Essays on Latin America and Globalization; Travel Stories and Interviews.

 

 
Welcome to our Home Page and Mission Statement (i.e. why bother?)
 
Cafe Mundo is an open forum for our visitors to publish research papers, essays, travel stories, and photos. We translate much of what is on the site into both Spanish and English, and hope to encourage a cross-cultural dialog about life in the U.S. and Latin America: about poverty, deforestation, history, development, and living abroad.
 
We welcome contributions from visitors living  in Latin America, who can share the experience of working and living in that half of the Western Hemisphere than North Americans know very little about.
 
Historically, coffee houses have been places where people met and exchanged greetings and information. They were places for dissent, financial collaboration and cultural exchange in communities from Europe to America. Lloyd's Coffee House of London was a famous meeting place for ship captains, and published tide tables and news from overseas as "Lloyd's List." Hence the Cafe Mundo name, which suggests a virtual coffee house.
 
At this coffeehouse we want to provide a forum to discuss subjects both entertaining and serious told through essays, photos, and interviews. We want to create a dialog outside of the classroom and the media where travelers, writers and businesspeople can share ideas and experiences.
 
Ideas are important. They are the building blocks upon which we build our systems of government and public policies. They are the foundations of our cultures. Our contribution is to promote a discussion of ideas grounded in reality and experience – without regard to ideology.
 
Some of these ideas are:
 
  • Poverty and deforestation have political causes.
  • Democratic systems are based on trust. Societies with high levels of transparency and respect for the rule of law are more prosperous and functional than those that are stratified and predatory.
  • People everywhere aspire to liberty and prosperity – these aspirations transcend time and culture.
  • Latin America’s problems, like those of the United States, have causes that are largely internal.
  • Life is not a class war. We will all prosper or suffer together.
 
On a lighter note, we present travel stories and photos provided by people living and traveling abroad, as well as a Photo Gallery of interesting themes and images. Living and traveling abroad is a life-expanding experience. We hope travelers and expatriates will contribute an article to our Travel Story section, for others who may follow in your footsteps.
 
Why Bother? We want this website to be a forum where writers and travelers can share their experiences, essays and research while sipping a cup of java at their keyboards, thousands of miles apart.
 
 
Submit Your Own Work
 

 

What is on the Site?