Wombats

I'm going to talk about one of my favorite animals: the wombat, the others are the wolf and the dolphin, but they won’t be  theme for this entry.

I remember that I was reading about prehistory in Australia and one of the animals that suvived that time was the wombat, but I didn’t know what was that, so I search in google, I found a picture of a common wombat, and I fell in love with them. 

 They are mammals, marsupials in fact, that look like a cross between a bear and a mouse, I know it’s sound a little strange but for me it’s like they are a really little ball of fur and really cute, well maybe no so little, they can grow to one meter tall and weight  between 20 and 35 kg., depending on the species, wich are two, but both have sub-species.

They have long fur around their bodys, it can be black or a kind of  lighter or darker brown, a big nose that I love to touch, strong and short extremities with claws so they can dig underground tunnels, which  they use to protect themselves: they make them fall on their enemies.

In Australia exist two species, They are the Bare-nosed/common wombat and the Southern hairy-nosed wombat. The First is divided in  australian mainland Bare-nosed, the tasmanian and the Flinder Island Wombat, and the second, in Southern and Northern Hairy nosed wombat.

I don’t know if one day I could have one of my own, because they can not leave Australian ground, It’s forbidden and you can go to jail if you try to sell them outside of that country. But maybe I’ll move to Australia, I don’t know where life can take me to, so I still have hope.

Beeing green?

Well, today’s topic it’s about beeing green.
Here in Santiago I know about two places where people can learn about environmentally friendly practices: Casa de la paz foundation and  Bosque Santiago. The first institution works  to consolidate the involving of  people to resolve ambiental problems (they also work whith companies, schools and other too) and they make recycling activities to educate people, so they can create relationships based on trust and colaboration, and then to increaise the involving os citizen in the care of our own country in an ambiental perspective.
The second, It’s a center of ambiental education created by Parque Metropolitano de Santiago, its focus is the development of moral values and to realize about the importance of our environmen, how to take care of it and the conservation of the nature. they made different kind of informal activities at the open air.

To tell the truth about me, I don’t have many enviromental conscius practices in my everyday life, it’s not because I don’t want to, but in the rush of the week, I kind of forget about it. . I’m not a part of any formal eco-organization neither, beacuse they consume time, and I don’t too mucho of it right now. But maybe I can consider one: Il Quattrocento, the student anthropology magazine (which I joined a few months ago) is trying to release a number about Culture and Environment. At least I don’t use a car because I live near the university, I go on foot and I don’t get out too much, so unconsciusly I’m  reducing my carbón footprint

I don’t really know what I could do about any problems, it’s seems so big, but I think I can start trying to not muder my own plants (I forget to take care of my brother’s plant and it died).

Here in Santiago the contamination is awful,  and people has some disgusting habits, I hate when somebody throw  papers or garbage out of a window when they are driving or on a bus/taxi/car. We need to grow a real conscience and act like it really matters, do something little maybe, talk with your  neighbor  to solve a mutual problem, or in my case to decide a place where we can throw out the garbage and do it at the same time, only when the  dustcart pass, so we don't have a gigant pile 24/7.

Europe Trip

Today I’ll write about my trip to  Europe.

On January 31 I’m going to take a plane to get to the Old World with my parents, I freaking out, It’s the first time I’ll travel outside of Chile, and the perspective of being  inside a tin flying  thing on nothing but the air it’s kind of scary. Even thought I worried about that, I’m really excited and I looking for the day I leave Chile.

First, We are going to Spain, We’ll visit my mother's brother who lives in Barcelona, the last time I saw him, my aunt and cousins was in 2000, I hope we’ll get along and I want to visit La Sagrada Familia Cathedral  and Guell Park, they are very beautiful constructions.

After that, we’ll take another plane to London, and then a bus to Cambridge where we’ll meet my brother, I wish we don’t get lost because it’s a usual thing when we travel to place we don’t know, my father never want to ask where we are and we always get in an argument until we finally reach the place we were looking for. But the only thing I really want to do, aside to visit London Museums and the Eye of London, is to hug my sibling, it’s like a year and a half the last time we were in the same city.

Then, we’ll travel to Paris to take a tour to Innsbruck, Roma, Venice, Verona, Florence and Madrid in 16 days, so sometimes we’ll be like one hour  in one place and then take another bus or train or… I really don’t know which kind of transportation we are going to use, but I think there is a cruise somewhere.

I hope we don’t have any accident, after we finish, I don’t really care and I’d die happy.

Forensic science for human rights’s summary

There is a forensic anthropology team of investigator dedicated to the identification of human remain in the context of massive murderess, kidnapping and torture of persons of different ages – because political issues-  in Argentina between the 70’s and 80’s at the hands of military men under the command of the ex-dicator Jorge Rafael Videla.

The Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team (EAAF) works with DNA information extracted from the bones, a little less difficult cause today advanced technology, and the DNA database of the family members of the disappeared person. Also, they work with New York’s investigators, human rights activist or groups –like Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and HIJOS- and judicial authorities. The Argentine team helps in foreign countries too, like South Africa, El Salvador and Colombia to convict the responsible for crimes against human rights, disappearances and others forms of state terrorism, with the help of the forensic science knowledge they can gain information to bring them to court and make them pay for their crimes, like in Videla’s case, who was released  in 1990, but with their support the case was reopen and bring again to court.

Maybe some people will remain forever unidentified or never found, like people who was thrown to the ocean, but the job of the EAAF is remarkable, because they can help to bring justice and peace to the suffering families.

Summary of "Forensic science for human rights’s" by Joseph Huff-Hannon, from the Guardian, UK. Thursday 13 May 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/may/13/forensic-science-human-rights