On the forgotten, sandy dunes: Namaste Jaisalmer

These train trips give enough time to get oneself some time to clear thoughts and impressions, so it's better start getting done with it. I just left Jaisalmer, a small village about 40 kilometers from Pakistan, in the borders of the Thar desert. The place is small but full of charm: once capital of the state and home of many Rajput, Jaisalmer used to be the a strategic spot on the commerce between Persia, Indostan and China. After the opening of harbors in south India and the conflicts with Pakistan, the state has struggled to keep their finances alive, and nowadays lives mainly from tourism.

The first impression when entering the walls of the old city in Jaisalmer is to be back in time to 1200... The whole complex is a labyrinth hard to comprehend, and each corner has a new surprise. Rajastani art and architecture are simply astounding, and buildings (both inside and outside the complex) have very curated forms: starry and cuneiform are the windows, and one ponders how much time stone carvers have invested in the finishing of the ceilings. White stone, miniature sculptures and details covering Jainism and Hinduism cover the old city. If you ever played Diablo II, then this place was definitely the inspiration to recreate the second city in the game.

On the first day I went to wander the city, which unfortunately had grown touristic places in almost every corner. It is hard to go anywhere without seeing a sign of a shop recommended by lonelyplanet or tripadvisor, and therefore one has to watch where to stick the head into: most of the places have been awarded a good rating one year, to later deteriorate the services while keeping high prices. I have a 2008 lonely planet guide, and could see how the places recommended there were nothing particularly good in terms of product quality or services when it came to restaurants. The second day was perfect to go to the markets and polish the bargain strategies (lots of things to learn still), get an Indian haircut (which includes knuckle massage in your forehead--quite an experience) and a camel safari.

Tripadvisor did help me to find an amazing place to stay: The Shahi Palace just outside the city walls (which is more sustainable than staying inside, where the old aqueduct cannot cope with the increasing demand of touristic services). Not only the place is cheap and beautifully decorated, but the people there were friendly to the extremes. From the pick up in the train station to a free transportation (Indian style --three people in a bike--) when I needed, and generally a good disposition here make you feel like in a little palace. 

Enough of reviews, and let's talk about people. It's crazy how easy it becomes to get in contact with people when traveling alone. It's just a simple Hi, sit down somewhere and listen a bit, and breaking the ice becomes extremely easy. Sometimes my "Indian" look works against me, and other tourists initially think that I'm going after their rupees when I address them. For good or worse, my accent helps to get a different contact (although for Indian merchants I go by Naveen, the half-Indian living in US).

Jaisalmer had three touching local characters in my stay: the first one is the owner of a new hotel, the Mystic Jaisalmer, where I went to share a beer with some fellow travelers. Since the moment I sat next to this guy, an air of peace entered the terrace where we were. Dev (to give a name), loves religions, and every once in a while he embraces a different stream that suits at that point of his life. He said that as a Sufi, one don't have a god but a lover, and such lover is represented in many forms, including other religions. We discussed broadly in the connections of dance and meditation, and I found interesting to know that part of the meditative rituals include solo dances (and in many aspects close to the ways Gabriella Roth's Five rhythms therapy uses with dance as a catalizer). Unfortunately my time was short to get to know more about Sufism.

The second character of this story is the camel guide. He is 35, and since he was 15 he walks the desert 12 hours a day, 365 days at a day for a salary of 3000 rupees (or 35 euros, roughly). He never went to school (only 60% of Rajastani people can read or write, less than 40% in women), but still prefer the peace and the stars of the desert than the sound of horns in Jaisalmer. Each of the people paying the camel tour pays 1250 rupees per trip, which tour won't start with less than 4 people. A camel cost 30.000 rupees, and given the low maintenance of the camel, we can neglect the sums of vaccinations in India. There's no need of a phd in social economics to know that these guys are heavily exploited, and their lack of education preserves this breach.

