El escándalo de los controladores aéreos

August 4th, 2010

Estoy escandalizada. Esta mañana hablaba el presidente de AENA en el programa de ES RADIO Cantaba las excelencias de Aena, sus logros, los aeropuertos y terminales construidos, y todo financiándose con las tasas que se cobran. Luego, contaba cómo una parte de los cometidos de Aena, la de la navegación aérea, la que incluye el control del espacio aéreo, y por tanto los controladores aéreos, producía pérdidas.

Se quejaba de los controladores aéreos españoles, empleados de Aena. El presidente de Aena se quejaba que sus empleados ganaban sueldos que multiplicaban por tres el sueldo de los controladores ingleses (los europeos que menos ganaban – aunque pensando que los españoles están en torno a los 300000 euros al año, no creo que ganar 100000 euros sea para pasar hambre). Es más, el presidente de Aena, contaba compungido, cómo la productividad de los controladores españoles era un tercio de la productividad de los controladores alemanes.

Es decir, este señor nos decía a todos los que escuchábamos el programa que él, como presidente de Aena, pagaba nueve veces más a sus empleados, los controladores, de lo que podría ser justo, justificado y razonable. Y ésto lo contaba para que todos los oyentes se compadecieron de Aena, la víctima de los controladores.

Yo creo que el presidente de Aena nos debe a todos los españoles una explicación. Su gestión de una organización pública es lamentable. Tan lamentable que su defensa es que los empleados ganan demasiado y producen poco. Y esto lo dice el presidente? Como si me quejara de que los caprichos de mi nieta de menos de un año me puede llevar a la bancarrota. ¿No sería más lógico pensar que por alguna razón consiento los caprichos de la nieta?

No sería más lógico preguntarnos por qué el presidente de Aena, año tras año, consiente el “chantaje” de los controladores? Y por qué surge a la superficie ahora… con la gestión del El Prat en las bambalinas.

Give credit where it is due

June 10th, 2010

Give credit where it’s due

A couple of days ago I was surprised to find in a package of assorted tidbits in the internet, a brief note saying that an award had been given to the creator of INCAPARINA. The award was dated in 2003 and although the news blurb did not say so, it made it seem a recent breakthrough.

I was surprised because Incaparina is an old friend. Fifty years ago I was working during the summer at the INCAP (Instituto de Centro América y Panamá) headquarters, in Guatemala. At that time they were already marketing INCAPARINA (a play on the name of the institute and “harina”, flour. Incaparina was a type of ground meal made of different types of grains, beans and cereals. It was developed by a team of nutritionists, that set out to make good nutrition available to everyone in Central America. The product (Incaparina) ensured supply of daily requirements of protein, vitamins, minerals, for a very low price. It was packaged in plastic bags, needed no refrigeration, was light and easy to carry, could be used anywhere. And what is best, it could be eaten as a gruel, spread on tortillas, drunk as an atol, or added to whatever was on the menu, enriching it nutritionally.

It was rightly hailed and celebrated an achievement. It is akin to the gofio of the Canary Islands – also ground meal of roasted grains and cereals – an excellent nutritional contribution to the diet.

The team of nutritionists was truly what a panoply of scientists, including medical doctors, chemists, biologists and engineers. This I know first hand. One of them was my mother’s first cousin, well-loved and frequent guest at home. But the feat was not just developing the product, it was also producing, packaging, distributing and marketing it. All of this was accomplished with good, hard work and the pride of contributing towards improving the future of the region through better nutrition of the population.

The beer company owners agreed to distribute it, ensuring that it reached virtually every hamlet. What town did not have a bar that bought beer? This, too, I know first hand. A friend’s father was the one who achieved that small miracle.

I lost track of all this and now it has surfaced in my mind with the news of the award given in 2003 to someone who was not there when and where it was developed. It is sad that a group of people accomplishing something good going on great such as Incaparina should be slighted or ignored merely because they were not out looking for limelight. The award given in 2003 does not even mention the original development. I think credit should be given where it is due.

