Poor Caretakers of the Planet

I have been reading articles about population growth and about increasing consumption as more people in some developing nations move into the "middle class".  In that light, what are your suggestions on becoming better caretakers of our home, planet Earth. #poorcaretakers

Child of a Religious Leader

In my latest short story, The Paradise Alternative, the central character is the son of a Christian Clergy.  The central character is AJ, short for Alfred Jerome.  His father is a preacher and a pastor of a local congregation.  Because the story can definitely have a part 2, I continually think about the character's development. A thought came to me.  Are there similarities in the experiences of these children across religions?  

If you are the child of a person who leads, teaches, or holds a key position, I would like you to share your experiences.  Did you feel the same or different from others?  How did adults react to you?  Or any other thing you believe relevant.

Una Larga Noche – Hearing It For The First Time

Drinking hard liquor is really not my thing.  Seriously, it isn’t.  In my area, drinking hard liquor straight usually means whiskey or cognac, also known as brown liquor.  Brown liquor, it’s often the mother’s milk used by souls to wash away the lingering, unrequited scent of more.

I do drink socially on occasion.  My friends who drink don’t call what I do drinking.  I can nurse a shot until the melting ice turns into liquory flavored water.  However… when I first heard Ms Eva Ayllón’s version of Chabuca Granda’s Una Larga Noche… though I only understood the words in the refrain as A Long Night, her smoldering delivery, the arrangement - I could see myself going for a bottle of brown liquor. 

Instead, I went for an internet search to find a translation.  I saw differences in the translations.  Then, there was the word Zamacueca.  Browser website searches gave me a lead.  I saw mention of a dance.  So, I searched for video.  I found one.  I watched.  “Oh! Okay, this might take 2 bottles.”

Ms Granda’s original and Ms Ayllón arrangement, I like both.  I have yet to listen to either song play completely through only twice.  Ms Granda’s original is lingering perfume tossing covers back sitting on the side of the bed with your hot face in your hands pining away until a morning that never comes.  Ms Ayllón’s arrangement - all the previous plus turn up the flame until the pot boils runs down the side and scorches then add brown liquor.

Eva Ayllón
Use Translate on Your Web Brower
http://www.evaayllon.net/eva.php
or 
http://www.sonicbids.com/2/EPK/?epk_id=355695#bio

Aside from Una Larga Noche, when I play Ms Ayllón songs, something connects.  Some would call it a common ancestry.  I can’t deny that.  The soulfulness in her voice is familiar.  Her dance shadows movements I know.  Her band, that rhythm section, those percussions – who says that teleportation doesn’t exist.  She beams me to a place both familiar and foreign.

I will write about how and why this post came to fruition in another blog post.  For now, I want to thank Ms Ayllón and one of her managers, Juan Morillo, for granting this country kid from Coosa County, Alabama permission to post the translation they provided.  Mr. Morillo wrote that the following translation “...is closer to the original intent of the author, Chabuca Granda, and Eva's interpretation.”  Additionally, Mr. Morillo provided links to her bio, tour information, and concert clips.

Una Larga Noche

(A Long Night)

Written by Chabuca Granda

A long night

envelops me and holds me

and it protects me and loses me

Zamacueca, zamacueca

I lost a long night

Why is the night so long

And amazed and so lonely and so heartless

If it's just if it's just a long night

Zamacueca, zamacueca

It's just a long night

The night should be

A long dawn, scented, clear

And blue, an embroidered sheet

Of rumors and loves

or a morning star

invasive, vigilant

of my closed window

Zamacueca, zamacueca

of my closed window

My night is never dawn

That comes in the morning

It's just a long ledge

That turns around nothingness,

Zamacueca, zamacueca

That turns around nothingness

It's just fear my night

Slow fear, slow and long

Always slow, always within

Within a long night.

Zamacueca, zamacueca

I am lost in a long night

and it’s just a long night

zamacueca, zamacueca,

of my closed window

That turns around nothingness

zamacueca, zamacueca

within a long night,

within a long night,

zamacueca, zamacueca,

within a long night.

Ms Eva Ayllón’s Bio In English

Facebook Tour Information and Video

Ms Ayllón’s website

Chabuca Granda’s Bio on Wikipedia

Una Larga Noche Sample on Amazon

Best not to drink at all. If you do, be responsible.

And Happy Valentine's Day


  

Sick, Broke, and Locked Up - Part 2 of 2

Part 1 introduced Darci Asche,  the Community Support Services Supervisor for Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota, LSSND.  

They provide:

-Immigration Services

-Refugee Resettlement

-Case Management Services

-Refugee Employment Services

-Unaccompanied Refugee Minor Programs

Her path to this position from the small town of Gwinner, North Dakota, USA came through missions with her Church to help suitably change or restore the circumstances of others.  There was one mission that seemed symbolic of that path, the Border Mission along the American-Mexican border.

This border mission gave Darci a firsthand look at government policy’s direct effect upon a body of people.  In this case, it was a trade agreement of which many purported as removing economic trade barriers and offering opportunities for a better way of life.

Part 2:

The North American Free-Trade Agreement, NAFTA, was implemented in 1994.

