Jori's kitchen sink, a moment of waterOver the past two weeks I have been fleetingly thinking of the term "third world country". Is it still a relevant word? Does Macedonia really fit into that category and if not where does it go? I decided tonight to do some preliminary research. According to the dreaded research agent, Wikipedia, Macedonia is an Emerging and Developing Country, check the IMF for more information. In another place on Wikipedia, I did a quick average of Macedonia from three different tables and it comes out as number 117 of 196 countries in the world. So there's your information for the night. I feel slightly more informed.
My motivation for such thoughts was spurred on by the recent lack of water that has been occurring in the city. It first started due to extreme cold weather and pipes freezing, but long after that could no longer be the reason, water was still not restored to some parts of town and for a day the whole city was without water. Yes, there are other countries that function without consistent or limited water, but what I think makes it difficult for an emerging country is that time in between. Certain public services are offered and the community begins to build infrastructure based on the provision of those services, but then factor in the fact that those services can be inconsistent and so the infrastructure that was developed based on those services leaves the community vulnerable in a way that they were not before. According to various sources the water outage is due to either someone not paying the right bill or political posturing or both. Who knows, but the fact is life can be difficult without water, even for a day.
Though the weather has warmed significantly, February was mostly a month of snow. I am extremely thankful that most of it has melted by now.
during this time I moved into the kitchen which iswarmer and smaller, making it easier to heat
Some things I read today:
One story of those aging in the prison system
Scheming in unlikely places
Something I watched:
Award craziness
What I listened to:
Andrew Bird, 2012
My favorite line that jumped out at me, “You would go mistaking the clouds for the mountains". To me this says, people often turn things into bigger problems than they really are and sometimes you cannot see that until it passes. You look back and say to yourself, it wasn't really as bad as I made it out to be. Bird makes a good album, he diversified his sound. Take a listen.
Good morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of used stamps because trough them, you can see pictures about fauna, flora, monuments, landscapes etc. from all the countries. As every day is more and more difficult to get stamps, some years ago I started a new collection in order to get traditional letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favor:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Macedonia? I understand perfectly that you think that your blog is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Macedonia in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and an original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia,39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Emilio Fernandez