lunes, noviembre 16, 2015

Mining in Colombia




Foreigners and citizens often think of Colombia as a land of paradoxes. Though the country is filled with natural resources and biodiversity, it was recently ranked third most unequal in the region South America.
Colombians in the streets commonly wonder: “why are we so poor if our land is so rich?”
During the past four Colombian administrations, mining gold, coal and other minerals in high-demand seems to have been the solution to this paradox. In fact, these governments have decided to go deep into the land to extract that richness and turn it into wealth so as to compensate for what is missing on the surface.
By the end of 2012, mineral extraction took over 1,8% of the Colombian national territory, while 35% of the total landmass was promised as a potential mining site. That is, over a third of the country could host what governmental reports call “strategic investment areas.”
However, the magnitude of the policy is scarily large for an industry that has yet to demonstrate its environmental impacts will not irremediably harm the land in the long term.


miércoles, octubre 25, 2006

Crying for Money

Vendedor de Lagrimas
Colombians are quick to react, brisk to discuss, cautious to decide and excessively slow to make collective decisions. Maybe that’s why some colombians decide to cry for the rest.
This is a video that shows one of the most bizarre professions. This is a guy who decides to cry for others, and believed or not Colombians pay for that.

Vallenateando

VALLENATO
Next to Cumbia, Vallenato constitutes one of the most important native musical styles coming from Colombia. The roots of Vallenato lie with the music of the Wayuu Indians of the Güajira peninsula of Northern Colombia, in fusion with diverse African and Caribbean influences.
Vallenato acquired its current form to be a music for the transmission of folk and love stories, a music for celebration and serenades, in the traditions of the Spanish troubadours.

Show me how to play accordion compae

Puya Vallenato Valledupar
It is estimated that a century after the invention of the accordion in 1829, Europeans introduced the German Hohner accordion to the northern coast of Colombia where it was primarily used to play European music. Fortunately, the famous German instrument, now most commonly known as the acordeón vallenato, found its way to Valle de Upar where it was adopted as part of the vallenato folklore

Within the vallenato music and folklore there are basically four rhythm styles: puya, merengue, son and paseo . The son and paseo have the slowest tempo of the four styles but the paseo is perhaps the most popular or most commercially marketable music. But if you want to show your skills , you have to play The Puya that is the fastest rhythm to interpretate.

Playing to Petrona

Barbatuques tocando para Petrona Martinez
Barbatuques is a Brazilian body percussion group, that uses their body as an instrument. In this video they are playing to Petrona Martinez.
Petrona is one of the most authentic Afro-American voices of the Caribbean. She possesses a vibrantly colorful voice and an innate passion for rhythm. Hailing from Colombia, Petrona is the heiress to a long tradition of bullerengue singers including her mother, grandmother and aunts

The Guabina

Guabina Viajera

The Colombian Andean music has been strongly influenced by Spanish rhythms and instruments, and differs noticeably from the Indian music of Peru or Bolivia. Among the typical forms are the bambuco, pasillo guabina and torbellino, played with string instruments like tiple guitarra, and also with piano.


Colombian Bambuco

Bambuco is the most popular musical air of the Andean region of Colombia, also the rhythm more represented nationally. Some people believe that Bambuco is the unofficial music of Colombia. The reason is because It has a beat structure similar to the European waltz or polska.

Dancing Torbellino

Torbellino
Dance and song representative of the departments of Boyacá, Cundinamarca and Santander. Rhythm used in the pilgrimages, fairs, festivals. With the melody the peasants express in simple terms their religious feelings, their loves, or sometimes the description of the landscape.

A French Band Playing Modern Cumbia

i skarbonari cumbia

Modern cumbia includes instrumental mixing; guitars, accordions, bass guitar, modern flutes and modern deep-toned drums and other percussions. The basic rhythm structure is 4/4. Cumbia is the net intersection of two cultures that settled in the region of what is now northern Colombia at different times; the Amerindians and African slaves. Cumbia began as a courtship dance practiced among the slave population that was later mixed with the European instruments and influence.

