Kay M. Winnegrad's Page
Profile Information
- About Me:
- I came to Costa Rica in 1987 for a 2-week vacation and literally "couldn't leave"!!! I stayed for 7 months because I felt I had "come home" (even though I couldn't speak a word of Spanish at the time). I ended up in a town called Montezuma, a tiny fishing village "at the end of the earth" (almost at the tip of the Nicoya Peninsula). Only 4 people owned cars at the time and one of the things I loved the most was that it was difficult to get to, so there was little or no "tourism".
Now all of that has changed and Paradise has been "discovered", changing the town from simplicity to one of the preferred tourist attractions of Costa Rica, yet it is all concentrated within a very small town. The blessing is that those of us who came long ago are predominantly "environmentalists". So even to this day, we have no condos nor high-rise hotels on our beaches. People can walk for two hours on our beaches and each beach is different from the other (what brought me first to Montezuma was my guide book which said, "Montezuma has the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica".)
I purchased 27-1/2 Acres (11 Hectares) of land which I have dedicated as a "Wildlife Sanctuary" and have built 4 totally different, fully-furnished rentals on it (a Tree House that sleeps 3, a cottage that sleeps 6, another two room cottage and a Luxury Villa which we have used for Weddings, Retreats, Workshops, Family Reunions, or even two couples renting the entire home). I never intended this property to be used as a commercial enterprise/business; however, the property necessitates a full-time worker, daily maintenance, paint, varnish, gasoline for the machine to cut the grasses, a part-time gardener, etc. Therefore, these expenses demand that we generate an income. We always try, however, to charge rental prices that work for everyone's budget, excluding no one, and at the same time provide the income we need for general maintenance and upkeep.
We don't "advertise" and we've had excellent results by word of mouth. We are "away from it all" and yet less than 5 minutes into town and the beaches. It has always been our desire to attract those people who value living within a Wildlife Sanctuary, and wish to stay in harmony with nature. Our views are incredible and we are bordered by the famous Montezuma River with its beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes. If anyone is wanting information, they go into our blog,
www.montezuma-sanctuary.blogspot.com
and see all the pictures pictures of 3 of our rental options. If you wish to make further contact, simply write to me at milagros@racsa.co.cr I don't advertise. I guess you could say that this is my first actual, kind of, advertisement of sorts.
With much love and light, Kati (milagros@racsa.co.cr or KayMWinneg008@gaiafield1.ning.com)
Kay M. Winnegrad's Blog
Love is all we need!
Let's all come together on September 21st and see what our "love and light connection" can create on this planet...we are the world!!!
Posted on September 16, 2007 at 7:30pm —
About
Badge
About
The Gaiafield Project is a collaborative action research program of the Gaiafield Center for Subtle Activism at CIIS.
© 2009 Created by David Nicol on Ning. Create a Ning Network!
Comment Wall (4 comments)
You need to be a member of Gaiafield to add comments!
Join this Ning Network
Rene Wadlow
The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed in Resolution A/61/L22, the year 2009 as the International Year of Reconciliation “recognizing that reconciliation processes are particularly necessary and urgent in countries and regions of the world which have suffered or are suffering situations of conflict that have affected and divided societies in their various internal, national, and international facets.” The Resolution was introduced by Nicaragua’s representative who stated that “reconciliation between those estranged by conflicts was the only way to confront today’s challenges and heal wherever fraternity and justice were absent from human relations.”
Yet we need to ask how can genuine reconciliation take place between people and groups with bitterly held beliefs and a violent history? How can the needs for national healing be reconciled with the demands for justice by the victims of terrible violence?
The General Assembly resolution gives a partial answer by stressing that “dialogue among opponents from positions of respect and tolerance is an essential element of peace and reconciliation.”
For there to be a respectful dialogue among opponents, certain barriers that prevent negotiations must be dismantled as a sign of a willingness to enter into a process of negotiations. Some barriers are physical, some psychological, others ideological. These barriers must be overcome if we are to progress on the long road to reconciliation. Let us, with the New Year, start now both as individuals and as members of movements in the spirit of the historian Howard Zinn’s “People are Practical”
They want change but feel powerless, alone,
do not want to be the blade of grass that
sticks up above the others and is cut down.
They wait for a sign from someone else
who will make the first move, or the second.
And at certain times in history
there are certain intrepid people who take the risk
that if they make that first move others will follow
quickly enough to prevent their being cut down.
And if we understand this, we
might make that first move.
…And if we do act, in however small a way,
we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future.
