11/8
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| ...bright, bright sun shiny day..... |
Shortly following the official announcement of Biden’s victory, our Central America Task Force gathers for its meeting. The joy here is a bit more restrained. All wondering how the countries these people come from or work in and all care about will fare in a new administration. The major fact impact al the countries is of course the hurricane. In Nicaragua, Puerta Cabezas is all but destroyed. Aid to tjhe regional’s forbidden and the Ortega government diverting the aid like Somoza after the earthquake. In the resistance, La Alianza and the Coalicion seem to have split on economic and class bases. The Alianzacistas feeling they would do better with Trump. Efforts are underway to try and restore the working agreement. Tens of thousands have died of covid while only 1300 are recognized, the government continues it be in denial and testing (around $200) beyond the average person’s capacity. ‘Foreign agency” and “cyber security” acts have clamped down on civil liberty. Election reform is taking place in advance of the 2021 election but not at the executive level. The second harvest has now been lost and a food crisis looms. Increased land demands for beef are eating into the rain forest.
Guatemala is experiencing landslides. Villages are cut off from communication. Government corruption hinders aid. The effort to control covid disintegrating with no access to testing in the villages. The whole situation will continue forcing people north. And covid makes accompaniment impossible. And the Covid crisis has increased stress for activists.
In Honduras, there is flooding in the San Pedro Sula area.There too crops wiped out. Efforts to build for tourism on the Atlantic Coast are impacting the Garifona Community.
In El Salvador, there has been a showdown between the government and the independent digital journal El Faro over its investigative journalism resulting in a crack down., Covid has hit hard. After a late summer dip, new cases are now spiking to nearly 600 a day.
There is of course hope for a more humane approach to the region. We need or start with the tens of thousands of Central Americans stuck in covid infested encampments on the Mexican side of the border unable to exercise their internationally recognized right to an asylum hearing. And every factor we’ve heard about will just keep pushing them north.
11/9
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| and vote they did.... |
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| along my trek |
Sunday morning I sleep later than I wanted to. I go out to buy my Sunday Times for my ritual of coffee and pastry and news but the papers are gone. I begin a determined search, not wanting to give up. And between Harlem at 135th Street and the Upper West Side at 71st, covering nearly six miles back and forth, not a single Times. All gone. The ironic thing is, I was not looking for a souvenir. I want the magazine for the crossword puzzle.
Family medical crises are complexly complicated by covid making decisions about travel and chlldren and quarantines
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| Get your Biden Harris t-shirts here |
Last night’s celebrations have left Bar 9 completely out of chicken wings for my Sunday night gig. Even though the cub bans “political music,” I dedicate Johnny Nash’s “I can see clearly now the rain is gone” to yesterday’s victory.
I notice that the one thing the election crisis did was to delay the annual day after Halloween appearance of Christmas decorations. I saw the first ones going up yesterday.
It still feels good.
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