Colombian Rodeo

Llanero si soy llanero

Vast extensions from the foothills of the eastern cordillera to the Venezuelan border are named The LLanos Orientales. Thousands of kilometres covered by natural grass with frecuent spots of 'bosques de galeria' bush gallery , rice plantations and impresive fauna.
The musical traditions of the Llanos are among the richest and most diverse in Latin America in this video you will find the real life of the llaneros, their music and their identity.

We don't want to forget the traditions

Darien - Bunde y Bullerengue
The Darién Gap is a large swath of undeveloped swampland and forest separating Panama and Colombia,The entire Darién Gap is largely under the control of three Colombian rebel groups. These include the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), a right-wing paramilitary group ; the National Liberation Army (ELN); and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The region is a mixture of conflict, poverty and music to survive.
This is a video about afro colombian traditions in one of the most pristines and isolated areas of the country.

BULLERENGUES are very popular in the State of Bolivar with its largely African tradition. Over the generations bullerengue became part of daily life and the celebrations. The Bullerengue
is a variant of the Cumbia,with agitated gestures, in which the women carry the compass with the palm of the hands.

BUNDE is one of the rythms of the Pacific Coast, of African origin. In the Andean folklor it is known as the “bunde tolimense”, like a mixture of rhythms (guabina, torbellino, bambuco)


Itinerario de tambores I

Something to think about the country

Colombia
This is no my music but I think there are some good images and ideas in this video.
what is your opinion?

Soccer is our religion?

Dr.krapula - El pibe de mi barrio

Since soccer has great influence over people’s social lives, it is no exaggeration to say that many people in Colombia and the rest of the world call soccer their “religion”. Like religion, soccer cannot escape the fanaticism of its supporters.
However the only religion for most is the worship of money, and that's not new at all.

Soccer by Eduardo Galeano

A manager of Liverpool soccer club once reflected: "Some people say soccer is a game of life and death but it's much more important than that". For the Nazis, too, soccer was a matter of state. A monument in the Ukraine commemorates the players of the 1942 Kiev Dynamo team. During the German occupation they committed the insane act of defeating Hitler's squad in the local stadium. Having been warned, "If you win, you die," they started out resigned to losing, trembling with fear and hunger, but in the end they could not resist the temptation of dignity. When the game was over all eleven were shot with their shirts on at the edge of a cliff.

Plese don't remember to me Andres Escobar, the famous soccer player who was shot and killed in Medellín, some people attribute the murder to the own goal that Escobar scored in the 1994 FIF World Cup against the United States.

Colombia?

This is Colombia
Looks more like an add for a multinational. We are not like Coca-cola however we need some tourist to improve the image of the country.

This is Vallenato

La tierra del olvido

Nevertheless Carlos Vives has made a big contribution to the diffusion of Vallenato over the world.
Carlos Vives is a singer, guitarist and composer. He began performing a local style known as Vallenato, successfully touring his native country and South America. In 1994, Carlos Vives' "La Gota Fria," became his first hit, climbing on the most important music charts around Latin America and Spain.
This song is about our traditions, our landscape and people
This video was shooted at La Sierra Nevada de Santa Martha. This one of the most diverse areas in the country.
This is the land of the Arhuacos, an agrarian tribe whose nation stretches across the thick forests and fertile valleys of these mountains of northern Colombia. a tribe of 18,000 people.The Arhuacos operates schools where the ancestral tongue is taught. They hold religious rituals in forest clearings, giving thanks to the creators of the divine mountains and rivers of the range where they live, the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.
But also this is the land of the costenos and the mestizos. The video shows how important is the music to enjoy life
Vallenato is one of the most typical music of Colombia, in which the accordion plays the most important role. Of course, the accordion is not Colombian but German, but it was quickly integrated with the music of the country.

Are we living in a materialistic World?

El Estuche

How little we really need to be happy?