Mind you, the award might be well deserved, for further development, for better packaging, for better distribution, but it is sad to see the creators ignored. We live in such a media-oriented world that if there is nothing written or recorded, it is just obliterated, and being ignored, finally loses its very identity. Sometimes, it is just a question of someone shouldering in and taking credit where there should be none given. Sometimes, we are gullible, or just not alert enough to speak out and insist on credit being given where it is due.

SANSON Y DALILA

April 23rd, 2010

Eran una pareja de Gran Daneses más altos que yo cuando tenía 7 años. Imagino que fue entonces cuando comencé a fijarme en la belleza de estos perros altos, esbeltos, tranquilos. No solo son de andar pausado, sino de ánimo sosegado. Viven la vida como en cámara lenta. Quizás porque sepan que pueden resolver cualquier emergencia con su talla y peso, porque si se tercia correr con dos zancadas estarán lejos del peligro.

Pertenecían a mi tía, Luz, Lucita, casada con un hombre adinerado y enamorado. Vivían en una casa grande, blanca, en medio de un jardín sin ninguna gracia que se extendía por todas partes. Una pradera artificial, artificial en hechura, plana como una baldosa, pero de césped natural, orlada de árboles raquíticos con lo que no se podía ni volar un cachirulo (en Guatemala, barrilete). Lo mejor del jardín eran Sansón y Dalila. Los veías pasear, o tumbarse juntos a la sombra de algún árbol, haciéndose confidencias. Siempre juntos, siempre solos. Algo como los cisnes que a veces vemos en los estanques de los parques… distantes, elegantes, bellísimos.

Los habían traído del extranjero – lo que hace 60 años era una verdadera extravagancia, en primer lugar porque el extranjero era más lejos y más extraño, porque las razas de perros se apreciaban menos. Entonces pensé que serían daneses de Dinamarca, pero seguramente eran daneses criados en Estados Unidos o México. Pero tampoco pongo por imposible que fueran daneses de Dinamarca. Lucita era así.

Para ella eran más un complemento a su casa. Si hubieran sido autómatas, le hubieran gustado más. Les salvaba ser dos, estar juntos. Uno hubiera muerto de tristeza.

Lo que más recuerdo era su sentido del humor. Recuerdo ver a Sansón salir a recibir a su dueña acercándose con un trote lento y cadencioso que se comía los metros, detenerse a treinta centímetros ante los gritos de “SANSÓN! NO, PARA!” que chillaba sin cesar mientras buscaba una pared. Sansón se erguía con un movimiento fluido y sin esfuerzo, apoyaba las patas delanteras en los hombros de Lucita, quien si no había encontrado una pared que la respaldase, caía al suelo a recibir los lambetezos de su mascota.

A Dalila le gustaban los sombreros. Por aquel entonces las señoras cuando salían “vestidas”, fuera a misa, a un almuerzo, o una merienda, se tocaban con sombreros. Casi siempre eran bastante discretos, aunque fuera por pura comodidad, pero siempre recuerdo ver a Lucita con una pamelas grandes, negras, con flores o velos. Era una mujer hermosa, alta y de cuerpo bonito. Podía lucir sombreros espectaculares y le encantaba, por encima de todo, destacar y llamar la atención. Pues bien, a Dalila nada le gustaba más que ver salir a su ama con sombrero para acercárselo por detrás, o de costado, dar un pequeño salto, casi más un ponerse de puntillas, y ladearle el sombrero. Nunca vi que se lo quitara, entonces los sombreros iban bien sujetos con alfileres al pelo. Pero el grito de sorpresa, susto y disgusto no faltaba jamás. Ni tampoco las maldiciones que le caían a la perra.

Dalila se retiraba, toda digna a reunirse con Sansón y comentarle su travesura.

Siempre me parecieron los habitantes más “humanos” de esa casa.

