22nd December 2012, the local television channel visited the Weihnachtsmarkt in Hameln.
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Pictures of all of Day One of the workshop, Thursday, December 6, 2012.
•  Please click on the picture above or here to see all the 177 photos of Day One.

Round Table 2 on Day Two of our workshop, Friday, December 7, 2012.
• Please click on the picture above or here to see all the 100 photos of Day Two.

Michael Perlin received the HumanDHS Life Time Award on Friday, December 7, 2012, on Day Two of the 2012 Workshop of Humiliation and Violent Conflict!
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December 5, 2012 Board meeting with our dear Morton Deutsch.
Please see:
• Ulrich Spalthoff: Summary of my activities 2012, HumanDHS board meeting Dec 5, 2012.
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29th November 2012, having the great honor of being invited to the brown bag event "Collaborative Ledership" by Gay Rosenblum-Kumar, organized by the UNDP/BCPR and the UN Interagency Framework Team for Preventive Action.
This was the text of the invitation:
Collaborative Leadership capacity building programmes are designed to strengthen trust and communication as well as develop negotiation, communication and conflict transformation skills among key leaders. These programmes also help stimulate discussion and analysis at different levels of the society of ways to achieve more effective and holistic strategies for managing and resolving differences and building inclusive processes that advance governance in the country. Programmes based on the key tenets of collaborative leadership are increasingly being implemented or supported by the UN in a variety of contexts, including Kenya and Nepal. These programmes have significant potential to contribute to sustainable peace and democracy by strengthening the ability of leaders to engage with each other and their constituencies in an open and productive way.
The presentation will focus on two country case studies where collaborative leadership programmes are being implemented, namely Kenya and Nepal; the process design; implementation; the results of the programmes and lessons learned.
About the presenters:
Monica Rijal is the Conflict Prevention Specialist from UNDP Nepal. She has lead the design and implementation of a 5 year Conflict Prevention Programme (CPP) Strategy in Nepal. More importantly, she has been leading much of the thinking and the roll out of the Collaborative Leadership and Dialogue project, which is one of the main pillars of the CPP. Monica has 12 years of experience in the field of peacebuilding and working in conflict contexts, working with local NGOs, governments and the UN. Through her work with the UN Mission in Nepal as Political Affairs Officer, Monica has strong experience in political analysis. She has co-authored the Peace and Development Strategy - an input into Nepal's development plans by World Bank, bilateral agencies, and the UNCT. She is a Fulbright scholar in Conflict Transformation from the Eastern Mennonite University.
Nirina Kiplagat is currently a Programme Specialist in the UN Interagency Framework Team for Preventive Action. She was formerly a Programme Officer in the UNDP Kenya Peace Building and Conflict Prevention Unit, focusing on projects related to the implementation of the Kenya National Dialogue and Reconciliation (KNDR) Agreements as well as peacebuilding, reconciliation and recovery following the 2007 post-election, which included the Collaborative Leadership for Development programme. Within this portfolio she also undertook interventions focused on gender and conflict as well as gender and early recovery. In addition, Nirina served as one of the Gender Focal Points for UNDP Kenya and output lead on Gender and Governance for the Government of Kenya and UN Joint Programme on Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment. Nirina holds a Masters of Science Degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution and she has worked in a number of internationally and regionally renowned organisations specialising in the field of conflict analysis, prevention and peacebuilding. She has also published several articles examining conflict dynamics in the Horn, East and Great Lakes regions of Africa.
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19th November 2012, having the great honor of being invited to our annual lunch and exchanging the news of the past year with Beth Fisher-Yoshida.
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16th November 2012, Sitar Concert with Ikhlaq Hussain!
Ikhlaq Hussein Khan is a virtuoso master sitar player. Ikhlaq's rigorous musical education was acquired from his father and subsequently Ustad Kabir Khan. Seeking out an expanded perspective of classical music, Ikhlaq received a scholarship from the Government of India to study with the renowned Pandit Ravi Shankar in New Delhi India in 1991. Ikhlaq's personal mission is to promote South Asian classical music through teaching and performing. He believes that preserving and transferring his rich musical tradition and heritage will help to create and maintain peace at home and in the world. He was awarded permanent residency status on the basis of being an outstanding artist of international status. Since 2001, he has been residing in New York City.
Judit Révész is the person behind our "contact us" button since the inception of our web site in 2003, donating her time to this task, often using late nights, after having finished all other tasks! Thank you, dear Judit! Your faithful service is extremely appreciated by the entire HumanDHS network!
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14th November 2012, having the honor of being invited to the Annual Teachers College Luncheon for Visiting Scholars, see here the President of Teachers College, Susan Fuhrman on the right, and Samantha Lu, Director of International Student Services, on the left side.
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3rd November 2012, with my beloved Judit and Ikhlaq!
Judit Révész is the person behind our "contact us" button since the inception of our web site in 2003, donating her time to this task, often using late nights, after having finished all other tasks! Thank you, dear Judit! Your faithful service is extremely appreciated by the entire HumanDHS network! Her husband Ikhlaq Hussein Khan is a virtuoso master sitar player. Ikhlaq's rigorous musical education was acquired from his father and subsequently Ustad Kabir Khan. Seeking out an expanded perspective of classical music, Ikhlaq received a scholarship from the Government of India to study with the renowned Pandit Ravi Shankar in New Delhi India in 1991. Ikhlaq's personal mission is to promote South Asian classical music through teaching and performing. He believes that preserving and transferring his rich musical tradition and heritage will help to create and maintain peace at home and in the world. He was awarded permanent residency status on the basis of being an outstanding artist of international status. Since 2001, he has been residing in New York City.
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2nd October 2012, contribution via Skype to the fall 2012 course titled Conflict Resolution by Hayal Köksal at the Educational Sciences Department, Faculty of Education, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. Four questions from 4 students: ‎‎‎Mustafa Furkan Şengel‎, ‎‎Hatice Kılıç‎, ‎and Alper Aktaş‎‎‎.
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9th September 2012, waking up in the wonderful Åsgårdstrand, not far from Edvard Munch's house!
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On 8th September 2012, with Mai-Bente Bonnevie and Fredrik Heffermehl, enjoying the Åsgårdstand Musikk Teater event brought together by Paal Sandø where Edvard Munch, Oda Krohg and their friends spent time together!
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On 3rd September 2012, I found the strength to pay a visit to Oslo's Ground Zero.
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On 1st September 2012, dear Zehlia celebrated her birthday! It was lovely to touch base also with Birgit Brock-Utne!
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27th - 30th August 2012
19th Annual Conference of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network in Oslo, Norway, and Portland, Oregon, USA
(Important note to our conference particants: During our conference, we asked for your permission to be posted here, however, if you changed your mind, either in total or for specific pictures/videos, please let us know! Thank you!)

27th August 2012, Day One of the conference.
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On 15th August 2012, Bjørn Pettersen kindly took this picture. I needed a portrait picture for a book.
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On 15th August 2012, Bjørn Pettersen took these pictures. He kindly showed Tronfjell to his visitors, Aina and Matja and me.
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On 15th August 2012, Bjørn Pettersen kindly showed Tronfjell to his visitors, Aina, Matja, and me. Note the lichens in many colors, even red. The inscription reads: "Minnestein og første stein til Swami Sri Ananda Acharya's fredsuniversitetet" ("Memorial stone and first stone of Swami Sri Ananda Acharya's Peace University")
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On 11th August 2012, Bjørn Pettersen kindly gave me a very valuable book (see the front cover on the right side), published in 1917. It is the Swedish translation of the lectures given by Indian poet, philosopher, and professor Sri Ananda Acharya in Sweden. The title of the book is Prolegomena till Arya Metafysik: Omfattande Offentliga Foreläsningar 1915-16 av Sri Ananda Acharya. It came out in Stockholm in the Kungl. Boktryckeriet P. A. Norstedt & Söner.
Please see on the left side the English orignal text published in 1985, titled, Tattvajñānam or the Quest of Cosmic Consciousness. This book was published in Hoshiarpur, Punjab, India by the Vishveshvaranand Vedic Research Institute.

It is fascinating, what Sri Ananda says about the people of Scandinavia (the Uttara-Kurus), not least about their sense of equality in dignity (likeverd), as well as their strong women!
Here are five quotes:
1. There are no such inequalities as are conveyed by the words 'higher', 'lower’ and 'middling’ among the people of the Uttara-Kurus.
2. The Rāmāyana speaks about the Uttara-Kurus as of very happy disposition and fond of giving gifts. The independence of their women is particularly noticed by Vyāsa.
3. Arjuna, Prince of India, when on a conquering expedition was warned by the Uttar-Kurus not to invade their country. 'Thou canst not, O son of Prthā, conquer our town. Retire, O fortunate man, for our land is invincible. He must be an immortal who aspires to violate our town. There is nothing here which you would wish to take away. Here dwell the Uttara-Kurus, whom no one cares to conquer, and even if you succeed in penetrating our country you will see nothing.
4. It is remarkable that the names ‘Mleccha’ (barbarian) and ‘Dasyu’ (robber) which were contemptuously applied to other races conquered by Arjuna were never given to the Uttara-Kurus.
5. There was communication between the Hindus and the Uttara-Kurus even during the Buddhist period, for the Mahāyāna alchemist, Nāgārjuna, who lived either in the first century of the Christian era or the preceding century, visited their land. The civilisation of the Uttar-Kurus referred to in ancient Sanskrit works must have existed at least many thousand years ago – but of course such dates are purely hypothetical.

Please read the entire text about the people of Scandinavia or the Uttara-Kurus both in Swedish and English (transcribed by Evelin Lindner from the books).
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11th August 2012, with Bjørn Pettersen in Røros, enjoying nostalgic rømmegrøt.
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8th August 2012, with Bjørn Pettersen on Fredsuniversitet på Tronfjell / Mt. Tron University of Peace.
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In August 2012, I was kindly welcomed by Bjørn Pettersen and Tripti Ma Chatterjee at the Fredsuniversitet på Tronfjell / Mt. Tron University of Peace.
The pictures you see above were taken on 6th August 2012 at Shantibu, from where you see the Rondane mountains. You see the moss that reindeer eat and how it shines, see it on the ground and on the mountains.
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In August 2012, I was kindly welcomed by Bjørn Pettersen and Tripti Ma Chatterjee at the Fredsuniversitet på Tronfjell / Mt. Tron University of Peace.
The pictures you see above were taken on 4th August 2012 at Shantibu, from where you see the Rondane mountains.
See two videos:
• 01 Art of Life and Dignity by Bjørn Pettersen
Bjørn Pettersen and the Mt. Tron University of Peace wish to collaborate with the World Dignity University initiative. This video, "Art of Life and Dignity," by Bjørn Pettersen, was made in Oslo, Norway, on 13th November 2011 in the home of Thamba at Karihaugen. Baheerathan (Thamba) Vykundanathan is a computer programmer of Sri Lankan origin working in Oslo. The interviewer is Thamba's wife, Preeti, from North India, also working with computers in Oslo. Benjamin Ree, who is a professional working with NRK and Reuters, instructed the scenes, recorded the video and edited the film.
Bjørn Pettersen leads the Mount Tron University of Peace in Alvdal, Norway. The University of Peace aspires to become a transnational centre for humanity. "Here the human being itself is the centre of attention, and not phenomena, religion or politics. It will focus on human integration, human dignity and human possibilities, and work to develop the whole human being - physically, mentally and spiritually - solely through the individual's own natural resources. It will also raise central and universal human issues on the collective level and function as a sanctuary and forum for humankind."
"Mt.Tron is internationally known as the ’Mountain of Truth’ or the ’Mountain of Wisdom’ in Norway since the Indian sage, poet and philosopher, Swami Sri Ananda Acharya, lived on this mountain for nearly 30 years. Both his tomb and his memorial are found on the mountain. As long ago as 1918 Ananda Acharya himself chose the ’Peace Plateau’ as the proper site for the proposed University of Peace."
• 02 Aud Lindseth Finsen forteller (Norsk)
Denne videoen ble spilt inn i Shantibu i Alvdal, Hedmark, 31. juli 2012. Aud Lindseth Finsen blir interjuet av Gjermund Glittfjell og forteller om hennes liv og hvordan hun ble kjent med Einar Beer. (Se Fredsuniversitetet på Tronfjell / Mt. Tron University of Peace.)Evelin Lindner holdt kameraet.
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29th July 2012, having the great privilege of being with Nina Witoszek and her husband Atle Midttun.
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27th July 2012, having the privilege of visiting Knud Larsen in his amazing home at Nordstrand, Oslo, Norway, together with his friend Bjørn Pettersen, Tronfjell Fredsuniversitet/Mt.Tron University of Peace, and their dear friends from Tibet and India.
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24th-25th July 2012: Flight from Quito, Ecuador, via Guayaquil, to Amsterdam in The Netherlands, and then to Oslo in Norway. I tried to capture different landscapes, from land divisions that grew "organically" to divisions that seem to be drawn with the ruler.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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On 16th September 2012, I was able to see antique postcards from Colombia. Note the thatched roof.
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On 24th July 2012, Mariana Ines Vergara and I, we admired the statues of historically important indigenous leaders in South America, at the entrance of the university in Quito, Ecuador. See Mariana with Anacaona (Haiti), the only female, and with Túpac Amaru (Peru).
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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On 24th July 2012, Mariana Ines Vergara and I, we met with Carlos A. Izurieta C., who works with Gunter Pauli. We had breakfast in the market of Quito, Ecuador.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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On 23rd July 2012, Mariana Ines Vergara and I, we met with Gabriela Bernal, who works with François Houtart. We met in the market of Quito, Ecuador.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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On 23rd July 2012 Mariana Ines Vergara showed me the wonderful traditional market of Quito! How much I prefer it to the supposedly "modern" super market in the "modern" shopping mall... See the different kinds of corn/maize, and the different kinds of vegetables and ruit...
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On 22th July 2012 Mariana Ines Vergara and I, we bought some indigenous necklaces called hualcas in Otavalo.
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See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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22nd July 2012: See Otavalo, in the mountains of Ecuador, and its wonderful market! The Otavalo people clearly are outstanding craftspeople!
I bought Alpaca scarfs in several colours and the blue cover you see here:

Alpaca 'is a temperature-regulating fabric that conducts heat and avoids heat build-up. The soft material guarantees deep warmth on cold days as well as pleasant freshness during summer temperatures'.
We met Dr. Daniel H. Suárez on the way from Quito to Otavalo! He spoke from my heart when he called the way new houses are being built "horrible"... Indeed, for me, the beauty of the landscape was difficult to enjoy since the human-made additions represented such ugly subaltern imitations of an imagined Western "modernity"...

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19th July 2012: Guanábana!
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On 18th July 2012 we made three videos with Mariana Ines Vergara in Quito, Ecuador. Mariana's son Mario did the filming. See the Cayambe volcano under the clouds in the background.
• 01 Mariana Vergara and Her Scholarly Path / Mariana Vergara y Su Camino Universitario (English/Inglés)
• 02 Mariana Vergara's Biography / Biografia de Mariana Vergara (English/Inglés)
• 03 Biografia de Mariana Vergara / Mariana Vergara's Biography (Español/Spanish)
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13th July 2012: Please meet my dear host in Quito, Ecuador, Cristina Hidalgo, and her wonderful extended family! Thank you for your wonderful hospitality!
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On 13th July 2012, when I woke up, I saw the Cayambe volcano from the window, and the Illinizas peaks when I went to the balcony.
• Cayambe, elevation 5,790 m, a Holocene compound stratovolcano that produced frequent explosive eruptions during the Holocene beginning about 4000 years ago, and has only had a single historical eruption, during 1785-86. At 4,690 m on its south slope is the highest point in the world crossed by the Equator and the only point on the Equator with snow cover.
• The two Illinizas are a pair of volcanic mountains that are located to the south of Quito, at 5248 metres and 5126 metres respectively.
• Cotopaxi, reaching a height of 5,897 m, is one of the few equatorial glaciers in the world, which starts at the height of 5,000 metres.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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On 12th July 2012 with dear Mariana in Quito, Ecuador. We had Pan de Yuca & Yoghurt. See the wonderful fruits Guanábana, Tomate de árbol, Naranjilla, and Taxo!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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On 10th July 2012 in the historical part of Quito, together with dear Mariana Ines Vergara. Quito is the capital city of Ecuador and the highest capital city in the world. Quito has one of the largest, least-altered and best-preserved historic centers in the Americas. This center was, together with the historic center of Kraków in Poland, the first to be declared World Heritage Site by UNESCO on 18 September 1978.
• The top row pictures shows different Ecuadorian food items. From left to right: Torta de maduro, tamales, empanada de morocho and empanada de verde. We also had chips of camote, platano verde, and potatoes with salsas, as there were salsa picante con chocho, salsa de mani and salsa de semillas de sambo. The picture on the right shows locro de papas soup. We were drinking te de coca, and guanábana juice, and mora juice. We had all this wonderful food in the Plaza Grande Café in the Plaza Grande.
• See the lovely Ecuadorian handicraft items in the Plaza Grande Hotel, for examo\ple, the angel, the jewellery box...
• Note El Panecillo with the statue of the virgin, a 41 metres tall aluminum monument of a madonna.
• See also the Palace of Carondelet, where the President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, resides, with its guards, dressed in uniforms from colonial times.
• We went to the tourist office, where you see the organic black chocolate from Ecuador, 100% cacao!
• See the Church of La Compañía de Jesús, while wonderful in its appearance, also a symbol of colonial power. For example, where does the gold stem from? And see also the pictures with the black man bowing to be baptized.
• In the picture at the bottom, you see a girl who combines a traditional hat and top with a Western shirt, stockings, and shoes. I saw several women who combined traditional and Western styles in similar ways. In Bolivia, I did not notice anybody who dressed in this way.
• See the plate that reminds of Manuela Sáenz. She was a heroine of the revolution in Quito, and she received Simón Bolívar and became his partner.
• See also the plate saying "Es gloria de Quito el descubrimiento del rio Amazonas" ("Quito is the glory of the discovery of the Amazon"). The expedition of Francisco de Orellana to discover the Amazon left from Quito.
• See also the Basílica del Voto Nacional.
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On 7th July 2012 we proceeded from Ruku Kausay in the Ecuadorian Amazon back to Quito, the capital of Ecuador, kindly guided by Mariana Ines Vergara. First, by four-wheel drive car through the river and the forest, then, by bus from Tena, the capital of the Napo Province, a city in the Amazon rainforest, to Quito.
• Please meet four members of the Grefa family, an extended indigenous Kichwa family, who, for over 20 years, has developed ecotourism as a way to preserve their sacred rainforest lands and culture. Please meet Agustin Grefa, the head of the family, and Angel Grefa, one of his sons. Meet also Nina, Agustin's youngest daughter, and Anita, his granddaughter. Meet furthermore Tayler Mulcahy and Andrew McInnis, two students from the United States, who carried out Participatory Action Research (PAR) at Ruku Kausay. See also Angel, the brave driver of the four-wheel drive car that brought us from Ruku Kausay to Tena.

Please see the four videos we made on the 6th and 7th of July at Ruku Kausay:
• 01 Tayler Mulcahy and Andrew McInnis Present their Participatory Action Research (PAR) at Ruku Kausay, Amazonian Ecuador
• 02 Mariana Vergara on Building Dignity in the Amazon Systemically: From Idea to Reality - Manifesting the World Dignity University Amazonian Branch in the Rainforest of Ecuador
• 03 Ruku Kausay, Amazonian Ecuador: Evelin Lindner Invites to an Afternoon Strall
• 04 Agustin Grefa's Ancient Knowledge and the World Dignity University Initiative

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Please click on the picture on the right or here to see more photos of the walk during which we actually collected the seeds in the rain forest, these pictures come from Mariana's camera.

