#I found the giraffe abandoned at an airport

[constellation-suggestions]

huge life update..!!

hey everyone !! so as you’ve seen, we’ve been slowly returning to this blog. we’re so sorry for kind of abandoning it in the past few months, it wasn’t on purpose and we never really meant to do it. there was no “let’s take a hiatus” decision, we did want to keep running the blog but a lot has been going on and life has been really distracting !! soooo much has happened with us, and we can’t wait to tell you all about what we’ve been up to !!

we left off telling you about our month-long first meeting. ruby lived in california while i lived in canada, and we met online through pokemon. at the very beginning of april, after almost a year of dating, ruby flew over to canada and we met for the first time. we spent an amazing month together and did so many fun things before she had to leave at the end of april, just a few days before our one year anniversary. it was a very tearful goodbye as being together in real life had been so wonderful that we really dreaded going back to being long distance. this is the part you’ve already known. oh how things have changed...

it was only a short two months before we saw each other again. we spent may and june apart, but then, at the very end of june, i was the one who flew to california. like ruby in april, it was my first time going through an airport and on an airplane all by myself !!! i was extremely nervous to do it but after it had happened, it wasn’t neaaarly as bad as i thought it would be. the flight itself was disappointingly extremely boring and i couldn’t wait for it to be over. i absolutely love looking out the window but the woman in the window seat beside me, as well as apparently every single person around me, kept the windows closed the entire flight ! ! ! ! and oh god that woman... i couldn’t text ruby throughout the flight so i wrote down the hilarious things she said so that i could tell her them later. i won’t say what they were right now because i don’t want a huge portion of this life update to just be about her but dear god ... if anyone wants to know what happened with her, feel free to send an ask about it and i will most gladly tell c; let’s just say... i named her melania trump ...

ruby and i had no idea that we would see each other again so soon. when we parted at the end of april, we had no clue for how long it would be. we hoped we would be lucky enough to see each other again around christmas, because we knew we really wanted to spend that together. and we ended up being even luckier than that ! we did lots of fun things in california; went swimming in ruby’s pool (i don’t have a pool so this was exciting to me okay !), went to a fair on the fourth of july where we saw a rodeo and amazing fireworks, we drove 10 hours to arizona !!!, where we camped for a few days in The Wilderness, and we had never seen so many stars in our lives. the town of sedona and the mountains in arizona were so extremely beautiful and breathtaking. we went to san pedro and santa monica pier... sedona and santa monica were my two favourite places, especially santa monica. they were both so extremely beautiful. the stars in sedona and the sunset on santa monica beach... in california we also discovered ubereats. i mean, we’d always known it existed, but they had only just started making deliveries where ruby lived, and we don’t have it where i live in canada, so we had never used it before. we ordered it once and then...got addicted. we ordered quite a few “feasts” every few days where we would buy enough food that it looked as though it were for a party, but it was just the two of us. relationship goals though, am i right ? i loved our feasts ! we also walked around hollywood, of course, which i’d really wanted to see. i got a lot of fun souvenirs ! and we saw the hollywood sign !! that about ended my time in california... or i should say, OUR time.

that’s right, when i returned to canada at the end of july, after spending one month in california, ruby came with me. it was my dad’s idea, that she should come for another visit and experience summer in canada, since when she was here in april it was still winter and way too cold to do certain things. we had her ticket to canada bought before i even left for california !

we missed our flight. we might’ve left the house a tiny bit too late, and then there was traffic on the way to the airport. once we got there, there was technically still time. our plane hadn’t left off yet and we knew that planes never left exactly on time anyway. if we hurried through security we could probably still.... but they wouldn’t let us !!! immediately at check in they told us that we could no longer check in for this flight. it was too late. we had to be there at least an hour before departure. even though we probably could have made it, they said no... but they told us they could put us on the next flight. which was at 6pm. IT WASN’T EVEN NOON YET. ruby’s parents had already left us at the airport, we couldn’t sit there until 6pm !!!! PLUS, my parents had already driven 2 hours to toronto for us at this point, doing some shopping before they expected to pick us up at the airport at 7pm canadian time. like this, we wouldn’t even BOARD OUR PLANE until 9pm their time !!!! WE WOULD ARRIVE IN CANADA NOT AT 7PM, BUT AT PAST 2AM. this could NOT happen. my parents, with my little siblings with them as well, could not wait for us until 2am. there had to be a sooner flight. there had to be. AND LUCKILY, THERE WAS. they said that they could squeeze us onto a flight that left just an hour after our original flight. we would only arrive in canada slightly late. thank god. we also extremely luckily got seats together. our seats weren’t assigned until we were waiting for the plane to begin boarding. the man at the desk said that unfortunately, they didn’t have any seats left together, as he started printing our boarding passes... but he didn’t even finish saying it before he cut himself off, seeing that they DID have a seat together, and printed our new tickets, next to each other. finally everything was set !!! we had a much better flight together than i did when i flew to california. i got the window seat and got to look out the window all i wanted !!! we also watched ratatouille on the plane. because of delays, we didn’t get there until 10pm canadian time. it was nice seeing my family again after a whole month away. and then was the long drive home... we got to my house near 1am. AND I GOT TO SEE MY CATS. i had been away from them for so long !!!!!!! 

