PRI's The World

Angry Baker, Seething Newsman: Spaniards Losing Patience with their Politicians

Gerry Hadden — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 20:02:15 +0000

I went into my local newsstand the other morning, as I do every morning, and cracked wise to the vendor.

“Not sure which paper to buy,” I said. “The one with corruption headlines, or one with headlines about corruption.”

“Expletive,” the newsman said. “Those politicians are a bunch of expletive expletives.”

“A lot of them do seem to be up to their eyeballs,” I said.

“We need to go to France,” the newsman said.

“You wouldn’t be the first.”

“No, we need to go to France and steal from some museums.”

“Sorry?”

“Si, si. Steal some of their old guillotines. Set them up in our plazas. Make a few corrupt heads roll.”

“Well, I –“

“That’d make the next thief think twice.”

“Or,” I said, “Spain could just toughen existing penalties for corruption. The statute on such crimes usually runs out in five or six years. And if people do go to jail, it never seems to be for more than a year or two.”

The newsman nodded. “And,” he said, “they never give what money they’ve stolen back.”

I nodded.

“Which is why we need guillotines.”

“Yeah, but one big problem with guillotines is who gets to run them.”

“Guillotines.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow.”

I crossed the street to buy bread, and at the bakery the same discussion was already well underway.

“We ought to take away everything they own,” the baker was saying about politicians and bankers, shaking her fist. “If they’re going to continue stealing and kicking people out of their homes, then we take the clothes off their backs. Force them to live on the street too.”

She was holding a copy of a different newspaper, in which there was an article about another suicide by someone who’d been evicted from his home, but who was still being forced to pay the debt that led to his eviction to begin with. There was supposed to have been a moratorium on such evictions, since a couple of similar suicides this fall. But so far this year about 50,000 have been carried out.

A guy working on one of the baker’s ovens lifted his head up, wiped his brow.

“If a politician or civil servant steals the public’s money,” he said. “I don’t care about getting it back. I think we should put them to work, digging ditches. Then, when they’re done, we shoot them in the head and bury them right there. Under roads, wherever.”

An elderly woman waiting patiently in line nodded vigorously in agreement.

Complaining in shops is typical on early Spanish mornings. People gripe about whatever there is to gripe about, and you don’t really think too much about it. It’s more like a reflex. But what was different this morning was the suggestion of violence. I’ve never heard head-chopping and summary executions figure in the routine.

It doesn’t in any way suggest that my neighbors were serious. Or that Spaniards are close to a sort of collective uprising that might lead to lynchings.

On the contrary, violent protest here has been remarkably low in over five years of economic crisis. But the morning’s rants do reflect just how fed up people are with sacrificing, in the form of higher taxes and reduced public services, while their elected leaders are exposed, one after another, as corrupt. Or allegedly corrupt.

Every day seems to bring a new case to light. From the Royal Family to the top leadership of the country to countless local barons. Before leaving the bakery I suggested this was all actually good news.

“All the scheming must have already been underway,” I said. “The fact that the press is now writing about it shows that society is in a process of cleansing.”

My neighbors shook their heads, glanced at each other.

“Well, you have to start somewhere,” I said.

“The problem,” the oven repair guy said, “is once you start looking, it’s never going to end.”

That was a deeply defeatist thing to say, suggesting a total lack of confidence in the country’s ruling class. Some recent national polls here have reflected similar sentiment.

Apparently even the European Union Commission is becoming alarmed. According to the El Pais newspaper, it has issued an internal memo, expressing concern that so much corruption could cause ordinary Spaniards to “totally disconnect” from the political process.

This in a country held up and hailed as a model of democratic tradition only one generation ago.

PRI’s The World: 02/11/2013 (Ecuador, Ethiopia, Israel)

The World — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 16:00:28 +0000

Pope Benedict XVI announces he will resign citing his advanced age. Danish newspaper exposes double-agent that provided intelligence on US drones. And a Frenchman who preserved the music of Ethiopia in the Ethiopique series.

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Pope Benedict XVI Resigns

Andrea Crossan — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 15:00:10 +0000

Pope Benedict XVI has announced that he is to step down at the end of February because of his frail health.

Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Rome correspondent Megan Williams about reaction to the surprise announcement.

Pope Benedict XVI: First Pope to Resign in 600 Years

Chris Woolf — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:50:33 +0000

The last Pope to step down from office was Gregory XII back in 1415.

