My first -and hopefully not last- lecture!
Last Tuesday I gave my first lecture ever. It was pretty exciting, although I felt a bit nervous at first.
The subject was very extensive and that made it scarier. "The Political, Economic and Social Situation of Central America and The Caribbean". I felt pretty confident talking about Central America, but not so much when it came to the Caribbean, for two reasons: a) The Caribbean includes over sixteen countries (it depends on the criteria taken into account), while Central America only six or maybe even seven (if you include Panama). I'm Centralamerican, and my education has always been a bit Central America-centric, if you know what I mean. And b) The Caribbean is much more heterogeneous and diverse than Central America is. Finding similarities between Guatemala and El Salvador and making generalizations of it was a lot easier than trying to do the same between Cuba, Haiti and Puerto Rico.
Anyhow, I was excited about this lecture and happy that I had been asked to do it. I stood in front of about 30 seminarians and one nun for over an hour and basically didn't stop talking. A lot of questions raised and the result was an intense discussion and a profound reflection of over 35 Latinamerican souls about the reality we are part of and our commitment to transform it.
At the end we all felt worried, frustrated and, most importantly, committed. I felt this was a good first lecture.
The subject was very extensive and that made it scarier. "The Political, Economic and Social Situation of Central America and The Caribbean". I felt pretty confident talking about Central America, but not so much when it came to the Caribbean, for two reasons: a) The Caribbean includes over sixteen countries (it depends on the criteria taken into account), while Central America only six or maybe even seven (if you include Panama). I'm Centralamerican, and my education has always been a bit Central America-centric, if you know what I mean. And b) The Caribbean is much more heterogeneous and diverse than Central America is. Finding similarities between Guatemala and El Salvador and making generalizations of it was a lot easier than trying to do the same between Cuba, Haiti and Puerto Rico.
Anyhow, I was excited about this lecture and happy that I had been asked to do it. I stood in front of about 30 seminarians and one nun for over an hour and basically didn't stop talking. A lot of questions raised and the result was an intense discussion and a profound reflection of over 35 Latinamerican souls about the reality we are part of and our commitment to transform it.
At the end we all felt worried, frustrated and, most importantly, committed. I felt this was a good first lecture.
rocio - 7. Jul, 23:36
maximus - 8. Jul, 02:17
no parece que no sabes nada...fraude! ;-)
wvs - 12. Jul, 17:23
There's certainly ....
one - quite obvious - similarity between the 'American way' and your attitude I could identify: If you don't talk about your achievements yourself - nobody else will ...!
Hopefully you and your fellow-students will keep in mind that 'the American way' may not be adoptable to Central-America to the extent the Americans would like to have it - even though there is a lot to learn from North-America, it might be a good idea to be cautious about what and to which extent to copy from them .... a bit more 'Canadian' than 'American' would do less harm to those who are at the bottom of the social structure of most Central-American (plus latin-American) countries ....
Hopefully you and your fellow-students will keep in mind that 'the American way' may not be adoptable to Central-America to the extent the Americans would like to have it - even though there is a lot to learn from North-America, it might be a good idea to be cautious about what and to which extent to copy from them .... a bit more 'Canadian' than 'American' would do less harm to those who are at the bottom of the social structure of most Central-American (plus latin-American) countries ....
