Trabajar en Estados Unidos

Ayer me encontré este video navegando por Internet. Hacía mucho que no visitaba los vídeos de CNN, y ayer, solo unos días después de empezar mis prácticas y de descubrir cómo es un lugar de trabajo-la redacción digital del Washigton Post- en Estados Unidos.

Descubrir todas las normas, reglas, cultura y protocolos de una oficina puede llevar mucho tiempo. Pero hay detalles que descrubir en el primer día. Como el silencio. El sorprendente silencio de una redacción. 

Imagen del video de CNN “Next phase of working at home: Leaving home“
- “La siguiente fase del trabajo desde casa: salir de casa”

Al ser una redacción digital, pensé que el nivel de concentración que requiere el trabajar con código era lo que provocaba tanto silencio. Pero puede que no. Apenas hay llamadas de teléfono. Apenas hay conversaciones. Pronto descubrí que la mayoría de la gente usa IM o Skype para comunicarse a través de chat. Tan lejos como de una redacción a otra. Tan cerca como de una mesa a otra. La interacción entre trabajadores es mínima. 

El vídeo de CNN introduce la siguiente fase del tele-trabajo. Aquellos que dejaron la oficina para aumentar la productividad desde casa ahora se reunen en locales y cafeterías donde tienen acceso wi-fi para trabajar rodeados de gente. En el vídeo, algunos de esos trabajadores relatan sin despegarse del portátil que echan de menos comentarios de otras personas, evaluaciones de lo que acaban de crear, sugerencias… todo lo que no tienen en casa. 

Y yo me pregunto, si echas todo eso de menos, ¿por qué no volver a la oficina y hablar con tus compañeros?

Palabras como gatillos

“Las palabras son como gatillos que ayudan a las personas a negociar significados a través de la lente de creencias y visiones culturales.”
Erving Goffman, Antropólogo

Palabras como gatillos. He estado pensando en esta frase desde que la leí y me di cuenta de que me gusta tanto la frase porque es verdad que tenemos que utilizar las palabras como si fueran gatillos, pero en el buen sentido. Palabras como gatillos no para enmarcar una historia ni condicionarla dándole un sentido que en realidad no tiene. Palabras como gatillos que abren los ojos.

Sé que hay razones culturales por las que siento que los medios de comunicación protegen mucho al público en Estados Unidos. Siento que los medios esconden fotografías e imágenes para no herir la sensiblidad del público. Y no hay mejor manera de alejar a la audiencia de la realidad.

Me sorprendió, por ejemplo, cuánta gente no había visto aquí imágenes de las torturas en la carcel de Abu Ghraib en Irak y tuvieron que esperar a ver la versión de Botero. Me sorprendió lo infrecuente que es ver imágenes violentas o incluso sangre en las noticias, cuando las películas aquí tienen más contenido violento que en ninguna otra parte. Por eso no entiendo la idea de “proteger” al público mientras hay fuentes de violencia al alcance de cualquiera.

Creo que esta es parte de las razones por las que Estados Unidos parece tan lejos del resto del mundo, mientras el resto del mundo mira hacia Estados Unidos. Y es parte también de por qué la gente aquí no mira a los demás, por qué todo el mundo está centrado en uno mismo y lejos de los demás. Como si nada más importase.

Bueno, una cosa sí, el sentido de libertad que mantiene a este país unido. Aquí todo el mundo, sin importar de dónde vengan, cuanto tiempo lleven aquí, o las condiciones en las que viven, valoran su libertad como si no hubiera otro lugar en el mundo donde puedas ser libre y, a través de ese ideal, todas las mentes americanas parecen permanecer conectadas. Pero no veo esa conexión entre la gente, no veo que sean capaces de ver los problemas de los demás.

A veces me siento triste porque en mi país no existe ese ideal común. Nuestras mentes no están conectadas así, incluso decir que te sientes “español” todavía tiene malas connotaciones para algunos. Pero siento que una mayoría es capaz de ver al resto de la gente, no hay necesidad de proteger al público de nada, porque la realidad es eso, real. Y la podemos ver. Y no hay oportunidad mejor que dejar al público que vea las cosas como son, lo que no significa que se nos dé bien solucionar los problemas, porque esa es una historia aparte. ..

El año pasado leí una historia en el periódico sobre un hombre que murió en el metro de Nueva York y su cadáver estuvo viajando en el tren durante más de ocho horas hasta que alguien se dio cuenta de que estaba muerto.

No me puedo apostar nada a que esto no pasaría en otro país, pero si creo que aquí hay muchas más posibilidades de que pase. Porque aquí todo está más lejos, porque nadie mira a nadie, porque existe ese “espacio personal” donde no puede entrar nadie, y mucho menos los problemas de otro.

