Merigoesaround

If it is not you, then who If it is not now, then when You can not compare your insights with other people's outsides Let your life speak

A friend has this terrific idea of starting a clothing business in Benin! I haven't discussed with her enough but my impression is that she wants to adapt African clothing and traditional style to the Western taste. She does not have a website, or a clear business plan...not yet. But she has the right spirit and the innate creativity. When I traveled in Northern Benin I met the lady above. I immediately loved her smile, her clothes, her feminine look and taste for necklaces and earrings. Today I missed color.

I have decided to post a speech I wrote for a communication seminar impersonating a Republican, again, just impersonating...OK!? I am risking my political career (and maybe marital life) with this blog... In the process of writing this I discovered two things: - How much you can play with statistics and numbers to support or refute your arguments - Right wing America makes me sick, literally...listening to other classmates' Republican speeches kept me in tension for an hour, my stomach was hurting while a Greek classmate was defending pro-life policies. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4 victims. As I speak today 4 children under the age of 15 will die from AIDS. Every 15 seconds, a young adult is infected with HIV. Just imagine,1,2,3,4…15. One person less. We all know about the HIV epidemic, about the prevalence rates and the cost of anti-retroviral drugs, but do we know about the efforts of America in decreasing the deaths and...

Easy. Not by the kind of life the top 5% of the country's population has but by the bottom 5%.

California could be part of Mexico!

Today a professor said in class: "Your generation has so many poor role models, there is so much mistrust. You will have to build the trust that the previous generation had" And we all felt like heroes.

What can happen if you put in the same room a West Point graduate, the sweetest gays from NYC and LA, a future US diplomat, a Spaniard who has been a mormon, an opus dei member and now a hoffman graduate, a 52-year old doctor with 0 wrinkles, a puerto-rican/italian, a "togofrancaise" in search of her spontaneity, a high-heeled, high-souled French society princess, Ali G's brother, Eric Joseph, the future of Ecuador looking for her heart, Jane thinking where and how to find her voice, an expert in Latin America, an Austrian ex-robot, the Serbian Militia, Federal civil servants from the Philippines and India, the most lovable Ukrainian Borat, a Venezuelan actress, green-eyed Brasil, a king from Kyrgyzstan and a Korean wise young man who all thought to be Mongolian, a Chinese baby girl turned into a grown-up, an Iraqi-American who is surprised that somebody can change the way she is, the future Prime Minister of Turkey an his Minister of Finance, a Brazilian-Korean-American...

The majority of Spaniards has said NO to the arrogance and the loftiness of the political right. I am not sure if Spain needs four more years of PSOE but I am sure it does not need a single minute of the current PP. Nationalist parties have seen their presence in the national Parliament decreased, with the exception of Catalonia's CiU (Convergencia i Unio) who has maintained its position. This indicates to me that there are right and wrong ways of representing regional differences through political channels. CiU represents the good way to do it and the prize has been to maintain their deputies in Madrid. As my mum told me on the phone "I might vote for CiU, they are good for Catalunya and everything that is good for Catalunya is good for me and my family". My mum immigrated to Catalonia more than 40 years ago from a region that today voted 60% for the right-wingers. She is a good example of how best to integrate foreigners into a different culture. One of the negative con...

ConTROversy says the American, CONtroversy the British. I do not even know how to pronounce it. I say controversia in Spanish and the French would say controverse. It sounds different in different languages but the negative connotation stays. Why? Is controversy bad? I would like to be more controversial myself. I think controversy is good and I am going to tell you why. Maybe some of you would like to join my way of thinking. It is not the best personality feature though. It is controversial to be controversial. Society rewards compliance with the norm and people who agree with the majority, instead it penalizes and isolates those who are controversial. Curious about this subject and my sudden wish to become the new Michael Moore, I decided to investigate more and I found that some people suffer from controversial personality disorder, meaning a permanent attitude of negative patterns. This is not the kind of controversial 21st century citizen I was thinking of becoming though. I was ...

Nine years since I left my country and became a luggage girl, a tireless searcher of the world and of myself. Sometimes I feel extremely far from my roots and sometimes I feel my roots and the memories of my childhood and youth have fully defined the person I am today. My connection to Spain is my family, my mother, father and sister. Some friends love me and make me feel close to them and to Spain despite only seeing me 3 or 4 days per year. I consider myself fortunate. Today Spain hurts me. It is a deep, acute chest pain. Something inexplicable but understandable by anybody who has felt injustice and impotence. ETA, the eternal terrorist band, killed today an ex-councilman from the PSE (Euskadi/Basque Socialist Party). Two days before the national election. Insulting us Spaniards, basques, andalucians, catalans and madrilians...all victims of irrationality and vileness. I need some hours to calm down and analyze the electoral consequences of this attack. But, wait a minute...shouldn...

When my mother was my age she had 2 babies. One was my sister, she was 3 and the other one myself. I was 1. My mum believes that I am waiting too much time to have a baby, focusing only on my career and personal development. We talk every other day and by the end of our conversation she almost always tries to know more about “my plans in life”, as she says. She means, my plan to have a child. These conversations with my mum have led me to think about why women have fewer babies in some parts of the world. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I come from the low-fertility Mediterranean belt. Italy, Spain, Greece and Portugal. This is a region with a serious baby deficit. 30 years ago in my home country, Spain, women were on average having their first baby at the age of 25, today, women have their first child when they are 30. Not only have women postponed the age, but they are also having fewer babies. One, maybe two. In particular, the regi...