He resigned to end what was called the ‘Great Western Schism,’ when Christendom was divided by rival Popes.

“This was a way of restoring unity to a divided church,” says James Bretzke.

Father Bretzke is a professor of moral theology at Boston College.

“He was considered to be a noble person in stepping down,” Bretzke adds. “The Pope that had stepped down much earlier was cast by Dante into Inferno for stepping down. But Pope Gregory they considered that to be a noble move.”

Immigration: What Does ‘Getting in Line’ Really Mean?

John Rosman — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:40:31 +0000

During his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama will no doubt speak about immigration reform. So far, both President Obama and Republican lawmakers agree on certain starting points. One is for undocumented immigrants seeking US citizenship to get in the “back of the line,” behind everyone else waiting legally. But there is not just one line—rather many. And for some people, wait times can be indefinite. Reporter John Rosman, of the public radio collaboration Fronteras, reports.

Meet Gustavo Valencia, who is waiting in the line that US lawmakers are now talking about.

In his teens, Valencia left Mexico for the United States to join his father, who had migrated north himself years earlier. Soon after his father became a US citizen in 1994, Valencia, who had arrived to the US on a tourist visa and overstayed, applied for a family-based visa to live here legally, too.

Valencia remains in line for his green card, waiting out a process that can appear interminable. In fact, in the past nine years, slow-moving bureaucracy and a high number of visa applicants, has created a backlog that has tacked some 13 months to Valencia’s wait in line.

“All they give you is a notification and there’s nothing you can do,” Valencia says. “But you’d like to know a little bit more. How come things are not moving properly?”

As Washington tackles immigration reform, the Senate’s bi-partisan proposal would send undocumented immigrants to the back of the line. In large part, President Obama also agrees with this concept. But he would also like to increase the total number of family visas—like Valencia’s—that are issued out every year. That way, immigrants who may begin lining up behind Valencia would face a shorter line.

Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who will give the Republican response to the State of the Union—delivering it in both Spanish and English—also finds the current backlog flawed. He told the New York Times in January, “I don’t have a solution for that question right now.”

To understand why not, it helps to understand just how complicated the paths are to enter the US legally. Think of them like the lines you see at an airport abroad. They are full of people waiting to fly into the United States. There are different airlines, or ways to get a green card. By far, the most popular way into the US is the family-based visa. There are two paths to that gate. One, the fastest, is for the spouse, young child or parent of a US citizen. But the second line under debate is far longer; it’s like the security line.

San Diego immigration attorney Lilia Velasquez explains how the visa backlog triggers what is called visa retrogression. (Photo: John Rosman)

“The second line, the second-rate line, is when you’re not an immediate relative, but you’re a family member,” explains Lilia Velasquez, an immigration attorney in San Diego. This slower line is made up of spouses and younger children of current green card holders, along with siblings or older children of US citizens.

These family preference lines are divided once more depending on your home country. For places with high visa demand, such as Mexico, China and the Philippines, imagine the airport during Christmas or a peak holiday travel time abroad. The line snakes out the door. It’s that line-times 1,000.

Velasquez explains that in a case like Valencia’s, when a US citizen parent—particularly from a country like Mexico—wishes to bring over a son or daughter who is over the age of 21, the wait time can easily be decades.

The bottleneck happens because of a yearly cap on family visas. Every country is only allowed seven percent of the total number, and that hasn’t changed since 1965. But the demand has. So, Mexico’s line is a lot longer than France’s.

You can see your place in line through the US Department of State’s Visa Bulletin. But do not take the estimated wait time at face value, Velasquez warns. She points to what are called priority dates in the Visa Bulletin. The priority date is like a timestamp on your ticket marking when your application went in. The Visa Bulletin then provides a reference date for when someone might become eligible for a visa.

Yet with the current backlog, the Visa Bulletin’s dates and timelines can be highly unreliable. Lines from, say Mexico, with a high volume of applicants, move so slow that applicants’ wait times are often prolonged.

This is called visa retrogression. Valencia compares this feeling of “retrogression” to watching swings in the stock market. “When things were going well, you were watching the stock everyday,” Valencia said. “When it crashed all of the sudden you don’t want to see your 401k.”

Indeed, Valencia’s priority dates have moved back twice, meaning not just more bureaucracy, but more waiting.

Still, Valencia remains optimistic. He is employed and has earned a US college degree. But not having a green card has shelved his other dreams, like getting married.