so began our next month in canada. it was august, and we tried to do as many fun things together as we could. just a few days after we returned to canada, my family left for the long weekend to the state of new york. so we had the house to ourselves ! my siblings are... extremely loud and annoying. whenever they’re home, we try to stick to my room because there are no words for how horrible they are. so we were very glad to have the house to ourselves for once and took the opportunity to cook some tasty food together ! we made several good breakfasts and we even cooked two batches of meringues, which were really good. during the rest of august, we went swimming at the beach (where we had taken a walk back in april and i died from how freezing it was back then), shopped at my favourite mall, watched the incredibles 2 at the theatre, went to the african lion safari where we saw many animals such as elephants, zebras, giraffes, lions, and more, and we bought ruby a (very cheap) nintendo switch !!! she had been wanting one for literally EVER but had no money to get one. she was always really upset that she may never get one, especially with lots of games coming out that she wanted. so i helped her get one and she was so happy !!! we also both played my most favourite game in the world, together on our switches, when we saw that it had been released for switch: okami hd !!!! we have actually yet to finish it but we are very close to the end.... it’s such a good game and ruby really loves it ! i’ve wanted her to play it forever ! we also got mario kart 8 for switch, which has been a lot of fun to play together, we went to niagara on the lake, where we tried beavertails and poutine for the first time, but then when we had barely ate some of the poutine a TINY gust of wind somehow managed to blow it off our table and spill it all over the ground >:( we were so depressed !!!!!!  we also went on a horse carriage ride ! and tried costco fries ! (costco’s in the US don’t sell fries in their cafe area and i have always really loved them and wanted ruby to try them... on the other hand american costco’s sell chicken bakes which are SO good and canadian costco’s don’t D’: i will miss them..) and we had campfires again !! just like back in april !! ruby has also helped me find homes for 5 stray kittens/cats that lived outside my house. they were a big problem, always having kittens and sadly suffering during the winter when it was freezing and there was little food. we were finally able to help the last of them !!! that makes over 20 strays that i’ve found homes for ! however... there were actually 6 cats. the last was a black cat named pepper. i loved her a lot but she was very sick. a rescue did take her along with the other adult stray and had her treated and fixed !!! but they couldn’t find a home for her... so they ended up returning her a month later and... we ended up taking her in just a few days ago !!! pepper is now mine !! i have 6 cats now hehehe... so that makes for our time in canada.

you may be thinking to yourself: but you said you spent the month of august together. it’s been more than a month. you both adopted pepper just the other day, and it’s october now. well... that would be right ! ruby is still here. SHE IS STAYING HERE.

YES. YES. YES. RUBY IS IN CANADA AND NOT LEAVING. so a few weeks into august, i asked my dad for advice on what the heck we’re supposed to do for ruby to begin immigrating to canada. he said well why wait ? there’s no better time to start than right now. we were ecstatic and in disbelief. we wouldn’t have to say goodbye again. ruby was not going back to california. so it was still august when we cancelled ruby’s flight and began preparing for her move. she couldn’t go back for her stuff in california because well... it would be weird and suspicious if she spent a whole month in canada, went back to california for like a week, and then returned with a ton of stuff. what would she even tell as her reason for returning to canada at airport security this time ? yeah... we thought it would be best if she didn’t leave the country. instead, her mom is going to be mailing several packages of ruby’s belongings over. but don’t worry, we’re not secretly keeping her here illegally. my family has immigrated illegally to canada and ruby’s illegally to the US, so we know all of the trouble that causes and want to avoid that. she is technically still a visitor. americans are allowed to visit canada for 6 months per year, every year, so she can be here no problem until the end of january 2019. so we have until then to figure out something more to keep her here longer. we are planning to begin college together, and that way she can get a study permit and a work permit for the length of the program (likely around 18 months). in those 18 months we would then make progress toward keeping her here after graduation, such as having her apply for a permanent residency. it’s hard but i’m sure everything will work out !

however, we are... extremely stressed out at the moment. the problem is, we have no money. we need thousands to pay for college. we need jobs to get money. ruby can’t even get a job yet, as she has no work permit. also, neither of us have driver’s licenses, though we are working to get them. and she cannot get a work permit until she has a study permit. but to get the study permit we have to have a way to pay for school---- you see the problem.

