Everything I learned about blogging...

Recently a dear friend pull the plug or better off "signed off" on her blog. I have since started to write this post that I hope to publish soon. It is an idea I have had from the get-go when I decided to create elToronteco. It is a huge tribute to the blogs that showed me the power of this new media. Then I realized, What do I know about blogging? Not much, I guess. But what I do know is that these blogs and their authors have influenced more than my "extra-curricular" activity of blogging but the way I see and live life. The very first blog I consistently read was:

Bitácora de Mauricio Romero http://romerogt.delaermita.com/ [Español]
Nepotism-shmepotism... I believe that the melange of personal notes, rants about open source technology, the occasional political diatribe, reiki and other spiritual and material matters really describes the person with whom I share most of my genetic configuration. RomeroGT is my older brother but more than that is a great friend and a real traveling companion. Space separates us, but distance is not measured in Kms. I've been reading this blog since 2004 and I believe I started by commenting via e-mail and then I figured out how to post my comments. This blog changes its css every now and then, always looking for different layouts. On one of those layouts had a widget with recent posts from other "Blogs chapines" (chapín is slang for a person from Guatemala) and through those links I was able to discover other blogs, particularly, in October of 2006 I stumble upon this blog:

Hello from Here http://hellofromhere.blogspot.com
LD is a Canadian journalist who was living at the time in Quetzaltenango or Xela as it is also known, the second largest city in Guatemala after The Capital. The personal touch of her postings and the struggle she was having with integration of her experience in Guatemala, which was in many different levels quite deep, with her Canadian identity caught my attention. Then there was a personal link because a friend here in Toronto actually have met her a couple of Summers before while visiting Xela. One important think I learn from HFH was to always keep it personal. Not just report the news (which in LD's case is her actual job), but find something that you cannot deliver in any other way. HFH could be seen as an Ex-Pat blog, one of those transition from the "dreaded mass e-mail" to the public posting of the author's adventures in the foreign land. On the posts of HFH you can find a human side of Guatemala and the transition from being an outsider to becoming part of that reality... because Guatemala, as Francisco Goldman describes in The Long Night of the White Chickens, is a country you don't live in but you live with. And LD also showed this on a post called "Ni de aquí ni de allá" just before returning to Canada.

LD decided to pull the plug on HFH recently. She's been back on Canadian soil for more than a year and the "novelty" of living in Toronto is not really inspiring. Believe me, I know, and you can see my own sparseness in posting as such. One last lesson from HFH is that sometimes you need to live in order to blog. It has to mean something to you. It took me a year to come across a situation that merited starting a blog. In the meantime, through the Web of relationships the Internet is I was able to find two of my best friends' blogs: From Ronald Flores, well www.ronaldflores.com [Es], and from Ale her two blogs Congo Days [En] and Desde Kinshasa [Es].

From Ronald's blog I have learned that I don't have to fear to elevate the level of the conversation. From both of Ale's blogs I have rediscovered that kindred spirit I met back in Guatemala and also to dare to write in both languages. I took the single blog two languages approach whereas she keeps two separate yet equally important blogs. These two friends of mine make me proud of being a Guatemalan blogger.

The last blog I would like to mention as part of my formative time as a budding blogger is La Antigua Guatemala Daily Photo (http://antiguadailyphoto.com) whose author, Rudy is one of the first great friends I have never met (although I will try again to correct this later in the year). LAGDP has given me the opportunity to craft my commenting skills (as HFH and RomeroGT did as well). It is also "concerned" with design as RomeroGT. However, one of the key lessons is the beauty of using pictures to tell a story.

