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December 12, 1911 Mona Lisa Recovered

December 12, 1911

The world famous Mona Lisa painting was recovered in Italy. Thieves, dressed as Louvre janitors stole the painting 2 years earlier.

I saw the Mona Lisa when I was in Paris. It was not easy to see it as there was a crowd of people surrounding the masterpiece.

Thanks to the website classroom clipart.com for the Arc de Triumph graphic (left) which is not far from the Louvre Museum.

Helene with 2 Burmese women -Anne-Marie and Aye Aye Thant Sept. 1988

The above photograph is myself and my Partner in Best Burma Fair in Bangkok's English Newspaper, The Nation in 1988. We are seen giving the check to Aye Aye Thant. We are standing next to a photo of her father, U Thant, who was UN Secretary General in the 1950's. A brief explanation of the fundraiser is in this morning's blog post.

This photo was given to me by my dear Burmese friend, Anne-Marie Tresham in 1988. See the previous post about Burma.

I Was in Burma Long Before Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton was in Burma this week. I was in Burma in December, 1987.

It was rough. There was almost no bottled water. The bathrooms in the guest house where I stayed smelled so badly I almost couldn't take it.

Travelers were only able to get a 7 day visa but I met an Israeli traveler who told me how i could extend my stay.

People who needed to get to parts of the country 10 hours from Rangoon, stood in vans and held on to a railing for the entire ride.

I kept asking myself "How can people take it?". I received my answer a few months later when people began to protest peacefully in the streets of Rangoon. The government shot some of the protesters and people were dying in the streets and the hospital hallways. Aung Sun Suu Kyi made her speech at that time.

I was back in Thailand and a Burmese friend of mine and I organized a Best Burma Fair fundraiser where we were working, in the Phanat Nikhom refugee camp. With the help of Save the Children, who gave us their building and others who were working the camp, we raised over $1,000 and got the money to Aye Aye Thant, a Burmese woman living in Bangkok who was somehow able to get medical supplies to the Burmese.

Taught Saving & Investing in Costa Rica

I taught Saving and Investing at the National Public Library of Costa Rica in March, 2011. A photo of the Library is attached.All of my teaching was in Spanish. First I had to teach myself how investing worked in Costa Rica. To do so, I read the financial newspaper and I interviewed Costa Rican financial professionals in Spanish. It was very challenging.

When teaching investing I used examples from real life. I showed an offer from the Bank of Costa Rica (BCR) . If people invested by April, 2011 they could receive very high interest. I also used Bond Fund information that Banco Popular shared with me. I taught people how to read Fact Sheets and compare January 2010 to June 2010 information for different funds with different risk profiles. After considerable practice, I divided my class into smaller groups. Each group was assigned a different fund and was to report on changes from January to June (2010), composition of the fund i.e. were all of the bonds government bonds or were some instruments business bonds . Because Costa Rica is such a small country there wasn't nearly as large a selection of investments as we are accustomed to in the U.S. Also I pointed out that different bonds had different expiration dates and showed participants how they could identify those.

To teach the Saving session, I also had to teach myself about the Costa Rican every day life matters. How much were people paying for cell phone use, basic food items, transportation and more. I spent a great deal of time going to the grocery store, taking public transportation and interviewing accountants and others.

Hillary Clinton Will Go To Burma

Hmmmmm…. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will soon be traveling to Burma. Well, I was in Burma in December, 1987. I had extreme difficulty finding a bottle of clean water to drink. I was nacreous for 3 full days after I left. In September, 1988 my best friend, Anne Marie Tresham and I raised over $1,000 (in Thai Baht) to help get medical supplies to the marching Burmese who were being gunned down in the streets.

I kept asking myself, “How can people take it?” Nine months later Aung Sung Suu Kyi, 1990’s Noble Peace Prize winner, made her first public speech in Rangoon.

Most people know the name of the country as Myanmar. Jim Carrey and I still call it Burma.

Anne Marie now lives in Perth, Australia.

Microlending Neat Offer

Take a look at this offer from Whole Foods if you want to help people with very few resources get a hand up:

http://blog.wholefoodsmarket.com/2011/10/microlending-calendar-purchase

You can purchase a calendar for a small amount. The proceeds will go to help raise money for micro lending. When you do this you will receive 10 coupons good at Whole Foods.

Lonely Planet Coupons

Attention Lonely Planet lovers-

Try http://promocodes2011.com/lonely-planet

I found a 30% discount coupon on there to use on Lonely Planet's Online Store.

There are a lot of Lonely Planet coupon websites. Go to this one.

Let me know how it works out for you.

Costa Rica Just Got Back

This post is dedicated to Jeanette.

Costa Rica Hmmmm.... Why is it such a popular travel destination? Well, every 40 minutes the geography changes. You can be in San Jose in the morning, visit the cloud forest in the afternoon and the next day see one of the many volcanoes. The Pacific is 3 hours drive from San Jose, the Atlantic is only 5 hours drive in the other direction.

If you do not particularly like (or do not have the time) taking the public bus, guess what? There are air conditioned tourist busses that pick you up at your hotel (no, I'm not kidding) and drop you off at the next hotel.

Since respecting local culture is very important to me I try very hard to read up before I go. I took a lot of taxis in San Jose (they are inexpensive). Once I saw a sign on a taxi dashboard "No tire la puerta". I asked what does the verb tirar mean. "Eslam" was the reply. "Todos los gringos tiran la puerta". I had not realized that for 2 months I had been slamming the door too hard! The driver and I laughed.

Jumbo Supermarket

This afternoon I went to Jumbo Supermarket (pronounced Joombo) in Guadalupe, San Jose. The food court had recently been remodeled. I ordered fish, rice, cooked peas and carrots and platano. I rarely eat platano because doesn´t exactly help one maintain one´s weight. It cost 3,275 colones.

After several bites I saw something black, over an inch long in my food. A cockroach.

The cashier called a manager and they gave me back the money. I thanked the manager and said that I would like to receive something for free so that I can leave the store with a positive experience.

The manager got another manager, Adrian. I explained and he was very attentive. He said How much would you like to receive? I replied 5,000. Done. I will be here at the front of the store to tell the cashier, he continued.

When I got to the cashier I told her what is going on and that I will pay the difference (which was 2,500) She called Adrian over and he said, ¨Give the entire amount to the customer¨. I was very pleasantly surprised andt told Adrian I will put this on my website. He gave me a wry smile.

Egypt

Oh my.
I was in Cairo for 3 weeks in June, 2005. People were wonderful to me. Every time I left the Economy hotel and started walking within 10 minutes 12 Egyptians were walking with me. ¨Hallo¨,¨Where are you from?¨, Ï want to live in US¨.

I have traveled extensively in the developing world and have had many positive encounters with nationals but in Egypt many more people came up to me.

Now the people who so warmly welcomed me to their country are in turmoil. I tried to call Hotel Victoria where I had stayed. Sure it´s possible that the hotel staff have changed but I wanted to show my solidarity. Hotel Victoria is walking distance from Tahrir Square.

On cable news there is considerable discussion about Egypt´s future. Will the next government honor the Peace Treaty with Israel? What if the new government will be committed to destroy Israel? What if Jordan will go in the same direction? Israel would be surrounded by enemies committed to destroy her.