The last one, and probably the one that I felt closer with, was my driver. No, I am not used to drivers, and I'm ok finding my way out in a foreign city. Hemant picked my up in the train station and since then was the most attentive person in Jaisalmer. It is a bit funny how times have changed so much, and the rewards in terms of money of old times have been substituted by other expressions. After a great help in my stay, Herj came to me with a notebook so I could teach him some Spanish phrases so he could receive better Mexican tourists, which are close for arrival. He is a service minded guy, that knows well that the word of mouth (or a tripadvisor recommendation) brings more food to the table than anything else, but is humble enough not to show the need. Cannot but compare it with the place where I live now, where been friendly has little influence in your paycheck, and where efficiency primes.

Now, off to my train bed, as the blue city awaits in four hours.

Chemins de vie: voyage en Inde

I don't remember when this blog had a post that could be so adapted to its title. "Life crossroads" had been a blog full of intersections between ramblings of feelings, travels and general appreciations. I want to start writing again during this month, with the pretext of informing my friends on my adventures running over the Indian subcontinent, but also with the aim of documenting a glimpse of the life of the people I cross my road with. Apologies for the absence of visuals of these posts, as they won't come until I get my camera synced.

The purpose of this trip is a bit uncertain, but serves as as the conclusion of a process in a year that have had many bumps in the road. A year that I have certainly grow up as a person, and learnt to center in my personal road instead of others'. From 2014 I will start a new job, with a clearer idea on how to profile my career future, excited of being again in a Latin culture, where are many things to learn. Certainly it comes at a stake of renouncing to a comfortable life, to six years of knitting a thight social network, good friends and a "local feeling" that one that you have when you know how to approach each situation, because you have done it before.

Before entering in the core of this post (the trip to India), let me stop for a second on a reflection coming from these changes: we sit in two different of extremes: the young, inexperienced warrior, who does not know but does not fear, and the experienced, petrified observer, who knows a lot from his ivory tower, but fears too much to jump into a real experience. How do one get the balance between the thirst of actions  that ignorance grants, and the accurate aim given by experience?

I want report on my first 48 hours of trip. Started on my trip from Copenhagen to Istanbul, where next to my seat I met Ataer, a Turkish guy in his mid forties. I have never been to Turkey and Ataer wanted me to learn as much as possible from the culture, and the market possibilities of Turkey, which, after being the main representative of one of the biggest headphone companies in the world, he knows quite well. He was funny and all that, but reminded me why the corporate world attracts me less and less. It is filled with individuals only centered in their ego, with no interest in the other. This is not to say that academia is not a place for strong egos (who could ever say that?!) but my last years in industry have shown me that it feels more cynical here than in the university world.

After almost losing my plane in Istanbul and adjusting my time 5:30 hours more than in Copenhagen, we are in India.  After reading so much about health and money threats I'm a bit paranoid on this trip, and I pay an overpriced iced tea in the airport that I barely touch due to be scared of water poisoning. I feel this experience is going to be hard, as there are so many aspects I won't be able to control, and I feel that letting myself simply let go can bring to uncomfortable situations, but I'm doing my best.

After refusing something that seemed like an arranged cab, and driving 15 times around the same four streets to find my hotel, we get into Karol Bagh, at the Rockwell Plaza hotel. Indians may know English, but some of them have such a strong accent that is impossible to understand them: Rockwell turns into Rokvel and Plaza turns into Playa, and I thought myself in Goa already. The budget hotel is spacious and clean, and the personnel some of the friendliest people I have ever met, but I miss couch surfing so much. Because of safety recommendations I have decided not going into any CS house, but it simply feels empty an experience without the local point of view. On the other hand, after seeing Delhi you understand why Cs was probably not the best choice. The city is so diverse, so chaotic and unstructured like anything I have seen so far. My hood (Karol Bagh) is popular for receiving tourists, although a bit older than the ones going to Paharganj, the other backpackers area. I tried to find a compromise between price and experience for these two days and it seems acceptable, although still overwhelming. The area is mostly a gigantic market, full of smells, flavours and colors. If somebody that reads this post knows my home city, they can think of going to a market place like La Alameda to get the same feeling. Despite being a busy, dirty place, it feels predominantly safe. Here, nobody notices me,  and even the concierge in my hotel believes my mother or someone in my family is Indian (I suppose Christopher Columbus gave a good name to the West Indies after all). That helps me in my advantage comparing to other tourists, as I am not spotted as a $$$ resource, nor mobbed to become a customer.