Igual que el día que me di cuenta de esto, mis sueños se chocaron con la realidad, con mis frustraciones, durante la discusión con el Prof. Nisbet sobre cómo se enmarcan y contextualizar las noticias sobre pobreza.

El sueño de que simplemente escribir historias sobre pobreza, no sobre gente pobre, nos hará a todos más conscientes de lo grande que es el problema. Pero la realidad es que se necesita mucho más que palabras para conseguir esto.

Siempre he pensado que cambios pequeños pueden llevar a uno grande. Puede que sea una utopía. Puede que sea una forma de decirme a mí misma que sí puedo cambiar algunas cosas que no me gustan: algo tan sencillo y complejo al mismo tiempo como el hecho de que alguna gente tiene muchas cosas mientras sus vecinos no tienen nada.

Mientras escribo, siento que voy puerta por puerta, dejando una historia que leer y quizás la semilla en la mente de otra persona para empezar el cambio. Me gusta simplificar las cosas, sí, hay alguna otra manera de conseguirlo?

 Words like triggers

“Words are like triggers that help individuals negotiate meaning through the lens of existing cultural beliefs and worldviews.”
Erving Goffman, Anthropologist

Words like triggers. I’ve been thinking about this since I read Prof. Nisbet paper and realized that I like the sentence so much because we do have to use words like triggers, but in the good sense of it. Words like triggers not to frame a story and lead to a meaning that is not the core issue we should be talking about. But words like triggers of reality. Words like triggers that open your eyes.

I know that there are cultural reasons for this but I feel that media protect the public too much here. I feel that media hide photographs and facts to not hurt the audience’s sensitiveness. And there’s no better way to take your audience away from reality.

I was surprised how many people hare hadn’t seen at all the images from Abu Ghraib in Iraq and had to wait for Botero’s version of it. I was surprised how uncommon it is to see blood or harsh images on the news, while movies here carry more violence than anywhere else. I don’t see the point of that idea of “protecting” the public, when they have sources of violence anywhere else.

I think this is part of the reason why the United States feel so far away from everywhere else, while everywhere else people are looking towards the United States. And it’s part of the reason why people don’t look at each other, why everyone is focused on themselves, on getting ahead. And it feels like nothing else matters.

Well, maybe one thing, the principle of Freedom that keeps this country together. Everyone here, no matter where they come from, how long they have been here or their life conditions, value their freedom as if there were no other place where you can be free and, because of that ideal, all the American minds seem to be tied in some way. But I don’t see that connection between people and, without people being able to see each other, there’s no way they are going to see other people’s problems.

Sometimes I feel sad because in my country we don’t have that common ideal. Our minds are not connected. Even saying that you feel “español” still has a bad connotation since the dictatorship. But I feel that a majority is able to see the rest of the people, there’s no need to protect the public from anything because the reality is that, is Real, and there’s a better chance than here that people will see what the real problems are (which doesn’t mean that we are great solving them, that’s another story).
Last year I read a story on the newspaper, a correspondent in New York was telling how a man had died in the subway train and his corpse remained in the seat for more than 8 hours before anyone noticed he wasn’t alive.

I cannot bet that wouldn’t happen outside of this country, but I think there are more chances here. Just because is further away, because they don’t look at each other, because there’s a personal space where no one can enter, and even less someone else’s problems.

And just like the day I realized about this, my dreams crashed with my frustrations, with reality, during the discussion with Prof. Nisbet about framing of news on poverty.

The dream that just by writing about stories of poverty, not about poor people, will make all of us conscious of how big the problem is. But the reality is that it takes much more than words to achieve that.

I’ve always believed that small changes can lead to a big one. It might be a utopia. It might be a way of telling myself I can actually change the things that I don’t like: something as simple and complex at the same time as the fact that some people
have a lot while their neighbour might have nothing.

When writing, I feel like going doorstep by doorstep, leaving a story to read and maybe the seed in someone else’s mind to start making a change. I like simplifying things, but is there any other way?

Local man brings poetry, hope to Anacostia

By Cristina Fernandez Pereda

It’s Wednesday night and Fred Joiner is getting ready to bring one of his passions to Good Hope Road. It’s Anacostia, in southeast Washington, D.C., that he dreams of filling with poetry.

“I believe art can raise quality of life of any people,” Joiner said.

Reverence, 8th Ave., N.E.
By Katy Richey

It’s aglow in this place.
So much that the air sizzles
and the sound rises
from somewhere below the floor,
floats upward and lingers
below the canopy ceiling.
A woman with orange hair
now blocks my view.
Two songs ago her feet
were planted firmly on the ground.
Now they kick and scream,
reaching out to a little boy
with yellow buttons and a lean man
with hands clasped behind his back.
Sometimes
it’s hard to breathe here.
But only a mild suffocation
like when someone you adore
stands too close,
or when you wake with no memory
of the dreams you’ve had.
Just a slight uncertainty,
that sways along with
the voices and the tambourine.

