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I will be traveling to Budapest this Friday, 3 November and staying until Monday, 6 November when I arrive very early back in Warsaw.

Should be the source of some good entries. Stay tuned.

Stalin's Leftovers

Given that I'm back in Warsaw for a little while, I thought I'd write a short piece on the eyesore that is Warsaw's Palace of Culture and Science.

My first encounter with the building was a rather utilitarian one. I used it as a geographical reference point in making my way around central Warsaw because it happens to be the tallest building in Warsaw and if not, just short of it.

You may recall this, I cropped it from another photograph located in an earlier entry regarding a walk around my neighborhood. As you can tell, it towers over everything in Warsaw, visible from just about any location in the city. What's more, I had no idea when I was commenting on the earlier photograph that this monstrous building had a sordid history.

The building was finished in 1955. It required 40 Million bricks.

Who commissioned it? That's right, your friend and mine, Josef Stalin. It is surmised that Stalin was jealous of the skyscrapers that New York so triumphantly built before and after World War II. As we all know most architecture is phallic and this is no exception, symbolizing power and prowess (that's why I believe financial services are often the occupants of these structures; money is power for many cultures).

Originally, Stalin wanted eight of these to be built in Moscow, corresponding to New York's major skyscrapers. When all was said and done, seven were in Moscow, and the largest of them all found itself in Warsaw. Stalin really wanted the rest of Europe to know he was just around the corner.

And then the Wall fell and the USSR, slowly afterward, was no longer flexing its occupation muscle in Eastern Europe. But the Poles had no idea what to do with the Palace. Ideas for addressing this Stalinist leftover were elicited from different architects internationally in a competition. The winner wanted to shroud the Palace in skyscrapers, crowning it or hiding it, whichever term you prefer.

The Warsaw community vociferously objected and now pre-World War II land titles are being disputed in the courts. Everything is stuck, leaving Stalin's physically manifested legacy standing.

Personally, I hope it stays a little longer, if not for its historical significance (I'm not a Pole, so I really have no authority to speak to this effect anyway), then certainly it's views of the city:

And to add insult to injury, the Poles have a favorite joke they tell tourists:

Tourist: Do you know where to find the best view of Warsaw?

Pole: Of course, the top of the Palace of Culture and Science.

Tourist: Oh, because it's the tallest building in Warsaw?

Pole: No, because from there you can't see it.

Cuenca: Was that Spanish or French?

And then there was Cuenca, located almost directly South of Quito in the Andean basin. I didn't find a town with as much charm in Ecuador. Architecturally, and to some degree even culturally, a little European pocket in Ecuador.

Cuenca was founded in 1557 by a Spanish explorer and after European coal mining interests in the region subsided, a French "footprint" on the people can be found (seriously, no pun, this is figurative) when looking at the residents. Some were as fair-skinned as I was, which struck me as a total anomaly.

The city has eight universities and a population of roughly 400,000, making it the "third city of Ecuador" behind Guayaquil and Quito. Indeed, the night life was amazing. Needless to say, I was "Gringo-Who-Can-Dance" for a night, as my Polish colleague proved otherwise on the dance floor. Thanks Shakira, these hips indeed don't lie.

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Sorry for the recent silence on this page again. Busy, or at least, trying not to be, but it's a good problem to have.

For those who normally reached me via cellular, my US mobile account is suspended. I now have a Polish cellular to make life a little easier over here.

I will be going to Greece on November 10 returning the 12th for a short holiday with my host in Poland.

Thanks for all the emails, love to hear from back home, I'll try to answer them as fast as I can.

All the best.

I Ate Fluffy

This is purely for the sake of novelty (and maybe to gross people out). Actually, guinea pig is pretty good. Especially when it's right off the spit. I can no longer look my neighbor's guinea pig straight in the face (but can you ever look one straight in the face, given their physical features?). And yes, this isn't Europe, this is Ecuador, baby.

