Wednesday, December 16, 2015
APUNTES PARA UNA BIOGRAFIA DE JUAN B
Born 12/28/32 in La Ceja, Colombia, a rural town in the Department of Antioquia. He is the 7th child (third of three sons) of Joaquin and Juliana Londoño. Lived in same town, in same house until 1945. His brothers Luis Alfonso and Fernando become priests; three of his sisters - Angela, Cecilia and Carlotica - become Salesians nuns; Blanca and Lucía marry and have families; Juliana, the eldest sister, helped grow a family, work for a nonprofit organization- Apostolado de la Aguja - and never married.
Nace en La Ceja, Colombia el 28 de diciembre de 1932, el séptimo hijo de Joaquín y Juliana Londoño. Viven en misma casa en La Ceja hasta 1945;sus dos hermanos, Luis Alfonso y Fernando, se ordenan como sacerdotes; tres hermanas - Ángela, Cecilia y Carlotica - ingresan a la comunidad de Salesian Nuns; Blanca y Lucía se casan y tienen familia; Juliana, la mayor de las hermanas, se dedica a fortalecer al Apostolado de la Aguja - organización familiar sin ánimo de lucro y no se casa.
Don Joaquin, his father – one of 23 children - was a farm laborer; his mother’s family is with a number of her male siblings going on to serve in political/ministerial positions; maternal grandmother is quite the matriarch and center of the family.
Don Joaquín es administrador de fincas; la familia de Doña Juliana es numerosa y varios de sus hermanos llegarán a tener posiciones influyentes en la política nacional; la abuela materna es el centro de la familia.
He attends the school of the Christian Brothers (Colegio de los Hermanos Cristianos de La Salle); his First Communion takes place when he is 7 and he tells the following story:
“Up until the time of my First Communion, I went barefoot. We did not have money to buy shoes. So my first shoes were made out of starched cardboard – shaped into shoes but not leather. After the communion ceremony, we went to have breakfast with all the children and our families but we were told to stand and wait our turn. I had to pee and waited until I could not hold any longer….and just went standing in line…..and when my new shoes got wet they disintegrated….”
Asiste al Colegio de los Hermanos Cristianos de La Salle; hace su primera comunión a los 7 años y recuerda este incidente:
"La primera vez que me puse zapatos fue para la primera comunión ya que hasta entonces andaba descalzo. Y estos primeros zapatos eran de cartón prensado - no de cuero. Después de la ceremonia de la comunión, había un desayuno pero teníamos que esperar nuestro turnó en una fila. Para este entonces, ya habían pasado varias horas y yo tenía que orinar. Llego el momento en que no podía aguantar más......y al mojarse, mis zapatos nuevos -se desintegraron......"
He helped his father to rice cattle, horses, pigs; he learned to ride bareback horses and fear lightning, snakes and spirits in the night. Family members were great music lovers, playing the “tiple” and singing together in the evenings.
Durante su infancia, le ayudaba a don Joaquín en los quehaceres de las fincas que administraba; aprendió a arriar (?) ganado, marranos y a montar en pelo a caballo, a temerle a los rayos, serpientes y a los espíritus; en las noches, la familia, que apreciaba enormemente la música, se reunía a cantar y tocar tiple.
Mother’s constant advice: “Son, be good to everyone in your life”.
El consejo constante de Doña Juliana era: "Mijo sea bueno con todo el mundo"
1946 - 1956
Priesthood was the only career alternative to farming, so when he was 14 he was sent to a Jesuit seminary in El Mortiño, in the Province of Cundinamarca.
En ese entonces, la vida religiosa era la mejor opción para los jovenes, así que cuando cumple 14 años, ingresa en el Seminario Jesuita de El Mortiño en el Departamento de Cundinamarca.
His experiences in the seminary shape his life: religion is not his calling, life can be great fun but not in the seminary; pranks and jokes are easy for him; he discovers his ability to lead others; is homesick and returns home two years later.
Esta experiencia en el Seminario forja muchas características de su vida: descubre que la vida religiosa no es "lo suyo", que hay vida fuera del seminario, que es naturalmente gracioso, toma pelo, que lidera fácilmente a otros. Extraña su familia y regresa a casa a los dos años.
His uncle, Minister of War at the time, helps the family purchase a home in Medellin and they move.
Su tío JOSÉ M, Ministro de Guerra en ese tiempo, ayuda a la familia a comprar una casa en Medellín y la familia se traslada.
Juan finishes high school, starts to study engineering, but ends up earning a doctorate in Economics from the Universidad de Antioquia in 1954.
Juan termina bachillerato, entra a estudiar ingeniería pero se gradúa con un doctorado en economía de la Universidad de Antioquia en 1954.
1957 – 1967
Marries Berta Osorio, is offered a job at the Colombian National Federation of Coffee Growers and moves to Bogota with wife and baby Lina Maria (born in 1959).
Se casa con Berta Osorio; recibe una oferta de trabajo extraordinaria con la Federación Nacional de Cafeteros y se muda para Bogotá con Berta y la pequeña Lina María.
Has trials & tribulations with housing in Bogota (small apartment, a nice, larger apartment on 1st. floor that has “visiting rats in the toilet”, and finally a beautiful place in a very fashionable area of town.
En un apartamento de primer piso fue visitado por las ratas en el inodoro y se trasladó a uno maravilloso en un sector al Este de la ciudad desde donde se veía el atardecer de la Sabana de Bogotá que es muy bonito.
Is extremely successful in this position but family circumstances lead him to resign and return to Medellin; parting words from his boss: “we had you as a candidate for Minister of Agriculture”.
Tiene mucho éxito en este cargo pero por circunstancias familiares, regresan a Medellín; la despedida de su jefe es: "que lastima....lo teníamos a Ud. como candidato para Ministro de Agricultura".
Is offered a post at University of Antioquia conducting research and teaching national income and income analysis.
Le ofrecieron un puesto en DIAGONAL, la comercializadora de algodón nacional par la industria textil del país luego ingresa como investigador y profesor a la Universidad de Antioquia en la facultad de economía enseñando Ingreso Nacional
Meets Dr. Mario Jaramillo, an obstetrician/gynecologist involved in demography, family planning and population studies. Mario facilitates an invitation from Dr. Donald Bogue, faculty member in the Sociology Department, University of Chicago, to attend a summer workshop on family planning as a tool to reduce fertility and rapid population growth.
Conoce al Dr. Mario Jaramillo, un obstetra y ginecólogo dedicado al campo de la demografía y planificación familiar, quien le presenta al Dr. Donald Bogue de la Universidad de Chicago. El Dr. Bogue invita a Juan a participar en un seminario de verano en la Facultad de Sociología sobre el potencial de la planificación familiar como herramienta para detener la fecundidad y el crecimiento acelerado de la población.
Dr. Bogue then offers a scholarship for a Masters in sociology with emphasis in Demography. Juan, Berta, Lina and young Juan David (born in 1961) move to Chicago; Juan gets his Masters and is candidate for PhD but decides to return to Colombia. Santiago (3rd child) is born in Medellin in 1967.
Posteriormente, el Dr. Bogue le ofrece una beca para el Masters en Sociología con especialización en Demografía; jua, Berta, Lina y el pequeño Juan David se trasladan a Chicago; Juan obtiene su Masters y es candidato para un PhD pero decide regresar a Colombia. Santiago nace en Medellín en 1967.
1967 - 1977
Launches a prestigious career in demography and social change in Colombia, El Salvador, Washington D.C.,Brazil, and Zimbabwe, establishing innovative family planning programs in urban and rural communities; is a featured speaker, researcher and panelist at international gatherings and conferences and publishes numerous articles and studies.
Disfruta de una exitosa y prestigiosa carrera en el campo de la demografía y cambio social en Colombia, El Salvador, Washington D.C., y Brasil, estableciendo programas efectivos e innovadores de planificación familiar en comunidades urbanas y rurales; es invitado como conferencista a reuniones y conferencias globales, y publica varios artículos e investigaciones.
Juan and Berta separate; the children remain with Juan.
Juan y Berta se separan; los niños continúan viviendo con Juan.
1978 – 1987
Juan is recruited by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in Colombia; there he meets Yolanda who joins the same organization after graduating from the University of Houston with a degree in Communications.
La Agencia para el Desarrollo Internacional del Departamento de Estado norteamericano en Colombia (USAID) contrata a Juan en Colombia; allí conoce a Yolanda quien regresa a Colombia al graduarse de la Unversidad de Houston con título de Comunicación Social.
Juan is offered a position at the International Planned Parenthood Federation based in London; Juan and Yolanda marry and move to London with Juan David and Santiago, where they live and work for three years; Julian is born there in 1980.
Juan acepta un oferta de International Planned Parenthood Federation en Londres; Juan y Yolanda se casan y se mudan a Londres con Juan David y Santiago y viven allí tres años; Julián nace en Londres en 1980.
Juan then accepts a position with USAID Ecuador; Juan David remains in London to study Physics & Mathematics; Juan, Yolanda, Santiago and Julian move and Lina joins them in Quito; Andres is born in Quito in 1982 and the family lives there for five years.
Juan acepta una oferta de USAID Ecuador; Juan David se queda en Londres estudiando física y matemáticas; Juan, Yolanda, Santiago y Julián se mudan para Quito y Lina se une a ellos; Andres nace enQuito en 1982 y la familia vive cinco años en Quito.
Lina marries Andres Castrillon in Bogota and has two little boys (Nicolas & Felipe) within 11 months of ach other.
Lina se casa con Andrés Castrillon en Bogotá y tienen dos niños, Nicolás y Felipe; los niños se llevan 11 meses.
Juan David marries Paula Philips in London.
1996 – Present
Yolanda is recruited by Tupperware Brands and relocates with Juan and Rosita to Orlando; Julian and Neha Sha marry in a wonderful Hindu event in Houston; Little Asha arrives in 2011. Andres and Lindsay Pullin have little Fenix also in 2011.
Yolanda acepta el cargo de vice presidente de Responsabilidad Social a nivel global conTupperware Brands y ella, Juan y Rosita se mudan para Orlando; Julián se casa con Neha Sha en una Mara ilesa ceremonia Hindu en Houston; la pequeña Asha llega en 2011. Andrés y Lindsay Pullin reciben con alegría al pequeño Fénix también en el 2011.
Juan writes his professional memoirs; Yolanda enjoys Tupeware tremendously; Orlando proves to be a great place to gather with family and friends from around the world;
Juan escribe sus memorias profesionales; Yolanda disfruta su trabajo enormemente; Orlando resulta ser un lugar extraordinario para recibir a familiares y amigos de todas partes del mundo.
Valentina comes to live with grandparents and we all celebrate Juan’s 80 years of life!
Valentina viene a vivir con los abuelos y todos celebramos los 80 años de vida de Juan!
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Two blogs in English
A Mis Hijos Nietos y ...
It does not exist if it is not on Internet
It does not exist if it is not on Internet
Very common is the phrase but I do not think that is true. There are many things that are not on the Internet that actually exist. I can name more than ten and more than a hundred and many still remain unlisted. Internet information exists only for some things and not the thing itself, just some of their images. It is impossible to find information on Internet about some of my ancestors, or the ancestors of anyone, unless they have fought in the war of the thousand days or have been very famous as Einstein, that there is none. However this information exists, as there is information about the life of many who currently have in the field of living or who have passed through this world, but not in Internet. There is also no information in Internet on many current and past events unless they are historical, but not all, or that are very prominent in the life of humanity. Information about my life does not exist on the Internet and nobody cares about it. But this paper is not a treatise on Internet but aims to bring my grandchildren, great-granddaughter and all grandchildren and great-grandchildren coming in posterity, information about someone long living and whose years were not entirely wasted. Information that is not online
I never had enough intelligence to realize I was a smart guy, very young, when I being in a school where we had to go with clean feet after walking over the swamp of unpaved streets of the town where we lived and did not wear shoes, if feet were dirty, as it was expected, the Christian brother on duty with all this forces, with a ruler, hit on the palms of the hands. My Tai Chi teacher would say that is very beneficial to open the energy channels, but for me it was an abuse of authority of the Brother and a great ardor in the palm of my hand without knowing why. Above all, when it seemed to be an act of discrimination because the farther one lived the dirtiest the streets to school and the dirties the feet. Those who live near, the wealthy, were receiving no punishment. This school was the philosophy that "Spare the rod and spoil the child" and there was punishment for almost everything because no matter what you did, it was always wrong. I still remember the distribution of record books on Saturday, because we had Saturday school in the morning. The book was a weekly record of notes for the student headed by notes of "behavior and civility" that one did not know the difference very well but the Brothers did, a 3 in conduct out of five, was enough reason to come before all School take the belt off, give it to the brother director and received several lashes with it, bare legs as we were in short pants. If the conduct grade was zero (not yet know why this score had not all values between zero and five, only the discreet form of 5 or 3 or 0) we were whipping with the belt buckle. Pain Oh !. More than the physical pain was the emotional pain of being humiliated in front of the whole school. Worst of all was that the parents agreed and if the Brothers were to punish it for something wrong and then received undeserved punishment at home also from the father who usually hit harder than mom.