we want to go to college for video game design and development. we both have a huge love and passion for video games and would love to be the ones creating them. we already have plenty ideas for games that we want to create one day. (because of me tbh,.. every little thing gives me a new idea !) the first school i thought of was the toronto film school. so one day we simply requested more information from them, so we could learn more about what the school and the program were like. the admissions adviser called us pretty much immediately and was super nice. we talked to him a lot over the course of several days, and were very excited to apply for this school. however... we hadn’t fully thought things through just yet. looking back on it now, he kind of pressured us a little bit, urging us to apply right away so that we could be accepted and start at the school in january 2019. he said that the school would help us find an apartment in toronto and everything. toronto is 2 hours away so of course we’d have to move out to attend this school. now, filling out an application isn’t the bad thing. neither were the short essays we had to write along with the application. i don’t mind applying and even being accepted to this school. what i mind is the price, after realizing that toronto may not be the best idea. the application had a $100 fee, each, and we are extremely extremely extremely broke. but we paid it. they urged us to, made us feel like we had to apply right at that moment and that everything would work out. within just like, 4 or 5 days honestly, of simply requesting some more information about the school, we had applied and paid a non-refundable $200 together. and just a few days after that.... we truly realized how bad of an idea it was. we hadn’t even glanced at other schools to see what our options were. i did mention our worries about money to our admissions adviser for toronto film school, telling him that i have no idea how we are going to pay for all of this and that we may just have to apply for another school--- he brushed me off very quickly. didn’t even consider the option and just told me that everything would be fine and we would find a way to pay for the school and that we should apply as soon as possible so that our spots for january could be saved. he pushed me to apply, and i feel stupid for doing so now. i regret it. if it had just been a written application and all free it would all be fine but what i regret is the two of us losing $200 when we have nothing. we could have used that money to apply for a different school or pay the fee for our driver’s license test and now we have nothing. i am salty about that. i kind of feel scammed. i wish we could get our money back but i’m certain there really is no way... it’s non-refundable. sighs... the issue is, toronto is SO expensive. the school tuition would have been $33,000 each, and we thought we were soooo lucky because they told us ruby wouldn’t have to pay an extra 10k in international fees and instead get the same 33k as me. toronto, being an enormous city, gives you the shittiest, tiniest apartments, for so much money. rent would have been about $1,200 a month for an 18 month program. we were easily looking at about $88,000 that we would have to pay together. god, i am only just realizing just how much that would have been. and that is ONLY for our schooling and housing, not including other utilities and things like food. where would we, jobless as we currently are, GET 88 THOUSAND DOLLARS ??? pluuus, fafsa (american college aid) does not support the toronto film school. however osap (canadian college aid) does. i would have gotten some help for my tuition but ruby, the one who needs the help the most, being in a foreign country with no money and unable to get a job yet, would receive NOTHING. apparently fafsa hardly gives you anything anyways... but something is obviously better than nothing, and she would get nothing.

so toronto film school was a bad idea. i regret spending that $200 application fee. even if we get accepted, i hardly doubt it’s going to happen. i don’t think i want it to happen anymore. the costs scare me too much. we would struggle too much. it would be impossible.

on the bright side, i suppose, we are now considering a better school option. (though that doesn’t make the extreme stress go away, of course. we are still extremely broke). there is a school 40 minutes from my house called the university of western ontario. it’s closer by, so the location is much better and we’d be able to visit home much more often. housing would also be so, so much cheaper. the apartments there are not only much better quality, but larger, and cheaper. i visited an apartment building just today that is literally directly across the street from my favourite mall and a 5 minute walk from the university. it is the perfect location and i’m kind of in love with it. the tuition itself is likely much cheaper as well. i have not requested any information from this school yet so i have no idea how much exactly a video game program would cost, but when i quickly googled the general cost of this school, it told me that it is 8k for canadian students and 24k for international students. yep, international fees, which the toronto film school apparently didn’t have. it’s not very fair that i have to pay only 8k possibly while ruby has to pay 24k, but 24k is still much cheaper than 33k. that is nine thousand dollars we would save. PLUS, fafsa actually supports this university. we highly hope that they would give ruby a decent amount of money, though she says they hardly help at all. they gave her only a few hundred when she applied to a californian college once that she didn’t end up attending, and her sister actually started college extremely recently and they gave her absolutely nothing. so... there’s a chance they won’t help much. there’s also a chance that since she’s going to school in a whole other country rather than in the US, they might give her more for that. but we have no idea how much they might give her until she applies for it. we can only hope that it’s a good amount. though... any little bit helps. at least at this university she will get something.

so the university of western ontario sounds heaven sent. just one problem. they might not have a video game program. and we reaaally want to go into video game development.... it took me two years to decide what career i wanted in life because none of them bring me happiness !!!!! i don’t want to miss out on this one now that i finally decided on it !!!! but there is still hope. western university does list a video game program on their website, they just say that it is currently closed. however i have seen articles published in just 2017 about how western is “one of the best schools for video game development”. i wonder, if it’s so great and those articles were posted just last year, how can they have the program unavailable ! what i am hoping is that they only mean it is unavailable for the current year, which would make sense. the school year just started, it is too late too apply. but we weren’t planning on attending until 2019. perhaps, perhaaaaps... they do still have the program and it will be open again in 2019, when we wanted to attend ? however i cannot confirm this until i contact the school, which i will do soon... i really hope this is the case. if western university offered video game design and had all of these other perks, it would be literally perfect.