He is host and curator of the “Intersections” poetry reading sessions in D.C., organized with the American Poetry Museum.

Joiner brings poets from the Metro area to Anacostia on the first and third Wednesday night of each month. The readings celebrated during the ’90s at 8 Rock Café, also in this neighborhood, inspired Joiner to start “Intersections.” He met John West-Bey, director of the American Poetry Museum and expressed his interest in developing poetry reading sessions through the Honfleur Gallery.

Joiner admits they could have moved to neighborhoods in northwest D.C. and attracted more attention: “We could even go just to the other side of the river, near Capitol Hill, but we had the deliberate intention in working in Anacostia. It needs the art.”

Art as hope for Anacostia

Anacostia is the poorest neighborhood in the nation’s capital and its first historical suburb. According to the Brookings Institution, in 2000, one-fourth of D.C.’s poor — most of them black — lived in “extreme poverty” neighborhoods, east of the Anacostia River. Two-fifths of the people in these neighborhoods lived below the federal poverty line.

“It’s a complicated place. There’s poverty, people deal with violence every day … but there’s so much sense of community that there’s also hope,” poet Katy Richey said. “I think it’s a growing community and it’s finally getting attention after being forgotten for a long time.”

Richey is one of the poets participating in “Intersections.” She describes the sessions as an opportunity to bring poetry to a place “where art and culture don’t always get.”

Like Richey, Joiner had been in the D.C. area long enough to think Anacostia was in need of cultural investments in the neighborhood.

“It was about bringing art home, not just poetry,” Joiner said.

Latanya Simpson, program coordinator for the American Poetry Museum, agrees that Anacostia is in need of culture.

“We feel that there is a lot in the northeast area but not so much here, and there are great D.C. poets,” she said.

At Honfleur Gallery, poetry and photography join for an audience of poets, artists and neighbors becoming familiar with the gallery events.

“People have issues with the time but they also admit having issues with the area, they don’t want to come here at night,” Simpson said.

The D.C. poetry scene

Joiner hopes events like “Intersections” bring more attention to Anacostia with a poetry community he describes as vibrant: “There needs to be more attention paid to it. It has become so popular now that hopefully we have a larger support of the coming events.”

Richey, who teaches English as a second language in Montgomery County, Md., discovered the D.C. poetry scene approximately three years ago and started participating in different reading sessions.

“There’s just so much. It’s really big,” she said. “There’s such diversity that you can have performance, dramatic, musical and literary poetry all at the same time, especially at the readings.”

Among the best-known names in the local poetry scene are E. Ethelbert Miller, the most active in the poetry community; Kenneth Carroll, executive director of DC Writers Corps; Sarah Browning, from DC Poets Against the War, and Kim Roberts, editor of Beltway Poetry Quarterly.

A night of poetry

As curator, Joiner is in charge of choosing the topic for the night and gathering the poets. After the authors read their work, they engage in discussions about their writing, art and whatever that night of poetry inspires. Then he brings the audience an opportunity they rarely have at other local readings: during the last part of “Intersections,” the microphone is open to whoever in the audience wants to participate.

The discussion part of the session allows the artists to engage with the audience about their work, their creative process and their influences. But the open mic has another purpose.

“It allows us to discover new talent and feature other readers too,” Joiner said.

It is during this part of the session that the audience can join the poets, express their thoughts about the authors’ work and maybe even share their own creations.

Joiner will never forget one session when a woman in the audience, who had never read her poetry before in front of an audience, left her shyness behind and shared her work.

“It was very meaningful to me because I felt we had created a safe space for her to share her poetry,” he said.

Investing in the community

“Intersections” and the American Poetry Museum work with youth too. Different programs work with schools in the area in accordance with the museum’s intention of “investing in the community” of Anacostia.

Currently the Museum of American Poetry is working, along with other institutions, with Sunrise Academy and the Washington Middle School for Girls.

“We are heading up now to youth programs so we can teach through poetry and engage new readers through the messages of poetry,” Simpson said.

“We need to develop art from here. The neighborhood has been neglected at a city level for so long that I hope we are starting a trend of bringing community artists from D.C. too,” Joiner said. “Hopefully, ‘Intersections,’ and events like it, places like the gallery will make other art organizations look at Anacostia as a home and site for artists.”

Published by The American Observer.

¿Identidad cultural?

Este el primero de varios comentarios sobre mi aprendizaje sobre como informar sobre otras culturas. Seguirá durante los próximos meses, también lo podéis encontrar en la página “Ethnicity & Reporting.”

