Dry Spell: Drought Endangers Lives Across South America

With rainfall still scarce, Colombia has begun taking drastic measures to conserve what little water they have left.

The parched earth characteristic of a drought. Pmau. CC BY-SA 4.0

2024 has been one of the driest years in Colombia’s history. The summer months are usually the rainiest in the country, but this year has seen an alarming lack of precipitation and a drastic reduction in rivers and reservoirs. As the country slowly dries up, officials have started implementing policies to ration water, which will only become more severe as the drought continues.

In the last three months, the Chuza Reservoir (one of the largest in Bogota, Colombia) has lost a huge portion of its water supply. During the 2023 dry season, the reservoir was reduced to 58% capacity; as of mid-September 2024, it dropped to just 36%. This led to the second implementation of water rationing this year (the first was enacted in April 2024) but as rainfall remains scarce, these regulations have grown even more stringent. Currently, citizens are prohibited from washing their cars, irrigating gardens, and using fountains or other water decorations. However, as water supplies continue to dwindle, the city has also enacted a system by which residents will have to spend 24 hours without water once every nine days.

Colombian officials have stated that the nation’s only real hope is the return of regular rainfall. Reservoirs cannot fully recover without precipitation, and without reliable water stores, cities will be forced to reduce their water consumption even further. The severity of this drought has also inspired fears of reaching “Day Zero,” the point at which a city’s water supply falls below the necessary amount to support daily life. As of Oct. 10, 2024, Bogota’s Chuza Reservoir is just 7% above this cutoff point.

Columbia is not the only South American country experiencing drought. The majority of the continent is drying up, generating a variety of other crises, including a drastic increase in wildfires. Additionally, the Amazon River is experiencing an alarming dry spell, jeopardizing the lives of the communities that depend on it for food and water. Endangered species such as river dolphins are also threatened by the mass evaporation, which has reduced the river to about 10% of its previous size.

Although officials have stated that there is little that can be done for Bogota (and Colombia at large), several nonprofits around the world have taken action to provide aid for affected civilians. These include WaterAid, a company that focuses on providing clean water for underprivileged communities. During this drought, their efforts are more needed than ever. Interested parties can donate to their various projects here. Another such organization is Water Fund Bogota, which focuses specifically on restoring and maintaining natural sources of clean water like rivers and lakes.

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Ryan Livingston

Ryan is a senior at The College of New Jersey, majoring in English and minoring in marketing. Since a young age, Ryan has been passionate about human rights and environmental action and uses his writing to educate wherever he can. He hopes to pursue a career in professional writing and spread his message even further.

A Literary Pilgrimage: Colombia with Gabriel García Márquez

A travel itinerary for bibliophiles, Gabo fans and adventurers alike

Author Gabriel García Márquez, “Gabo,” as an older man. Sebástian Freire. CC BY-SA 2.0. 

Author Gabriel García Márquez, affectionately nicknamed “Gabo,” put his native country of Colombia on the literary map through his novels and short stories. 

Critics lauded his novel Love in The Time of Cholera, a tale of romance between social classes, as one of the best love stories of the 20th century. His work One Hundred Years of Solitude, a multi-generational novel about a family from an isolated town, is considered the Bible of magical realism, a genre that describes fantastical events in an otherwise realistic tone. 

Adventurous travelers and bibliophiles alike can experience the magic and romance of Colombia through García Marquez's eyes with an itinerary based on his life and literature.

A colorful street scene in Cartagena’s historic center. Joe Ross. CC BY-SA 2.0.

1. Cartagena

In an interview with actor and filmmaker Salvatore Basile, García Márquez said, “I would say that I completed my education as a writer in Cartagena.” With that in mind, Caribbean-flanked Cartagena is the ideal place to begin your Gabo-inspired tour of Colombia. 

García Márquez lived in Cartagena for a year as a young man and kept a winter house in the city as an older man. He sets much of Love in The Time of Cholera in Cartagena. During his time in Cartagena, he was known for lingering on the plazas, waiting for something interesting to happen. 