I must mention two good friends (and their blogs) that I made since I started elToronteco. Carmencita, a Guatemalan woman living in California, where she grew up, is another two languages/two blogs kinda person with the recently renamed "Un viaje a las raices" (http://carmendebizet.blogspot.com/) and with her personal Xanga blog http://www.xanga.com/CarmenDeBizet/ , which heading reads "Given enough coffee I could rule the world". Carmencita is a wonderful story-teller with a good sense of humour and also with a complex identity (which is a common denominator on the whole bunch described here, me included). The other amiga is Cancun Canuck (http://www.cancuncanuck.com/) or Canucka as I call her in the blogosphere. A former Toronto resident now transplanted into that Caribbean tourist hot-spot of Cancún where she is living a life among the nativ.. I mean locals. Her insights are great, her stories are funny and human, and (I must mention it) her 3-year-old son is just the cutest MexiCanadian ever (there is something to be said about mixing the races ;-) ).

So, I might not know much about blogging. But my journey started by lurking and commenting, particularly on the blogs mentioned here. To all you guys, a YouTube dedication:

Contigo Aprendí by Armando Manzanero
Interpreted by Costa Rica's Trio Azul Kristal

For when I am ready...

Je fais souvent ce rêve étrange et pénétrant
D'une femme inconnue, et que j'aime, et qui m'aime,
Et qui n'est, chaque fois, ni tout à fait la même
Ni tout à fait une autre, et m'aime et me comprend.
From "Mon rêve familier" (Paul Verlaine)

Yes, I am thinking about you while I am looking for myself out here. I don't know who you are or if we have already met. However, I needed to write these lines to you. Right now I am not ready, I know it, I know that for sure. And I keep repeating this to myself (my self) so that I understand it well. I've been bouncing from here to there, using my heart as a squash ball, always coming back to me. I never give it up and I never give it in. I have kept the key to my heart all the time. For that I apologize to the wonderful women that have had to endure me as a partner.

I hope you don't get put off by this past, this baggage I am carrying. I hope that you will understand and I hope that I will understand your own past as well. And this hope is what makes me write this letter to the wind on this snowy Sunday of December. Maybe it is solitude (the one that throws you towards the arms of lust); maybe it is listening to stories on the radio about older couples dancing around and catching each other like safety nets and then listening to a beautiful song called (as the radio essay was titled as well) Dance if you want to by Rose Cousins. Maybe it is watching re-runs of that favourite show of mine, Mad about you, and realizing I am now the age of the characters and how on my twenties I used to dream of that life, of that loving partnership of being able to laugh at each other and at oneself with each other. Of that wonderful bond.

My friend JBug says we men don't have a biological clock, but a psychological one and that it does tick in the early thirties. He must know because he is a 40-year old bachelor with a similar history than mine, I have always thought. Although he is a dear friend I really don't want to be like him in ten years. In ten years I want to be with you...

I don't know where, and I don't know doing what, I just know I want to be with you. If there are children, just our life will tell. I want to share parenthood with you and I hope you want it too. I am certain that the love I have to give (and that I have kept to myself all this time) is enough to be my share of the loving bond that spouses have and that is the basis for a family. And still I cannot give it to you right now. That much I know.

I have a promising future, and usually I use this term sarcastically to refer to the career I will have after grad school, that land of milk and honey that has been promised to those of us who have taken the long way home. But this time I am not being sarcastic about my future. I am being honest. I should rephrase that... WE have a promising future. You and me. For when I am ready the possibility of US will be opened.

For now this is what I have to say to you. You may be reading this right now or in the future. Or you will never read it. I might already be talking to you or you might be in other continent or across the street. I don't know and right now I don't want to know. With these lines I am attempting to create a dam for the torrent I feel uncontrollably every day, the drive of going after you and finding you and telling you all this. Because now is out there, in the open. And is my wish that this cold weather freezes that torrent and turns it into a frozen avenue where we can one day skate hand in hand... and then run inside for some nice hot chocolate.

The hell with it!

Today 7 December, there are three celebrations in my motherland: The day of the sportsperson, the day of the journalist (Happy Day LD!), and "La Quema del Diablo", that is the celebration of when Guatemalans "burn the devil". This last one is a ritual that precedes the day of the Immaculate Conception, which is tomorrow, 8 December. I have decided to translate a column written by my dearest friend, with whom I have carried a conversation across milennia, Ronald Flores entitled originally "Al diablo con eso" and that he reproduced on his blog a year ago. Re-reading it and translating it made me realize how it fits me like a glove and therefore gives me a "green" way of burning the devil in Toronto. Thus, with permission from the author, and knowing that this is a clumsy attempt on translating a brilliant piece of reflexion here I present you: "The hell with it!".

