Monthly Archives: November 2013

Giving Thanks

24 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in United States

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Happy Thanksgiving

 

On Thursday, 28 November 2013, Americans come together as a nation to celebrate Thanksgiving Day: A time to give thanks for God’s benefits on our nation and in our lives. Giving thanks may be far from our thoughts as we continue to live in uncertain and difficult times. Several people I know are facing adversity.

I give thanks for dark days; only then am I able to appreciate all that is good.
I give thanks for helplessness; it forces me to find my strength.
I give thanks for defeat; I learn not to underestimate my opponent.
I give thanks when I am in need; I learn to receive from others with an open heart.
I give thanks for the times I fail; success becomes mine to savor.
I give thanks for my fears; only then can I be truly courageous.
I give thanks when despair clouds my vision of tomorrow; hope is born.
I give thanks for my loss; I learn to appreciate the people in my life.
I give thanks when I’m brought to my knees; therein lies the path to humility and  compassion.
I give thanks for rejection and abandonment; I am filled with universal love.

Life abounds with duality. We cannot exist without the influence of the negative and positive forces of Nature. We have to accept the good with the bad. With birth comes death.

The consequences of the insatiable greed of the powerful, minority elite teach us the value of sharing wealth among all citizens. The destruction of our planet in our frenzy for more and more stuff teaches us what is truly important in our lives. Empires have risen and fallen. In refusing to learn from the lessons of the past, we rush headlong toward the abyss.

I give thanks for those individuals among us who risk their freedom and security to stand up to those in power in defense of humanity and the planet we all call home.

A generation goes, a generation comes, yet the earth stands firm for ever. The sun rises, the sun sets; then to its place it speeds and there it rises… What was will be again; what has been done will be done again; and there is nothing new under the sun. Take anything of which it may be said, ‘Look now, this is new’. Already, long before our time, it existed. Only no memory remains of earlier times, just as in times to come next year itself will not be remembered.
Ecclesiastes 1: 4 & 9-11

Brazil: Working with Finished Cow Leather Covers for Upholstery

17 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Brazil, Working Life

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Leather Recliner SofaLeather Recliner Sofa

 

While I was enjoying the quiet working environment in the Finance Department at Italbras Leather Producer & Exporter Ltd.,* new developments were underway in the Italian-Brazilian joint venture company. At the newly completed Cut & Sew Factory, about a brisk five-minute walk from the tannery, over a hundred young women—from Cascavel, Ceará, where Italbras was located—were being trained in the operation of German-made industrial sewing machines.

When Mr. Leonelli,* our Italian Commercial Director, invited me to be part of his four-person export team, he made me the contact person for our English-speaking clients, including our first Cut & Sew client. Thus began my involvement with the Cut & Sew Leather Factory and its subsequent development to include clients from Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, and the United States.

On my first visit to the factory, I was surprised to see that the sewing machines were mounted on high tables requiring the women to work on their feet. The factory manager, a leather industry expert from South Brazil, explained that this practice reduced injuries and health risks. Using plywood patterns produced by the factory’s digital cutting machine, young men worked at large tables dissecting hides into the pieces needed to make the covers.

Sewers worked on different sections of the sofa covers. The woman responsible for sewing together the various sections had the heaviest load to handle.

“How do you manage with the weight?” I asked her.
“It gives me pain in my shoulders and back,” she told me.

They were simple, intelligent, hardworking women, many of them married with children. I discovered on subsequent visits to the factory that some of them were illiterate.

After quality inspection of the finished leather covers, a team of young men took care of packing the covers on pallets for shipment. Our Cut & Sew Leather Factory produced covers for ottomans, chairs, love seats, sofas, reclining sofas, and sectionals (the most complex design).

Brazilian leather exports of hides and skins to date have already shown signs of an increase over last year exports. In their Analysis of Brazilian Exports of Hides and Skins for October 2013, the Brazil Center for the Tanning Industry (CICB – Centro das Indústrias de Curtumes do Brasil) reported that exports in October 2013, totaling US$236,908 million, exceeded exports for the previous month by 6.8 percent and 28.3 percent over exports in October 2012. Finished leather comprised 55.5 percent of total exports.