“La cultura es como el agua al pez. Un pez no sabe que existe el agua hasta que salta fuera de ella.”
Kalervo Oberg

La plaza de Jemma l-Fna en Marrakesh, Marruecos. Un mercado por la mañana que se convierte, en el momento en que se pone el sol, en una reunión de actores callejeros, cuentacuentos y encantadores de serpientes. Es lo más cerca que podrías estar de la Edad Media en el siglo XXI. Lo más cerca que puedes estar de algunas de las tradiciones más arraigadas de países musulmanes.

Nunca me había visto a mí misma como diferente de cualquier otro ser humano. Mi fascinación por otras culturas, lenguas y tradiciones había comenzado muchos años antes de ir a Marruecos, pero siempre lo había entendido como una variación de lo mismo: el ser humano, aquello en lo que creemos, cómo interpretamos la vida y como vivimos la nuestra.

Photo by CFPereda
Marrakesh, Istanbul and Harlem, NY.

Estaba de pie en el medio de uno de los lugares más impresionantes que he visto y, de repente, me di cuenta de que parte de la impresión de estar en aquella plaza era porque no pertenecía a ese lugar. Igual que no pertenecía hace dos años después a Estambul, cuando se puso el sol en la última noche de Ramadán y no pude disfrutar igual que todos los que estaban aguardando en los parques para comenzar la cena. Igual que no pertenecía este domingo a las calles de Harlem.

Estuve pensando en este comentario durante el fin de semana en Nueva York y me di cuenta de que estas tres situaciones tienen una cosa en común: es muy difícil comprender por qué algunas personas se autodefinen como diferentes cuando pertenecen a un grupo en concreto, una nacionalidad o una comunidad, hasta que no te ves a ti misma en una situación así y ves que hay diferencias entre los demás y tú.

Del mismo modo que los peces no saben que existe el agua, el concepto de identidad cultural o de raza era completamente desconocido para mi antes de viajar a otros países. Hasta hace unos ocho años, no había inmigración en España, de modo que la idea de identidad cultural o de raza tampoco existía. No había “otros” con los que compararse, y por lo tanto, tampoco “otros” que nos ayudaran a definirnos.

Yo todavía estoy intentando definir mi concepto de identidad cultural. No sabía lo que esto significa para mí antes de venir a Estados Unidos, y ahora me encuentro aquí, en un país que es redefinido una y otra vez por las personas de todas las nacionalidades que conviven aquí. Todavía estoy intentando saber qué significa que yo esté incómoda en medio de la gente que corre a todas partes, siempre demasiado rápido para mí. Qué significan todos los horarios y planificaciones, vivir unos meses por delante y la sensación de que el presente se te acaba de escapar de las manos. Qué significa de verdad el concepto de espacio personal, de dónde viene.

Todavía estoy descubriendo todo esto mientras aprendo cosas de mí misma en un país diferente. Y, si hay algo que deba añadir a la lista de cosas que forman mi identidad cultural, tendría que empezar con la influencia de mi familia, donde estudie y la ciudad donde viví. Pero encontraría muy difícil separar, de entre todas estas cosas, las que dependen del ambiente que me rodea y las que significan que vengo de un país en concreto.

Quiero aprender esto, no ha pasado ni un sólo día que haya estado aquí y no haya pensado qué significa pertenecer a un sitio y, sobre todo, si eso añade más diferencias entre las personas que viven aquí y yo, más diferencias que el hecho de ser simplemente dos personas distintas.

Cuanto más compartimos, más comprendemos. Así me siento acerca de otras culturas y así me lancé a estudiarlas para contar mejor después cómo son. Era imposible que sintiera que pertenezco a Marrakesh, Estambul o Harlem porque hay demasiados elementos de esas culturas que desconozco, con los que no he crecido, pero que hacen que quiera conocerlos todavía más. Es entre otras culturas donde encuentro el deseo de aprender y contar después. Cuando aprendo cosas de otros lugares, siento que allí queda una parte de mí, pero más importante aún, que saqué a la luz algo que antes nadie había contado. Y hay demasiadas historias esperando a ser contadas.

Cultural Identity?

“Culture is like water to a fish. A fish does not know water exists until it jumps out of it.”
Kalervo Oberg

Jemaa l-Fna Square in Marrakech, Morocco. A market place in the morning that turns, as soon as the sun sets, into a gathering of street-actors, storytellers and snake-charmers. The closest you can get to the middle age in the 21st century. The closest you can get to some of the most deeply rooted traditions of Muslim countries.

I had never seen myself as different from any other human being. My fascination for different cultures, languages and traditions had started many years before going to Morocco, but I had always understood it as a variation of the same thing: how humans live, what we believe in, how we understand life, how we live our lives.