To experience the city from Gabo’s perspective, people watch at the lush, lively Plaza Fernandez de Madrid and historic, central Plaza Bolivar. Grab a drink at El Coro, the upscale cocktail bar in The Sofitel Santa Clara hotel, which García Márquez frequented. Visit Gabo’s marble-clad final resting place at La Merced monastery on the University of Cartagena’s campus. 

The orange-tinted cityscape of Barranquilla. Fernando Orozco. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

2. Barranquilla

Following Gabo’s footsteps, travel from Cartagena to Barranquilla, a seaport known as Colombia’s “Golden Gate" because here the Caribbean meets the country’s major Magdalena River. Gabo lived here in the 1950s while he worked as a journalist.

While living in Barranquilla, García Márquez was a part of the Barranquilla Group, a collection of writers, journalists and philosophers who met Barranquilla in the mid-twentieth century. In addition to García Márquez, notable members include Álvaro Cepeda Samudio, Germán Vargas and Alfonso Fuenmayor. Allegedly, Gabo’s relationship with these men inspired the characters of the “four friends of Macondo” in One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Connect with Gabo and his Barranquilla Group friends at La Cueva, a bar where the Barranquilla Group of writers and journalists met. It continues to serve as a hub of cultural activity, serving traditional food like Butifarra ceviche and Cashew rice, as well as supporting Colombian literary magazines. Tour the peach-colored church, Iglesia Nuestra Senora del Perpetuo Socorro, where Gabo married his wife Mercedes Barcha.

The Casa Museo Gabriel García Márquez, Gabo’s childhood home. Armando Calderón. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

3. Aracataca

After connecting with García Márquez’s early days as a writer in Barranquilla and Cartagena, go back to where it all began in Aracataca: Gabo’s steamy, sleepy and tropical hometown. Gabo’s success put Aracataca on the map, rejuvenating the town as small groups of literary tourists trickled in to see where a genius grew up. You can meander through the white house and its verdant garden where García Márquez lived until he was eight, Casa Museo Gabriel García Márquez. 

In addition to being the locale of Gabo’s childhood, Aracataca inspired Macondo, the setting for One Hundred Years of Solitude. Stop for a photo opportunity in front of Aracataca’s bright, multicolored welcome sign, which includes an equally vivid Macando welcome sign in smaller letters.

Walking the streets of La Candelaria neighborhood in Bogotá. Michael Barón. CC0. 

4. Bogota

Conclude your tour of Gabo’s Colombia in mountainous Bogota. While not Gabo’s favorite city in Colombia, he called it “a remote, lugubrious city where an insomniac rain had been falling since the beginning of the sixteenth century” in his autobiography—it played a crucial role in his education. 

García Márquez attended secondary school and earned a law degree in Bogota. He published his work in the city’s newspaper El Espectador. He also lived here temporarily with his wife later in his life, in the colonial neighborhood La Candelaria.

Learn more about his work and life at the Centro Cultural Gabriel García Márquez, a museum and hub of artistic activity in a circular building with its roof offering views of Bogota’s mountains and cityscape. Sip a coffee at Cafe Pasaje, an old-school coffee shop where Gabo allegedly had his java each day when he was a young journalist.

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Annie O’Brien

Annie is a third-year student at George Washington University studying English, Creative Writing, and History. From Philadelphia, she is an avid reader, pop-culture enthusiast, and traveler. She’s always eager to talk about her adventures abroad and domestically, whether it's telling about the time she hitch-hiked in Bavaria or offering recommendations for the best bookstores in Key West. She hopes to become a published author one day. Enjoy more of her writing on her Substack.

Venezuela Labels Coronavirus-Infected Citizens as ‘Bioterrorists’

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has implemented harsh measures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to arrest, detain and punish those infected with the virus and citizens who have broken quarantine measures. These authoritarian measures mark a stark contrast with the relief efforts of neighboring countries, as Maduro has labeled those suspected of coming in contact with the virus as “bioterrorists.”

The government was initially quick to respond to the virus, suspending all flights from Europe and Colombia and banning all public gatherings on March 12, before the country had officially reported any cases. However, cases in Venezuela have since risen, with experts suggesting that the current tally of 42,898 infections is much lower than the actual case number due to an insufficient amount of testing materials.