He has met women, but many in his dating pool are undocumented. Entering a relationship with someone without papers at this point would be complicated. If Valencia integrated a spouse into his current visa application, it would place him in a different bracket—and could render meaningless the years he has already waited for a green card, he says.

Yet Valencia still feels that the wait for legal residence is worth it. It is more than obtaining a green card. It is about earning a political voice, he says. “Having most of your life now here, you would like to be incorporated into the process of being part of society, being able to go out and vote,” he says.

What happens in Congress this year may determine how much longer Valencia, and the millions who may line up behind him, will have to wait.

Pope Announces Resignation

The World — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:39:37 +0000

Pope Benedict XVI surprises the world by becoming the first pontiff to resign in nearly 600 years.

Economic Repercussions of Europe’s Horse Meat Scandal

Traci Tong — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:30:23 +0000

It began with burgers in Ireland and frozen lasagna in Britain.

Horse meat was found to be passed off as beef in fast food burgers and frozen products across the United Kingdom and France.

British and French governments are promising to punish those involved. And fingers have been pointing to suppliers in Romania, Poland and Sweden.

Consumer confidence in Europe’s food industry has hit a low.

But there is another side to this scandal.

It seems the demand for horse meat has actually increased. So says, Paul Webb of the website Exotic Meats.

Panama Canal Expansion Exposes Fossilized Treasures, Revealing Rare Glimpse Into Earth’s History

Ari Daniel Shapiro — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:20:09 +0000

A ship moves through the Panama Canal past geological deposits containing fossils from 20 million years ago. (Photo: Ari Daniel Shapiro)

A multi-billion-dollar expansion of the Panama Canal is proving a boon to scientists. The construction has revealed a trove of fossils, revealing a wide array of creatures that lived at the southern end of North America 20 millions years ago. Ari Daniel Shapiro of our partner program NOVA reports.

Eldredge Bermingham, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in Panama. (Photo: Ari Daniel Shapiro)

When the Panama Canal was first built a century ago, it unearthed scientific treasure – countless fossils and geological clues to Panama’s past. But once the construction stopped, the jungle rushed back in, blanketing the land and concealing the geology.

“You couldn’t read the history anymore – you didn’t know where to look for fossils,” says Eldredge Bermingham, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, in Panama City. “As a result, our understanding of the history of Panama was sort of frozen in time in 1914.”

Now, though, the canal is being widened, and what lies beneath this slab of Earth is once again being revealed.

Unearthing the Past

Next to the canal, on a slope that has been graded by heavy machinery, Tony Singerhouse chisels away at the soft rock. Singerhouse is a field assistant with the Florida Museum of Natural History, and he just found a small fossil.

Tony Singerhouse of the Florida Museum of Natural History holds up his latest find – a jaw of a protoceratid, an extinct relative of cattle and goats. (Photo: Ari Daniel Shapiro)

“It’s a jaw of a protoceratid,” he explains. (A protoceratid is an extinct relative of cattle and goats.) The fossilized jaw is embedded in four chunks of rock.

“So we will take it back to the lab and we will glue it together,” he says.

This fossil comes from 20 million years ago. At that time, North and South America were separated by about 150 miles of salt water. Panama was the southernmost extent – the edge – of North America.

That makes Panama an interesting place for scientists to learn about the animals that were living here before the land bridge between the continents was formed – before crossing over into South America became possible.

Many of the fossils turning up in Panama come from species that were known to live much farther north – as far north as the Dakotas. A discovery of a specimen here can mean a doubling of an animal’s known range.

University of Florida paleontologist Aaron Wood says, “That’s why this particular locality is important. We’re seeing a record of animals that were able to adapt to a diverse range of habitats.”

Life at the Edge

Recent digs have revealed a rich array of animals that lived here 20 million years ago, including miniature horses and tiny camels just a couple of feet tall. There was also a fearsome predator the size of a black bear, called a bear dog.

Over the last several years, scientists have taken the number of species they used to think lived here and multiplied it by a factor of ten.

Federico Moreno, a geologist from Colombia, stands beside Las Cascadas formation on the edge of the Panama Canal. (Photo: Ari Daniel Shapiro)

“I think we owe the knowledge of the biodiversity of Panama to the Panama Canal expansion,” says Federico Moreno, a geologist from Colombia. “You have specialist[s] from all over the world coming here to the canal every day of the year.”

Scientists are now filling in a detailed portrait of the animals and plants that were here at the moment when North and South America finally made contact.