On 6th July 2012, in the Ruku Kausay rainforest of Ecuador, Mariana and I collected some of the red and black seeds called "guayruro" or "huayruro" (Latin: Ormosia coccinea), a legendary Talisman of the Peruvian Incas who always carried this seed with them in the form of pendants, necklaces or bracelets. It grows throughout the South Eastern North American countries, and all throughout South America. The red seeds have one black spot covering one-third of its surface. The seeds are poisonous if eaten. The seeds are known as huayruro in Peru, where villagers believe them to be powerful good luck charms, and Nene (seed) or Chumico in Costa Rica. A French name is panacoco, but this more often applies to Swartzia tomentosa.
Onc can read the following explanation on elguayruro.com: "It was considered a symbol of the union between the feminine and the masculine, the Pachamama and the Pachapapa, the complementary entities. Tradition says that the Guayruro is a strong symbol of good luck, attracts good fortune, luck and fame. It is even used against the evil eye and envy. The Guayra or Bucare tree is of the legume family and is found in the Amazon rainforest, mainly in Peru and Venezuela."
Please click on the pictures on the left or here to see more photos of the very seeds from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture on the right or here to see more photos of the walk during which we actually collected the seeds in the rain forest, these pictures come from Mariana's camera.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos from Andrew McInnis's camera.

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On 6th July 2012 in the Ruku Kausay branch of the World Dignity University initiative, located in the community of Rio Blanco in the Amazonian part of Ecuador, kindly welcomed by Mariana Ines Vergara on behalf of the Grefa family, an extended indigenous Kichwa family, who, for over 20 years, has developed ecotourism as a way to preserve their sacred rainforest lands and culture. Ruku Kausay (pronounced "roo- koo - kow - sigh") means "wisdom of the ancestors" in the indigenous Kichwa language. Ruku Kausay invites into experiencing the wisdom of the rainforest and the authentic culture and traditions of its people. The Grefa family has practiced the shamanic healing traditions of its people for generations.
• In the early morning, before sunrise, Mariana guided me to a waterfall. It was a often very difficult walk of altogether ca. two hours. I was hugely impressed by Mariana's state of knowledge. She has acquired a significant amount of insight about the rainforest, both practical and theoretical, from Agustin Grefa and his family.
• It was profoundly disheartening to see the path being almost made unwalkable by the cattle owned by a neighbor, who does not wish to protect the rainforest on his land. Another neighbor has cleared the rainforest to plant corn. These are small-scale clearings, uncomparable with what I saw in Pará, where areas large as countries have been cleared, yet, witnessing the beginnings of such clearances is as painful to see.
• Later, we were able to swim in the near-by river.

Please see the four videos we made on the 6th and 7th of July at Ruku Kausay:
• 01 Tayler Mulcahy and Andrew McInnis Present their Participatory Action Research (PAR) at Ruku Kausay, Amazonian Ecuador
• 02 Mariana Vergara on Building Dignity in the Amazon Systemically: From Idea to Reality - Manifesting the World Dignity University Amazonian Branch in the Rainforest of Ecuador
• 03 Ruku Kausay, Amazonian Ecuador: Evelin Lindner Invites to an Afternoon Strall
• 04 Agustin Grefa's Ancient Knowledge and the World Dignity University Initiative

Please click on the picture on the left or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture on the right here to see more photos from Mariana's camera.

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On 5th July 2012 from Quito, the capital of Ecuador, by bus to Tena, the capital of the Napo Province, a city in the Amazon rainforest, kindly guided by Mariana Ines Vergara. The path to Tena first led through a landscape that reminded of France or even Norway, before descending to the Amazon rainforest. Then we continued by four-wheel drive car to the Ruku Kausay branch of the World Dignity University initiative located in the community of Rio Blanco in the Amazonian part of Ecuador.
• Please note the brand-new bus terminal in Quito.
• I noted ubiquitous building activities, as elsewhere in South America, all in the same style, with concrete columns holding brick walls. Few thatched roofs were to be seen.
• Not only is the Ecuadorian currency the US Dollar, the "temples" of American culture are prominently visible, from Kentucky Fried Chicken to McDonalds...
• Throughout South America, I noted that the petrol stations are among the most well-kept buildings, so also in Ecuador.
• Ruku Kausay: The Grefa family, an extended indigenous Kichwa family, has developed ecotourism as a way to preserve their sacred rainforest lands and culture for over 20 years. Ruku Kausay (pronounced "roo- koo - kow - sigh") means "wisdom of the ancestors" in the indigenous Kichwa language. Ruku Kausay invites into experiencing the wisdom of the rainforest and the authentic culture and traditions of its people. The Grefa family has practiced the shamanic healing traditions of its people for generations.
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On 4th July 2012, together with dear Mariana Ines Vergara we picked up my luggage at the airport. The day before, I had almost missed the plane to Quito, since the plane from São Paulo to Bogota had been delayed. Even though I eventually made it, my little piece of luggage did not, and we had to fetch it next morning.
• How suprising! Ecuador's currency is the US dollar!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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Please click on the picture above or here to see the photos i took from the window of the plane.

On 3rd July 2012 I flew from São Paulo first to Bogota, Colombia, then to Quito, Ecuador.
From Marabá, I could have reached Quito by going up the Amazon River system by boat and bus; it would have taken ca. ten days. I would have had to go by bus or plane from Marabá to Belém, by boat first to Manaus and then to Leticia in Colombia; from there to Quito by bus. Since I did not know about this option, and did not plan for a 10 days trip, I had to go for the (unfortunately very expensive) flight option. And, since South America is not integrated as well as I thought (like in Africa, where many flights between African countries go via Paris or London, their former colonizers), I had to fly all the way from the Amazon to Brasília, then to São Paulo, staying there over night, kindly hosted by dear Rosy, Gaby's mother, then to Bogota in Columbia, and from there to Quito in Ecuador. Thank you, dear Gaby, for making this path possible for me with so much care and love!
From the plane, I tried to get glimpses of the Brazilian landscape. I saw large undulating rivers, dams, and interesting land formations that resembled scars. I saw a road cutting straight through the rain forest and understood from the sky how a road can make the encroachment of settlements possible.
Near São Paulo, the landscape was human-made, with settlements and land divisions clearly having grown organically. The further away we got from São Paulo, increasingly, division lines were drawn with a ruler, in rectangular grid-like shapes. The more we approached the Amazon, grid-like patches of cleared land appeared in the middle of a vast green carpet.
I was reminded of the United States, which has small states at the East Coast, where new settlers first landed, while large grid-like lines appear further West. The East Coast of Brazil resembles the East Coast of the United States, with smaller states having grown organically, while rectangular lines divide states like Pará and the Amazon further west. Similarly, countries in Africa and the Middle East have been drawn with the ruler on the map, with rectangular lines cutting through any organic growth of settlements on the ground.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the picture above or here to see the photos i took from the window of the plane.

Please click on the picture or here to see more photos.

3rd July 2012, saying good-bye... Here with Marcelle and David in São Paulo, just before leaving for Quito, Ecuador. Thank you, dear David, for bringing me to the airport!
It is difficult to leave Brazil. I spent a little over a month there, and it feels like a million years. The people I had the privilege of getting to know were a gift I did not imagine I would get. I will carry everybody with me in my heart. And I am very happy that many are now members of our HumanDHS network and will help build the Portuguese branch of our World Dignity University initiative.
Please click on the picture above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the picture to see it larger.

On 2nd July 2012, I departed from Brazil. It was difficult to leave. I spent a little over a month in Brazil, and it feels like many years. The people I had the privilege of getting to know were a gift I did not imagine I would get. I will carry everybody with me in my heart. And I am very happy that many are now members of our HumanDHS network and will help build the Portuguese branch of our World Dignity University initiative.
The picture above is taken from the print edition of The Economist São Paulo, and its article "Environmental law in Brazil: Compromise or deadlock?," which says that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's efforts to balance the claims of forests and farms have satisfied few. An opportunity to promote sustainable farming has been missed. The picture shows the deforestation of the Amazon forest.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the picture above to see it larger.

Please click on the pictures to see them larger.

On 30th June 2012, Mano Souza explained to me the medicinal plants of the Amazon and the social movements’ origin in Brazil, while we had açai, tapioca rolls, rice cake and cheese bread in the morning, and for lunch we had sauce made with tucupí, a yellow sauce extracted from wild manioc root, and jambú leaves (Acmella oleracea) cooked and in the salad. Later she gave me Arrabidae chica pariri leaves as a medicine for my sarcoidosis (that I have since 1981) and we cooked it in water. The picture on the left was taken at the lunch table, it shows round cheese bread, rice cake, and tapiocinha rols.
Later in the evening we went out, and Mano helped me buy jewellery made of golden grass (Syngonanthus nitens) and buriti fibers (from the Moriche Palm) as signs of our love from the Amazon for our network members in Europe and America. See the picture on the right.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above to see them larger.

On 29th June 2012, Hélio Dias invites the HumanDHS network members into his Dialogue Home in Marabá! Thank you, dear Hélio!
Please click on the picture above to see it larger.

Monday, 25th June 2012: As Dan Baron commented when we walked by, here we see how the dispair and the resources of the poor are flowing into religion. The building of the Assembleia de Deus Missão sticks out. Clearly, it is a high-quality building in the midst of the evidence of poverty.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Read the story of Alexandre and how he was executed in his wheelchair (see him in the picture on the left) and click on the pictures above or here to see more photos. See also Evelin's South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.

Monday, 25th June 2012:

Alexandre
by Dan Baron
Last night, as we were returning from the June fest on the riverfront of the Tocantins, enjoying a Tacacá stew, we learned that Alexandre had been executed in his rusty old wheelchair. We were devastated. He was one of fifteen special needs young people from our community who had received a gift of 100 Brazilian Dollars from the artists of our youth-band during the final cultural fest of 2011, after they and their mothers decided to recycle a performance fee of $1500 from the global Brazilian mining company Vale do Rio Doce into a currency of solidarity. The next morning, the streets revealed more detail. Alexandre had been playing with his one-year old son on his lap. As a car drove at him to tip him into the street, Alexandre had thrown his child onto the sidewalk. He was shot in the head and died instantly. Alexandre had been paralyzed from the waist a year earlier in a drug-trafficking feud, but had continued to command the circulation of oxy (a lethally addictive, cheap derivative of crack-cocaine), and even executions, from his wheelchair. Alexandre simply met our 'Rivers of Meeting' project a little too late, our emerging artist-leaders said, at the crossroads between two worlds: a midnight project of death and a dawn project of life. Was he crossing their threshold? He knew he would end up on the front-page of the local newspapers, but was not yet aware his death would be used to promote the industrialization of the Amazon, to fuel 'electricity for all'. His days were numbered, the street whispered, and it's good that he died. Now we will all sleep easier. If Alexandre had known how his death would be used to justify the accelerated development of the riverside and dispersal of its Afro-Indigenous community to make way for a luxurious international resort – financed and powered by Vale do Rio Doce, would he have made other choices? What was he singing to his son as they played at midnight? Will he grow up gasping for refuge from putrid river highways in evergreen shopping-centres, consuming his own ancestral memory as 'Amazon cool'? Alexandre's rusty wheelchair offers insight into all that we face in the Amazonian State of Pará today.
Dan Baron 25 June 2012 Transformance Institute Tocantins and Itacaiunas Rivers

Indeed, Pará is like another continent, compared with the rest of Brazil. It has the size of Western Europe and one landlord can own half a million of cattle. It has a sad reputation for its hired gunmen. For example, this article is illustrative: "Brazil: Homage to the Victims of the Amazon in Washington, D.C.," in Global Voices, posted by Georgi McCarthy on 16th April 2012.
Not only hired gunmen, also drugs are used to weaken communities who stand in the way of "progress," crack is given out for free until people are addicted. Just when I was there, two people were killed in execution style a few houses away from where I stayed with Dan and his wife, one of them was Alexandre.
Dan Baron and Manoela Souza live in the local community of Cabelo Seco and are the artistic-pedagogic coordinators of the Rivers of Meeting project. They were my wonderful hosts. Cabelo Seco is an extremely vulnerable community. It is also a relatively poor community. The roof above me, for example, leaked when it rained and I had to cover my computer and all other valuables with plastic sheets.
Being alerted by my presence, the television came to interview us twice, my host and his community, see, for example, our boat excursion.
As it turned out, it was extremely meaningful that I was there, much more than I initially thought. My presence made a difference that it could not have made in Rio + 20, where I was invited, too. I chose Marabá over Rio + 20 because, this I had learned, the voices of the people in the Amazon are not heard, even not in Rio or Brasilia, and I wanted to hear them and bring their voices to larger audiences. As you might be aware, many people working in the field are very sad that Rio + 20 provided much too little space for real transformation. Nnimmo Bassey, chairman of Friends of the Earth International, summarized the Rio + 20 event as follows: “Governmental positions have been hijacked by corporate interests linked to polluting industries.” Indeed, the river that was 10 meters away from the house where I wrote these lines is polluted with mercury; it is a dying river. Children in the Cabelo Seco community are blind because of the toxic particles in the water...
Pará is a lesson in predator capitalism, the Amazon is a frontier of raiding. The natural resources are being raided and whoever stands in the way has to fear for his/her life. The brutality of this state of our world is of course omnipresent on our planet, however, more sharply visible at such front lines as the Amazon than elsewhere. A consumer who revels in buying several cell phones, for example, usually spares herself the awareness that she uses up rare minerals that must be mined somewhere. The Amazon is one of the places where the mining is being done, and its ugliness and unsustainability is glaringly visible for those who are not co-opted.

See also, among many other links:
• The Myths of Brazilian Development, 4 de April de 2013
• The Synchronization of Genocidal State Terror Against Indigenous Peoples, by Ardaga - Huup-té Dschaam Dscheu, March 26th, 2014
• The Dark side of Brazil: Congressman Receives Survival's 'Racist of the year' Award 20 March 2014

And, clearly, the raiding is happening everywhere, only less visible. I just got aware, for example, of "The Scam Wall Street Learned From the Mafia,"  on how America’s biggest banks took part in a nationwide bid-rigging conspiracy and systematically stole from schools, hospitals, libraries and nursing homes, by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone Politics.
And raiding is facilitated by public policy. For instance, the sameday I learned that the Brazilian Ministry of Culture no longer funds  “Living Culture” projects committed to harnessing popular culture for the development of sustainable communities (as the project by Dan and Mano) but only “creative industry spectacles,” Ialso heard that in Norway long-term services for drug addicts will receive less funding and that short-term interventions will be given priority. These are only two examples.
I see social cohesion being weakened qua policy wherever I go. Solidarity is made ever more difficult, solidarity that could be a force for a more caring way of relating to our planet's resources. Charles Eisenstein expresses the paradigm shift that is needed in "Looking Beyond Rio, Towards Degrowth," on 1st July 2012, see postgrowth.org/looking-beyond-rio-towards-degrowth/.
As it seems, we, the human family, have a responsibility to think deeper than ever! Change will not be easy. Two quotes come to mind:
"There is a time for pessimism, that is, for considering worst-case scenarios in order to appropriately prepare for them. This does not mean one should not be hopeful, but only that one should be prepared for adverse outcomes rather than blithely assume that all will turn out well. Rather than being naively (indiscriminately) optimistic or pessimistic, it is better to be strategically optimistic and pessimistic." - Seymour Epstein, 2005.
"Pessimism is a luxury we can afford only in good times, in difficult times it easily represents a self-inflicted, self-fulfilling death sentence." - Evelin Lindner & Jo L., Auschwitz survivor, 2004.
See also Evelin's South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the picture above or here to see more photos of Alexandre and his Cabelo Seco community.

Shared by Dan Baron, here are some examples of how the exploitation of the Amazon is being "sanitized" and depicted as being "good for the people and the environment," in advertisements in the media commissioned by the big corporations:
"Belo Monte Dam Banco da Amazônia – Movimentando a Amazônia: E a sua vida: FNO: crédito para transformar a sua vida e a Amazônia. Banco da Amazônia" ("Moving Amazon: And your life: FNO (Fundo Constitucional de Financiamento do Norte/Constitutional Financing Fund of the North: credit to transform your life and the Amazon").
Wikipedia: The Belo Monte Dam (formerly known as Kararaô) is a hydroelectric dam complex currently under construction on the Xingu River in the state of Pará, Brazil. The planned installed capacity of the dam complex would be 11,233 megawatts (MW), which would make it the second-largest hydroelectric dam complex in Brazil and one of the world's largest in installed capacity, behind the Three Gorges Dam in China and the Brazilian-Paraguayan Itaipu Dam. Considering the oscillations of flow river, guaranteed minimum capacity generation from the Belo Monte Dam would measure 4,571 MW, 39% of its maximum capacity. Transmission lines would connect electricity generated by the dams' turbines to the main Brazilian power grid, which would distribute it throughout the country, both for residential and commercial consumption and to supply the growth of such industries as aluminium transformation and metallurgy.
Please click on the picture at the right or here to see more photos from Dan Baron's camera.

See also:
'Climate Scientists Demand PR Firms Stop Helping Fossil Fuel Companies Cover Up Their Impact'
by Adele Peters, Fast Company, 19th January 2022.

Saturday, 23rd June 2012, opening of a new course at the Escola Nacional de Formação (ENFOC). Please meet union leader Francisco de Assis.
Please click on the picture on the left or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture at the right or here to see more photos from Dan Baron's camera.

Saturday, 23rd June 2012: See Manoela Paula Latronica de Souza, known as Manoela Souza, in their “Rivers of Meeting” (“Rios de Encontro”) community project in Cabelo Seco ("dry hair"), which is the founding community of Marabá at the confluence of two rivers, Rio Tocantins and Rio Itacaiúnas. The name "dry hair" comes from the observation that the hair of Africans is so tightly coiled that it does not get wet when bathing in the river.
Please click on the picture above or here to see more photos.

18th June - 2nd July 2012: See my "dignitório" (dignity + escritório = office, coined by Rosy Rodrigues) at Dan's and Mano's community project home!.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

June 2012: Camylla Alvis and Evelin, together holding the article "Norueguesa Troca Rio+20 por temporada em Marabá," in Correo do Tocantins (translated by Google Translator and summarized in Evelin's South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
See on the picture on the right, the front page of Correo do Tocantins, 19 e 20 junho 2012, "Fim de Semana Negro Com Quinze Mortes Violentas", or, "Nos últimos 21 dias, quinze pessoas foram assassinadas,"21/07/2012.
Please click on the pictures above to see them larger. The pictures were taken by Dan Baron.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos from Dan's Camera.

18th June - 2nd July 2012, in Marabá, Pará. I had been invited to Rio + 20, but had chosen to go to Marabá in Pará instead. My extraordinary hosts are Dan Baron Cohen, known as Dan Baron in Brazil, and Manoela Paula Latronica de Souza, known as Manoela Souza, with their “Rivers of Meeting” (“Rios de Encontro”) community project in Cabelo Seco ("dry hair"), which is the founding community of Marabá at the confluence of two rivers, Rio Tocantins and Rio Itacaiúnas. The name "dry hair" comes from the observation that the hair of Africans is so tightly coiled that it does not get wet when bathing in the river.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos from Dan's Camera.