The Government of Canada, the Government of the United Mexican States, and the Government of the United States of America resolved to:

-Strenghten the special bonds of friendship and cooperation among their nations;

-Contribute to the harmonious development and expansion of world trade and provide a catalyst to broader international cooperation;

-Create an expanded and secure market for the goods and services produced in their territories;

-Reduce distortions to trade;

-Establish clear and mutually advantageous rules governing their trade;

-Ensure a predictable commercial framework for business planning and investment;

-Build on their respective rights and obligations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and other multilateral and bilateral instruments of cooperation;

-Enhance the competitiveness of their firms in global markets;

-Foster creativity and innovation, and promote trade in goods and services that are the subject of intellectual property rights;

-Create new employment opportunities and improve working conditions and living standards in their respective territories;

-Undertake each of the preceding in a manner consistent with environmental protection and conservation;

-Preserve their flexibility to safeguard the public welfare;

-Promote sustainable development;

-Strengthen the development and enforcement of environmental laws and regulations; and

-Protect, enhance and enforce basic workers' rights;

Source NAFTA Trade Agreement Preamble.

Benefits or detriments from NAFTA are tracked by the World Bank, corporations, the respective governments, and universities, etc.  None of these listed outcomes were the reason Darci volunteered for the mission.   A real human need developed as families and individuals migrated toward work in the Maquiladoras along the American-Mexican border. 

NAFTA brought an increase in the number of factories (Maquiladoras) along the American – Mexican border.  People migrated from the south of Mexico to settlements in the north.   The assumption seems to have been that if the Maquiladoras made money, taxes and investment would supply the funds for infrastructure development.  In Darci’s view, the settlements (colonias) did not develop that way.  Her perspective is that sewer, utilities, and other public works infrastructure were far from sufficient to support the people there.  Residential areas did not develop properly.

She saw the need.  She saw the individuals and the families who had moved into the border regions, forsaking their homes to pursuit a better life.  In one case, she met a 14 year old boy who had made the journey on his own.  He probably started on the trip at about 12 or 13.  “We pulled them from the agriculture of the south to the north then trapped them in the hell of the colonia.”  

Even so, those living in the colonias were not necessarily waiting for the corporations or local governments for development.  Nor was income from the Maquiladoras the sole source of advancement.   Darci witnessed “self-determination with no assistance from business or local government”.   They relied on one another.  Women developed cooperatives.  “They took the funds that they earned from selling weaving in the U.S. to fund kindergarten.  They sold traditional herbal remedies, too.”   She wanted to learn how to assist them in their endeavors and “treat people with dignity to re-establish happy and healthy families.”

This is the context in which Darci moved. When the position at LSSND came open, she applied and got the job.  Trade agreements, political and civil unrest, or just plain bad luck, Darci and other agency staff work in the very real human results of those events. 

The work is demanding.  Organizationally and personally owned vehicles run up miles on the odometer.  The target is to get 100% of 60-80 refugees self-sufficient within 8 month because there is very little safety net for them.  Currently, most of the refugees come from Bhutan.  Annually, they project about 400 coming to the Fargo and Grand Forks areas.  Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services in Baltimore, MD manages the initial transition after the United Nations performs legal checks, identity checks, confirmation of who can return to Bhutan and who cannot, and DNA testing.  The application approval can take 5-10 years. Of which, the applicants have lived in refugee camps years before that application was filed.   Who goes where is a blind process based on numbers.  Representatives from other countries and organizations work with the United Nations to determine how many of the approved applicants each of the organizations can take.

Once in the program, refugees tend to give back a lot back.  “They are driven and motivated.”  Most dollars are Federal.  Undesignated dollars are needed for bus passes, artisan materials, blanket, boots, hats, picture dictionaries, and good winter clothes.  They need gardening tools to take advantage of the limited growing season.  Darci has a diverse bilingual staff but has a need for case workers.  She has 3 case managers and could use 3 more. 

Language, just knowing how and what food to eat, learning what a dollar can or cannot buy or just saying hello presents challenges.  Yet, the agency has a 78% success rate it getting individuals and entire families self-sufficient in 8 months.

Darci says of her work, “I am inspired each day with the difficult choices and decisions New Americans make.”   The agency has brought foster children in her life as well.   Adoption is not allowed because of the uncertainty of some of the children coming into the program.  Foster parenting allows them to move from the refugee camps, receive help, and be rejoined with relatives without the legal entanglements associated with adoption. 

Regardless of the politics, regardless of the religion, across borders, or just down the street, LSSND staff, volunteers, and those who donate material and money are an inspiration.  The catchphrase of It’s A Potluck Planet is Everyone Brings Something to the Table.  In this case, Darci and the agency staff bring services, compassion, and restoration.  Please go to the following links to learn more and to find out how to support them.

Click here learn more about Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota.

Darci’s and Community Support

Click here to learn about the New Americans Program/

To donate: Click here to donate.

To find out more about the Family Healthcare Clinic: http://www.famhealthcare.org/

To donate to the Family Healthcare Clinic Click Here

Leaving the Gravesite