Again, mysterious underlined words appeared in my last blog. Why?
OK Folks, here’s your chance to stop by to chat with the
author and get your signed copy of either or both of my books, Triumph & Hope: Golden Years with the
Peace Corps in Honduras and Confessions
of Secret Latina: How I Fell Out of Love with Castro & In Love with the
Cuban People. Meet with me and other outstanding local authors at ML King Library, 901 G St. NW, on Saturday,
Oct. 18, 9 am to 12:30 pm or 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm, across the street from
Gallery Place metro stop (9th & G exit). Mark your calendar today!
A wasp nest appeared mysteriously clinging to a cloth
embroidered wall hanging that I had gotten in Kenya, a scene featuring
ostriches. I carefully removed the mud nest, which was empty, and scraped the
cloth with a butter knife, but a residue of mud-dust remains, as seen in the
corner depicted. I am wondering how to clean the rest without damaging or
staining the fabric, as I fear using water or alcohol would do. Maybe a vacuum
cleaner? Any other suggestions would be welcome.
Above photos are from a visit to the Franciscan monastery located in DC,
with its underground catacombs, a smaller copy of
those in Rome. They’re kind of macabre, with shrines and replicas of tombs of
saints, including one of St. Sebastian, killed by an arrow in a thigh, of
particular interest because of preshooler Sebastian in our party. Included is a
bas-relief representation of purgatory, with unfortunates struggling to get
out. You’ll be surprised that I met Pope Francis there! Perhaps the most eerie
was the glassed enclosure containing an actual desiccated body, that of a
little girl who died centuries ago, nicely dressed with
a cherubic face mask, but with her actual dark shriveled hands emerging from
her gown.
At a recent hospital interpretation assignment,
I ran into another interpreter, I think for Hindi. His client was
spectacular-looking, wearing a turban, robes, and a long beard. My own patient
that day was very hard of hearing and needed an MRI test requiring her to
remove her single hearing aid. I then had to shout instructions to her, wearing
out my voice until I was almost hoarse by the end. Another patient told me he
works nights on the current capitol building repair project, something I can
see from my neighborhood, the dome now surrounded by scaffolding. With
interpretation, we never know whom or what to expect, which keeps it
interesting.
I was devastated to hear that my
kids’ childhood friend, who used to live 2 doors away, has died suddenly. I
just talked with his mother and, of course, there is no consolation for such a
loss. I mentioned The Compassionate Friends to her, a support group for
bereaved parents, but it only helps them feel less alone and does nothing,
obviously, to bring back the lost child. The death of a child is simply
something a parent never gets over. If an analogy can be made with a physical
loss, it might be like learning to live without a limb or eyesight, though most
parents would gladly give up a physical attribute in exchange for the life of
their child. Most would even give up their own life for their child’s life. But
we are not given that choice. We are acutely aware of the fragility of life and
how any of us and those we love could die tomorrow, or even today.
Now all local jurisdictions, DC, Maryland, and Virginia, allow gay marriage. A young woman I know works
in a restaurant where a waitress from Eastern Europe asked her to marry her,
only on paper, so she could get a green card. When my younger daughter was a
college student out in Washington State, she had similar marriage proposals
from foreign students, but back then, all were men. Now the marriage
possibilities have doubled! When I travel, I wonder if foreign women will begin
to ask me to marry them just as men do now? Who would have envisioned this consequence
of the gay marriage boom?
Kudos to Pakistani schoolgirl Malala
Yousufzai for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. She is a brave, well-spoken
young woman. In a recent radio interview, a prominent Pakistani newspaper
editor, whose name escapes me, declared that the prize was all part of an
American (?) plot to undermine Muslim values and mix boys and girls together in
schools where immoral acts could take place. Of course, girls can always be
educated separately from boys to avoid such risks. And Malala is still targeted
for death by the Taliban and must live under guard at all times, probably even
more so now because of her increased notoriety and recognition in the west. The
editor said he didn’t believe that she had actually been shot. It was all a
conspiracy against Muslims.
A New York Times editorial for October 12, 2014 urges ending the US
embargo against Cuba, a process that has been occurring gradually already de
facto, but is unlikely to end completely until perhaps after the November
elections. Jesse Jackson, whom I met
in 1984, along with 26 long-term Cuba prisoners that our local Amnesty International
group had asked him to get released (as per my book), has also come out in
favor of jettisoning the embargo, in a statement in the Chicago Sun-Times. If the embargo is gone, what will be the Cuban
government’s justification for restricting and punishing its own citizens?
