Dirt Cookies

This week, Brian talks about the Canada's strong economy. Other countries have not been so lucky. Here are the effects of rising food prices in Haiti:




It's lunch time in one of Haiti's most desperate slums, but because of rising food prices, some of the poorest can't even afford a daily plate of rice. Instead...

they are taking desperate measures to fill their bellies. This mother and her toddler now rely on a traditional Haitian remedy for hunger pangs: cookies made of dried yellow dirt. The remedy has long been used by pregnant women and children as an antacid and source of calcium. But now cookies made of dirt, salt, and vegetable shortening have become a regular meal for some. Food prices are up as much as 40% on some Caribbean islands after floods from last year's hurricane season damaged crops. Because of that, Caribbean leaders held an emergency summit to discuss cutting food taxes and coming up with ways to reduce the islands dependance on imports. Haitian doctors say those that rely on the cookies are at risk from malnutrition. And officials warn that dirt can contain deadly parasites or toxins.
Read more!

Sparrrrrrrrooooooow!

This is the end of the post. Don't click below.

Read more!

Uncensored Cuba

Changes in Cuba since Raul Castro has taken over for his brother Fidel:

Double click on any word to see the meaning.

Only a month has passed since ordinary Cubans won the right to own computers, and the government still keeps a rigid grip on Internet access.

But that hasn't stopped thousands from finding their way into cyberspace. And a daring few post candid blogs about life in the communist-run country that have garnered international audiences.

Yoani Sanchez writes the "Generacion Y" blog and gets more than a million hits a month, mostly from abroad - though she has begun to strike a chord in Cuba. On her site and others, anonymous Cubans offer stinging criticisms of their government.

But it isn't simple. To post her blog, Sanchez dresses like a tourist and slips into Havana hotels with Web access for foreigners. It costs about $6 an hour and she can't afford to stay long given the price and the possibility someone might catch her connecting without permission.

Click below to read the full article.

It's a testament to the ingenuity and black-market prowess Cubans have developed living on salaries averaging $20 a month, with constant restrictions and shortages.

The connections Cuban bloggers are making with the outside world via the Internet are irreversible, said Sanchez, who this month won the Ortega y Gasset Prize for digital journalism, a top Spanish media award.

"With each step we take in that direction, it's harder for the government to push us back," she said.

On an island where many censor themselves to avoid trouble, Sanchez says Generacion Y holds nothing back.

"It's about how I live," she said. "I think that technically, there are no limits. I have talked about things like Fidel Castro, and you know how taboo that can be."

But she added that "there are some ethical limits. I would never call for violence, for instance."

Since taking over from his ailing brother Fidel in February, Raul Castro has lifted bans on Cubans buying consumer electronics, having cell phones and staying in luxury tourist hotels.

While the changes have bolstered the new president's popularity, most simply legalized what was common practice. In a typically frank recent posting, Sanchez noted that many Cubans already had PCs, cell phones and DVD players bought on the black market.

"Legally recognizing what were already facts prospering in the shadows is not the same as allowing or approving something," she wrote. Cuba's leaders are responding to the inevitable, "but they won't soothe our hunger for change."

Authorities have made no sustained effort to stop Sanchez's year-old blog, though pro-government sites accuse her of taking money from opposition groups.

Only foreigners and some government employees and academics are allowed Internet accounts and these are administered by the state.

Ordinary Cubans can join an island-wide network that allows them to send and receive international e-mail. Lines are long at youth clubs, post offices and the few Internet cafes that provide access, but the rest of the Web is blocked - a control far stricter than even China's or Saudi Arabia's.

Still, thousands of Cubans pay about $40 a month for black market dial-up Internet accounts bought through third parties overseas or stolen from foreign providers. Or they use passwords from authorized Cuban government accounts that hackers swipe or buy from corrupt officials.

Sanchez said so many Cubans read her blog that fans stop her on the street.

Generacion Y takes its title from a Cuban passion for names beginning in Y. It offers witty and biting accounts of Cubans' everyday struggles against government restrictions at every turn.

Some of the bloggers hew to the belief that openness is the best answer to official surveillance.

"By signing your name, giving your opinions out loud and not hiding anything, we disarm their efforts to watch us," Sanchez wrote on her blog.

On a blog called "Sin EVAsion" ("Without Evasion"), Eva Hernandez dared to mock "Granma," the official Communist Party newspaper, for taking its name from the American yacht that brought Castro and his rebels back to Cuba from Mexico to launch their armed rebellion in 1956.

