Goodness is at hand for everyone…

Becoming director of global communications for Unicef, Paloma Escudero left Spain four years ago for New York. She is one of the Spanish nationals who has reached a higher status in the UN. It was not easy arriving to the USA: with her there were three children of school age and a husband who has to make a living. She travels a lot to conflict countries, 14 per year to be exact; and he is dedicated to the marketing of alcohol, travels to pubs in the United States. They take turns. This woman makes miracles to balance work and family life but in her home, everyone understands her. When she returns for a trip they know that mom returns from war:

“I do not believe in bravery in abstract. Courage gives you purpose. Our team in Aleppo survives in a bunker since a year ago but its purpose is to accompany children every day not to lose their school, which is usually at underground”.

Today than ever before there is an attack against civilians. There is impunity as ever before we’ve seen. International humanitarian law turned water plants, schools, hospitals, roads out of the population in sanctuaries. That is over. Making a city under siege, the first thing to attack is water supplies. Officially it respected, but it is not. This has many frightening consequences. Once aid workers had their free halls, their areas of respite. Today they are as targets as civilians.

The huge test of our times is the reception of refugees and in Europe is being suspended. A million refugees for Europe with more than 320 million people living there, it’s not a crisis at all. Instead we have passed this into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan. And now we witness those countries being overloaded by refugees living there in poor conditions for too long and without any actual hope. Thus, right now those who are fleeing are passing by because they know that if they stay on those camps there they will remain stagnant. Turkey have welcomed two million refugees since five years ago. That’s a real crisis.

Canada is our example: It’s  an open population as well as a government which applies asylum law currently. As for Germany, it must be said that he is doing the right thing.

Spain is a transit country for refugees. They do not think staying with us. Still, communities could have had more initiatives. At the end of the day, who must be prepared and organized to receive refugees are citizens.

-The Child trafficking is one of the greatest threats. The trip through teenagers do after Nigeria and Libya to reach Italy is frightening. 100% reported having suffered sexual or labor exploitation. We try to protect them, identify them and speak to the Italian government so they can reside in a reception center.

My job requires to be realistic, never naif, not to believe that everyone is good and there is a range of grays. But the truth is that we are better than 20 years ago has reduced infant mortality by half and that is a reason for hope. Violence also occurs in fewer, albeit, sadly, more acute.

“What we are desperate frozen conflicts. The brutality of the war in Syria compels us to work for mere survival. We try to ensure some normalcy in their lives, but it is almost impossible”.

‘What worries me most, perhaps because of my womanhood, they are adolescent girls. And I am moved to see how these creatures who have suffered extreme situations found an inner strength to overcome their trauma. They have a maturity: speak openly about sexual violence, defend education. Some become bloggers for Unicef. You should see the things that count in networks Somali girls. They are admirable.

“No need to be in an NGO to do good works. No need to be voluntary; I always say that goodness is available to anyone in everyday acts, in any form, in any opportunity”.

“I’m an adventuress. Experience tells me that in a place of conflict we must go respectfully, not ostentatious. When we are in the going, we are with not much protection, but we learn to move quietly; in my case, because I’m white person, among other reasons. Safety is adaptation. If you are reckless you endanger your teammates”.

-The Mothers are admirable and courageous. You see them get on a raft, at night, carrying two kids. What other choice do they have? To die in Syria? Or coming from Afghanistan with their children, what can they do? People flee from something very serious and Europe, we need to know that it is not their first choice. They come here because they have no choice.

I´m worry not just for Trump. It is Europe too. We live in fear, fear of different fed by the media and politicians. 80% of Hungarians want to build a wall. By God, we are talking about the heart of Europe! The parallel with the 30s is huge. It seems to lie with the experience of the twentieth century.

My husband often says Paloma saves the world and I pay the mortgage (laughs). It is fortunate that we do not work in the same. It is more relaxed. We met in private enterprise and that’s where I really learned communication strategy that now apply, although I always attracted volunteerism. I started at 18 in the neighborhood of San Blas, with gypsies, while doing the race.

My 10 year old son told me yesterday something touching: “Mom, when Syria’s war finish will you be out of work?”

“What else I wanted, my son,” his mother replied, “that stay forever unemployed”.

Bitter Brexit losers gang up to scupper EU pull-out 17 million voted for!

British and European politicians are plotting to block the UK’s exit from the EU.