In this school I learned to read or rather to gather the letters into syllables and then words, because I did not know until very late and the meaning of these phrases that could build them. As learning to read, or what a partner school said that there we only learned to "roar and kidding" because reading was studied in a giant book, Brother pointing with a stick and all we repeated out loud: aaaa ... baa ... moo ... meee ... When Brother Philemon, who taught us reading, realized early that I knew how to read fluently and that was premature, I was given a beautiful marble that I showed with pride during recess. But my happiness did not last long because a fellow named Isaza took away the marble and in response I mourn because I did not know any other thing, at home they had not taught me to fight which pleases me very much because I am now a dying pacifist. Philemon was laughing louder when I cried which surprised me from someone who should have come to rescue and defend me because he was the only authority around aware of the abuse of my companion and the marble was given me by him not for favoritism but by merit. This incident marked me forever. What is the motivation to behave yourself well if your superiors laugh at you? If I now behave well it is for self-satisfaction and conviction that that was a necessary ingredient of cohabitation, but not because I praise.
It is not pleasant to write about yourself, but like my friend M. Jaramillo says in his memoirs he wrote thinking about their grandchildren "... the desire of making those little people to know me, those who have expressed so much affection to me, the desire that they remembered me for something more than the tender affection that exchange with them, and hope that one day draw lessons from my successes and failures. " As I have great granddaughter I also do for her and the grandchildren and their descendants who will appear in the future. In this month of January 2015 will be born my last granddaughter to complete eleven grandchildren, I hope than no more grandchildren will come. For them and for my most close relatives, especially my wife, is my desire to make life a great joy, because this is the only thing we can control as part of one's feelings, you make yourself as unhappy as you want. When all the basic things are satisfied people should live happily.
May 29, 2015
They say: experience is that which we acquired when it becomes useless.
I was very fortunate from the time I finished in college and thereafter. For starter, I did not search as all my colleagues for a job, since I was hired as a student by the National Association of Industry, ANDI, a very prestigious organization but paying little, that was by the end of 1956, the vice-president of the institution called me and said: You just finished studies and you are going to work full time you will be pay twice what you are making with half time and a little more, the first time I've earned $1000 pesos a month, US$ 400 a year! I was out of this world; I did not know what to do with all that money. My continuous fortune was that I did not have to look for work until very late in life but my youth was not hampered as it has been for many, due to lack of employment.
Then I thought about getting married like everyone of my generation, and I married to Berta Osorio, during my few years as a full-time ANDI’s employee. But before I was married I lived my single life as any one of those days. As part of this life I had a girlfriend, Luz Elena Restrepo, but I was not to waste time in a Victorian courtship as of the time, windowing and enduring desire which increased in the trips to the country side where we always had to take a chaperone, usually Luz Elena's aunt. So I gave up this courtship with no little disappointment of my sisters who were more girlfriends than I was.
Gabriel Restrepo, one of the skinheads narrated in other blog, was the boyfriend of a Luz Elena’s sister and married her later, although he earned very little money to survive, a marriage costs and married life costs more ... at that time was selling Germany made sewing machines, Pfaff. After that he did very well because of the ingenuity and natural intelligence he possessed in the highest degree, he became in a very little time, senior executive Carvajal, the main printing and selling office supplies company in the country
Both Gabriel and Marta, his wife, died and she did very young, apparently of a brain hemorrhage after a small car accident. The thing was told to me as follows: the couple went to the movies after an accident with no apparent consequences because there were no injuries of consideration or apparent damage to the car, during the film she complained of headache until it became unbearable and had to leave the theater and go to a hospital, when they arrived there Marta was lifeless. It looks like she hit her head during the accident. I did not hear back from Gabriel but the last time I now about him, he was already dead.
A friend of mine says that one who lives as long as I live, the activity that exercises more is to bury relatives, friends and acquaintances and these blogs have already buried enough people. We are just in my youth, because I go through my twenty years of age and we have to reach the eighties. By then I thought, like all young people, which was good is partying and I partied, yet, as the song says I spent part of my life buying bottles. But let’s go back to our business without this numbo jumbo.
I still think I was very lucky because my work was not a work but a continuation of what I liked, including predictions, projections, interpolations, surveys and other herbs where I spent my professional life first at ANDI and then the National Federation Coffee Growers, Federacafe. National Cotton Distributers, Diagonal and the University again. I changed from Medellin to Bogota and from there back to Medellin. Sometimes the changes were to take advantage of career opportunities and other forced by circumstances. If there is some nostalgia for those years was the lack of doing more than what I did, because some things were inconclusive and others are lost in time, but all are important for the contribution that one should do to improve the standard of life of the people.
While in ANDI I received a call from Bogotá to take care of the Department of Economics Research at Federacafé, The meaning of that was four times the salary I was making in Medellin, and despite of the higher cost of living in Bogota there will be more money left after all bills paid, and a very rewarding career. This association of coffee growers grouped the most influential sector of that time in Colombia. There I was in charge of estimating crops yearly that served to determine the amount of coffee purchases by the Federation and especially for the distribution of the monies among the departments or political divisions of the nation according to their production. Besides analyzing the data collected by the farm owned by the Federation in Chinchiná where greater experimentation data with new crops and new ways to grow coffee was going on. All the information about oppression, strain, and pruning of coffee plants was gathered there; information about new varieties especially Bourbon and Caturra, practicing widely today for cultivation of this bush in Colombia. The results of this experimentation was the high productivity per hectare; if I remember correctly ascended as five to ten times the yield per acre of the productivity those days.
For family reasons I had to come to Bogota offered me a position in Diagonal, which was the federation of all the textile industry for the purchase of domestic cotton crop that had been very popular in lands like the valley of the Magdalena and the department Tolima.
From there I went on to rule the destiny of the economic research department of the faculty of economics at the University of Antioquia When I was there soddenly a gentleman, Dr. Mario Jaramillo of the Faculty of Medicine at the same university appeared and proposed me to visit Mr. D. Chock a man who came from USA to recruit people who was interested in demographic studies to go to a seminar in Suescún, Boyacá. There they offered me a scholarship with all expenses paid to study at Chicago in the department of sociology at the university, where demography was taught. The rest of this new adventure I have already told it in another blog.
All this is to say that here I am at my 83 after all those love, job, study and many more experiences, non of them helping me to survive or probably surviving because of them.
Friday, May 1, 2015
Mayo 29 de 2015
Experiencia
Dicen que la experiencia se coge cuando no sirve para nada.
Fui muy afortunado desde el momento que terminé en la Universidad y de allí en adelante. Para empezar, no tuve que buscar, como todos mis compañeros un empleo, pues ya tenía el de la ANDI, muy prestigioso pero pagaban poco, eso fue al finalizar el año 1956, el vice-Presidente de la institución me llamó y me dijo: Usted acaba de terminar y como va a trabajar de tiempo completo le vamos a pagar el doble de lo que estaba ganando con medio tiempo, y un poco más, la primera vez que me he ganado mil pesos mensuales, ¡400 dólares al año! me sentía fuera de este mundo, no sabía que hacer con toda esa plata. Mi fortuna continuó, no tuve que buscar trabajo hasta ya muy tarde en la vida pero mi juventud no se vio entorpecida como ha sido para muchos por falta de empleo .
Entonces pensé en casarme como todos los de mi generación, y me casé como a los pocos años de haber iniciado de tiempo completo en la ANDI. Pero antes de casarme viví mi vida de soltero como uno cualquiera de esa época, como parte de esto tuve una novia, Luz Elena Restrepo, pero yo no estaba para perder el tiempo en un noviazgo victoriano como los de la época, ventaneando y aguantando ganas que se aumentaban en los paseos a donde siempre llevábamos un y chaperón, casi siempre la tía de Luz Elena, entonces renuncié a este noviazgo con no poca decepción de mis hermanas que eran más novias de LE que yo. Gabriel Restrepo, uno de los rapados, era novio de una hermana de LE y se casaron a pesar de que ganaba muy poco dinero para sobrevivir, un matrimonio cuesta y la vida matrimonial cuesta más… porque en ese tiempo era vendedor de Pfaff, maquinas de coser, luego le fue muy bien porque gracias a su inventiva e inteligencia natural que poseía en grado sumo, se convirtió en muy poco tiempo en alto ejecutivo de Carvajal.
Tanto Gabriel como Marta, que así se llamaba su esposa, se murieron ya, ella, muy joven, aparentemente de una hemorragia cerebral después de un pequeño accidente de automóvil. La cosa, según me la contaron, fue así: la pareja fue al cine después de un accidente sin consecuencias aparentes pues no hubo heridos de consideración ni daños aparentes en el auto, durante el cine ella se quejaba de dolor de cabeza hasta que este se hizo insoportable y tuvieron que salir de la sala de cine e ir a un hospital, cuando llegaron allá Marta estaba sin vida. Parece que ella se golpeó la cabeza durante el accidente. De Gabriel no volví a saber pero según me contaron alguna vez que pregunté por él era que ya había muerto.
Un amigo mío dice que uno cuando vive tanto tiempo como yo, la actividad que más ejerce es enterrar parientes, amigos y conocidos y en estos blogs ya hemos enterrados bastantes y apenas estamos en mi juventud, porque en este recuento voy por mis años veintes y tenemos que llegar a los ochentas. Pero en ese entonces me pareció, como a todos los jóvenes, que parrandear era lo bueno y parrandeé, todavía, como dice la canción me la paso comprando botellas. Pero volvamos a lo nuestro sin tanta cháchara.
Sigo pensando que yo fui muy afortunado porque mi trabajo no era trabajo sino una continuación de lo que a mi me gustaba, entre predicciones, proyecciones, interpolaciones, encuestas y otras yerbas me pasé mi vida profesional primero en la ANDI y luego en la Federación Nacional de Cafeteros, Diagonal y la Universidad nuevamente. Unas veces los cambios fueron para aprovechar oportunidades profesionales y otras forzado por las circunstancias. Si hay alguna nostalgia de esos años fue por la falta de hacer más de lo que hice, porque algunas cosas quedaron inconclusas y otras están perdidas en el tiempo, pero todas creo que han sido importantes para la contribución que uno debe hacer al mejoramiento del nivel de vida de la gente.
Estando en la ANDI me llamaron de Bogotá para que me fuera a encargarme del Departamento de Investigaciones Económicas de Federacafé. Esta asociación de cafeteros agrupaba a los cultivadores de café, el sector más influyente de esa época en Colombia. Allí me encargaba de la estimación de cosechas que servía para determinar la carga de compras por parte de la Federación y muy especialmente para la repartición del presupuesto económico entre los departamentos o divisiones políticas de la nación. Además el análisis de los datos recogidos por la granja de Chinchiná donde la Federación tenía la mayor experimentación con nuevos cultivos y nuevas formas de cultivar, toda la información sobre agobio, cepa, y poda del café estaba allí; así como la información de cultivo de nuevas variedades en especial Borbón y Caturra tan socorrida hoy para su cultivo de este arbusto en Colombia. Los resultados de esta experimentación fue la gran productividad por hectárea; si no recuerdo mal estas técnicas y variedades subían como de cinco a diez veces mas la productividad actual.
Por razones familiares tuve que venirme de Bogotá a Medellín a un puesto que me ofrecieron en Diagonal, que era la federación de toda la industria textil para la compra de algodón nacional que había estado muy popular en tierras como el valle del Magdalena y el departamento del Tolima.
De allí pasé a regir los destinos del departamento de investigaciones económicas de la facultad de economía en la U. de A. y de pronto se apareció un señor Dr. Mario Jaramillo de la facultad de Medicina de la misma universidad y me propuso ir a visitar un señor Chock que venía de USA para ver quien estaba interesado en estudios demográficos y ¡Mire usted a quien le dicen! Inmediatamente fui y me invitaron a un seminario en Suescún, Boyacá. Allí me ofrecieron una beca con todo pagado para estudiar en Chicago en el departamento de sociología de su universidad, que allí era donde enseñaban demografía. Lo demás de este estudio creo que ya lo he contado en otro blog si no es así lo dejamos para después. Todo esto es para decir que aquí estoy a mis 83 años con tanta experiencia que no me sirve para sobrevivir o posiblemente sobreviviendo por ella.
