Miércoles, 5/4/2017: Bus stop blues, San Francisco Plaza merchants want meeting with mayor, Holiday agendas available

Hola, Todos –

Pagina cultural –

Header event –

Teatro – “MI-RA-DA” (L-OO-K or whatever) will be staged from today to el sábado at 20:00 in the CCE.  The work was created in a a creative scenic arts laboratory. <Makes it sound like they were creating Frankenstein’s monster or something.>

Articles about –

Esculturas – A show by Vicente Rodas opens today at 19:00 in the Museo de la Ciudad.  His subjects include el Padre Crespi; Rumiñahui, a warrior who fought against the Spanish invasion; the Chola Cuencana; ex <ex,ex,ex,ex – he held the office 5 times, but only completed a full term once for reasons of Latin American politics at the time.  He is shown with his arm thrown up in a signature gesture.  <I went to Google and evidently he was a fire and brimstone kind of speaker given to demonstrative oration, both vocal and manual.>  Another sculpture is of ex-Pres. Bush (the first) with his feet on a globe and a holding a bomb in throwing position above his head.  <The sculptor didn’t give him any clothes.>

Café y la lectura <remember yesterday’s word of the day?> – A father and son team will open “Talega cultural” (Culture bag) tomorrow at 19:00 on the ground floor of the CCE.  Their project will be there for 2 weeks, and combines coffee and reading.  You can buy coffee “Arabito” by the pound or half pound for $10 or $7.  You can also buy “the cultural bag” for $10.  It’s a mini burlap sack <the kind that green coffee comes to the roaster in – or that Dry Sack comes in if you haven’t seen coffee sacks> with a package of coffee, a filter, a book of Ecuadorian literature, an Ecuadorian comic book, and a promotional foto of Cuenca.

Review – A book of children’s stories was launched yesterday by the City Department of Culture.

History – There will be conference this viernes at 9:00 in the Sala de Conciertos in the CCE (Luis Cordero y Pres. Córdova) about the history at the time of Cuenca’s founding, but from a point of view of daily and social life, taken from primary sources in the National Archives.  <If your Spanish is up to it, that sounds like an interesting meeting.  It would probably make you the gringo “expert” on this epoch of history.>

Otras cosas –  

Titular – El CNE confirma triunfo de Moreno (CNE confirms Moreno’s victory) – And read the article in Wednesday’s CHL for details. As an addition to those details, both Jaime Nebot (mayor of Guayaquil) and Cynthia Viteri (ex-candidate) urged Lasso to present proof of fraud, Viteri in a Tweet with a lot of caps <Isn’t that considered the equivalent of shouting or screaming in a conversation?>

Guardia Ciudadana – An honor guard has been selected to escort Mayor Cabrera at occasions such as sesiones solemnos or when national and international leaders visit Cuenca.  The 30 cops were picked for appearance, conduct, character and attitude.  <Honor guards tend to come in matched sets and have enviable BMI’s.> There will always be two in the Mayor’s Office. You can see the changing of the guard at 8:00 every lunes. Their uniforms in the red and yellow of Cuenca’s flag, are similar to the Granaderos (Grenadiers) de Tarqui which is the national honor guard. It is the only military unit whose uniform hasn’t changed since Independence.

Bus stops – The 1500 stops in the canton include about 450 bus shelters, and damage and wear and tear are problems.  However, the main problem is theft.  <Do people cut them up and sell it as scrap metal?  Or are they repurposed – as lawn furniture or housing for livestock?)  Even though a stop or a shelter has been stolen, the buses have GPS systems that know where the stops are.  <A crowd of people standing around and waving might be a clue, too.>  Neighbors can ask for a stop to be installed, but it has to make sense and fit into the technical requirements.  <And here’s your trivia for the day.>  Spacing between stops is 200 m in the Cento and 400 m. outside.

Fiestas de Cuenca agenda – The agendas were distributed yesterday in the Hemiciclo in Parque Calderón.  There are 250 activities planned.  <Clone yourself.> The holiday for Cuencanos will be on 13 & 14/4.  Since the founding is on miércoles 12/4, and the law says that mid-week holidays will be observed on viernes or lunes, the holiday will be moved to jueves, 13/4 since the 14th is already the Good Friday Holiday. <Don’t know if banks will be open, but planning ahead is never a bad idea.>

Trees – EMAC is pruning and cutting down trees around the city.  At times, trees have fallen across power lines.  To report fallen or trees in danger of falling, call EMAC at 139.  (Write a script or hire your facilitator if needed.)

San Francisco Plaza – The merchants had a press conference yesterday and asked to meet with Mayor Cabrera.  They don’t want to leave until there is clarity about where they’re going and how they’re going to move back.  The president of the Cooperativa San Francisco said what information they get comes from the media and not from the city.  The mayor said the process is finished and the contract with the winning bidder will be signed 12/4.

Internacional –

Argentina – The Argentinean court ordered the seizure of 130 million pesos ($8.44 million) from Cristina Fernández  <ex-President> and forbade her from leaving the country.

Venezuela – Opposition representatives confirmed that protestors were shot at, tear gassed and pepper sprayed.

Brazil – The Superior Electoral Court of Brazil suspended the hearing to determine if there was election fraud in Rousseff and Temer’s 2014 campaign.  Rousseff’s defense asked for more time which was granted.

Paraguay – The Senate president, Roberto Acevedo, announced that he will propose the withdrawal of the constitutional amendment that would allow presidential re-elections.  The constitution currently allows one 5 year term without re-election. <Is that how it’s done?  You protest, you burn down some of the building and you finally get the politicians’ attention?>

Discuentos y compras –

Decameron – Locura en Punta Sal (Lunacy in Punta Sal) All Inclusive Resort – from 5-11/4 – from $79 per person per night – lots of small print – Call 1800 DECAME (332263) or www.decameron.com.  <If you call the 1-800 number let me know if you get a message that it’ll cost you 11 cents per minute.  Plus they probably make you wait at least 20 minutes before you get to talk to a person.>

Great Wall – Open House – 7/4 from 8:30-18:30; 8/4 from 9-16:00; 9/4 from 9-13:00 – a double cab pick up from $19,990; a crossover from $26,990; a sedan from $17,990; and an SV from $19,990 <I guess Great Wall doesn’t name their models.  I thought Chinese marketing was more sophisticated than that.> – Av. de las Américas 15-78 y Héroes de Verdeloma – 284-0816.

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana –

Jeanne