• To learn more about the important work done by Dan and Mano, please see the bilingual masterpiece "Harvest in Times of Drought - Colheita em Tempo de Seca," by the pedagogic collective Voices of the Country with Dan Baron Cohen, published by Transformance Institute in 2011.
• See the article "Norueguesa Troca Rio+20 por temporada em Marabá" in Correo do Tocantins (translated by Google Translator and summarized in Evelin's South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
• Please see also the video-taped "Rios + 20 Amazon Dialogues" that we produced.
• If you wish to learn more about the significance of Marabá, please read, for example: "Brazil: Homage to the Victims of the Amazon in Washington, D.C.," in Global Voices, posted by Georgi McCarthy on 16th April 2012. With respect to South America as a whole, the Paraguayan coup was significant: "How agribusiness, landowning and media elite, and the U.S. are paving a way for regional destabilization," writes Francesca Fiorentini, on 4th July, 2012, in Buenos Aires.

• Dan and Manoela advised me to refrain from taking pictures, so as to preserve the integrity of the people and the project. Dan took pictures for me to upload them as soon as they were available.
They gave me the permission to take some photos inside the house of the project, which is also one of the homes of Dan and Mano, aside from being my home and my "dignitório" while I had the privilege of being there (Rosy Rodrigues coined the word dignitório from dignidade + escritório = office).

• To understand more about Mano's and Dan's work, please see here the message that Dan sent on 22nd August 2011, about "Music for a Sustainable and Vital Amazon," before speaking to our 17th Annual Conference in Dunedin, New Zealand via internet connection:
Good morning from the Amazon! On this world day of action against the building of the hydro-electric plant, Belo Monte, on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon (to be the third largest plant in the world), with unpredictable, irreversible sociocultural and environmental damage in the region which will impact on all of our lives, we present two songs...
- Alerta Amazonia (Zequinha de Cabelo Seco)
- Clamor popular (Zequinha de Cabelo Seco)
- See the booklet of songs from the Brazilian Amazon which includes the translation of Alerta Amazonia (from the Transformance Archive)
Both songs have emerged in Cabelo Seco, an afro-indigenous community on the periphery of Marabá, Pará, where we live and work. The riverside community is already suffering serious consequences of the large dams completed in the past two years. The songs have been developed by our friend, project collaborator and art-educator Zequinha de Cabelo Seco, inside our project Backyards of Cultural Solidarity. We hope they contribute to the broadening of the international quest for a living, sustainable Pan-Amazônia.
Even if you don't understand the poetic lyrics, we believe you'll understand their emotions. Please write to us if you would like a translation, and feel free to use the songs in your own projects and community. Here are some links if you'd like more information:
- www.avaaz.org/en/amazon_under_threat/
- www.avaaz.org/en/save_the_amazon_a/?fp
Many thanks. An amazonian hug!
Dan Baron e Mano Souza
Cabelo Seco, Marabá
Institute Transformance/ABRA

Dan wrote on 23rd August 2011:
"The conference takes place during my final 5-day period of intensive writing (and type-setting of my new book 'Harvest in Times of Drought: a pedagogy of life for sustainable community', written with 50 rural, riverside and forest arts-educators), but I would like to make myself available for 90 minutes, if that works for you. Is there a definite open or closed space where I could share reflections on what we have learned from arts-based pedagogical work in response to the destruction of the Amazonian forests? I could speak very concretely on how a group of 50 teachers transformed a culture of collusion into an community-based ethics of co-responsibility, based on reflexive solidarity and cooperation. This could also connect to our response to the assassination of our student/grandmother/eco-pedagogue Maria Silva (on May 24). Alternatively, or within the same contribution, I could speak about our work with young people as cultural organizers and artists, transforming themselves, to transform their own afro-indigenous community, one of the poorest and allegedly most violent in Marabá, cradle of the 'industrialization of the Amazon'."


Dan Baron Cohen, please click on the picture to see it larger.

The Castanheiras of Eldorado dos Carajas 1999 (10m x 15m x 25m), please click on the picture to see it larger.

Military police is moved to sing in the school of the assassinated art educator Maria Silva, 24th August, Nova Ipixuna, Para, Amazonia. Please click on the picture to see it larger. See also Colheita em Tempos de Seca or Harvest In Times of Draught, a CD that provides a celebration of the Amazon as a source of human values and rich popular culture, by those who live both everyday. But it also reminds of its vulnerability. It is an inspiring resource for all educators and communities who seek a sustainable future.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

On Monday, 18th June 2012, after a 16 hours bus trip, I arrived in Marabá, Pará. When I woke up, early in the morning with the first daylight, the bus was just crossing a river that was wide like the sea... I was most kindly guided to the home of my dear hosts, Daniel Baron Cohen and his partner Manoela Paula Latronica de Souza, by José Junior, who teaches in Marabá. He had been contacted by faithful Giselda and Fatima throughout the entire trip via cell phone to make sure that everything went well: Thank you to you all for your amazing care!
• When I looked out of the window of the bus, I saw a very high number of heavy machinery and oversize trucks on the road, and on sales. Companies such as Mercedes, Volkswagen, etc., were represented on a large scale. See an advertising board on the picture on the left. A sense of "wild-west type golden times" was keenly to be felt throughout the entire journey.
• Note the ubiquitous plastic rubbish lining the roads.
• Upon arrival in dear Dan's and Mano's home, for the first time, I tasted açaí! Later I would taste amazing local fruit juices, such as cupuaçu or cacao ort murici!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture at the bottom or here to see more photos from Giselda's camera.

Sunday, 17th June 2012: Enjoying the extraordinarily kind and loving hospitality of Giselda Costa, Fatima Souza, her daughter, her mother, and her husband Umberto Souza, Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária - EMBRAPA, in Teresina. At 14.30 departure on a 16 hours trip by bus to Marabá, Pará.
In the morning, I woke up to the sound of a rooster and realized how lucky I was to grow up on a traditional farm. As a child, I woke up to the sound of roosters, ducks, geese, cows, horses, pigs, dogs, cats, not to speak of the many birds in the trees. Later, when I stayed in the near-by town, I was amazed that the only thing I heard was mainly the sound of doves. What an impoverishment!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture at the bottom or here to see more photos from Giselda's camera.

Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the pictures at the bottom or here to see more photos from Giselda's camera.

Saturday, 16th June 2012: Proceeding from the Gilberto Freyre airport in Recife in Pernambuco via Fortaleza in Ceará, to Teresina in Piauí, Brazil. Giselda Costas, English professor at a local high school and university, kindly picked me up at the airport and brought me to a wonderful restaurant, where Giselda's friend Fatima waited for me together with Giselda's son Gustavo, 19, just to begin his studies in engineering.
My kind host organization in Teresina was Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária - EMBRAPA.
Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the pictures at the bottom or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
• The restaurant was an amazing swimming restaurant as part of Encontro dos Rios, where the Poti River and Parnaíba River meet.
• There was a statue of legendary Cabeça de Cuia in front of the Encontro dos Rios, a legend that made girls avoid washing clothes by the river Parnaíba.
• Dear Fatima wore a lovely necklace with Our Lady of Aparecida (Portuguese: Nossa Senhora Aparecida or Nossa Senhora da Conceição Aparecida).
• Giselda shared with me that Recife and São Paulo are the cities of Brazil with most violence, and Manaus and Teresina those with the highest temperature. Teresina is the gate to the Amazon, and Piauí the poorest state in Brazil.
• See the ceramics handicraft production in front of several houses. Giselda explained to me that the government of Piauí gives funds to support ceramics handicraft.
• See the drink of Teresina, Cajuína, made from the cashew fruit, which has the cashew nut on top of it.
• See the military camp style of new settlements in the top-right photo. The airview makes particularly visible how nature is undulated rather than rectangular, and how "modern" human settlements are arranged in a seeming obsession with military-camp style rectangularity. To me, seeing this approach to human settlement all over the world (not just here, of course!), is profoundly hurtful, it deeply humiliates my humanity. It is brought about by starting with a prototype, which then is multiplied, either horizontally, as to be seen on the top-right photo, or vertically, as in most high-rise buildings that pollute modern-day urban areas. This expresses the profit maximization motive insofar as multiplying a prototype renders more profit than building a settlement only of prototypes, where each unit is different from the next. The "luxury" of being able to see human diversity, creativity, and individual expression in built environments, ironically, can be found most in the poorer areas of cities as long as they are created by their inhabitants themselves and not by any agency. Clearly, these areas are poor in sanitary standards, in their level of security, and so forth, but they are rich in the diversity of their physical expressions: arrangements of cardboard, wood, plastic, and metal resemble sculptures that illustrate the high level of creativity human beings are capable of.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the pictures at the bottom or here to see more photos from Giselda's camera.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.

Friday, 15th June 2012, "Education, Dignity, and Crosscultural Communication," workshop in English at the Associação Brasil-América (ABA) for the ABA administrative-cultural staff and faculty, invited by Eduardo J. G. Carvalho, Executive Director of ABA, and ABA Co-founder Francisco Cardoso Gomes de Matos. See the announcement and the invitation. See also the article Humilihação e Dignidade by Tereza Halliday, published in the newspaper Diário de Pernambuco on 4th June 2012.
A wonderful lunch followed, kindly invited by Eduardo J. G. Carvalho, Executive Director of ABA.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos. This video was created on 14th June 2012 in Recife, Brazil.

Thursday, 14th June 2012, a wonderful visit to the Boa Viagem branch of Associação Brasil-América (ABA)! See the bolo de rolo.
See the video created on this day:
Francisco Gomes de Mator: Interview with Evelin Lindner (Português/Inglês, Portuguese/English)
English: Professor Francisco Gomes de Matos, President of the Associação Brasil-América (ABA), converses with Evelin Lindner, medical doctor and psychologist, and Founding President of the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studes network. Este vídeo foi criado em Recife, Brasil, em 14 de Junho de 2012.
Portuguese: O Professor Francisco Gomes de Matos, Presidente do Conselho da ABA, conversa com Evelin Lindner, médica e psicóloga fundadora e presidente da Rede de Estudos sobre Humilhação e Dignidade.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos. This video was created on 14th June 2012 in Recife, Brazil.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Thursday, 14th June 2012, dear Francisco's nephew Marcos José Noronha, a psychiatrist, picked me up at 9:30 am, to take me to his clinic Centro de Atenção Psicossocial - CAPS CASA FORTE.
• See the video "Bringing Dignity into Psychiatry" that we created, where Marcos explains how his work evolved.
• Please see the article "Fundadora da Rede Internaçional sobre Humilhação e Dignidade Humana Visita o Recife" in Integra, on 13th June 2012.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.
• It was wonderful to see a film made by the patients of the CAPS CASA FORTE day clinic, with the help of Carol Cosentino, for TV No Parque, an event that invited all of Recife's inhabitants to contribute with video films.
• I also had the privilege of being shown Bicho sete Cabecos, a most impressive movie that was inspired by the autobiographical book Canto dos Malditos (The Chant of the Damned or The Corner of the Damned), written in the late 1970s by Curitibano author Austregésilo Carrano Bueno, where Carrano tells his personal tragedy after his father sent him to a psychiatric hospital after he found out he smoked marijuana. Carrano's book denounces the monstrosity of the Brazilian psychiatric system and the hypocrisy of the Brazilian society concerning drugs.
• I had the great pleasure of meeting not only Marcos' wonderful staff, but also Célia Cunha, one of their former patients, who touched me deeply. She gave me the lovely gift of one of her oil painting, see the picture in the middle. See the video "Hospital Dia" (Português, with English translation) that we created together with Maria Odette S. Maciel. Célia explains her experiences with the psychiatric system to me. The video taping was done by Carol Cosentina.
Português: Este vídeo foi criado em Recife, Brasil, sobre o 14 de junho de 2012, na clínica de Marcos José de Noronha, Centro de Atenção Psicossocial - CAPS CASA FORTE, junto com Maria Odette S. Maciel. Célia explica suas experiências com o sistema psiquiátrico para Evelin Lindner. A gravação de vídeo foi feito por Carol Cosentino.
She also gave me the following text:
"Hospital Dia" Célia Cunha 18/10/95
Ai, quando me lembro daquele tempo em que eu passava a maior parte do tempo num lugar fechado como se fosse uma prisão! Como se eu tivesse cometido algum crime: sem razão. Nada entendia. Eu era uma pessoa normal, que estudava, trabalhava e compartilhava, mas ele nunca entendia que eu não era uma pessoa que nada de mal fazia. Por que estou num lugar fechado one não participo da humanidade?
Vivia dormindo como om gato preguiçoso; nada fazia. Como fazer alguma coisa se eu não tinha condição com tantos comprimidos na mão e enjeções no braço? Doemia como um leão. Chegava até a puxar os cabelos de tanta chateação.
As pessoas mentiam. Diziam que eu teria alta, mas isso não acontecia ... e de lá eu fugia.
Mas calma! Apareceu um nomo tratamento onde as pessoas acreditavam na gente. Nunca pensei que isso pudesse acontecer. Pessoas legais, capazes de nos compreender. Mas como? São pessoas differentes de mim. Eu sou uma usuária e eles são uma equipe de técnicos que vem nos ver.
São técnicos excelentes, capazes de nos entender. Pessoas differentes, sim, mas pessoas especiais que trouxeram a esperança para cada um de nós. Podem ver nossa capacidade e acreditar que temos algo de bom e proveitoso. Fazem com que a gente acredita na gente!
Pessoas capazes de nos dar seu amor ajudando com paciência e dizendo: "olhe ai, estão vendo o que podem fazer? Vocês são pessoas normais, capazes de fazer todo tipo de trabalhos manuais.
No passao eu não acreditava que pudesse encontrar tantos técnicos bons e educados. Descobri que eu tinha um talento e so me ver por dentro, eu estava viva e contente. Percebi que poderia fazer coisas, e quando terminava, eu mesma admirava.
Eu era Célia no passado e agora, na presente, Sou Célia, que faz trabalho como toda gente!
Agradeço a todos vocês, técnicos que me ajudam a ser uma pessoa como outra qualquer. Amo todos vocês como se fossem um regador jogando água nas plantas e flores para nós não morrermos.
Que Deus abençoe a todos!
Google Translator:
"Hospital Day" Célia Cunha 18/10/95
Oh, when I remember that time that I spent much time in an enclosed space like a prison! As if I had committed some crime: for no reason. Knew nothing. I was a normal person, who studied, worked and shared, but he never understood that I was not one person who did nothing wrong. Why am I locked in a place one does not partake of humanity? He lived as om lazy cat sleeping, nothing did. How to do something if I was not able to so many pills in his hand and incections in the arm? Doemia like a lion. Reaching up to pull her hair so much hassle.People were lying. They said I had high, but it did not happen ... and from there I escaped.But wait! Treatment showed a prefecture where people believed in us. I never thought this could happen. Nice people, able to understand us. But how? These are people differentes me. I am a user and they are a team of technicians who come to see us.They are excellent technicians, able to understand. People differentes, yes, but special people who brought hope for each one of us. You can see our ability and believe we have something good and helpful. They make people believe in us!People can give us your love helping with patience and saying, "Look there, they see what they can do? You are normal people can do all kinds of crafts.In passao I did not believe he could find many good technical and educated. I found I had a talent and so I see inside, I was alive and happy. I realized I could do things, and when it ended, I admired it.I was Celia in the past and now, in this, I'm Celia, who does work like everyone!I thank you all technical help me to be a person like any other. Love you all like a watering can pouring water on plants and flowers do not die for us.May God bless you all!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Thursday, 14th June 2012, Hotel Golden Tulip Recife Palace, Avenida Boa Viagem, 4070 - Boa Viagem, Praia de Boa Viagem, Recife, Brazil. Notice that this hotel does have a bidet! See my discussion of sanitary dignity further down!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the picture above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Wednesday, 13th June 2012, a wonderful first day at Associação Brasil-América (ABA), through our esteemed Francisco Cardoso Gomes de Matos, with dear Eduardo Carvalho, the Executive Director of ABA, Monica Carvalho, Educational Coordinator, Rozário Botelho, the Director of the Maple Bear School, and Ane Cleide, the wonderful ABA designer. What followed was an amazing lunch with Eduardo, Monica, and Rozário, who most kindly explained to me everything I wanted to know about Recife, Pernambuco, and Brazil. They seduced me to try Cartola, a very rich Pernambucan dessert made of banana, butter cheese, sprinkled with a mixture of cinnamon powder and sugar!
ABA is an education institution recognized by the US Embassy in Brazil, offering bilingual education, business development programs, study abroad advising and programs, English courses and Portuguese courses for foreigners, international testing and certification, and cultural activities.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 12th June 2012, meeting with the Federal University of Pernambuco Rector, Dr. Anísio Brasileiro, togeher with Maria José Luna and Fatiha Dechicha Parahyba.
Then, an interview for the newspaper Diario de Pernambuco followed, with the journalist Anamaria Nascimento.
Her questions were:
- What inspired you to found Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies?
- What is experienced as humiliation?
- How is humiliation perceived and responded to in different cultures?
- What can be done to overcome violent effects of humiliaiton?
- Concretely speaking, what programs are offered by Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies?
- What future projects are you working on?
- Do you have informations about the situation of human rights in Brazil? What are your impressions about Brazilian reality?
- Recently, the federal government has installed the "Commission of Truth" to investigate torture and humiliation during the military government. What do you think about it?
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See the announcements prior to the event, both as a poster and on the UFPE website 1 + 2.
Please click on the pictures in the top row or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the pictures in the middle row or here to see more photos from UFPE's official camera.
Please click on the picture in the bottom row or here to see more photos from Giselda's camera, when she came to Recife from Teresina for her pre-doctoral session with her dissertation advisors on 26th June 2012.