(but we are still very poor and very stressed out and afraid)

currently, we need to finish getting our driver’s licenses. we, especially ruby, need $150 each just to do the test... then i need to get a job. and ruby needs to get accepted into a school so she can get a study permit and work permit and she can get a job. and then we have to purchase (yes purchase, not rent, my dad claims it’s the better option) an apartment, move out, and juggle school, work, and life all at the same time, while also working to make ruby a canadian citizen. phew ! ! !

ruby has considered making a gofundme and i think that we will do it soon... i don’t know if anyone would donate, they didn’t when i tried to make a gofundme a few years ago when my dog had cancer. but we can hope. any bit that any one would donate would help us with something. so i think that we will do it. we’ll probably post the link on here once we have it, in case any of you would be able to, and be kind enough to, help us out ;w; how does that sound...? does anyone here think they would be able to donate something once we have that link..? we are wondering whether we can expect to get any sort of help from here ;w; ... apart from that and getting jobs, i’m not sure how we can make some extra money... we will need as much of it as we can get if we want to make it through this without struggling terribly. i wish either of us were particularly good at something to sell on etsy or commissions or... i don’t know. i don’t know what else we can do.

anyway, that leaves us where we are now ! we have a lot on us that we need to accomplish but.. we will try to get through it. we will get through it. together. because i still can’t believe she’s here. i can’t believe this is happening. that we never have to say goodbye and we can begin work on keeping her here forever. it’s an amazing, amazing thing, but it has its difficulties. but we have already gone through so much together. it truly is 20gayteen. at the beginning of this year, we had never even met in real life yet, and we didn’t know yet that we would. in april, we met, and when she left we didn’t expect to be back together so soon. and even then, we had no idea that this would happen. that she would stay here and we would be looking to begin college and move out together. god, the things that have happened this year. wow. Wow. i have a hard time believing that this is real, that i’m not dreaming. i never thought something like this could happen. tomorrow is our 17 month anniversary, and we are together.

(sorry this was so long !! we’ve been waiting really long to update you guys on All of the things that have happened c: thank you so much if you managed to read the whole thing, and we’d love to chat about it more if you’d like to send an ask about anything ! ...remember, my melania trump airplane story... and i hope that when we create a gofundme in a couple of days, any of you will be able to help us out !! ;w; love you all !!! 💖💖💖)

[xtruss]

Matanzas: The Rebirth of Cuba's Abandoned Cultural Hub

— By Brendan Sainsbury | 24th January 2022

Once known for its music, art and architecture, Matanzas had succumbed to neglect and disrepair. Decades later, however, it's being returned to its former glory.

"It used to be a garage," Adrián Socorro told me as he opened the large doors of El Garabato, his art studio on Calle Narváez beside the San Juan River. "Then, around the time that Matanzas was preparing for its 325th anniversary in 2018, the city historian finally approved my project and I moved in."

Inside was a warehouse-like room littered with the paraphernalia of an active workshop: plastic bottles and clusters of brushes, a multi-coloured palette, a half-finished sculpture of a cow-like animal hanging upside-down from the ceiling. Paintings were everywhere: hung on walls; propped on easels; stacked on tables. I spied dogs, chickens, flowers and nudes, all of them creatively drawn in a style that seemed to mix impressionism with the avant-garde.

"I paint from my own life and experience," Socorro explained. "I don't paint those pictures of old ladies smoking cigars that the tourists want to see."

Socorro is from Matanzas, a port city wrapped around a deep, sheltered bay 90km east of Havana, Cuba. When I revisited in December 2021 after a three-year gap, small but innovative restaurants offered homemade pasta and snack-sized tacos. The riverside walkway of Calle Narváez was a glorious artistic esplanade embellished with astonishing sculptures: an emaciated pig standing atop a red balloon; a depiction of Cuban national hero, José Martí, with a sword in his mouth; pink stepladders and life-sized giraffes. Within the space of 300m, I wandered from Socorro's studio-gallery past a music school, an art college and half a dozen imaginative bars and cafes.