The hell with it!
Original in Spanish at: http://www.ronaldflores.com/2006/12/06/quema-del-diablo/

I am aware that, with very good reason, several environmentalist groups are requesting today, 7 of December, day of “La Quema del Diablo”, the cessation of the traditional bonfires that we Guatemalans light at sundown. However, there are things I would like to say before this public opinion fight translates into a law that ban this tradition, which, for me as a child, kick-started the Christmas season.

I don't know who came up with the parochial idea of taking the old mattresses out to the street, the piles of papers that were gathering dust and mold, and burn them as night falls. I've been told that it has been said that the devil hides in the corners of the houses, among old things, within the garbage that we accumulate throughout the year without knowing why we do.

I've been told that burning that pile of trinkets and useless printed material made the devil burn on his very own inferno, and that this custom was necessary to begin the Christmas season with a clean home. Within that context, I confess that I have practiced more than once this interesting purification ritual. I have thrown to the flames notebooks from subjects I detested during the year, letters from unsuccessful loves and reproaches that I have received or that I have written without sending, pictures where I didn't come up as I wanted, manuscripts of novels that I will never touch again.

I have enjoyed, on the cold of December, putting my hands and face close to the flames, and tear apart the pages from notebooks, observe how paper was consumed and the writing that popped out from the white paper vanished under the growing black ink of the ashes. Today I plan to do something similar, though different. I am going out onto the streets at the end of the day. I am going to take all the resentments, those that I have accumulated throughout the past year, all the envies, all the pains and I am going to make them burn in the bonfire of vanities that I keep carrying around uselessly.

Pain, envy, bile, resentment, sadness, bitterness that I have kept in the corners of my heart, in the trace of the tears that I have cried for the people that have hurt me (even though it was not their intention or because it was precisely their intention), in the silences that were caused by confused moments, in face of the thefts that I was victim of, of the deaths of loved ones that I experienced throughout this year, in face of the inevitable farewells from people I love and with whom I simply cannot be with anymore.

Indeed, like everyone else, I am not lacking times when someone has told me or done something to cause me pain, when someone has made me decide keeping this pain until it evolves into resentment, sometimes even into hostile and persistent hatred, or into a deep sadness, a subtle bitterness or a die-hard pain. I am amazed of realizing how much I stick to this garbage, how much energy I have to waste to keep it going, as if it was important.

In the personal moments I have kept, because I believe these moments are what constitute my own history, I confirm that I prefer to remember sad things, conflictive situations, small and large dramas. It seems as if they are all that had happened to me, and that is not the case. There are as many or more happy moments, but I don't know why I don't pay as much attention to these moments as to the tragic ones. Sometimes, when someone asks me about my life and I start telling it, I realize how much it is like the history of my country: A sequence of sterile confrontations that made no sense at all.

It is not because it was that way and that's it. It is, rather, what I chose to tell and how I tell it. There are memories to which I hold on to, regardless of how much they hurt at the moment, and how much they keep hurting even though I would like to kid myself saying that they don't matter anymore. Today I am going to throw them away with the devil, let them burn in the flames. It's over. The hell with it. The puck stops here.

I am lacking space in my small spiritual house to give them shelter. The elders are right: Among them hides the devil. I'll take advantage of the bonfires being lit today to purify me, to be ready and celebrate as it must be celebrated the humble hope that is born on a manger.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Los Buenos

Este próximo domingo es la segunda vuelta electoral en Guatemala. Este proceso electoral es el segundo en el que no participo desde que emigré a Canadá. A pesar de que legalmente y apasionadamente me consideraro guatemalteco, estoy consciente que es por mi propia decisión que he renunciado a este derecho de todo ciudadano que es el poder votar. Esta entrada esta dedicada a ustedes, los que sí pueden votar, los que "se quedaron", los que "no se han ido", y a los que "regresaron". Ustedes, mis amigos, amigas, hermanas, hermanos, ustedes son los buenos.