LUNA

April 20th, 2010

Luna murió este fin de semana. Tenía doce años. Estaba demasiado gruesa, hacía muy poco ejercicio, tomaba pastillas para el corazón, y últimamente para un edema pulmonar. Sin embargo, todo esto lo había ido asumiendo y parecía que iba a vivir más tiempo. Un perro pequeño puede muy bien vivir quince, diecisiete años. Lo que no pudo asumir fue la muerte de su amo hace seis semanas.

Su dueña, tiene nombre de princesa de cuento de hadas. Es una mujer que tiene unas facciones regulares y agradables. Tiene unos ojos vivos e inteligentes y una sonrisa fácil. Además, es su gesto habitual de generosidad y ternura lo que la hacen verdaderamente bella aunque probablemente no haya sido considerada una joven “bonita”. La edad ha ido acortando su paso, ralentizando su ritmo, haciendo su figura más llena y dándole arrugas de vida … sosegada, ordenada, curiosa, alerta y alegre.

Cuando murió su amo, Luna no quiso volver a la salita. El cojín a los pies del sillón quedó desierto. Luna pasaba de puntillas por la puerta, miraba, y seguía a la cocina. No salía de la cocina. No quería salir a la calle, y como la casa de Nubelinda es la típica de pueblo, con corral abierto, terminó por no salir. Terminó por no sacarla: “cómo voy a sacarla si la tengo que arrastrar, literalmente, porque rehusa caminar?

El veterinario dijo que se había dejado morir. La tristeza, la nostalgia, la ausencia de su amo, no le dejaron seguir viviendo.

Viuda de seis semanas, Nube ahora está desconsolada. No es que llore más la pérdida de la perra que la de Vicente. Es que llueve sobre mojado, es que la soledad es aún mayor.

RECORDING FAMILY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

April 18th, 2010

The members of the Indian population of Guatemala have clung to their customs and costumes. Even today, the brightly coloured clothes, hand woven, and proudly worn are an eyeful in more than one way. They are first of all, a statement of their philosophy, of their beliefs. The proof that they were surviving despite the cultural pressure of living in a different world.

These colourful costumes vary from region to region, from town to town. Apart from the general colour and fashion of the region, each town has specific patterns. Like the knitting patterns of the Irish fishermen’s sweaters, or the pattern and colours of the Scottish tartans; the patterns, designs and drawings of the textiles in Guatemala clearly identified the family, clan and neighbourhood of the wearer.

The women, especially, have clung to their clothes. Personally woven within the tradition of their town, the textiles included their family history.

This endeavour of registering the private history, the personal story, of the weaver-wearer seems to match what we know of other textiles throughout the world. Even the patchwork quilts, the perfect example of recycling using fabrics no longer adequate for their original purpose, to piece together a quilt… and in so doing, include in it the history of the fabrics used: this was a dress I wore when I was 15; this is part of a shirt I made for my first child; this was a skirt I bought on my first trip to Chicago… and so on.

The textiles in Guatemala, according to the textile museum Ixchel, tell of times of plenty and of want, happiness and sorrow, births and deaths. The personal story of the owner (the wearer), told by the weaver (the owner).

True to form, Guatemalans took this display of art and handicrafts quite for granted. It is so difficult to appreciate the extraordinary in what is “normal and commonplace”. Foreigners were the first to declare their astonishment at the beauty of these textiles parading the streets on the way to the market places under laden baskets of fruits and vegetables.

One of the first to take Guatemalan textiles seriously, some 60 years ago, was an American who built up a collection of these hand-woven costumes. In an interview, when asked how he had achieved such a great collection, he explained quite simply that it had been easy once understood that:
1)he had to speak at least a spattering of some of the most widespread Indian languages, if he was to convey the interest he felt for the textiles.
2)opportunities came at their own time and one had to be prepared to take advantage of them;
3)he could literally buy the clothes off the back of the wearer by offering a good price, and alteranative clothing so the seller could continue with his life, in other clothes.

