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Health Reform/Emergencia Social February 8, 2010 at 8:41 pm (Politics and I) · Edit Colombia’s president, Alvaro Uribe, declared on December 2009 a Social Emergengy (Emergencia Social) in the country’s health system. Uribe’s intentions was to fix the $500 thousand million Pesos, the equivalent to approx. $300 million US dollars, deficit. Colombian workers are obliged to register to a health provider and pay a monthly fee based on his/her income. These health providers changed into a private administration after law reforms during the 1990′s. Under the private administration of the EPS (entidad prestadora de salud – Health Provider) health services have been apparantly manipulated. I will have to say that since I’ve been in the country for less than a year, my understanding of the situation comes from reading and listening to different arguments available. I would need to bring more details about the Ley 100 to you, the reader, in order to get more in depth with the reforms made in the past. These current reforms eliminate the possibilities for citizens to bring legal meausres, such as the “Tutela”, to request full coverage of treatments and medicines. The Tutela is a Colombian legal process where every citizen can demand his/her basic rights are protected (http://www.lablaa.org/blaavirtual/ayudadetareas/poli/poli47.htm). Under the action of the Tutela, citizens now can ask for the EPS or other health institutions to cover expensive medical treatments such as chimotherapy and other cancer treatments, or to cover their expensive drugs. However, as it always happends, there have been people misusing this legal tool and trying to get advantage to get health providers to cover cosmetic or other unecessary medical treatments like plastic surgery to enhance ones body. Therefore, I could not denied that this has created a deficit and misuse of founds and resources in the Colombian health system. Nonetheless, the new reforms would take the legal resource of Tutela away from the citizens and ask them to pay for necessary medical needs with their retirement funds and other “social security” benefits. Thus, besides paying a monthly fee to the Helth provider, the worker might have to loose his/her pensions or savings in the case that he/she gets sick with an illness that the health system considers too expensive and decides to cover any treatment. Haiti on the world’s map. January 27, 2010 at 4:17 am (Uncategorized) · Edit I wonder how many of us have known the rich history of Haiti. How many knew that it was at one point a lush productive agricultural country, the first nation in the Americas to grant frreedom and civil rights to the slave population. I just want to say that I only hope that after all this painful devastation in Haiti we can see a great nation rebuilding itself stronger and prouder. I am attaching this link to the photographs of a friend who is in Haiti right now bringing to the world what the current situation is. http://www.apimages.com look for international news, and click on Photographers search: Ariana Cubillos

Compiling all my blogs

I am going to paste different post from other blogs I have in the cyberspace. I am trying to keep all my web presence in one single space for now, so what follows is just copy-and-paste posts from a few years ago: A nation of peace treaties and back-stabbing May 10, 2010 at 10:49 pm (Uncategorized) · Edit http://www.gustavopetro.com/ Colombia has had a very political and social history. It is difficult for me to summarize or even try to point out the most important events in our history, since there are so many instances where our history has taken our identity to so many levels. I just want to say that maybe our nation is not ready to accept a competent candidate and man, such as Gustavo Petro as President of Colombia because of the strong history significance he might bring into so many people’s minds. However, Petro is one of those people who demonstrate how capable societies and communities are in moving forward for a the betterment of all. The fact that an armed group, whose ideologies are stronger that the desire of power, led itself to give up arms and cease the fire to look for healthier spaces for peace talks and building a just and fair nation, it shows our grandeur as human beings. Nonetheless, there are the scared memories and the distrustful souls, the same ones who back stabbed one of the most interesting social experiments in Latin America, that are not allowing ourselves to move forward as an unity. I just have to say that it is time for bringing together all those good actions and intentions from all the political spectrum to build a stronger nation. I apologize for my poor writing. Please look for more information at valid sources about the M-19 in Colombia. Thank you El Maverick, not the old chubby American calf May 10, 2010 at 10:16 pm (Uncategorized) · Edit http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/08/world/americas/08colombia.html This link gives a little hint of the current Colombian political scenario. The country is living a new political moment when a lot of hopes are up, a lot of disagreements are loud and the fear of disappointment is imminent. Just a few weeks from the Presidential elections, the polls are showing a not to cohesive political nation, with Santos with an approx. 34% and Mockus a 38% of possible votes, this lead us straight to a “segunda vuelta” Let’s make our decision in just one round so we can invest that money, that would have to be spent in a second round, building schools, jobs and more projects.

Time Segments

Yes, time is relative. I stopped measuring time in minutes, hours, or days. Now, time is divided in segments. Each segment is full of all the ugliness, beauty, fears and discontents that it could hold. Then, each segment is different from one another; the first segment of this past year could have been referred to eternal, dragging and somewhat surreal but each particular segment has come and brought all kinds of universes.