But Eldredge Bermingham of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute says this burst of discovery will not continue much longer.

“[What will] happen is the expansion is going to finish, there’s not going to be new digs, those landscapes will overgrow just as they did 100 years ago,” he says. “And as a result, we’ll pretty quickly see a dramatic reduction in new discoveries.”

The canal expansion project is scheduled to finish by the fall of 2014, which is when this window on Earth’s history will begin to close.

Israeli Soccer Team Clamping Down on Violence and Racism

Matthew Bell — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:00:26 +0000

One of Israel’s leading professional soccer clubs is going through a nasty episode of intolerance – and violence. Some of the fans of Beitar Jerusalem are angry about their team signing two Muslims. Up until a few weeks ago, the team was the only one in Israel with an all-Jewish roster.

The Muslim players are both from Chechnya, and since their arrival in Jerusalem they have been subjected to taunts and harassment. Four Beitar fans have been indicted on charges of racial harassment. And on Friday, there was a suspected arson attack on the soccer club’s Jerusalem offices.

It made for a tense atmosphere going into last night’s home game against a rival team from the Arab city of Sakhnin in northern Israel.

Israeli soccer is hardly alone in dealing with the problem. But in a league that’s long been concerned about racist incitement from fans, hardcore Beitar supporters have stood out for their bad behavior.

There is no alcohol on sale at the Jerusalem stadium. Still, no matter where you sit for a Beitar match at home, fans would be likely to hear chants like, “Death to the Arabs!”

Several recent incidents though – especially torching the team’s office – seem to have sparked a backlash.

Israeli officials from the Jerusalem mayor to the prime minister have denounced the behavior of Beitar fans. And last night, authorities wanted to send a message. They put 700 police and security officers on duty for the game. Outside the stadium, anyone displaying symbols of a radical fan group called “La Familia” was not allowed in. Some fans were clearly annoyed.

Hundreds of Israeli police were deployed for the Bnei Sakhnin – Beitar Jerusalem match this week. (Photo: Matthew Bell)

Waiting in line with friends to get in to the game, 16-year-old Linoy told me she’s been a Beitar fan her whole life. “This is a Jewish land,” she said. “Beitar should be a Jewish team, without any Arab or Muslim players.”

“The owner is trying to destroy the team by bringing in two Muslims,” against the wishes of supporters, she added.

The hometown crowd of mostly young men sang along with the national anthem. But only half the stadium was full. The section that is usually packed with the most enthusiastic Beitar supporters was completely empty, by order of the Israel Football Association. In their place a huge banner in team colors yellow and black read, “Violence and racism? Not on our field!”

The announcer told fans to refrain from racist chants or they would be kicked out. And that seemed to work. Nonetheless, there were still plenty of profanity-laced chants aimed at the Beitar management and the opposing team of Bnei Sakhnin.

The atmosphere in the stadium changed when the visiting team scored first. Sakhnin added another goal before half-time. Arab fans bused in from Sakhnin sat in a their own separate section, cordoned off by large numbers of uniformed police and security. As their team took control of the game, Sakhnin fans chanted “God is great,” in Arabic.

A police officer standing nearby said things might get ugly if the game remained so lopsided. But the home team came alive in the second half. Beitar answered with a goal of its own. And then another.

The cops on duty might have breathed a sigh of relief at that point, as Beitar tied the game.

With 10 minutes to play, the home team then sent in one of its new Muslim players. It was 19-year-old Gabriel Kadiev’s debut with his new team.

Some Beitar fans made a point of standing and clapping for the defender. But that show of enthusiasm was quickly overpowered as others whistled and jeered every time Kadiev touched the ball.

The match ended in a 2-2 draw. By the end, a few dozen people from either side had been ejected from the stadium by police. But there wasn’t any serious trouble.

One fan, 25-year-old Almog, had this to say about Beitar’s two new Muslim players.

“They don’t hate me. So, I should not hate them,” he said. “I believe they are good players for us.”

Almog said the fans behind most of the violence and racism are a small minority, and that he hopes the authorities will win the fight against these extremists.

“I really hope,” he said. “It’s a fight, …not just about football. It’s about the whole country, about the society.”

“Something bigger,” he said.