Con el peligro de ofender a varias de las personas que más aprecio, quienes como yo viven y dejan vivir afuera de las fronteras del país que nos vio nacer, tengo que aclarar que no es que nosotros no somos buenos. Hablando exclusivamente de mí mismo, aunque quienquiera puede verse aludido o identificarse con mis sentimientos, tengo la certeza de no ser de los buenos, tanto como no soy de los malos. Simplemente soy. No tengo bando ni condición... a veces hago mis maldades y al parecer tengo mis buenos momentos. Vivo en una sociedad "post" en la cual me he convertido en un híbrido migrante, que más allá de ser "igualado", defino la normalidad de este país y esta ciudad. Particularmente he tomado uno de los tantos caminos que se me presentan para escalar la pirámide social. No creo que mi ruta sea la mejor ni la peor, y a veces no sé si tiene destino o si el destino es la ruta.

Volviendo a ustedes, los buenos, los que son más y habitan dentro de las fronteras de la República de Guatemala. Ustedes tienen una oportunidad este domingo de demostrar que la democracia vale la pena. Desde la lejanía y sin derecho a voz les diré que me ha dado tristeza ver la situación política guatemalteca. La falta de liderazgo, no exclusiva de Guatemala, es impresionante. El divisionismo, el oportunismo, la violencia, la corrupción, la desilusión, la apatía, no son nuevas situaciones. Y no por eso dejan de ser trágicas. Por eso quiero exhortarlos a que voten. Voten por quien quieran. Llevense una su choca y echénla a la suerte. Hagan el "tin marín" si quieren. Estoy seguro que en la boleta de la primera vuelta tal vez lo tuvieron que hacer de todas maneras.

Pero voten con la consciencia y el compromiso de que estos próximos cuatro años su participación no se va a desteñir como la tinta "dizque" indeleble. Voten pensando en un proyecto de nación. La nación que nos hemos negado, unos por cómodos, otros por opresores, otros por oprimidos... otros porque nos fuimos. Hagan escuchar su voz. Desde lejos, desde aquí donde los saludo, les puedo dar mis dos centavos acerca de mis sueños para Guatemala. La Guatemala que anhelo para mi familia, porque mi familia forma parte de los buenos.

Dos cosas puedo decirles de lo que pienso acerca de esta nación de la que les hablo. La primera es que en esta nación no cabe el concepto de limpieza social. Aberración Macartista que la guerra civil, como extensión de la guerra fría, dejó olvidada dentro del sistema anacrónico guatemalteco del siglo XXI. La segunda es que un movimiento indigenista no es la solución. Estoy convencido que dentro de los guatemaltecos que se identifican ancestralmente como pertenecientes a pueblos mayas tambien son más los buenos. Pero mientras no pongan de lado el divisionismo y el odio no podrá nacer una Guatemala unida. Claro, es fácil hablar así para un ladino pseudo-criollo que vive en el extranjero. Sin embargo, la realidad no deja de ser realidad por la falta de calidad o calificación de quien la expresa.

No digo que cuando esta nación guatemalteca emerja inmediatamente volveré a ejercer mi derecho de vivir en el territorio en el que nací. Pero al menos tendré paz en mi corazón y no me sentiré como que estoy huyendo de Guatemala y dejaré de sentir esa resaca moral cada vez que tomo un avión hacia y desde La Aurora. Tal vez algún día hasta vuelva a ser de los buenos.

