gdp's Comments

Matador Abroad : 6 Products That Would Never Sell in the U.S.

Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:34:50 +0000

Love the dismay cookie! I can think of many situations in which I'd like to lean subtly over to someone and ask, "Would you like a dismay cookie?"

Matador Change : The Increasing Cost Of Volunteering Abroad

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:09:34 +0000

I agree, the price you pay to organizations like Global Service Corps includes the research and grunt work you could do on your own. It seems crazy to me to be paying exorbitant amounts of money to volunteer, and it seems to me somewhat beside the point--a lot of that money doesn't reach communities in need, and goes to things like organizing placements. Also, the emphasis of many programs seems to be on providing an experience for the volunteer (live in the Andes for a week! play with Cambodian children!) as opposed to really aiding a local community. It seems to me like the best way to volunteer would be to show up in a place and see what a local organization needs, and to stick around for awhile.

Matador Nights : World's Best Barbecue

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:49:26 +0000

Ohhh, yum! Does Indonesian satay count as barbecue? I still miss those skewers and the peanut sauce...the stuff of dreams...

Matador Pulse : 3 Stories From Under the Radar: Brazil, Madagascar, and a Few Ugly Eco-Disasters

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:36:39 +0000

Wow, Eva, that Brazil story is super-intense. While the law in Mexico supposedly allows women who've been raped to get abortions, it hardly ever works out that way. It amazes and repulses me that the repeated rape of a 9 year-old is less egregious to the church than the abortion of a baby created out of incest. Scary.

Matador Abroad : Best Places to Learn Latin America's Indigenous Languages

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:35:38 +0000

Hey Hal--- How do you like Sustainable Bolivia? I've heard a lot of great things about them! What kind of work are you doing with them?

Matador Abroad : Best Places to Learn Latin America's Indigenous Languages

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:35:09 +0000

Put 'em on the list, Carlo! I'm still plodding my way through Chinese, although it's gotten a bit more challenging since moving back to Mexico...

Brave New Traveler : The Travel Wisdom of Bruce Lee

Sun, 8 Mar 2009 17:51:39 +0000

Hey Carlo-- Great article. I'd never have thought of Bruce Lee as a travel philosopher but you distill his ideas really nicely in this context. I particularly like the part about embracing a difficult trip--in my opinion, my favorite trips have been the ones characterized by big, random bumps in the road that, as you say, make for great stories later.

Matador Nights : What People Are Listening to in...Chile

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 20:06:52 +0000

Ohhh, I'm looking forward to this series. Glad to hear that "el pueblo, unido, jamas sera vencido" is a cross-cultural thing throughout Latin America! It's a big protest chant here in Mexico. Nice job covering a variety of genres.

Travelers Notebook : On the Ropes

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 19:33:30 +0000

What a necessary post, Julie. Exactly as Christina said above--not preachy. It's hard to talk about race and class without sounding indignant or accusatory, but you did just that. Your images also show how oftentimes the connection between race and class in Latin America is painfully obvious.

Matador Trips : Make It a Black History Year: 7 Spots to Keep Learning Year-Round

Thu, 5 Mar 2009 19:01:47 +0000

Great article, Julie--I have wanted to go to the Costa Chica for a long time now. This link: http://avjphotography.com/text.html will take you to a page talking about the history of the Costa Chica. At the bottom you can click on "images" to see beautiful photos of the area. I'd also add the apartheid museum in Johannesburg--that was one of the most powerful experiences I had in South Africa. It's on the outskirts of Johannesburg (a city I think many people avoid--I stayed for almost a week there with a friend who was on a Fulbright and showed me around) and it really blew my mind. Even if you're not gung ho about Johannesburg I think it's worth it just for that museum. You get a card at the entrance determining your race, and the way you experience the first parts of the museum is dependent on that card. You could spend hours there reading about the history of apartheid, and there are also tons of videos and photos. You will definitely be rocked for the rest of the day afterwards.

Matador Abroad : Seven Incredible Study Abroad Programs for Grad Students

Tue, 3 Mar 2009 14:24:29 +0000

Hey Fata--off the top of my head I can't identify any particular programs in the Middle East, but if you check out the sites I linked to at the end of the article, they should help you out! They give a listing of schools by region and describe the programs offered by each school.

Matador Abroad : So You Want to Live in China?