Work

To give readers an idea of what I was writing while at the United Nations, here's a piece I sent in for publication but did not eventually make the cut (I met Dr. Sengupta at a press conference and had a wonderful conversation with him):

17 October 2006—GENEVA—World Food Day, yesterday, was an occasion for me that brought to mind the current situation in the United States. Hunger remains a constant source of global malnutrition and stunted childhood development.

These are not the only problems, of course, but even in a country such as the United States, poverty persists, with the result that the US is counted along with countries with hungry citizens worldwide.

The recent report presented in Geneva by the United Nations independent expert, Dr. Arjun Sengupta, to the Human Rights Council on extreme poverty in the United States was startling.

During the two years of Sengupta’s mandate so far, many countries have received special visits, all places typically associated with extreme poverty. There was one exception that caught my eye.

For 12 days, Sengupta traveled throughout the United States, visiting New York, Washington state, New Orleans, and mining regions of Appalachia, in an attempt to show that extreme poverty exists in developed nations as well.

If poverty is defined by the United Nations as surviving on two dollars a day (not a very good global demarcation as prices vary greatly from country to country, but currently a universal standard), then extreme poverty is defined as surviving on only one dollar a day and, thus, comprises an even more needy group within the impoverished.

Sengupta reported that the US’ impoverished under the definition of extreme poverty are a racially indifferent group, composed of several ethnicities. Is essence, extreme poverty in the US is arguably colorblind. Indicative of this group is a lack of healthcare (if any at all), education, and employment.

In a press conference on September 28, 2006, Sengupta responded to questions about the US’ alleged violation of human rights in this regard. Noting that since the US is more than capable of helping these people rectify the aforementioned indications of extreme poverty, the US has in effect made a choice not to help, and is violating the human rights of the extreme poor—including their right to life.

Unfortunately for the United States government, the report makes specific reference to a glaring deficiency in the US position on human rights criticizing that it “… has not accepted economic, social, and cultural rights as legally valid rights.”

Another key to identifying the extreme poor, according to Sengupta, is social exclusion, which prevents the access to opportunity which, in theory, could alleviate extreme poverty. The US contention that such people aren’t trying hard enough would seem to be the stock response.

The US delegate Steven Hill responded to the report in the Human Rights Council saying the US was pleased that Sengupta referred to several agencies at a federal level addressing poverty. However, Hill wished more sources had been consulted, such as academic sources. Not a stunning defense, if the delegate felt one was needed.

Looking at the situation from a global perspective, one would not suspect a problem with the US’ poor. But from an outsider’s perspective, the US has a pronounced problem. Sengupta’s visit to the Appalachia region is telling, as mining has declined there and unemployment has progressively increased with the shutdown of each mine. The damage to the environment ostensibly created by the mines, along with the concomitant harm to overall health plus a lack of adequate housing, have created one of the poorest regions in the US.

Given the reportedly deteriorating conditions in New Orleans, it is time the US government took a hard look at impoverished regions both in out of the media’s scope of vision and not only acknowledge the problem, but enact change.

Quito: "Touch the Sky"

And how cheese is that slogan? That's what all the tourism materials I received from the Ecuadorian tourism boards said. And I had to laugh, because Quito really isn't touching the sky so much as touching the smog, which starts in the morning around ten and hangs in the air (the city is a lot like Burbank in that it's couched in mountains and air tends to "hang" in the basin) until the fog from the mountains rolls in twelve hours later and disposes of it.

If the Amazon was our vacation, then Quito, the capital city of Ecuador, was the administrative part that needed completion before leaving for Cuenca. Quito does retain much of its heritage and culture, despite the large number of museums and lack of night life (but we managed to get by). The famous Latin American artist who took inspiration from Che Guevara and Fidel Castro worked out of Quito. His name was Oswaldo Guayasamin and his work is, well, provocative.

I truly enjoyed many of the exhibitions, though, as much as I may gripe about being completely ADD when it comes to museums. Perhaps it's just overwhelming attempting to take it all in, and thus, I try to parse out each chunk into manageable ones, only to the detriment of my gaining the entire experience. Oh well.