Music Heard on Air for February 11, 2013

Ann Lopez — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 14:00:23 +0000

START TIME: 6:26

POPE NEW INTERVIEW
POPE HISTORY INTERVIEW
IMMIGRATION REPORT

END TIME: 19:37

MUSIC:
SONG: Jamana be diya
ARTISTS: Bassekou Kouyate and Ngoni ba
CD TITLE: I Speak Fula
CD LABEL: Out Here Records
CD #: OH 013

START TIME: 21:00

HORSEMEAT INTERVIEW
FOSSILS REPORT

MUSIC:
SONG: Djun-djun Bato
ARTIST: World Kora Trio
CD TITLE: Korazon
CD LABEL: Cristal Publishing
CD #: PM 773 286

END TIME: 29:29

MUSIC:
SONG: Alkataou
ARTIST: The Toure-Raichel Collective
CD TITLE: The Tel Aviv Session
CD LABEL: Cumbancha
CD #: CMB-CD-22

START TIME: 32:56

RACIST FANS REPORT

GEO QUIZ:
Vieux Farka Toure
Live studio performance of Diaraby

DISABILITY REPORT
PING PONG INTERVIEW

MUSIC:
SONG: Ianareo
ARTISTS: Nogabe Randriaharimalala
CD TITLE: Afatra
CD LABEL: Nogabe Randriaharimalala

END TIME: 48:58

MUSIC:
SONG: Frontera
ARTIST: Rouge
CD TITLE: Lounge Classics – 22 Classic Chillout/Bargrooves
CD LABEL: Park Lane Recordings

START TIME: 50:00

GLOBAL HIT

END TIME: 58:09

Ecuador’s Paraplegic Vice President Lenin Moreno a Major Force for Disability Rights

John Otis — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:40:11 +0000

It can be easy to overlook the tiny South American nation of Ecuador. Yet Ecuador stands out as one of the region’s most advanced countries for disabled people. A major force behind this effort is Lenin Moreno, Ecuador’s vice president. A paraplegic, Moreno is one of the world’s highest-ranking leaders using a wheelchair.

Lenin Moreno was once a wealthy businessman and politician. But in 1998, he was shot in the back as gunmen stole his car from a parking lot in Quito. He was paralyzed from the waist down. Moreno overcame intense pain and bouts of depression to become a motivational speaker. He’s written books about the healing power of laughter.

He also performs inspirational songs.

In 2006, Moreno was elected vice president. At the time, it was rare to see people in wheelchairs in public. In rural areas, people with severe handicaps were treated as outcasts and sometimes confined to sheds and chicken coops.

But Moreno has tried to change all that. Wheelchair ramps are springing up across Ecuador. People with severe disabilities now receive $300 monthly stipends from the government. And Moreno helped draw up a law that compels Ecuadorian companies to set aside at least 4 percent of jobs for people with disabilities.

In a recent speech, he pledged that the government would reach out to all disabled people who need help. That, he said, amounts to a revolution.

That revolution includes providing free artificial limbs to poor Ecuadorians. Some are being built in a wing of this state-run hospital in Quito. Government officials say the program is the only one of its kind in Latin America.

Jorge Costa, who manages the project, says thousands of Ecuadorians hobble around on crutches because they’re too poor to buy artificial limbs. Now, he says, they can become productive members of society.

One person who has made this transition is Sarita Carlosama. I meet her at a sports club where she’s playing an early-morning game of wheelchair tennis before going to work.

A disease affecting her spinal cord left Carlosama paraplegic 20 years ago. Back then she was studying to be a doctor. But she had to quit because there was no wheelchair access to the fifth-floor classrooms.

Finding a job was tough. But under the new law to bring disabled people into the work force, Carlosama was recently hired by an oil company. Not surprisingly, she’s full of praise for Moreno.

“He has achieved so much,” Carlosama says. “But even if he hadn’t done anything, just the fact that the vice president is in a wheelchair changes perceptions about disabled people.”

At the presidential palace where Moreno has his office, disabled people line up every morning seeking assistance. Upstairs, Moreno’s top aide, Alex Camacho, says other Latin American governments have called on Ecuador for advice on policies for disabled people.

“That’s why we are now advising to Peru, to Bogota, to Uruguay, to Dominican Republic, to Guatemala, also to Haiti,” Camacho says.

The presidential band plays as foreign diplomats present their credentials to Moreno. He’s now Ecuador’s acting president, because President Rafael Correa has taken a leave of absence to campaign for reelection later this month.

But Moreno is not on the ballot. He says he needs a break from the exhausting schedule. Still, many of the programs Moreno put in place are likely to continue, says Monica Alemeida, an editor at El Universo newspaper.

