Sitting on the stairs opposite the French embassy in the afternoon I enter my final debate. We are watching as a huge trail of French people queue around the embassy and back again waiting to vote. The amount of people is astonishing. I later learn from my contact Elise, at FUNDESO who spent an hour and a half in the queue, that she joined other voters recruited by desperate embassy staff to count the piles of votes until way beyond midnight. (more…)
I spend the final afternoon of the conference on the edge of my seat, furiously taking down notes and desperately hoping that my Spanish will not fail me and will allow me to at least get my head around some of the incredible ideas and provocations of the anthropologist Carlos Gimenez. Gimenez is a professor of anthropology at the Autonoma University in Madrid, but I suspect this is a humble introduction to a man whose previous work has included advising on the UN peace process in Guatemala. (more…)
One of today’s speakers cunningly reminds me of that old chestnut :”there is no such thing as the right answers only good questions” . If he is trying to find a clever way of telling us he is finding it hard to answer some of our questions I am with him in that boat completely! (more…)
I have just come back from the first round of the conference and my head is already buzzing with ideas. Joining me at the conference are around 40 professionals from a range of backgrounds from teachers to criminologists, journalists to social workers and the setting is a far cry from the standard business-style conference centre. FUNDESO have decided to do things differently this time and it is a very welcome change. (more…)
I never realised how much I would miss Madrid or how much I had until very late on Thursday night as I tried to fall asleep. Tossing and turning, my thoughts were bombarded with so many memories of this fascinating city that never sleeps….I certainly couldn´t that night. (more…)
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