Sun, 1 Mar 2009 23:15:59 +0000

Tim! For some reason sarcasm is shocking coming from you! I think the Chinese Communist Party does an excellent job of maintaining "communist" policies like extreme censorship and curtailed civil rights while at the same time encouraging the most unbridled and dangerous form of capitalism since the Industrial Revolution! How do they manage it?

Matador Abroad : So You Want to Live in China?

Sun, 1 Mar 2009 22:28:35 +0000

This is a really helpful article, but 15,000 RMB is definitely not lower middle class! That is an upper middle or upper class salary in China. The average college graduate can expect to earn 1,000 RMB a month. Workers like waitresses and cooks earn at most 800 RMB per month. 15,000 RMB a month is far more than many English teachers earned, and more than most professors earned at the university where I worked. It is a very luxurious salary for China. Drinking in China is extremely cheap if you do not go to expat bars--beer, when I was there, was about $0.75 for a 600mL bottle. And you can eat at restaurants, with plenty of beer, for super-cheap if you don't mind Chinese food and navigating the Chinese menu!

Matador Change : Desertification: The World's Most Underestimated Environmental Crisis

Sun, 1 Mar 2009 21:53:36 +0000

Hey Julie, This is a really huge problem in China as well. Have you heard of "the other great wall?" It is a wall of thousands and thousands of trees along China's northern border, to prevent sand and loess from blowing south. I didn't realize how big of a deal desertification was until I lived through several sandstorms in Beijing; sand from the Gobi desert comes blowing through the city and everything is covered in dust and fine yellow grains. It's disgusting--it's literally hard to breathe.

Matador Nights : Bolivian Carnaval

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 14:43:32 +0000

Awesome photos, Hal. Talk about getting very, very dirty--here in Mexico, in a small town a stone's throw from Oaxaca, people cover themselves in car oil and put on devil masks. Then they go around town looking for victims to turn black with the oil...I have to admit I took refuge in a cafe and was peering out from behind a pillar as it all happened.

Brave New Traveler : 5 Ways Inner Travel Helps You See Other Cultures

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:18:56 +0000

Ha! No way! You have to send me a PM and we can reminisce. Wow, I never woulda thunk it--meeting up on Matador years later.

Brave New Traveler : Back in 1848? A Closer Look at the US / Mexico Border

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:50:19 +0000

Wow, Julie, excellent interview. I need to get my hands on this book. The border situation is out of control, what with the recent shootouts in Chihuahua and the rate of assassinations in Juarez...I think it is something both the U.S and Mexico should be worried about and I think, as David Danelo said, that this is a concern that goes beyond the political debates about immigration. Instead of focusing so much on arming Mexico (both the legal forces and the cartels) the U.S should be focusing on helping to repair the corrupt institutions down here.

Matador Trips : 9 Places to Experience Now Before they Literally Vanish

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:02:54 +0000

Your question at the end of the article is definitely critical--how can we visit without contributing to destruction? Because it seems a little bit fatalistic to me to suggest visiting places being destroyed by tourism before they're destroyed--the implication seems to be, well, they're already on the way out, so go ahead and join the masses before they're totally gone. Wouldn't it be better, instead, to avoid visiting them or look for ways to visit sustainably, without contributing to the damage?

Matador Change : The World's Worst Offenders

Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:54:43 +0000

Great, if disturbing article. You'll have to excuse my painful ignorance ahead of time if this is a really lame question, but what exactly is the difference between a "dump" and a landfill? I remember reading about some atrocious dumps in Mexico City and the Philippines. There is a great essay in the Best American Travel Essays (I think 2007) about the Patayas dump in Manila. Thousands of people make their living scavenging these dumps. And there are rarely any sorts of environmental regulations preventing the leachate from contaminating groundwater and whatnot.

Matador Abroad : DIY Study Abroad: 10 Ways to Educate Yourself While Traveling

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:44:49 +0000

Great list! I'd never heard of the Open University. How cool. There are also lots of local courses at local universities you can take while traveling--I intended to do one in Mexico about Mexican literature but it ended up conflicting with my schedule. If you speak the local language, definitely do some internet searching to find out if there's a course you'd want to take for a few months. Also, I'd add Global Voices to your internet research---check out the region you're visiting on the Global Voices site and see what bloggers there are talking about. This is also a good way to prep for interviews and conversations with local people.