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Tuesday April 21, 2015
Viaje a la costa Atlántica o del mar Caribe
Estaba terminando mi bachillerato en el Liceo de la U. de A. cuando en compañía de una barra de amigos que tenía en Medellín nos fuimos a conocer el mar, nunca habíamos estado fuera de las montañas de Antioquia. Éramos seis los candidatos, entre ellos tres de apellido Restrepo: Macario, Gabriel y Álvaro, el hijo de Washington Zuluaga, profesor de inglés en el Liceo a quien le decíamos Wátilo, Dilinger, no recuerdo como se llamaba este personaje en la realidad porque todo el mundo le decía así por su gran parecido con el famoso gánster de Indianápolis, John Dillinger, este último al final no pudo ir al paseo. Esta tropa de amigos fue la misma que salió en El Colombiano, un periódico de Antioquia, porque fuimos los precursores de la moda actual de raparnos la cabeza.
Primero fue el viaje en tren que no era de aceite como los de hoy, aceite Diesel, sino de carbón como cualquiera tren de una película del oeste, para mi era algo del otro mundo, salimos de la estación Guayaquil por donde yo había pasado varias veces en bus y creía que era un sueño viajar en tren por las montañas de Antioquia, en la sabana de Bogotá como me había tocado en tiempos de la Apostólica era una cosa distinta, ahora era una realidad e íbamos a pasar por el túnel de la Quiebra y a viajar posiblemente en el tren mas lento del mundo, ¡Qué delicia!
Para subir había que ir por un plano inclinado hasta que la maquina se agotaba, entonces se devolvía y al retroceder entraba en otro plano inclinado mas alto que el primero, y así sucesivamente hasta que por fin se llegaba a la boca del túnel. Una vez allí dentro, la humedad, el calor y el humo de la máquina, hacían el paso casi insoportable, nunca supe cuanto se tardaba el tren en pasar por el túnel pero para mi fue una eternidad, cuando llegamos al otro lado se divisaba un paisaje completamente distinto al de las montañas antioqueñas, pues era verde, muy verde y plano, en Limón que es a donde desemboca el túnel no tanto como en Caracolí, que es donde pasta el ganado cebú con su giba tan característica.
Llegamos por fin a Puerto Berrío sobre el rio Magdalena, hacía un calor sofocante y nuestra primera aventura fue provocada por el hotel de los Ferrocarriles a donde no podíamos entrar por falta de dinero. Entonces el hotel no era caro, era que nosotros no teníamos con que pagarlo, el compromiso que habíamos hecho al principio del viaje era que nadie podía llevar mas de veinte pesos que aunque parecía una cifra muy alta para ese entonces, no sería suficiente para una empresa como este viaje, y para nosotros pobres estudiantes era todo un capital. Tuvimos que dormir a la intemperie cerca de la carrilera del tren, afortunadamente no hacía frío, es mas, el calor no nos dejó dormir mucho. Al día siguiente vino el barco.
El Juan Manuel Arango, que así se llamaba el barco de la fFlota Mercante Grancolombiana, en donde viajamos de Pto. Berrío a Barranquilla era un barco de propulsión a vapor con una gran rueda hecha de paletas de madera en la parte de atrás como los barcos que usan en Disney, movida por un motor de dos tiempos, cada vez que este daba una vuelta salía gas a presión por un escape y hacía un gran ruido que retumbaba por toda la selva del Magdalena como si hubiera sido hecho para espantar garzas, loros y toda la fauna de allí, porque al paso del barco se veía toda clase de animales corriendo y volando, los que podían, por la selva. Esto fue un espectáculo maravilloso para mi que nunca había salido de Medellín para la tierra caliente y mucho menos a una tierra tan virgen y feraz como esta.
El rio que se sigue llamando el Rio Grande de la Magdalena, ya en la época de nuestro paseo no era tan grande y su cause hacía que su piloto fuera más un baquiano que un experimentado marinero. No encallamos en el viaje de ida pero sí en el de venida como relataremos mas adelante. La travesía duraba cuatro días de bajada con un calor infernal y con unos mosquitos que no dejaban dormir. El rio era navegable desde Honda hasta Barranquilla pero después que los Ferrocarriles Nacionales construyeran la vía férrea que va paralela al rio, éste perdió importancia y prácticamente fue olvidado. Su caudal se fue reduciendo y volviendo tan escaso que ya no era navegable, aún en los años 50 cuando hicimos este paseo a la costa
en algunas partes el agua era tan escasa que el barco tenía que ir y regresar varias veces para sortear una curva del rio.
El barco era todo de madera incluyendo las paredes de los camarotes. En nuestra travesía nos encontramos con un grupo de señoritas que venía de Manizales, un colegio de las hermanas de la presentación, ellas obviamente venían en primera clase pues parecían gente pudiente de la ciudad, porque nosotros veníamos en tercera, nosotros no podíamos aunque pareciéramos pudientes. Los dos pisos de pasajeros del barco, uno encima del otro, estaban separados por una escalera que permanecía bloqueada durante el viaje. El piso de abajo era para la máquina y la bodega. Este era un barco pequeño si se compara con los grandes buques de transporte de pasajeros de hoy.
No supe como hacían algunos de mis compañeros pero pasaban al piso de la arriba con mucha facilidad y recuerdo que a Macario, las cuidanderas del colegio lo echaron de regreso a tercera porque lo agarraron haciendo huecos en las paredes con una broca pequeña que no se de donde se la sacó, para mirar a las muchachas de la presentación. Esto fue un incidente desastroso porque no pudimos volver a ver a estas preciosas niñas durante toda la travesía y como ellas iban para Barranquilla no pudimos verlas tampoco allí, nos lo impedían las cuidadoras. Llegamos por fin al mar, pero el mar no se veía por ninguna parte pues Barranquilla es puerto fluvial y el mar queda a varios kilómetros de la ciudad. Siguiendo el rio hacia abajo se llega a las Bocas de Ceniza que es la desembocadura del rio en el Mar Caribe, que según entiendo, están infestadas de tiburones. Esto parece como Amar en los Tiempos de Cólera de García Márquez, novela que se desarrolló en uno de estos barcos.
¡Barranquilla! una ciudad sin alcantarillado y con muy mal olor donde llueve y las calles se inundan y hay que pasarlas a lomo de gente que está dispuesta a cargarlo a uno por una pequeña propina. Nos alojamos en un hotel que era el hotel donde estaba la excursión de ultimo año de la universidad de Antioquia y en este grupo teníamos muy buenos amigos que nos entraron al hotel y nos dieron hospedaje. La pasamos increíblemente bueno teniendo donde alojarnos y disfrutando de los paseos que hacía el grupo, nosotros ni nos notábamos ni nos hacíamos notar. Uno de estos paseos fue a la villa olímpica donde tenían una piscina especialmente hecha para unos juegos panamericanos, nos bañamos allí y todo iba muy bien hasta que un día posiblemente el tercero de nuestra estadía la excursión seguía para Cartagena y entonces teníamos que desocupar el hotel. En la calle sin cinco y en tierra extraña no se nos ocurrió nada sino devolvernos para la casa.
Esa noche dormimos en un edificio que estaba en construcción pero la base de la columna de concreto que me servía de almohada me pareció de plumas y dormí toda la noche. Había que conseguir como devolvernos, yo tenía un reloj automático que me había encontrado en Medellín y lo vendí. Con el producto de la venta compré pasaje para Medellín en avión y me sobró un poco de dinero para darles a mis compañeros, que no sé como hicieron pero ajustaron el dinero para comprar un pasaje en barco por el Rio Magdalena, al menos allí tendrían comida y estaban bajo techo, así fuera en tercera clase.
El viaje de subida por el rio demoraba tres días mas porque va en contra de la corriente, y el de ellos tomó un día adicional porque el buque encalló en una de las curvas y hubo que esperar a que una grúa viniera a rescatarlos. No supe como les fue en su viaje ni quise preguntar pero cuando los vi después me parecieron flacos y pálidos, especialmente Wátilo, indicando lo mal que la habían pasado en el viaje. Me parecía un pecado el haberme regresado en avión que aunque era un DC3, muy lento, era mejor que el viaje en barco y tren, por eso, por sentirme culpable de haber abandonado el grupo, era por lo que no me atrevía a preguntar por su regreso. Esta ida a la costa del caribe fue para mi una revelación por varios motivos: llevaba mas de tres años en Medellín y allí uno piensa que no hay nada más en el mundo; Descubrí las verdes llanuras del valle del Magdalena; supe lo que era otra ciudad como Barranquilla; y sobretodo me enseñó a aguantar hambre y verdadera escasez, y que a pesar de haber abandonado el grupo a mi regreso a casa podía hacer cosas que a los demás no se les había ocurrido. Esto dejó huella muy grande para la vida de profesional que llevé en el futuro.
Thursday, April 9 2015
Success of the U. of A.
The Faculty of Economics of the University of A was an old on the corner of Girardot with Pichincha Diagonal to the Faculty of Law and in front of the famous school of San Ignacio where I spent so dark days of my life home. This home were redoing when I went to study there, to make a more modern and with enough room for growth building. The reform ran Don Climaco account the treasurer who knew nothing about construction but very well reinforced beams and iron columns made of concrete. A building made by Don Climaco never fall and there's the economy still standing. In the inner courtyard of the old house it had a mango tree that survived the reforms and was the delight of Alfonso, goalkeeper because he picked up almost the entire harvest of the year, led to the house where his wife and two daughters enjoyed this delicious dish that were Viches and ripe mangoes.
My time at the economics faculty was very brief because two years already had an offer of ANDI to go to work with them and I dedicated myself to two things at once: to study and serve as an assistant in the department of economic research ANDI. It happened like this: nowhere have I felt so comfortable at this time of my life, as in the U. of A. by several factors; I did not have to pay a very high rate because I accepted the statement of income from my dad that although recently died, served as the basis for calculating tuition lasting throughout the school year ie January to November with a week-long vacation at Easter and fifteen days in July were the mid-year vacation. This rate was low and I did not pay much to stay at this university; Another factor was that the study schedule allowed me to work and study; and the last and most important factor was the love that I acquired in mathematics and economics, thanks to my teacher math Viedma, the economics professor Fernandez Centeno and statistical Angel Diaz and Diaz of greasy. In the Bolivarian had people like teachers who taught what they did not know or knew if they did not teach, I think they had more interest in learning than teaching; Economics teachers were people experienced in these conflicts and some were true teachers that their only interest was to want to spread knowledge to their students.
What a difference the faculty of economics with other colleges and universities which had been before! they were educational establishments were paid monthly and were more interested in accumulating wealth than in educating people.
In economics, two things happened that changed my life completely: one was when Viedma told me miser Lopez, Director of Economic Research of the National Association of Industrialists (ANDI) was looking for someone from the faculty of economics, he being engineer School of Mines, to serve as his assistant and Viedma had recommended to me; the second was when after graduation at this faculty was second in qualifications, that is, except for one student who had gotten better grades than me, my grades were the highest in the history of economics. Elkin Echavarria of Colombian Locería offered a scholarship to the best student, with all expenses paid to go to study for a graduate to London the London School of Economics, and I offered it to me after Mario Valencia declined.
What a great honor to work with one of the thinkers of Colombia ,! or so I saw it in my innocence student. I acepé supply and the two years that followed were the hardest of my life since I had to give performance in school and at work and Alvaro was not an easy person, but taught, had to work very hard to be there and my days were from five in the morning until twelve o'clock, including Saturdays and Sundays. But this totally changed my idea of what is working, because it was not for pay or for reasons other than the satisfaction of having done something for people reward. That was how did the first mortality table and the first marriage for Antioquia were many calculations (in that although electrical Monroe machine was very slow) and a great satisfaction because I had to learn demographics on my own following a course that had me Alvaro borrowed and still at the Sorbonne in Paris where he had studied. This made me think of the poor in Colombia, but not in political or economic, but demographic sense and thought something was going on with her. Then I realized what was happening. Alvaro Lopez took his own life when he worked for the Bank of the Republic in Bogota.
The reward for having made this effort did not wait and got the highest notes after my companion Valencia. The offer to study at the London School was very tempting but had to pay all the costs a fund should be created at the University of Antioquia to maintain permanently a student at this institution, Locería Colombian put the money. This seemed very burdensome meet with a debt of 50 or 60 thousand dollars of that time and then the University sent the following in notes was Alfonso Rojas. This was a source of pride for me to offer me something important for my merits, but did not accept that saw a great responsibility with students coming back and I felt it would not be able to meet on the horizon.
I turned married because that was what everyone did and had to support a family, consisting of Lina Maria, Juan David and James who love, for whom desviví me a long time and now consent to them, their children and their grandchildren. Then I wandered by the National Federation of Coffee Growers in Bogota and because that served as my wife did not amañaba outside your loved Medellin, also wandered through the National Directorate of Algodoneros (BIAS) in this city, I returned to the University because buying cotton not it was mine, it was for another class of people with more skill than I for shopping.