The future is an infinite succession of presents,
and to live now as we think human beings should live,
in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself
a marvellous victory.
Rene Wadlow, Representative to the UN, Geneva, Association of World Citizens
Rene Wadlow
November 25 is the UN-proclaimed International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. Violence against women is a year-round occurrence and continues to an alarming degree. Violence against women is an attack upon their bodily integrity and their dignity. We need to place an emphasis on the universality of violence against women, the multiplicity of its forms, and the ways in which violence, discrimination against women, and the broader system of domination based on subordination and inequality are inter-related. The value of a special ‘Day’ is that it serves as a time of analysis of the issue and then of rededication to take both short-term and longer-range measures.
The UN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, adopted by States in the General Assembly of 1993, gives a broad definition of violence as “ any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”
The Declaration highlights violence within the family, violence within the broader community, and violence perpetrated or condoned by the State. We will deal briefly with these three areas of violence against women.
The Family: Although the family should be a safe haven with relations among its members guided by respect and love, it is often within the family where the most psychologically devastating forms of violence take place — devastating because such violence goes against the expectations of a safe and harmonious haven. We see battering, sexual abuse of female children in the household, dowry-related violence, marital rape, female genital mutilation and other traditional practices harmful to women and violence related to exploitation carried out by family members and intimate partners.
Within this family setting, we also need to look at the conditions of domestic workers, often working under totally unregulated conditions. Live-in maids can be subjected to slave-like treatment at the hands of the members of the family employing them. They can encounter humiliation, work and sexual exploitation and violence, often with no access to justice.
The Wider Community: As the preamble to the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women states clearly “Violence against women is a manifestation of the historically unequal power relations between men and women, which have led to domination over and to discrimination against women by men and to the prevention of women’s full advancement, and that violence against women is one of the crucial social mechanisms by which women are forced into a subordinate position compared with men.” This universal phenomenon is embedded in a patriarchal structure which legitimates mechanisms of enforcing and sustaining the system of domination.
As Adrienne Rich wrote in Of Women Born “Patriarchy is the power of the fathers; a familial-social ideological, political system in which men — by force, direct pressure, or through ritual, tradition, law and language, customs, etiquette, education, and the division of labor, determine what part women shall or shall not play, and in which the female is everywhere subsumed under the male. It does not necessarily imply that no woman has power or that all women in a given culture may not have certain powers… The power of the fathers has been difficult to grasp because it permeates everything, even the language in which we try to describe it. It is diffuse and concrete; symbolic and literal; universal, and expressed with local variations which obscure its universality.”
Many of the tenets of patriarchal gender order concerns male power to control women’s sexuality and reproductive capacity. The honour and prestige of a man, in many instances, are intrinsically associated with the conduct of a women related to sexuality, leading in some cases to ‘crimes committed in the name of honour’.
Within the wider community, we also see physical, sexual and psychological violence, including rape, sexual abuse, sexual harassment, and intimidation at work and in educational institutions, trafficking in women and forced prostitution.
Education, psychological care and sociological change are important to combat violence within the family and the community.
The State and Armed Insurgencies: There is physical, sexual and psychological violence perpetrated or condoned by the State. The State has a clear duty to control the behaviour of its police, prison, and other agents of justice. Victims of violence by the agents of the State should have clearly set out mechanisms by which they can appeal to the State for redress and compensation. Violence against women in custodial and prison conditions is still a widespread phenomenon which requires a review of national legislation but especially a real investigation of national practice. In many ways ‘law and order’ can be a ‘war on the poor’ and the misfits or a ‘war of segregation’ which can translate into arrests of members of specific social, ethnic or religious groups.
We see violence against women used as a systematic weapon in conflicts as these days in eastern Congo by both governmental forces and the armed insurgencies. Women, children and the elderly are the most vulnerable in war-torn societies.
There are also real but less visible psychological and personality disorders left by a conflict. Therefore the role and needs of women in post-war reconstruction and reconciliation require immediate special attention.
Thus, this November 25, we need to look carefully at the causes of violence against women and to develop further the policies and institutions leading to human dignity .
Drawing :Cecile Wadlow
René Wadlow, Representative to the United Nations, Geneva, Association of World Citizens
Yes, "Love is all we need", "love and light connection" and that is what I'm asking you!
Love, Understanding, Peace, Prosperity, Harmony, Unity Truth, Wisdom Hope Light...!!
Helena
I am thrilled to hear about what you are doing. I also have a strong connection to Costa Rica. i was an exchange student there in 1991. I lived in Heredia. Where is your ranchito?