My Mind Words Paper:
LIFE

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is a division of Macmillan Publishers Ltd, dedicated to serving the academic, professional scientific and medical communities.

Nature Arabic Edition has a vacancy for an Associate Editor.

This exciting position involves working as part of a small editorial team on all aspects of the editorial process, including commissioning and editing review translations, writing short articles, and developing the content of the journal, both in print and online.

DESIRED SKILLS & EXPERIENCE

To meet these challenging tasks, the ideal candidate will have a broad scientific background, and hold a PhD or equivalent in a relevant field. Other important attributes include excellent Arabic literary and verbal communication skills, good attention to detail, well-developed time-management skills and good interpersonal skills.

COMPANY DESCRIPTION

Nature Publishing Group (NPG) is an international publishing company that publishes academic journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine. This includes Nature research journals and Nature Reviews journals (since 2000), and academic journals that are society owned publications.

We just got back from yet another trip to the border town of Macará. It was the final leg of our year-long journey to obtain my resident visa. I have written a little about this process in previous posts, including the one about our trip to Quito last July and another about our trip to Peru last January. Well, last month, the migration office in Quito finally stamped my passport and I am now a permanent, legal resident of Ecuador. But, since I had originally entered the country as a tourist, I was now required to leave and re-enter again so that they could register me as a resident in the computer system (apparently that can only be done at the border, not in Quito). And, I was told, if I waited until after my old tourist visa expired (April 11) I would end up having to pay another $200 fine the next time I tried to leave the country. So we decided that a quick trip to Macará wouldn't be a bad idea (good thing it is only a 4 hour drive away).

I was a little worried about taking the trip because we are in the middle of the rainy season and landslides are quite common. A bad one can block the roads for several days. Luckily, the day we chose to drive down it did not rain and all the landslides from the previous weeks rain had been cleared. It was the first time that I had been in that area during the rainy season and the change was amazing. All the trees had green leaves and there were flowers and new plant growth everywhere. The hills, which I'm used to seeing as dry and brown, were green and exuberant. It looked a lot more like the tropical rainforest than the bosque seco (dry forest).

On the way down to Macará, discussed how to handle the border crossing. I needed to get a stamp from both the Ecuadorian side as well as the Peruvian side. We had heard that officially I was supposed to spend at least 24 hours outside of the country, but neither of us wanted to do that again. Everyone had given us advice on what to do; we should drive to the nearest city in Peru and eat lunch and then go back; we should cross the border and then walk back to Macará, spend the night in a hotel, and then walk back over the border the next day and act like we were coming from Peru; we should bribe the guards; etc. We couldn't decide what was best, so we decided to just go to the border and see what happened. We had brought some money with us to bribe the border guards if necessary, even though Lucho admited that he was not very good at doing that kind of stuff.

The first official we spoke to, on the Ecuadorian side, was typically unfriendly and unhelpful, but after Lucho asked if his boss was in town he seemed to lighten up a little (probably wondering if we knew him or not) and told us that he could help us so long as we were able to get the stamp from the Peruvian side. So we crossed the international bridge over the Macará river (which was brown and swollen due to the rains - I held on to Christina's hand very tightly) and made our way to the Peruvian border office. Lucho did all the talking while Christina and I watched the angry river below. Lucho asked the guard if he would stamp my passport with an entrance and exit at the same time. Then he pulled out a $10 Peruvian sole note (worth about $3) and told the guy that he was welcome to keep it for his trouble. The guy looked at it and asked, "Don't you have one of those, but in dollars?" Luckily, we did. So he gave us the needed stamps, and we headed over to the Ecuadorian side. The official there stamped my passport and we gave him $5 for his trouble (we were going to give him the $10 bill, but we had already given it to the Peruvian guy so he was out of luck on that one). Success!!!

We ended up buying a 100 pound bag of rice from them for $30. The rice from Macará is very good and now we have enough to supply us, and the rest of Lucho's family, for several months.
It felt great to get all that paperwork out of the way. But when I looked at my U.S. Passport the next day I realized that it expires this August (I had forgotten all about it while I was working on my Ecuadorian paperwork). So now we're planning a trip to visit the U.S. Consulate in Guayaquil. I guess it will never end...

Deadline: 1 December 2012

Youth for Human Rights International launched its global movement with an essay contest. The response to the call for essays describing the individual human rights was widespread and enthusiastic and brought attention to our organization with the goal of a world of cooperation and peace through human rights education. Local, regional or international contests are powerful activities for getting youth involved and learning about human rights.

COMPETITION THEME: What Are Human Rights?

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Read the booklet What Are Human Rights?
2. The essay should be approximately one page long.
3. The poem can be handwritten or typed (single spaced).
4. Send this information:

• Name:
• Age (18 and under):
• Country:
• Parent/Guardian name:
• Parent/Guardian signature:
• Parent/Guardian email address for notification:

NOTIFICATION: December 10th, Human Rights Day

All poems and essays will be considered for the YHRI website. Unfortunately, due to the large volume of submissions only a selection of poems will be placed on our international website!

Deadline: 16 December 2011

This is a call for materials for a biographical book on the life, work and legacy of David Kisule Kato the deceased Ugandan human rights defender for s3xual (and other) minorities. The biography is being developed and written by researchers in the Law, Gender and S3xuality Research Project of the Faculty of Law at Makerere University Kampala. We are interested in a range of materials including essays, fiction, poetry, web blogs, art, crafts, photographs, film, documentaries, speeches, diaries, letters and other correspondence, music, academic publications, etc. that reflect any aspect of the life and work of David Kato. We invite materials from family, friends, lovers, partners, colleagues, allies, students, other human rights defenders and advocates, social justice activists, s3xual minorities, academics, clerics, parliamentarians, journalists and anyone else with something (whether positive or negative) to say about David Kato�s life, work and legacy.

Materials about the different commemoration activities and memorial events held after David�s death are also welcome. The materials will be collected alongside interviews and focus group
discussions conducted in rural and urban Uganda among those who knew David Kato. Although the main language of the biography will be English, relevant materials written in Luganda, Kiswahili, French, Portugese, Spanish and any other African tongue will be translated for inclusion. The deadline for submission is 16th December 2011. All received materials will
be duly acknowledged.

Please send material to:

Stella Nyanzi,
Law, Gender and Sexuality Research Project,
Faculty of Law,
P. O. Box 7062, Kampala � Uganda.
Email: snyanzi@law.mak.ac.ug or
stellanyanzibah@googlemail.com

Contact Information:

For inquiries: snyanzi@law.mak.ac.ug or stellanyanzibah@googlemail.com

For submissions: snyanzi@law.mak.ac.ug or stellanyanzibah@googlemail.com