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The Week That Was - Bolivian Blogs

Watching a World Cup in person can be such a memorable experience. Even if one’s country is not one of the two competitors, it can still prove to be awe-inspiring. Jean-Paul Calbimonte aka jpcik!, is a Bolivian living in Switzerland. Recently on his blog South Side of the Sky [ES], he chronicled his visit to Gelsenkirchen to see a match between Ecuador and Poland on the opening day of the tournament, courtesy of a surprise ticket.

Upon my return from watching a Steve McQueen film, you know those in which he sends many to their demise, coming away without a scratch. I arrived home and checked my email. There was a message from FIFA World Cup 2006, “Come to Gelsenkirchen, the day after tomorrow, we have a ticket waiting for you.” It appeared that someone had purchased an advance ticket, but returned it for some reason. They must have decided to pass it along to those on the waiting list. One of those was me. I didn’t even think twice, as all of my weekend commitments were unilaterally cancelled and I began preparations for my emergency trip. I reserved a seat on the 9 hour train ride, with my backpack on my shoulder and we’re off to the World Cup.

Upon his arrival to the city, he encountered a festive atmosphere. He ran across many fans who were without a ticket and whose only hope was a ticket scalper.
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India Changing: Calcutta to Kolkatta and much, much more…

Kamla Bhatt · 17:12 · South Asia

lingua → zhs · zht

India Changing.

Change. That is the theme of this post. Change has become a constant in India. We read about changes in Delhi, Bombay, Bangalore, but seldom about Calcutta. Calcutta is a city that we read very little about in the virtual world of blogs. Arjit re-visits his old home, which is a place called South 24 Parganas and discovers that everything has changed. His old home town is now part and parcel of the sprawling metropolis called Calcutta. He writes:

South 24 Parganas metamorphosed into Calcutta, with a new pin code – 700093…
Only the bus-route is still at the same place…

Rana who lives in Singapore writes about going back home to visit his family in Calcutta. His post is tinged with nostalgia and longing to reunite with his wife and son in Calcutta, combined with that great passion the city is famous for: football or soccer. This is what he writes:

My wife will be waiting for me at Dum Dum, now called Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose Airport, when I land there shortly after midnight. I guess my son will also be at the airport. Dear me, he will miss one of the World Cup soccer matches on TV if he comes to the airport.

Rana is so excited about his trip home that he has been humming to an old Cliff Richards tune called “Traveling Light.” Cliff Richards is, or should I say has a huge fan following in India. Bishwanath Ghosh talks about various kinds of Bengalis (Calcutta is the capital of W. Bengal and people from that state are called Bengalis) and about their love for food, especially fish. Bengalis love their fish, and Bishwanath alas is not very fond of fish. Here is what he writes:

Bengalis love to eat. Wait a second, they live to eat. While the rest of the world feeds itself to survive the day, the Bengalis survive so that they can reward themselves with food at least three times a day. Without fish, they are like fish out of water: so a great deal of time, energy and money is spent on procuring the fish every morning.

Bishwanath's blog posting provides the perfect segue to highlight the next collab blog. This is a food blog called You Eat What You Were. Notice the subtle pun there…there is a hint there..what happens when you leave (more…)

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Bosnia & Herzegovina: Photoblogging Sarajevo

Veronica Khokhlova · 16:30 · Bosnia Herzegovina

lingua → zht

sarajevo restored building
A restored building in Sarajevo - by Seesaw/Quod/Zdenka

Seesaw (aka Quod, aka Zdenka) has been blogging about the Balkans for a year and a half at Balkan-Scissors.

Here's how she came to photography:

Born in Sarajevo, spent the war in Sarajevo, live in Sarajevo. Now retired.
Bought Canon A75 in January and discovered I love to make photos.

Seesaw's Sarajevo photos can be viewed at Sarajevo Photoblog (”Photos from Sarajevo, the ones that you usually do not see.”) - and at Flickr.

Yakima_Gulag, who also blogs about the Balkans at YakimaGulagLiteraryGazett, describes Seesaw's photos in a Flickr testimonial:

Quod's pictures of Sarajevo are the best pictures of that city! They have a very lovely and restrained quality. I also enjoy that she has put old postcards from Bosnia i Hercegovina because it kind of tells you how things used to be.

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Kurdistance:

Deborah Ann Dilley · 09:33 · Middle East & North Africa

Normally I try to find a reoccurring theme for my weeklies, however this week turned out to be a bit of a Kurdish hodge-podge.

Sami from Iraqi Thoughts writes some ranting tidbits about Saddam, Al Zarqawi and his new outlook for the future:

I think that I am chaning in the sense I used to believe that everything was going to be solved not knowing how lazy people can be. I wish to write this to the people who still read this,, I am back and better than before, im excited and to be honest I have a lot of projects on the go, including a possible return to kurdistan somewhere in the not too distant future with an eye on a high job since I am related after all to some of the ‘agents and spies' that call themself the Iraqi government.

the-kurdistani posted an article that he had tried to get published in his school paper but wasn't accepted, in it he details a political debate that he had with a fellow student who was Turkish (while I disagree with his use of the “Hitler card” in his analysis- my comments on this were once a subject of serious debate on the Kurdish forums- I feel that reading his viewpoints on it are quite informative):

While listening to him, I was preparing some questions to ask him, this way I would see his approach to democracy and human rights clearly. Then I asked, “What do you think of Hitler’s atrocities against humanity, but the Jews in particular?”, “well, that is a totally different topic.” he replied. I made my statement clearer by “well but he was trying to get rid of the Jews, and the ones who he thought were inferior to Great Aryan Race (blonde, tall, and blue-eyed ones, though he was not like that himself), including Gypsies, Homosexuals and even the Polish. His aim was to create a great empire that would “last a thousand years” as he said to is followers. Do you see that he tried to create a cultural unity, too, by destroying and killing anything, or anybody that was different from the form he wanted it to be? So, is that not almost the same thing with what you have just said about “cultural unity”?” he did not have a concrete answer for this, and I asked another question, “what if the people, with all minorities including the Kurds, Arabs, Assyrians, and many others say that we don’t want to be Turkified? What if they say, ok we are citizens of the Republic of Turkey but we are what we are with our identity, it could be the Kurds or any other minority, what are you going to do in that case?” He thought for some time, but did not answer.

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