K. Kumar's Blog, page 11

Lao Tzu

From Lao Tzu:

He who knows does not speak,
He who speaks does not know.

I am repeating myself, but it is all for a good cause.

Treasured Soul

I have been listening to this...

More on El Salvador

This is another recent headline from El Salvador:

Caring About Your Character

When writing fiction, or really anything, one thing an artist has to keep in mind is that there is a high risk that your audience will not care about the character(s) you have created and will quickly lose interest in your story. You can spend hours and hours creating a character and bringing them to life, describing them, and placing them in interesting settings, but there is a good chance your audience will not care much about your character, and will lose interest in their fate. Indeed, th...

El Salvador

This was in one of the local papers in El Salvador:

Guatemala

Saw these signs posted along the highway in Guatemala:

El Alquimista

This is an interesting passage from El Alquimista:

En este exilio espiritual aprendí muchas cosas importantes: que sólo aceptamos una verdad cuando previamente la negamos desde el fondo del alma; que no debemos huir de nuestro propio destino, y que la mano de Dios es infinitamente generosa, a pesar de Su rigor.

Paro

Paro is a Spanish word meaning:

Source: Wordreference.comIt is an interesting word because it can mean different things in different contexts. It can refer to a heart attack, a work stoppage, or simply unemployment. But, I wonder if the person who came up with the word had this in mind:
Source: La Prensa Grafica
In El Salvador, the violence has gotten so bad that the gangs have targeted the bus drivers, killing them and burning their busses. They demanded a work stoppage. A paro. So now peo...

Los desplazados

In Spanish, the word desplazados means:

Source: Wordreference
I came across a recent story from El Salvador:

Source: La Prensa GraficaThe basic premise of the story is that a family from San Martin, in fear of the gangs, fled to Santa Elena to seek out help from two embassies and the U.N. But no one would help them, so they moved to a park for refuge from the gangs. In short, the entire family was displaced from their home.
The story got more interesting when it was discovered that two membe...

Movie Review: Silencio en El Paraiso

I recently saw this movie:


Silencio en El Paraiso takes place in a small village/city outside of Bogota, in Colombia. The protagonist is a young kid struggling to find a job, and struggling with finding love. The movie does a good job with illustrating the desperation and helplessness that a lot of people feel when placed in that situation. Even as I struggled with understanding some of the Spanish, the desperation was very easy to detect.
This movie is apparently based on actual events, and th...