As we did with great success last year, we are organizing the Cafe Tertulia again for the Spring semester. This is a excellent opportunity for Spanish learners on campus to practice their linguistic skills in a series of conversations focus on a range of current topics. The hour-long tertulia starts with a brief presentation on a current topic related to a different country in the Hispanic world, followed by lively and informal discussion.

This is the schedule for this semester’s Cafe Tertulia. Each session will take place at the Spanish Resource Center, from 11 am – noon. Light refreshments will be served.

Wednesday, March 25 – Costa Rica

Wednesday, April 1 – El Salvador

Wednesday, April 8 – Spain

Wednesday, April 15 – TBD

Tuesday, April 28 – Colombia

Mark Schafer is co-coordinating the Café Tertulia. He can be contacted at Mark.Schafer@umb.eduor 617 287-7549. His office is M-4-610.

SPRING 2015

Center for Portuguese Language Camões

“Dois dedos de conversa”

Free Classes

Conversational Portuguese Practice

This conversation class is ideal for students who have studied and/or know Portuguese, but they need to practice and learn vocabulary. This class will help students developing their oral proficiency in Portuguese and it offers a wide variety of Portuguese language training options to suit their availability and tutoring needs, whether they wish to learn Portuguese in a one-to-one with a trainer, you wish to learn Portuguese with a small group of students.

Audiovisual materials such as newspaper articles, music, film, and other authentic materials will be used in this course in order to promote opportunities for conversation.

Activities:

• Discussion on current events
• Emphasis on vocabulary expansion
• Pronunciation and listening exercises
• Improvement and understanding of Portuguese idioms

Mondays | beginners

Tuesdays | intermediate

11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Contact information:  Maria Madureira

maria.madureira@umb.edu

Center for Portuguese Language Camões: Healey Library | 6th floor | room 12

For more information, click here.

Grandmothers’ president recovers grandson taken away under dictatorship

Estela De Carlotto, the president of activist group the Grandmothers of the Plaza De Mayo, learned today that the grandchild taken away during the military dictatorship of 1976-83 had been found.Sources from the group, which aims to reunite the children taken from those disappeared during the dictatorship with their genetic, informed that De Carlotto’s male grandson had been located after voluntarily coming forward for a DNA test.He is the biological son of Laura, the daughter of the Grandmothers’ president who remains disappeared.”The result was positive, we have found my nephew. We are very excited. The boy turned up voluntary because he had doubts over his identity and the blood test showed a 99 percent match,” Kibo Carlotto, the Buenos Aires province secretary of Human Rights, told the press.

According to the Infojus website, Guido Carlotto, 35, lives in Olavarría and is a musician, playing the piano. He is expected to meet his grandmother later today, after spending his entire life unaware of his origins.

Laura was two months pregnant when kidnapped by security forces on November 26 1977, and according to testimony she gave birth to a child she named Guido in the Military Hospital in June 1978.

After the birth, Laura was returned to the ‘La Cacha’ clandestine detention centre, without her baby, and murdered on August 25 of that same year.

Other articles to read are:

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/ultimas/index.html

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/06/argentinian-grandmothers-find-son-of-woman-murdered-under-dictatorship