Lunes, 6/3/2017: Ecuador in Berlin, Tram affects five redondels, Faster vote counting, Fines for driving without lights

Mar 7, 2017 | 0 comments

Hola, Todos –

Pagina cultural –

Today’s agenda events –

Cine en la Mochila (Film in a Backpack) – The Festival de Cine Itinerante (all cognates, all yours) opened Mon. at 16:00 in the Alianza Francesa (Tadeo Torres y Solano) with “El Gran Sadini.” Tuesday’s film is L Pirogue (French with Spanish subtitles),

Articles about –

Audiovisual collection – The Museo Pumapungo has a collection of 5,000 recordings in its basement which are part of the country’s heritage.  There are 600 films on Betamax (I should have brought that player.  The museum could probably use it.), 1,500 on VHS tapes and 3,080 audio cassettes.  The museum is trying to digitalize the collection.  It’s open to anyone.  Go to the museum and ask for Eduardo Ulloa.

Libro – Visual artist, Patricio Palomeque, is working on a book of drawings he made between 1990 and 2017.  The book will be published in May and was one of the winning projects for funding from the Ministerio de Cultura.

Primer concierto – The first concert held in the auditorium of the Abraham Lincoln Center was last sábado and featured the Coctail Band.  The audience called them back for an encore.

Otras cosas – 

Titular – “Huarmis” tiñen las calles de color rosa (“Huarmis” tint the streets pink) – (I never knew running shoes came in so many different colors.)

Driving without lights – Driving without lights or with lights in bad shape will get you a fine of 15% of the Salario Básico Unificado (Basic Salary) and 5 points off your license.  10 people were sanctioned for this infraction last year.

Vote counting – The run-off elections will have a rapid count with results by 20:00. There are about 2,000 volunteers who are being either retrained or trained.  The count is expected to go faster than the general election since there is only one ballot.

Ecuador in Berlín – Ecuador will be at the feria ITN Berlín 2017. The fair is one of the biggest and most important tourism fairs in the world.

Internacional –

Cuba y Venezuela – The two countries are remembering Hugo Chávez on the 4th anniversary of his death and Fidel Castro for 100 days since his death.

Perú – Odebrecht, which admitted to paying $29 million in bribes in Peru, can be removed from their operations in the country in 6 months or so.  Pres. Kuczynski (Sounds more like a name for a Chicago politico than a Peruvian president.  But the other name in the last election was Fujimori – a Honolulu politico.) is looking at how they can be removed without damaging the infrastructure projects.  (They can take a look at how Cuenca removed CCRC. But I don’t know if that will be a lesson in “how to” or “how not to” remove a contractor.)

India – (nothing to do with Latin America or the US, but it caught my interest) Air India became the first airline to have an all woman crew on a commercial flight.  (So we can’t count Amelia Earhart when she flew – it wasn’t commercial.)  It flew from New Delhi to San Francisco on 27/2, and although it was planned, there will be more all women crews planned into their normal schedules.

FASEC – Sounds like the International Food Fair was a success.

“Vía rápida” – the “freeway” between Cuenca and Azogues and Biblián is 95.10% complete.  (Here’s your public works lesson for the day.)  The contractor is Hidalgo&Hidalgo, the Inspector is Austro Vías and the project supervision and administration is MTOP.  (Looks like the highway department hires an independent inspector.)

Vía Cuenca-Molleturo – The rainy season has caused constant landslides on the road especially between kilometers 70 & 90. MTOP (Ministerio de Transporte y Obras Públicas – Ministry for Transport and Public Works) has opened a lane past the slide at km. 88.  Traffic is taking turns to drive past the slide area.  (White knuckle time.)

Road work – Los Andes between av. Hurtado de Mendoza y González Suárez is being repaved.  The work should be finished at the end of marzo.

Tranvía – The Tranvía has affected 5 redondels: Feria Libre, Eloy Alfaro gas station, Chola Cuencana, airport, and Bajada de Milchichig.  Some are very congested, others function partially, and others (most?) are full of potholes.  At Feria Libre, the city is waiting for CCRC to remove their equipment and materials.  It was using the redondel as a storage yard.  (No wonder it looks like disaster zone.  Construction is a messy process.  Ask anyone who’s ever stayed in their house during a remodeling job.)

Award – The Municipality of Cuenca received international recognition for its Plan de Mejoramiento de Barrios Periféricos (Plan to Improve Outlying Neighborhoods) which supports integrated urban development.  It was selected from 146 candidates from 16 countries at the Innovative Practices in the New Urban Agenda Conference.

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana –

Jeanne

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