His sincere interest and admiration for the textiles, his willingness to pay the price asked and not indulge in bargaining, and his respect for the people of Guatemala, quickly earned him a reputation for dealing fairly.

In an interview he once explained how it was difficult to persuade a woman to part with her dress, because she could not understand why, when the family history woven into it meant nothing to him, the textile could interest him.

This seemingly universal interest in recording family or personal history in what we wear and use is patent in our collections that are the chronicles of our life. That is why it is so astounding that today we buy ready-made collections, defeating the feature of chronicle of our life. Are we so orphaned of history, of self confidence and identity, that we rush out to buy our history and memory?

Ready-made collections

April 17th, 2010

Breathless would probably be a good description of our way of life. We seem to be forever chasing after…. what? Might we be chasing after the roots we have fought to leave behind? Do we really know where we are going, or, ignoring it we are trying to go everywhere at once? But can we go everywhere? Can we get anywhere going everywhere?

In an effort to save time (to be invested elsewhere), today we have ready-made everything. Even ready-made collections of thimbles (silver and ceramic), ladies’ hand painted fans, fountain pens, dolls (toys and fashion manikins), watches, cigarette lighters, teddy bears…

What impresses me is the impatience that makes us buy ready-made collections. The showcase to be placed on the living room coffee-table book as a conversation piece. Fine, but that defeats the spirit of a collection.

I admire the people who are collectors, who make collections. I just hoard things I like or that are significant for me. Sadly, I lack the orderly and systematic mind needed to classify and order all my bits and pieces into a collection. My bits and pieces are not even for scrapbooking, they are shreds of memories attached to sea shells, river stones or theatre programs.

Are you a collector at heart?Would you like to have a collection of watches? You can buy the watches, one a week, and finish the project with the “collector’s box”; or you can buy it all pay for it on the installment plan. Everything ready to be displayed… but certainly not a collection.

Now, why should anyone want a collection of watches? Because he likes watches, because he has bought them, one by one, or received them as gifts. Each one would be meaningful in its own way. Each one unique. One given when he graduated from college, one a wedding gift, another bought on a trip, a fourth bought to commemorate the birth of a child… and so on.

We could say the same of any other collection – ashtrays with the names of the places visited during holidays, teaspoons absconded from restaurants or airplanes, dolls dressed in the typical costumes of the place. In any case, each piece of a collection is meaningful. Each is part of a cherished story that can be told following the pieces of the collection, one by one.

I really doubt anyone sets out to own a “collection” of watches, pens, teddy-bears. It is more probable that one finds he has gathered a number of the things he likes and then, decides to “fill in the blanks” and make it into a collection.

Yesterday I saw a young woman buying herself a charm bracelet. She was choosing the charms all at once, a ready-made collection that looked well but was meaningless. It made me think of the charm bracelets we built up, charm by charm, when I was young. Each charm had a meaning, each had a reason to be on the bracelet, and the bracelet itself told the story of our lives. Today the bracelet may be more beautiful, better designed and make a better ensemble, but it is just for show. It means nothing. What is even sadder is that the woman buying the charm bracelet had no idea of what it was… she was merely buying something now in fashion, orphaned of all meaning and feeling.

Seeking to fill in our lives and to “live” all our roles, we don masks and pretend our ready-made collections are “ours”, and meaningful in our lives. But we know that meaning comes from inside and can be attached o something, but not the other way around.

HOPE AS A DRIVING FORCE FOR LIFE

April 12th, 2010

Hope has fallen into disrepute, unless it is used in an banal, off-hand manner: I hope it will be sunny. Hope, with a capital “H” has become politically incorrect due to its affinity with religious concepts which are now definitely frowned upon by progressists and the like.

Yet, hope is the driving force of life. Even in the lay world of today, there is no life without hope. Hope is expectation. Hope is confidence in the future; the reason to begin a project, trusting the possibility of achievement. It is, so to speak, that which makes life livable. The spring that makes our life-clock tick.