Ceará ranked fifth among Brazil’s states with the largest leather exports: São Paulo (20.3%), Rio Grande do Sul (19.8%), Goiás (12.5%), Paraná (11.6%), Ceará (7.9%), and Mato Grosso do Sul (6.4%).

For the period January to October 2013, the top three destinations for Brazilian leather exports were China/Hong Kong (35.7%), Italy (21.2%), and the United States (10.2%).

For readers interested in learning more about Brazil’s leather industry and its major producers and exporters, more data is available on the CICB website, as well as the names and contact information of their associate members.

 

* Fictitious name

The Yellow Daisy Plant: Lessons for Recovery & Transformation

10 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Nature and the Environment, United States

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Yellow DaisyYellow Daisy Grown in My Flower Garden

When we first moved to the apartment complex where we live in West Los Angeles, a neighbor, living obliquely across the grass covered courtyard, grew a yellow daisy plant in her garden plot. Visible from my dining room window, the vibrant yellow daisies brightened my day. After my neighbor retired from her public teaching job and returned to her home state in Southern USA, her yellow daisy plant slowly died. The sturdy main branch became spongy. Did the plant miss her special care and touch?

In 2009, as job losses and home foreclosures mounted as a result of the world financial crisis, I decided to cultivate my own yellow daisy plant. My sons took me to the Garden Section of the Home Depot closest to our neighborhood. I transferred the small potted yellow daisy plant into the ground outside my dining room window.

I watched my daisy plant grow and bloom, attracting bees and butterflies—now a rare sight. Where have all the bees and butterflies gone?

In autumn last year, a fungus transformed the vibrant green foliage of my daisy plant to a ghostly green. For the first time, I took the drastic action of removing all of the foliage with buds and flowers, leaving only the stark, bare branches.

Summer came. There were still no signs of life. Had I killed my prized flowering plant?

This August, life stirred again. New branches and leaves emerged and grew. The first four buds appeared in September. Today, my yellow daisy plant has recovered its original growth in height and expansion. But there is a noticeable change. There are far more buds and daisies than ever before. I marvel at the daisy plant’s ability to recover from such total loss.

In removing the diseased foliage from my daisy plant, I was reminded that there are times when we must rid ourselves of the negativity in our lives that prevent us from being the beautiful people we once were or were meant to be.

My daisy plant has also taught me that when we lose everything—job, home, motor vehicle, and other trappings of our life—it is not the end, once we remain grounded and stand firm. Rather, such a time should be seen as an opportunity to take stock of what is truly important for our well being and for those we love.

Like the yellow daisy plant, we, too, have the capacity to recover and transform our lives after losing everything. We, too, can become even more beautiful and stronger than ever before.

Change begins deep within our minds, hearts, and souls—invisible to the eye. Change is already in progress. Change takes time to manifest itself. Glorious will be our transformation when that happens.

Approaching Le Repentir II: Plantation of Grief by Mark McWatt

06 Wednesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Poetry

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Bangladesh Factory CollapseTwo victims of the Bangladesh Garment Factory Collapse – April 2013
Photo Credit: NY Daily News

 

In my Poetry Corner November 2013, I feature the poem “Approaching Le Repentir II: Plantation of Grief” by Guyana-born poet Mark McWatt. This poem is the second of four poems about the torment and legacy of Pierre Louis De Saffon (1724-1784), from Mark McWatt’s poetry collection, The Journey to Le Repentir, published by Peepal Tree Press in 2009.

In “Approaching Le Repentir I: Pierre Louis De Saffon,” we learn that the Frenchman had sought asylum in the heat and sweat and stink of Demerara where he was doomed to a life all but sorrow, penitence and shame for accidentally killing his brother in a duel (over a woman).

As expressed in “Part II: Plantation of Grief,” no penance was enough for killing his brother. In spite of his wealth and status as a result of his success as a sugar plantation owner, De Saffon suffered a sorrow without relief. In naming his plantations, La Penitence and Le Repentir, he tried to channel (his) lifelong guilt and grief.

The poet in “Part III: Atonement” voiced De Saffon’s hope that the names would live on in a future city as monuments of his atonement: the sincerity of my penance.