It's hard to report from the first day, apart from the fact that the jet lag pays tribute and I sleep the whole morning. Out of the many places I wanted to go in Delhi I decided on one, the red fort. My way there is my first real culture shock: the zone of Chadni Chowk is a chaos, where no space in the street is left without a soul. Street markets, food, dogs, hundreds of rickshaws or public dumpsters populate the place, and it's really hard not to get touched by it. The best moment of the day appears in the same area. Orange dresses, flowers and chants seduced me, and I entered into a gianist temple. The atmosphere is sacred, and I have to take my shoes off and cover my head to enter. Vibes are strong, and this music has something hypnotizing in between those powerful drums. Now it's that I remember why India attracts me so much, and why this cocktail of religions is impossible to get anywhere else.

After the gianist experience, it's time to reach the red fort and try my Indian look. I get local prices for the show of the lights and sounds, with the disadvantage that I get to the Hindi show instead of the English... There you go resemblance! My brain refuses to learn Hindi today, so we call it a day.

The second and last day in Delhi is devoted to a visit to the national museum. There's so much history in this continent, that the two hours suggested for the visit will not make it justice. It opens questions, like why India migrated from Buddhism to Hinduism, when the evolution of religions in other areas of the world shifted from polytheism to monotheism. The museum has an impressive collection of artwork, specially ivory and stone carvings, as well as the history of the many miniature painting schools in India.

The last hours I have spent learning more on the life of Ganesha with my coach mate Sandeep, who is pilot and goes to visit family in Jodhpur. I asked about the nature of arranged marriages, and he answers me with the following question: when do you think you are going to be happy, before or after the wedding? And certainly touches my visions of marriage....

That's all for today, and tomorrow we will be riding camels and exploring forgotten forts in Jaisalmer.

A la que ríe

Sabes una cosa? Hoy me he topado con las 4000 fotos que tuvimos juntos, con tu sonrisa a veces tímida y a veces límpida,  y tu cabello azabache, y tu mirada de grandes ojos negros. Cuántos años son? seis, siete, quince? La verdad es que, Visitarte en mi memoria se vuelve un placer y una añoranza, y una razón para quererme más. Me enseñaste de sinceridad, aún cuándo esas palabras significaran que no tenías absoluta idea de que ocurriría. Me mostraste que hay una gran diferencia entre el amor pasional (que de amor tiene los 30 primeros minutos bajo las sabanas) y un amor-construcción, que crece a nivel del tiempo y el dialogo. Hoy te agradezco, pues de mil bocas que he besado, es a ti a la que debo gran parte de mi identidad.

En un mundo de Facebook e Instagram, de relaciones liquidas y fugaces, es una constante el desapego y la insatisfacción. Te quiero hoy, y mañana sales de mi lista en la medida que atentes contra mi idea de integridad. Qué egoísta es el 2013, no te parece? Me siento anciano cuando digo ¨En mis tiempos luchábamos por lo que valía la pena¨, y pareciese que hablara de 1930 cuando hablo del 2007. Si a alguien puedo llamarle cabo a tierra, es a ti, querida mía. Tu, que siempre fuiste tan voluble como el Helio; esa que cada semana entraba en intervención en crisis (y me volvía un experto en el tema), fuiste la persona más segura en una sola cosa, la cuál ni en Europa, ni 7 años por fuera me han mostrado. Tu me enseñaste que el amor dista mucho del cuento de Snowwhite y su armada de enanos, o que la visión de ¨Happily ever after¨ omite en gran parte aquellos momentos donde tienes que sentarte y rediseñar una relación, y que lo haces porque es una decisión en conjunto, y no un simple capricho juvenil.

El llegar a hoy me ha traído muchos aprendizajes, expandir mis horizontes, confrontar mis creencias de amor, amistad, y familia, de decir si a lo desconocido y de aprender a decir no. Me devuelvo por un instante, un vuelo que cambiaría mi vida: una mujer que deja de pensar sólo en ella por un segundo, y otorga la libertad sin esperar nada a cambio. Ese es tal vez el regalo más grande que me hayan dado.

