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Arabeyes: The Middle East in Pictures

Amira Al Hussaini · 14:57

lingua → fr

I will kick off today's pictorial tour of the Middle East with this video, from a wedding in Amman, posted by Jordanian blogger Roba Al Assi.

“Eccentric, and I still really can’t get past trying to figure out why in the world would anyone want a Greco-Roman sword fight at their wedding. Historical influences that the Greco-Roman culture has left in Jordan? Too much of that 800 movie? Al-Resalah style Arab love of sword fights? Mind-boggling indeed.
Personally, I guess I side with the regular (and I suppose boring, I mean, what, no sword fight?!) zaffeh*,” she explains.

Our next stop is in Kuwait, where Fonzy shows us images of how Kuwait City looks like in a dust storm.

“Yesterday the weather forecast predicted light winds, which I felt on my way to work in the morning and it felt refreshing. Those same winds brought dust later on in the day. Looking out my office window, the skies were full of dust and I could barely see anything. Things are only gonna get worse and from what I heard, its gonna be quite similar most of the summer,” he notes.

While still in Kuwait, intlxpatr, gives us a photo album of changes to Kuwait City's skyline, sans the dust here.

“Kuwait in the 1970’s was called the Paris of the Gulf. People who lived here then talk about it with great nostalgia, they call it paradise. Kuwait was an old trading city, full of merchants and traders. Kuwaiti men went out on fishing boats, and pearling boats, and the love of the sea is still deep in the Kuwaiti soul. The women were strong and adventurous, and took care of all the family business while the men were out to sea.
Kuwait had a tradition of tolerance and sophistication found nowhere else in the Gulf,” writes the blogger.

A picture taken by Lebanese blogger finkployd showing scenes of Mouth Lebanon

Moving to Lebanon, we will make a stop at this image, of Mount Lebanon, posted by finkployd with a one-liner which sums up the story:

this past Sunday, people converged in the mountains to escape the heat and the news…

A picture of a bulbul chick taken by Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al Yousif

Our last image of the week is a picture taken by Bahraini blogger Mahmood Al Yousif of a tiny Bulbul in its nest, which has just hatched in his garden.

Al Yousif celebrates the beginning of those birds new lives, but paying tribute to his loving father who passed away a year ago.

“The first to hatch of the bulbuls who have nested in one of our ficuses.
I’ll dedicate this shot to my father, who departed this world one year ago tomorrow,” he writes.

* A ‘Zaffeh' is a traditional wedding procession

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India: Theatre in Education

Javits Rajendran · 12:39

Tolubommalata & Koodiyattam are few amongst the variegated theatre forms in the sub-continent. While this ancient art is slowing fading away, modern Indian theatre is taking stage. It now is not only a form of entertainment but a beacon for educating young minds. Umesh from ‘Theatre in Education’ explains that impressions both big and small can be directed on children. While in the same blog, announcements are made as to how teachers are lectured on teaching Math and Science in the ‘theatre form’.

We chose The Lorax, Dr. Seuss’s rhyme filled with utterly nonsensical words, but superbly sensible message about saving the trees. We read the play, but decided that the ideas had to come from the children. Therefore we made them create Tableaus – still pictures. The topics were simple in the beginning, like “standing in the rain”. They got the hang of it and the topics got tougher. Topics became, A Ferrari car, Stuck in a Lift, At the Dentist and Any topic of your choice. The results were astounding. They had no problems handling the topics, and were often more creative than so called “mature” adults. The tableaus gave us the key to creating the play.

Theatre Capital on the other hand, not only has bits of information on their on-going projects but also pictures of various happenings all the way in Bangalore. The information that caught my attention was the results on Xth ICSE drama class, it was surprising to know that drama/theatre was already a part of the new ICSE syllabus.

The scores were spectacular to say the least. Ranging from 86% to 97% these students were winners all the way in Drama

The Playbacktheatre’s group has one of the most innovative ways to bring real life, everyday scenarios back into play.

Then we moved into stories, an eight year old shared his heart-wrenching story of losing his parents and taking to the streets, of traveling hundreds of miles taking on various jobs…before finally landing up here. We jumped into the story with gusto, each actor playing his part. At the end the audience applause lasted for a really long time.