It would not surprise me, as part of his
post-election immigration reform efforts, if
President Obama rescinds the “wet-foot/dry-foot” policy for Cuban rafters
established by Bill Clinton, allowing them to remain if they touch US soil. I
know several successful rafters and also heard of those arriving at the
Honduran Caribbean coast while I was living there, some of whom stayed in
Honduras. But others were picked up at sea by the US Coast Guard or in the
Bahamas and returned to Cuba, so must have suffered reprisals. And, who knows
how many have been lost at sea, like the unfortunate rafters mentioned below? The
safest, but most expensive, way for Cubans to cross into the US is via Mexico, requiring
relatives outside Cuba to obtain for them a flight to Panama or Ecuador and,
from there, usually ground transportation through Central America and Mexico,
then across the Mexican border after paying off Mexican border guards. I
brought Armando, my Cuban kidney patient to the US that way, 16 years ago, and
he did the same with his own son, as recounted in my Cuba book.
Reuters, Oct. 5, 2014 [excerpts]
A group of Cuban migrants drank their own urine and blood
after the engine of their homemade boat failed, leaving them adrift in the
Caribbean for three weeks without food or water, according to survivors who
reached the United States this week.
"I’m happy I made it, alive, but it was something no-one
should have to go through,” said Alain Izquierdo, a Havana butcher, and one of
15 survivors of the 32 passengers. Six passengers are missing after they tried
to swim to shore, while 11 others died of dehydration.
“I just feel sad for those who didn’t make it,” said
Izquierdo, sitting under a sun shade by the pool of his uncle and aunt’s home
in Port St Lucie, on Florida’s east coast.
The survivors were rescued by Mexican fishermen 150 miles
(240 km) northeast of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and were briefly detained in
Mexico before being released late last month…
U.S. authorities said last month more than 16,200 Cubans
arrived without visas at the border with Mexico in the past 11 months, the
highest number in a decade.
While the
Cuban government has made a full-court press for the release of the three
remaining Cuban Five prisoners, with
a relentless US and European campaign and the arrest of Alan Gross 5 years ago,
it has said virtually nothing about Ana Montes. A reader speculates that the
Cuban government isn’t going to waste its time on Montes, a lost cause, as the
evidence against her was pretty overwhelming. But, apparently, it considers the
Cuban Three not to be a lost cause and certainly I’ve heard from a fair number
of Americans involved in campaigning for their release—considering them
innocent and victims of an unfair trial, as the Cuban government alleges. There
is also a vocal contingent of Europeans convinced of their innocence and
involved in the same campaign to free them. So an exchange of Alan Gross for
the Three after the November elections would not surprise me, along with a
further easing of the embargo and immigration measures including getting rid of
wet-foot/dry-foot (on grounds that it puts rafters in serious danger), as I’ve
said. I’m not sure how much Congressional approval might be required for these
last two measures.
I have a Cuban-born friend who fears in the abstract—he has
absolutely no actual information on this—that with the growth and proliferation
of drone technology, Cuban exiles
might attempt a drone attack on Cuba, perhaps from another country, causing all
hell to break out there. The US government would certainly want to prevent such
a scenario. I don't know how easy drones are to make or acquire, but if they
were launched into Cuba from another country--such as the DR or Haiti--the US
government might not be able to stop them. And there's nothing to say that
drones from elsewhere won't be launched against the US. We don't have an iron
dome over the whole USA. This whole drone business, like anything else, is a
two-edged sword, potentially very scary for us, as well as protective. Certain nations, like Iran, have captured
American drones and have studied how they are made and operate. Once nuclear
weapons were the big fear in the arms race; now, it’s drones. If our country
can use them, others cannot be far behind.
The US is number 44 according to a ranking of healthcare
efficiency done by Bloomberg,
examining "health care costs as a share of GDP and per capita, as well as
life expectancy and improvements from last year." If it’s any solace,
Russia was the worst at #51.
Reading about the usual struggles
and adjustment of Peace Corps volunteers, I realize again how lucky I am
that when I was in the Peace Corps in Honduras and during my 10 return trips so
far, I’ve never felt or been treated like a foreigner or a second-class
citizen. Of course, most (but not all) people there know objectively that I'm a
"North American," but sometimes they forget during their
conversations and I'm always welcome as a guest in their homes. Often,
I'm offered the "Honduran" price for something, including the
senior citizen price. I was perfectly happy to be the only foreigner living in
El Triunfo during PC. It must be harder for most volunteers, as I’ve come to
realize reading their memoirs and postings.
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