"Cuba is the only country in the world whose principal newspaper, the official organ of the Communist Party and the official voice of the government, has the ridiculous name 'granny,'" she wrote. Piling on the heat, she added that the name "perpetuates the memory of that yacht that brought us so much that is bad."

Generacion Y is maintained by a server in Germany, and Sanchez says the Cuban government periodically attempts to block her site within Cuba, though the problem is always cleared up within hours.

Administrators of the "Petrosalvaje" site also claim to struggle with government-imposed limits. A recent post called uncensored Internet access a "virtual raft" - a reference to the rafts on which Cubans flee to the United States.

The government is also into blogging - maintaining dozens of sites dedicated to promoting the island's image overseas.

"Raul needs time," reads a post on Kaosenlared.net, a forum based in Spain. "We are confident, calm and staying united in favor of the direction of our revolution." It is signed Rogelio Sarforat and was apparently posted from Cuba.

Reynaldo Escobar, Sanchez' husband and a former journalist for official media, now uses his own blog to criticize the government. He said Cuba pays supporters to flood the Internet with positive opinions.

He says he knows of nobody who would spend money to go on the Web and defend the system. "Everyone who argues in favor of the government is paid to do so, or does so because they have been asked to," he said.

On the Net: (Spanish only)

Generacion Y: http://www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/

My Island at Midday: http://isla12pm.blogspot.com )

Potro Salvaje: http://www.desdecuba.com/potro/

Click here for the original article.
> Read more!

Musical Warm-up

Here's the song and the music video I made for this week and two trivia questions about it:
1. Can you recognize what part of Mexico most of these photos are from?
2. Do you know the two latin musical styles that are featured in the song?
Click on comments below to post your answer.

Teachers: use this song with interview #885: Beaches. Page 1 of the free, downloadable lesson plan has some ideas about how to use it in class.

For the full interview and accompanying lesson, go to elllo.org lesson #885 (it should be updated now or within an hour or two).

This is the end of the post.
Read more!

Sabrina's Tortillas

This week Diego talks about Cancun, Mexico which is in the Yucatan peninsula. Here's a wonderful recipe from that area.


Double click on any word to see the meaning.

Last winter, Christmas time to be precise, I'm in Merida, the Yucatan, Mexico. And I say to my friend of mine, David Sterling, who runs a cooking school down there - great place, great guy, expat New Yorker - "Take me somewhere good." That's what you always say, right? So we barter, we negotiate. He says, "Wait until Sunday morning. I'm going to take you to have tacos made by Sabrina."

Click below to read the rest of the transcript.

Sunday morning, beautiful day, we go down to the square, and people of all ages are dancing. And off to the side, in the midst of this kind of chaotic, loud, wonderful scene, is Sabrina. She runs up to David, "Oh David!" and proceeds to make us these unbelievable tacos.

So this one is poblano chiles, chiles poblano, corn, potatoes, onions, that's pretty much it. We start by roasting the chiles. So these have had the skin removed. These two haven't. You can use a knife for this but evidently I'm not going to. Pull the cap off, brush out as many of the seeds as is practical. Again, if you leave a few behind, it's not a big deal. Cut these into strips and the strips are now known as rajas, which I believe means rags and they go into our onions. Since we are running a little behind since our onions are doing so well and my rajas are taking awhile I'm going to add the potatoes which are ordinary baking potatoes, boiled, you could bake them if you wanted to until pretty soft and then cubed. Those go in here. We going to now put in a couple of cups of corn. In the summer you can use fresh corn, this is frozen. Now this is done. Sabrina brings this to the market pretty much in this state and keeps it warm. What she does when you come up to her and you say, "I'd like a taco with poblanos and potatoes," is spreads a little lard on a tortilla - corn tortilla of course which is all they use in the Yucatan. Spread a little lard on the tortilla and heat it until it blisters. We eschewed the lard...we don't have any lard so we're using vegetable oil. She said that was ok. She probably did not say that was ok. I was told she said it was ok. Anyway, it's ok. You want to heat the tortilla until it browns lightly on both sides and then I'll show you how to serve. Like crepes, like pancakes, like almost anything you cook on a grill, the first one is usually not perfect - you've got to get the temperature right. That's a little too hot. Not bad though. So then just a scoop of the filling - maybe a scoop and a half, a little bit of crema, you can use salsa rojo (red salsa), green salsa, some crumbled cojita cheese. A little bit of sour cream (or crema), some cilantro.

So it was a great trip. Thanks to David who really knew what was going on. Thanks to Sabrina who was running one of the best places in town. As usual, you have to ask a local and you have to be willing to go anywhere to find the best stuff, which this is.

I'm making these tonight.

Read more!