Landslide closes highway; Correa arrest ordered; Symphony restarts in-person rehearsals; 10,000 tram cards sold; Local exports decline; Art exhibits reopen

Jueves, 24/9/2020

Hola, Todos –

Actividades –
De la pagina cultural –

En el Complejo de Ingapirca volverán a recibir visitantes (The Ingapirca Complex will again receive visitors) – This coming sábado, Ingapirca will reopen with hours of 9:30-15:00 from viernes a domingo which will be in effect for a month. The complex will restrict tourists to 30% capacity with reservations required through visitas.ingapirca@patrimonio-cultural.gob.ec. <I don’t know if the dash is part of the address or because of a line break.> You need to make your reservations 72 hours before your visit and list the names of the visitors, cedula numbers, origin, home address, phone number, email address, and respiratory disease history related to Covid. The visits are guided along a one way route except for the path to Intihuayco. Biosecurity measures of masks, distancing, and hand washing or sanitizing are required. You are not allowed to bring food into the site.

Casa patrimoniales acogen exposiciones (Heritage houses host exhibitions) – The Dirección Municipal de Cultura has opened 3 historic houses for exhibits. “Heterotopías: performance y arte visual” will show at the Casa del Artista from lunes a viernes from 8:30-12:30. As of ayer, the show “Que gara” by the graphic artist “DOMO” opened at the Casa Bolívar with the same days and hours. “Encerrados” will open mañana a las 8:30 in the Casa de Las Posadas.

Sinfónica retoma ensayos con músicos (Symphony restarts rehearsals with musicians) – Tomorrow, the OSC will premier its first concert recorded during the pandemic. You can see it on the Sala Digital on YouTube and Facebook since at the moment, no in-theater concerts are scheduled.

Otras cosas –

The export of Panama hats from Cuenca hat factories lags behind the 2019 level. (El Mercurio)

Titular – Exportaciones aún no reflotan (Exports still not refloated / recovered) – Tires are the product most exported from the south of the country, and the value of the goods increased from $14,914,000 in the first half of 2019 to $16,675,575 in the first half of 2020. Exports of major appliances, second most exported, also increased year to year. The 3d most exported goods were hats which fell from $6,141,889 to $4,980,852. Exports of ceramics increased slightly, and export of flowers in the first half of 2020 was half of the amount in 2019. Total non-mining exports from the Austro fell from $62,281,103 in 2019 to $54,782,513 in 2020.

Una Waorani figura en la privilegiada lista de Time (A Waorani is on Time’s privileged list) – Nemonte “Nemo” Nenquino, a Waorani indigenous leader, is on the Times magazine list of most influential people in 2020 for her work in the defense of the selva (jungle). The Waorani, numbering less than 5,000, is one of 14 nationalities and 18 original peoples that are recognized in Ecuador. They won a judicial victory last year to protect more than 180,000 hectares of ancestral land from the incursion of oil companies.

Los GAD, sin recursos para paliar efectos de la ceniza volcánica (GADs without resources to mitigate effects of volcanic ash) – There is very little that the Gobiernos Autónomos Descentralizados can to to confront this latest emergency with the scarce resources they have, and with money still owed them from the central Government. One of the hardest hit was the Chillanez canton in Bolívar in which an emergency was declared. The prefect estimated that 5,000 hectares of mora, tomato, wheat, beans, uvilla and pastures were lost. The last affected 15,000 head of cows which are being fed with donations from the coast. Pres. Moreno visited affected zones in Chimborazo y Bolívar and offered credit up to $5,000 for the most vulnerable with the possibility of deferring payments for 6 months.

64,000 pasajeros diarios requiere sistema tranvía (Tranvía system needs 64,000 passengers a day) – The Unidad Ejecutora del Proyecto Tranvía (UEPT – Executing Unit of the Tram Project) hopes that passenger demand will be established in octubre. Carolina Ormaza, director of the UEPT, announced that on martes, the first day of commercial operation, there were 9,223 passengers. 503 bought a boleto sencillo (single ticket), 3,810 boarded with a transfer, and 4,910 validated their cards with the card reader. The stations with the most demand were Parque Industrial, Terminal Terrestre, Río Tarqui, Río Tomebamba y El Arenal.

As of martes, 9,932 Movilízate cards had been issued, although they are only good for the tranvía until the end of the year or beginning of next year <Yup, yesterday’s “al final de este año” is a temporal description like mañana. Did you notice that today it’s “or the beginning of next year” Or 2022? Or later if integrating the systems proceeds like the construction.> Ormaza also said that a minimum of 64,000 passengers a day will be needed to cover the $9 million annual operating and maintenance costs. <I wonder if they’ve figured out how the tranvía and buses are going to share the fares when it goes to one fare for the whole trip? Or will it be first come, first paid?>

Protocolo para piscinas y bares (Protocols for pools and bars) – The director of the Fundación Turismo para Cuenca announced that there is a list of protocols for reopening the pools in Baños parish, and in a few days, there will be a plan to reactivate the hosterías (hostels) in the zone. There will be restrictions on capacity and sanitation measures. Mayor Palacios said that there is coordination with the Intendencia and Gobernación del Azuay to approve protocols which will allow bars, discos and centros de tolerencia to reopen, but this will take some time. <So what doesn’t take time with this mayor?>

Robos de bicicletas son más frequentes (Bicycle thefts more frequent) – Bike thefts are more frequent due to the ease of stealing and then selling them. Various people from different sectors of Cuenca have posted photos of stolen bikes on social media. In the last few days, a video showed a man prowling around a parking lot until he gets to a bike he scopes out and then pedals off on. Other burglaries are from houses during the night. Thieves also assault riders and use violence or intimidation to take the bike. <Should you ride around carrying a baseball bat to discourage robbers? Or to smack cars that cut you off?>

Demora la entrega de textos escolares (Delivery of school books delayed) – In a few days, public school students will have been in virtual classes for a month, but until now, there is no provision to deliver the books. Teachers are asking that parents print the books or at least download them from https://recursos2.educacion.gob.ec/textos/.

Deslaves a lo largo de vía Sígsig-Gualaquiza (Landslides along the vía Sígsig-Gualaquiza) – The vía Sígsig-Chjiguinda-Gualaquiza was closed yesterday because of slides in the El Rosario parish in Morona Santiago. In all, intense rains caused slides of different sizes in 12 sectors. El Aguacate was the sector most affected due to the quantity of material that fell. <Driving in Ecuador is a challenge – not only do you have to watch out for speedbumps, pedestrians, and animals; you have to look up and watch out for falling rocks, dirt, and trees.>

Ordenan a capturar a Correa (Correa’s capture ordered) – Yesterday, a judge ordered the location and capture of Rafael Correa who was sentenced to 8 years in prison for bribery in the “Sobornos 2012-2016” case. The judges also ordered the Ministerio de Economía to stop the life pensions of ex-president Correa ($4,226/mo.) and ex- VP Jorge Glas ($4,057). The CNE was also notified about the loss of rights of those sentenced to participate politically. Arrests were also ordered although only Alexis Mera who was under house arrest was within reach of the police and ordered to be tranferred to the Centro de Rehabilitación Social de Latacunga.

And that´s all for today so Hasta la Próxima Semana –

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. The text between the carrots, or guillemets (< … >), is Jeanne’s personal opinion and not part of the news translation.