Mi Barrio

Bueno, pues he estado viviendo ya por dos semanas completas en una parte de Toronto conocida como "Corso Italia", específicamente vivo a "paso de perico" de la intersección de la avenida St. Clair West con la calle Dufferin. A la derecha he puesto una foto de la casa en la que alquilo un cuarto en el segundo nivel, el cual es un apartamento que comparto con otras tres personas. Los tres de origen mexicano. El primo de una de mis compañeras de casa me comentó que a esta área de Toronto los mexicanos le llaman el "DF-rin" haciendo un juego de palabras entre "el DF" ( o sea México Distrito Federal) y la calle "Dufferin".

Desde que me vine a vivir a Toronto en el 2003 había estado viviendo en una parte de la ciudad llamada North York, que es donde queda York University, mi alma mater (MA) y mi actual casa de estudios. Para dar un poco de referencia, North York era una ciudad aparte que eventualmente fue anexada a la ciudad de Toronto, lo que acá le llaman "amalgamación". Así que oficialmente North York no es un suburbio, pero es una área relativamente alejada del centro de la ciudad.

El cambiarse de casa no es cosa sencilla. Y creo que pude haberlo hecho mejor si me hubiese deshecho de varias libras de papel impreso que nunca voy a volver a leer en mi vida y que si las necesito tengo copias electrónicas de dichos documentos. También existe esa sensación de no quererse desapropiar de pertenencias con y sin significado sentimental. Entiendo claramente a lo que le llaman en inglés "accarrear equipaje" (baggage), pues realmente veo una diferencia entre lo que poseía (o traje) a Canadá en el 2000, luego lo que traje a Toronto en el 2003, y lo que ahora cuento y reconozco como mío.

Bueno, este no era una entrada sobre mudanza y equipaje, sino sobre mi nuevo barrio. Aunque tradicionalmente es un área de immigrantes italianos (de allí Corso Italia) hay una pujante comunidad hispano-hablante y portuguesa. También, de mi camino desde la estación del metro más cercana (St. Clair West, en la intersección de la calle Bathurst y la avenida St. Clair West) paso por tiendas, almacenes y restaurantes filipinos, jamaiquinos, griegos, y hasta un centro cultural húngaro. Así que no se puede decir que Corso Italia es un barrio italiano, ni que es un barrio hispano. Es una muestra de la multiculturalidad de Toronto. Aqui he puesto una foto de la Iglesia que queda enfrente de mi casa. Se puede ver acá la parada del tranvía ("streetcar") el cual no esta funcionando por reparaciones a las vías y las calles. Sin embargo, el tranvía ha sido sustituido por buses urbanos.

No me tomó mucho acostumbrarme a mi nueva ruta hacia la U. Siempre me he levantado temprano para no andar en carreras, así que he podido tomar diferentes rutas para ver la más eficiente. Con resultados similares: Aproximadamente 45 minutos de camino y entre una y dos transferencias. Puedo: (1) tomar dos buses o (2) tomar un bus, luego el metro ("subway") y luego otro bus, eventualmente una de estas rutas puede convertirse en tranvía-metro-bus. Aqui les van dos fotos desde distintas paradas de buses que me quedan a menos de una cuadra de distancia.

Creo haberlas tomado en distintos días pero a horas parecidas. Pueden ver como al empezar el otoño el sol va saliendo más tarde. Ya me ha tocado salir a oscuras a las 7 a.m. Esta es la estación que más me agrada acá en Canadá. Los colores son maravillosos y el clima se va poniendo frío, pero no tanto que tenga uno que usar doble ropa interior or abrigo de invierno. Hoy salí a dar mi paseo de domingo, a hacer el super y tomarme un café mientras preparo mi clase del lunes. Aproveché para tomar un par de fotos de puestos de frutas o "tiendas" que venden artículos de primera necesidad, además de flores y otras cosas.

Estos son los colores de otoño, los verdes, los anaranjados, los amarillos, los rojos... claro que hay gente que ve el otoño como la antesala al temido invierno y la definitiva despedida al verano. Yo prefiero verlo como otro paso más en el paso del tiempo. ¿Cuál es su estación preferida? ¿Han podido experimentar más de dos estaciones? ¿Cuál es la époc a del año que esperan con ansia?