On a chaotic day in which the Labour Party went into meltdown, a campaign was started to force a second referendum.

Tony Blair, Nicola Sturgeon, some pro-Remain MPs and a senior German official said a rethink was needed now the consequences of quitting the Brussels club were clear…

via Bitter Brexit losers gang up to scupper EU pull-out 17 million voted for  | Daily Mail Online

Why hottest weather isn’t on longest day | Earth | EarthSky

 

I love to know…

via Why hottest weather isn’t on longest day | Earth | EarthSky

Enhancing life…

There are moments in life when you became aware that it’s big deal just to follow closely the standards of people. As the saying goes, It is much better survive at all costs that to die trying! Who knows? There always is an inner little voice whose resonance is impeling you to act in quite different way to the standards.

Our ancestors had done much, much, much better than us when dealing with nature. They did it wisely. They overcame many obstacles. They created resources. Intuition was their guide as well as insight was their tool. In fact, you must see the heritage they inherited us. They were titans. Many of them created civilization and humanity alike. As you can guess, some factors played a key role towards this very situation. They’d matched their natural skills with wisdom. They’ve wisely used that inner voice, common to all of us, directly toward the key issues. That was the jackpot for them!

I do believe we must learn from them. To keep trying new formulas, we, as the current civilization, have to follow their steps in many ways. The outcome could be our own survival.

The mixture could and would be so awesome!

 

Umzugspannen-Monstertext oder Wieso bist’n du gerade dauernd so schlecht drauf, Katja?

Vorhin Gestern Abend waren wir in der neuen Wohnung, um am 4-Meter-Monster-Schrank weiterzubauen und das ging ganz gut und ich war endlich wieder mal zuversichtlich, dass jetzt doch endlich mal wie…

Source: Umzugspannen-Monstertext oder Wieso bist’n du gerade dauernd so schlecht drauf, Katja?

Gewohnheit, die

Substantiv, feminin Worttrennung: Ge|wohn|heit durch häufige und stete Wiederholung selbstverständlich gewordene Handlung, Haltung, Eigenheit; etwas oft nur noch mechanisch oder unbewusst Ausgeführ…

Source: Gewohnheit, die

Über viel Angst und ein bisschen entspannte Scheissegaligkeit

„Aber was oder wer oder wie bin ich dann überhaupt?“ frage ich in der letzten Sitzung bevor ich wieder losheulen muss. So viel Fremdbestimmung im Kopf, so viele „Werte“ und …

Source: Über viel Angst und ein bisschen entspannte Scheissegaligkeit

Oasis

Our responsibility for others is the foundation of all human communities. This afirmation could implay a real oasis for building humanity in today’s chaotic world. The very possibility of living in a meaningful human world is based on our ability to give what we can to others. And since welcoming and sharing are the foundation upon which all communities are formed, no amount of inhospitable nationalism can be consistently defended when confronted with the suffering of other human beings. In the relationship between same and other, my welcoming of the other is, the ultimate fact. It is the hospitality of humanity, or a peace prior to all hostility. And in this primary peace, in this basic welcoming of refugees, things figure not as what one builds but as what one gives.

Doubting…

Ich möchte, wann ich sterbe, wie die lichten

Gestirne schnell und unbewußt erbleichen,

Erliegen möcht’ ich einst des Todes Streichen,

Wie Sagen uns vom Pindaros berichten.

 

Ich will ja nicht im Leben oder Dichten

Den großen Unerreichlichen erreichen,

Ich möcht’, o Freund, ihm nur im Tode gleichen;

Doch höre nun die schönste der Geschichten!

 

Er saß im Schauspiel, vom Gesang beweget,

Und hatte, der ermüdet war, die Wangen

Auf seines Lieblings schönes Knie geleget:

 

Als nun der Chöre Melodien verklangen,

Will wecken ihn, der ihn so sanft geheget,

Doch zu den Göttern war er heimgegangen.

The First Snowfall

THE FIRST SNOWFALL

The first snow of winter here in central Vermont has now fallen. It came late this year, late by several months, according to the TV weather watchers. I’m glad it took so long; it gave us a few more weeks to work in the yard, to putter in the garage, aimlessly shifting the junk to different corners, trying to be serious and practical while the trees shed their leaves and the chipmunks and squirrels slowly ease out of sight. Now it’s here, a ruffled cotton quilt of snow that makes a fragile cover, a puffy one, curled up over the ruts and ditches, and parting its satiny texture to make way for a still-running creek.