Tuesday, 12th June 2012, "The Role of Dignity and Humiliation in Regard to Peace, Harmony, Reconciliation and Forgiveness / O papel da Dignidade e da Humilhação no que Concerne à Paz, à Humanização e à Conciliação em Contextos Familiar e Universitário" (English, with simultaneous translation into Portuguese)
This was a lecture at the Center for Philosophy and Humanities of the University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil, 12th June 2012. When you watch the video (see Part I and Part II), please be aware that I listen to the Portuguese translation through earphones and that the pauses are caused by me waiting for Fatiha Dechicha Parahyba, the translator, to finish before continueing. See a brief video in Portuguese (see the mp4 the flv version) by Maria José Luna, current president of the Dom Helder Camara Human Rights Commission at the University of Pernambuco, and Director of the Federal University of Pernambuco Press.
Português: Palestra na Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humana, Universidade Federal de Pernambuco (UFPE), Recife, Brasil, 12 de Junho 2012. Quando você assistir ao vídeo (Part I and Part II), por favor, esteja ciente de que eu ouvir a tradução Português através de fones de ouvido e que o. Pausas são causados ​​por me esperando Fatiha Dechicha Parahyba, o tradutor, para terminar antes de continuar. Veja um breve vídeo em Português por Maria José Luna, atual presidente do Dom Helder Camara Comissão de Direitos Humanos da Universidade de Pernambuco e Diretor da UFPE Imprensa.
See the announcements prior to the event, both as a poster and on the UFPE website 1 + 2.
Please click on the pictures in the top row or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the pictures in the middle row or here to see more photos from UFPE's official camera.
Please click on the picture in the bottom row or here to see more photos from Giselda's camera, when she came to Recife from Teresina for her pre-doctoral session with her dissertation advisors on 26th June 2012.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Monday, 11th - Wednesday 13th June 2012, I was kindly given the honourable gift of staying in a hotel, a hotel at the Boa Viagem beach in Recife. I am very grateful for the gift: Hotel Internacional Palace Lucsim, Enderco: Av Boa Viagem, 3722, Barro: Boa Viagem CEP: 51.021-000, Cidade: Recife - PE, Brasil.
• However, I dream of a radically more humanized future when I see the lovely beach, with its curves and undulations, every centimeter being different from the next, showing us the wonderful diversity that nature provides as a free gift, facing facades of uniformity built for profit maximization, buildings that are difficult to maintain and therefore always prone to dilapidate in ugly ways, unlike neighboring cities such as Olinda, which keep their charm even through some degree of dilapidation. Uniform buildings erected for profit maximization, I suspect, will hardly ever be honoured as world cultural heritage. I personally feel horrified in impersonal and uniform buildings, I feel my humanity being violated and humiliated in the most cruel way. I am not a machine, I am a living being, and I do not wish to live in machines. I am personally extremely unhappy about famous architect Le Corbusier's thoughts that buildings should function as "machines for living in," analogous to cars, which he saw as machines for traveling in. I am horrified when I see that currently this philosophy, not least because it serves the profit maximization motive so well, is polluting and dehumanizing every urban area I visit all over the globe. This trend is one reason for my global life: I cannot stomach the ugliness of our modern architecture and the only solution for me is to always leave, since change makes this ugliness a little less unbearable. Japanese architect Kisho Kurokawa speaks from the depth of my soul and heart when he calls for a shift from a "machine principle" to a "life principle" everywhere, not only in architectural designs (K. Kurokawa, P. C. Schmal, I. Flagge, and J. Visscher, eds., Kisho Kurokawa: Metabolism and Symbiosis, Berlin: Jovis, 2005).
• Francisco Cardoso Gomes de Matos asked me to document the dignity of sanitary places wherever I travel.
1. I am always intrigued by the fact that the idea of cleaning oneself with water after using the toilet, rather than using paper, is being realized in so many various forms around the world. In France a separate piece of bathroom furniture, the bidet, has a long tradition (I later noted that the Hotel Golden Tulip does have a bidet in their rooms!). The highest form of sanitarty hygience, to my observation, is to be found in Japan, based on a long tradition of personal hygience: in many cases, the bidet is integrated into the toilet so to speak, albeit in a highly luxurious form. In Egypt, there would be a little shower installed near the toilet. This is precisely what I see here, too, see the pictures. In the Saharan desert, Bedouins would not waste water for that puprose, and they do not litter the desert with paper either, as tourists would do in their ignorance and negligence (in the desert, rotting is a very slow process, and the paper stays visible for many years).
2. Another interesting feature is that the toilet paper is hidden in a kind of little drawer in many places here in Brazil, see pictures.
3. Interestingly, I observe, at least so far, that paper is being provided all over Brazil in public toilets, while I learned in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, at least in those places I visited, that one was advised to bring one's own paper.
4. This adds to the important fact that paper is not to be thrown into the toilet but into a bucket nearby, so as not to clogg the pipes. In Europe and the United States, for example, people would only be advised not to throw larger objects into the toilet, but would place the paper they used during their toilet visit into the toilet itself.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Monday, 11th June 2012, Maria José Luna and Mauro Sá Leitão Mendoza brought me to the wonderful place of Francisco Brennand. (Some of his columns reminded me of the Vigeland Park in Oslo, Norway.)
My question, again: why can we, as humankind, not create environments that are as beautiful as this one also elsewhere? Why is the built environment in our modern cities so ugly, globally?
See the poem by Coleridge:
"Since then, at an uncertain hour,
the agony returns.
and till my ghastly tale is told,
this heart within me burns.
See Atahualpa in a cage in the Templo de Sacrifíicio, commemorating the crimes against the indigenous population.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Monday, 11th June 2012, our dear Francisco Cardoso Gomes de Matos, together with Professors Maria José Luna, and Mauro Sá Leitão Mendoza, gave me the privilege of meeting female Brazilian basketball players in wheel chairs, of the Confederação Brasileira de Basquetebol em Cadeira de Rodas (CBBC), with president Maria Naíse de Moraes Pedrosa, and the trainers.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the picture above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Sunday, 10th June 2012, Wellington Marinho de Lira kindly showed Rachel, Annelise, and me around in the amazing city of Olinda! My question: why can we, as humankind, not create environments that are as beautiful today? Why is the built environment in our modern cities so ugly, everywhere on our globe?
• See in the middle the large carneval puppets.
• See on the left the remains of the place of the first declaration of Brazil to be a republic. Brazil was a colony until 1822; in 1822, the son of the Portuguese King, Pedro I, declared Independence, and Brazil was an Empire (only Pedro I and his son Pedro II were Emperors) until 1889; in 1889, Brazil became a Republic. How History might have been: in 1710, Bernardo Vieira de Mello and his group attempted to proclaim a true Independence, and declare Brazil a Republic. The reading in the wall says: "Here, on November 10th of 1710, Bernardo Vieira de Mello shout loudly in favor of the formation of a Republic among us."
• I was suprised by the pride I sense in Pernambuco, pride, for example, of having "thrown out" the Dutch in the early 1970s.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
• I saw again the golden grass handicrafts that I noticed already in Brasília.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Saturday, 9th June 2012, kindly invited by Francisco Cardoso Gomes de Matos to join him and his family! First, Helen, Francisco's wife, Maria Regina, his daughter, and Marina, his 7 years old granddaughter, picked me up to lunch in a typical restaurant. In the campus theater of the university, Marina then danced the quadrilha (square dance ). It was a performance by the children who study at the Colegio Madre de Deus, thus introducing me to typical St.John's celebrations.
• I detected kinds of dessert that I had never seen before: Doce de Caju and Doce de Goiaba!
• At the celebration at the campus theater of the university I learned about the important role of the singer Luis Gonzaga.
• On the way, I observed how hard it is to keep the facades of houses built with concrete clean and well painted in a climate close to the sea. Many houses are covered with tiles, which gives them a better protection.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Saturday, 9th June 2012, Recife from the windows of dear Wellington Marinho de Lira's apartment. Wellington is my wonderful host for the first days in Recife!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Friday afternon, 8th June 2012, arrival in Recife! For the first time, meeting with dear Francisco Cardoso Gomes de Matos and Wellington Marinho de Lira in person! Dear Francisco invited us into the lovely Parraxaxá restaurant, where I heard for the first time about the Robin Hood/bandit Lampião of the North East of Brazil and his wife Maria Bonita!
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Tuesday evening, 5th June, and Thursday, 7th June 2012, dear Lisiane Bastos took care of Clara and me in the most wonderful way! On Thursday, we visited the most impressive foreign ministry and reflected on Oscar Niemeyer's vision of the city of Brasília. Lisiane came to Brasília 18 years ago, and explained to me in what way it has changed since.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 5th June 2012, "Humilhação, Dignidade e Direitos Humanos," talk at the Comissão de Direitos Humanos e Minorias (Committee for Human Rights and Minorities), Câmara dos Deputados (Chamber of Deputies), Brasília, Brasil, 5 de Junho 2012. The historical moment for this talk was timely: On 16th May 2012, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff had just inaugurated a truth commission to investigate rights abuses, including those committed during military rule. Clara Becker explained Evelin's thoughts in Portuguese.
See on the right Deputado Domingos Dutra, the President of the Committee for Human Rights and Minorities, and on the left Ricardo Jose Pereira Rodrigues, Senior Policy Specialist in the Office of Legislative Counsel and Policy Guidance at the Chamber of Deputies.
• See the announcement prior to the event (or see here)
• See a short edited audio clip from the event
• See a summary after the event (or see here)
• See a short video message on dignity to the Brazilian people recorded by the journalist Alex Paniago after the talk.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Monday, 4th June 2012, arrival in Brasília, kindly picked up from the airport by Ricardo Jose Pereira Rodrigues,
Senior Policy Specialist, Office of Legislative Counsel and Policy Guidance,
Chamber of Deputies, Brasília - Brazil.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Monday, 4th June 2012, saying good-bye to my dear friends in São Paulo! Dear Gaby, Isa, and Rosy will always be with me in spirit!
See the video we made: Gabriela Saab: Creating International Law for Dignity (Português/Inglês, English/Portuguese)
Português: Este vídeo é bilíngüe (Português/Inglês). Foi criado na São Paulo no dia 4 de junho de 2012. Gabriela Saab partes suas opiniões sobre a dignidade e suas contribuições para a iniciativa da Universidade Mundial para Dignidade.
English: This video is bilingual (Portuguese/English). It was created in São Paulo on the 4th June 2012. Gabriela Saab shares her views on dignity and her contributions to the World Dignity University initiative.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

June 2012, Evelin in her Dignitório in dear Rosy Rodrigues' home in São Paulo!.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the picture above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Sunday, 3rd June 2012, first, we made a number of videos, and then, we were kindly invited by Marcelle Guil's mother to her apartment! Her life experience is so important for our World Dingity University initiative!
We created the following videos:
1. Murilo Jardelina da Costa: Dignity, Attentive Listening, and Dialogue (Português/Inglês/Alemão, Portuguese/English/German, Portugiesisch/Englisch/Deutsch)
Português: Este vídeo é trilíngüe (Português/Inglês/Alemão). Foi criado na São Paulo no dia 3 de junho de 2012. Murilo Jardelino da Costa partes suas opiniões sobre a dignidade e suas contribuições para a iniciativa da Universidade Mundial para Dignidade.
English: This video is trilingual (Portuguese/English/German). It was created in São Paulo on 2nd June 2012. Murilo Jardelina da Costa shares his views on dignity and his contributions to the World Dignity University initiative.
Deutsch: Dieses Video ist dreisprachig (Portugiesisch/Englisch/Deutsch). Murilo Jardelina da Costa teilt zuerst seine Ansichten über Würde. Dann erklärt er wie er zur Initiative der Weltuniversität für Menschenwürde beitragen möchte.
2. Rosy Rodrigues: Dignidade Humana e o Desemprego (Português, com tradução Inglês, Portuguese, with English translation)
Português: Este vídeo é bilíngüe (Português, com tradução Inglês). Foi criado na São Paulo no dia 3 de junho de 2012. Rosy Rodrigues partes de seu trabalho com o Grupo de Apoio Psicoprofissional (GAP) que atende desempregados na cidade de Guarulhos, Brasil.
English: This video is bilingual (Portuguese, with English translation). It was created in São Paulo on the 3rd June 2012. Rosy Rodrigues shares her work with the Grupo de Apoio Psicoprofissional (GAP) serving unemployed in the city of Guarulhos, Brazil.
3. Natalia Brasil: The Brasílian Path to Equality in Dignity / O Caminho Brasileiro para a Igualdade em Dignidade (Português/Inglês, Portuguese/English)
Português: Este vídeo é bilíngüe (Português/Inglês). Foi criado na São Paulo no dia 3 de junho de 2012. Natalia Brasil partes suas opiniões sobre a dignidade e suas contribuições para a iniciativa da Universidade Mundial para Dignidade.
English: This video is bilingual (Portuguese/English). It was created in São Paulo on the 3rd June 2012. Natalia Brasil shares her views on dignity and her contributions to the World Dignity University initiative.
4. Marcelle Guil: Bringing Dignism into the World / Trazendo Dignism para o Mundo (Português/Inglês, Portuguese/English)
Português: Este vídeo é bilíngüe (Português/Inglês). Foi criado na São Paulo no dia 3 de junho de 2012. Marcelle Guil partes suas opiniões sobre a dignidade e suas contribuições para a iniciativa da Universidade Mundial para Dignidade.
English: This video is bilingual (Portuguese/English). It was created in São Paulo on the 3rd June 2012. Marcelle Guil shares her views on dignity and her contributions to the World Dignity University initiative.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Saturday, 2nd June 2012, kindly invited into David Calderoni's house! Together with Ines Castilho, Fernando Rangel, and many other dear friends.

We created the following videos:
1. Annie Dymetman: From Mediation to Transmediation (English/Portuguese)
English: This video is bilingual (English/Portuguese). It was created in São Paulo on 2nd June 2012. Gaby Saab did the recording. Annie Dymetman is in dialogue with Evelin Lindner about her work on Transmediation at the University São Judas. Gaby Saab did the recording.
Português: Este vídeo é bilíngüe (Inglês/Português). Foi criado na São Paulo no dia 2 de junho de 2012. Annie Dymetman está em diálogo com Evelin Lindner sobre o trabalho dela em Transmediação na Universidade São Judas. Gaby Saab fez a gravação.

2. David Calderoni About Hope and Democracy (English/Portuguese)
English: This video is bilingual (English/Portuguese). It was created in São Paulo on 2nd June 2012. Gaby Saab did the recording. David Calderoni is in dialogue with Evelin Lindner about his work at the Núcleo de Psicopatologia, Políticas Públicas de Saúde Mental e Ações Comunicativas em Saúde Pública (NUPSI). Gaby Saab did the recording.
Português: Este vídeo é bilíngüe (Inglês/Português). Foi criado na São Paulo no dia 2 de junho de 2012. David Calderoni está em diálogo com Evelin Lindner sobre seu trabalho na Núcleo de Psicopatologia, Políticas Públicas de Saúde Mental e Ações Comunicativas em Saúde Pública (NUPSI). Gaby Saab fez a gravação.

3. Fernando Rangel (Portuguese, with English translation)
English: This video is bilingual (Portuguese, with English translation). It was created in the Centro de Direitos Humanos e Educação Popular de Campo Limpo (CHDEP) in Jardim Ângela, São Paulo, on 2nd June 2012. Fernando Rangel explica a vida no Capão Redondo. Ines Castilho translates into English, with Evelin Lindner assisting (she apologizes for holding the microphone too closely, thus causing her voice to be too loud when she speaks). Capão Redondo, Parque Santo Antônio, and Jardim Ângela are home to a combined total of more than half a million people. Jardim Ângela, Capão Redondo, and Jardim São Luis, were considered by the São Paulo Civil Police to be the "triangle of death." In 1996, there were 538 people murdered in this area, most of whom were teenagers.
Português: Este vídeo é bilíngüe (Português, com tradução Inglês). Foi criado na Centro de Direitos Humanos e Educação Popular de Campo Limpo (CHDEP) en Jardim Ângela, São Paulo, no dia 2 de junho de 2012. Fernando Rangel explains life in Capão Redondo. Inês Castilho traduz em Inglês, com Evelin Lindner ajudar (ela pede desculpas para segurar o microfone muito perto, fazendo com que sua voz ser demasiado alto quando ela fala). Capão Redondo, Parque Santo Antônio e Jardim Ângela são o lar de um total combinado de mais de meio milhão de pessoas. Jardim Ângela, Capão Redondo e Jardim São Luis, foram considerados pela Polícia Civil de São Paulo para ser o "triângulo da morte". Em 1996, havia 538 pessoas assassinadas nesta área, a maioria dos quais eram adolescentes.

See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Friday, 1st June 2012, how can I ever adequately thank Gabriela Saab for her incredible care!
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Friday, 1st June 2012, "Humiliation, Dignity and Reconciliation / Humilhação, Dignidade e Reconciliação," palestra em inglês com tradução consecutiva. Centro Universitário Maria Antonia da USP - Salão Nobre Rua Maria Antônia, 258, 3º andar, Vila Buarque, São Paulo, SP. Coordenação Sergio Adorno (FFLCH, NEV e Cátedra UNESCO - USP). Mediação Guilherme Assis de Almeida (Faculdade de Direito - USP). Apoio: Cátedra da UNESCO na USP (Cátedra Educação para a Paz, Democracia, Direitos Humanos e Tolerância). 1º de junho de 2012, 20h.
English: Lecture in English with consecutive translation together with Professor Sergio Adorno (Professor of Sociology – USP). Mediation Guilherme Assis de Almeida (Law School - USP). Supported by the UNESCO Chair Education for Peace, Democracy, Human Rights and Tolerance, and the Centro Maria Antônia (USP).
Please see the invitation. Please see also the video of this lecture.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Friday, 1st June 2012, "Dialogue on Dignity and Humiliation," visit to the periphery of São Paulo.
Capão Redondo, Parque Santo Antônio, and Jardim Ângela are home to a combined total of more than half a million people. Jardim Ângela, Capão Redondo, and Jardim São Luis, were considered by the São Paulo Civil Police to be the "triangle of death." In 1996, there were 538 people murdered in this area, most of whom were teenagers.
1. Visit to the extremely important Centro de Direitos Humanos e Educação Popular de Campo Limpo (CHDEP)initiative in Jardim Ângela.
2. Fernando Rangel also presented the path-breaking Agência Popular Solano Trindade, which is a currency, a bank, and a community in Capão Redondo.
See the video, where Gabriela Saab Presents the World Dignity University in Portuguese. Ury did the recording. Português: Este vídeo foi criado na São Paulo no dia 1 de junho de 2012. Ury fez a gravação.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Friday, 1st June 2012, "Dialogue on Dignity and Humiliation," visit to amazing Cidade Escola Aprendiz in Vila Madalena, São Paulo, kindly invited by Helena Singer.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos from Evelin's camera.
Please click on the pictures at the bottom or here to see more photos from Natália S. Viana Brasil's camera.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Thursday, 31st May 2012, talking about terrorism with dear Renata Nagamine, celebrating Gaby's successful examination, and making a video in the Law School of the University of São Paulo with dear Fabricio Rodrigo Costa!
Fabricio Rodrigo Costa and Dignity: An Invitation to Share Your Doubts About this World!
This video was created in the Law School of the University of São Paulo on 31st May 2012. Fabricio Rodrigo Costa is in dialogue with Evelin Lindner. Gabriela Saab did the recording. Português: Este vídeo foi criado na Faculdade de Direito da Universidade de São Paulo no dia 31 de Maio de 2012. Fabricio Rodrigo Costa está em diálogo com Evelin Lindner. Gabriela Saab fez a gravação.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Wednesday, 30th May 2012, kindly exposed me to the beauty of São Paulo by Murilo Jardelino da Costa.
The Museu da Língua Portuguesa, with its exhibition "Jorge Amado e Universal," and the Pinakotheke São Paulo. Thank you so very much, dear Murilo!
And thank you, dear Francisco, for sending us such a great visual introduction to São Paulo!
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

29th and 30th May 2012, Brazilian food, explained to me by my dear Brazilian sister Rosy!
Doce de Leite on queijo minas frescal!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above on the left or here to see more photos.
Click on the picture on the right or here to see more photos of Rosy and me.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 29th May 2012, Educação, Conflitos e Democracia, mesa-redonda, participação de Evelin Lindner e Annie Dymetman, doutora em Sociologia, e membro-fundadora da Casa da Mediação de Conflitos na Universidade São Judas Tadeu. Mediação: Helena Singer (pós-doutora pela Universidade Estadual de Campinas e diretora pedagógica da Associação Cidade Escola Aprendiz).
Local: Memorial da América Latina, Sala dos Espelhos, Av. Auro Soares de Moura Andrade, 664.
English: Education, Conflict and Democracy, roundtable, participation by Evelin Lindner and Annie Dymetman, PhD in Sociology, and a founding member of the House of Conflict Resolution at the University São Judas Tadeu. Mediation: Helena Singer (post-doctorate from the University of Campinas and pedagogical director of the Associação Cidade Escola Aprendiz).
It was wonderful to gather for lunch afterwards in the Pitanga restaurant (Brazilian Cherry)! Thank you, dear Murilo Jardelino da Costa for your kind care!
Please see the invitation.
Please see the video of this lecture.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Saturday, 26th May 2012, com Gabriela Saab, "Dignidade Humana e o Desemprego," palestra no Grupo de Apoio Psicoprofissional (GAP) que atende desempregados na cidade de Guarulhos, Rua Harry Simonsen, 202, Guarulhos, Brasil, 26 de Maio 2012 às 10:00.
English: With Gabriela Saab, "Human Dignity and Unemployment," lecture in the Psycho-professional Support Group (GAP) that serves the unemployed in the city of Guarulhos, Harry Street Simonsen, 202, Guarulhos, Brazil, 26th May 2012.
A very special lunch followed, together with dear Gaby, David, and Andrea. I am always looking for local traditions, be it in food, clothes, architecture or other areas. See here palmito, in Portuguese, heart of palm in English.
See a short report.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos, kindly taken by Marcelle Guil with Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture at the bottom or here to see more photos from Natália S. Viana Brasil's camera.