Ruta 16: Cali-Pasto

Beyond Questions and Answers

Yesterday I had to go and take my GRE test in the city of Cali, which is 125 Km. north from Popayan. After some inadequate weeks of study I got up early and went to face how much algebra and middle school geometry I could remember and process in a few hours. The test itself was not bad at all; I believe I did well, not beyond average but good enough. However, this blog entry is not really about the GRE exam or about my below average knowledge of basic math. This chronicle is to reflect upon different small details that I saw/heard during my ride from and back to Popayan, which could summarize some of my immediate reality.
The ride on the public bus takes approximately two hours from Popayan to Cali. After getting to the bus station in Popayan I got in a crowded bus with only one seat available in the back, so I sat on that empty seat knowing that it was going to be a bumpy ride. I could tell that the lady sat next to me had been crying and was lacking sleep, I did not think it was appropriate to ask her if she was OK, I don’t know why. After a while I understood why she was so upset. She made a phone call on her cell phone and was telling what had happened to somebody in the other end of the line. She starts describing how her uncle, who recently arrived to Cali after a long trip, went out almost unwillingly because he was too tired. After a long night of drinking her uncle wanted to go to bed but his friend wanted him to keep partying with him. Both men starting to push each other until the drunken friend got a pocket knife out and staved the lady’s uncle in the heart. Then she started to talk about how this man, her uncle’s friend, was a retired police man who got shot on duty. Finally, my ride-mate hangs up the phone and falls asleep. I was surprised that I was not as shocked as I thought I would be with a story like the one I just had heard. We finally arrived to Cali and I took a taxi to the testing center, this part of my trip was pretty much uneventful besides from the two times the power went out and we had to reboot the computers to keep going with my GRE test.
Four hours later I left the testing center and got in a bus that would take me straight back to Popayan. However, the trip was not as straight as I was hoping for. After leaving Cali’s bus station the maniac bus driver decided to stop every twenty blocks to pick up passengers and make some extra cash. The bus stopped in a few small towns between Cali and Popayan dropping off and picking up people. One of these towns was Santander de Quilichao in the Cauca state. The bus came to a complete stop in front of a busy area of the town; “pubs” and restaurants everywhere, taxis lined up waiting for customers and street vendors moving up and down the sidewalk. I watched through the window a group of five black men and one woman sitting at a plastic “Rimax” table in front of several filled and empty “Poker” beer bottles. The group was listening to loud mariachi music, which contrasted with the Spanish-speaking romantic ballads from the Seventies that the bus driver had been blasting since we left the bus station. One of the older men was hugging one of the younger ones as if he was congratulating him; all the sudden I was startled by a couple of gray-hair men who were knocking hardly on the bus windows to wake up the lethargic riders so they could buy some of the freshly cut pineapple the old men had to offer. The scene was so simple, clear and full of detail that I wished I had a video camera or something to record such a brief moment, so apparently insignificant to everybody else who was around me.
On my ride from Popayan to Cali I had noticed that there were a couple more military posts on the Panamericana highway than usual. And on my ride back to Popayan I saw that big sign again that says “Viaje tranquilo su ejercito esta en la via” (“Travel with no worries, your army is on the highway”). Indeed, the army is on the highway; on my way to Cali we were stopped and a soldier got in the bus and asked for everybody’s IDs and went to check them with a data-base on his computer, then we were slowed down by other “reten.” On my way to Popayan there were more soldiers standing along the highway and every time I saw them I just kept asking myself, why would a president of a nation with militarized highways would say that we are even closer to reach Peace. Oh, well. As we were entering Popayan, four hours later, I heard a military helicopter flying above the city heading north, which could mean only one thing. A few minutes later after I walked into the house my sister told me that there had been some cross fire in a “municipio” between Popayan and Cali; nothing to worry about, right? I still don’t get it, why do you have to shot each other instead of talking it over and drinking some cold Pokers or eating some juice slides of pineapple.

1,2,3,4,5....10...20....years later

As I recently read somewhere "not that time is much of a factor here." Whether it has been 10 years or two, I would not know it. My time is relative to the speed in which my mind catches up with my body or the other way around. Country, nation, homeland, home, and belonging are more abstract than ever to me.
Who's counting the days and years? Is there a countdown to something good or bad for that matter? My flesh and bones feel the same, maybe there are some more strength in my arms and legs..."kick and punch, do some sword forms, "find center."Sometimes I see that "center" within my reach and all the sudden there is no more time-space relationship and therefore the "center" looses all meaning...this is not bad, it is always intriguing to redefine my 3D-mentionality.

Regreso a el Norte

After a year of trial and error, but above all, a year of experiencing Colombia, I have returned to the Northern hemisphere to start all over. However, I haver returned with more energy and ready to start new projects.

Campamento de Verano

This is what I have been doing this Summer. This is the resulting art piece after around 50 kids of the Miami area worked hard in doing 1000 good deeds and learned about how small actions that they can do help the world to make it a better place. If you want to lear more about what this project visit www.onemillionways.org in the future and join us.

Networking

I would like to take advantage of this medium and name the blog of a dear friend of mine who is working towards reaching a better society here in Colombia. Paulo E. Tovar is interested in the political process of Latin America with the "Norhtern" countries and all the consequences created by this (unbalanced) relationship. Here I am giving you all the address for Paulo's blog so you can read his articles and create an awareness about Colombia's current situation: http://www.ventanaandina.blogspot.com/

Viaje al Interior de la Tierra

Now, going further south of Colombia there are sites that embody the socio-political past of the country. Indegenous people governed these regions and left vestiges for us to wonder what happend to them; centuries later, this southern area of Colombia turned into one of the most influencial areas of the colony. Popayan, "the white city," was the main city in the state of Cauca and of the southern area of the Virreinato de la Nueva Granada and today it is easy to find houses, churches and smells from the XVI century.
Popayan not only reminds us of the colonial times but of its legacy: the mestizaje and cultural mix.