on the Trek to America

A Deadly Jungle on the Trek to America

Some 90,000 people have crossed the Darién Gap this year on the trek to the U.S. The jungle between Colombia and Panama is one of the most dangerous migrant routes in the world – and not everybody makes it out alive.
The most dangerous part of the journey for Romain and his small family lies just ahead: Right after crossing the Gulf of Urabá, they will need to enter the jungle connecting Colombia and Panama, the rainforest of Darién. They will face an approximately six-day journey by foot through a dangerous forest where getting lost is common. Others collapse in exhaustion and remain lying in the jungle, an environment with raging rivers, poisonous snakes and wild pumas.

Mexican Spanish

‘Mexican Spanish is permeated by indigenous languages’

https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-08-13/mexican-spanish-is-permeated-by-indigenous-languages.html

Many Mexicans still feel that Spanish is an imposed language, and do not feel that this is their language

What came to Mexico was Spanish with many dialects influenced by Andalusia and the Caribbean

Because the Habsburgs always had a policy of separating the Indian villages from the Spanish villages. Divide and conquer. Separate them and then each one is in their corner and I can control them better. But in that separation, there was a great respect for their customs, legislation and indigenous ways of life. The Habsburg dynasty respected the separation of Indian villages and they used intermediaries. Documents show that they were Spanish-speaking Indians, in the sense that they spoke both languages. They spoke Zapotec and Spanish, for example.

When the Bourbons ascended the Spanish throne, they totally centralized the administration. They eliminated the separation of indigenous towns and Spanish towns, and of course imposed Spanish. Remember that they had been living together for 200 years, and that the Indians had also adopted Spanish because it was more fluid and faster for them to communicate in Spanish than to communicate in Nahuatl and to look for an interpreter. That was not because of ‘how nice it sounds.’ It was purely for survival.

Yusra Mardini

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusra_Mardini

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/team-refugees/how-yusra-mardini-survived-25-day-trek-syria-became-olympian-n601946

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/yusra-mardini-rio-2016-olympics-women-s-swimming-syrian-refugee-competing-olympics-who-saved-lives-17-people-jumping-open-water-and-pushing-their-sinking-boat-safety-a7173546.html

Afghan in the Balkans

‘Police searched my baby’s nappy’: migrant families on the perilous Balkan route

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/feb/01/balkan-route-migrants-croatia-bosnia-border

“Out of a total of about 8,000 migrants in Bosnia, about 2,000 people are basically left to fend for themselves in abandoned buildings, squats, makeshift settlements and in forests,” Nicola Bay, the Danish Refugee Council’s Bosnia director, says. “These people include families, children and unaccompanied minors that have practically no shelter, no access to basic services and no access to proper healthcare.”

Bosnia-Herzegovina and immigrants

With the EU having long since blocked off the Balkan Route, more and more migrants have become stranded in…

Posted by SPIEGEL International on Thursday, January 21, 2021

 

https://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/migrants-stranded-in-bosnia-herzegovina-animals-have-it-better-than-us-a-28e1b2b9-24c1-4014-a7e6-176d7a513d1e