Guayaquil mayor investigated; Without internet, rural school children suffer; 45 face curfew violation charges; Cuenca doctors demand full-time jobs

Miércoles, 5/5/2021

Hola, Todos –

Actividades –

De la pagina cultural –

Taller de Crónica (Chronicle Workshop) – The site Los Cronistas has an online workshop called “La delgada línea entre la realidad y la ficción” (The thin line between reality and fiction) <There are too many people who just don’t know where to put that line or who don’t even believe that there is a line.> on writing chronicles. The workshop started el lunes and will run until 3/6 from lunes a martes a las 18:00-19:00. At the end of the class, participants will write their own chronicle which will be published on loscronistas.net. For more information, call 099 272 3782 an 099 526 2623. <I went to the site and it’s all in Spanish. I suppose you could write a chronicle at the “Run, Spot, run” level or write it in English, send it through a translating program, and hope for something that doesn’t make you look like an idiot.>

Otras cosas –

Titular – Médicos exigen nombramientos (Doctors demand appointments) – The Ley de Apoyo Humanitario says that health professionals who have worked during the pandemic should have definite appointments as compensation, but this has not happened. 200 health professionals at the “Vicente Corral Moscoso” Hospital have signed a letter to the Ministerios de Salud and Trabajo, and workers at the IESS hospital have not ruled out legal measures. The doctors have been told that provisional and permanent appointments are only for front line workers, but all the doctors, nurses, assistants and lab workers are in contact with suspected Covid patients so the appointments should be for all.

Doctors at Cuenca’s public hospitals say they deserve full-time employment under terms of the Humanitarian Law. (El Mercurio)

Chaucha, alejada de todo y ahora más de la educación (Chaucha, far from everything and now farther from education) – The 340 students in Chaucha which is the rural parish farthest from Cuenca, have not been in classrooms for a year. The health emergency has forced students to continue their classes online through the internet which the families do not have. The parish has internet connection in only 3 of the 20 communities, and in almost all households there is a lack of computer equipment. As with the roads to Chaucha, the internet signals are 3d, 4th and 5th class. <What’s a 5th class road anyway – a dirt path navigable only by a horse or on foot?> The school year follows that of the coast, and in the winter when the mist falls, the internet se va (goes away – your verb for the day). When it rains, the connection is lost, and if you live at a higher altitude, there is no internet at all.

There are groups of families who have contracted with a teacher or helper who will print the teaching materials, get them to the kids, and then send them to the real teacher for correction. This is inadequate for learning and many parents are not able to help their kids. Other kids have left school to work with their parents. For the families, a return to the classrooms is the best solution and the only one that will give their kids the educations they need.

45 procesados por incumplir el toque de queda (45 prosecuted for breaking the curfew) – According to information from the Fiscalía, 45 people have been prosecuted for breaking the curfew in Azuay. The infractors were caught during controls by the Policía Nacional and other agencies between 23/4 and 2/5. Nationally, the Policía Nacional carried out 6.925 curfew operations and 208 controls of unauthorized activities which resulted in the arrest of 999 people for violating curfew which can be sanctioned with 1-3 years in prison. <So it’s after 20:00 and you’re still on your way home because you had to have that one last drink – would that drink be worth the penalty?>

Otro daño consumado al patrimonio (Another damage to patrimonio) – The Fiscalía of Azuay is investigating the destruction of a patrimonial building that was on av. Paucarbamba in the El Ejido zone. The building was one of 366 identified as a cultural patrimony in El Ejido by the Ministerio de Cultura y Patrimonio (MCP). The building was built in the 70’s by a Jorge Roura, a recognized architect.

Viteri, en el “ojo del huracán” (Viteri, in the “eye of the hurricane”) – Guayaquil mayor Cynthia Viteri did not appear before the prosecutor ayer, and so managed to delay giving her version about the investigations into irregularities in 14 contracts executed between 2020 and 2021. She has 10 days to send the information on the acquisition of goods and services considered unnecessary. Contracts included one for $2,400,000 for protection service on networks, a $445,000 contract for an artist to paint large scale oils in the Salón de la Ciudad honoring health workers, and another for $389,000 to paint phrases written by writers and poets on walls in the city. <I imagine there are people wondering why she didn’t spend that money on protective gear for hospital personnel.>

Se dispara número de contagios en el país (Number of infections shoots up in the country) – According to the MSP, Ecuador had 3,196 new cases yesterday for a total of 391,242 cases, and 89 new deaths for a total of 13,688 which does not include another 5,175 probable deaths due to Covid. Guayas saw 1,437 new cases for a total of 51,943; and Pichincha had 652 new cases in one day for a total of 137,319. Behind these two provinces were Manabí with 29,499, Azuay with 21,377, El Oro with 18,802, Loja with 15,145, Tungurahua with 12,197, Imbabura with 12,036, and Los Ríos with 11,422.

And that’s all for today so Hasta ? –

Jeanne
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Editor’s note: Jeanne’s Periodico is a translated digest of news from the Cuenca daily newspaper El Mercurio. If details, such as event dates and times, do not appear in the translation, they did not appear in the newspaper (please don’t ask her for them). The text between the carrots, or guillemets (< … >), is Jeanne’s personal opinion and not part of the news translation.