Homeless After a Mudslide

Last February there was a major mudslide in La Paz, Bolivia. It happened during their rainy season, which is coming again soon. Thousands of people were left homeless after the mudslide and are wondering what this year’s rainy season will bring. Most of the landslide victims have been moved into small prefabricated houses which are often shared by two families. Some victims want to move back to their land, but some say the hill is too insecure to live on.

      I think that this is an unfortunate natural disaster. Although it is good that most of the victims have moved into homes and should be safe from disaster this year. Hopefully nothing major happens as this rainy season comes. I don’t think it is a good idea for people to want to move back to that unsafe land, especially when the know it is already weak from the informal building on it and the makeshift septic tanks. They are blaming evil spirits for what happened on the hill. The smarter people know to stay away from that hill. I don’t agree that the victims should have to move to La Paz’s sister city, El Alto. Hopefully they can get this figured out soon, so nothing like this happens again.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-16347406

Foreign Exchange Student in Michigan

         Eugenio Garcia was a foreign exchange student from Mexico who came to live in Bay City, Michigan for his sophomore year. Eugenio said that his experience in Michigan was a great opportunity to learn more about the American culture. He became bicultural, because he knew about the Mexican and American culture. Eugenio said that he knew English before he moved to Michigan, which helped a lot. After three months in Michigan he could speak very fluent English.

     It would be really fun to be a foreign exchange student. You would be able to experience a different culture and learn about how they interact with each other. I think that you would have to be a very open-minded person. You would have to be able to adapt to many different situations, and go with the flow of things. The first few weeks of your stay in the country might be a little hard to adjust to because you are meeting a new family and living in a new house for the first time. I don’t think I could make it three months without seeing my family and living in an almost different world.

http://www.topics-mag.com/english-learning/foreign-exchange-eugenio.htm

Lake Atitlan Pollution

     Lake Atitlan is in Guatemala. Atitlan is the deepest lake in Central America. Many indegeous people rely on this lake.  Recently the water has turned from its clear, blue water to murky, brown scum. The scum on this lake is actually a species of cyanobacteria. Researchers believe that this bacteria is caused by nitrogen and phosphorus, found in fertilizers used to promote crop growth in the lake’s basin. They are working on a solution to help clear the lake.

      It is sad that pollution affects even the largest lake in Central America. This lake is used for a lot of things. The indigenous people fish on it, tourists come to visit it, which helps the native people. The people of this area also count on the lake for drinking water, but now they have been warned not to even bathe in this water because it is so contaminated. They say that the cyanobacteria is not the problem, just a symptom of the lack of pollution control in the area. The indegenuous people have taken measures to help clean up the lake. Women spend time everyday to skim of the scum on top of the lake. Children spend time cleaning up the garbage along the beach. There is no long term solution to this problem, yet. I hope they can figure out a way to clean this lake and keep it that way.

http://indigenouspeoplesissues.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7091:guatemala-pollution-threatens-lake-atitlans-indigenous-communities&catid=30&Itemid=63

Population of Hispanics in Minnesota

Minnesota is has a fast growing Hispanic population. Most of the people live in the North West Central region of Minnesota. Over 230,000 Hispanics live in and work in Minnesota. They are the largest minority group in Minnesota. This puts Minnesota in the top ten states to have a fast growing Hispanic population. Minnesota is also the sixth state in the nation for fastest growing economical or buying power.

This information did not surprise me very much. I knew that a lot of Hispanic people live around Minnesota. They aren’t many where I live, but if you go to places around us, you will notice that there is more Hispanic people living in Minnesota. Some people think that Minnesota is made up of a whole bunch of Scandinavians and Germans, but they are starting to notice that we have a mixture of races living here now. I think that it is good that there are so many Hispanic people living in Minnesota, because we don’t have much diversity in our population. It would be interesting to go to a school that had more diversity so we could experience other cultures and traditions.

http://www.hispanicmn.org/

Mexican American Culture

The Mexican American culture is a blend of cultures from Mexico and North American cultures. Mexican Americans have strong family ties and love to socialize and gather with their extended family. Most Mexican Americans are very religious, many are Roman Catholics, but they can also be Evangelical or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Mexican Americans are fun loving and music is important to them. Living in American doesn’t mean they have to forget their songs and festivities.

I think it is great that Mexican and American cultures can blend to produce a new unique culture. It sounds like the people who live this way have good values but still have fun. I think that this culture represents that people can all live and blend together. The Mexican American culture is responsible for different things in our culture, like Tex-Mex food. It is cool that our cultures blended to create something different. Mexican Americans still get to experience a lot of their culture, but also can experience the American culture. It would be fun to grow up living with two cultures and having such a close family.

http://library.thinkquest.org/C008371/

Spanish Lunchtime

The average Spanish person eats more than an American person in one day. Spanish people walk off their lunches, though. The lunch in spanish cultures is the biggest meal of the day. It consists of multiple courses. People take two to three hour breaks to stop and each lunch. The children leave school to go eat lunch with their family and adults shut down stores for a couple hours, too.

            It would be cool to go to Spain or Mexico and expierence their lunchtime meals. I would probably gain a lot of weight if I ate that much, though. I think it is nice that the children and adults take time out of their day to go and eat and spend time with their family. They are probably pretty close, since they spend a lot of time with each other. The kids and adults probably like taking a break from the work they are doing to have lunch and catch up with their family. It is a lot different than American culture, but I would definetly want to try it. I hope that they keep this tradition going for many generations, because it makes their countries different and unique.

http://spanishfood.about.com/od/discoverspanishfood/a/spain_meals.htm

Bike Riding in Mexico City

         Many people in Mexico City have started to ride bicycles for their only transportation. The mayor of Mexico City introduced a plan to advertise biking and its benefits it can have on the people and also the environment. This plan reduces the amount of cars driving in Mexico City and helps keep the pollution levels down. It seems that the richer own cars in Mexico, but now more and more people are biking, now.

            I think that this is great. Mexico City is taking responsibility of reducing pollution in Mexico. It seems that if the idea was advertised more around Mexico people would start to listen about saving the environment. Mexico City now has bike lanes and organizes Sunday rides, to promote the new trend. Mexico City is setting a good example to other cities in Mexico. To reduce pollution in Mexico I think that other cities should incorporate something like this in their transportation system.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/story/2011-10-24/biking-surges-mexico-city/50897802/1