Being in the Department of Economic Research of the U. of A. Mario Jaramillo came a man to propose attending a seminar in Suescún, Boyacá where Saunders, Bogue, Shock, and several others including Mendoza Hernán Hoyos and Mr. Ortega Colombia were to meet to discuss issues related to the Colombian population. Jaramillo gave me a booklet which explained what was the demographic transition in the world and how the excessive growth of population was a global problem and had to take action on the matter. There they offered me a scholarship Ortega suggestion to study demography in Chicago, I accepted, I studied formally demographics with Natahan Keifetz and then I dedicated myself to contribute to the solution of the demographic problem in Colombia.
On the problems of the population they have written many books and journal articles, and that's a thing of the past. But it was very important part of my life, because I participated as a group in various tasks: the first survey was 2,000 families from all social classes, first survey professionals and like wandering travelers scatter his voice to the places more remote country, that in Colombia there was a population problem. After the same work we did not as a group but individually, in other Latin American countries. The result of all this was a sexual liberation and greater equality of women compared with men; a forecast of future family that did not exist before, with all its consequences less land distribution, and sharing of family wealth among fewer diners, and above all as part of the solution to a problem that had already solved the European countries for more than a century, was the decline in fertility to replacement levels, ie, that the deaths equal the births in most American countries. Which has not made Africa still and possibly several decades will take to get, but I believe this will not be an important factor because population control is doing factors Malthus: wars, famines, pestilence ... The great threat to mankind are eastern countries, mainly India and China, where they are demanding the same products as Europeans or Americans by increasing your income PC, then the pressure on renewable and nonrenewable resources will be tremendous, and possibly the world will not be able to provide them.
Thursday, April 2, 2015
The Bolivarian and the Faculty of Economics
That how I ended up in the Bolivarian! because if this is a question, there I went to study the same as the school of San Ignacio, by chance and because there was no more, wanted to study engineering and within engineering electrical much caught my attention, arranging electric grills easy in the house, sometimes also it radios, but it was not that. It is so lost in time this concept I do not even know which reason I liked engineering: whether it was by the challenge posed because this and medicine were disciplines that had a lot to study and the rest were racing filling means that if someone was not good for these two
then as say Mexicans lost, were enrolled in law, economics, management or went to the seminar. That was what I did when he saw me outside the scope of study where I left the "owner" of the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (U. P. B.). If it was for the novelty of being accredited to work on electrical issues it was a new thing in Colombia. If it was for the fabulous profits of a profession that it did not exist and that one went to what they call "descopar heart" that is, to get from first to a blank field. Or I know I do!
Monsignor Henao "Moncho" who was called to be exact Felix Botero Henao and whose cradle said that the disputed La Ceja and Rionegro, a town said he was born in the other, no one wanted to commit What fichita !. Moncho owner of the U. P. B. believed that made and unmade anything according to his will. Receiving students, said goodbye and scolded if they are not ton, created schools without teachers, teachers who were bad for his inexperience and low academic ability, discriminating against blacks invented, even they said that he had appointed his successor, another Bishop of La Luis Alfonso Londoño Ceja ... We had a black colleague who did not break a plate and Moncho said one day are scolding and contemptuously: ... see and is black! He told me the other day: ... watch it and he received a scholarship! I am dutifully paying my pension. Arbitrary, abusive, arrogant, believed and who knows how many epithets he can hang this Bishop was not even the first president to be believed owner but was the second after Manuel Jose Sierra Rios, who had a less bombastic name that of Tiberius, but I still like the name Moncho's so short. U. P. B. was founded by Tiberio Jesus Salazar and Herrera, of Granada, a town east of Medellin, often name the type fajaba.
It was the only university where he taught electrical engineering and I wanted to study that, I got into this university and resisted as far as I endured two years and I got kicked out. Thank you for having launched Monsignor Henao and the Bolivarian ,! He gave me the opportunity to go to seek refuge to Antioquia at the Faculty of Economics, which was no better but at least it was more tolerant to the point that there were going to stop those who would not study or who had failed in other universities were very few who got there by conviction and these were generally very good economists. I can quote Luis Guillermo Soto as one of them, in love with economics and quite influential in the life of Colombia.
I found the Faculty of Economics a very adequate shelter to my circumstances, could study and work at the same time as did others, because the classes were too early in the morning initiated at 6 am and afternoon: starting at six They ended at eight or nine at night. It was wrong and six months to be there and present my math test already commented on another blog, I was working for free in the printing of notes math class for the benefit of others and studying very devotedly, because he felt attracted by a discipline is very nice and it requires a great effort to study, because it touches many human activities.
So here goes my experience in the Bolivarian that was no better than with the Jesuits. While I can, I go to not mess with cures because the chances are that things go wrong me.
Posted by juanbe at 8:11 PM No comments:
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Monday, March 30, 2015
The College of San Jose, La Ceja.
The street that runs below the school did not exist. This street starts on the left after crossing the bridge, entering the town from La Union, it goes first to the south and then turns west, but had not opened when I was studying in the school of the Christian Brothers where he spent eight years one kindergarten, five schools and two high school. The school came to the river and where today the new road makes the curve, was the grotto, which represents the Virgin appearing to Bernadette, according to legend. This cave could not miss nowhere to be deemed and had the money to build it, because it was quite expensive made of stone and cement and images brought from Italy, even missing in my grandmother's house. Of course there was also the school of the Salesian and who knows how many more places that I do not remember, maybe where misia Suzie also a cousin of my mother who had been in Rome and thus had descent between other village women. Complete with grotto, the people did not escape being miserable and have few sources of employment.
The school was quite archaic in their education systems, had a huge book where Brother Philemon taught to read, with pages about one meter high by half a meter wide. Maybe that was the way it was in my eyes of child, for there are few surprises I've been seeing things again when I grew up, I used to see the child, maybe the book was not so great. I have paid attention to this book because there learned to read all studied in the school of the brothers in La Ceja.
"The letter with blood enters" was the motto of the school and the brothers were allowed to beat us with the rod to point out, belt or rule whichever came first and was more suited to the rage that gave the brother, because abusive if they were. The memory was most exercised in this school not escaped the system of all schools in Colombia, all had to memorize it but there was no analytical skills but for grammatical analysis which was very good. Reduced mathematics learning of the four operations and multiplication was based on multiplication tables that had to learn by heart, being that multiplication is part of the sum, today there are more effective systems.
The school dress code was very casual to each put us what they could and my mother as a seamstress was made dresses for me and my sisters quilt that was out there. some old dress my dad or an old robe always invented for us a "estren" or new to us the smallest garment. There was a trunk that was called of the pieces where they were wrapped in cloth rolls like texture and color, from there as if by magic out shorts, shirts and pants for me and all women's clothing for my sisters, made by my mom sometimes with the help of my older sisters. The seam was based on patterns I had my mom on wrapping paper, and she enlarged or shrank in the fabric, in concordance to the size of the person. Also dressmaker, my mom made dresses for outsiders, not only for us, a very modest sum of money, with all this I think there were people who did not pay him.
In this school, no shoes were used until they were mandatory in first and second high school. We walked barefoot and muddy and we gave foot one thing we called "carrumia" which was that the skin on the feet and sometimes slitting those cracks were infected or filled with chiggers or both, the most effective remedy for carrumia was washed thoroughly with soap and removed chiggers course, if there was. This sought disease and its cure were very painful. As we walked barefoot until we were thirteen we became callus on the feet and we rajaban in tallones, what they called garters, making it suitable for the spawn of chiggers, which abounded outside and inside the house. That scratchy much at first and it was very painful at the end, the infection made chiggers had to amputate the affected limbs and sometimes causing death. How I miss chiggers and fleas! Fleas was another story, are small parasites (slightly larger than chiggers) of some animals such as rats, dogs and cats who suck the blood with all infections that then inoculated to humans, because also sting. It seems that fleas are responsible for the transmission of typhus, yellow fever, bubonic plague in addition to Bartonella henselae (that I found on the internet but is good for cat lovers) that causes fever known as cat scratch, and many infections that originate on scratching bites, in humans, dogs and other because pets suffer from this and many other diseases caused by fleas.
Second high school student was in La Ceja, there was more to where to catch if the candidate did not continue studies degree usually in Medellin. The rest is as I said, to put herding cows and horses. The future in this town was very true as opposed to uncertain: women wore saints who were generally unclothed, ugly, and staring as if they were suffering from bi-polarity. Men instead locked when small calves and when large were herdsmen. Arriero be a very worthy profession like any other, there was a time when she was an essential activity because the mule was the only means of transport to remote sites. The herdsmen were going from one place to another in stages, the roads were less than desirable, very bad and some sites had "tragadales" where the beasts sank and the mule driver had to be cut with machete ligatures with which tied charges for release the animal and thus save him from certain death. Drover's life was quite complicated and comparable to that of jeans showing in the cinema, taking the romanticism of Hollywood, of course. Around 1940 still used riding and man, was what he had and we can not complain about the state of development of technology and science, no more so we did not like this life.
When people could not or would not continue their studies can do, then it was "pa' up" that was to go up to the Valle del Cauca: either outside in Carthage, or in Palmira, or Tulua, or in the same Santiago Cali sat their real. I do not know if the flat terrain or warm earth, they opened more opportunities to work or was just a mirage that the immigrant had to put on anything and said it was fine.
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Tuesday, March 24, 2015
the Jesuits
This was the last year of my family in the Savoury, which brackets, both the house where we lived and the surrounding land are now under water by the dam that made an area of three kilometers around long and over one kilometer wide, to give water to Medellin. Migrated to the big city about 1950, Medellin, where there were more employment opportunities for my sisters who were already working three of them and the other two had to study and La Ceja, where they were while the family was in El Retiro, no he had more chances and was more comfortable in Medellin. Cecilia was already religious. Luis Alfonso meanwhile already had a job at the Minor Seminary.
My dad was "disposable" because it was transplanted without consulting a habitat that was proper, the field, one completely unknown and inhospitable for him, the city, if not quite to his liking or disliking, but it was a priority that Juliana Angela and White had a job guarantee that was more productive than farm work available for my dad. It was very difficult to live with him at this time for his temper, but I understand his situation of being demoted in his personality, that although he had not played a very important role in the family was the visible head of the home and for us remained so but he did not perceive well, because the rules were different from La Ceja and Retirement. Besides trying to live a life of peasants in the city, herding cows where he could and the they put the arena (municipal Corral where you lock up the cattle that goes missing or loose) had to pay for them out there with the consequent frustration with the Indeed, no country could continue with activities in the city. My mom, possibly seeing so helplessly or because it was time, he advanced the disease that had been afflicting for several years until it ceased to exist on a Sunday Mother's Day, my dad followed more than two years later and we were fatherless December 24 and a mother May un10 nearly three years apart.
Meanwhile I tried to settle down to life in the big city with the "help" of the Jesuits. I did not know the reason for going to the San Ignacio run by the Jesuits, but for them the years of study he had done in La Ceja, had no value unless validated by the Ministry of Education through some tests of knowledge I could do at the college of San José, in La Ceja; He had to validate first through fifth grade school and high school first and second in total seven years. To continue in the line of education cure my studies of La Ceja were valid - or at least I never said it was an impediment - even though it had to be bachelor least to teach in a school, which would have to make when was more advanced in this line of education, but to continue my high school in Medellin those same studies were invalid and now had to go to take tests to La Ceja and spend six months on my own, because that was the requirement.
My surprise was when I talked to the brother director of San Jose, La Ceja, and said it was the first time I heard about it and had never had a problem because he was not previously certified school when I studied there. This brother did not know of the regulations to be a very accredited college and I think that this was an invention of the Jesuits in Medellin, to entorpecerme life and had not continued with my studies cure. I have no idea why we do not change school and went to knock on the doors of the college of San José in Medellin for them to resolve the impasse as possibly had solved other students from La Ceja, if there were such impasse. You may not have done any management because of the college of San Ignacio were professionals and we ruse peasants with little education and naive. The truth faith that I lost a year of study because when I enrolled at six months were sufficiently advanced my colleagues and it was not possible to recover the lost time. That year, in addition to the course that is one of the most difficult high school, he lost ABITO study also and adaptation to city life prevented devote myself to other things, thanks parents and Jesuit brothers of that time for the help " so effective "that I was a priest vaneado was not.
It took a lot recover from this blow and hardly leave the problem because I joined during this time with an ex-Apostolic, Macario Restrepo who had no interest in anything and our only escape was to leave for the site of his house to lift weights, eat viche handle and gooseberries and also hung out with Francisco Vieira was that according to accounts relative of mine who taught me to take drink. Later I learned that Francisco had killed himself with Folidol, which is poison rat poison, locked in his car. I also knew that Macario had spent as many in Colombia the drug trade and slew him in Miami. I have no evidence of these two deaths, only gossip. He was not very well attached, but it was what gave me the great city, these friends did not make me apparent damage, on the contrary, what I perceived as a benefit: one fed me the natural laziness at that age and the other as a snake comic gave me advice for life.