Thursday, 24th May 2012, "Humiliation and Armed Conflict," lecture at the Faculty of Law in the International Criminal Law course taught by Prof. Cláudia Perrone-Moisés, University of São Paulo, Brazil.
Portuguese: Humilhação e Conflito Armado, palestra na Faculdade de Direito (sala Miguel Reale, 3º. Andar) no curso Direito Internacional Penal ministrado pela Profa. Dra. Cláudia Perrone-Moisés, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil, 24 de Maio 2012.
Please see here the video of this lecture. Fabricio Rodrigo Costa kindly did the video-taping.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab. See also Professor Murilo Jardelino da Costa without whom this programme would not have been the same! Thank you, dear Gaby and Murilo!
Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos, kindly taken by Marcelle Guil with Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture at the bottom or here to see more photos from Natália S. Viana Brasil's camera.

• With respect to the “glue” that holds a society together, after having spent a few days in São Paulo, Brazil, I am struck by the different atmosphere I encounter, as compared to Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia. I observe and experience much more warmth; I see many more smiles, wherever I go. I observe how people reach out to each other, how they actively connect. I am very much reminded of the atmosphere I so much enjoy in New York City (particularly in Manhattan), as well as in Norway. I am told that Brazilians identify with Brazil as a whole, rather than with any particular identity: a second-generation migrant from Japan, for example, would proudly emphasize that he is Brazilian, rather than Japanese-Brazilian. In other words, differences would be regarded as diversity, a diversity that does not fracture the unity of being Brazilian—in short, the principle of unity in diversity at its best! In Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia, I sensed much more apprehension, sometimes even fear or mistrust separating people from each other.
Interestingly, Valparaíso, with its mixed population, felt different to the rest of Chile, and I had Claudia Arcos Duarte as avid interpreter of culture to explain these differences to me in more depth. Yet, I felt that dualist dichotomy, rather than nondualist connection, was being accepted, nurtured, and valued more in the Spanish-speaking regions I so far encountered than in Brazil, at least these are the impressions I so far collected in Brazil. Clearly, it might that my impressions will change the more I will experience.
From a Brazilian point of view, I am told, that there is a Brazilian way of doing things in a rather “fluid” than “strict” way. Spanish culture, to many, appears to be more firm, sometimes even “pushy.” Perhaps this might be the origin of the difference I perceive? And perhaps it plays out more or less constructively? Since happy conviviality seems to  be given priority in Brazil—“let us forget about our dark past”—truth commissions are beginning in Brazil only now, while Argentina opened their files years ago and worked through their dark past much faster? My dear host in São Paulo, Gabriela Saab, and her friends, are giving me a lot to think about when I ask them all these questions!
The point I want to make is that the coming together of different cultural influences into a unity-in-diversity frame is always very fruitful for the flourishing of very humane and culturally, socially, and psychology rich contexts. Also history teaches us this lesson: Before the 1492 surrender of the Islamic Emirate of Granada to the Catholic Monarchs in Spain, for example, a very interesting high culture flourished in Southern Spain. A similarly rich context brought us poets such as 13th-century Persian poet, jurist, theologian, and Sufi mystic Rūmī, or 14th-century Persian Sufi poet Hafiz whose insight  I so much resonate with: “I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The truth has shed so much of itself in me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman...”
Somehow related is the impression I get from the relations between men and women. In São Paulo, I observe that men and women communicate as human beings more than as men and women; in other words, the gender aspect seems to be tuned down. In Chile, particularly, I felt much more caught in an identity I personally feel uneasy with, at least in public life, namely that I am born into a female body. I wish to be respected as a human being, and I wish to communicate with others as human beings, rather than as women and men. I have often felt profoundly disrespected when being reduced to only one half of humanity, be it intentionally or unintentionally. I feel very uneasy when language separates men and women through linguistic rules, for example, I refrain from using Madam, Mister, Señor, Señora, and so forth—I prefer to be addressed as Evelin Lindner, or Evelin, as a human being rather than a “Madam” (or a “Dr.”). I feel even more invaded when manipulated into flirty conversations through jokes, and I have experienced this not just in South America, but also in Europe (particularly in Germany). I am very doubtful that it should signify “progress” when women start smoking, drinking, and laughing at gender jokes only to “prove” that they are “as good as men.” I would rather invite men and women to transcend traditional “male” and “female” cultural rituals and co-create a more dignified humane culture of mutual respect for equality in dignity that unites us all. In this unity, gender diversity can then be cherished in a more humane and comprehensive way. I expand on this topic in my book Gender, Humiliation, and Global Security: Dignifying Relationships from Love, Sex, and Parenthood to World Affairs (2010).
Please click on the pictures at the top or here to see more photos, kindly taken by Marcelle Guil with Evelin's camera.
Please click on the picture at the bottom or here to see more photos from Natália S. Viana Brasil's camera.

Please see here the video of this lecture. Gabriela Saab kindly did the video-taping.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Thursday, 24th May 2012, "A Letter to My Father - Memories of Humiliation in International Conflicts,"lecture in the course of literature by Dr. Laura P. Zuntini of Izarra, the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities, Department of Modern Languages​​, University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, 24th May 2012.
Portuguese: Palestra no curso de literatura pela Dra. Laura P. Zuntini de Izarra, na Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas, Departamento de Letras Modernas, Universidade de São Paulo, Brasil, 24 de Maio 2012.

Please see here the invitation:
MEMORIES OF HUMILIATION IN INTERNATIONAL CONFLICTS com a pesquisadora-ativista multidisciplinar EVELIN LINDNER* 24 de maio de 2012, 14h Sala, Prédio de Letras
*Doutora em Medicina e Psicologia, transdisciplinarista em Ciências Sociais e Humanidades e pesquisadora ligada a várias universidades, entre as quais a Universidade de Oslo (Noruega), a Columbia University (New York) e a Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (Paris). É fundadora e presidente da rede mundial de pesquisa Estudos sobre a Dignidade Humana e a Humilhação (www.humiliationstudies.org) e co-fundadora e Presidente da Universidade Mundial da Dignidade (www.worlddignityuniversity.org).

Please see here the video of this lecture. Gabriela Saab kindly did the video-taping.
See here the entire São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Wednesday, 23rd May, 2012, with Gabriela Saab and her mother, kindly invited by Marcelle Guil to a concert with Paquito D’Rivera in Sala São Paulo. (The adjacent building, see the picture on the left side, was a place where torture was perpetrated during the dictatorship.)
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

And see here the São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 22nd May 2012, with Gabriela Saab, "Reflexões Democráticas: Direitos Humanos, Tolerância e Humilhação" ("Democratic Reflections: Human Rights, Tolerance and Humiliation," see also pdf and another pdf), conversa no Instituto Norberto Bobbio, São Paulo, Brasil, com Evelin Lindner, com a apresentação de David Calderoni, psicanalista do Núcleo de Psicopatologia, Políticas Públicas de Saúde Mental e Ações Comunicativas em Saúde Pública (NUPSI).
Thank you, David Calderoni, professor Dr. Maurizio Russo, César Mortari Barreira, Fabricio Rodrigo Costa, and all those who so kindly contributed to making this event happen!
Please see here the blog "Ventos de mudanças passaram pelo INB" that was created by Fabricio Rodrigo Costa and César Mortari Barreira in August 2012.
And see here the São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Monday, 21th May 2012, Gabriela Saab's mother-in-law, Doña Regina, very kindly invited us to a wonderful Brazilian lunch. I was so touched that Doña Regina even offerd a welcome flower to me! Before lunch, we visited Missão Belem and the Igreja São José do Belém, where Gaby and Fabio got married (see further down). Later, we passed by the local padaria. See also my amazing welcome gift table (see the flower, dear Murilo's wonderful creme, among others...)!
And see here the São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Monday, 21th May 2012, Gabriela Saab's mother-in-law, Doña Regina, brought us to the young people of the Missão Belem. We also visited the church Igreja São José do Belém, where Gaby and Fabio got married, as well as the second-hand shop whose profits go to buying basic goods for needy families, see pictures.
The young Missão Belem missionaries (one could also call them activists) live under circumstances in their favela in Belem, which most people would deem impossible. Among the missionaries are former drug addicts. They regularly join the street children (many of whom are addicted to crack) in the street also at night. A police ratia in February this year that aimed at expelling the youth from the center of the city did not discriminate between the missionaries and the youth. Many of the street children hid behind the missionaries, and, later, many sought refuge with Missão Belem.
The missionaries have quarters for their women, and other quarters for their men. See the women’s quarters, where up to sixteen women sleep on a few square meters; see their cupboard, their library, and their meditation space on the pictures. See also the corridor that represents the male quarters, where up to nine men sleep on the floor.
The women explained to us how their mothers, though of religious orientation, have grave problems with their daughters choosing this extreme degree of “walking the talk” of religious conviction. Equally, the men shared with us that their parents would rather have them live “normal” lives.
For me, it was deeply touching to see the fulfillment in the eyes of these young people. New research on the importance of relationships underpins how significant it is to feel that one belongs. Furthermore, these young people gave proof of how fulfilling it can be to dedicate one’s life to aims broader and higher than the mere amassment of material possessions or the attempt to be a “normal” part in a context that produces unnecessary suffering to others. The dedication that these young people gave us the privilege of witnessing was exemplary in many ways. First, since many had experienced street life and drug addiction themselves, they were first-class helpers for others in similar situations (research underpins this insight). Second, they follow the motto (see one of the photos): “Se nao fomos ‘reduzidos a pobres,’ como entenderemos os pobres?” (Google Translator: “If we were not ‘reduced to the poor,’ how could we understand the poor?”); see picture. In this way they avoid committing the humiliation of patronizing charity that ignorant do-gooders might perpetrate.
For me, using terms such as human dignity or true humanity are ways to describe such commitment, be it carried with religious or non-religious motivations. As mentioned in other places, I myself resonate with fourteenth century Persian Sufi poet Hafiz, who said, “I have learned so much from God that I can no longer call myself a Christian, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a Jew. The truth has shed so much of itself in me that I can no longer call myself a man, a woman...” I resonate with this phrase not least because I would like to avoid the impression that my motivation to help might be secondary to wanting to trap people, through help, into certain world views. If at all, I resonate with "the Holy" (this is philosopher Rudolf Otto’s term for what connects all religions, see Otto, 1928). Trapping people into religious doctrine would, at least to my view, be as unholy as any other manipulation. Furthermore, I personally think that it is our human duty to be human—that it would be rather blasphemic to unload this duty onto the shoulders of religion, and, even more banal would it be to do this in order to gain spiritual “advantages” for oneself in the same way others try to gain worldly advantages. Questions of religion ought to be free from having to carry tasks humans have to shoulder as humans, this is my view. Using religion as justification for why we should have the common good at heart, for why we ought to love each other, for why it would be better to live a life that makes social cohesion possible and sustainable, to me, would represent an abuse of religion. I felt that these young people were very aware of such reflections. They confirmed repeatedly that they were keeping an extremely low profile and would never push people in any way. When they witness drug abuse in their favela, for example, they would not interfere, they explained.
Incidentally, Neil Walsh, a dear member in our HumanDHS network, wrote to me on the same day, 21st May, 2012, “Evelin, today I met a real life example of someone who is embodying your work here in the North East. Iran Nazario lost his brother to gang violence and has, since then, been on a mission to transform the streets by going out at the times when kids are most vulnerable, 3-4 AM and giving them options, other than drugs and run-ins with the police. Iran is putting kids in touch with mentors, taking them to the countryside, and teaching them prosocial behavior. Iran really understands the community and knows that gangs, in and of themselves, are not really the problem, but that the problems are much more rooted in lack of community engagement and a limited kind of view of the world. I have worked with youth in Georgia who, nominally involved in gangs, were more vulnerable because of lack of opportunities in their families and communities. Gangs, I observed, were just kind of local groups of friends who fight with other neighborhood kids. What I also observed was that if someone in a poor community got involved with law enforcement and it was suspected they were in a gang their criminal record would become very complicated and could lead to a downward spiral in terms of behavior. Iran understands the situation and seems to offer very positive solutions informed by dignity and justice.
I want to recommend that Iran be invited to speak at one of the roundtables at the conference this December. I feel that he would be very well received and that he could make connections within the network that will empower his program and the communities he serves. Best, Neil.”
And see here the São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Sunday, 20th May 2012, a stellar evening, gathered by dear Gaby, with Prof. Murilo Jardelino da Costa, Natalia Brasil, and Fabricio Rodrigo Costa, in a lovely restaurant in the center of São Paulo, Brazil.
And see here the São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above to see them larger.

Saturday, 19th May 2012, I learned that my creme did not make it from Chile to Brazil by post. The Ministry of Agriculture in Brazil is currently analyzing it, which means that it will spoil unless they have understood that it must be kept in the deep freezer. It might arrive after my departure. I make this creme myself.
The creme that is on offer in shops contains a number of chemical substances that keep bacteria growth down, to keep it from spoiling. Yet, these substances are not necessarily beneficial for human skin. I react aversely to all cremes sold in shops I have so far encountered. Therefore I make my cremes myself and I do not use any chemical substances. See, for example, Stephanie Faber's books. I have not found these ingredients in any country outside of Germany and therefore produce a "reserve" lasting half a year or a year, whenever I am in Germany.
Interesting, the pharmacy Vida Farma managed to deliver all core ingredients, every item plastic-wrapped in ways, I have never seen: Óleo de Jojoba, Água Destillada (Solubilizante), Manteiga de Karite, Laneten (Emulsionante), Sorbitol (Umectante), Oleato Isodecila (Emoliente), Parabenos (Conservantes).
When I travel, I take a number of small containers with me, which I put in the deep freezer or refrigerator wherever I stay. In the case of my travels in South America, I foresaw that it would spoil during five days of bus travel. I wanted to bypass this problem by sending most of my little containers to Brazil by post. This was the text that dear Gabriela advised me to enclose in the parcel:
"Produto feito sob encomenda acompanhado da prescrição. A paciente encaminha para sua anfitriã para poder mantê-lo refrigerado enquanto durar sua viagem Producto personalizada acompañada de receta médica. Los delanteros del paciente y de su huésped con el fin de mantenerla refrigerada para la duración de su viaje.
Dr. med. Evelin Lindner, Medical Doctor licensed in Germany and Norway /Médico licenciado na Alemanha e na Noruega Médico con licencia en Alemania y Noruega.
Prescription 18th March 2012 The patient reacts allergic to commercial products for facial crème. This is a prescription for a facial creme prepared without chemical additives. It requires to remain refrigerated during her trip.
Prescrição 18 mar 2012 O paciente reage alérgica a produtos comerciais de creme facial. Esta é uma receita de um creme facial preparados sem aditivos químicos. Ela exige a permanecer refrigerado durante a sua viagem. Receta 18a de marzo de 2012 El paciente reacciona de forma alérgica a los productos comerciales de crema facial. Esta es una receta para un tratamiento facial crema preparada sin aditivos químicos. Se necesita para mantenerse refrigerados durante su viaje. "
Please click on the pictures above to see them larger.

Saturday, 19th May 2012, a wonderful welcome day, very kindly gifted to me by Gabriela Saab, her husband Fabio, her mother Rosy, and her partner Clebio! What a welcome! In a Japanese restaurant á la Brazilian style! And Gaby has prepared a comprehensive programme for me! After almost being stuck forever in the mud of Bolivia, I can almost not believe my happiness of being with Gaby and her family!
And see here the São Paulo Agenda so kindly organized by Gabriela Saab.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Friday-Saturday, 18th-19th May 2012, 9.00, departure from Puerto Suarez on the Bolivian side to Corumbá on the Brazilian side. Then, at 11.30, departure from Corumbá to São Paulo, arrival São Paulo next day at 11.00 (we arrived an hour earlier).
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