I was standing in the middle of one of the most shocking places I have seen and suddenly noticed that part of the shock was because I didn’t belong there. Like I didn’t belong a few years later to Istanbul, when the sun set on the last night of Ramadan and I couldn’t join people’s excitement waiting in the parks for dinner to start. Just like I didn’t belong to Harlem last Sunday morning.

I was thinking of this journal entry during this weekend in New York and realized how these three situations had one thing in common: it’s difficult to understand why some people define themselves as different because they belong to a certain cultural group, nationality or community until you see and feel that there’s a difference between you and the others.

Just like fish can’t see that water exists, the concept of race/cultural identity was completely unknown to me before I started travelling to different countries. Until about eight years ago, there was no immigration in Spain so the idea of cultural or race identity didn’t exist either. There were no “others” to be compared with and, therefore, no “others” to help you define yourself.

I still don’t think that the concept of race can be used as a basis for discrimination. But I don’t agree either with those who affirm we should get rid of it. I would only get rid of the part that serves as an excuse for many people to discriminate, but not the part that recognizes the richness and diversity of cultures among all of us.

I am still defining my concept of cultural identity. I was still figuring out what that means to me before coming to the United States, and now I find myself here, in a country that is redefined over and over by each and every community that lives here. I am still figuring out what it means to me when I am uncomfortable in the middle of people rushing in the streets, always walking too fast for me; what it means all the scheduling, living a few months from now and the sense that the present just flew away. What the concept of “personal space” truly means, where it comes from.

I am still discovering all this as I learn things about myself living in a different country. And, if there’s anything I put on the list of things that I would include as my cultural identity, I would have to start with my family’s influence, where I studied and the city where I lived. But I would find it hard to know how much of all those things are just environment influence or what being from Spain means.

I want to learn this, there hasn’t been a day I have spent in D.C. and not think of what being from one place means and, mostly, if that adds more differences if we compare anyone who lives here and me, rather than just being two different individuals.

The more we share, the more we understand. That’s how I feel about cultures and that’s what led me to study them so I could report on them better. There was no way I could feel like belonging to Marrakech, Istanbul or Harlem because there are too many cultural elements that I don’t know, that I haven’t grown up with, but this makes me want to know them. It’s in those different cultures and environments that I find the desire to learn and then tell what they are like. When I learn this, I feel there’s a part of me in a different place in the world, but most important, I feel I brought to light something that hadn’t been told before. And there are too many stories waiting to be told.

Aquí y Allí

“Trabajé en Nueva York durante 10 años y después vine aquí. Cuando voy a visitar a mi familia en India, ya no sé cómo conducir allí.” Saheen, mi taxista desde el aeropuerto, charlando sobre cómo aprendemos a hacer las cosas según dónde estemos.

Antes de venir aquí, no sabía lo importante que es el espacio personal. Tenía una ligera idea, pero no esperaba que todo el mundo me pidiera disculpas cada vez que estaba a punto de cruzarse conmigo, por si me molestaban.

De donde yo vengo, no hay “lo siento” en los pasillos del supermercado cuando alguien quiere pasar y no te habías dado cuenta de que están ahí hasta que pidieron disculpas. No hay “lo siento” cuando alguien necesita que le dejes pasar en las escaleras del metro, en la calle, o una tienda. A lo mejor te tocan en el brazo o se acercan y entonces te das cuenta de que están ahí.

La distancia que separa aquí a todo el mundo de los demás también se fue construyendo a mi alrededor, pero todavía no sé cómo. Supongo que aprendí a “moverme” alrededor de la gente de una forma distinta. Pero todavía me sorprende lo lejos que fue este aprendizaje, tan lejos que a veces estaba incómoda en las calles de Madrid.

Saheen trabajó en las calles de Nueva York antes de venir a Washington. Le resultó muy fácil aprender a conducir aquí porque en las calles de la India es mucho más complicado: no hay reglas, no hay carriles. Todo está bien mientras estés apretando el claxon y todo el mundo, supuestamente, pueda oírte. Cada vez que vuelve a su casa, se queda atrapado en el tráfico, en medio de reglas y normas que él conocía, con las que aprendió a conducir, pero que ya no usa.

Del mismo modo que Saheen no se acuerda de los trucos para conducir a gusto en India, a mí me agobió a veces la cercanía de la gente en Madrid, en las calles, donde todo el mundo te está rozando o, por lo menos, hay más probabilidades de que esto pase.

Simplemente, la gente está mucho más cerca.

Después de unos meses aquí se me olvidó lo que es moverse entre la gente, los sitios pequeños, las personas cercanas.

Here and There 

“I worked in New York for ten years and then I came here. Whenever I go back home in India to visit, I just don’t know how to drive there.” Saheen, my cab driver from the airport on learning a different way of doing things.

