Education – key to country without violence

As many of you know in Latin America there are a lot of violence, because of drug trade, political situation, guerillas and many more things. The perfect example of all those stuff is Colombia, which is now on the way to end more than 50 years civil war. But one of the most important factors of the situation of Colombia is a lack of education. Many of members of guerillas don’t have any kind of education. To avoid a possibility of children entering in guerillas, and give them chance to get out of poverty and escape from violence, Colombian singer Shakira in 1997 in the beginning of her musical career created a foundation called  Fundación Pies Dezcalzos (Barefoot Foundation).  The foundation’s main focus is building schools, nowadays there are 5 schools across Colombia, and they will build more. The organization provides education and meals for more than 4000 children. Pies Dezcalzos schools are not only schools, they are like a center for meeting and community development around education, coexistence and respect. I believe that education is a key to country without violence, if more children attend to school there are less possibility they will be on “the bad way” in the future. I hope Colombia, and the others Latin American countries will be considered as safe places without violence. J

Barefoot Foundation website: http://www.fundacionpiesdescalzos.com/en/ 

Pies Descalzos school in Cartagena, Colombia 

Chilaquiles - Mexican recipe

Easy, authentic Mexican recipe that my Mexican friends taught me. It's a casserole of tortilla chips mixed with eggs and salsa, and topped with cheese. Serve with refried beans.

What you need:

2 cups oil for frying

1/4 cup chopped onion

corn tortillas, torn into strip

4 eggs, lightly beaten

2 teaspoons salt

tomato sauce

1/2 cup water

1/2 cup shredded Mozarella cheese

In a large, heavy skillet, heat the oil to 175 degrees C. Carefully stir in the onion and tortilla strips. Fry until tortilla chips are crisp and golden brown. Remove from heat, and drain on paper towels. Drain the skillet, leaving only a thin residue of oil.

Over medium heat, return tortillas to the skillet, and stir in the eggs. Season with salt. Cook and stir until eggs are firm.

Mix Mexican style hot tomato sauce and water into the skillet. Reduce heat, and simmer until thickened, about 10 minutes. Top with cheese. Continue cooking until cheese has melted.

Cooked by me. J

The Queen of Tejano – Selena

I want to tell something about Selena Quintanilla, who was a very promising singer of tejano/ latin pop music. She was born in Lake Jackson, Texas, her parents are Americans with Mexican descent. She was singing in Spanish, although her first language was English. It was an idea of her father Abraham Quintanilla to sing in Spanish, A.B Quintanilla brother of Selena, member of the band was a main writer and composer of Selena’s songs. In the beginning she was almost unable to make an interview in Spanish, but her father convinced her to learn more the language of her ancestors, because he knew that it wasn’t enough to sing in Spanish, she had to speak it well. In early 90’s she became a superstar in the U.S and Mexico particularly, also she was touring in all Latin America. She was to make a crossover to  “Anglo market” (she recorded only a few English songs preparing her first English-language album) when she was killed at a motel in Corpus Cristi, Texas on March 31, 1995 by her friend and president of her fan club Yolanda Saldivar at the age of 23. This March 31 is 20^th anniversary of her death. Her life was very interesting, if you want to know something more find more information on the Internet or watch a movie based on her life “Selena” where Jennifer Lopez plays main role. I strongly recommend this movie.

Here’s her last recorded concert, about one month after her death, which took place in Houston, Texas. She sang her hits and some of the classics like Donna Summer or Tina Turner. :D

And here one of her songs prepared for the English album.

"Is you OK? Is you good? Cause I want to know."

This is signature phrase of GloZell, an American comedian and YouTube personality. She was born July 30, 1962, currently living in Los Angeles, California. She is known as one of the funniest youtubers, and I’d like to share with you one of her videos. But after that is good to say something about her. Can say that she’s YouTube star. Many of her videos may seem a little bit stupid, but I always laugh, even I don’t understand everything what she say. She established her YouTube channel in 2008, with video interviews, comedy about her life and song parodies. In August 2014, the channel had accumulated more than three million subscribers and more than 500 million total views. Six of her individual videos had each been viewed more than 10 million times, such as her "My Push up Bra will help me get my man" video (23 million views) and her cinnamon challenge video (40 million views). She gained wide notice when her vlog about meeting Elijah Wood was mentioned by the actor during a 2011 interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live!. In 2012, she appeared in the web series Dr. Fubalous. In January 2015 GloZell interviewed Barack Obama in a YouTube livestream hosted at The White House. Here is my favorite GloZell’s video, which is named HOT PEPPER CHALLENGE

  

University almost on the Beach

I chose Almeria, Spain for my Erasmus and I need to say it was good decision. The city was perfect, the people was perfect, but… the university not. The buildings were ok, modern and comfortable, the University of Almeria is located near the sea side and it looks so beautiful , but the level of education didn't satisfy me, there was a big organizational chaos, the members of my working groups on lessons were quite rude. For many people who didn’t spoke Spanish it was said at the beginning that classes are conducted in English, but they weren’t. I didn’t have problem with that but, I think it was not fair for all the people  who thought it was enough to speak English. At the university I didn’t  learned nothing new. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to locate the university in this place, you feel more like on holiday there. 

Spanish Mini Hollywood (Almeria province)

The Desert of Tabernas is Europe's only desert it is arid and resembles the type of landscape found in Arizona or Colorado in the USA, many films mostly westerns were made there as was an episode of Dr Who, There is a western town that was used as a film set called Fort Bravo which has facilities such as wooden. I think that this is the kind of place that you have never thought it exists in Europe. Not only the Desert of Tabernas is the place where many movies had been filmed, all the Almeria province is known as Mini Hollywood. There are hundreds of movies filmed there. The most popular are: Asterix at the Olympic Games, Cleopatra, King of Kings, Lawrence of Arabia and many more. After my residence in Almeria I had no idea of that. I was so surprised when they told me about that. Look at this photos. :)

Other recommendation

Today I want to recommend all of you the other serial produced by United States-based television network Telemundo Studios, Miami in co-production by Chile-based television network TVN. It’s called Dueños del paraíso (Masters of Paradise). The serial is inspired by the drug trade of Miami in the 1980s.

Masters of Paradise tells the story of Anastasia Cardona (Kate del Castillo), a woman without any innocence, with a life marked by violence and poverty, betrayed in the depths of his being and whose ambition leads her to use drug trafficking as a means to become one of the most powerful women of those times.

Traumatized by the events of a life difficult and driven to avenge the betrayal of a husband with that thought all their dreams, Anastasia will find the illicit business of her husband the wealth you have always dreamed. Their thirst for power will take her to not respect any limits when choosing their victims. Ready to everything to defeat their enemies, Anastasia will meet vexations of betrayal and the impossibility of living the true love.

The premiere of the serial was on January 13, and I have to say that I’m impressed. Everything, like houses, bars, cars, clothes of the characters is perfectly prepared, and looks like in the ’80. I think it will be high budget, and I’m sure it will have good ratings also.

Here’ s the trailer in English. Enjoy. You can watch the serial on telemundo.com, with English subtitles.