Six years after the coming of the Apostolic I came sails thanks to a professed economy where he had gone after finishing my secondary education at the Antiochian Grammar school run by the University of Antioquia and go through the Bolivarian in Electrical Engineering, where I had to retire because the owner (or gave them ownership) of that university was a certain Monsignor Henao Mejia, I was granted as a special favor two weeks to submit all my exams and so soon after having attended my dad he had been very ill for several months before his death, it was not possible to win everything and enough materials were to be applied me the rules and I had to withdraw.
This math teacher who was taught with a new system for teaching Medellin, where he studied English texts and some nineteenth century That eyesore! and that little didactic study in English unknowingly because they do not teach in high school, and archaic books. The Spanish teacher theory and gave a few examples later. It was for me an awakening to life when I enrolled in the faculty of economics at the University of Antioquia.
Juan Antonio Viedma, the math teacher, whom I did not want to receive their classes without even knowing whether they were good or not. Very superbly I underwent a test of knowledge of mathematics (was two years in the Bolivarian and I thought he was an expert for that in the matter, but there do not teach anything) and this teacher unwittingly showed me that I did not even drop about the topic. I devoted myself to study without thinking about the past and Viedma helped me a lot with advice and putting me to be his assistant, pulling mimeographed the content of the classes that he dictated and relevant exercises, I learned a lot of arithmetic and mathematical analysis, geometry , combinatorial analysis, probability ... and I became a "guru" who consulted people until school of mines and engineering Bolivarian where it was assumed that the base was mathematics, I was just a neophyte and then I learned that the Spanish system was not the last and that there were other much more advanced disciplines.
I think I should thank the Jesuits for this hostile environment that provided me returning from the Apostolic because I reacted to give my life completely opposite turn, it could have been different. The moral that occurs to me is that no matter how difficult and dark the way presented in the future have to tread and tread it well.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Life cures
Somewhere I have said this but not here. The as effective methods to recruit Jesuits were not only supporters but "pigeons" were a fantasy cure watched from the confines of human time. There Was a Father called Grillo who was responsible for this work: He came to La Ceja and all the religious world was at their disposal; the pastor lent one of the rooms for the "conference" and gave accommodation at home; the school of the brothers lent to students to go to it and not to mention the nuns and devout women of the people who solicitous mobilized to meet all candidates for cures and padrecito who came from Bogotá. Breakfast donut, chocolate and wheat bread, to distinguish it from the arepa bread that also we said and all the delights that make these ladies knew, was the extraordinary delicacy that is made available to future priests. Because the belief was that a priest in the family is synonymous with salvation for all, if not pedophile course, then he had to treat them well, the nestlings and the priests.
When someone in the family is going to study the seminary did not matter to which this student was the example of the family, others were not worth anything, the mother said: if everyone were like the seminarian ...! Me it was the best of my life ...! (Not as they said when two or three are going) the candidate cure was treated like Superman and sometimes as a saint or as God because where was a priest whole family benefited, that belief. This was the spot where Father Grillo sowed his seed to germinate quickly in such fertilizer where the family and individuals following a line ideal for the cocoon behavior to flourish. Talk or conference consisted basically of a film that was projected on the walls of one of the rooms that the pastor gave so generously and then began the show, the film showed first as there was a point in the stay of the seminar where there were emanating two "novices" or new entrants on their own, to travel the world for a month without a penny in his pockets.
This part is the one I remember most because in La Ceja was no chance that one had this type of legally adventures, many people flying up, meaning they were going to the Valle del Cauca, to seek new horizons and there were some sometimes death as my cousin, which we talked about, but not fortune. not for me to judge the legality of the fact go up, but I think it was not very orthodox. So in view of this event so fabulous a loose month, all illusions, hopes, desire to fly, wants to use force repressed and get rid of the bonds imposed by the narrowness of my people stoked. The following chapters of the film despite being very attractive not only for being so scarce in this town cinema, color, without cap, but because I was already delivered, I was a Jesuit or not call me John.
where no aunts took silver but I compared my ticket to Bogota with photo included. The first time I was confronted with a photographer was this and did not know how to behave, always I thought he was giving ridley or by the bear, because the photographer told me lift more lift head ... more ... now turn to here. .. and then there ... and now that damn face ... fuck! all for a photo where I do not even look like me or any of my family. But anyway, that everything is for the trip to Bogota. The first time I rode plane was this and did it with two marinillos who were already veterans because they had come to say goodbye to the family because they went to the novitiate, I instead went to the pre-novitiate training in the Apostolic School San Pedro Claver, who was in a village called El Mortiño Zipaquira where the official school was followed. I spent two years there.
The airplane had wings canvas, was a Yunkers of Scatda trimotor that later became Avianca to merge with Saco, remember I had the square windows and a circular broken in the middle where we threw magazines when we reached the Sabana de Bogotá . The pews, which were not individual seats as was then in the aircraft, ran along the wall on each side of the plane. Throughout the trip I was scared to death and reach the Sabana felt safer not know why. Upon arrival we received Fernando my brother, I pretty much knew what there was about eight years since I saw him and at that age people change a lot. I remember he asked me for the trip and I said I had been very "Nubao" it was not done out of fear and did not know that answer. I do not remember more of it until I about a year later appears when I was newly peluqueadas having just emerged from a wound that made me one of them playing football and to cure her had to shave eyebrows, I on my own shaved me the other and it seemed to my superiors an unprecedented act of rebellion and surely, so maybe Fernando appeared to scold me because I scolded. but I had no older brothers to scold me and Fernando Luis Alfonso whenever they had a chance - it was very often - they did.
Children do not realize if the environment is bad or not if you give them food in times of growth and plenty of physical activity as the wall (pelota species), football; the baseball; the pool; the lake; an orchard where stealing plums and beautiful fields of Sabana with its beautiful sunsets that I still remember where the huge red sun fell through the tall cherry trees from the cold ground. All this in the Apostolic was very filling.
The train station, The Mortiño, train portion Savannah, carrying passengers and coal Nemocon to Bogota, a city north, was about a kilometer from the Apostolic and there were walking to buy chocolate bars and headsails, the who had money. We do not, we were content to do the walk, see and accompany those who bought and "abejorrear" A pig that is kept at the station or came when they saw us. Henao was an expert in these conflicts, was a close friend of TI, another partner who can not remember what it was called, but I think it is still Henao seems to curate who was killed in a car accident on the highway north of Medellin when he traveled to Yarumal where he lived. This train station I went several times to Bogota.
Bogotá was a city of less than 800,000 inhabitants, today has 7 million but seemed to me huge with so broad streets and tram uncapped who was famous and long avenues running from south to north and vice versa, with its large buildings and political corruption and amusement centers so nice.
When occurred on April 9, 1948 killed Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, a liberal leader who had much choice for president of the republic whose election would be very soon. The country is convulsed with this event and in major cities is not known by whom, the Conservatives said they were liberal and vice versa, but there were killings, robberies, looting and all kinds of social unrest. I had the opportunity to visit Bogota shortly after the Race Seventh and it was one of the great arteries of the city was completely destroyed with foul smell and all charred buildings, the landscape was bleak.
From this point forward the law and order situation in Colombia was disastrous, characterized by the period called La Violencia. Much has been written about violence in Colombia, Gaitan and the political situation managed resolved after ten years of violence when the two political parties with a majority of followers - the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party - agreed to share power every four years , called this agreement The National Front, which was the opposite of democracy even if it had popular elections, but only for candidates of a political party. The ruling conservative party and the liberal period the following all until everyone was in power for two terms. This not ended the violence that still exists although with different characteristics, nor ended the democracy that has never existed in Colombia.
So far this good this policy, on with my pigeon cure. When I turned 15, he had already gone as far as it could in the Apostolic (fourth year of high school) and needed to decide if he continued his novitiate in Santa Rosa de Viterbo, Boyacá or if I was going to the house. This was a very difficult decision to make and harder when I was not all information as did not know was happening in the world of Medellin that time or any city he had not lived in any so far, my life of La Ceja not I did what I needed to think, not giving me a chance to compare that life could be better and having tasted what was not wanted to be a priest.
Furthermore the popular saying that "vaneado priest (who abandon religious life) secured dog" had killed and ruined the lives of many people. I considered myself a vaneado although it was studying high school but that I saw my relatives cure, acquaintances and mainly my Jesuit educators who deserve a separate chapter. What happens is that a trip to Bogota at that time and all hopes were awoken by going to the Mortiño, it was expected that everyone mistakenly thought that "Johnny was gone Jesuit."
The return to a home that was in transition could not be less than traumatic. My father had gotten a job at the Savory, El Retiro, west of La Ceja. It was an amazing farm that owed its name to aguasal leaving the Chupadero, so called because there came hundreds of pigeons to suck the aguasal, and ran gravity as half a kilometer in canoes made of wood to a place where it is evaporated with fire water and salt are extracted. The fire was in El Salado and was fed with wood brought in "dragged" from a remote location. The "drag" were made of four poles three meters long tied by a point on each side of the beasts that carried - usually oxen - the other end fell to the ground where he dragged himself to his fate, so called dredges .
The farm and ran Salado account my dad and owner, Jesus Escobar, abused him and how much I wanted my sister Juliana, who helped with the accounting of the estate. Hence me is the fear that I have the phone because when sounded the archaic phone batteries and wooden case, larger than seventy or a hundred cell now, then everyone went into tension and some victim had to answer the call to Don Jesus, and that man was terrible.
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Friday, March 6, 2015
Walk to New Zealand and Australia Part II
Our traveling companions
Yolanda says there is a culture of cruise and I think that is right. People live on a boat and we met some couples who make four five cruises in a year and are not four-day cruises in the Caribbean but 15 more days and are intercontinental travel. Some are planning to live performing cruises. In one of the breakfast we met a Canadian couple, the lady does not work and the husband just retired, asked that was going to take from now on he replied: for cruises. Life on a cruise is very gifted not have to cook or wash clothes or slab or board or making beds ... it's all make one and have the opportunity to interact with up to 3,000 people for several days if you want, depending on the size of boat and as a closed and people are willing enclosure, you can chat with everyone.
We climbed us one of the largest passenger ships, has 16 floors with elevator for passengers and not know how many there down, because the 1 floor was not the end of the ship. Three thousand passengers who were there were not our friends, but bad because we would have done us all these commitments. One reduces friends number you can handle and we had no need to seek among the passengers of the ship, as to our satisfaction, we make a very close friendship with Brenda and Jorge Pinzón who already knew from our trip to the island called Amelia our friends Martha and Arthur Denyer, and Lina and Andres Castrillon. The experience with them was wonderful, as both Jorge and Brenda are people quite uncomplicated and made our cruise a very pleasant walk, plus they were the experts and we will pegábamos for everything having to do with cruise hope It not has been very cansones.
In our group there were only 52 compared to 3,000 the ship are nothing, but we had more opportunity to interact with some of these with 52 other passengers. We talked about George and Brenda and never tire of it, but also was in group two Iowa farmers who follow the migratory birds. Coming from the north when it's cold and go when spring is appearing in Iowa They are in Florida until April and return to plant corn and soybean harvest when they catch back to Florida. These are very interesting, healthy people and as expected very simple as farmers are and really cultivate the land not like some who call and have someone to cultivate them for wages usually hungry. If one refers to farmers in Iowa is known about who is speaking, but for them it may be dismissive, so here are their names: Jerald and Sonia, Boone and Ann and Carl and Rosie, neighbors German of them in Florida. Someone I always had in mind was Carl who noticed if Yolanda and I had boarded the boat, bus or plane depending on the trip, to make sure they had not left us. I should be very grateful to Carl guess. The other two I remember that enjoyed the cruise to the fullest: In Fiji, for example, when we went to a celebration (to clear tourists is) they dressed in the style of the aborigines with some skirts that had shorts underneath, was supposed to they were the Jerald and assistant Boone, of the tribe who were the group. They behaved at the height of head and assistant but on the contrary, the boss was Boone and Deputy Chief Jerald.
There was a character in the group that no one could miss two reasons: it was a very tall man had a wife who needed a lot of attention. Although farmers in Iowa were a huge body size, Myron exceeded by nearly a head, sometimes hard to think that such a high and seemingly independent man is at all times to care for his wife who could not walk without cane and sometimes a wheelchair. Admirable! but she was not the only one with physical disabilities, as expected in a group above 60 years of age, Yolanda and Brenda were girls, there were many people who had to walk aided by a cane or a walker or wheelchair wheel. It was very impressive to see how individuals crew helped these people. I never put care but I still wonder how did the invalids to handle in very difficult situations as was the strong wind incident in Adelaide.