Theatre in India seems to evolve with its worlds surround and to all those innovators and educators my heartfelt adulations but I only hope and pray that they might someday revive those ancient art forms and make it presentable to the Indian cinema cults in the genre of 99% style and 1% substance like Hawkeye reviews.

Photo Courtesy : TheatreCapital

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Morocco: How to bake bread in the medina

Jillian York · 08:55

lingua → es

Although bread is available for sale nearly everywhere in Morocco, nothing tastes as good as home baked bread - but many Moroccans, even those who own ovens like my mother-in-law, choose to bake their bread somewhere else: the furan, or community oven. This week, a New York Times article on the community oven sparked a conversation throughout the blogoma.

Four Continents remarked upon the practice:

I lived with a solidly middle-class host family and they did have their own oven and baked bread at home, but even they considered this a luxury, even in the new city where families are more isolated and independent. In the medina, houses are compact and crowded and the ovens are still very much alive and necessary. In Marrakech, I watched a little boy carrying his family's bread home get in a fight with another boy. He set his tray down ever-so-carefully in the road before proceeding to kick his opponent in the groin. This was a kid who knew that coming home with dusty bread or no bread at all would be a big problem, and who took his job as oven-runner seriously. If a six-year-old takes it that seriously, you know it's important to Mom, too.

The a la Menthe sees a slow death for this way of life, saying:

Unlike many places in the world, in Morocco it is still possible to find communities that bake their bread (Khubz) — a staple of Moroccan cuisine — in a community oven, an institution which — like communal steam baths (hammam) knits communities together. In addition, farmers sell fresh produce in the souks (markets), and chickens are bought freshly slaughtered from the butcher. As a friend of mine put it, in Morocco, it's all organic food. The Times, however, notes an ominous trend toward factory farming, mass production of food, and supermarkets, at least in the larger cities. In light of our soil-exhausting monocultures and the cruel overcrowding and massive doses of hormones and antibiotics to which we subject our livestock in the United States, I am seriously skeptical that Morocco will gain by following our example. Would anyone say that Americans eat better than Moroccans? Thought not.

A Moro in America had only this to say:

New York Times published this well detailed and documented article. It brought back childhood memories and described a dying tradition.

The furan is particularly attributed to medina life, and as it's been said, Fez is the world's largest living medina, or old, walled city. Everything Morocco, a blogger who lives there, has this to say about medina living (or, surviving, as it were):

A lot of people ask what it's like to live in the medina. Although I live in Fez medina, one of the biggest and oldest in the country, I think it must be pretty much the same in any medina. It's true you can't drive up to your door in most cases and some of your friends may refuse to visit because you live in a ‘dangerous' neighborhood, but the benefits outweigh that. Having lived in both the medina and the Ville Nouvelle, I prefer the medina hands down.

After further explanation, the blogger concluded:

Overall, if you have to live in the city, medina-life is the way to go. It's interesting, fascinating and educational when you are not indigenous to the culture. It is a window into the changing times overtaking Morocco as people move from the country into the city. The medinas are not stagnant, time-warped portals into the past, but living and adaptive urban environments. It may be true that you see a man turning wood with a foot lathe or another weaving on an ancient form of loom, but traditional craftsmen exist in every culture and every country; Moroccan culture just has more respect for artisanal traditions and the practical nature to keep what works rather than throw it over for technology. You have to love a place like that.

The last post this week is entirely unrelated, but poignant and therefore must not be left out. Blogger Big World Learner made a plea to stop world violence:

I’m sorry but whatever political analysts, spokesmen and supporters might say, what I think about this is simple: Nothing can justify what’s going on there. Palestine, Iraq and Lebanon neither have time nor the means to squander in civil wars – not to say in wars - full stop. This nonsense has lasted too long and must stop now!

Photo by Jillian York

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Ethiopian bloggers first to report shock guilty verdict

Andrew Heavens · 08:40

Ethiopian bloggers were among the first to report on a court's shock decision to convict 38 opposition politicians of a range of serious charges including “outrages against the constitution” earlier this week. (Here is the BBC story on the trial, and past GlobalVoices coverage.)

Mainstream journalists and observers were caught unawares by the guilty verdict handed down against prominent members of the opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy (CUD), including its leader Hailu Shawel and the mayor elect of the capital Addis Ababa Berhanu Nega.

But bloggers – some of whom were in court - had the first posts online within an hour of the judges' announcement.

