Lunes, 9/11/15: Museum gift shop, exhibit for the animals, Ecuador Cares

Hola, Todos – 

Pagina cultural – 

Renovación – 2015 marks un hito (a milestone – your word for the day.  So you got that over with early in this email.) in the renovation of the Museo Pumapungo. $80,000 has been spent on the enlargement and other projects.  (In the US, that would just about get you the architectural plans.)

Tienda Cultural (Cultural Shop) – will open in the next couple of months at the Museo Pumapungo. (Oh, it´s a museum gift shop. I bet this is part of that $80k spent on projects.)  It´s a pilot project of the National Design Department in the Ministry of Culture and Patrimony.  (I like a good museum gift shop – good quality, interesting stuff at all price levels.)

Articles about –

“Baúl de los Abuelos (The Grandparents´ Trunk) – is a program in the Casa de Chaguarchimbana on Tue y Fri and in the public library of El Valle on Mon. y Thu from 9-12:00.  The project is directed at seniors and school children so that the Abuelos can teach the kids the history and stories of their barrios through the medium of art and story telling.  (I wish I could be one of those school children.)

“El Oidor” is an exhibit at the ex Escuela Central (Gran Colombia y Benigno Malo).  It´s a project to recover the stories of ordinary people and retell them in the form of photos, a blog, and a theater work.  You´ll also get a book.  Free.

An international syposium from 30/11 to 2/12 on “Museos, Etnografiía y Comunidad.”

An exhibit “Animales, amigos y los desaparecidos” (Animals, friends and the missing) opens Wed, 11/11 in the Salón del Pueblo in the Casa de la Cultura at 19:00 to bring attention to the issue of animal rights.  Artists are Eduardo Segovia, Sally Marr and Peter Dudar.  The show will run for 4 weeks.

The II Bienal Internacional de Danza de Cali.

Otras cosas –

Titular – “Celular y las redes “golpean” a ETAPA (Cellphones and networks hit ETAPA)  Conventional phone service sales are down. (Same as up north.)  The number of lines is going up, but the billings are going down because no one ever actually uses their land line.

Pres. Raúl Castro met with Pres. Enrique Peña Nieto of Mexico in Mérida.  There are more than 150 Mexican firms that want to do business in Cuba from airport operators to golf clubs and hotels to manufacturing.  (Probably a drop in the bucket compared with the number of US firms ready to go do business in Cuba.  I bet Coca Cola is already there, but via México.  Wasn´t Pres. Vicente Fox an ex-Coke exec?)

Amenidades – 

“You Raise Me Up” – an event benefitting the orphaned children and abandoned seniors at the Hogar Miguel León this Tue, 10/11 at 6:00 in the Hotel Oro Verde organized by Ecuador Cares.  With Brian Gary and Rubber Biscuit, a speech by the mayor, and an auction and/or raffle with a trip to the Great Barrier Reef in Australia as the grand prize.  (Interesting cultural perspective that a senior could be abandoned when Cuenca is full of gringo seniors who abandoned themselves and are probably not expecting their children to take care of them where in Ecuador, there is an expectation that a family should take care of its seniors.)

Internacional – 

Perú – the new Parque Nacional Sierra del Divisor was signed into existence by Pres. Ollanta Humala yesterday.  International conservationsists are applauding the creation of this huge park in the Peruvian Amazon.  (The picture with the article was a view from the air of what looked like the Garden of Eden.)

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana –

Jeanne