Infected Venezuelan citizens have been subjected to inhumane treatment, leading many to defy the government’s orders. According to a taxi driver from Caracas who was forced into a state-run isolation facility, the government treats infected citizens in an inhumane manner.

“I spent three days sleeping on an aluminum chair,” the driver said in an interview with Bloomberg. “They fed us cold rice, lentils and arepas. The place was controlled by armed militias and Cuban doctors.”

Venezuela’s approach to the pandemic is a result of its failing health care system and Maduro’s resistance to internal reforms advocated for by activists over the past decade. The country’s sociopolitical system, which at one time was hailed by some as one of Latin America’s best, was brought to its knees after oil prices plummeted in the early 2010s. This just exacerbated shortages of basic food staples that began under the presidency of Hugo Chavez.

Using drastic anti-protest tactics which became commonplace in the mid-2010s, Maduro has authorized security forces to impose punishments for violating social distancing protocol such as sitting under the hot sun for hours, intense physical exercise and beatings.

In response to citizens evading testing facilities for fear of being subjected to harsh punishments, the Venezuelan military has encouraged citizens to turn in neighbors who they suspect have come into contact with the virus throughout the summer.

“Defense for the health of your family and community,” one tweet by the military stated in Spanish. “[Someone who helps others hide their infections] is a bioterrorist, which puts everyone’s health at risk. Send [us] an email with their information and exact location. #ReportABioterrorist.”

Maduro has largely ignored calls to reform his response to the pandemic, dismissing claims that those infected have been treated inhumanely.

“[In Venezuela] you’re given care that’s unique in the world, humane care, loving, Christian,” Maduro said in an Aug. 14 national address.

In response to calls for aid from organized opposition groups, on Aug. 21 the United States granted activists access to millions of dollars of previously frozen Venezuelan assets to be used to support health care workers. However, it is unclear how these funds will be accessed by opposition-supported health care workers, or if the Venezuelan government will be able to interfere with their distribution.

As of this article’s publication, Maduro has not responded to calls for pandemic relief reform, nor have efforts been made to test in a more humane manner.

Jacob Sutherland

is a recent graduate from the University of California San Diego where he majored in Political Science and minored in Spanish Language Studies. He previously served as the News Editor for The UCSD Guardian, and hopes to shed light on social justice issues in his work.

Outrage Mounts as Colombian Soldiers Admit to Rape of an Indigenous Girl

On June 25, seven soldiers of the Colombian army confessed to raping a 13-year-old Indigenous girl from the Embera tribe. She was discovered at a nearby school after having gone missing from her home in the department of Risaralda on June 21. Upon seeing that the young girl could barely walk, she was sent to a hospital and then forensic services along with receiving assistance from the Organization of Indigenous Nations of Colombia (ONIC). Luis Fernando Arias, senior adviser for ONIC, told CNN that the girl “was kidnapped and raped for a period of 17 hours.” The Embera community requested that the soldiers be tried under their own laws along with ONIC “demanding that they be tried under Indigenous law, arguing that it's their jurisdiction since the alleged crime was against an Indigenous person, on Indigenous land.” 

Since the alleged rape, the seven men accused were fired along with three of their superiors. The country’s attorney general, Francisco Barbosa, stated that if found guilty the men could face 16 to 30 years in prison, but Colombian President Ivan Duque urged a life sentence for the accused soldiers. He stated that, “If we have to inaugurate the life in prison penalty with them, we're going to do it with them. And we are going to use it so that these bandits and scoundrels get a lesson.” Although many are asking for the imprisonment of the soldiers, Gimena Sanchez, Andes director of the think tank Washington Office on Latin America, believes that, “There needs to be education and consciousness raising within the armed forces on how to treat and how to engage with ethnic minorities. Not just with Indigenous but also Afro-Colombians.” 