The politicians were arrested in the aftermath of violence and street protests that erupted following Ethiopia's controversial 2005 national elections. Authorities accused them of provoking the violence and planning to overthrow the government.

The CUD members have long dismissed the trial as a political sham – and most of them have refused to defend themselves. They are due to be sentenced in early July. Many of them could face the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Seminawork was the first with Breaking news:Court finds kinijit leaders guilty [kinijit being the Amharic abbreviation for CUD]. MeskelSquare followed with Guilty.

The second the news [of the verdict] came in over my mobile, a huge thunder and hail storm broke over Addis.

The ominous weather echoed the fears of many bloggers, who initially thought the decision would lead to further clashes on the streets. In the end, there were no protests, but the disquiet remained. Just Thinking summed up many people's feelings in Damaged beyond repair?:

The sun wan’t shining in Addis today. As if to match the mood in the city, it was a cloudy and gloomy day. Not that people were not going about thier business. In fact, I was stunned by the normalcy of the day around me. But most people I’ve talked to, friends and acquaintances, said they found the verdict a rude awakening. Most of us foolishly thought EPRDF [the ruling government coalition] might want to fix things up and would let people like Dr. Birhanu Nega go free.

The Other Side was also surprised by the lack of public protest, but set out to explain it in In the wake of the verdict.

I was wondering why there hasn’t yet been any visible reaction to the verdict here in Addis. Some say that the post-election momentum is gone and most have forgotten, but I know otherwise. I know that people still care, and will say so as often as they think it safe.

Tobian Thinktank expressed his dismay at the move in Another Step Backwards:

Sometimes I try hard, very hard, to convince myself that our current leaders are good meaning co-Ethio citizens who care about our country… in their own ways which I am unable to understand. They're just embittered by the long struggle experience coupled with infantile Ethiopian politics (not to imply that they're any better at it). Then they do shit like this and my little theory crumbles.

Enset struggled to find a positive note in Freedom on Trial!:

To all peace loving people of Ethiopia, yesterday June 11, 2007 was both a day of sorrow and a day of jubilation. It was a day of sorrow because, at least temporally, freedom itself was on trial in the Ethiopian justice system. Yet it is a day of joy because we have heroes who gave us their yesterday so that we all can live for today.

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Bolivia: Taking Their Complaints to Their Blogs

Eduardo Avila · 00:41

lingua → es

[Editor's Note: This is the first contribution of Hugo Miranda, a Bolivian blogger from Oruro]

The local blogosphere is not very developed in Bolivia, making it very unlikely that the businesses pay much attention to complaints or even see the complaints in the first place. There are more and more blogs that make complaints against their failure to deliver services or poor customer service. What makes this odd is that not all of the businesses are local, but national and international companies. Here is a summary of recent complaints by various bloggers.

1. Andrea writes at Lo Digo Yo [ES] and her experiences at Hamburguesas Toby (Toby’s Hamburgers).

She had a bad experience a couple of months ago, when one of her friends became locked in one of the restaurant’s bathrooms and no one seemed to have the key. In the end, they had to force the door open.

Era como si la puerta les importara más que las tres personas que se encontraban adentro. Y luego el negarse a retribuir la comida que se enfrió, cuando a mi parecer era lo más lógico. Lo peor de todo es que en ningún momento se disculparon, ni siquiera cuando se lo pedimos explícitamente. No hace falta decir que llegamos tarde a clases.

Estaba leyendo en el Nuevo Día un artículo sobre las Hamburguesas Toby que decía que “para mejorar debieron terciarizar los servicios y concentrarse en la atención al cliente”. Si así es la atención al cliente hoy en día, no quiero ni imaginarme cómo era antes de que se “concentren” en ella. La verdad es que ninguna promoción de dos hamburguesas por un dólar vale eso.

It was as if the door was more important than the person inside. They later refused to replace the food that turned cold, which seemed to be the logical thing to do. The worst part of it all is that they never said they were sorry, even when we explicitly asked for an apology. To make it worse, we were late for class.

I was reading in the Nuevo Día (local newspaper) about Hamburguesas Toby where it said “in order to improve they should streamline services and concentrate on customer service.” If that is how customer service is today, I don’t want to even imagine how it was before they “made an effort.” In reality, no promotion of 2 hamburgers for 1 dollar is worth all of this.