I didn’t know how important personal space was when I came here. I had a small idea, but I didn’t expect people to say “excuse me” every time they were about to pass by my side, just in case they hapenned to disturb me.

Where I come from,  there are no “excuse me” in the supermarket alleys when you didn’t even notice someone was close to you until they excused themselves. No “excuse me” when people need you to let them pass by on the metro escalators, or the street, or a store. No “excuse me.” They’ll just touch you, they’ll walk closer and then you’ll notice them.

This distance that separates everyone here from anyone else was built around me and I still don’t know how. I guess I learned how to “drive” around people in a different way. I am still surprised how far this learining/adopting a new behavior went inside of me. So far I was uncomfortable in the streets of Madrid.

Saheen worked in New York as a cab driver before moving to D.C. and still found it easy beacause of the way people drive in India: no rules, no lanes, no lights. As long as you are honking and everyone, supposedly, can hear you. Whenever he goes back to India, he finds himself trapped in traffic rules and habits that he no longer practices, even though that’s how he learned to drive.

The same way Saheen couldn’t remember the tricks to be comfortable driving in India again, I got overwhelmend by people’s closeness back in Madrid, where people touch you all the time or, at least, there are more chances for this to happen because, basically, people are a LOT closer.

I forgot how it is to move around them, the sense of small places, closeness from people.

La nube se tragó al sol

Las nubes se estaban tragando el sol. Me pregunté si esta ciudad me tragará a mí otra vez.  

Ayer, a las 4 de la tarde no había nadie en la calle. Una hora después, todo el mundo salió del trabajo corriendo hacia el metro, el autobús, a casa. Las aceras llenas de gente caminando tan deprisa como podían. Tan deprisa que sentí que les estaba ralentizando. Camino demasiado despacio para esta ciudad.

Y de repente, otra vez las calles vacías: es el momento de “happy hour”, tomar algo y de vuelta a casa. Hay un momento para cada cosa. Pero no para mí. No allí de donde vengo.

Photo by CFPereda
Las nubes se tragaron al sol una tarde más.
The clouds swallowed the sun once again.

Mi tarde “española” consistió en un paseo, algunas compras en una tienda española :) y una película. Pero no había un horario para ninguna de estas cosas. Podía ocurrir o no.

El ritmo de la gente me hizo recordar como corría los últimos meses para llegar a todas partes cuando ni siquiera llegaba tarde. No necesitaba apresurarme, pero todo el mundo caminaba deprisa, así que yo también.

Caminaba deprisa, leía deprisa, trabajaba deprisa, comía deprisa. Hacía todo tan deprisa como podía. Pero esa no soy yo. Las cosas no son así en Madrid.

No quiero hacerlo otra vez. Quiero mantener el ritmo de casa. El ritmo de aquí se tragó el mío.

Nota: Es inevitable comparar aquí y allí, como se hacen las cosas en un sitio y en otro. Intento no generalizar: hay gente que va muy deprisa en Madrid también, pero siento que aquí todo el mundo corre un poco más, como si no quisieran que nadie les “robe” el tiempo.

The cloud swallowed the sun 

The clouds were swallowing the sun. I wondered if this city will swallow me again.

Yesterday, at 4 p.m. there wasn’t anyone outside. One hour later, everyone got out of work and rushed to get to the metro, the bus, home. The sidewalks were packed with people walking as fast as they could. So fast I felt I was slowing them down. My pace is too slow for this city.

And then no one else outside again: it’s time for “happy hour,” a few drinks, then back home again. There’s an hour for everything. But not for me. Not where I’m from. 

My Spanish afternoon in D.C. meant a walk, some shopping at a Spanish store and a movie. No determined schedule for anything. Just going.  It could happen or not.

But the packed sidewalks made me think again of how I rushed to get to places the last few months when I wasn’t even late. I didn’t need to walk so fast, but everyone walks like that, so I did too.

I walked fast, I read fast, I worked fast, I ate fast. I did everything as fast as I could. But that’s not me. Things are not like that in Madrid.

I don’t want to do it again. I want to keep the pace from home. The pace here swallowed mine.

Note: It’s impossible not to compare here and there, how everything is done in each place. I try not to generalize. There are people rushing in Madrid too, but I feel here everyone goes a little faster, as if they didn’t want someone to “take away” their time.

Café Babel: Innovative Web site bridges language, builds European culture

By Cristina Fernández Pereda 

Ask anyone in the streets of Paris what they are first: French or European? It is more likely that they consider themselves French. But if the person you run into happens to be an Erasmus student, it is more likely he or she will tell you they are first European, then French.

The European Union is now expanding but the evolution of a European identity has just started. Cafebabel.com has become a forum where Europeans can share, reflect and analyze current affairs across borders, with different views, in different languages. The site encourages readers to think as Europeans, and use Café Babel as a means to build European identity and public opinion.

