lios de faldas: roughly, 'lady trouble'

I've been struggling with this term since the then Colombian Defense Minister, Luis Carlos Villegas, argued that the wave of murders of social leaders defending the peace accords were just “líos de faldas”—roughly, “lady trouble.”

I ran across this translation in this wonderful article in @nacla, which offers a great overview of the wave of murders and its impact.

Diana, in the image here, was of one of the 170 leaders murdered since the accords were signed - 27 of whom were women. This image is from a beautiful project that is seeking artists to draw images of each of them. Check out the ones they have so far here, and if you know an artist who might donate one, please spread the word.

tranque [Nicaragua]: barricade

tranque [Nicaragua]: barricade

You could also use blockade or roadblock - though those terms don't necessarily convey the temporary and improvised nature of it.

Nicaragua has been full of these lately, though their numbers have been going down. I realized that this was the Nicaraguan term for them from this debate about the Nicaraguan resistance and the politics of solidarity with it on Democracy Now.

As I've blogged before, in other countries they use terms barricada or bloqueo. In Mexico it is sometimes tope de carretera, and it can be a piquete in Argentina (though that term can also refer to an entire movement).

From the photos I found online it seems like Nicaraguan tranques are often made out of cement blocks, which is not as common in other Latin American countries.
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note: Thanks to Barbara Wood for pointing out over on the facebook version of this site that the cement blocks are paving stones. The same ones used by the Sandinista guerrilla as they fought to overthrow Somoza.

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