• I spent the night from 17th to 18th in Hotel Vini in Puerto Suarez, a few steps from the Bolivian side of the border to Brazil, at the end of an officially non-existent road!
• The head of the Andorinha office took, Ney Eguez Yorge, and his crew, all studied intensely the brochure from Hamelin I had given them as my sign of gratitude the evening before.
• I was surprised when I encountered the first Brazilian bus drivers. They looked like pilots of important airlines, dressed in elegant uniforms, with name tags, proudly strolling in front of the bus!
• In Columbá, while waiting for the bus to São Paulo, I met Josy, a young medical student in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, who was on her way to her sick grandmother in Vilhena in Brazil. I learned a lot from her, when she shared her life story with me.
• In the bus to São Paulo, I was extremely lucky to have Sandra as my kind neighbor. It was by far the most comfortable bus I so far experienced in South America. Sandra would most kindly chaperon me like her sixth child! We held a small linguistic university on board of the bus, Sandra kindly teaching me Portuguese! She told me that ca. 20.000 Brasileiros are living in Santa Cruz. Many Brazilians come to study medicine, not least because it is much more difficult and costly to get into medical school in Brazil. She agreed with my impression that the atmosphere in a plural country such as Bolivia is not always easy.
• See the termites! They covered entire fields with their cupinzeiro mounds!
• See the Brazilian Rodovia (highway) system! Our bus used a road maintained by private concessionaires.
• See the large billboards alongside the road. One says: "Crack: Independéncia ou morte."
• Francisco Cardoso Gomes de Matos wrote on 11th May 2012: "Dear Evelin... Oh, before I forget: what were sanitary conditions like in public places, such as airports, bus stops, and in hostels and the like? Toilets, women's, men's, sadly reflect the sanitary indignity - humiliation - which human beings are subjected, in many (?) countries. Imagine you'll record your observations on that, too."
Dear Francisco, you are so right! These conditions merit our attention! The by far most advanced country in this respect is, of course, Japan. Heading for a public toilet will most often than not lead to an experience of luxury (intricate cleansing jets of water, plus paper, plus warm air, plus artificial noise, and so forth). Already during my seven years in Egypt, I had gotten used to the cleansing jet of water, and learned the Egyptian snear at the barbaric "smearing" use of paper in countries that call themselves "developed." In Chile, Argentina, and Bolivia, at least in those parts I passed through, I learned to bring my own paper, and to throw all used paper into the nearby bin rather than into the toilet, so as to avoid clogging the pipes. See here the pictures of the toilets in the Brazilian highway restaurants: unexpected luxury! There is paper in the toilets, and marble and flower decoration at the entrance!
• Finally, I arrived in São Paulo, and Gabriela Saab so very kindly picked me up at the Terminal Rodoviário da Barra Funda!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Wednesday-Thursday, 16th-17th May 2012, from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in Bolivia, to the "frontera" between Bolivia and Brazil, with Puerto Suarez on the Bolivian side, and Corumbá on the Brazilian side.
The bus was less comfortable than the other buses I had encountered so far. The journey to the border was to take ca. 12 hours, I was to arrive at ca. 6.00 in the morning next day, and catch the bus on the other side of the border to São Paulo at ca. 10.00. Upon departure in Santa Cruz, Señor Rodolfo gave me an envelope, where he had written the name Juan Da Silva Carbal, Bus Andorinha that would help me to get the bus to São Paulo. Inside the envelope was a piece of paper indicating that my destination was São Paulo.
However, everything evolved rather differently. The bus was stuck in the mud on the non-asphalted stretch of the journey, in the middle of the night. The crew of the bus, clearly, was well prepared. They set up an external spotlight on some wooden beams, and started working with large shovels. The entire bus had sunk deep into the mud, almost sliding off the road to the right, leaning to the right side. It took several hours to free the bus. Another vehicle finally pulled it out. See the pictures I took without flash, in order not to startle the hard-working men who gave their all to free the bus.
In that way, I arrived many hours too late at the border and missed my bus to São Paulo (I might have missed it anyway, due to Señor Rodolfo's delaying tactics, see more further down). I managed to get reluctant help from two passengers, who allowed me to share their taxi, and, luckily, they went to the Andorinha office, where, to my surprise, I found Señor Rodolfo's contact man Señor Juan Da Silva Carbal, who told me that he would phone Señor Rodolfo. He disappeared and I did not see him again. I was sitting in the Andorinha office for many hours, writing these reflections.
I always refrain from aggressive, indignated, accusatory behavior, as I just saw it in a German tourist. By simply staying present and calm, friendliness and helpfulness may emerge in the people around me, and, on a continent of few smiles, as South America seems to be so far, perhaps even a smile. With accusatory behavior, I create enemies, who might help only as far as they are being pressured. By calmness, I create friends, who help also where I do not have enough oversight over the situation to know what kind of help I might actually need.
Finally, I approached the two men who had helped me with the taxi, and they kindly phoned Señor Juan Da Silva Carbal (since I do not have a cell phone) and they told me that the problem was that the fact that the ticket had been prepaid for was not being communicated: the money was not being freed or authorized to go to Andorinha, the bus operator for São Paulo (this is what I understood from their Spanish explanations).
Soon after, the head of the Andorinha office, Ney Eguez Yorge, took initiative spontaneously and phoned Señor Rodolfo himself. He did that with a very firm voice, shouting into the phone.
Suppose the delay tactics (a prepaid ticket is not made available for use) in Mendoza and in Puerto Suarez represented an intentional strategy to tire out a foreigner, getting her to be so frustrated that she would buy an alternative ticket expecting to obtain a refund for the originally prepaid ticket (which then would not be granted, in effect making the foreigner pay the same ticket twice), this would be a shrewd strategy and would have worked with most foreigners! See the explanation for the context here or further down, under *.
The head of the Andorinha office then kindly explained to me that I could walk to the border and get the stamps into my passport for leaving Bolivia and entering Brazil, which I did. I thanked him with a postcard from Norway and a brochure from Hamelin.
At the end, the evening bus to São Paulo was too full. I am writing these sentences in a hotel a few meters from the border, ready to get on the bus tomorrow, 18th May, 9.00 in the morning, arrival in São Paulo on 19th May, at 11.00 am at the Barra Funda Terminal.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

• Please see dear Señor (or Don) Johnny Rojas Oporto from the Hostal Rio Magdalena in Santa Cruz, who had faithfully accompanied me to the bus in the Bimodal bus terminal of Santa Cruz, waiting with me for three hours until I was safely sitting in the bus. He told me about his life, and about Bolivia and its history. His family lives in Sucre, Bolivia's capital.
• Don Johnny Rojas Oporto patiently explained everything to me in Spanish, slowly enough for me to understand. He explained, for example, that it was Señor Rodolfo, who would decide which of the two available routes to São Paulo I was to take, the "direct" route of ca. 33 hours, or the route via Paraguay, more than 40 hours. Luckily (I thought), I was to be on the "direct" route, he would confirm later.
• Don Johnny also explained to me that bus drivers in Brazilia are not allowed to drive more than four hours in one stretch, then they have to sleep, and be replaced by another driver. In Bolivia, in contrast, there are no such rules, he told me. Later, when we were stuck in the mud, I remembered his words and wondered whether the driver had fallen asleep for a moment, since the bus stood diagonal, with the front having slid almost into the bushes. However, perhaps it was the condition of this particular part of the road, since, at some point, also a big truck was stuck behind us. The truckhad a stronger motor than our bus and managed to free himself by carefully driving forward and then back again. The sound of this action, the big motor being brought to its maximum capacity, was to be heard for about half an hour.
I remembered Don Johnny's words also when I encountered the first Brazilian bus drivers. They looked like pilots of important airlines, dressed in elegant uniforms, with name tags, proudly strolling in front of the bus!
• Don Johnny conveyed to me Señor Rodolfo's message that I should not worry: "You will have a ticket," I was told (unlike in Mendoza). I was again reminded of the lesson I had learned throughout my life, namely, that it is high time to consider getting worried, when one is told not to worry: Watzlawick! And, indeed, at the frontier to Brazil, in Puerto Suarez, once more, I would not have a ticket!
• Don Johnny was very proud that the road to the border was asphalted. I was astonished why he should mention this fact and sensed that his pride might be hiding another truth, a truth that was perhaps more significant in practice. I asked him, therefore, whether the entire stretch to the border was asphalted. No, he replied, a "brief" part was not. Clearly, this was precisely the stretch of the road (not that brief), that kept us for many hours during the night. (Google Maps does not include this route as a possible route. When I googled more, I learned that there are plans to implement a road connection between Santa Cruz and Puerto Suarez, enabling smooth traffic throughout the year. Between Santa Cruz and Pailón, there is already a paved road of 62 km. Opposite the airport of Puerto Suarez and Arroyo Concepción there is already a paved road of 17 km.)
• When we were stuck in the mud, I was hugely impressed by the men accompanying the bus, first how they worked diligently, for hours, to free the bus, digging, putting planks, trying to drive forward and then back again to get out. Later, when the bus was on the road again, it was amazing to observe how the driver negotiated the most impossible conditions for hours upon hours, inching through mud hole after mud hole, carefully avoiding the stones that stuck out everywhere, all in complete darkness, with only rather dim lighting coming from the bus. Luckily, there was a lot of other traffic, busses and trucks drove by, and they added light, since most of them had stronger lighting than our bus. Finally, we reached the asphalted road.
• I was also impressed by the passengers. Most Bolivians slept through the accident, no sound was to be heard from the children. Only after one hour, or so, did two men get up to look out of the window to check what was happening. As I usually observe, in Europe, most men will immediately get up, watch, and discuss what they would do to save the situation. Fully in the European fashion, the three European-looking Mennonites (as it seemed, a couple with their adult son, the father in a blue overall with a beige hat), were talking loudly (they spoke Plautdietsch, read about The Ghost Rapes of Bolivia: The Perpetrators Were Caught, but the Crimes Continue, by Jean Friedman-Rudovsky). The woman was constantly looking out of the window (that she had opened, thus inviting mosquitoes into the bus); she was talking loudly to her male company throughout the entire episode and the son even went out of the bus, only to be immediately told, by the men of the bus, to return inside.
• In the morning, one of the men responsible for the bus appeared in front of the passengers, asking who needed to get off at the next station. Visibly, his mouth was full of coca leaves; the right side of his face was bulging. His eyes were overstimulated, wide open, starring wildly: The night had clearly taken its toll and the coca leaves were meant to keep him awake.
• When the morning light appeared, I took pictures from the bus window with the aim to honour the wonderful chapter about Beni and its human-made landscape in Charles Mann's book 1491(the bus drove through the adjacent Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia). The landscape was extremely uniform, hour after hour: lush greenery, not even an electricity cable following the road, two lone dwellings for hours. I was not sure as to whether I caught glimpses of the human-made mounds that Mann describes.
• I saw an “urbanización” project, in the middle of nowhere, that made particularly clear how misguided it is to use what I call the “prison camp” approach. This approach typically starts with a prototype that an architect far from the locality has designed, to then multiply this prototype and arrange those copies in a rectangular grid-like manner on the piece of land that an investor had designated. I would recommend offering people local material and allowing them to use their own creativity to design their dwellings. The Organization Workshop approach of Iván Labra is the solution!
• See the plastic litter lining the side of the road also here.
• By the way, I have learned to drink very little, to be able to survive without a toilet for many bus-hours! I also have learned to carry my own paper with me. And, I have learned to avoid throwing any paper into the toilet, even used paper, but into a bin, so as not to clog the pipes.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Wednesday, 16th May 2012, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
• First, I bought some food for the three-days' bus trip to São Paulo that starts this evening. I bought bananas from the kind lady you see on the photo. Carlos Andres and his mother sold me lovely cheese, see them in their shop. Then I went back to the "Paseo Artesanal" with its wooden booths covered by thatched roofs and bought the only thing that I permit myself to buy at times: big rings!
• Then I took a picture of a sign on a wall in Quijarro Nº 199 Esq. Arenales, saying "Medicina Psycosomatica, Academia de Psiquiatria-Orthomolecular, New York, USA," and suddenly its owner, Dr. Rafael Valdivieso Urquidi, stood in front of me and asked me why I took the picture. See his picture!
• See also the picture of the shop where Christian paraphernalia are sold. See a doll of the Virgin Maria, and another doll and a picture of St. Jorge.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 15th May 2012, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia.
See the "Paseo Artesanal" with its wooden booths covered by thatched roofs. Is this a successful use and adaptation of traditional architectonical styles for modern use?
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 15th May 2012, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, arrival in the bus terminal Bimodal of Santa Cruz, ready to catch my bus to São Paulo on the 16th May 2012.
Upon arrival in Santa Cruz, Señor Rodolfo Marquez Mirabal was to pick me up and help me go to my hotel. I searched in the bus termninal and learned that Señor Rodolfo works for Bolipar. I learned that Bolipar, Yacyreta, and Trans Rosario are the same company, all with headquarters in Paraguay. I met also Señor Pedro A. Fernandez (I assume this is Señor Rodolfo’s superior), who had been very helpful. When Claudia phoned from Mendoza and was referred to Señor Pedro, he had stepped in and sent the ticket to Andesmar in Mendoza for a second time, with the effect that we finally were able to identify it. I thanked him with a postcard from Norway.
The ticket for São Paulo that had been given to me a week earlier, when in Santa Cruz, was unfortunately dated for 16th July, rather than 16th May. This seemed to have been a writing error, Señor Rodolfo had informed my friends in La Paz when they phoned him. I waited for two hours for Señor Rodolfo because I was keen to have my ticket be redated for the correct date, namely for the following day. Finally another employee of the company, Juan Alarcón, with whom I could share some Japanese since he had studied in Japan, was so kind to do this. He also helped me explain to a taxi driver the location of my Hostal Rio Magdalena (a week earlier, the taxi driver had gone in circles, not able to find the hotel). As I learned later, Señor Pedro, Rodolfo, and Juan, all are Paraguayans and not from Bolivia.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 15th May 2012, arriving in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, from La Paz. I had spent a wonderful week with my friends in La Paz and returned to Santa Cruz (18 hours bus trip La Paz-Santa Cruz), to catch my bus to São Paulo on the 16th May 2012.
• I saw little ponds in front of some villages, perhaps for small-scale fish farming?
• Again, I saw a pipeline, similar to those I saw already along the road from Pocitos to Santa Cruz. For gas?
• It is legal to transport coca leaves in Bolivia, where the milder ones are being chewed as stimulant.
• I saw three kinds of roofs: 1. hatched roofs, 2. tiles, and, 3. corrugated iron. Do the thatched roofs represent the traditional style?
• I saw two kinds of cattle, the Friesian black-and-white cattle, and a plein beige kind of cattle.
• Pacena beer (beer from La Paz) seems to have learned from Coca Cola and appears to provide large amounts of red paint so that entire house facades can be painted red.
• See the oversized Coca Cola bottle advertisement! As far as I can observe, the company has amply succeeded in making almost everybody in the South America I have seen so far believe that drinking Coca Cola means "being one of the rich people of this world."
• I saw many agro-businesses along the road.
• I saw an Araucaria tree, the one Claudia Arcos had pointed out to me in Chile as indigenous tree.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Monday, 14th May 2012, from La Paz to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, saying good-bye to my dear Daniela and Johann at the bus terminal! I had spent a wonderful week with my dear friends in La Paz and returned to Santa Cruz (18 hours bus trip La Paz-Santa Cruz), to catch my bus to São Paulo on the 16th May 2012. You see the last glimpse of beautiful La Paz from the bus...
• Before leaving, Johann bought us his favorite cinnamon icecream!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Sunday, 13th May 2012, La Paz, Bolivia, my birthday, made unforgettable through the love and care of most generous and kind Daniela and Johann!
See the wonderful Bolivian meal, and the amazing "feliz cunpleaños" birthday cake they prepared for me!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Saturday, 12th May 2012, La Paz, Bolivia, together with most generous and kind Daniela and Johann, first Valle de la Luna, then the shopping mall MegaCenter en Irpavi (see bottom right).
• The shopping mall MegaCenter en Irpavi in the wealthy southern part of La Paz, sadly, does not offer any native Bolivian food, except for one Bolivian-style fast food, "Pollos Copacabana." Downtown, I learned, there are now some gourmet restaurants where such food is on offer at high prices (and, as I learned, their food would practically be identical with what restaurants for poor people would have on their menu). However, in a shopping mall in a wealthy segment of town, mostly international junk food will sell, so I am informed. With great sadness, I observe the same "inferiority complex" wherever I go in the world: the worst of Western culture is being proudly imitated by those who have accumulated wealth, and the best of native culture is rejected in shame. I ask: who else but the wealthy, those who have resources, education, and time, have the responsibility to manifest their dignity through offering their diversity to the world, rather than submissively and meekly bowing to Western uniformity?
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Friday, 11th May 2012, La Paz, Bolivia, together with most generous and kind Daniela and Johann.
• See the large new building for the Military School of Engineering/Escuela Militar de Ingenieria (EMI), vis-à-vis the Military Academy, Unidad Educativa del Ejercito "La Paz."
• Daniela's father is Guillermo Iraola Mendizabal, Director Ejecutivo Primera Escuela de Hotelería y Turismo de Bolivia, see the very blue building!
• See shops for "polleras" (the local pleated skirt) and hats. The pollera was originally a Spanish peasant skirt that the colonial authorities forced indigenous women to wear. Now it is also a symbol of pride in being indigenous, and is considered a status symbol.
• See mesas and baby llamas at the Witches' Market or the Mercado de las Brujas.
• The Diablada is a dance typical of Carnival of Oruro, a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity since 2001 in Bolivia. See the mask and costume.
• Maybe, we will have cinnamon icecream, perhaps tomorrow?
• Pork sandwich and the best local beer, Huari beer, due to the very special water that is used to brew it!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Thursday, 10th May 2012, La Paz, Bolivia, together with most generous and kind Daniela and Johann. They live in the south of La Paz, the part of La Paz called San Miguel.
The motto of La Paz: "Los discordes en concordia, en paz y amor se juntaron y pueblo de paz fundaron para perpetua memoria"
• They kindly showed me the Valle de las Animas (Valley of the Souls), near La Paz. There, we made a video "Do We Need Concepts such as Humiliation, Dignity, and Respect to Understand Majority/Minority Relations?" in high density and MP4 format, as a contribution to the seminar "Majority and Immigrants: Social Psychological Aspects," to be held on Thursday, 31st May 2012, at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway, in honour of Reidar Ommundsen. Located 40 minutes from La Paz, at about 4,000 meters above sea-level, the Canyon and Lagoon of the Souls is a sacred place to the Aymara inhabitants of the Andean highlands who come here to offer burnt-offering ceremonies to the imposing Mountain Gods that overlook our Valley, Mount Illimani (6,438 meters above sea-level) and Mururata (5,871 meters above sea-level).
• See the large new building for the Military School of Engineering/Escuela Militar de Ingenieria (EMI), vis-à-vis the Military Academy.
One of Bolivia's important days of commemoration is Día del Mar, yearly held on March 23. During the Day of the Sea the country remembers the War of the Pacific in 1879, during which Bolivia lost its access to the Pacific Ocean to Chile. In La Paz the occasion includes a day-long parade of military units, government departments and youth bands.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Tuesday, 8th May 2012, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, to La Paz, Bolivia, 18 hours bus trip. I met Diana, who very kindly helped me rush to the bus terminal and catch the bus to La Paz. Thank you, dear Diana!
The bus started at 16.30 on the 8th May and arrived next morning at 10.30 in La Paz. In the morning, in the bus, a man stood up, see the pictures in the middle, to sell small books on various topics (cooking recipes, atlas of Bolivia, how to use the internet, etc.; the man sitting beside me chose a book explaining dreams).
The high altitude in La Paz caused me no problems whatsoever, surprisingly, despite my limited lung capacity.
It was such a feast and joy to finally be with my friends in La Paz, Daniela and Johann! See the picture at the bottom.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Monday, 7th May 2012, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, the city where Che Guevara was shot (at its old airport, not far from the city).
Staying on for one more day in Hostal Rio Magdalena, Calle Arenales No 353, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Problems with public transport in La Paz indicated that it was wiser to wait one day in Santa Cruz de la Sierra instead of proceeding to La Paz immediately.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

• When I had arrived in Santa Cruz in the evening of 6th May, the taxi driver at the bus terminal in Santa Cruz did not know the location of the hotel, and he was afraid to ask. Increasingly desparate, and upon my urgent recommendation, he asked around, and we finally found the hotel. This was the first time that I began to suspect that there is a certain amount of fear permeating Bolivian society.
• Upon arrival in the hotel, I approached a young French traveller couple since I suspected them to know the practice of sharing valid information with newcomers. And indeed, they warned me that fake policemen would stop tourists, ask for their passports, only to steal them. I also learned that also Bolivian banks limit the minimum amount of money one can draw with one's credit card from their machines to maximize the already exorbitant fees for each transaction. I was told that Union Bank in Santa Cruz was somewhat preferable.
• On the next morning, I succeeded in explaining to the kind hotel manager Johnny Rojas Oporto that he should phone Señor Rodolfo on my behalf, the person who had issued by bus ticket from Chile to La Paz. Señor Rodolfo came to the hotel (see the picture of the gentleman with the open shirt). On the phone, he had asked the hotel manager whether I was one person or two. When he arrived, to my surprise, he was very astonished that I wished to proceed to La Paz, and asked me when I would want to take the bus to La Paz. He explained to me that the bus trip to La Paz was not included in the ticket (also the first leg of the journey, from Chile to Argentina had not been included, as I had learned the day prior to departure).
See the explanation for the context further down (see *); perhaps it was a story of national historical humiliation? At least partly?
• See the pictures of the Hostal Rio Magdalena at the beginning of the web gallery, with Señor Juan, one of its very kind and helpful hosts. The hostal's cats unfortunately had my breakfast when I was not paying attention...
• I found the Norwegian book "Spansk reiseparlør" by Aschehoug, from 2007, in the hostal's library!
• See impressions of the non-touristical part of Santa Cruz de la Sierra near to the hostal Rio Magdalena. The market made me very happy, not least since it reminded me of my seven years in Egypt!
• I bought electrical adapters, shoes, and socks, and was allowed to take a picture of the sellers!
• The choice of clothes I so far observed profoundly saddened me. In wealthy neighborhoods, it was the uniformity of Western clothes that I found. The clothes offered in markets of less wealthy neighborhoods seemed to be part of cheap and low quality imitations of Western clothes, or perhaps even of the global trade with second hand clothes which pushes aside local production and style in even more hideous ways (see, for example, the documentary (see, for example, the documentary "Geld verdienen mit Kleiderspenden?"). I have written about the damaging effects flowing from subaltern elite imitation in my books. I would like to encourage, instead, a sense of unity in diversity, or, more precisely, a sense of unity in equality in dignity, rather than subaltern uniformity, a sense of dignity manifested through pride for diversity.
• In similar ways, the globally imitated way of building houses with concrete columns and bricks, unfortunately, has visibly pushed aside any available local building style also in the parts of South America I so far have seen.
• Street children...
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Sunday, 6th May 2012, eight hours of bus journey from Pocitos, at the Argentinian-Bolivian border, to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. Arrival in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the evening, after dark.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