In the group there are many people to highlight except for the travel agent Diane, our principal group. She arranged the whole trip, with tours and meals and shows off the ship, the transport and handling of suitcases were borne by her and tips. Give satisfaction to all the needs and whims of the group was impossible, however, the organization was very satisfactory and if there were some minor complaints was due to details in the excursions that were difficult to handle in advance and long distance. A hurray! by Diane.
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Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Summary ride to New Zealand and Australia. Part I.
Austin, there is very little to say about the city but our children live there with his family. Julian, the greater his wife Neha and her two daughters, Asha as four years old and newborn Zara. Andrew and his two sons born of his wife Lindsay, Phoenix the largest with 5 years old and Milo born six months ago. This was a wonderful experience, know our last two grandchildren and visit two families of great beauty and harmony as Andrew and Julian.
Our tour took us to Honolulu where lives Yolanda's friend, Sophie Dumanoi, adorable! With so Masahiko Hara husband who took us to a Japanese restaurant where we ate all sorts of seafood and raw fish, I damaged the stomach and part of the ride. With Hara went to a very quiet beach spent a few hours too nice which made our parting more painful than normal because the couple Hara is incredibly wonderful.
Six hour flight to Aucland, New Zealand where we arrived at dawn two days later, because you lose one day. We went out on Friday and arrived on Sunday. Aucland is a very strange city because it is in the middle of a very irregular beach with many entrances and exits to the sea and divided into several sections. This was our first impression of NZ where people see the first sunrise before anyone in the world.
We thought this was a country of sheep and found less than in the Vatican, because a law that abolished the subsidy sheepherders decreased the sheep to the third population, sheep and lambs are mostly the Merino breed to replace the lost sheep instead estate owners filled the void with cows and bulls.
The size of the state of Colorado, with comparable human population (4million of souls, with bodies, of course) NZ has close to $ 40,000 annual income per person average, and an economy seemingly in decline with rising unemployment and of its main sources of export is nonrenewable short term, wood products; beef and dairy products are declining consumption in the world.
The Sounds are ancient glacial formations made by running from the snow-capped peaks. They are very high mountains falling into the sea unlike known mountains, which generally fall into fertile valleys. Thus they were formed by glaciers, the great plains of the North American continent.
We had opportunity to visit the green countryside surrounding Auckland, Tauranga, Akaroa, Christchurch and Dunedin. It's really an extraordinary sight to see that exuberance of green and dark forests under the couch of the tops of the pine for export as timber. This contrasted very happily with green pastures and agriculture in its largely cultivation of sorghum to feed cattle, both beef and sheep. In short, NZ is a very different fascinating country, which are called .falta developed by the chimney and environmental pollution without necessarily being nourished by tourism which is called the industry without chimneys.
After our fifth day of sailing with a sea sometimes calm and sometimes furious, we got to Sydney in Australia. What a difference! A populous city after the tranquility of NZ with demoniac traffic and pollution. We saw the "Blue Mountains" and rode the steepest railway in the world, or so they told us was a beautiful sight to see the three sisters who were four, because the big three were followed by a smaller fourth, impressive rocks training of human figures, if you put a little imagination is clear, on the one hand and on the other cliffs shaped red cliffs of magenta. That was a nice trip although we complained about the so little time to use the three attractions which do not travel but two: the train and cable. We went down on the wire and got on the train, but did not get to ride on a scenic cable that runs almost horizontally above this sort of pot in which the geographical formation becomes.
Melbourne is another story, the little train, call it "tram" that goes to the city from the airport unspeakable delayed or so it seemed to me, when we got my wife and I had not put in any of the seats but I he was willing to accept any conditions present and was quiet but the heat and the rarefied air of the little train and possibly the excitement made me feel sick but did not pay attention to that state and continue our journey. From one moment to another without feeling very bad, my eyes only saw darkness, heard nothing and felt, nor I realized where I was. Do not know how long this situation hard, the truth was when I began to hear that Yolanda told me: Bau, do not go! Look me in the eyes! another lady came from behind and grabbed my armpit and told Yolanda: grasp it well, you are very good he ran into a nurse who knows about this. Since I had to walk because I had weight I thought I was flying and spoke to me from beyond the grave. Slowly return to my conscience and I realized that also were returning to the ship when we were there I felt good but Yolanda insisted on seeing the doctor, I did a full diagnostic electrocardiogram and blood test and determined that there was nothing that they wanted my money and do not complain so much, the latter is an invention of mine. We returned to the room and ride boat but had damaged at least for that day and decided to stay there. When they returned from their tour our friends Brenda and Jorge Pinzón exchanged tales of adventure and both were very interesting but in the opposite direction. What our seemingly negative and of them of great beauty spot with great jubilation.
In Adelaide and Esperance local excursions were no more attractive because they simply show landscapes of little beauty but for the strength of its people, but we need not go so far to see a landscape with little greenery without the expectation of seeing kangaroos, koalas and ostriches that we saw in USA there are places like that and not have kangaroos. Rural Australia is generally a fraud or not show us the side that was when it was. So far the only thing salvageable trip by the Australian countryside is the landscape of the three sisters around Sidney also done this opera is a modern building of great beauty and daring architecture.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2015
Mom Blog
Let's talk about Misia Julianita, so they said, I think misia is an archaism, but she is still present in his teaching, in his calm to resolve conflicts in their love for us and for others, in his mettle to cope with the vicissitudes that gave him life, especially his condition rheumatic that accompanied from small and did not allow him to be a normal person, without fatigue for everything but physical exercise, suffering a heart defect that eventually take to the grave at a fairly young age by today's standards (62 years); in his reading at night when everything had returned to stillness; in its simplicity despite its far superior though very local culture, far above most of his time still being a woman, that seems an ordeal for those who had just arrived from no soul or being imperfect men, as I said Agustin.
My mom read to us before praying the rosary because after subjects who did not open read. The rosary never knew they called holy, programs of the great festivals of the people who were religious and they called, there was no pagan festival although paganizaran across the square. On the western side of the square is the church with its peal of bells, their bloodless celebrations and processions and eastern happened all the fights, stabbings and own machetes people raging for spirits there were consumed in industrial quantities. They have trucks loaded with brandy, rum and beer that came from Medellin and were bound for La Union, Abejorral or Sonsón due to such great demand that these products had remained in La Ceja and returned to Medellin for more. There and I think there are still income of Antioquia and had a special zeal to keep away a department of others in Colombia on beer and spirits whose factories were in Medellin and the surrounding Valley of Aburrá, because buying these products would with specific destination to nurture the coffers of the department for education, there came the name of "cultural" Friday because it was assumed that income that is the spirit it was intended to fund education, on Friday drinking and drunk yet. So there was what they called bootlegging, could not freely carry any liquor or beer from one department to another. The rosary was a repetitive gibberish until they finished the mysteries that were five ten Hail Marys in the middle, then became even more monotonous and repetitive with litanies, when everything just as we had slept for some time almost all and we were not zombies were asleep, so reading had to be before. My mother read to us stories of Thomas Carrasquilla, poetry Rafael Pombo, of Gregorio Gutiérrez González and Juan de Dios Pesa. Now, as far away in time, I wonder like my mom to read us something of such recalcitrant liberal as the Mexican Pesa in a town so conservative (Gothic) and her traditional family such as Bernal. What I remember most of the readings of my mom is at the right hand of God the Father, I do not remember how many nights it took to complete a booklet as those newspapers Tabloid style as The Sun of London, where was printed the story of Carrasquilla, but I I could not wait that night reading came to see what had happened to the devil. The glasses were my mom something she called goggles, without holding on ears hung noses stayed there for a spring between the two magnifiers, and always she was wearing looked when have you seen my goggles? They are in your face. I am still able to imagine her at the foot of a man hanging from a long wire wrapped green bulb and went to a rosette where the fuse lead that never burned because with a 60-watt bulb was impossible. It was not much light but it served to illuminate the book and the two alcoves where we slept, because the other was for the father when he came to spend the holidays with us and the fourth being called the office or room hallway that had a dirt floor and was one of the breeding grounds for fleas and chiggers we had in the house, there unloaded the pack-saddles of the beasts that came from Guaico every Saturday and in this room was gunpowder December under the strict supervision and wise leadership of Luis Alfonso the eldest, who had all the formulas in a miniature little notebook that was lost after a fire without consequences occurred in a powder poncherada mosquito, that was what I was afraid my mother who was very forbidden entertain us in these activities. We did, to clear hidden, what was called mosquitoes, explosives, ballots, thunder, flares of all colors and even flying but this was more complicated and did not but from time to time. The most dangerous and time-consuming of all these items were explosives, because they were mud balls Halved and smeared with white phosphorus halves coiled in a small role, was enough to drop them or throw them against the wall to explode.
I learned to make charcoal covering it with swamp and leaving only a hole above and one below not very large, so that the improvised oven "breathe" fire is lit to firewood and thus left, burning, until the next day and coal He was ready. Mosquitoes were made with coal Drago, a tree that is very abundant in La Ceja, was ground to a powder and mixed with sulfur and saltpeter (sodium nitrate) which also serves to preserve meat, maybe if we do this mix today we flew home because I do not remember very well how did gunpowder, that's 65 or 70 years ago and everything was in the little notebook of L Alfonso. I never knew that these large nails as 10 cm long, to which they quitábamos the tip and we rolled there strips of glossy paper were made, but it was not that that made them with the tip of another big nail is formed the mosquito ass crumpling the paper in and patting the head of the nail without tip against the table top. On the other end was filled with gunpowder and the fuse set, he turned to crumple the paper against the wick and was ready mosquito (or chiggers scratch) for the amusement of the boys who set fire and mosquito came circling between the legs of people. This was the least sophisticated we did, because the sparklers were somewhat complicated and often had to consult the book. The wick, wick Ah!
Monday, January 26, 2015
Mom Blog
Let's talk about Misia Julianita, so they said, I think misia is an archaism, but she is still present in his teaching, in his calm to resolve conflicts in their love for us and for others, in his mettle to cope with the vicissitudes that gave him life, especially his condition rheumatic that accompanied from small and did not allow him to be a normal person, without fatigue for everything but physical exercise, suffering a heart defect that eventually take to the grave at a fairly young age by today's standards (62 years); in his reading at night when everything had returned to stillness; in its simplicity despite its far superior though very local culture, far above most of his time still being a woman, that seems an ordeal for those who had just arrived from no soul or being imperfect men, as I said Agustin.
My mom read to us before praying the rosary because after subjects who did not open read. The rosary never knew they called holy, programs of the great festivals of the people who were religious and they called, there was no pagan festival although paganizaran across the square. On the western side of the square is the church with its peal of bells, their bloodless celebrations and processions and eastern happened all the fights, stabbings and own machetes people raging for spirits there were consumed in industrial quantities. They have trucks loaded with brandy, rum and beer that came from Medellin and were bound for La Union, Abejorral or Sonsón due to such great demand that these products had remained in La Ceja and returned to Medellin for more. There and I think there are still income of Antioquia and had a special zeal to keep away a department of others in Colombia on beer and spirits whose factories were in Medellin and the surrounding Valley of Aburrá, because buying these products would with specific destination to nurture the coffers of the department for education, there came the name of "cultural" Friday because it was assumed that income that is the spirit it was intended to fund education, on Friday drinking and drunk yet. So there was what they called bootlegging, could not freely carry any liquor or beer from one department to another. The rosary was a repetitive gibberish until they finished the mysteries that were five ten Hail Marys in the middle, then became even more monotonous and repetitive with litanies, when everything just as we had slept for some time almost all and we were not zombies were asleep, so reading had to be before. My mother read to us stories of Thomas Carrasquilla, poetry Rafael Pombo, of Gregorio Gutiérrez González and Juan de Dios Pesa. Now, as far away in time, I wonder like my mom to read us something of such recalcitrant liberal as the Mexican Pesa in a town so conservative (Gothic) and her traditional family such as Bernal. What I remember most of the readings from my mom was, at the right hand of God the Father, I do not remember how many nights it took to complete a booklet as those newspapers Tabloid style as The Sun of London, where he was the tale of Carrasquilla, but not saw when reading the night came to see what had happened to the devil. The glasses were my mom something she called goggles, without holding on ears hung noses stayed there for a spring between the two magnifiers, and always she was wearing looked when have you seen my goggles? They are in your face. I am still able to imagine her at the foot of a man hanging from a long wire wrapped green bulb and went to a rosette where the fuse lead that never burned because with a 60-watt bulb was impossible. It was not much light but it served to illuminate the book and the two alcoves where we slept because the other was for the father when he came to spend the holidays with us and the fourth being called the office or room hallway that had a dirt floor and it was one of the breeding grounds for fleas and chiggers we had in the house, there unloaded the pack-saddles of the beasts that came from Guaico every Saturday and in this room was gunpowder December under the strict supervision and wise leadership of Luis Alfonso greater, which had all the formulas in a miniature little notebook that was lost after a fire without consequences occurred in a powder poncherada mosquito, that was what I was afraid my mother who was very forbidden entertain us in these activities. We did, to clear hidden, what was called mosquitoes, explosives, ballots, thunder, flares of all colors and even flying but this was more complicated and did not but from time to time. The most dangerous and time-consuming of all these items were explosives, because they were mud balls Halved and smeared with white phosphorus halves coiled in a small role, was enough to drop them or throw them against the wall to explode.