It felt like a completely different city than the one I first travelled to in the late 1990s – then a scarred, dilapidated and semi-abandoned place, left to rot during the country's economically challenging "Special Period", a decade of austerity after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, whose subsidies had made up around 30% of the Cuban GNP. Back then, foreign visitors were whisked from the airport to swanky new resorts in the nearby town of Varadero, where Cuban guests were barred from entering resorts. Calle Narváez was a neglected warehouse district. The Parque Libertad, beautifully Botoxed by 2021, was dingy and unloved. Restaurants were practically non-existent. To me, the city resembled a sunken ship, a stricken Titanic whose damaged riches were hidden by decades of neglect.

"Piggy Bank" by Dariel Lozano Pérez is one of many sculptures along Calle Narváez (Credit: Brendan Sainsbury)

Now, it seems, there's been an impressive turnaround for this one-time cultural giant.

Founded in 1693 on the orders of Spanish king Charles II, Matanzas quickly established itself as a port that grew wealthy, sadly, on the back of its profitable sugar plantations where rich Spanish landlords exploited enslaved people from West Africa. By the 1860s, it had morphed into the nation's second largest city after Havana, and enamoured local authorities christened it the "Athens of Cuba" in honour of its elegant cultural life and abundance of home-grown poets and writers.

It felt like a completely different city than the one I first travelled to in the late 1990s

The moniker had merit. During the glory years of the 19th Century, classical theatres were built, and local writer José Jacinto Milanés established himself as Cuba's finest playwright. The city hosted an 1881 Universal Exhibition promoting art and technology that attracted delegations from the US and Spain.

In the ensuing decades, Matanzas spawned a whole host of music genres, including the danzón, a slow syncopated partner dance first performed by Cuban bandleader, Miguel Faílde; and the mambo, an upbeat version of the danzón that fuelled a brief but intense American dance craze in the 1940s.

These restored buildings are among improvements in Matanzas (Credit: Brendan Sainsbury)

But the city's culture wasn't influenced solely by the ruling Hispanic and Latino people. With its large black population, freed from the shackles of slavery in 1886, Matanzas was, and still is, a cradle of African religion and tradition.

Cuba's Santería religion, for example, is a syncretised melding of West African Yoruba and Catholic beliefs whose adherents worship a pantheon of orishas (sprits or deities) masked as Catholic saints. And Abakuá, a secretive Afro-Cuban, all-male mutual aid society, has origins in Nigeria and Cameroon. Both belief systems influenced rumba, the percussive black dance music fermented in Matanzas' La Marina dock district in the 1880s and can still be heard in the city today.

After Cuba's 1959 revolution, with the new regime implementing restrained socialist values, the importance of Matanzas as a cultural hub diminished. Its problems were exacerbated after Cuba's Soviet benefactors collapsed in '91, sending the economy into free fall, and were compounded further by the decline of the sugar industry in the 2000s. While tourism blossomed on the golden beaches of Varadero, and other Cuban cities such as Cienfuegos and Camagüey earned prestigious Unesco listings, Matanzas' less obvious riches were ignored.

And then, finally, something changed. In 2018, the Cuban authorities, rallied in part by Eusebio Leal, the architect of Old Havana's successful rehabilitation project in the 1990s and 2000s, decided to honour Matanzas' 325th anniversary with a programme of recognition and restoration. Deteriorated buildings were touched up, three handsome hotels opened in and around centrally located Parque Libertad, and the iconic Sauto theatre – once one of the finest in Cuba – was restored to its 1860s high watermark after decades in the doldrums.

Teatro Sauto was restored to its iconic state it was known for in the 1860s (Credit: Brendan Sainsbury)

"Matanzas was revived and declared a patrimonial city," said Socorro." Visual changes became evident throughout the city."

Much bigger changes were on the way, too. In 2019, Cuba's largest art festival, the Biennial de la Habana, was lured to Matanzas for the first time, thanks to the influence and initiative of María Magdalena Campos Pons, a Matanzas-born artist now based in the US. It was the biggest event the city had seen since the 1881 Universal Exhibition.

"For years, I had been talking to people in Havana about bringing the Biennial to Matanzas," explained Campos Pons, whose internationally recognised work is held in collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. "So, when I was invited to be an exhibiting artist in 2019, I used my invitation to create a project for the city."

The project, called Ríos Intermitentes (Intermittent Rivers), sought to shine a light on Matanzas' creative community by exhibiting their work to local and visiting international artists. "Matanzas is both geographically and culturally full of drama and untold narratives," explained Campos Pons. "But the city was abandoned and regarded as a sleeping beauty. That pejorative dismissing of Matanzas and its history was my departing point for Ríos Intermitentes."

Despite crippling economic crises, Cuban artists have become highly adept at challenging accepted norms and pushing the envelope

The government might have kick-started Matanzas' reawakening, but it was the city's artists who shaped where it would go next. The Biennial, with its mix of performance art, outdoor sculpture, poetry readings and exhibitions in the city's historic courthouse, transformed Matanzas.

