Tranvía cost study, Año Viejo dummies, Venezuela bonds in default, Loja festival starts tonight, New piano at the old cathedral

Nov 16, 2017 | 0 comments

Miércoles, 15/11/2017

Hola, Todos –

Pagina cultural –

Upcoming and ongoing agenda events –

Taller – There will be a ceramics workshop until el viernes in Los Eucaliptos. There are other classes such as decoration and flower art.

Tallers – The City Department of Culture is organizing workshops for kids in the cultural centers. En Los Sauces, there is an illustration workshop and in El Ángel a monigote making workshop. <I bet the first rule is don’t ever stuff your monigote (New Year’s Dummy) with sawdust or fireworks. Especially since the custom is to jump over the burning monigote 3 times and you never know when those fireworks are going to ignite.>

Fiesta del Beaujolais Nouveau 2017 – This wine festival will be on 23/11 a las 19:00 in the Alianza Francesa (Tadeo Torres 1-92 y Solano). You will “disfrutar” (to enjoy – your word for the day.) <As far as conjugating it, you’re on your own.> food, wine and raffles.

Festival Internacional de Artes Vivas – This live arts international festival in Loja will starts Thursday a las 20:30 in the Teatro Nacional Benjamín Carrión with the world famous Spanish group Els Comediants performing Zilbadone. To read more about the festival, click here.

Articles about –

The schedule of movies and activities for the Festival del Cine La Orquídea is ready and will be made public today. <11:59 counts as today, right?> From ayer hasta el próximo sábado, there will be Cine Itinerante screenings in the cantons of Paute, Chordeleg, Sígsig y Gualaceo, many of them open air. Starting on 20/11, the Rally Cinematográfico Universitario groups will start filming. They will be in San Blas, on av. Loja, El Vado, calle Rafael María Arízaga and the plaza 9 de Octubre. The festival program has 76 films from 42 countries.

Inaugural – A new piano will be inaugurated at a recital in the Catedral Vieja, Friday a las 19:30 with a program from North Americans Peter Dudar and Cindy Benson, Cuencano Bolívar Sarmiento and the teatro Barojo. Cost: Free for students, a donation of $5 or $10, and $20 for VIP seating.

CCE – The CCE is trying to reach all writers in the city who are interested in being published by CCE in the coming year.

Book – Oswaldo Encalada Vásquez’s book “El Big Bang de la Cultura” was published in Spain. You can also get it in digital format on the U. of Azuay web page at www.uazuay.edu.ec.

Otras cosas –

Titular – Glas, al banquillo de los acusados (Glas, to the defendants’ bench) See Wednesday’s CHL article for details.

License plates – Of the 7,500 plates EMOV (Local transit authority) needs, ANT (National Transit Agency) has only delivered 1,200. EMOV is giving out temporary documents good for 3 months and renewable while you wait for plates. <Probably those paper license plates you see taped to the back window.> ANT has said that all vehicles, on a national level, will have plates including those who haven’t had plates since 2015.

Tranvía – Mercy Orellana, a highly credentialed researcher in the Dept of Economics at the U. of Cuenca said a fare of $.25 would not be enough to sustain that transportation system. In her analysis, she concluded that the projection of 109,000 passengers each day was overestimated and as a consequence, the fare would need to be higher than 25¢. <And here starts the stuff for you numbers junkies.> The study found 38% of Cuenca households have vehicles (around 100,000 vehicles) with 1.8 riders per vehicle. The Tranvía needs to change bus riders and drivers into tram riders to generate sufficient demand. 62% of the population over 6 uses a bus and 26% use taxis, but of the 62%, 80% of the riders in the lowest income group. She said you need to know who demands public transportation. <All those rich tourists riding between the Industrial Park and Control Sur of course.> In 2016, the 475 urban buses (blue) moved 403,000 passengers per day. 9% or 35,000 passengers used Line 100 which has the same route as the tram will take.

After 5 years of operation, the system will need an investment of $11 million for maintenance and to improve service. At 30 years, it will need another $21 million. <Or by that time the trains are already rusting in the shed and cars are driving on the tracks.> The first year’s costs of operation and maintenance was estimated at $5.5 million, but has risen to $8 due to inflation.

Emissions reductions – At the COP23 in Bonn, Ecuador presented its advances in emissions reductions from deforestization and degradation of forests and sustainable forest management. It’s the 2nd country after Brasil to meet all the requirements for receiving payments based on those results.

Internet freedom – Freedom House published their internet freedom list. 7 Latin American countries were analyzed. México, Ecuador and Brasil maintained their partially free status along with Colombia. Venezuela sunk to not free along with Cuba. Argentina was free. The report studied 65 countries with 87% of the world’s internet users from junio de 2016 to mayo de 2017.

Años Viejos – Lorgio Riera has been making Old Year dummies for 19 years. He creates monigotes on his own themes and by commission. He works from enero a diciembre because “los políticos trabajan para mi todo el año.” (the politicians work for me the whole year) Register for the Años Viejos contest starting hoy until 15/12 and for the comparsas de Inocentes from 2-5/1/2018 at the Amistad Club (Pres. Córdova 9-80 y Padre Aguirre, ground floor of the Alli Tiana hotel.

Internacional –

Venezuela – Standard and Poor’s and Fitch rated Venezuelan international bonds in default. 2 for paying interest late and 2 from the govt oil company for delaying payment of the bonds at maturity.

And that´s all for today so Hasta Mañana –

Jeanne

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