There is more about misia Julianita
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Thursday, January 22, 2015
Here ends the edifying account of the relatives of my mother and very little has been said about my dad's relatives, here follows.
Insert here my mom blog
Joaquin Emilio, my dad, apparently was the eldest of a family of 24 children, no one knows how many exactly, and no one could repeat their names because I do not know, but what seems more likely was the number of pregnancies my grandmother Maria Antonia nicknamed mom Nona, 30 diets, it was very easy to count chickens and divide by 40 like my dad had his way to calculate but it is not telling anyone. Seeing a herd of cattle asked him how many there were and answered: 48, counted and there was always a number close to 48, asked as he did reply, I count the legs and divide by four, it was very good for the calculation mental. For the matter of the children of Nona Mom, I do not think the estimates are out of phase by more than half, if we accept half, 15 pregnancies is far and 12 live births is a horror. I pity (so called this Blog) make the list of the brothers of my father but did not reach more than nine of 24, did not know most of my guys on this side because they were already dead when I became aware or lived away and had no contact with them. If my father did not know the names of all being the eldest, who must help their upbringing, but we can do our children that we are generationally away from them. Juan de Dios, another John of God my grandfather did not have enough time to know him because he died long before I was born, I think anyone of my sisters or brothers knew him. A man very ganoso they said Nona Mom got pregnant in diets.
Petronila, daughter, lived in the Guaiquito, I with that name also I had hidden, and Amelia also, very little of them: their husbands were surnamed Tobon but do not think they were brothers and Amelia at the end of my days in La Ceja he came to live in the village. Leonor, Chila and spinsters Tulia died so single, but did not know how badly endured, but is not the time for speculation. They lived a block away in the corner of Camilito, which was the grain stocked village and left at the side of the parish church on the main square Store. They made the wafers, sold cuts, ie recycled waste of wafers packing them in bags and sold, also aplanchaban all ornaments from the parish. This already sounds like the Book of Numbers Bible is the most boring book I've read but not how to change it, because they are many.
Elena was another daughter Nona Mom, her son Alberto studied with me in La Ceja but later learned he had gone to the Valle del Cauca and there seems he was killed. One daughter lives in Medellin and the rest do not know.
Rosa Maria was married to Juan Pablito lucky we were children of a brother of Rosa Ma. And sister of Juan Pablito them Bernal Londoño and we Londoño Bernal, had the same genes but they are all dead except one, there remains only the lower, Germán, who came to this world when it was too late at home, and we are alive seven of nine. This is not very funny because we have done very little to keep us alive, but it seems strange. This is good to think again because I have already done in other writings, which had not rich in La Ceja, we were all poor, a few differences was that some families eat "better" than others and the children of Juan Pablito were among they then feed could have played an important role in survival levels. There were several differences between us: our family had a false modesty that finally believed us and them an apparent preponderance; We were very submissive with other people especially those of higher rank and age, they very collarejos, (it is a figurative word denoting unconditional surrender) The Bernal Londoño fought a lot, to the point that two or three were not speaking to each other for years we did not have time to fight and the zanjábamos differences somehow using our modesty and learning from my mom who knew better than anyone overcome these differences, but we kept not, still do. We live in harmony despite our differences in thinking and feeling in relation to others. It seems to me that these tantrums lasting several years can wear a lot. But my theory is grounded when I think Thomas and Magdalena died near the century and Alfredo more than 80 years. The theory remains valid when we think of the other children who have died, John Paul, Rosita, Antonio, Bernardo and Marta. The reality was that they were older than us: no one in my house was the age of the oldest Magdalena (nearly 100), Thomas who was the third of them died 90 years were those who met Luis A. the eldest of my house, the year of his death though it occurred two years earlier. With the trend of the children of Juan Pablito, we will all die in the next 5 years or so.
Just called Painted without knowing why, was the son of Carlos, one of the brothers of my father, and always came fourth in turns to Colombia, that was a feat at a time when there were no paved roads as now, nor had bridges as far neither were many of the aid on the road as now, the few roads that existed were poorly taken and so it was that the word "pothole" I learned by these returns to Colombia, because radio transmissions so called the holes in the road, which were many. "Corridors" had to carry their bikes shoulder to spend with her rivers and swamps. Painted Londoño was one of the heroes of that time with Ramón Hoyos, El Zipa Forero, Papaya Vanegas, and Conrad, Tito, Gallo who became disabled after a fall down from the top of Mines where he hit his head, and many more. The first few laps to Colombia were run bike tourism, heavy and with handlebars and unsuitable tires, Julio Arrastía and Roberto Guerrero are two names associated with Colombian cycling as were two Argentinians who came to compete in one of the turns and they were as coaches and boosters of a more modern cycling, they formed large cyclists Vanegas and others who excelled globally, made build velodrome and were the spearhead that moved the government to build public works that contribute to the improvement of roads, possibly it was not them but without cycling and the rise and popularity returns to Colombia, who contributed both these two Argentines, perhaps these infrastructure changes that both contributed to the economic development of Colombia had not occurred. Just already he died and Carlos or their children did not hear anything.
Alfredo Londoño did not live in La Ceja, was sonsoneño and dreamy, studied together at the school of the Brothers and while studying, he stayed in the house of Gonzalo Londoño, did not know that kinship was this priest with us but should be very relative when two of my cousins they lived at home, because there was another bonus sonsoneña there. When Juan Pablito got tired of being my agent at school, possibly by threes in behavior, then he told me he had a Gonzalo as pretty as Juan Pablito letter and I signed the report card. For what else martyrdom! Gonzalo he feared everyone in town for evil genius, and I had to bring him the book every week, this could not be a better arrangement for Juan Pablito because for me they followed the low notes in behavior. For example, Gonzalo was of those who preached in the church on the outstanding social issues, where personal hygiene was so small, he, Gonzalo, said: ... and I've known that men bathe in ball in the river, that it is sin, and have known that men bathe with women, if women then drown them get away alone, but mixed bathing are sin ... I do not remember good things about Gonzalo Londoño, the bonnet in the cinema of the square, I think it was he who contributed most to this great "metropolis" resembling a town of the middle Ages with cars. It was he, being religious, the visible head of the citizens, that is, the church ruling, when in fact it was not ready for that, but someone should take over the town and the mayor was useless and personero was only under the responsibility of the aqueduct that carried water to cuatrico of the wealthy. We were then in very bad hands.
There were two internal combustion cars: the car of Saro and the milk truck. Gasoline needed to run and that the dispensing pump that was located on the main square in front of the barbershop Ramon Fernando (Chuchinga) who lived next to my house and punished their children with a wire to conduct electricity. The son brought him lunch, do not understand why in such a small town you had to bring lunch to someone, and when the son William was playing marbles or spinning top with the food on the sidewalk, mom yelled at him: "Memo ... it's gueso "bone. This pump sucked gasoline an invisible tank be buried to prevent fires, deposited in a large jar, as five gallons marked gallon per gallon and protected by an iron mesh and placed in the top of the pump so that by gravity to cars thrown out by a hose coming out of the bottle. Here freight cars and passenger passing through La Ceja to Medellin from Sonsón or Abejorral and of course those of La Ceja and around the Black River valley as well, which were not many were supplied. Later distances are shortened with the construction of the road from Las Palmas and many cars came Medellin and elsewhere. The view of the cars driven motor was what distinguished this people of the Middle Ages, and the lack of artists, musicians and good painters. Flutist of the people who played with two other guitar and tiple, was the tailor and the pianist was Juan Rilas with ear gunner, besides having different sexual orientation when playing said do not laugh because it endangers the life of the artist. Later he established a bar where the main attraction was him and he filled the courtyard of the house that made bar, with people coming from all over the world to hear their "concerts", thinking he had money he was killed (or killed ) who knew not.
Travel by any of the roads was a real feat and more frequent when I was little was to Medellin. The adventure began at five o'clock when you sat on the ladder truck usually had two seats in the locked half to form a corral where casting pigs or calves or two above the ceiling were the cans of milk the farm by farm which they gathered around the valley of La Ceja and had to distribute empty (threw them from the top) in the afternoon when the truck returned. The journey lasted until one or two p.m. the return was less, had a break when the truck trod asphalt after Rionegro because they were less holes, then everyone, enruanado, fell asleep as the car went up in first from Saxony, a point on the road where the truck made a stop for breakfast, to the top of Santa Elena where the big city could be seen down there. What joy! but that was also passing as travelers, the road was called and I think we still call the corkscrew or corkscrews because it is one of the roads that have more curves, drive down from 2600 meters high, a little more than one kilometer road become 17, up to 1500 meters is the height of final destination, as vertical mountain slopes often their slide. One of these landslides attracted many people who came to watch and in a second landslide occurred when people were curious died there by a friend of mine nicknamed Tobita, after 60 or 70 is still on these slopes. And the voids continue.
Francisco, Pacho Londoño was a brother of my dad married to one of the casseroles, so we called
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Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Poor nuns!
In the village there were only two known for my not counting Curruco carpenters, I think nobody knew what it was called this character who lived there going to the Santa Cruz who was more construction and very Machetero, Juan de Dios, my uncle and Luis Cheeks o cachetón. The latter had two specialties rare mix in his shop selling treats like tambourines, Mary Luisas, cacorras cucas or cookies, etc. mojicones "Then my silver," said cachetón when a client came to buy one of these goodies, and also had a carpenter whose main attraction was a primitive lathe, if you did not notice the coffins that had hung from the ceiling were also attraction, it was a very gloomy shop, the little light coming through the only door that was painted green. The lathe consisted basically of a band of elastic tire as five centimeters wide that ran from the roof, down took a turn at bat square profile 5cm by 5cm was to turning and then the band is tied to the end of the table that served as the pedal and did not reach the floor by the side of the elastic but on the other and remained as a kind of inclined plane to make hard with his foot was turning the bat around and returned if one to the initial position by the elasticity of rubber. The stick was sharp turns at both ends that could move to adjust its length, with special tools Luis gave way to stick on the comings and goings of the foot on the lathe, which became trompos or bars of window, I saw her do many of these, the tops once cut them stick finished and put them Herron was a sprig which took away the head with the tongs and then polished with an emery I imagined a demon by the amount sparks, lighted turnings, leaving when a tool is amolaba or polished Herron. Needless to note that the grinding wheel is operated by hand, like many things in this town. The other things to cachetón not have Mayos importance, because most were the last wooden clothes were buried with the dead, only customer who did not purchase itself but the entrusted someone. Very grade contrast with the bars of window that still exist and tops that did not last long though delight many children as the only possibility was to have fun with them, crystal balls (marbles) and chascarales or Corozos.
I spent many hours looking as out tapes coiled chip when passing the brush through the woods woodworking my uncle, he and his family lived in Samaria, at the foot of the river La Miel and in the way of La Ceja La Perla, another farm that managed my dad in the Guaico, a trail of La Ceja in warm earth. Were common large families but Juan de Dios palms, his wife Bathsheba textile company Coltejer gave a prize that only gave the most prolific women of the department and others won before Bathsheba wore because she did not but 17 children, there were others with more. Older not met them, one of them was called Ignacio and lived in Bogota and I think Lola, Dolores, was the oldest of women, lived in Abejorral or down south of the department, she and her sisters Bathsheba and Mary I think we were the only married the rest were nuns who can not say much because I had no contact with them and all but one think, are now dead. They Francisco and John came to Samaria when I was already as third school but did not have any academic difficulty entering the same my degree because Bathsheba had a school at home whose primary pupils were his sons men and women, I'm sure that Bathsheba learned more in school Christian Brothers. It was eating for all that battalion of children and still had time to teach reading, writing, arithmetic, history, geography, levels ages of their children. It was an admirable woman.! They lived long in Samaria was a farm on the River La Miel, when I met him I remember I was struck by the greenish color of its waters, for my all rivers should be crystal clear as La Ceja but already Black River knew it was very murky, before going to Samaria. sugar cane or sugar cane and coffee were the main crops of the farm and of course the usual pasture with their pastures for horses and cattle. When there was grinding cane was processed in the same building in very large buildings known as the sugar mill received its name by a vertical mill that was driven by a horse revolving pulling a stuck to the mill long stick, there was ground the cane to extract the juice, he spent three striated and closely spaced rollers and moving at the same time, the rod passed between them and the juice fell to a container underneath the juice was a sugary liquid that was carried from there to the funds or very large pots, which were similar to that described and for houses but giant-sized cooking stove where the bagasse produced using the mill as fuel. I do not remember very well the details of the milling because I attended one, and I do not remember how many funds had the fire, which if I remember was that the juice in the first fund brought to the surface all involved impurities in a foam called cachaca that there is cleaned with a kind of sieve, he spent about two or three funds into the fireplace to in the last take the panela. It was known when it was ready when was the last bottom point, ie, the rabbit was removed and if he got hard, he already was. Remove the rabbit meant a pawn dipped his hand very well for a reasonable time and with it very quickly pulled a bit of boiling liquid and put it in cold water again; depending on the consistency that this sample had known if he was ready to make panela. Then with large cuyabras they stuck a stick drew panela a few tables where made with the bark of a coconut panelas of about one pound (750gm). No that role played in all this John of God but I imagine it provided the supervision and accounting.
