BBC:
More than 100 people are feared drowned after an Ecuadorean ship carrying illegal migrants sank off the coast of Colombia, local authorities have said.
The boat is thought to have sailed from the port of Manta in Ecuador.
Tag: Ecuador
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More on the Failed States Index Map
Thanks to a link from the excellent Global Voices Online, my post about Bolivia, Ecuador, Peru, and Foreign Policy’s Failed States Index Map has attracted interesting comments from bloggers boz and Miguel A. Buitrago.
Boz agrees that the Index was flawed; he says the evaluators “tried too hard to rank all states on some common standard, and managed to fail a common sense test.” And Miguel points out some pages on the FP site that list the criteria they used in their rankings.
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It’s About Time
If you’re like me (and surely you are), you’ll be happy to learn that Google News has added RSS feeds for its news sections and individual searches.
Personally, the section feeds are worthless to me, because I think the Google News front-page auto-aggregator is worthless. But for news topics I monitor regularly — events from Ecuador and Taiwan, for example — being able to subscribe to a feed for these searches is a real boon.
(Via Micropersuasion.)
Back in early 2003, when I was living in Ecuador, I rode atop the famous Nariz del Diablo (Devil’s Nose) train. And one of my favorite pics from the journey was this image of me and a vendor who climbed atop the train and was selling his wares during one of the stops:
(for a bigger version, click here. The photo would’ve been better without the annoying German guy sticking his head up behind us. But anyway.)
I subscribe to an RSS feed (What is RSS? you say) for Flickr photos tagged “Ecuador,” and today this one was delivered to me. It’s a photo of the same vendor — and interestingly, though the pic was just uploaded, it appears to have been taken some three years before I met the guy, before he traded in his traditional bowler’s cap for his (probably pirated) Yankess woolie:
Update: Sorry, this photo is no longer available on Flickr, it seems.
One of Flickr’s most useful features is that it allows users to associate their images with “tags,” thus liberating them from individual albums. And discovering such photos is simple with RSS. Pretty cool stuff, if you ask me.
Check out Foreign Policy’s Failed States Index Map. Interesting stuff.
My gripe: Ecuador is listed as “borderline,” while neighboring Peru is described as “in danger.”
Is Peru really in worse shape than Ecuador, which has seen three presidents deposed since 1997? While Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo’s approval ratings have been subterranean for a while (only about 7-10% of Peruvians currently approve of his performance), the government appears more stable than its northern neighbor.
The country-by-country data provides some insight: Peru receives a poorer score for “Security Apparatus.” I suppose that’s a reference to the Peruvian state’s ongoing struggle to deal with those pesky Maoist rebels, the Shining Path. The guerillas have been quiet of late, though, so I find this explanation surprising.
UPDATE: I just took another glance at the map, and I wanna know this: who’s doing the fact-checking over at Foreign Policy? Morgan Spurlock? Amazingly, Bolivia’s not even included on the list.
Bolivia’s president — as you’ll recall reading about here and elsewhere — stepped down a few months ago after a massive indigenous uprising. Bolivia is truly teeting on the edge of chaos; Peru and Ecuador are comparatively far from collapse.
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“The Weirdest Book in the World”
A few years back, when I was living in Ecuador, Jill and I went to the sleepy coastal town of Puerto Lopez for a beach vacation. We stayed at the excellent Hosteria Mandala. As we were checking out, I noticed that the owners of the place, an Italian-German couple in their 40’s, had a big coffee table-sized book on the reception counter.
I took a closer look; It was called The Codex Seraphinianus. I’d never seen anything like it — the thing was enormously thick; it contained page after page of surreal, sci-fi-inspired illustrations, and it was written in an unidentifiable text. I never forgot the book’s title because I scribbled it in my journal; every so often, over the next year or so, I’d come across my hastily-written note and wonder about that strange book. I even searched amazon.com and google for it but never found anything.