The country’s response was that of fury, albeit bereft of shock due to the long-standing systemic issue of soldiers' abuse and violence against Indigenous women and girls in Colombia. On July 2, after pressure mounted and Indigenous groups held protests against the gender-based violence of Indigenous women, Colombian Army Commander General Eduardo Zapateiro publicly disclosed that 118 soldiers had been investigated due to incidents of sexual violence against minors since 2016, and of those only 45 have been fired. Despite these statistics, Zapateiro stated that, “These abuses are not systemic conduct. Understand that we are 241,000 men, who every day give everything for the Colombian people.” His argument is that this is not a systemic issue but since the reporting of this story, other cases of sexual violence against Indigenous girls have emerged. One case that was not widely reported until now reveals that a 15-year-old girl from the Nukak Maku Indigenous tribe was kidnapped, tortured and raped in the military barracks of troops in the southern Guaviare department. 

Colombia is not exempt from the pandemic of sexual violence that affects women all over the globe but following a vote against a peace referendum to end the conflict in Colombia, women are disproportionately enduring violence on a systemic level. Colombia has the 10th highest rate of femicide in the world, according to U.N. data. The Colombian Femicide Foundation documented that “8,532 women and girls reported that they had experienced sexual violence in the first five months of this year. More than 5,800 were under the age of 18.” The outcome of this case may bring hope to those who want to see justice in the form of imprisonment, but the culture that normalized violence toward women remains. 

Hanna Ditinsky

is a sophomore at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is majoring in English and minoring in Economics. She was born and raised in New York City and is passionate about human rights and the future of progressivism.

Turmoil, Pain, and Beauty: Colombia’s Blossoming Art Scene

With its rich, diverse culture, picturesque landscapes and lush natural resources, Colombia should be one of the most popular tourist destinations in South America. However, the country’s image took a hit in the 1980s, with the rise of cocaine and the drug cartels that controlled it, most notably, Pablo Escobar and his Medellin cartel. In recent years the Colombian government has addressed this problem head-on, dismantling drug rings and adopting a national slogan designed to put visitors at ease: “The only risk is never wanting to leave”. A recent spike in Colombia’s art scene may also help lift the stigma that shrouds the country, adding a new dimension to a people and culture the world thought it knew, and helping Colombia develop a new identity, or perhaps, reclaim an old one.

To be fair, Colombia is still the world's top producer of cocaine, and the legal status of cocaine within the country, combined with the high demand for it outside of the country makes the drug trade a recurrent enemy of the government. To make matters worse, drugs are not the only vice thriving in Colombia. Prostitution is also legal and readily available, making Colombia a popular destination for sex tourism, like Thailand or the Netherlands. In 2012, American secret service agents made international headlines when they got into a spat with a prostitute over an unpaid bill for “services rendered” while then President Barack Obama was visiting Cartagena. While the incident was a PR nightmare for the US, it also added to Colombia’s already prevalent image as a haven for illicit activity.

There is, however, much more to Colombia than sex and dope—and there always has been. In the heart of Medellin, the very city Escobar called home, lies the Museo de Antioquia, one of Colombia’s oldest museums. The museum features the work of famed Medellin artist Fernando Botero, known for his voluminous depictions of people and animals. This “Boterismo” style won Botero international fame, with many of his paintings and sculptures being featured in museums around the world. There was even a restaurant named after him in Las Vegas. Medellin is not the only city to get swept up in the art craze. The capital city of Bogota is home to over 100 commercial art galleries, a byproduct of an economic boom that Colombia experienced as the drug wars began to subside and the country began to stabilize.

The works of Fernando Botero are prominently featured at the museum. Jonathan Robinson.

Sometimes, in the scramble to create a compelling story, media outlets may narrow or oversimplify the identities of people. Colombians are joining a long list of ethnic, gender, and religious groups who take issue with the way they are portrayed in the media and are taking it upon themselves to help the world understand that their culture may be a bit more nuanced than it has been led to believe. While the rise of Colombia's art scene may not refute the bloody images the media has shown in the past, it does add to them, creating a separate narrative for the country that exists alongside the current one. In the end, understanding Colombia may not require the world to empty its cup, but rather, to invest in a larger one.

JONATHAN ROBINSON is an intern at CATALYST. He is a travel enthusiast always adding new people, places, experiences to his story. He hopes to use writing as a means to connect with others like himself. 

SOUTH AMERICA - A Time-Lapse Adventure

In this short film, you will be taken on a journey through the incredibly varied landscapes of this imposing continent, South America.

