Miércoles, 5/10/2016: El Centro traffic changes, 12.8 million voters registered, World Animal Day, What’s next for Colombia?

Hola, Todos –

Pagina cultural –

Today’s agenda events –

Festival Eurocine – The German movie “Victoria” will show tonight (Wed.) at 19:00 in the Alianza Francesa.

Upcoming and ongoing agenda events –

Teatro – Thurs. and Fri., at 18:00 and at 20:00, the Teatral Ilustres Desconocidos (The Illustrious Unknown Theatrical) company will present the work “Una Recompensa Monstruosa” (A Monstrous Reward) in the Sala Alfonso Carrasco. Cost:  $5.00 for adults and $3.00 for children.

Música – Tomorrow at 21:00, rock bands “Funky tu madre” and “Osmo” will be in the Zoociedad Café (Benigno Malo y Bajada del Centenario).

Articles about –

“La Sala Real” (The Royal Room) – A new space at the Economuseo el Sombrero will be opened on 11/10 for exhibits and activities about historic and civic events that occurred on calle Rafael María Arízaga, formerly the “Calle Real.”  Various events in the struggle for independence happened on the Calle Real, such as when the priest Javier Loyola came from Chuquipata with people armed to help the rebellion 3 de Noviembre against the Spanish.  (I wonder if they were armed with sythes, pitchforks and machetes?)

Festival de Cine – The Festival Internacional de Cine de Cuenca (And if you can’t translate that, all I can do is roll my eyes and shake my head sadly.) will be from 1-6/4/2017.  There will be a competition with three categories – International competition for standard length works of at least 41 min. on any subject, genre or style; Competencia Zona Oscura (the Dark Zone competition) for terror, gore and fantasy; and Competencia Internacional de Cortometrajes for short films.  You can submit your film at festhome.com and filmfreeway.com.  Films must have been finished with production after 1/1/2015, the submitter must have the legal rights, submissions are due before 31/1/2017.

El Festival de Artes Inter y Multidisciplinarios – The festival, arranged by young artists will be held this Dec and will have a performance, a runway fashion show, dance and music.

Titeres – A review of the puppet show, “Una recompensa monstruoso.”

Sinfónica – The symphony will be playing teaching concerts today and tomorrow in the teatro de la Casa de la Cultura at 9:00 and 11:00 for youth and children from 24 city schools.  The program includes themes from Star Wars and Pirates of the Caribbean, The Typewriter, and more.

Otras cosas – 

Titular – Registrados 12.8 million voters (12.8 million voters registered) – Of these voters, 12,438,406 are on Ecuadorian territory and 378,292 are expats (Hey – if gringos in Ecuador are expats, why aren’t Ecuadorians outside of Ecuador expats, too?  Or are they considered “illegals” and “wetbacks” because they aren’t of European ancestry?)

Old bills – The Banco Central del Ecuador has redeemed 2,500 taped together bills of different denominations between 8/9 and 4/10.  The deadline for cashing in damaged bills ends 15/10. You can deposit bills with severe damage at private banks until 10/10 and at the BCE until 15/10.  The BCE will not accept bills torn into pieces and taped excessively (more tape than greenback?), a bill with less than 55% remaining, a torn bill taped excessively and patched with other paper, and a torn bill taped excessively so it hides the ID numbers.  To “fix” a torn bill, use a minimum amount of transparent tape and only on one side.

Public announcement – ETAPA announced water service interruptions for today, 5/10 from 8-16:00 in the San Juan Pamba, Minas and Llatcón sectors of the Parroquia Nulti for maintenance work.

Animal mistreatment – The Día Mundial de los Animales (World Animal Day) and a remembrance of St. Francis of Assisi were both celebrated.  In Cuenca, animal activists and organizations are worried about the statistics about animal mistreatment.  Between Jan & Sep of this year, 327 animals were brought into the Amaru Zoo and 58 % died of their injuries.  The most common animals brought in were papagallos y loros (parrots), pericos (parakeets), monos (monkeys), puercos espines (porcupines), venados (deer), tigrillos (a small wild cat), áquilas andinas (Andean eagle), cóndores, zariguellas (possums), tortugas (tortoises), and guatusas Andinas (Andean agoutis). (Those were your words for the day.  Not that it’ll help you order dinner since those are not animals that show up on menus here.)

Under the recently passed domestic animal protection ordinance, an average of two complaints come in each day about problems of pet mistreatment.  The ordinance also requires a permit from the Ministerio de Salud Pública (MSP) and the Unidad de Gestión de Animals (UGA – a new unit being created in the Environmental Management Commission) if you want to have breeds such as pit bulls and rottweilers.  (So here the government is controlling what dog you can own.  In the US it was the insurance companies who wouldn’t give you homeowners’ insurance if you owned certain breeds.)  To report mistreatment you can call ECU911 or the Unidad de Protección de Medio Ambiente (UPMA) of the National Police.
 
Traffic changes – There will be 4 pedestrian only zones on Gran Colombia and La Mar where only emergency vehicles will be permitted.  They are on the two blocks of La Mar between Estevez de Toral y Tarqui and on Gran Colombia between Octavio Cordero y Miguel Heredia and between Miguel Velez and Coronel Talbot.  There are other intersections with restrictions on either right or left turns from Gran Colombia – no lefts onto Luis Cordero, Hermano Miguel or Vargas Machuca and no right turns onto Borrero, Mariano Cueva or Tomas Ordóñez.  A study done in Nov, 2015 reported that 32% of Cuencanos use a private car, 31% use public transport and 31% walk.  (The rest are on bikes or pogo sticks or horses or whatever “other” means there are.)

Tarqui – The parish is celebrating 101 years since its creation on 15 & 16/10.  On Sat., 15/10 is sesión solemne at 14:00 and election of the Chola Tarqueña at 18:00 in the estadio Marco Bele.  Sunday’s activities include a civic and community parade at 9:00, the 13th Agricultural, Crafts, and Food Festival at 9:30, a Act of Thanks mass at 11:30, a baile de la caballería (calvalry dance?) at 12:30, a 10k run at 13:00 only for residents of Tarqui communities, and a dance and closing show at 16:00.

Internacional –

Bogotá – Pres. Juan Manuel Santos insinuated that the cease fire with FARC will be maintained only until 31/10 with the hope that the country can achieve a consensus after the “no” vote on the peace accord.  Rodrigo Londoño, leader of FARC twittered, “¿De ahí para adelante continúa la guerra?”  (So from here do we continue the war?)

Discuentos y compras –

Ecuamueble – Up to 70% off sale – 6-7-8/10 – Av. Paucarbamba y Miguel Cordero, esq. (which stands for esquina or corner and not that stupid esquire that lawyers label themselves.) – www.ecuamueble.com, 07 281 0656, 07 288 6079.

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana –

Jeanne