“It’s by far one of the best things this government have done,”Almeida says. “I think that whatever government that will come will really have to follow that path that Moreno have initiated.”

It seems likely that Ecuadorians will see more of Moreno. He was nominated last year for the Nobel Peace Prize. And there’s speculation he will run for president in 2017.

Remembering Zhuang Zedong, Hero of Ping Pong Diplomacy

David Leveille — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:30:56 +0000

A city in Japan figures in our Geo Quiz on Monday. So does ping pong.

First, the Japanese city. This city of 3 million looks out on the Pacific Ocean.

It’s located on central Honshu island and its a major industrial port that competes with Tokyo, Osaka, and Kobe.

This capital of Aichi Prefecture was once the center of Japan’s aircraft industry. US bombers attacked it during WWII devastating much of the city.

Monday’s city is home to Japan’s automotive industry: Toyota’s Lexus brand, and Mitsubishi are headquartered there.

But this Japanese city also played an instrumental role in shaping US-China relations.

Something happened there in 1971 which was the catalyst for “ping-pong diplomacy.”

Remember that? It was what led to Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China a year later.

Chinese ping-pong player Zhuang Zedong has died at the age of 73. Zhuang was the Chinese player who started the famous “ping-pong diplomacy” episode in the 1970s.

It’s what led to Richard Nixon’s famous opening to China, and his historic trip there.

US table tennis historian Tim Boggan remembers the era well. In 1971, Boggan traveled with the American team to the World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan. Zhuang Zedong was there with the Chinese team.

Boggan says ping pong diplomacy started after a top American player missed the team bus one day.

So Nagoya, Japan is where ping pong diplomacy was born. Which makes Nagoya the answer to our Geo Quiz.

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28-Disc Series ‘Ethiopiques’ the Result of Francis Falceto’s Efforts to Preserve Ethiopian Music

Nina Porzucki — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 13:00:53 +0000

In Mali, we reported on the successful efforts by Malians in Timbuktu to hide ancient manuscripts before Islamist rebels got a chance to destroy them.

Those priceless cultural artifacts are now mostly safe.

As we’ve seen over the years, a lot of African cultural treasure is in a fragile state of existence.

Whether it’s documents, or the visual arts, or music, preservation, archiving and cataloging has come late to Africa.

Francis Falceto is a Frenchman who has played a major role in the preservation of Ethiopian music. He curated an impressive series of recordings known as Ethiopiques.

There are now 28-discs in the series several of them feature music of the great Mulatu Astatqe.

You might recognize his music from Jim Jarmusch’s 2005 film Broken Flowers with Bill Murray.

One person who has been especially inspired by the music in the series is the founder of the Boston-based jazz ensemble Either Orchestra, Russ Gershon.

Falceto stopped by the studio on a trip to Boston to talk with anchor, Marco Werman about the ever-expanding collection and his new curatorial experiment, “Ethio Sonic,” which features bands from around the world playing Ethiopian music.

Lost in a Sea of People and Languages

Patrick Cox — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 20:14:45 +0000

Getting lost in a crowd can be scary at the best of times. But imagine if that crowd runs into the millions, and there’s no shared language. In fact, people in the crowd may speak hundreds of mutually incomprehensible languages.

That’s the linguistic reality at the Kumbh Mela Hindi festival in northern India. Millions of devotees travel from all over India for a ritual dip in the Ganges. Most travel in groups, and can easily get separated. Some have mobile phones. Many don’t– and even those do can’t keep them charged. Many aren’t used to travel; for some, it’s the first time they have left their home state. Lots of people get lost.

That’s where the Kumbh Mela Lost and Found camp comes in. From 1946 to 2012, camp staff say they have reunited 1,064,748 adults and 19,717 children with their traveling parties. How do they do it, if they don’t speak the same language as the lost person? They have that person speak in his or her own language over public address system.

A man dressed as Hindu goddess Kali, the goddess of power, performs with a burning camphor tablet on his tongue during a religious procession ahead of the Kumbh Mela. (Reuters/Jitendra Prakash)

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PRI’s The World: 02/08/2013 (Latvia, South Africa, Japan)

The World — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 16:00:56 +0000

The conflict in Mali escalates with a suicide bombing Friday in the northern town of Gao. Also, a new Israeli lawmakers from the controversial Jewish settlement in Hebron. Plus, why Latvians don’t want to give up their currency in favor of the euro.

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