Sunday, 6th May, 2012, 9.00 in the morning, arrival in Salvador Mazza (also called Pocitos) at the border between Argentina and Bolivia. A kind and helpful Andesmar employee put me into a taxi which brought me to Señor Miguel Valdiviesa. Since I had too little Argentinian money to pay the taxi, he changed 10 Euros for me (Chilean currency would not have been welcome, I learned). Miguel Valdiviesa called upon Señora Elida and her daugher, who, with their little dog, took me in a taxi to the border, where they helped me through the Argentinian and Bolivian pass and custom's controll. Then we went by taxi to the Yacuiba bus terminal, on the other side of the border. There, we caught the bus to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the very last moment, after a very rushed money exchange to get Bolivian money to pay the taxi driver on the Bolivian side.
Eight hours of bus journey followed, through the most fertile of Bolivian nature. Arrival in Santa Cruz de la Sierra in the evening, after dark.
• With respect to solidarity, poverty, and the profit motive, I make many observations. For example, the taxi drivers in Pocitos, at the border between Argentina and Bolivia were rather rude and trusted that a tired foreigner would not count her money. Altogether, poverty was clearly leaving its mark in this frontier region. Back in Mendoza, Andesmar’s employees had engaged in “tricking” their clients into paying exorbitant fees—yet, their behavior clearly was not driven by their personal poverty but by the profit motive of the company, perhaps combined with a general, rather confrontational and hierarchical power-over culture. In other places, such as Pocitos, it may be personal poverty that pushes some people to act rudely. Yet, since Pocitos is also a village where everybody knows everybody, others, such as Señora Elida and her daughter, who helped me to get through the pass and customs controls at the border, also showed family-like solidarity.
• As to the quality and strength of family ties, the children who travelled with their parents in the buses I so far took in South America (up to 33 hours in one stretch) were almost as quiet as I observed in Asia on long bus journeys. Parents in Europe would expect considerable problems, had they to travel under similar conditions. Here, each parent had one seat, while the children had to make do with the space on their parents’ laps. They all relaxed and slept, “stacked” on top of each other, for hours on hours. I was especially impressed by the two fathers I had a chance to observe throughout the many hours of the bus trip.
I also observed the two mothers. One mother was very young and clearly much less educated than her husband. She looked at me with the shocked curiosity, with which hundreds of Chinese people would gather around me in remote regions of China in 1983, where they would stare at me for hours, breathless, in a mixture of horror and fascination, as if I was an alien from another galaxy. This mother, more than being a mother to her child, acted as her husband’s first child. I have observed similar settings all over the world. Many societies match an older husband with a younger wife to guarantee her dependence and loyalty, and this can play out more or less well, if he is a benevolent man, as in the cases I observed here, or badly, if he abuses his power.
The other mother, clearly, was bored by her children, ready for different kinds of fun. I observe this wherever women have gained more space for themselves very recently. So far, I got the impression in South America that imitating traditional male approaches to bonding through self- and other-destructive fun rituals and posturing, like drinking and smoking, seems to be accepted as a symbol of emancipation even among politically aware and active women.
• As to relationships with animals, I am struck by the ubiquity of dogs being kept in houses and on properties (some wild dogs in cities are killed by the municipalities in regular intervals). I have never been surrounded by as much barking as during my time in South America so far. It seems that prior to 1492, dogs were prevalent as domesticated animals. Perhaps the ubiquity of dogs is thus simply a tradition? When I asked around in Chile, whether the larger dogs were needed for protection, most of the time I got the answer that they are kept to provide company, not protection. In Bolivia, for the first time, I encountered that dogs were felt to be needed for security. The smaller dogs, I observe, function as replacement for the warmth and love that children may provide. Cats fill a similar role, they are only less prevalent. Altogether, I observe a culture of sometimes even aggressive power-over relationships with fellow human beings, with a considerable degree of mutual mistrust, and animals filling the role of fellow creatures one can turn to for warmth and loyalty per definition, because they are dependent. Could this situation also be an after-effect of colonization?
• As to respect for the environment, I noted the plastic litter alongside the roads. In the bus to Santa Cruz, Bolivia, I observed a woman in front of me opening the window of the bus and throwing out plastic waste. The same happened in the bus from Santa Cruz to La Paz. There, the woman beside me slowly went through every paper in her purse she no longer needed and then threw it out of the window. I finally turned to her and offered to collect all her trash for her and dispose of it myself. There seemed to be little sense of responsibility ranging further than the immediate personal space.
• As to Western influence, Coca Cola advertisement seems to be ubiquitous. As it appears, red paint is made available by Coca Cola, and entire houses are thus painted, often rendering them the only colourful surfaces in a village. As I observed further, Coca Cola has hugely succeeded in its campaign, since everybody with respect for themselves seemed to consume it in vast quantities. Again, an attitude of subaltern imitation of imagined Western elites seemed to prevail even among local elites.
• I saw the first maize fields on my way to Santa Cruz in Bolivia, coming from the south. Please check Charles C. Mann's book 1491!
• I saw my first gas pipelines in the Andes coming to Chile from Argentina, since Bolivia refuses to sell gas to Chile. I also noticed gas pipelines running southwards in Bolivia when on the bus from Argentina to Santa Cruz.
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Saturday, 5th May 2012, 8.00 in the morning, start of a wonderful comfortable 25 hours bus trip with "Flechabus" from Mendoza in Argentinia, going northwards on the east side of the Andes, to Tucumán (via San Juan, La Rioja, Catamarca), then further with the same bus over night through Salta, San Salvador de Jujuy, to Salvador Mazza (also called Pocitos) at the border to Bolivia. Arrival the next day, Sunday, 6th May, at 9.00 in the morning.

• It was an exceptional night: The night sky of 5th May 2012 was illuminated by the once-a-year cosmic event of the perigee moon (perigee means periapsis in Earth orbit, or the point in its orbit where the moon, or a satellite, is nearest to the Earth). The elliptical orbit brought the "Supermoon" within 221,802 miles to Earth, the closest point, and thus it appeared much larger, an effect magnified by the full moon appearing roughly 20 percent brighter and 15 percent larger.
• It was interesting to observe the presence of the horses that the Spanish had imported. In Limache, the neighbor used horses to draw carts. During my bus travels, repeatedly, I saw horses appear alongside the road, horses alone, horses with riders on their backs, and horses drawing carts.
• I observe that the Virgin Mary is being venerated everywhere, more so, it seems, than male saints (see the large San Nicolas statue on my way to Pocitos).
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Thursday and Friday, 3rd - 4th May 2012, in Mendoza, Argentina, together with Claudia Arcos Duarte. With tremendous dedication, she tried to establish the factual basis of my ticket.
See the explanation for why we spent time in Mendoza further down (see *); perhaps it was a story of national historical humiliation? At least partly?

• Argentinians like to spend time in Viñja del Mar, Claudia explained to me, since it offers a kind of beach, together with beach life, that Argentina's coast line does not provide. Inversely, Chileans like to come to Mendoza, Claudia explained to me, since it is known to be a very pleasant city, with a lovely climate and pleasant outdoor life in the evenings. Mendoza featured the great Youth Hostal Campo Base, and many other interesting details, for example, there is a passage for the "estado de Israel," another one for the "republica Arabe Siria," among others.
• Please note "patay"! A total surprise! The gourmet restaurants of this world ought to have it on their menu! It is a kind of cake made ​​with the white flour of the prosopis alba tree, typical for central, northwestern and northern Argentina. Prosopis alba is a South American tree species that inhabits the center part of Argentina, the Gran Chaco ecoregion and part of the Argentine Mesopotamia. It is known as algarrobo blanco in Spanish, which means "white carob tree" (the Spanish settlers gave it that name because of its similarity to the European carob tree). It tastes like honey, a very very special treat!
See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.

See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
Please click on the pictures or here to see more photos.

Thursday, 3rd May 2012, kindly accompanied and guided by Claudia Arcos Duarte, I went on the bus from Viñja del Mar, over the Andes, to Mendoza in Argentina (ca. 4 hours). On the day prior to departure, Claudia had established the fact that there was no bus ticket waiting for me from Santiago, but that I had to get to Mendoza, Argentina, on my own.
I feel I have become part of Chile, and Chile part of me, through the loving guidance and care from my friends in Chile, and leaving it feels like leaving home. I am so glad that many of my new Chilean friends will stay close to me throughout my life. And I am very grateful for their support for our dignity work.
Please click on the pictures above or here to see more photos.
See the explanation for the context of this trip further down (see * further down, or a Pdf file of my "digniventure" reflections; perhaps it was a story of national historical humiliation? At least partly?
Let me explain:
*First, I would like to make clear that I consider problems to be opportunities for learning and that I am immensely grateful to everybody who kindly gave their time and energy to be of help. In situations of difficulty and emergency, often the most touching experiences arise, experiences of mutual support and help. Please know that the problems I describe further down do not give me any reason to judge or engage in verdict-thinking (S. M. Miller's coinage, in contrast to let-it-flow thinking). I do not feel and think in terms of rigid dichotomies of wrong-right, or truth-lies, since I am only too aware that there is a wide field of nuances. Misunderstandings are often the most significant reasons for disconnections. The very last aim I have in life is to assign blame or make people feel guilty, or attract pity for me. I am simply extremely thankful for all the wonderful help I received also in this case. I write this report only in order to increase my understanding of the socio-psychological dynamics around me, and to express my gratitude to the altogether 11 people who helped me overcome the problems of the journey from Chile to Bolivia!
When I arrived in Chile on 29th March, Howard Richards kindly asked in the bus terminal in Santiago de Chile, whether there was a bus connection to La Paz, Bolivia. He was informed that there wasn't any. I communicated this to Mariana Vergara in New York, who was so kind as to ask her friend Rocio in La Paz, to see whether she could be so generous and take it upon herself to help.
This was the ticket that these dear friends had kindly purchased on my behalf and that I attempted to act upon:

• Mayo 3 2012: Salida de Santiago - Santa Cruz, Transportes: Yacireta, bus cama, Hora de salida: 10:00 am, Tiempo de viaje: 42 horas, Costo del pasaje: $us. 220.-
• Mayo 5 2012: LLega a Santa Cruz, Hora de llegada: 10:00 pm, Dormir en Santa Cruz
• Mayo 6 2012: Salida Santa Cruz - La Paz, Hora de salida: 5:00 pm, Transportes: Trans Copacabana, bus cama, Tiempo de viaje: 16 a 18 horas, Costo del pasaje: $us. 25.-
• Mayo 7 2012: Llegada a La Paz, Hora de llegada: 10:00 u 11:00 a.m
  
  Interestingly, many elements of this ticket turned out to be either incomplete, incorrect, or misleading. It would almost have been easier not to have a ticket. A ticket that misleads requires that one first establishes the facts, before one can actually proceed with the journey. This ticket thus presented an opportunity for higher levels of cultural learning.
  My ticket from Chile to La Paz in Bolivia had been issued in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. The dear friend of Mariana Vergara had arranged for it and purchased it on my behalf. I was to find the company Yacyreta and take the bus from one of the six or seven of Santiago de Chile's bus terminals at 10.00 on 3rd May 2012. On Sunday, 29th April 2012, four days prior to departure, Gabriel and Luis Razeto had kindly established that a Yacyreta company does not exist in Chile. Claudia Arcos Duarte later established that such a company is not present in Mendoza, Argentina, either (I later found out that its headquarters are in Paraguay). Instead, as we were informed a few hours before departure, I had to start the journey on my own, by going over the Andes, from Chile to Mendoza, in Argentina, with a ticket of my own. Claudia kindly offered to accompany me from Viñja del Mar in Chile to Mendoza, with the company Andesmar.
  Upon arrival, we failed to find Yacyreta in Mendoza. We were then informed to ask in the office of Andesmar, yet, we also failed to find my ticket in the Andesmar office. We were sent from office to office, with no success, in between making international phone calls from a calling office to the issuer of the ticket in Bolivia, and sending emails to our dear friend in Bolivia, who had helped with purchasing this ticket. Later I learned that during all this time our friends in La Paz continued to phone Andesmar in Mendoza, and always were told that nobody whatsoever had ever asked for my ticket there.
  Claudia and I finally decided to stay on in Mendoza to gather more information.
  Next day, Claudia succeeded in detecting that the "codigo" number for the ticket that we had been given was incorrect. We were finally able to make a reservation for me to continue northwards. First, we were given a trip that would arrive at the border to Bolivia at 23.00 at night. We later changed this unfavorable timing. Unfortunately, we were told only too late that the fee for changing a reservation was ca. $US 50, double the price of the ticket we had paid for our Chile-Mendoza trip. Had we known this, we would have waited with making the reservation until we were sure of the most suitable timing.
  Claudia and I spend a second night in the Youth Hostel Campo Base in Mendoza.
  During all our endeavours, only two or three Andesmar employees tried to be helpful and treated us kindly. Most of the Andesmar personnel seemed to either have a general policy of "our clients are our enemies," and "how can we withhold as much information as possible to show our clients who has the power," and "how can we trap our clients into paying fees they do not expect," or that there was a very specific grudge against Chileans, or against Germans (since I travel with a German passport)?
  Later, in La Paz, I learned from my friends that the first information they had received was that this was a ticket for the same bus going from Santiago de Chile to Santa Cruz de la Sierra in Bolivia. In reality, I had to start the journey on my own, and then take a bus from Mendoza to Tucuman, and then to Pocitos. In Pocitos, I had to be helped over the Argentinian-Bolivian border, and be put into another bus to Santa Cruz.
  What was the reason for this situation, which could have emerged from a novel by Franz Kafka? Was it simply human error? Or general culture of mismanagement? Or were we intentionally misled?
  Perhaps the reason is national historical humiliation? At least partly?
  Already in April, I had learned from Howard Richards that Bolivia refuses to sell its gas to Chile, and that Chile receives it indirectly, via Argentina.
  While proceeding with my journey, I increasingly sensed that national historical humiliation might be the most probable reason also for my Kafkaesk bus travel experience?
  Just to name a few manifestations of an apparent antipathy against Chile, for example, I was asked at the border from Argentina to Bolivia: “Oh, you come from Chile? Do you wish to go back there?” Unsuspectingly, I replied with “no” (since I will leave South America from Ecuador) and to my surprise, I reaped a satisfied smile. Or, most money changers indicated that they would not change Chilean money.
  