"I think the work of a number of artists in the city who had been toiling very quietly and with little attention for years was behind the fundamental transformation," said Campos Pons. "The fact that the 325th celebration took place during this period added a window of opportunity as the city was ready to undertake some indispensable restoration work."

It was hard not to be impressed. Cuban art has always struck me as idiosyncratic and uniquely clever. In a country where direct dialogue about prickly political issues is often problematic, art is often nuanced and full of double meanings. Despite crippling economic crises, Cuban artists have become highly adept at challenging accepted norms and pushing the envelope.

"The Biennial mobilised the city," said Socorro. "It marked us as a generation, and uncovered not only the talent that exists here, but the potential we possess as a region."

Other members of the group of Biennial artists include photographer and conceptual artist Ernesto Millán, who spearheaded a community project at the festival called "White Sheets" in which he printed bedsheets and pillowcases with photographic images of Cuban motifs and gave them to 25 families to use in their daily lives. He then edited a video about how the sheets were utilised. For Millán, the project was both an interpretation of domestic Cuban life and a tribute to the families who participate in it.

Another innovator is 24-year-old Alejandro Vega Baró whose kaleidoscopic photography explores social problems revolving around memory, colonialism, political hegemonies and the relationship that contemporary societies have with their past and present.

Abounding culture brought Matanzas back to life, from art and architecture to restuarants and music (Credit: Brendan Sainsbury)

It wasn't just art that was propelling Matanzas back into the limelight. The whole cultural sphere was flowering, from architecture to music. Two nights running, I attended live musical performances of international calibre: a classical trio at the refurbished José White concert hall in Parque Libertad, and a rendition of Spanish zarzuelas (light opera) in the exquisite Sauto theatre.

Galvanised by the positive changes, the city was alive with a buzz and buoyancy not seen for generations. Young people crowded into artistically curated cafes; murals and art installations turned heads in urban plazas; and there was talk of a new tour bus linking Matanzas to Varadero. More importantly, after the success of 2019, the Biennial is scheduled to return to Matanzas this year under Campos Pons' expert guidance.

"We are undertaking a project that will focus on restoring and protecting Matanzas' ecological identity," she said. "Gardening and landscape will be the centrepiece of 2022 Ríos Intermitentes."

The plan is to develop the banks of the city's other river, the Yumurí, which skirts La Marina, a neglected district where Matanzas' black population has historically resided.

"We aspire to be a city that is aesthetically and economically sustainable and worthy of living in," Campos Pons concluded. "The Matanzas you will see in 2030 will be radically different because of what we started in 2019."

[lostbandar]

Come November and the air is crisp, the lights have started sparkling, hot chocolates are a chocolatier, everybody is buying gifts and all is red and we are getting ready for our old man Mr Santa. Well in all this excitement we decided to visit in November and with our 5-year-old daughter who was visiting NYC for the first time. The sight of the fall season with its colourful trees was a perfect welcome we were looking forward too.

This trip was a completely new experience as this was my daughter’s first international trip and we were worried about meals, sleep, weather and of course jet lag.

Our trip started with a direct flight from Delhi to NYC on Air India, which lands early in the morning NYC time. You get a full day to reach your hotel and settle in for the crazy vacation ahead. It took us around 1.5 hrs to reach Manhattan from the airport.

As we were not travelling outside New York, so our base for the whole trip was Hotel Pennsylvania. The location is just perfect, it is 10 min from Time Square, 15 min from central park and 5th Avenue. With 24hr restaurants near the hotel, food is never a problem, especially when you are jet lagged. The most amazing Penn Station, which is across the street. Most of the Hop on Hop off tours are being sold outside the hotel gate, you can choose from a couple of operators.

First things first … you are going to walk a lot so a Stroller is a must. Either get one with you or you can buy it in NYC. We bought it from a Kmart store 5 min from our hotel. And I can’t tell you how useful and convenient it was. Next is a 7-day unlimited subway pass, which will save you loads of money and time. Ohanna used to sleep by 6 in the evening and we used to cover her with a blanket and take her everywhere we went. I came back super fit after the trip, with all the walking and pushing around the stroller. When visiting USA kids might take 2-4 days to get over Jet lag. So keep the first few days travel plans light keeping in mind the sleep patterns and the exhaustion.

The first day itself we went to Times Square in the evening. It was really sad to see that the Toy store had closed down, but none the less there was a lot to do. After clicking loads of pics we went into M&M store right around the corner. It is really huge and fun for both adults and kids. You can get all kinds of M&M toys, clothes, mugs and accessories. Don’t forget the free instant photo booth.

A Broadway with your kids is a must. You can buy last minute discounted tickets from TKT located at Times square for some the most amazing Broadway shows like Lion King, School of rock, etc. We saw Mary Poppins and it was in a very vintage looking theatre with beautiful balconies and interiors.

