Blog Session 8: How green are you?

How green are you?

Santiago, the city I live in, is a polluted city. Because it is surrounded by mountains, the air conditions get very bad in winter, when the smog layer comes down to the city. Another problem in this city is the one related with garbage. We produce a lot of trash and we recycle very little.

Personally, I learned some environmentally friendly practices as I was at school. I did not receive those kwoleges at home, because the generation of our parents knows even less about environmentally issues then we do. That´s why I think every school should teach this practices, so that through the children, they become usual  practices. That was what happened for example with my family. As I was little I told my mom we should recycle, so now we do it every time. We put in different containers plastic, glass and papers/carton, and every Sunday a special lorry picks those thing up. The only thing that we don´t recycle, (but I would like to do it) is organic waste. We don´t do it because the lorry doesn´t take that kind of waste and we don´t have a large backyard to do a “compost box”.

Another thing that I like to do to be green is using the bike. Instead of going by car to the University I use my legs, and like that I can also exercise a little bit. When I have to travel long distances to go some place I use public transport. I think if Santiago improves it´s public transport system, more people would live their car home and like that we would reduce our carbon footprint. Also, in Santiago it depends on the local authorities of the “comunas” if they have a recycling policy or not. It shouldn´t be like that, because what happens is that poor “comunas” have to solve other needs that are priority. I think the state should take care of environmental issues.

Blog Session 7

Belly Dance

Since I was a little girl I like to dance. Dancing is a fun activity to do and also it is very healthy and good for social life (meeting people, making friends, etc.). Of course not all the people like to do it, because they feel they´re not good at it, or they´re ashamed to do it, but I encourage those to try it, because once you are in the rhythm of the music it´s a very liberating experience.

As I was 4 years old I did classic ballet, but the dance I practice about 10 years now is the “Belly dance”. Many people say it´s a sexist activity, because in his origins it was thought as a way for Arabic women of having a happy husband, and otherwise it was very associated to prostitution. But I think everything can have the use you give to it. In the Arabic culture they think this dance is good for fertility, because the parts of the body you mostly move are in the area of the hips and the belly (that´s why it´s called “belly dance”). Another quality of it is that it makes women feel more confident, it´s like a way of finding and connecting with your feminine side and to feel beautiful and sexy. That is because it´s is not important if you´re skinny or fat, if you´re blond or brunet to make belly dance, because when you are dancing you feel like an Egyptian goddess.

Blog Session 6

The article I chose to make a summary of, was taken from the following link:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/10/bubonic-plague-outbreak-madagascar-rats-jails, which you can find in theguardian.com/uk, it´s called "Bubonic plague outbreak feared in Madagascar".

Bubonic disease affects a lot of countries in the world, like Perú or the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but  nowadays Madagascar is  the most affected country of the world. Last year 256 people became the disease and 60 of them died. The worst thing is that, as experts say, there is a high probability that the disease becomes a plague if the right measures are not taken. What they principally recommend is that the rat infested prisons in Madagascar are cleaned up, because rodents transmit diseases. It is difficult to make that, because the environment of prisons, over all the fact that in Madagascar (as here in Chile) they´re  overcrowded and unhygienic, contributes to the rat problem. The way that rodents transmit the bacillus to humans is through fleas.

The problem becomes worse with humidity and high temperatures, because it attracts those insects.  If they want to prevent a plague outbreak, measures must be taken soon, because October is the most humid and warm mouth in Madagascar. If jails are infested, the disease would spread in a very short time to the rest of the population of Madagascar, So to prevent spread of 'black death', authorities and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have launch campaign to clean up rat-infested jails.