Then, just the other day, quite by accident, I came across this site: THE UNOFFICIAL CODEX SERAPHINIANVS WEB SITE
The site provides this acronym for Seraphiniaus, and provides an introduction:
Strange and Extraordinary Representations of Animals and Plants and Hellish Incarnations of Normal Items from the Annals of Naturalist/Unnaturalist Luigi Serafini
This web site is dedicated to giving information (what little there is) on the weirdest book in the world, the CODEX SERAPHINIANUS. The Codex is a collection of original artwork by Italian artist Luigi Serafini, presented as a travalogue or scientific study of an alien world. Unlike such alien worlds as Darwin IV in Barlowe’s Expedition, which one might find in a science fiction novel, the world in the Codex is obviously some kind of perverse reflection of our own. All of the Codex is presented entirely in an obscure alien writing. This writing, in combination with the bizarre pictures, is what finally puts the Codex in its own league for weirdness. For instance, on one page is a “Rosetta Stone” – only it just translates Codex script into another alien language. A lecturer presenting the “Stone” is nonchalantly stabbing a red blob inside of it while he points out aspects of the script. The whole effect is unimaginable, even after several “readings”, and I intend to stop failing to describe it now.
Here’re a couple of the tamer illustrations; these only just scratch the surface:
And:
This is one is typical of the many darker illustrations:
Apparently the book was published in the late 70’s and can be ordered online from an Italian bookseller. For more info and typical illustrations, check out this guy’s account of obtaining a copy in an Italian bookstore. There’s a Wikipedia page for the book, too, which contains more details.
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Illegal Immigrants from Ecuador
The News-Times of Danbury, CT has this interesting report about undocumented workers from Ecuador.
Some stuff I didn’t know:
If all the people who boarded boats in Ecuador last year and sailed toward the United States gathered in one spot, they could fill the University of Connecticut’s 40,000-seat Rentschler Field — and then some.
And that doesn’t count the tens of thousands who tried coming to America by land and by air.
Danbury officials have noticed for years the unusual influx of people from the South American nation that has 13 million people in a land area slightly smaller than Nevada.
Now national officials are taking notice as well.
Last week, U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., attached an amendment dealing specifically with Ecuador to the $22 billion Foreign Relations Act, which was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives by a wide margin.
Burton’s amendment asks the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security to study ways to thwart illegal immigration and human trafficking in Ecuador. Burton wants the federal agencies to report back in six months.
And:
The small country is now South America’s largest exporter of illegal immigrants to the United States, according to the report.
Between 1990 and 2000, the number of illegal immigrants from Ecuador to the United States nearly tripled, from 37,000 people a year to about 108,000 people.
As well as:
Ecuador is the second-most corrupt country in South America, according to the research report prepared for Congress. Its corruption is on the same level as Iraq and Sierra Leone.
Don’t ask me how I find this stuff:
Cuarenta is played in Ecuador, mostly by people from the mountains, including the cities of Cuenca and Quito (the capital). Cuarenta means “40” in Spanish; this is the number of cards in the deck as well as the points required to win. The play is supposed to be full of bravado, loud, exciting, even silly.
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Ecuadorian Slang
UPDATE: January 24, 2011 — The link below appears to be broken. Here’s a different compendium that seems to contain many of the same words.
Chuta! Here’s a fabulous list of Ecuadorian slang. It’s full of gems — although I’d add a few choice words I remember from my year at latitude zero. Namely, buenaso (really good) and sigue no mas (go ahead).
I’m actually delighted to have come across this, as I assumed that a few of these were not specific to Ecuador — I thought they were standard Spanish. In the future, I’ll be sure not to ask for, say, canguil (popcorn) at a movie theatre in Mexico. Or say mande (huh?) to a Honduran.
Most telling definition: “Cholo: 1) A person with mixed race (indigenous and spanish) 2) Insult.”
Definition that evokes the most unpleasant memories: chuchaqui (hungover). I always wondered how you spelled that.
(Link via Gridskipper.)
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Drug Smuggling News
Miami: “Customs and Border Patrol officials said they have stopped an operation that was trying to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. by hiding it in a shipment of plantains from Ecuador.”
Australia: “Many Australians reacted with anger and shock after a Queensland woman they believe is innocent was found guilty of smuggling drugs into Bali and sentenced to 20 years’ jail.”