Bronx Zoo

• It is by far the best and the biggest zoo I’ve ever been to. You can buy discounted tickets from their site or at the gate itself. In summers it is highly recommended that you do it online to save time standing in the queue, also it is free on Wednesdays. A very sturdy stroller can be hired at the entry gate for kids; I did and would really recommend it. Day is full of surprises, fun and lot’s of learning for kids and adults alike, with exhibits like sea lion feeding, birds of paradise, flamingos, polar bear, Siberian tiger, African lions, giraffes, penguins, African safari, train in summers, 3D show, bugs carousel and a huge canteen-cafe with good food and very nice coffee.

Staten Island Ferry

It is free and perfect for watching Statue of Liberty and later catching up with old friends. By evening we were exhausted and came back early, but not before spending time at Time square. You will go crazy with the 10000 plus eating joints in the city with a huge variety of cuisines to choose from. Try new places every day.

Central Park

We were extremely lucky with a beautiful sunny day to spend in the central park. The bright sun, fall colours on trees and the fresh crisp air are all we needed to make it perfect. Grabbed a quick bite and we were at one end of the park. Your kids will love the play areas they have built; they are so safe and full of interesting swings and obstacles. Next was the ice skating rink, it was super tiring and so much fun, It’s a must. Soaked the sun and started our long walk in the park going over and under bridges, crossing ponds big and small, statues, various courts and much more. The place was brimming with people running, exercising, cycling, walking their dogs or generally chilling on the lovely green benches. It has a small zoo too if you don’t get time to visit the Bronx.

Coney Island

Being winters we had to give it a pass as luna park was closed and the aquarium was under renovation. But summers you definitely can’t miss it.

Shopping at 5th Avenue and exploring the village- Soho-

On one hand, 5th avenue has huge stores on both side and on the other hand in Village you can find small boutique and designer stores and few of the most interesting restaurants and cafes in Nyc. Check Out High Line park built on an abandoned raised metro line.

Disney on Ice Show:

We found out about the Disney on Ice show in the time out the magazine for kids and were lucky to get tickets for it. Had to take the train to Newark for the magic show with all of the Disney characters. Got late coming back that day and experienced flurries, as it was really cold that day. It was a very special experience

10 Things not be missed

• Museums – Rose Center for Earth and Space, the Egyptian Art space at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Hall of Saurischian Dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History. Don’t forget to read up on all the free museum days throughout the week

• Indoor Amusement parks- Kidz Village, Funtime America

• Cycling tours- http://www.mustseecentralpark.com/‎,

http://www.viator.com/nyc/bike-tours,

https://www.yelp.com/search?cflt=bikerentals&find_loc=New+York%2C+NY

• Toy Stores – The Lego Store, Disney Store, Dinosaur hill etc.

• Candy Stores – M&M, Dylan’s Candy Bar, economy candy, etc.

• Places to eat – Chipotle, Nathan’s, McDonald’s, Dunkin Doughnuts, Krispy Kreme, Deli’s for salads, breakfast, meals, pizza, Cheese Cake Factory

• Empire State Building and Rockefeller centre

• Macys Store– Their special shopping windows around Christmas and the famous Macy’s parade

• Photo Booths for those candid shots

Apps for just making it all easy

• Head out- for events, tours and entry tickets

• Uber – Taxi

• Yelp- Finding restaurants nearby

• Google maps

• Air BnB

• Trip advisor

• Time Out Magazine for stuff to do in the city with your kids

Bon voyage

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New York with my 5 yr. Old – 10 Things to do with kids in New York Come November and the air is crisp, the lights have started sparkling, hot chocolates are a chocolatier, everybody is buying gifts and all is red and we are getting ready for our old man Mr Santa.

[sealnarcisa]

Kyle goes resource mapping in Botswana

The first two days after dropping the biophysical team off at the airport were spent doing necessary shopping and errands in preparation for our week of resource area mapping in the Chobe Enclave. It was a nice change of pace but by the time we headed out of town I was eager to start doing more work. We arrived at our campsite in Muchenje in the mid afternoon then got organized for the first big day of research. After dinner we drove out onto a dirt road along the river to see if we could spot any Nightjars (bird) eating insects at dusk. Not sure if we ever saw one, but it was still worth the trip. The acacia and baobab trees looked spectacular silhouetted in front of the darkening sky, with the most prominent stars beginning to emerge in the background.