Gracias a ti, por esas enseñanzas. Creíste en mí y gracias a eso hoy estoy aquí, intacto y sonriente. No te busco, te dejo libre, pero me llevo de ti un ideal de pareja, y de mi rol como persona, amigo, hermano y amante.

Un cubano que me cae bien.

El nombre no es nuevo, pero de vez en cuando vuelves a tus raíces, escuchas una canción que te mueve el alma y le pone palabras, ritmo y sentido a tus sentimientos. Hoy hablo de Silvio, el revolucionario, de Silvio, el poeta, de Silvio, el que camufla los deseos de un país en los besos de una historia de amor.

Hoy me moviste, cómo hace mucho no lo sentía, cuando me susurraste al oído hablandome de los amores:
¨La cobardía es asunto, de los hombres no de los amantes.
 Los amores cobardes no llegan a amores, ni a historias, se quedan alli
 Ni el recuerdo los puede salvar
 Ni el mejor orador conjugar¨

Hoy, mujer innombrable, huye como una gaviota, porque si te quedas, no te volverás a ir.

Hospital news

Today I am broadcasting from the hospital: the last five days I have been interned due to a twisted fracture in my tibia and my fibula. The story is the following: during one capoeira play, my opponent and I became very close from each other. We were playing capoeira d'angola, which is a variant of Capoeira where opponents try to play close to the ground, and perform movements to "bribe" each other and make him perform something we want. Well played, Capoeira d'angola is not a violent variant: you perform movements on a question-answer basis (you kick, I defend, and vice-versa). Not all the times you play it well. It might be that the tension of the moment makes you cross the line of a simulation and make it real, and you kick your opponent, or it might be that you are new at it and still don't know your body: you might kick in the wrong direction, open too little the legs, or block the wrong side of your head. In this case I didn't calculate the measures properly. I performed a "tesoura do pe", a movement that blocks and tackles the opponent, making him fall:

I had my opponent on top of me and I felt I could go out of his block by making him fall down, and when kicking him I did not calculate that the space where he was supposed to fall was occupied by my leg. The result: His whole body weight was placed over my lower leg, generating a twisted fracture on the tibia and the fibula. I've been receiving rye-bread diet during the last five days.

--

Some days past and now I am comfortably seated home, where I can finish this post. I'd like to describe the attention in the whole medical process, which I found pretty interesting in some ways, comparing to other places I've been before:

1. The first thing to do in case of an accident, is to call the emergency center. They will not send any ambulance unless you have fainted (in my case, with a broken and swollen leg, they recommended me to drive to the closest hospital), nor provide any useful information. However, doing this step seems to be necessary to be admitted in your ER room, as they have told me afterwards.

2. Once arrived to the hospital, there is a "do-it-yourself" mentality in the ER rooms more proper from IKEA than from an emergency room. There are no porters, no nurses nor anyone that can provide you some information associated to the hospital. The emergency room is located in the middle of nowhere (pretty convenient when driving for the first time with driving a patient with cardiac arrest, I imagine). In my case, I got a wheelchair because the friend driving me found one an empty one after roaming around asking for information unfruitfully. If I was alone, I think they would have expected me to hop to the counter.

3. Despite being so different, the healthcare systems in Colombia and Denmark seem to recruit people for their ER with a requirement of having no humanity in their treatment. After arriving to the hospital, I was taken care 3 hours after, and in the meantime I only got some ice and paracetamol to relieve the pain.

4. The big difference comes later, when passing from the ER rooms to a real treatment. The nurses and doctors seem to be, not only highly qualified, but they do care a lot about your stay and your comfort while hospitalized. I have never been received a menu with different options for a dinner in a (public) hospital. When it comes to information, they were through in explaining all possible consequences, and give me the liberty of influencing the decision on which treatment suit me the best. I have received this kind of treatment only in private hospitals in my country, and only because in most of the cases, I know the doctors attending me.

4.B. A funny aspect that I got to know while in the hospital, was the effects of cycling in unprotected gear all year round. I was hospitalized in the orthopedic surgery wing, and when talking to the doctors, they mentioned that most of their patients arrive in the winter season, and they are mostly girls cycling in high heels. I just remembered all those wonderful images from Copenhagen cycle chic:

The fact is, that despite how good your legs look on heels and a bike, there are increasing risks on falling of a bike with heels. On the icy season, pavement gets slippery and when falling, a high heel does not provide enough support for your heel, which normally ends in a surgery and long months of recovery.