  Here are the historical facts (compiled from different sources):
  The War of the Pacific (Spanish: Guerra del Pacífico) took place in western South America from 1879 - 1883. Chile fought Bolivia and Peru and won. During and after the war there was a rise of racial and national superiority ideas among the Chilean ruling class (Ericka Beckman). Chilean historian Gonzalo Bulnes (son of president Manuel Bulnes) once wrote, "What defeated Peru was the superiority of a race and of a history". During the occupation of Tacna and Arica (1884–1929) the Peruvian people and nation were treated in racist and denigrating terms by the Chilean press. In 2007 the Chilean government returned almost 4,000 books to Peru's national library, more than a century after they were taken by Chilean soldiers in hopes that the return of the books may go some way to improving the two nations' relations.
  For Bolivians, the loss of the Litoral (the coast) remained a deeply emotional and practical issue, as was particularly evident during the 2003 natural gas riots. Popular belief attributed many of the country's problems to its landlocked condition; recovering the seacoast was seen as the solution to these difficulties. Numerous Bolivian Presidents pressured Chile for sovereign access to the sea. Diplomatic relations with Chile were severed on March 17, 1978, in spite of considerable commercial ties. The leading Bolivian newspaper El Diario featured at least a weekly editorial on the subject, and the Bolivian people annually celebrated a patriotic "Dia del Mar" (Day of the Sea) to remember the crippling loss.
  See my South America 2012 "digniventure" reflections.
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Sunday, 29th April 2012, Luis Razeto Migliaro, his wife Priscilla Barry Délano, and their son Gabriel Razeto Barry came to Howard Richards' Dialogue Home and Centro para el Desarrollo Alternativo en Limache, Chile, together with Douglas Hughes, his wife and daughter, and the neighbor Estanislao with his partner, for an afternoon with Howard Richards, Shelley Damaris Richards Higgins, and Evelin.
See the two videos that we have created (Luis Razeto Migliaro, Evelin Lindner, and Howard Richards).
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26th April 2012, Iván Labra and his wife Mary, who brought Organization Workshops to South Africa, together with Bill Thompson and José Diaz, spent a wonderful day at in Howard Richards' Dialogue Home and Centro para el Desarrollo Alternativo en Limache, Chile.
See the three videos that we have created (Iván Labra and Howard Richards).
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24th April 2012, Rosa Saavedra was so very kind as to show me Santiago de Chile's Cerro San Cristobal, where she introduced me to a national drink, "mote con huesillo."
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Saturday, 21st April 2012, Alfredo Rojas Figueroa and Nora Lambrecht honoured us (Howard Richards, his daughter Shelley Richards, and me) with their visit in Limache, Chile, coming from Santiago de Chile. Alfredo Rochas is retired from UNESCO (the UNESCO headquarters in Latin America are in Santiago de Chile) and is now coordinating the School Leadership Network, working with his partner Nora Lambrecht, see convivenciaenescuelas.org/Redaulid/. See their book Construyendo Autoridad Moral desde las Aulas.
They shared with us how they conduct workshops to help co-create a culture of peace, and how they apply speech act theory. They build on biologists and philosophers Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, and on Chilean philosopher Rafael Echeverria, who, in turn, studied, among others, John Langshaw Austin (born 26th March 1911), a British philosopher of language, who suggested that speech is not only passively describing a given reality, but that it can change the (social) reality it is describing through speech acts (a similarly revolutionary insight as in physics the discovery that measurement itself can change the measured reality). John Searle then built further on Austin.
The question "Who are you?," for example, points at the core speech act of a person, namely how she defines her essence. Soy pan, soy paz, soy más by Piero De Benedictis (stage name Piero), an Italian-born Argentine singer/songwiter, is a song that illustrates this point. This song has been performed by the author and Mercedes Soza, an Argentine folksinger who fought for human rights during the hard days of dictatorships in Latin America.
Then there is the task of not judging others in ways that essentializes their behavior (like saying "You are a lazy person" to somebody who simply was late). Then there is the courage needed to be daring, to speaking up. And, furthermore, there is moral authority (as Linda Hartling would say: "walking one's talk"). We discussed the tacit norm "Autoridad que no abusa pierde su prestigio" ("authority that does not abuse, loses its prestige") and its humiliating effects.
See the two videos that we have created.
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20th April 2012, Charla (lecture, talk, presentation) titled "La Ética de la Dignidad y la Humildad, Presentación de la iniciativa Universidad Mundial de la Dignidad" ("The Ethics of Dignity and Humility, a Presentation of the World Dignity University Initiative"), El Departamento de extensión del Instituto de Ciencias Religiosas Ad Instar Facultatis de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, Chile.
See the invitation that Vanessa Araya Fuentes sent out for this event:
Invitación Clase Magistral: El Departamento de extensión del Instituto de Ciencias Religiosas Ad Instar Facultatis de la Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso, le saluda atentamente y tiene el agrado de invitar a usted a participar de la Conferencia Magistral, “La Ética de la Dignidad y la Humildad, Presentación de la iniciativa Universidad Mundial de la Dignidad”, Presentación e investigación realizada por la destacada Doctora alemana Evelin Lindner, miembro fundadora y representante de la World Dignity University, red mundial de académicos y profesionales, interesados en estimular el cambio sistémico, global y local.
La actividad tendrá lugar el viernes 20 de abril, a las 11:45 horas, en la sala 3-20 ubicada en la Casa Central de la Universidad (Av. Brasil 2950, Valparaíso).
Saludos Cordiales
Pedro Boccardo Rojas, Magíster en Teología y Bioética, Jefe de Extensión, Instituto de Ciencias Religiosas, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso,
Vanessa Araya Fuentes, Licenciada en Filosofía y Educación, Doctoranda en Filosofía, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso
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19th April 2012, 79 años del Partido Socialista de Chile, Charla (Lecture, talk, presentation) titled "Dignidad humana en el quehacer político" ("Human Dignity in Political Work"). Please see the three hosts listed on the picture on the right side. Note the Juventud Socialista de Chile (Socialist Youth of Chile), the Partido Socialista de Valparaíso (Socalist Party of Valparaíso), and the Biblioteca Popular (Library of the People) in Valparaíso. Since I am new to understanding the depth of the role that Salvador Allende played, and still plays for Chile, and for Latin America as a whole, I think that it is helpful to see the Discurso de Salvador Allende para los estudiantes that he gave at the Universidad de Guadalajara, México, Diciembre 1972.
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19th April 2012, Cecilia Ortiz, and Marcela Espinoza Silva kindly invited to a wonderful Valparaíso meal! Click here and see the wondrous streets of Valparaíso, protected by UNESCO with good reason. The picture in the middle shows the traditional building of the socialist party on the right side. It has very recently been repaired and made accessible again. Clearly, the historical building that once stood to its left side did not survive the onslaught of "modernity" and was replaced by uniform global architecture. See also the Biblioteca Popular (Library of the People), where, among others, documents from the Allende era are being collected.
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19th April 2012, Charla (Lecture, talk, presentation) titled "Dignidad humana en el quehacer político" ("Human Dignity in Political Work") at the Colegio Mar Abierto in Valparaíso, Chile, in the building of the former German school. Please note the memorial plate with the names of those Germans who were conscripted into World War I. Jewish immigrants from Germany removed another plate, which honoured those who had participated in Hitler's WWII and melted it down.
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16th April 2012, Claudia Arcos Duarte with the most recent book by Luis Razeto Migliaro: ¿Cómo iniciar la creación de una nueva civilización?
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15th April 2012, having the great honour of being invited into Claudia Arcos' home in Caleu together with Dimitri (Alberto) Neumann Fernandois.
Please see the videos we made.
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14th April 2012, having the great privilege of spending a day, together with Howard Richards, with Luis Razeto Migliaro, his wife Priscilla Barry Délano, and their son Gabriel Razeto Barry, in their home in Liray near Santiago, Chile. Before coming to Liray, the Razeto Barry family used to live in the Comunidad Ecológica de Peñalolén.
Please see Solidarity Economics and a New Civilization, a video in Español and English that was created with Luis Razeto Migliaro, Howard Richards, and Evelin Lindner, by Gabriel Razeto Barry, in Liray near Santiago, Chile, 14th April 2012. Luis Razeto presents his work in Spanish, translated and commented in English by Howard Richards and introduced by Evelin Lindner.
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Please click on the picture to the left or here to see more arpilleras.
The picture on the right says: "dignity handmade"! Please click on that picture to see it larger!

14th April 2012, having the great privilege of spending a day with Luis Razeto Migliaro, his wife Priscilla Barry Délano, and their son Gabriel Razeto Barry, in their home in Liray near Santiago, Chile. Please see above the "arpilleras" (they remind me of the work done by Ramses Wissa-Wassef and his family at Harrania in Egypt, for example, they both nurture the creativity in people who "normally" are not "expected" to be creative). Luis Razeto was a board member of the Fundacion Solidaridad since its inception over 30 years ago. Unfortunately, this initiative stopped working in 2011 due to funding problems. Gabriel Razeto Barry created a video of the closing ceremony, which tells the story of its history, with many live testimonies.
The picture above on the left shows an arpillera within an arpillera: it shows the FESOL 93 market, to which everybody brought their arpilleras. Please click on this picture or here to see more arpilleras.
The picture on the right says: "dignity handmade"! Please click on that picture to see it larger!

Please read the explanation of the meaning of "arpillera" given by the Fundacion Solidaridad:
The dictionary defines arpillera as a rough, coarse cloth used for cleaning or for making sacks. Each day, dozens of Chilean women work with this cloth, taken from used flour sacks, to embroider the story of their country. Drawing from their daily lives in the poorest neighbourhoods to the most significant national events, these "arpilleristas" chronicle Chile's history with pieces of cloth, wool, and other recycled materials. The first arpilleras appeared very soon after the military coup of 1973, when Chile lost its long-standing democracy and were sewn by the mothers, wives and sisters of the "disappeared" people during the dictatorship. In these arpilleras, they depicted the search for their loved ones as well as the other terrible ordeals of that time. These events have remained a recurring theme until today, reminding us that arpilleras have never been merely decorative works.; each one is a piece of the lives of our people. Arpilleristas today ply their craft for a dual purpose: alongside the aim to express the struggles of the Chilean people, they now also endeavor to generate a source of income, one which often must be made to support an entire household. Many arpilleristas have formed workshops, where the money received from the sale of the arpilleras is distributed equally among all the participants of the group. If for any reason, any of the women are unable to work, the rest of the group is committed to support then. Here are just a few of the titles taken from the dozens of articles and books that have been written about the arpillera to date: "A People that Embroiders Its Struggle" "The Embroidery of Life and Death" "Scraps of Life" "Needles that speak" Life goes on, and through it all, these intensely united groups of women continue embroidering. And in their stitches from behind the magnificent Andes Mountain Range we can see a sun full of hope.
Fundacion Solidaridad Santo Domingo, 2222 Santiago - Chile, www.fundacionsolidaridad.cl.
Please click on the picture to the left or here to see more arpilleras.
The picture on the right says: "dignity handmade"! Please click on that picture to see it larger!

13th April 2012, Gabriela Weil and her husband are producing wonderful honey in Limache, Chile.
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13th April 2012, with Claudia Arcos Duarte at a small market organized by parents in the Waldorfschule in Limache, Chile. Claudia showed me around. For example, she led me through the wonderful childhood home of architect Jorge Gomez, a building that now holds the central administration of the school. It has a kitchen that reminded me of my childhood. I grew up on a farm in Esperde, Lower Saxony, Germany. Then she showed me the rest of the school's land and the architectural visions that Jorge Gomez has realized there. In the spirit of Rudolf Steiner, he avoids aggressive rectangularity and lovingly adapts buildings to the landscape, see for example, the Kindergarden. Waldorf schools make ​​sure that spaces and buildings are not built in a right angle, since, according to anthroposophy, right angles will fail to offer children the necessary room for creativity. Claudia also showed me the large theatre-to-come, or the "big tree" (this one is not indigenous to Chile).
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12th April 2012, the real thing: no need to buy new shoes when the old ones are repaired so masterly as in Limache, Chile.
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April 2012, Stevia is being sold in large bottles in Limache, Chile.
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10th April 2012, Claudia Arcos Duarte in Limache, Chile.
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10th April 2012, Universidad de Valparaíso, Chile. "Charla harla para Universidad de Valparaíso," Howard Richards' talk in Spanish as Pdf file and as video. Evelin's talk (¿Se puede manifestar más dignidad?
En lugar de más humillación?) was in German, kindly translated by Claudia Arcos into Spanish. See the political background for this talk described in an article in The Economist, Chile: Progress and its Discontents - A popular student rebellion shows that, as Chileans become better off, they want the government to guarantee a fairer society. Politicians are struggling to respond, Friday, April 13th 2012.
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6th April 2012, Franciscan Easter Procession, Stations of the Cross, in Limache, Chile. Each station was marked by an altar in front of a private house that was blessed by the priest Aristides. Howard Richards shared how politically diverse the church is, ranging from the right to the left spectrum of political views. He also shared that they, when he lived in the south of Chile, this procession would stop in front of houses of people who had been tortured.
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6th April 2012, Vanessa Araya, Ph.D. student from the University of Valparaíso in Chile, heard the interview with Ignacia Imboden in the radio and came to prepare for a seminar in Valparaíso next week.
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5th April 2012, seminar "Encuentra Cordinadoria de la Universidad Mondial de la Dignidad" with Evelin, upon the invitation of Howard Richards and Claudia Arcos Duarte (who translated from German into Spanish) and Andrea Osorio Mendez (who contributed with making wonderful food), in Howard Richards' Dialogue Home and Centro para el Desarrollo Alternativo en Limache, Chile. We concluded that dignity, or equality in dignity, is a notion we have in our bodies, and that words, such as solidarity or fraternity all are insufficient.
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See here the invitation to this event that Claudia Arcos sent out on April 4, 2012:

Te invitamos a conocer la Universidad mundial por la dignidad, a través de Evelin Lindner
Hola te invitamos a conocer este ser increíble que es Evelin Lindner, fundadora y coordinadora de la universidad por la dignidad humana. Aquí una muy breve presentación de quien es ella y los que hacen "WORLD DIGNITY UNIVERSITY":
Nosotros, los Estudios de la dignidad humana y la humillación (HumanDHS), son una red global e interdisciplinario y la comunión de los académicos y profesionales interesados. Estamos comprometidos a reducir - y en última instancia, ayudar a eliminar - la falta de respeto destructiva y prácticas humillantes en todo el mundo. Nuestro trabajo se inspira en los valores universales como la dignidad, la humildad, el respeto mutuo cuidado y la compasión, y un sentido de compartir los derechos y responsabilidades planetarias. Somos, ante todo, una red global de personas con el objetivo de aumentar la sensibilización y la creación de encuadres y visiones que promueven la igual dignidad de todos. Deseamos para fertilizar y generar la investigación transdisciplinaria (intra e intercultural) y difundir información destinada a mejorar la conciencia de la dignidad humana. También animamos a la aplicación de métodos creativos y estrategias educativas, así como fertilizar más a punto de los proyectos de intervención y la planificación de las políticas públicas. Por lo tanto, trabajamos en cuatro aspectos, en primer lugar como una red global, en segundo lugar en la investigación, en tercer lugar en la educación, y en cuarto lugar con la intervención. Nos dirigimos a todos los niveles, micro, meso y macro levels. On 24 de junio 2011, se inició el proceso de levantamiento de nuestra investigación y las actividades de educación en un nivel más concreto y puso en marcha la Iniciativa Mundial de la Dignidad de la Universidad. Dado que somos una red global, la los límites son fluidos. Invitamos cordialmente a todos las personas de ideas afines para contribuir. Por favor, consulte nuestra llamada a la creatividad . Nuestros miembros no "suscribir" o "apoyar" todo lo que está sucediendo dentro de HumanDHS. Todo el mundo está llamado a contribuir en el mejor de la capacidad. Esperamos que la sinergia que surge de todas las contribuciones facilitará nuevas ideas y de acción.
Ella es Doctorada en medicina y psicología, pero en realidad es un mapa completo , viviente lleno de experiencias que ha ido acumulando en los últimos cuarenta años viviendo en los distintos continentes. Esta es su primera visita a Latinoamerica, siendo su primera pasada por Chile. Y para los que estamos en la 5ta región un gran encuentro. El jueves a las 10 am. en Centro para el Desarrollo Alternativo en Limache, se ruega confirmar asistencia ya que el espacio es reducido el aporte es voluntario de mínimo 500 pesos. saludos afectuosos Claudia Arcos.
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4th April 2012, the journalist Ignacia Imboden joined us in Andrea's house in Limache, Chile, to interview Evelin and Howard Richards, for a program of half an hour on Saturday or Sunday in the catholic radio program La Fibra / Radio Amor 99.3 FM in Viña del Mar, Chile. Claudia Arcos Duarte was so kind to translate from German to Spanish (Ignacia and Evelin could have communicated in French, but the radio listeners would not have benefitted from that).
La Fibra / Radio Amor 99.3 FM: " La Fibra #23 Jueves, 12 de Abril de 2012 Conversación grabada en Limache el miercoles 04 de Abril, al aire el Jueves 05. Conversamos con Evelin Lindner, Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies, sobre como desarrollar ideas de Dignidad Humana que iluminen el actuar del hombre en todos sus aspectos, terminando con las prácticas humillantes de las que todos somos objeto de alguna forma, en un sistema pragmático que nos ve pomo piezas de un engranaje. La entrevista está en Alemán, pero es traducida por Claudia Arcos, nuestra querida colaboradora limachina."
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3rd April 2012, Howard Richards invited Luis Razeto Migliaro, the "father" of Solidarity Economics (please see a summary in English, "What is solidarity economics?"), who made the 1 1/2 hours trip from Santiago to join us, together with his son Pablo Razeto Barry. They work on A New Civilization.
Also student leader Andrés Díaz gave us the privilege of being with us and sending us:
las paginas con las presentaciones que realizamos el año pasado y este año (pages with the presentations that we made last year and this year):
(1) es sobre el moviente estudiantil (about the student movement),
(2) sobre la reforma tributaria que pretendemos realizar como estudiantes movilizados (on the tax reform we intend to do as mobilized students)
(3) que es sobre el litio, recurso nuevo en su explotación pero que lastimosamente ya las tras nacionales han pensado vender dejando muy pocos dividendo a los chilenos (on lithium, a new resource in its exploitation, but unfortunately with national plans to sell with leaving only a very little divident to the Chileans.)
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2nd April 2012, in Valparaíso, Chile, with Claudia Arcos Duarte. Please see the project Población Obrera (third picture on top). Please note also the naval building (bottom), one of the places where people were tortured after the 1973 coup.
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31st March 2012, in Valparaíso, Chile, with Claudia Arcos Duarte and her three children, Carla Luna, Oliver, and Luciano.
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31st March 2012, in Limache, Chile, with Andrea Osorio Mendez and Claudia Arcos Duarte in a market of exchange, mercado trueke. Claudia gives her tomatoes, and we receive a framed photo of the father of Reimi (in the middle).
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29th March 2012, in Limache, Chile, with Andrea Osorio Mendez and Claudia Arcos Duarte in the market, where I got myself a second hand sweater and jacket. Meet Claudia through her video presentations.
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22nd February 2012, with Lillian Hjort, Menneskerettighsakademiet, Oslo, Norway, and Marit Langmyr, Aktive fredsreiser, Risør, Norway.
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17th February 2012, "Ydmykelse og folkemord - den indre forbindelsen," lecture at the Department of Political Science/Institutt for statsvitenskap, at the University of Oslo, Norway, invited by Bernt Hagtvet, as part of STV1530 - Folkemord og politisk massevold i det 20. århundre, Aud 1, SV-Bygget, Blindern. Please see a background paper for this lecture Terror in Norway: How Can We Continue from a Point of Utter despair? Promoting a Dignity Culture, not Just Locally, but Globally a paper originally prepared for the 17th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies “Enlarging the Boundaries of Compassion” in Dunedin, New Zealand.
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17th February 2012, in the office of Lasse Moer, recipient of the 2011 Beacon of Dignity Award, in the University of Oslo, Norway.
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14th February 2012, Happy Valentine's Day from Pamela Hiley, Oslo, Norway, who made this wonderful Dialogue Home plus rose collage.
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11th and 13th February 2012, Evelin in Oslo, Norway, with gratitude, in Pamela Hiley's wonderful Dialogue Home.
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13th February 2012, "Ydmykelse, identitet og konflikt," foredrag ved Politihøgskolen i Oslo/Norwegian Police University College, invited by Jai Ganapathy, fagansvarlig for studiet Konflikthåndtering i et flerkulturelt samfunn.
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8th February 2012, 12.-13.15, After 22nd July: Humiliation and Terrorism,
lecture at the Center for Gender Research at the University of Oslo, Norway / Senter for tverrfaglig kjønnsforskning, with, among others, Oddrun Rangsæter, Anne Modalsli Touré, Latha Nrugham, Stein Villumstad.
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8th February 2012, interview with Aase Cathrine Myrtveit, NRK verdibørsen, Oslo, Norway.
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4th February 2012, meeting with Brian Palmer in Oslo, Norway.
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31th January 2012, Senioringeniør Egil Bergh-Telle, Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway, received the Beacon of Dignity Award from the Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies network and the World Dignity University initiative. Kontorsjef Birgitte Bøgh-Olsen accepted the Dignity Economy book as a sign of gratitude from Evelin Lindner to the Department of Psychology.
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29th January 2012, a wonderful evening with Fanny Duckert in Oslo, Norway.
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28th January 2012, with Birgit Brock-Utne and Gunnar Garbo in the wonderful celebration of Dr. Kimizi's doctorate at the home of Zehlia Babaci-Wilhite on Nesodden, Norway.
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27th January 2012, Arne Næss' 100th birthday party in Oslo, Norway. Thank you, dear Steinar Bjørnstad, for taking some of the pictures!
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The picture on the right shows Arne and Kit-Fai in our 2nd Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies in Paris, 12th - 13th September 2003, Maison des Sciences de l'Homme de l'Homme, Paris.

26th January 2012, Kristian Harpviken at his 50th birthday party in Oslo, Norway.
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25th January 2012, with Ingela Lundin Kvalem and Carolin Aulie at the Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway. Creating a video clip for the World Dignity University initiative.
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25th January 2012, Humiliation and Terrorism, lecture at the Department of Psychology / Psykologisk institutt at the University of Oslo, Norway (Harald Schjelderups hus, Forskningsveien 3, Auditorium 1, as part of PSYC3203 - Anvendt sosialpsykologi, see also www.sv.uio.no). Please see a background paper for this lecture Terror in Norway: How Can We Continue from a Point of Utter despair? Promoting a Dignity Culture, not Just Locally, but Globally a paper originally prepared for the 17th Annual Conference of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies “Enlarging the Boundaries of Compassion” in Dunedin, New Zealand.
Stein Bråten, Berit Waal, Birgit Brock-Utne, Mai-Bente Bonnevie, and Jingyi Dong, among others, contributed with invaluable comments.

See the UiO Podcast edition, or the YouTube editions Part 1 and Part 2 dialogue.
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