Visiting the Peruvian Blog Village

plaza

“Plaza de Armas with the Church of Santo Domingo in the background” by Juan Arellano

This time around we'll visit some blogs that we haven't seen before. Blogs of another type; the sort that perhaps do not catch you attention at first glace if your interests lie in politics or cyber-activism, but blogs that have their place and their followers just the same. We must always walk with a careful eye; sometimes the diamonds are where we least expected. So let's explore a little.

Without a doubt, Lima is the biggest Latin American city that borders the Pacific Ocean. Like most other similar metropolises, the public transit system is chaotic at certain times and in certain places. Many people blame the combis as the cause of this and they certainly have their point, but in general the government planning dedicated to public transportation leaves much to be desired. If you have any doubts, then take a look at the photos published at Personalmente… Juan de Dios in the post “Where are the wheels?” Fortunately, there were no injuries to lament.

And since we have already mentioned combis and their infamy, I can't help but point out a post published by Sutiyqa Mariam a few weeks ago: “Polyglot Combi,” an anecdote that causes us to think that not everything is so bad and that there is always room for improvement.

What is, in fact, really bad is Peruvian soccer. Not because of the quality of the players, but the league administrators do have much to do with this crisis. Check out the report in De Media Cancha (“At Half Field”) titled “The night has fallen: Peruvian soccer is K.O.'d.”

Como se sabe Ancash fue inhabilitado de seguir participando debido a que una resolución lo declaraba con cuatro puntos perdidos por lo que le correspondía bajar de categoría y dar paso al Jose Galvez de Chimbote. Es más los 11 clubes restantes se habrían reunido y acordado dejar participar a este club en el clausura. Pero las grandes decisiones del Directorio de la FPF dejaron sin efecto este hecho, lo que viene causando una grave molestia en los clubes profesionales. ¿Porque tanto interés que permanezca Ancash – presidido por Jose Malqui quien pertenece a la comisión mundialista-en la división de honor, acaso será cierto que se esta protegiendo un voto para que el señor Julio Vasquez Giacarini siga al frente de la ADFP?

As everyone knows, the Ancash team was disqualified from further participation due to a resolution that caused the loss of four points and lowered the club's standing to a lower division. What's more, the 11 remaining clubs were going to meet and decide to allow their participation in the end-of-the-season tournament. But the decision of the Directory of the FPF overruled, causing serious annoyance to the professional clubs. Why, as much interest that Ancash – presided over by Jose Malqui who belongs to the World Cup commission – garners in the top division, would they be kept out so that Mr. Julio Vasquez Giacarini gets to the front of the ADFP?

The blog A boca de jarro reflects a little on the consequences of this shady conduct by the leaders of Peruvian soccer in the post “Peruvian Federation of Soccer: A corrupt organization.”

Osea, si mañana nos enteramos que alguien compró árbitros, si nos enteramos que un dirigente sobornó a jugadores de otro equipo para que se “echen”, lo que Usted se imaginé, el delito deportivo que usted escoja… no se preocupe, si usted es un redomado adulón, un hombre sin alma y de barro, cualquier cosa, la FPF tiene la solución a su problemas…”la anmistía”

I mean, if tomorrow we found out that somebody bought off referees, if we found out that a leader bribed the players of another team so that “they play easy”, just imagine the penalty that you would choose … not to worry, if you are cheat, a man without soul, anything, the FPF has a solution for your problems … “amnesty.”

Better times are already on their way for Peruvian soccer, or at least we hope. As the saying goes, “nothing bad lasts one hundred years nor does any body resist it.” Everything passes, that's life. And about life, with a dose of philosophy, Comentarios de un Peregrino posts “MAF – a Master at Failure.”

Soy un master en fracasos, absolutamente si, no me queda la menor duda, pero eso no me hace menos, de hecho creo que da la capacidad de entender mas cosas, de saber que el éxito es relativo y que dura mucho menos que los fracasos, me ha permitido colocarme en los zapatos de los demás e intentar entender sus propias vidas y mas importante aún me ha permitido ser quien soy hoy día; … me hace acordar que tengo el tiempo prestado y que nada es tan serio.

I am a master at failure, absolutely, I do not have the smallesst doubt, but that does not make me any less of a failure. In fact, I believe that failing enables the capacity to understand things, to know that success is relative and that it lasts much less than failure. It has allowed me to put on the shoes of others and try to understand their lives. Even more important still, it has allowed me to be the one who I now am. It reminds me that time is borrowed and that nothing is so serious.

On the other hand, “Rain” of Puerto Asterix poetically writes in the short post “Fugacidad” (“Fleetingness”):

Todo se evapora en un segundo, en diez años, en un día o en lo que dura, el abrir los ojos en las mañanas.

Everything evaporates in one second, in ten years, in a day or in the amount of time it takes to open your eyes in the morning.

There are those things that you never know how long they will last, even though we wish that they were eternal. Mu, of Just MU It, knows this clearly and describes it in his post “Y tú por qué escribes?” (“And you, why do you write?”):

Yo escribo porque a veces pienso cosas tan irrelevantes que si se las contara a alguien de seguro haría una pausa, un silencio incómodo de 10 segundos y luego diría “anyway…” previo a un cambio de tema.

Otras veces escribo para escribir entre líneas. Decir dentro de una historia lo que siento en una línea, decirte que te quiero por ejemplo, eso me encanta.

Y porque le temo a la muerte, escribo para inmortalizarme.

I write because sometimes I think up such irrelevant things that if I said them to somebone, it would surely make them pause, followed by an uncomfortable silence of 10 seconds, and then an “anyway…” searching for a change of subject.

Other times I write to write between the lines. To say, within a story, what I feel in a single line. To say that I care about you, for example, enchants me.

And because I fear death, I write for immortality.

Irrelevant mutterings, love, desire, fear. These are things that are found in blogs. And which are among the reasons they are so widely read. But that's not it, of course; we also find literature, fiction mixed with reality and with personal twists of tales:

En el intermedio la gorda se acerca a mí como una lapa, no puedo quitármela de encima. ¿Sabes que son los blogs?- me vuelve a interrogar. No tengo ni puta idea- le respondo con una mirada que merece más su conmiseración que la reacción de rabia que yo esperaba. La gorda no se siente mal por mi respuesta, todo lo contrario, trata de explicarme que la comunidad blogger es lo mejor que hay para conocer gente culta. En este momento la gorda no cabe en su emoción: Acaba de ver en mí, a otra incauta a quien vender la idea de que ser blogger es como cambiar de religión, pues te garantiza el paraíso prometido de las relaciones sociales en èsta ciudad.

At some point the fat woman came to me and, like a mollusk, I cannot remove her from above. Do you know what blogs are? – she interrogates me again. I don't have the damndest idea I tell her with a look that deserves commiseration more than the rage I awaited. The fat woman doesn't feel bad after my response, just the opposite, she tries to explain to me that the community of bloggers is the best way to meet cultured people. At this moment the fat woman no longer fits within her emotion: She stops even seeing me and looks to seize another to sell the idea that to be a blogger is like changing your religion, it guarantees the promised paradise of social relations in this city.

The narration is called, almost inevitably, “The Fat Woman” and is in the blog “Lima: Crónicas de un Transeúnte.” (“Lima: Chronicles of a Passer-by”). It is also the blog with which we end this small journey that I hope you have enjoyed.

Translated from Spanish by David Sasaki

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