When the family came from Samaria, in La Ceja, Juan de D reencauchó carpenter and set up a carpentry shop in one of the places that had my grandmother and were a source of discord between John Paul son that I think served as executor in the succession of my grandmother and Eleazar the name of one of the heirs, Leonor. I not so much win as a carpenter but he reached to hold a roan who always wore and carriel. They lived in a house that kept supremely clean and cozy in the village of San Pedro, one kilometer on the road to La Union what today is called the pink zone, where they party on Friday and Saturday nights with brandy and drugs. The Bernal were very clever and there was a rivalry between the women in my house and John for the baskets to kill they did with waste beer caps and sold to the townspeople. In this house I first saw the operation of a latrine, in my house was a source of contamination hole and women elaborately embroidered.
Juan Pablito, was notary of the circuit for a long time and was what they called a 'shyster "without being entitled had the rudimentary knowledge of laws and government regulations. That knowledge was enough to make a modus vivendi of their activities by buying and selling land and property of others and for others, because he knew more than the rest of the population. So I had very nice couple and letter, profiles and thick and send the fees of calligraphy and had an office within the square. For all purposes of resolving disputes, and grain purchase property, register of deeds, judgments of succession ... I had to go to Juan Pablito. In addition agriculturally he exploited land that cost him nothing as Uchubal, Las Lomitas, the Vega del Rio where today is the sports citadel, the Pearl at the Guaico and Samaria, at the foot of the River La Miel. The Uchuval we called the Ochuval, was very good fern is, it was very acidic soil and was good for agriculture, but have now discovered that some flowers require this type of soil in some parts grown acidic soils throwing quicklime to sementeras before putting the seeds, but I do not think is a very efficient method. But in the Ochuval there was pasture for horses and an occasional cow orejinegra white race. Las Lomitas was the property of recreation, with growing vegetables, flowers because I had a very large garden, guavas of all kinds, oranges, and fruit trees, we spent several holidays there and we thought they were very good because we did not notice slights or the humiliations suffered my mom.
The Vega was one of the few fertile lands of La Ceja because it flooded every time it rained heavily for the feast of the Holy Cross, the sediment that was deposited there after passing the growing had a high nutrient content judging from potatoes and cabbages that were grown there, and where Juan Pablito commanded grow potatoes and corn. The river is not now grows because there is no rainfall as marked as before and because the river is no longer the same, is almost dry. La Perla was a coffee farm in front of Monte Bello, one of those impossible villages of Colombian mountain ranges, put on the mountainside and nobody knew who would have founded there, possibly as Manizales because it was a crossing roads, the difference is that the roads are like Monte Bello Pullin bridge in Alaska that are not going to nowhere. Between La Perla and Monte Bello she left the barrel of the Ox, which made the jump river of the same name and some distance sounded like the bellowing of an ox through the rapids of its waters. This farm, I understand, was owned by my dad but in the great economic depression of the early 20th century was cheaper to leave certain fruit to rot on the vine rather than catch them because were not worth anything on the market. My uncle José María proposed compared to my dad with the condition to stay administering the estate in which he referred to agriculture and some financial remained in the hands of Juan Pablito, who had to take everything produced La Perla and Samaria. One day Joseph said that so rare that this property gives to Joaquin Emilio and Juan Pablito but not for me I'm the owner, and sold both La Perla and Samaria, I think Lucrecia Jaramillo inspired by his wife. My dad had no other source of income to work for those farms where he spent seven days a week and lost his job in this town where work was a privilege. He earned very little as a field worker fumigating I help you slaw that was farming fashion, but there was more if not own a capital. Spraying with copper sulphate was not easy: load a bucket of this liquid weighed twenty-five pounds (25 pounds) enough for a boy of about twelve, and management of this poison was with some pine branches to fashion hyssop and with that matte cabbage watered, all ending with a very cute black and white butterfly, but whose larvae eat the cabbage. Then began the migration of the family to Medellin.
Where is Juliana, my mom?
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Friday, January 16, 2015
"The 'I' - I know plenty - is judged proud and unfriendly"
Ramon y Cajal in The World Seen 80 Years
The other five are six two more
In La Ceja it was very frustrating to study, I consider a feat for parents who put their children to study and then send them to herd cows, for that you do not need to read or write. In the school of San José had even second high school and college women was even less, the student left the school without a brand name, so that even the pride of having done something he had left and then had to be used what the people offered that was not much. where not removed the livestock vocation in a land where farms as my brother were "fincos" because not give or anger, those with farm or lived in the country, devoted a large part to pasture where they put "cursientas" white Orejinegro, breed of cattle in the mountainous region of Colombia that did not work efficiently or to meat or milk but it was very "rustic" that is, enduring hunger, sun, rain, cold, heat, disease, ticks and other parasites and everything it will come up without dying, but there was little point. The rest is devoted to growing corn and potatoes, which were produced with comparative advantage elsewhere. Corn was two crops in the hot land in La Ceja one, and the more temperate lands genetically intervened varieties producing cobs with more grains (without going to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of this) and smaller rods were adopted and Pope looked better in La Union village located east, 15 kilometers from La Ceja, then came the cabbage which was better La Union. Today there is at least the flower business.
Employment opportunities in this economy practically closed were very meager, it was likely that someone, whether it was man once completed studies are put to take care of the few cattle available to the own or another family and if she was a woman must devoted to the culinary housework were haute cuisine because today no one would handle one of those mastodons of wood stoves. All cuisine is deemed had one of those furnaces that occupied nearly half of the room, made of brick and plastered with cow dung or cagajón (cow dung or horse) on the front had a kind of atrium where the embers were taken out for roast arepas, a big mouth followed him to the wood on fire and the flames were until the end of the hearth where they found a fireplace, usually made of athanors mud and flames passing were heating the pots that were embedded in the gaps an iron plate placed on the stove. I think that chimney saved many lives because even though the walls of the kitchen had a scary soot both it did not reach the lungs which cover the alveoli and causes many deaths in the world. The houses of more affluent people had what we called tub, which was a container with only two holes: one for cold water inlet and one for the hot water outlet, the tub was heated on one side of the stove and pipe hot water up to the immersion bath, with the cold of La Ceja could bathe only once or twice a month and we did in punch bowl and totuma because we had no tub. There were also these gadgets in a decent kitchen: an excuse, named for excuses not to have a fridge because this wooden platform hung with four wires from the ceiling of the kitchen had the function of preserving salted meat, why the excuse ? because in the kitchen because there was no more to save anything or had a need for it and because it was necessary to preserve the meat of cats, dogs and chuchas (opossums) who could not reach the excuse. A forge, which is equivalent to the microwave oven or grill or auxiliary oven today, a forge consists of a bellows blowing through a tube on coal and there things petty became, like today in hornitos or microwave, I remember there in forging beat the chocolate snack at eight in the evening. And soot everywhere.
In addition to many things, men were the only ones who could aspire to an education outside La Ceja, it had to go to Medellin to finish high school. The National University had civil engineering and law Antioquia, there was only the seminary if I wanted to do something different to the study of law or making of bridges and roads. Having managed to overcome all these vicissitudes is what I admire most José María and Nicolas possibly their parents too, because they became civil engineers. friendly and tolerant person was Joseph who held several public offices and major companies, their exploits are embedded in the life of Colombia and especially in Medellin; better than I can, their stories are told in many writings and reports from government and individuals referred to him many times. Less well known it is Nicholas, not less meritorious but less public. Raising a family of nine children with very limited resources is a great feat. Home from Boston neighborhood was a fantasy for those who lived in La Ceja, had the brightest stories of the world and two rocking chairs made with waste car or train were unique in its class, Jaime, one of their children has still one of those chairs. I do not remember a lot of the houses of Nicholas and Joseph because they lived far away and appeared and disappeared as the moon, from time to time. There were many beliefs in a village in the Middle Ages and La Ceja not escaped, one was that Medellin had no pee and I peeked to see if it was true. All arriving from Medellin were my guinea pigs and then learned that not be generalized belief is true, people of the capital was complete as any of us.
At that time it was not known how to handle cancer until it was believed to be highly contagious even in places where he had lived the dead patient, there was neither radiation nor chemotherapy nor any of the therapies and preventive treatments now, if it was it operated operable without worrying much of metastases, took care of them when they grew up. A terrible cancer gave Sara, Ms. Nicholas was born in Pereira and mother of nine children, first you removed a lung in USA (did not know that part of the country) and filled the gap with balls ping-pong, at least so they said, and when the cancer has spread and invaded the other lung, there was nothing to do and died as young as could a woman with such vast seed. Sara I remember once I "stole" A cherimoya in the house of my grandmother who was destined to sweeten the mouths of Nicholas and Sara and if they would have known as delicious as my, I think Sara still turn in his grave for my "despicable act." As expected, there were very young children and when Don Joaquin is, my dad, and his family came to us to live in Medellin, Nicolas remarried to someone very brave who spoke quite in the family but not very positively. I imagine the pirouettes that had to do to convince Nicholas Ester, such was his second wife, she married him. Today think a lot of men and women whether or not to go with the opposite sex as fellow candidates for life with a child, because they do not want to take up this burden, much less if they have two. As would be what he thought this lady to marry a man dragging nine children and then they decided to marry how to suffer with this prole that was not of her womb! But we had to have someone to care for children as young as Henry the less I think just know speak when Sara died.
Cata was not talking about Leonor, or at least I did not hear, Eleazar married to Maya, came little by the side of the people, and mother of five children, I remember not met the nun daughter Leonor. The Maya were very special: They lived in Medellin, quarreled with everyone in the family almost always money, less with my mom because Eleazar the estimated long, possibly because neither had nor handled money but that if they were going to daily Mass to church of San Jose that was before the house of Dionisio Arango Ferrer who had a son who was so "chiflis" who took his own life by hanging himself I think. As far as I knew, The Maya were wealthy or rich: they had a cattle farm in cauca a recreation property in La Ceja and the house of Medellin was great, very well located in an area called the very central beach and supremely valuable. This was what the public domain who knows what else would have.
Mercedes, mechitas for us, the youngest, died like so many in the village being Miss, he chose because I did not have many alternatives, leaving Carmelite nun where no one had to worry about anything other than to live in love with a chimera. The convent and chapel are now a housing estate where many apartments being built. They are occupying an entire city block that included the house of Manuela de las Monjas so the apodábamos to distinguish Mocha's wife Manuela Manuel Mocho where candles were bait. Manuela was the first foreign branch of the Carmelite convent; getting them all supplies for the kitchen, the house and for embroidery and sewing many rags that they or did or remolded for use of the church and a few individuals. Manuela had this gift to make marzipan like few others, selling them there at home, some ridiculous by low prices, but they were unavailable to us. She spent all the things bought for the nuns by a lathe that was like one of those modern revolving doors but small and it was all wood, so that was not transparent, not down to the foot but by making the wall left or they made a gap beginning to the waist and ended a little above the head. It heard from either side of the wall through around but could not see anything of what happened in the convent and the convent could see for outside. Visits to a family nun was another story, but not much nicer, I participated in two of them mechitas: next round was a large door that only opened for visitors, right hand was a big gate for separating the convent of demons outside, not to lock the nuns. In a very simple family monjita stool and sat in the room had a smell like menthol. The sister wondered what she already knew all closest relatives as a conversation and do not know what else because I raised me watching the curtain behind her to try to find some clue that would tell me the existence of another sister they said, the designated to spy conversation. I never saw anything in my two visits. All these hidden things attract attention and enliven the imagination of curious children by nature and I remember we put us a group of neighborhood boys, because we lived near the convent, at eight o'clock in the evening, near the gates of the chapel Latin hear the song accompanied by whipping the nuns were propinaban, they said that was to draw blood.
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