Recently statistics of suicides in Spain have been published. It happens that suicide is actually the first cause of non-natural death. More people die because they commit suicide than from traffic accidents. What is really especially disquieting is that this happens in Spain, where there supposedly is one of the lowest suicide rates in Europe.

We have known for many years that northern European countries have high suicide rates, and high rates of alcoholism and drug addiction, which are slower and more socially acceptable manners of suicide. The ex-Soviet Union countries also show the same high rates of self-destructive tendencies. There are much lower suicide rates in poorer countries such as India, Philippines o Columbia.

Is it a coincidence that these high suicide rates are found in countries that have the “cradle to grave” social protection? Is it a coincidence that where people need not strive to make eat every day, or to have a house, or health care, is where people decide more often to commit suicide?

Is it that when people find themselves without the need to exert themselves, to strive, to plan, to work, they find themselves orphaned? When people do not need to hope or project their expectations, when their present and future do not depend on their actions; when there is no need for hope, they are hopeless, and that is not compatible with life.

We humans adapt poorly to comfort and plenty. Take away the need of hope, the need of looking forward to the future, the need of striving, people die inside. Their souls shrivel and their lives lose shape, form and finality. That is why they give up and commit suicide.

LA NEGRA

April 3rd, 2010

La Negra era uno de los perros de mi padre. Pastor belga, negra como la noche. Era ya adulta y muy agresiva cuando se enamoró de mi padre, y él de ella. Él que jamás quiso tener perros de guardia que fueran fieros porque decía que un día podrían causar una desgracia, adoptó ese perro grande, poderoso y tan fiero que lo iban a sacrificar.

Lo llamó un veterinario amigo para preguntarle si en Carpaluna, el terreno a orillas del lago Amatitlán, él pudiera tener un sitio para un perro que estaba destinado a ser sacrificado porque era muy agresivo, tanto que nadie podía acercarse a él. El veterinario suponía que había sido maltratado, aunque no tuviera cicatrices visibles.

Papá contaba que cuando llegó al día siguiente vio al animal en una jaula demasiado pequeña para su tamaño y no le extrañó nada que estuviera agresivo. Decía que después de hablar con su amigo el veterinario para saber algo más de la perra, le había pedido una silla y que le dejara a solas con ella.

Comenzó a hablarle, a llamarle Negra, a decirle que era una perra preciosa, a preguntarle qué le pasaba, qué le habían hecho, cómo era que ahora, aun joven pero ya adulta quisieran sacrificarla. Se sentó, no muy cerca para no molestar. Poco a poco, mientras seguía preguntándole cosas y sugiriendo respuestas, iba moviéndose hacia la jaula, trasladando la silla, y sentándose hasta que la perra aceptara la nueva proximidad..

Cuando volvió el veterinario a ver cómo se las estaba arreglando encontró a Papá sentado junto a la jaula, hablando con la perra con la mano apoyada en los barrotes, y la perra tranquila y contenta. Papá le pidió que abriera la jaula, asegurándole que él se haría responsable de cualquier percance. El veterinario contaba luego que se había limitado a darle las llaves de la jaula.

Al cabo de una hora, Papá salió diciendo que se la llevaba, que la llamaría Negra, pero antes quería asegurarse de que estaba bien de salud y que fuera vacunada. Tuvo que estar él al lado para que el veterinario se atreviera a examinarla y a vacunarla… y así fue hasta que murió.

Fue un gran perro guardián. Fiero, ágil, alerta… surgía de la noche, en silencio, con los dientes descubiertos y daba miedo, mucho miedo. Pero lo mejor era la fama – eso de hazte fama y échate a dormir – se decía que era el “cadejo” una especie de perro infernal que vaga buscando almas de qué alimentarse. Probablemente esa leyenda guardó más la viña que el perro físico y mortal.

Mis padres iban a la casa del lago los fines de semana. Esas 48 horas la Negra las pasaba con Papá, y como siempre sucede cuando el amor es sincero, ese sentimiento era recíproco.