2. Leonardo Byon of Marketing SOS [ES] and Hipermaxi Supermarkets.

Leonardo explains how this supermarket chain makes more money by not giving the entire change. In his post, he shows that the candy used as change is far from the value of .20 or .10 cents, which is what the supermarket should provide.

En mi caso, fue la alternativa (2). Me dieron 50 centavos y dos dulces de limón. Le exigo que me del cambio exacto en monedas y me dice que no tiene. Es tan costumbre la practica que ya ni siquiera piden disculpas. Curioso, me fui al pasillo de dulces y note que la bolsa del dulce de limon que me habian dado como cambio, tenia un precio de venta final de 10.99 bolivianos por 100 unidades, siendo el precio unitario aprox. 11 centavos.

Dos dulces equivalen a 22 centavos (precio de venta y no precio de costo Hipermaxi). Ni siquiera me habian devuelto el valor equivalente de los 30 centavos restantes.

In my case, it was the alternative (2). They gave me 50 cents and two lemon candies. I demanded that they give me the exact change in coins and they said that they didn’t have it. The practice is so common that they don’t even provide an apology. I was curious so I went to the candy aisle and found the bag of candy that they gave me as change, it had a price tag of 10.99 Bolivianos for 100 pieces, which is about 11 cents each.

Two pieces of candy equals about 22 cents (sale price and not of cost to Hipermaxi). They didn’t even give me the value of the remaining 30 cents.

3. Palabras Libres’ [ES] Mario Duran vs. Banco Mercantil – Santa Cruz and Viva-GSM.

Duran appears to have very little patience with these two businesses, which was explained here in Global Voices, but the other took place months ago. In regards to SMS messages, the website used to send these online messages cannot be seen with Firefox. This is a slight against the users that continue to utilize this navigator, in which he wrote in his letter:

Sin embargo, tales inovaciones no están disponibles para que puedan se aprovechados por todos los usuarios con acceso a Internet, en particular para los usuarios que usan el navegador Firefox. Debido a que una de las secciones del sitio, la que permite enviar mensajes de texto (SMS) no funciona correctamente con este navegador. Los usuarios de Firefox, creemos que esto nos priva de la libertad de escoger lo que consideramos nosotros como el mejor producto para navegar en páginas web porque nos obliga a usar un producto específico para el cual ha sido construida la página.

These innovations are not available to be used by all internet users, especially those who use Firefox, due to the fact that one of the site’s sections, which allows one to send SMS text messages does not work with this navigator. The users of Firefox believe that this deprives us of the freedom to choose what we think for us is the best web navigator, and this requires us to use a specific product.

4. Santa Cruz Denuncia [ES] and the organizers of the appearance of the Harlem Globetrotters in Bolivia

Matias Mendoza deals with the appearance of these famous basketball players in Santa Cruz, who arrived late, as everyone knows. This was due to a flight delay, and the game started at 23:00. What is ironic is that the airline that was delayed was Aerosur, one of the event’s sponsors.

La verdad me pareció una falta de respeto y una burla al público, ya que las entradas no eran nada baratas, había muchos niños, que a esa altura de la noche, como se imaginan estaban dormidos. Incluso creo que yo tampoco disfruté tanto el show por el cansancio que traía encima. Finalmente el show concluyo a las 1 de la madrugada y los organizadores se salieron una vez más con la suya.

Cada vez Santa Cruz es una ciudad más grande, con las ventajas y los problemas que trae esto para su población. Podemos estar progesando en muchas cosas, pero creo que algo en lo que no se ha hecho mucho avance es en el respeto al consumidor. Como sucedió el martes, constantemente existen atropellos hacia el consumidor y no hay quien los defienda.

It really seemed disrespectful and it was a slap in the face to the public because the tickets were not inexpensive at all, and there were a lot of kids that were up late. As one can imagine, many were sleeping. I think that I didn’t really enjoy the show because of being tired. Finally, the show ended at 1:00 a.m. and the organizers came away with the profits.

Santa Cruz is a big city with all the advantages and problems that brings for its population. We can be progressing in many things, but I think what we haven’t progressed as much is with respect to the consumer. As what happened on Tuesday, there are always slights against the consumer and there is no one to defend them.

5. Sebastián Molina of Plan B [ES] and FEDEX.

Sebastian comments about one of the largest delivery services in the world that could not finish the service. Sebastian is adamant about his opinion of this company.