A mass advertising culture creates consumers who are perpetually unsatisfied, restless, anxious, and bored.

martes, octubre 24, 2006

El Album- New eyes to see my country

Aterciopelados El Album

The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes - Marcel Proust
I love photography because it is not my job. As long as I keep it that way, I will continue to love it. It is my escape to creative indulgence, good or bad.

There's an alternately ethereal and electric power pulsing music from Colombia.This is the Colombian duo Aterciopelados. The members are the vocalist-guitarist Andrea Echeverri and the bassist Hector Buitrago. They have rooted their sound in traditional rhythms while deftly dipping it in some of today's most exciting genres.

If you love photography this is the video to see

Images are the shock absobers

Amortiguador by Andrea Echeverri


Shock Absorber
The mechanical romance between you and I
Automatically struck up two sparks
You advise me, you are my steering wheel
You stimulate my accelerator
Mmmm
Hug me like a safety belt
Protect me, liberate me from everything bad
Mmmm
You you you you you you are my shock absorber
The mechanical romance between you and I
The best upkeep of my engine
Gas makes combustion
And goes through my carburetor
Mmmmmm
Hold me
You you you you you you are my shock absorber
You you you you you hold back the world, the pain
You defend me when someone hurts me, my shock absorber
You smooth-out cruel situations, my shock absorber

Imagine to be in the middle of the black market in Bogota city.
Colombian's are surrounded by kitch images where religion and superstition are the protectors. We have to believe in something in order to survive
Images are our faith our soul and our hopes.

Damaquiel

Hector Buitrago

If you want to know about Colombian folklore and traditions,this is a good beginning.
Colombian Music is a combination of african, european and indigenous music.
How can we Colombians remain optimistic and happy when our nation is not only suffering from grinding poverty but also from unceasing political turmoil, unabated graft and corruption and environmental destruction?
Maybe Music is the answer. In Colombia music is a kind of tool against oppression and injustice

miércoles, septiembre 27, 2006

Dealing with souls




Theology of liberation is the name of a movement that arose in the churches in Latin America during the last third of the twentieth century. It also described a theological trend that is found, sometimes under different emphases, across the world. The movement denounced the systematic oppression of the poor, critized the exploitation of the third world by industrialized nations , and called for political and social reform.

In 1971 father Gustavo Gutierrez a Peruvian theologian published the principles of the movement are as follows.

First, theology is critical reflection on Christian praxis. Faith, charity, and commitment to God and others in the struggle for humanity and justice are primary. Theology relates this praxis to the sources of revelation and the history of the church.

Second, biblical revelation commits the church to God’s “preferential option for the poor.” The poor are by their condition, involved in a struggle to realize their humanity, to become “subjects of their own history,” against the political, economic and social powers that marginalize and oppress them. This struggle is revolutionary, not reformist. The church belongs with the poor in the midst of it, doing theology in a revolutionary situation. The poor deserve preference , not because they are morally or religiously better than others , but because Gd is God, in whose eyes “The last are the first”.

Third, the struggle of the poor for social justice is a work of human self creation that finds its source, meaning, and hope in God’s work. Political liberation is a partial salvific event, a historical realization of the kingdom that looks forward to its ultimate fulfilment by divine grace operating in the human struggle, in forming its character and directing it toward ever larger goals of human community.

For liberation theology , the agenda is set by the question of the non-person: ‘Our question is how to tell the non-person, the non human , that God is love and that this love makes us brothers and sisters’ the nonhuman.

One of the pioneers in the movement is the theologs Clodovis Boff, he critized the church history of tolerating, even contributing to, Latin American injustice, and strongly defended the morality of the class struggle in his book Jesus Christ Liberator Boff affirms that is possible to make ‘the utopia of absolute liberation’ a topia a place here and now. Chuch: Charism and Power contests the ‘institutional fossilisation’ of the centuries which has produced a hierarchical Church, oppressive and clerical, which cannot be amended by minor reform. The church have to be popular, the church arising from the people by the power of the Holy spirit.