Next on the list of Ecuador entries: Cuenca

No More Planes!

Back in Warsaw. I added up my flight times and decided I'm happy not to see a plane for a little while:

Minneapolis>Chicago: 1.5
Chicago>Copenhagen: 8.5
Copenhagen>Warsaw: 2.5
Warsaw>Zurich: 2.0
Zurich>Geneva: 0.5
Geneva>Madrid: 2.5
Madrid>Quito: 11.0
Banana Plantation>Guayaquil: 0.45
Guayaquil>Madrid: 10.5
Madrid>Geneva: 2.5
Geneva>Zurich: 0.5
Zurich>Warsaw: 2.5

Total flight time in six weeks: approximately 48 hours.

Back in the CH

Well, after a eleven hour flight with an extra two our flight to top off the travel back to the other side of the world, sleeping last night never had more meaning to me. I will be here until Wednesday, at which time I will return to Warsaw where hopefully, this blog will get the badly needed attention it deserves. Hope all is well back home.

And carrying three currencies around is mind-boggling. Thank god Ecuador dollarized in 2000.

Pete of the Jungle

It took us five and a half hours to travel from Quito to the Amazon. Along the drive, we stopped at a summit reaching 4,000 meters (do the math, I think that's almost, if not more 12,000 feet) and it was breathtaking, literally. As we made our way downhill, the scenery changed from this:

To this:

And so, as you can see, the clouds cleared and before us was the great Amazon. We stayed at a wonderful resort roughly 100 kilometers East of Tena on the Napo river. During our stay, we ventured into the jungle with a guide who explained many of the medicinal properties of trees and plants (he was a Shaman and indeed, carried with him wisdom that dates back two or even three thousand years).

But this is just one short piece of this entire trip. I will try to post more in the coming days.

The Whole Nine Yards

Ecuador takes its name from the equator. Yes, no duh. The Latin root of the imaginary line partitioning the Northern and Southern hemispheres is "equal." Yes, no duh. But Ecuador is amazing in that it contains three distinct climates and geographical regions (which the US does, but it has much more room to do so; Ecuador is the second smallest country in South America). Have you ever stood on both hemispheres at once? I did:

Hate to brag, but I think it was awesome. However, the actual line is on top of a small mountain to the Northeast, the French were off by a few kilometers. When the GPS system was configured and the system analysts came to the very point at which I took this picture, they found out they were off. A large search for the mathematical equator was conducted and when discovered, ruins below a farm field at the top of the mountain revealed ancient ruins. The French geographers believed the distance to the North pole from the equator was 1,000,000 kilometers. Well guess what, with modern science we found out it was about 1,000,230 kilometers (by the way, this is how the metric system was invented, dividing the distance from the equator to the pole by 10,000,000 to create meters).

Here's the best part, though, the ruins showed us that the indigenous people had it figured out a thousand years before we did. It is surmised that because of the mountains in the area, the movement of the sun along solstice and equinoxes [sic] allowed the indigenous people to discover a single area at which the Sun met, and thus, found the equator.

Back to my point, the three distinct regions from East to West (coast) are the Amazon (jungle), Andes (Mountains), and coastal. Thus far, I have been to the first two. The entries will follow accordingly. Unfortunately, I must call it a night. To give you a taste of what's to come, however, here's a picture of what I was looking at throughout the bus ride:

Where Did Time Go?

Just a quick note to let everyone know I'm still alive and well. I have not had very much free time to update this, but suffice it to say I was in paradise the first three days in Ecuador as we traveling through the mountains to the Amazon and stayed in a wonderful little resort on the Napo River. I'm back in Quito now and plan to have a full entry completed tonight. Thanks for your patience.

Don't blink too fast...

Or you might end up in another country. I made it to Quito, Ecuador, and my god, it's beautiful. More to come, just settling in. View from my hotel: