from viewing fraudulent acts that could have been taking place while others noted that the police were simply attempting to keep order and organization by not allowing too many people to hover around the table where the ballots are given to voters. The conversation ended when the party who was making the accusations admitted that it did not have documented evidence of its claims, but it became clear that there was no consensus as to whether or not the substitutes should in fact be allowed to remain near the table in the coming elections. With all of these discussions being dominated by militant party members, it seems impossible to fluidly compose the elections in an unbiased manner. 

However, I do understand the reasoning behind building the electoral boards in this manner. Some of these parties did not have a political voice until after the signing of the Peace Accords, so this is one of the ways that they are able to be involved in the development of democracy. I am just not convinced that politcal parties should have a role in this aspect. In order for the elections to be organized without political conflict, there should be depoliticized groups who work in the interest of all voters, instead of just voters from one party or another. This will be one of the criticisms I will propose be included in our final report after the elections. 

After having been rather frustrated about the lack of information that I was getting from the various trips to the municipalites for which I am responsible, I had a rather uplifting trip to Ilobasco with a compañero who is from that city. Marvin was able to show us the most important places to visit and he introduced us to great people and organizations. We visited MOJE, an organization where youth who were in gangs can recuperate and reintegrate into society. They have workshops where the young people learn how to create art, become a waiter, or work on cooking skills. Through building skills, they are given opportunities to be part of their community and they are less likely to immigrate. I was super impressed, but since all of the youth were on a field trip that day, I will have to return another day to meet them and get their perspective on how MOJE helps them. 

In the afternoon we walked down to La Palma, where the terribly contaminated river (filled with sewage from the entire city) runs between concrete huts filled with animals and people. Marvin introduced us to a family that he helps support and we spent a few hours talking with the women in the house while they processed ears of corn recently harvested from the fields close by. Then the daughter, Elisa, took us out to las canchas (fields) where the men were busy cutting down the rice before it got eaten by birds. Marvin suggested I take pictures of the family in the field to send to their family in the United States, which I thought was cool. As we were talking to the father, he revealed that he was actually just elected to be the President of the local electoral board and that he would gladly help us coordinate with them and learn more about their process. It was a beautiful day in the campo. 

The other most exciting development that has kept me from writing for a while, is that I started teaching English classes at La Casa de Juventud, a youth center in a marginalized neighborhood. All the kids (ages 12-21) come from low-income homes and use the La Casa as a place to kick it. They can use the internet, play video games, play ping-pong, or lift weights while socializing in a safe and healthy environment. I am really excited to be working with young people of this age because I can be more socially conscious and critical with them than I was able to with the younger kids where I used to work. Right now I only teach English, but I think I can develop a curriculum to work with them more. The only thing is that I would have to come up with money for materials, even though I would do all the work volunteer. So if anyone knows of some grant to help young people in poor countries, let me know because I would rapidly apply. 

In the meantime I am learning by experience how to teach English. I welcome advice as to specific activities for this age group. The first day I had a class of 15 and a class of 8. The second day I had a class of 20 and a class of 16 because everyone whent and invited their friends and Guillermo, the administrator, allowed everyone to sign up. I decided to offer and advanced course in the morning for people who want to spend more time practicing, but I feel like an hour and a half is very little time for them to be able to absorb anything. I'm thinking of giving them more of my time after the January elections if I don't have as much work with CIS. 

Since its Sunday, I had better get after my house chores and start writing lesson plans. I would love to get some long-letter emails (hint-hint)... 

Constant illumintation without expectations...

On and on

I'm finally getting settled into my groove and getting the hang of this observation mission. I moved into my new apartment this weekend and worked on getting it broken in. On Sunday my friends Guillermo and Tony took me to the central market to buy all the ingredients for ceviche and his mom's shopping list, which ended up being a ton of food for less than $40. We bought a giant rucksack and took turns carrying it between two people because there was so much - chicken, ribs, shark meat, small oyster-like seafood called conchas, carrots, onions, tomatoes, cilantro, limes, and pasta. The market is a totally crazy place with wild smells, tons of people yelling, and food that is still alive. After about 40 minutes of helping lug around our giant bag my senses were totally overwhelmed and I started feeling faint. I told Guillermo that I wanted to go to the bathroom, thinking that some cool water on my face would make me feel better, but we didn't get far before I straight-up fainted. Luckily Tony caught me and I woke up on the floor of the bustling market to Guillermo patting my face and some old lady asking me if I was pregnant. The nice vendors hooked me up with some sugar water and a piece of candy and let me sit and lean on their booth while I recovered. We spent most of the rest of the day elaborating the story, making it a much more dramatic event than it actually was, and told everyone we saw. 

Back at my new apartment, after taking the majority of the food back to Guillermo's mom, we cut up onions, tomatoes, the shark meat, and cilantro to throw into a big bowl of lime juice. While the lime cooked up the shark in the refrigerator, we dug into the conchas. Guillermo used to have a business of selling conchas so he was pro at breaking open the shells, scooping the living creatures into a bowl, and then refilling the shells with chile, lime, salt, the meat and worchester sauce. While I am normally against eating things that are still alive, I went ahead and gave them a try. It wasn't bad when washed down with a cold beer, but it did make me want to be at the beach. The ceviche came out nicely, but the best part was spending a Sunday just listening to reggae with friends at my sweet little apartment. 

I am also figuring out, little by little, how to be successful in my observation mission. There are some communication barriers between the group members based on personality conflicts more than anything, so no one is clear on exactly what we need to be doing. I am working with two different small groups to try to keep the process moving despite these obstacles. Another observer (Ashley) and I ventured to Usulután to present ourselves and our mission to the state-wide elections organizers. They received us cordially and encouraged us to get to know the state. In fact, they were so insistent that we get to know the beach that they offered to take us themselves in the weekend. Ashley and I politely declined mostly because they are members of political parties and we would risk screwing up our objective reputation.  Now that they know us, we will go back several times to meet with other officials in the mayor's office, at the hospitals, with social organizations, etc. Basically we are going to assure people that we will be there to observe without bias and that we will be writing a report about the entire electoral process and voting day. I am looking forward to getting to know the civil society groups in order to get the "unofficial" perspective as to how the process is developing and what people's concerns are going into it. And the struggle continues...