5. Technology goes fast, and that is ever more evident in the healthcare industry. In a country like Denmark, you feel that there are a good investment in new technologies. For instance, I got an X-lite cast, which is an ultra light cast made out of biodegradable plastic. It allows your skin to breathe (almost nullifying that horrible itchiness from chalk casts), is slim but still strong and feels comfortable (you are still with a cast, but still).

Now, I will have 8 weeks of doing everything from home. It's a new process and I hoping not to go crazy in this period.

Kære danske pige....

It has been a bit more than four years since I first stepped in danish ground, with times on and off inside this society and their amusing cultural behaviours. In most of the aspects, I can see myself as a well adapted immigrant that can find his way in the middle of social constructions and protocols that in many other lands make no sense. One thing that I have never fully understood, is the way danish girls approach the contact with members of the opposite sex, which makes me get into very uncomfortable situations from time to time. The word "dating" seems to have a big weight in the danish society, but a different conception than the one I have coming from a latin world. Today I want to shed some light to you, danish girl (or girl living in Denmark for XX years), on what me (and perhaps most latin guys) actually mean when they are talking to you:

Let's call this:

"Guide for understanding the latin behaviour in the light of scandinavian women":


1. The fact that I talk to you without having 4 liters of beer already processed in my liver, does not mean that I want to sneak in your underwear, nor that I want to marry nor have children with you. In the place where I come from, being outgoing, spontaneous and forward-spoken when it comes to conversations is the natural behaviour, and to do that we do not require to be drunk. In fact, although alcohol ingestion is a socially accepted routine, being drunk is generally seen as a very disrespectful behaviour towards yourself and the ones neighboring you.

2. A latin individual in scandinavia tend to have roots in the society based on his network of friends (unless being married/divorced). That means that most of the compromises that come from family activities are not binding for a person like us. Do not misunderstand that with a conception that we "do not care about family": on the contrary, having a very weak state in our respective countries of origin makes family the backbone of our society, and latin people are very proud of their family traditions.  We also regard meeting the family as a very intimate act, that only comes with a friendship or a long term relationship.

3. Yes, a latino can be talkative, joyful and playful with friends and no-friends. That does not mean he is an "easy-goer" or that he wants to sleep with all the girls he talks to. Discussions with other people are the milestone to a deeper understanding of our society, and we love to compare our own cultural facts with yours. A smile is not an indication of a flirt, nor an invitation to bed. In case of doubt...well, we are in Scandinavia, so you might well ask directly.

4. I Never, I repeat, Never go on dates, unless you are my girlfriend or somebody I know for a long time. That is because I consider "dating" as a very romantic moment that the person in front of me needs to earn. Yes, we are the romantic type that can give flowers or open the door to our beloved ones, but it can't be anyone. That is different from the scandinavian conception where dating can be considered a sport that you practice with regularity with one or more people at the same time.

5. Yes, latin people have in general a different conception of time than nord-europeans. That might lead of spontaneous invitations or encounters without too much planning. If you receive an invitation like that, that does not mean we are "desperate" to see you or have something with you, that only means we got some time off and we would like to spend it with you, because we care of you as a person. Don't think it too much.

6. Finally for now: when meeting and liking a person for the first time, a latin guy might like to get to know the person better: whether the interest will evolve into love, a friendship or a plain acquaintance will be unimportant for him.  We normally invite friends over, irrespective of gender and age. Several times I have received a question:  "Are we going out on a date?" I find this really rude, because you are judging in advance what your intentions are with a person you barely know. After talking with danish girl-friends I got a plausible explanation --it is effective, and you don't have to think too much where this encounter is leading--. I like to be effective at work, but in my social environment I am clueless on how a relationship will evolve, and considering going on a date with a person I have met once will contradict point number 4.


I hope I have cleared some of the normal questions when trying to interpret my behaviour towards you, It has indeed helped me to understand how we both races are so different in minimal things.