Today I woke up with the upcoming Spanish election on my mind. My electoral waking up was a novelty. My knowledge of Spanish politics lately is limited to the daily reading of the headlines of two main Spanish newspapers. I feel I am becoming more and more indifferent on whom I prefer to be the winner. Without any kind of prove to support this, I believe this is a common feeling among my fellow Spaniards. After all, the spectrum of Spanish politicians unanimously promise tax cuts, more family, children allowances, more environment and strong hand against terrorism. Pfff... But when did idealism and hope die? Why all this disaffectedness? My American roommate Molly represents the best of the United States to me: she has been campaigning for Obama during the last months and her commitment to her candidate is undeniably admirable. Our house has Obama stickers from the bedroom doors till the fridge. The American flag presides on the living room and she has a plethora of t-shirts with Obama...

The country is not yet independent; it will depend on foreign aid and European Union (EU) tutelage for years. Independence will come with effective foreign aid management and Kosovo’s integration in international organizations. The world has a new country: Kosovo. The independence of this small Balkan territory with only two million, mostly young and unemployed, inhabitants was auto-proclaimed on the 17th of February. Many applaud the decision and will recognize the new country (the United States and 20 EU members at least) and others see it as a dreadful breach of international law and a negative precedent for countries with independence-claiming minorities (Spain, Georgia, Romania, China, Russia). The legal damage has been done and the decision taken. Full stop. It is too late to go back in time. We could discuss how the international community managed to leave a region the size of Connecticut (1/3 of Belgium) in economic and political limbo during nine years, after NATO decided to b...

Right now patriotic chaos dominates Kosovo. They are celebrating an auto-proclaimed independence...As much as I like the Albanian red flag it feels strange to see the pictures and the fraternity with which Macedonians, Albanians and Kosovars celebrate this day. It makes me think of a victory in the soccer cup of the Balkan world, full of all those things I personally dislike so much: populism, uber-patriotism, hatred against the enemy, arrogance, resentment, rage... An era of dialogue an cooperation might be about starting. Or has started, according to the festivities. I am hopefully right. I fear the flooding of donors' funds in Kosovo too. A little territory inhabited by close to 2 million people and immerse in a favorable geographic environment (the EU), Kosovo should be a successful development story...one from where we all learn lessons.

One professor has asked us to break a established norm of conduct during some days. I have had issues deciding what to do...not paying for my meal in the cafeteria? not calling my parents for a week? sleeping with another man in St. Valentines when my boyfriend is 9000km far away? Stealing the neighbor's newspaper? Opening my roommates mail? One male classmate decided to pee in the girl's bathroom...when he was leaving the bathroom the (female) Director of our MSc Program was waiting in the line. Ha. He experienced then the effects of breaking social norms, which was the purpose of the experiment. Another classmate defied a priest telling him that the Trinity was nonsense during his daughter's first communion instruction. There is something that I have always wanted to do...sleep in the first row while a professor is teaching!! I might try in this class. Zzzzz.

Bush is the second President of the United States of Ameeeerica to visit Aaaafrica. The previous one, Clinton, probably made it to the capital of the countries visited, maybe even had time to check some USAID or MCC projects some kilometers away from the capital. Bush stays at the airport. Today Bush is in Benin. Well, to be precise, in Benin's airport. The whole ceremony of "Bonjour Monsieur! Benin says Hello to Bush" took place in those premises. This is not necessarily bad. I understand Bush is a man with a busy agenda and after all, he does not like that much to be away from home. Air Force One might even be more comfortable than Cotonou's (Benin economic capital) Sheraton Hotel. I found it quite amazing how important a visit from the President of the USA is to some places that seem to be in the map but nobody hears or knows about them. Benin is one of those. Albania was another one...until Bush went there last summer and the hidden jewel of the Adriatic became he...

...want others to marry. Yes, this is a big statement. Married couples enjoy having married friends to do married-couple kind of things. And if you have dated somebody for long, way too long, married couples might think that you should marry. Soon. Marrying, like crying, is contagious. Also yawning has this feature.

I am reading that the state of Massachusetts has the highest per capita health spending in the US. I like to be in places with loads of hospital. It reinforces the sense of bubble and it is perfect for health-conscious individuals like myself. However, when you are surrounded by three major hospital with hundreds of beds you wonder if America's health commercialization does any good to this society or just makes them (us) all pill and doctor consultation addicts. My friend Kirs was hospitalized yesterday. She will be fine in a couple of days, nothing serious. I am not worried about her stay at the hospital...it resembles more to a sanitarium than to a place where people are in pain. In her individual, private lavatory, air-conditioned room there is a welcoming board saying "Welcome. Today is 24th of January". The hospital offers room service, there is a restaurant-like menu over the bedside table offering vanilla ice-cream, caesar salad and filet mignon. Besides Kirstin...

Life is negotiation. We negotiate when to go to the cinema, which movie to watch, we negotiate where to go on holiday with our partner, what to cook for dinner, when to start a job... The year started with a 2-week intensive workshop on negotiation and conflict resolution. I tend to have intellectual crushes with professors, which again I did. Professor Mandell is probably the best professor I've ever had. The level of caring for his students is unmatchable, his excellent organization and interesting, well-picked materials all seasoned with the darkest sense of humor in Cambridgean territory made this seminar a once in a lifetime opportunity. Last semester I had another crush on Linda Bilmes. But Linda deserves a posting by herself. In the workshop I suffered many and very different identity transformations. I represented the Unions and fought for a salary increase, better job incentives and more worker's involvement in productivity decisions. I was an NGO in the Middle East su...

This posting does not make justice to the very intense last 2,3 weeks I've had...but I did not want to miss the opportunity to write the last posting of 2007 and to wish you good health, an intense love life and some money to enjoy materialistic pleasure. Muak!