In the morning we drove to Satau, one of two villages in the Chobe Enclave that sits within the Chobe river floodplain. There we met Eric, who had worked as a local research assistant when the project conducted household interviews here the previous year. In these interviews, respondents were asked where they were gathering their natural resources (wood for various uses, fruits, grasses, palm leaves, fish, etc). Michael has compiled a list of the place names given, and we were to travel to those places on our list that Eric recognized as legitimate resource collection areas. Once within each area, Michael would record GPS points of the approximate boundaries that Eric helped us define. These GPS points will be added into a geographic information system (GIS) database later, where Michael will use GIS software to connect the boundary dots, making a database of polygons that represent each known resource area in the region.

Over the next 3 days, we mapped resource areas near Satau, Kachikau, Parakurungu, Kavimba, and Muchenje-Mabele. Eric's friend Chukwu came along for the last 2 days which made things more efficient because he was also very knowledgeable. As a side task, I tried to collect vegetation reference samples at a few of these resource areas where evidence of resource collection was visible on the landscape. The challenge with this was that harvesting evidence wasn't as visible and spatially explicit as we expected. It was hard to discern whether harvesting was done systematically from one point heading in a particular direction. It will be interesting to test whether we can see these signs of harvesting from satellite imagery.

Speaking with Eric and Chukwu during our work gave me quite a new perspective about village life and how locals perceive Americans/westerners. Eric said that everyone believes every white person they see is rich. As a grad student and young adult still recently out of undergrad, I found issue with that. I'm certainly not rich. After hearing more about how hard Eric and Chukwu work, and how much land and cattle they own, I had to assume things were pretty decent for them relatively. Eric was curious what kind of living situation a low-income American could afford. I wasn't sure how to categorize that, so I just said a very small apartment with likely one bedroom, a small kitchen, and bathroom. He said that would be a dream for him. It's a very tough issue; people like Eric and Chukwu work very hard every week and still do not have enough resources to pull themselves up from their low economic status, yet someone working a full time, pretty low wage job in America has many more resources available to them. They are such nice, intelligent, and hard-working men. If I come back next year to the Chobe Enclave I'm going to buy Eric the soccer cleats he said he wants. I have the same pair back home.

Another fun thing I learned this week is that Michael and I are Makua: white people! As we drive down the road, the smaller children will point and yell "MAKUA!!" excitedly. You just smile and wave, and it's fun. Once I knew this word, though, I began to realize that people talk about us all the time, either in a neutral or negative way (rarely positive, sometimes in a light-hearted joking tone), in front of us in their language. Eric and Chukwu would tell us what people said about us sometimes. The usual things in the villages were: "where did you get these Makua?" Or "Are you selling land to these Makua?" People don't like Makua buying land in their communities, because the land is often developed into a resort, or tourist lodge of some sort, which no longer benefits anyone but the new land owner and others coming to vacation. That's at least how they see it. Locals have as valid a reason as any to be wary of 'rich' white people coming into their villages. Once they understood that we are conducting research that will hopefully benefit them in the future, they are a little more welcoming.

During resource mapping, we spoke to two cattle owners in different areas within the Enclave about some very interesting human-wildlife conflict issues. In an area known as Tinto, there was a cattle post some 2-3km off the tar road, inside one of the forest reserves. The owner's friend was currently watching it, and he explained to us how his own cattle post was destroyed by elephants recently. He has since not had the time and/or resources to rebuild it, so he must move his cattle from place to place much more frequently. Also in March, this post lost 3 cattle to lions that had jumped over the fence into the corral. The owner of the adjacent and recently abandoned cattle post was killed by an elephant in 2015. The cattle post owner out in an area known as Matsimahura has had similar issues with lions killing cattle and elephants destroying cattle post fences. Both of these men are still waiting on compensation from the government for their lost income. Elephants and lions are protected from hunting under law, so this means it is illegal to take matters into one's own hands to protect one's property and means of income. This doesn't mean that people aren't still killing these animals in defense or retaliation, albeit illegally. Regardless, this scenario is a compelling example of how difficult it is to create and execute conservation policies that benefit all parties.

Once back in Kasane, Michael and I went on a game drive through Chobe National Park. We saw a huge variety of wildlife! The highlights: seeing close to 100 giraffes throughout the day; saw bee-eaters, a spoonbill, a coucal, and cori bustards (all birds); massive buffalo with ox peckers climbing all over them eating bugs; tons of kudu and waterbucks; and of course plenty of elephants.

The next two days we were in Katima, Namibia. We had some heavy grocery and item shopping to do to prepare for the next month in Zambia. Katima is the largest city/town I've still seen, which is funny in its own way. Michael joked that it's got enough roads to actually get lost for about a minute. It was nice having a good restaurant to go to, and we even got to watch a World Cup match. Yesterday we went through to Zambia and stayed in Sesheke for a night. We ate some dinner and watched another world cup game with some local Zambians. The next day we headed to Sioma District about 2 hours north up the west coast of the Zambezi river. Here we will meet Jon from the social team and begin the logistics work to get the household surveys started in early July.

Stay tuned for next week’s post!’