Bolivian Dancers, NouBarris Quarter, Barcelona

This is a group of Bolivian dancers with their colorful traditional costumes, in Nou Barris quarter, Barcelona. As part of an initiative by a local guild of shops and other small businesses, an integration party was organized in an attempt to show all time neighbors what newcomers' traditions are like thus strengthening the ties among the old and new Catalans. Immigration numbers have been skyrocketing in recent years in Barcelona and the process has been so fast that it takes some time for locals to assimilate different aspects such as behavior, language, cultural activities, food. This process, which is part of globalization and is inevitable, as it is inevitable that humans travel, interact, blend, trade and make a living where they see fit, is an old issue in the rest of Europe, in countries like France, Germany or the United Kingdom and now it is Spain's turn to face it. Young people, specially students have no difficulties with ethnic or social traits but our parents and grandparents are sometimes old fashioned and narrow minded.

Stink Bug on Pumpkin: Mimetism

A stink bug trying to mimetize on the surface of a pumpkin is not related to Barcelona unless we recall that Halloween is coming and pumpkins are omnipresent in this magical time of the year. But let's face it the star of the picture is what I think is the nymph of a Southern Green stink bug or Chinche Verde in Spanish (scientific name: Nezara viridula (Linnaeus)). An amazing image of the same bug here: Nezara viridula nymph by Joaquin Portela. The peculiar name is due to the fact that when crashed or in case there are a lot of them together a foul smell can be felt. We can easily spot them on top of this smooth surface under the light of the afternoon sun because we know that such "lump" shouldn't be there but surely on first sight mimetism does the trick with birds or other predators. Now that I popped in the bug issue on today's post what better than a beautiful set of insect macros by Manuel M. Almeida (mmeida) at Flickr who also runs Imagina Fotolog

See also Insect Macros in my Barcelona Photography swicki or perform a specific search following my photography customized Google searchbox on the top right corner of the blog if you wish.

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The One Eyed Cat is King

In the country of the blind the one-eyed cat is king. I took the liberty of rephrasing this wise saying. I happened to read the story by H. G. Wells many, many years ago, about a man lost in the mountains, I think it was in Los Andes. There was some sort of cataclism and there was no way back. He wakes up in a town where everybody is blind and although for some time he thinks he was bound to be the king among the unfortunate inhabitants he soon discovers that he was totally wrong, in fact***spoiler ahead***they soon decided that he had to be deprived of his eyes so he could be one of them, a normal citizen. I digress a lot today, but this poor cat, so young and yet so impaired really caught my attention and reminded me of the famous words.

My recommended blogger of the day: South Shields Daily Photo by Curly.

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