The online magazine Cafe Babel.
Photo provided by Cafebabel.com

Italian Adriano Farano spent one year in Strasbourg as an Erasmus student. Erasmus, the European university exchange program, took him to study political science in the city where the European Parliament congregates. The Erasmus experience is believed to be building the first eurogeneration: the first group of young people from the old continent who consider themselves European.

Friends from different European countries, their views on current affairs, conversations in different languages and a common interest in journalism inspired Farano to found Café Babel. He is now editor-in-chief and executive manager of this online magazine that has become the first pan-European media.

“A café is where people meet. Babel is what separated them,” said Farano. With his friends from the Erasmus experience, he decided to take the conversations from cafes across Europe to a forum online.

The Cafe Babel community across Europe,
with local offices from Lisbon, Portugal;
to Istanbul, Turkey; to Stockholm, Sweden.
Photo provided by Cafebabel.com

In contrast to the Bible version of Babel, where languages divide people, Café Babel is “a cafe where you can speak, read and write in the language you want, but you are understood. We are, at Café Babel, all together in a cozy cafe, speaking all our different languages, but we can understand each other, we communicate and we debate,” said Monika Oelz, project manager and communication chief at Café Babel.

The project, now seven years old, involves more than 1,000 citizen journalists and translators from different countries, 22 local offices in 14 European countries, and 400,000 people visiting the site every month.

“We play the card of originality by addressing a specific audience (the eurogeneration) with a specific content that is general (society, culture, politics), but analyzed with a European perspective. We try to gather stories from all around Europe and also find transnational tendencies in the fields of art, immigration, education, etc.,” Farano said.

Last week, Café Babel’s creator joined American University’s International Communication students during his visit to the school. He was invited to the United States by the International Visitor Exchange Program, which brings youth from all over the world to the U.S. During a three-week trip, he is meeting with leaders from Google, Facebook and Wikipedia.

Image from the interview with
Café Babel’s creator, Adriano Farano.
Photo provided by Adriano Farano.

“What I learned from International Communication Prof. Shalini Venturelli in her speech is that national mass media were needed by the U.S. in order to build a sense of community,” Farano said. “The problem is that we don’t have, as was the Anglo-Saxon for the U.S., a dominant culture. That is why a pan-European media needs to respect the different cultures and languages of the Old Continent.”

One of the magazine’s goals is to break down the barriers created by national media to create that sense of European identity. Café Babel is published in six different languages (English, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Catalan), and makes it possible for journalists and bloggers in the community to have their posts translated, so the readers can chose the language. No other online community includes this feature.

Café Babel is another example of participatory media, as writers and journalists contribute to the site. Translators then edit the articles in different languages for each of the different editions of the online magazine. Editors encourage contributors to share different opinions to show current affairs from a transnational perspective. The only requirement is quality.

When you go to Café Babel, you find articles about the immigration to Europe; how Muslim women “cover their hair, but not their mouth“;” the Eurodyssey: scholarships to work in Europe for Erasmus students; and the European Reform Treaty to be signed next December in Lisbon. The readers’ favorite: Tower of Babel where Europeans laugh comparing idioms and expressions in different languages.

This story was published on the American Observer Nov. 6, 2007.

Day of the Dead and Halloween, not the same

By Cristina Fernández Pereda

While the United States has exported its commercial Halloween customs across the globe, other countries still celebrate their own traditional Day of the Dead.

Every July 13, people in Japan celebrate the Obon, a two-day Buddhist celebration where the Japanese pray for the souls of their ancestors.

In the same way that Oct. 31 was considered by the Celts to be a day when the veil between the dead and the living was lifted, the Japanese believe that spirits reunite with their family during Obon. The living celebrate by offering fruits and vegetables for the dead.

In Mexico, the dead and the living meet on “El Día de los Muertos,” on Nov. 2. On this day, the adult dead return to the living; childrens’ spirits visit a day before. All of them are honored with calaberitas de dulce, or sweet scalps, with the dead one’s name written on the scalp’s forehead and eaten by their relatives or friends. Another delicacy is pan de muerto, or the dead’s bread, which can adopt different shapes such as scalps and is covered with sugar.

In a tradition shared among most Catholic countries, Latin Americans go to the cemetery and decorate graves with flowers and pictures of their ancestors. Such is the case in Uruguay and in Argentina.

Photo by CFPereda
Norwegian cemetery.

Other countries celebrate saints instead of the dead.

On Nov. 1, Spain celebrates El Día de Todos los Santos –the Day of All Saints.