As a final act of atonement, described in “Part IV: Hetta,” De Saffon instructed…

that his fortune be used to educate white orphan
(or half-orphan) girls of this purgatorial place…

Henrietta Wilhelmina Cendrecourt, the poet’s paternal grandmother—a poor, white girl who had lost her father—was numbered among the beneficiaries of De Saffon’s will (learn more).

What impressed me about De Saffon’s affliction is the dichotomy of our nature as humans. To the outside world, the Frenchman was a successful plantation owner to be respected and adulated. In his inner being, he remained tormented by loss and remorse. No penance, no achievement could make up for his crime of fratricide.

It’s this crime that inspired my Haiku poem, “Penance.” What about our own crimes of fratricide in our pursuit for greater profits and cheap consumer goods?

In 1782, after seizing the Colony of Demerara, established by the Dutch in 1745, the French built their capital, La Nouvelle Ville, at the mouth of the Demerara River. The Dutch captured the city in 1784 and renamed it Stabroek. When the British took control of Demerara in 1812, they renamed the city, Georgetown, in honor of King George III.

In a strange twist of fate, De Saffon’s Plantation Le Repentir became a part of Georgetown’s largest cemetery, named Le Repentir Cemetery. Saffon Street in Charlestown, built on the front lands where he was buried, is a reminder of his legacy. La Penitence forms the southern border of the cemetery.

In “Approaching Le Repentir,” we approach our final resting place. It’s a journey we must all take. Try as we may, we cannot escape the consequences of our decisions and our actions along the way. When remorse resides in our innermost being, our wealth and power cannot restore our peace of mind. Only forgiveness can do that. Only love heals.

Which Foreign Language Should I Learn?

03 Sunday Nov 2013

Posted by in Education, Guyana

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Takutu Bridge linking Guyana and BrazilTakutu Bridge linking Guyana and Brazil
Source: Stabroek News

 

Before Guyana gained its independence from Great Britain in May 1966, we knew more about Britain than we did about our own country. In high school, we studied British history and literature. Until the publication of Geography of Guyana by Guyanese Professor Leslie P. Cummings in 1965, we had no geography textbook on Guyana. In Form I, our first French and Latin classes began with the conjugation of the verb to love.

Although located on the mainland of South America, Guyana remained an island of English-speaking people on a continent dominated by Spanish and Portuguese. Learning French guaranteed our isolation from our continental neighbors.

After Guyana gained its independence, high school students had the option of choosing between French and Spanish. Latin lost its relevance for our new nation.

While I never had the chance to show off my French, it proved quite useful when learning Portuguese. I observed several similarities between the two Romance or Latin languages: sentence construction, verb conjugation, and gendered nouns and adjectives.

In the 1980s when the Guyanese government banned the importation of a wide range of consumer products, language was no barrier for the rise of a new type of Guyanese entrepreneur: the huckster. While the majority of hucksters traveled to the English-speaking Caribbean islands of Barbados and Trinidad to purchase food and other consumer products for resale in Guyana, others ventured into neighboring Suriname (Dutch) and Brazil (Portuguese). Dense forest terrain along the Venezuelan border deterred this type of informal trade in contraband goods.

Over recent years, Guyana’s relationship with its southern neighbor, Brazil, has grown immensely. Since its completion in 2009, the Takutu Bridge now links the two nations, across the river where hucksters once illegally sneaked across the border under cover of darkness. In February 2010, Guyana became a signatory member state of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

On 17 October 2013, Guyana finally committed to a long-term relationship with Brazil. The Ministry of Education launched its Portuguese Curriculum for schools. Until more Portuguese teachers are trained, only five high schools in Georgetown will offer this additional option. Guyanese business owners or their representatives and trade professionals who seek to do business with Brazil should have some degree of fluency in the language.

From my own experience in Brazil when acting as an English/Portuguese interpreter for visiting clients, I can tell you that a lot gets lost in translation. A whole new world of understanding and appreciation for another culture opens up to us when we can communicate with our business partners and the local population in their native language.

French, Portuguese or Spanish: Which foreign language should I learn? This is the question young Guyanese high school students must now ask themselves. Perhaps it’s none of these three options. Considering China’s rise as an economic power, their choice might well be Mandarin or Cantonese.