Tijuana turns wastewater into wine, as Latin America dips toe in reuse

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/tijuana-turns-wastewater-wine-latin-america-dips-toe-reuse-n824176 

Within this article by Thomas Reuters, he tells us that the city of Tijuana is starting to break the barrier on their water crisis by simply reusing it. This is all starting to happen through a winery that is reusing water from the water treatment plant to irrigate their grapes used to make the wine. By using the treated water rather than the natural water that they would normally get from another irrigation system, it helps out other winery’s that struggle with the lack of water due to their location like the one in the Baja de California Peninsula that competes for water supplies from other local towns. Reusing water is a very underused system in the world and in Latin America only 30% of the wastewater is treated, but with their newfound knowledge of what they can do with the reused water, they will surely implement more water treatment plants to help create more reusable water for the people.

The Latin American people are portrayed like a progressive people in a way that they are in search of a cleaner and easier way to get water to their crops to further businesses but they are also mindful of the economic problems that the reuse of water can cause for the people.

Relating to our class theme of the identity of Latin America, these people seem to be thinking about the future and what they can do to make life easier for them like bringing another “source” of water to their problem of lack of usable water as their solution. This shows them in progressive mindset as said before but also they are mindful in what their actions can cause as far as economic problems and who should get the water (city or farmers) for a higher price or maybe even the same price.

Art and Memory in Latin America

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-41926222

Within the article, the writer tries to show how the people within Latin American communities use art to help protest the “extreme state violence” that they have went through after the civil wars in Guatemala and Chile. In the main skit done by Regina Galindo, she reads the testimonies of indigenous Mayan people who “suffered massacre, torture and rape at the hands of the Guatemalan military during the Central American country’s 36-year civil war.”, but while she reads the testimonies, at certain intervals within the show, a doctor comes in and injects her mouth with anesthetic. When he does this her speech becomes more muffled with each shot of anesthetic. This is a huge part of the show as it shows that even when the government (the Doctor) tries to silence the victims (Regina), they still try to speak out and will never be ultimately never be silenced.

The Latin American people within the article are portrayed as strong in the way that even though the government is against them, they still stand up for what they believe in by creating a civil war between them and the government. Also as portrayed by Regina’s performance, they refuse to be silenced by the government for their actions that have brought them terror and the power to stand up for what is right.

This article shows the true identity of the Latin American people as they stick together and try and rebel against the government that has violated and terrorized them for 36 years during the civil wars in Guatemala and Chile. Art for them is the best way to showcase their pain and protest the government. This article also showcases their identity in the creative arts as they use many different forms of art utilizing their indigenous roots of their Mayan ancestors: plays/skits, posters/paintings, etc.

100 Women: Football offers girls a shield in Brazil’s violent favelas

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-41473353

Within the artice, they talk about the extremely dangerous favelas within Brazil that are the battlegrounds between the police and drug gangs. within the article they provide a crazy statistic that states that a “Rio resident is hit by a stray bullet every 7 hours”, which shows exactly how often there is gun violence in the favelas of Rio, Brazil. because of all the violence, the youth is endlessly looking for ways to get away and stay safe throughout the day, and a way that a group of girls do this is by going to a pitch in the hills to play soccer. the pitch was built by a UK charity that gives under privileged youth an opportunity through sports. the charity wanted to make this area off limits to violence and talked to many of the residents, police and even gangs to help keep this area free of violence. although the residents and gangs have agreed to make this area off limits to all violence, the girls still have to cancel practices due to the frequent shootings that happen throughout the week. through all of this, the coach of the soccer team has helped over 300 children a year “reducing their risk of exploitation and abuse, developing their life skills, and improving their education, training, and employment opportunities.”.

The Latin American people in this article are portrayed as poor and violent but not by choice as they live in very poor situations and struggle to survive. The help that they receive to help protect the youth is extremely important as they are the future of that community and giving them the best opportunity to be the best that they can be will only help the community. Also how the gangs and police have both tried to agree to the restriction of violence in that area shows that even though they are committing crimes, their intention isn’t to hurt the children so it shows that they aren’t as completely savage as they are made out to be.

This article connects to the theme of identities of Latin America by showing how the people in Brazil were presented with a serious problem with violence and decided to make a change to help make the violence affect less of the youth in the area.

Freddy Bernal, Venezuela’s minister for urban agriculture, visiting a rabbit farm.

Strange, Hannah. ‘They put bows on them’: Venezuelan plan to encourage rabbit-eating amid food shortages goes awry as people adopt them as pets. Telegraph. 14 Sept 2017

Within this Telegraph article by Hannah Strange, she talks about the Venezuelan food crisis and how they plan to deal with it by encouraging the people to breed rabbits for meat. The Venezuelan president called this attempt to help his people from the crisis, Plan Rabbit, and Strange writes that he thought that this would be a great idea to implement a new alternative food source to the people that is less expensive than other mainstream meats like beef and chicken that has become extremely expensive. It started out as a trial held by Venezuela’s minister for urban agriculture, Freddy Bernal. He have 15 communities baby rabbits to grow and breed and then collected the rabbits again to count them. What came back to him was very surprising to him because many rabbits came back with names and bows on their heads and were treated as pets instead of potential food.

After seeing that the rabbits were being treated as pets, Bernal decided to try to adjust the way that people viewed the rabbits, from pets to food. He also insisted on switching to goats to take the place of cows within the crisis. This food crisis is causing an economic collapse within the country and has caused record levels of malnutrition in children states Strange. She also states that the average Venezuelan has dropped 19 pounds due to the food and economic crisis. As a result of this, many people are leaving Venezuela in search of a new life and the president of Venezuela blames this crisis on the opposition that is against the government while analysts blame it on the inflammation of the currency within Venezuela as it is now inflated up to 700%, and the drop in imports that the country basically live off of.

This article shows that the people in Venezuela, although in a economic and food crisis’, seem to be unaffected mentally throughout this time of crisis as they don’t really take the opportunity to provide food for themselves but instead keep their sanity through making a pet out of what should have been a stable’ish food supply given to them by the government. The article has some pictures that show how the officials are reacting to how the people are treating these animals as pets but they seem to be humored by the citizens reaction to the rabbits instead of mad or some other justifiable emotion that would come from a plan not working the way that it was planned to.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/09/14/put-bows-venezuelan-plan-encourage-rabbit-eating-amid-food-shortages/