More than a pair of wings

Identity is not a fixed essence at all, lying unchanged outside history and culture. It has its histories and histories have their real material, and symbolic effects. The past continues to speak to us. But this is no longer a simple, factual past. Identity it is always constructed through memory, narrative and myth. We create our own identiy and our own dreams.

Running the distance,I meet great resistance To my desire I climb;Fly higher and higher


martes, agosto 01, 2006

Coryne's Birthday

Sun is shining, brighten the day All doors are opened for your way To welcome a brand new day

Coryne in Maldon

You're gorgeous, nothing less.
A Smile that could melt ice

Eastern Island

Easter Island is over 2,000 miles from the nearest population center, (Tahiti and Chile), making it one of the most isolated places on Earth.There has been much controversy and confusion concerning the origins of the Easter Islanders. Thor Heyerdal proposed that the people who built the statues were of Peruvian descent, due to a similarity between Rapa Nui and Incan stonework. Some have suggested that Easter Island is the remnant of a lost continent, or the result of an extra-terrestrial influence.
Rapa Nui’s ahu (shrines) vary in size and form. There are at least 360 on the island. "Image ahu" are those with statues (moai). The largest ahu are up to 200 feet [60 meters] long and 23 feet [7 meters] high. They have consistent features: a raised platform made of fitted stones and rubble, a ramp that is often paved with beach cobbles, and a leveled court in front. Image ahu had from one to 15 statues standing on each platform.

Hugo, Coryne and the Moai

martes, julio 11, 2006

Places and Colours in Australia

The Timber that never had to fight

The changing leaves of autumn colored brightly red

Only then we realize that life has changed so fast,Only then we realize that nothing ever lasts.Life goes through the seasons as the years accumulate,Many times we long for summer when it is too late.
James A. Kisner

Poem of the Sea I dream of that moment when the waters of the ocean and the rocks of the cliffs finally meet

More from the Outback

On the Way
Dear Heavenly Father, be with me I pray. Thank You for guarding me night and day.Thank You forYour peace that blankets me. As I travel the deserts, the forest, and sea. Help me to fulfill my mission without delay. Lead me and guide me each step of the way,That I may return safely to my friends and family. Thank You, dear Father for traveling with me.



Broken Hill Australia

There is a true yearning to respond to The singing Sky and the wise Rock.

The Living Desert Nature Park

Mungo National Park A tree in the middle of the dune

The countryside here looks like an inverted moonscape

Outback Pictures

We have found a fossil! How exciting!


Mungo National Park
looking for something and I found it!




Silverton Popular destination for movie makers. This near-ghost is town full of interesting arts and craft shops
Once a thriving mining centre of 3000 Silverton is now a virtual ghost town of about 50 inhabitants with a number of historic buildings

The Willandra Lakes World Heritage area, with Mungo National Park at its centre, maintains a continuous record of human occupation stretching back well over 40,000 years. Rain and wind has uncovered ancient fireplaces and hearths, as well as calcified plant matter, artefacts, stone tools and animal bones.

Just outside Broken Hill in The Living Desert Nature Park is the best collection of sculptures this side of Stonehenge. Twelve sandstone obelisks, up to 3m (10 ft.) high and carved totemlike by artists from as far away as Georgia, Syria, Mexico, and the Tiwi Islands, make up the Sculpture Symposium.

domingo, abril 30, 2006

Kosciuszko National Park in Australia



This huge park stretches along the Great Dividing Range from the Australian Capital Territory to the Victorian border. It contains most of New South Wales alpine region and is an unsurpasassed venue for skiing in winter and for walking,fishing and camping in summer.

New Zealand Baby Live the Dream but Slow Down

Road signs in New Zealand are based on 'international symbolic signs.' This means that we use symbols and shapes common to road signs all around the world
Are you sure?



Understanding the different types of sign and learning to recognise them can help you to drive safely and appropriately for the conditions.

The road signs are designed to be understood quickly and easily