Lost in Translation

Just a quick note on a small blessing in my life. I've always liked reading a good paper. By good I mean one that makes me think, provides insight into the world, and broadens my understanding of culture, politics, economics, literature, etc.

Up until this week I hadn't found such an animal. El Tiempo is the paper read by most executive types here. Frankly I have been very disappointed with it. It offers think pieces on topics that don't really interest me (e.g. in-depth analysis of Colombian politics), and in general just tells about the events of the country without any interesting commentaries on what has happened. I often found that I would buy the paper and end up reading only two articles because the rest made me yawn just looking at the titles.

El Espectador is a little bit better for my taste, as it comes out only once a week. For this reason, the editors have more time to find insightful articles. But again, the paper shows a surprising dearth of information about the rest of the world.

Many of the other papers of broad circulation in Bogota are not fit for Christian eyes. One, El Espacio is like a Colombian version of the National Enquirer, only worse (as a Christian I don't even look at the paper hanging on the rack because you never know what you'll see).

All this said, I finally ran across a good weekly paper, which is Tiempos del mundo. It is a sister publication to the Washinton Times. I received a free issue over the weekend and read almost every article. It included articles on the U.S., the conflict in the Middle East, the foreign policy of Hugo Chavez, migration globalization, etc.

I have stepped up my Spanish study in the last few weeks, spending some time on Tuesdays and Thursdays with building my vocab and pronunciation. This paper is going to become part of that routine.