There isn’t a pumpkin or costume to be found on this day. People go to cemeteries to decorate their beloveds’ tombs. The tradition in Spain implies spending part of the day at the cemetery, cleaning the tombs and bringing flowers to honor the dead. In the afternoon, the dead are mourned by eating small cakes like Huesos de Santo, or Saint’s Bones. The little sweets have a scary bone shape the size of your finger.

These old-world traditions are often at odds with current Halloween celebrations, where horror movies, costume contests and pumpkin carving is something increasingly found around the world. Often the older generations are the ones that keep up traditional celebrations, while the young begin to prefer the “American Way.” For instance, they will knock on your door and ask: “Truco o trato?”; “Trick or treat?”

This story was published on the American Observer on Oct. 30, 2007.

Living is an ‘Art’—Youth Programs help shape their future

By Cristina Fernández Pereda

The Art of Living Foundation is the largest volunteer-based non-governmental organization in the United States. Just a short walk from U-Street station in Washington, the organization works closely with the United Nations. The foundation’s volunteers have assisted victims worldwide after events like Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Beslan tragedy in Russia while helping develop rural villages in India.

They have programs focusing on personal development, human-values education and community service to create a stress and violence-free society. With a special interest in helping youths, the foundation has created two different programs for students in more than 140 countries: YES! focuses on kids from ages eight to 13, while YES!+ works with college students. Both have the same goal: making them feel better.

As part of the programs, the organization’s instructors practice yoga, breathing exercises, group techniques and meditation with teenagers, implementing special exercises for those with special needs.

“They learn how to manage their emotions and stress, and how to be more successful,” Gayatri Mani, a Youth Programs Coordinator, said.

According to the instructors, the exercises help them improve their potential and realize what is best in them. They are focused in class and they can help their community once they feel they have their own life under control.

Gopika Prabhu is one of the instructors who works with students in Washington.

“You can’t just tell teenagers to do the right thing; you have to give them an alternative. We work on their insecurities and their doubts. They’re scared of what other people think, and when they learn the skills of feeling good, they can decide and help implement that in their community.”

After participating in any of the Youth programs, high school students sometimes do an internship through The Art of Living.

“They work in their field of interest; they can become a youth representative at their school or work at any other organization and give back to their community what they learned,” Prabhu explained.

After a few days in the course, students admit they have more energy, are more focused in class, interact better with other people and don’t get angry frequently.

“After doing the exercises, they feel good and know that they don’t need anything else. They say the experience is awesome,” Prabhu said.

Some of the kids Prabhu has worked with not only attend classes at school, but also work and take care of their families: “We work to give them the tools to balance all that. The goal is to get young people to get up in the morning and think ‘I can take the world,’ to feel they can live their lives the way they want to, without letting the world thrust them down,” Prabhu said.

In Washington, The Art of Living is working now with inner-city centers such as Bell Multicultural and McKinley Technology High Schools.

“We go where kids really need us,” Mani said. “The benefits are seen immediately after a six-day program, learning how to relieve stress, reduce violence and be more successful” she added.

The organization has reached 70,000 students in 50 Universities all over the nation. In George Washington University and Georgetown University, the organization teaches more than 1,000 students during six-day long courses. The students take a total of 21 hours of yoga, meditation and learning of the Sudarshan Kriya breathing technique.

“We ask ‘how can I live my life better?’ and teach how to make your life less stressful and how to reduce the amount of stress that comes from being a student,” Prabhu said.

This story was published on the American Observer on Oct. 23, 2007.

A country’s hideouts

I feel I tried to start from the very end.

I tried to explain sucha complex country as it is the United States without understanding it first. I tried to explain it even before coming here.

Last week, in my International Communication class, the teacher invited the American students to understand their country before trying to help people from other countries understand the U.S. decisions and performances among the international community.

And I realized that, both nationals and foreigners, were going throught the same process of decoding what the U.S. means. But I felt I was walking the same path in the opposite direction.

Photo by CFPereda
Smithsonian Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.

I’ve tried for so long to know and understand this country before coming here; and now I don’t remember what I found out before moving here: I can’t separate my memories from what I learned in the U.S.

Why so much emphasis on Freedom? Why do politics depend so much (and so openly) on money? Why there are teenagers shooting their classmantes? Why so obsessed with making money if you don’t have time to enjoy it? Why do Americans only look to the future, never to the past? Why is space so important?

I feel frustrated because I can only let myself go, listen and learn. I have to go back to where I started, keep my mind open and never stop listening with my heart…

I want to find answers and bring them here.

They say you don’t know a place until you live there. I want to better understand this country, but I know that until I walk through all its hideouts

Dicen que no se conoce una ciudad hasta que no has vivido en ella. Quiero comprender mejor este país, pero sé que hasta que no me adueñe de sus rincones, como cuando encontré (gracias, Dyane) el Jardín de las Esculturas aquí en Washington, no habré empezado a descifrarlo.

(En Español)