Spamming you: project updates

So, I will start using this blog to report the advances on my research. It will as general as possible so anybody interested would be able to follow. I am doing this because I need to push myself to write everyday, and do closures after every milestone created. Giving that I am doing this only 5 months before my hand-in date, it can be a bit too late to inform you, but we will see how does it go.

Today I am going to ramble a bit on one of the open threads in my research

Open Specifications of Concurrent Processes. The most common way of specifying concurrent systems is to take a set of communicating processes, and establish the interactions between them by input-output primitives. Think for a second on a model in which you have a patient Alice, a doctor Bob, and a Social Worker Charlie (switch the gender of roles if you think I am being chauvinist here). Now, you will like to express a case in which the patient feels and comes to the doctor in order to receive a prescription.

The following set of activities will be included in our specification S:

1. Alice comes to Bob for a medical appointment.
2. Bob checks out on Alice and formulates a medicine treatment.
3. Bob sends the medicine formulation to Charlie, so he can deliver it to Alice.
4. Alice gets the medicine from Charlie and starts taking her treatment regularly as specified by Bob.
5. After some days, Alice comes back to Bob for a control, and the symptoms have dissapeared.

Now, many details have been hindered from this example. First of all, the current example only details the interaction between three of the main actors involved. This is, however, not a complete model. For instance, considering a private health care institution that has to fulfill auditing processes, we will have that, between phases 2 and 3. other actors will come into play.

Our specification S will be extended accordingly. We call the new model S´:

1. Alice comes to Bob for a medical appointment.
2. Bob checks out on Alice and formulates a medicine treatment.
3. 1. David, the accountant, has to certify that the treatment is covered by the insurance hired by Alice.
   2. Emma, has to Audit that the process is fulfilling the standards given by the healthcare institution with respect to prompt medicine delivery, quality of service and so on.
4. 1. Bob sends the medicine formulation to Charlie, so he can deliver it to Alice.
5. 1. Alice gets the medicine from Charlie and starts taking her treatment regularly as specified by Bob.
6. 1. After some days, Alice comes back to Bob for a control, and the symptoms have dissapeared.

So, here the question is: Is it S a valid specification? and How is S related to S'? Is it clear that the notion that we are looking for has a lot to do with refinement. Basically, refinement will tell us that a specification S and an implementation Q are related if the set of behaviors in S is a subset of the set of behaviors exhibited by Q. Up to here, there's nothing new to the concept, and you can simply google "refinement concurrency" and will find a lot of examples, most of them based in similarities and testing theories.

Now, most of the times we will start specifying systems constructively, adding up more and more roles (and their respective behaviors) over the time. This, will lead us to start with a specification like S, knowing that each of the actions can be further refined with more and more behavior. To do so, transitions in S can be either the classical, fixed ones where a process exhibits an immediate a before evolving into P', or can be "open" transitions , where the process P can exhibit a series of actions in A before evolving into P'. This "open transitions" allow us to describe explicit stages in a process in which a process can be refined with any of the actions considered. Here, transitions become weaker, as they might need more than one step for moving from P to P', they also become broader, as the set A can involve more than one action a.

Obviously, these changes lead us to a different notion of refinement, in which you consider sets of transitions instead of a single, hardcoded interaction. Without bothering you with the details, we will say that an open refinement relation P R Q considers 1) That the transitions in P are covered by the transitions in Q, and 2) That if P allows for a open transition of the form , then there exists a sequence of transitions in from Q to Q' such that all actions in A are covered.

The new definition of open specifications lead us to very interesting paths on the verification of processes. First, open specifications are partial specifications by nature, and then one can explore the connection between these and logical reasoning. Returning to the example, one might be interested in saying things like "I know that I have to visit the doctor, and irrespective of all the other agents possibly involved, once I am in front of the social worker, he should deliver my medicine".

Currently, we already have the definitions of open specifications and refinement, plus a small logic to relate the transitions on a process and a set of formulae in the logic. Our next step is to map different specification models (for instance, the Pi calculus, or a Calculus for Choreographies) into this model, to prove its usability. My plan is to be able to talk a bit more on this subject from here until the beginning of October.