YOU CAN’T HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT

April 3rd, 2010

People want to be free. They want to be free of constraints, of beliefs, of traditions. People want to be independent and not have to rely on anyone, or to be answerable to anyone. Ask around: you will find independence, self-reliance and freedom as the top aspirations among young people … young nowadays goes right up to age 50!

And yet, these same people sign up in droves for mass events, be them week-end concert at the beach or in the city or sports events. People do not want to rely on anyone, yet they complain loudly when the train does not arrive on time and declare themselves deceived by airline schedules. People chafe at the restraints imposed by local festivities (crowds, noise) and fly off to participate as spectators of a feast in some far-away place.

I have heard the same people complain of how sidewalks dwindle with the terrace tables catering to tourists and passers-by in their city and speak glowingly of sidewalk cafés climbing up Paris streets or lining Roman ones. Of course, the difference is that in the first case, they were walking down the street on errands, and in the second, patrons of the sidewalk cafés enjoying a leisurely afternoon. They are not truly for or against sidewalk cafes. They just want them when they are convenient.

We want laws to protect us, to guarantee that our food is grown, handled and packaged correctly, that the weight is what the package reads, that the soft-drink contains what it says it. We want rules to live by, and when something, anything, does not turn out as we thought it would, our first thought seems to be: “there ought to be a law!”. And then, practically in the same sentence say they consider rules and regulations repressive, coercive and in general damaging to self esteem and self confidence.

Maybe there ought to be a law against voluntarily not thinking and voluntary amnesias. Maybe there ought to be a law against being forever an adolescent, unwilling to grow up into the world of responsibility and freedom, complaining about what “father state” doles out, without even thinking it is a dole, and not a “right”… and one paid for by other fellow citizens to boot.

My pet grievance with the welfare state (however much I do appreciate the social benefits of health care, unemployment insurance and retirement – all of which come out of our pay before the paycheck ever reaches our hands) is that it keeps the citizens perpetually under age. Protected, yes, but controlled because there is no protection possible without control. Protection from cradle to grave keeps people from flexing their muscles, from exerting their minds, from stretching their will and with it their possibilities of being useful to themselves and to society.

People adapt better to need than to plenty. Authors seem to agree that living in the lap of comfort, with food to spare and time to burn does little for our physical health. Our body needs more exercise, less food and less comfort. I think our minds work along the same way. Think of how well honed minds worked their way around difficulties, censorships, red tapes and financial need. And now, it seems all we can think of doing is asking form juicier subsidies.

We want freedom, but not responsibility. We want safety, but not control. We want contradictory things that are impossible to have at the same time. We want to have our cake and eat it too… just as children often do.

Isn’t it time we started growing up?

BRAVO

March 22nd, 2010

No hay nombre mejor para un perro: bravo, expresión de admiración; descripción de carácter; valor; valentía. Ese perro no podría haber tenido mejor nombre.

Era el perro de Don Eugenio. Un viejo labrador-retriever muy especial, tanto como su dueño. Bravo tenía la frente ancha, los ojos profundos, separados, color de miel, y una nariz generosa. Se movía con parsimonia más que con lentitud. Economía de movimientos, probablemente forzada por la edad, pero con elegancia.

Bravo no seguía a su amo. Más bien, sabía estar donde él se encontraba, pero casi como acto de magia, sin que nadie se diera cuenta de que se desplazaba. Era fácil no reparar en el perro y sus movimientos porque la conversación con Don Eugenio requería de atención. Era ocurrente, divertida y nada lineal. De pronto, cuando bajabas la vista, Bravo ya estaba allí, como si hubiera sabido a dónde iba su amo desde el principio y se hubiera dirigido allí por su cuenta. Como si fuera un cuerpo astral, en conexión con otro espíritu afín, que se desplazaba.

Sería bonito saber de qué hablaba con su amo, o quién escuchaba.

Ambos nos han dejado ya. Yo sigo viéndolos juntos, yendo cada uno por su cuenta, pero juntos, entre nubes y estrellas.