We’re used to the dark emerald world of pasture grass and the heavy branches of the maples and oaks hanging over a fast-running stream. Almost any road in this part of the state runs along a river, since all the settling that took place two centuries before occurred when someone built a mill and supplied cheap energy for cutting wood, pounding grain, running saws and forge hammers before the age of steam. Towns grew up soon after, and the lumbermen came in from other states to work the thick, untouched hardwood forests that abounded back then. Cutting them down, or clearing them, made way for pastureland and the dairy industry, still a mainstay of the state’s stagnant economy. So the roads gave the interior little fissures in the deep forest shade through which to travel, trade, or simply wander. They curl and sidle up hillsides following the whims of the black water tumbling over the rocks. There is a kind of dance between these blue roads and the foaming, reckless water that surges down the slopes.

The trees frame us in a complicated black and white world. The branches enmesh the gray sky, and fan out like spider webs, or like the bars of a prison. The prison image is the more likely, since we are now house-bound, driven indoors for the months ahead by the stark, frigid air, the stillness that suddenly hardens like glass around one’s house. Beneath us, great slabs of granite spread out and merge into equally thick masses of marble. They hold up the world, these stone floors. The loamy earth, so soft and crumbly in the warm months, is now frosted over with a grainy sand-like ice, as remote from summer as childhood is to the elderly. Here and there, a fallen acorn has missed the eye of a squirrel; empty seed husks lie around like the debris of an old battle field. The great season of plenty has wasted its power and squandered all the fertility that was released out of the forces of spring. You gaze upon the ruins of wild grass and tall, broken-necked weeds and wonder what all the urgency was about a few months before.

Lamps are turned on by mid-day; fires are lit in the grate, to help along a furnace in the cellar, which tends sometimes to find pushing heat up into the upper floors a hard task. The smell of wood smoke in the yard, while you get more wood into the wheelbarrow, is like some old forgotten uncle’s tobacco smoke, a pleasant smell full of yearning for other days. Love is like some unopened letter sent years before, misplaced on a shelf. To open it now would fill you with the same emptiness that you see in the hazy hilltops to the east of us. Something has left the world and its absence is crucial, a pain that has no particular name or verb to define it. “A certain slant of winter light,” as Emily Dickinson described it, “heavenly hurt,” a sign of mortality suddenly visible, even palpable in the world as you pull your sweater tight and sit down heavily in a chair, your back to the glare of winter, to read a book you’ve been promising yourself to open for years and years.

The only relief one can find after the snow has fallen and the roads are scraped clear by the snowplows, is to go into town to shop. Suddenly the bright produce in the bins is a source of vague joy; so are the cans of beans and bottles of hot sauce. The cooler is piled high with range-free hens’ eggs. There’s bacon, if you want it; and pancake mix, cream cheese, and jugs of maple syrup. Eating is more than a luxury, it’s a way of celebrating that you are alive, and that your kitchen is warm and misty with the bubbling of an omelet, the aroma of coffee rising out of the drip machine. Toast pops up and shows its golden, almost saffron-yellow sides, as if some message suddenly appeared in your inbox full of warmth and joy from an Indian friend sitting by his open window in Calcutta. You eat with others, if they’re around, and push back an empty plate to look again, to let the eyes walk out into the pearl-colored afternoon, up the icy hills and into the foggy distance, only to retract your stare and realize you are cocooned, your feet snug in fleece-lined slippers, your arms comforted by a wool cardigan.

This is the weather that induces a kind of Norwegian state of reverie, the moody, somber thoughts of an Ibsen, or an Edward Munch, or the dark, ponderous music of Edvard Grieg. A black and white world shades off into an infinite gradation of grays and ambiguities. The eye is lost among the myriad shades of meaning winter introduces after the flowers are gone. What it all means baffles the best minds; nothing is clear about winter but that it has halted nature’s cycles; here the earth is frozen, rock-hard, a brittle, silent, landscape of blackened monuments in a park more like a cemetery than a hinterland, a rural landscape. And what one thinks about is eternity, the unknown, the triviality of most events, the fragility of life. I think about my childhood, but in doing so, I am like a man standing on a cliff looking out at the sea, where a small boat drifts to the horizon with my boyhood self waving back at me with a forgiving smile.