One year of travel, nine countries, countless hours on busses, motorbikes, and cars. Hundreds of thousands of images taken. 30TB of data used, 5 months of editing. The time-lapse film features South America like it has never been before with images from Brazil, Venezuela, Guyana, Colombia, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.

Living on the Most Crowded Island on Earth

Two hours off the coast of Colombia is a small island home to over 1,200 people. As the entirety of Santa Cruz del Islote only spans the length of two soccer fields, residents live in close quarters, making the island four times as dense as the borough of Manhattan. Despite the circumstances, the community makes the most of their limited surface area, packing in a school, two shops and one restaurant. Only 150 years ago, the island was uninhabited; today, generations of families are proud to call Santa Cruz del Islote home.

COLOMBIA: Slow Motion Travel

Filmmaker Chris Grewe displays his best experiences while traveling Colombia in slow motion.

Coming of Age in the Amazon Jungle

In a small settlement, deep in the Amazon rainforest, colourful preparations are underway for a very important occasion.

The village of Puerto Esperanza, directly translated as “Port Hope,” is located in the Amazonas department of Colombia — three hours travel by boat from Leticia, the main port in the Colombian Amazon. Here you will find many members of the Tikuna tribe. One of the most numerous peoples in the rainforest, the Tikuna are an extraordinarily artistic people, known for their rich culture and age-old traditions.

One of the most prominent cultural traditions celebrated and upheld by the Tikuna is that of the Pelazón ceremony, a traditional coming of age ritual for young girls, marking the time they enter womanhood. After a whole year of isolation, the girls will be welcomed back into the tribe as women.

At the heart of the Tikuna settlement, in the maloka, or gathering house, people begin preparations for the rituals that will take place during the Pelazón ceremony. They bring together wine and food that have been collected from the community and spend hours crafting beautiful and elaborate feathered drums that will be used during the festival.

One young man plays a whistle to mimic the sounds of the jungle and imitate the demons who are lingering near the maloka, while another heats a fish-skin drum to hone its sound in preparation for the festivities.

Meanwhile, other community members are making uito, a natural pigment that will be used to cover the girls’ bodies during the ceremony.

A Year in Isolation

Following her first menstruation, each young Tikuna girl who has chosen to take part in the ritual and Pelazón ceremony, will isolate herself in a small house made of palm leaves. For an entire year the only person whom she will be allowed to see is her grandmother. Part of a deep cross-generational relationship, the elders teach the young girls many traditional skills from weaving, cultivating crops, and the uses for plants, to taking care of babies, and every other aspect of being a Tikuna woman.

Below you see a Tikuna grandmother brushing her granddaughter’s hair. This young girl is only seven, but has already decided that when the time comes she would like to take part in the Pelazón ritual and ceremony.

The Reunion

After the long year of isolation, the girls’ families work together to prepare a big celebration and invite the whole tribe to welcome their daughter back into community life as a young woman. The celebrations last for three days with drinking, eating and dancing, but first everyone gathers in a procession around the village, collecting all of the girls to take them to the maloka.

Members of the tribe bring animals they have hunted as offerings to the girls’ families. This young man is holding a Terecaya in his hands, a species of Amazonian turtle. The shell is decorated with feathers and hung in the maloka as a symbol of wisdom in the Tikuna culture.

As night falls, the procession continues to make its way around the village, one by one collecting each of the young girls from their homes.

Below is the moment when one of the girls comes out of isolation. She will be completely covered until she is ‘revealed’ during the main ceremony.

The Ceremony

At the heart of the Pelazón celebrations is the big communal feast held in the maloka. The families offer a typical payabarú drink to their guests, people dance to traditional songs, and, in the midst of this feast, the girls come out dressed with feathers and painted with uito pigment.

The girls are unveiled for the first time in their elaborate feather headbands. Below one of the newly welcomed young women dances as part of the ceremony, while the other women and girls look on.

During another important part of the ceremony, young male members of the tribe dress as demons and dance around the girls, enacting temptations that the girls are strong enough to face, now they are women. They wear masks, shake instruments and carry carved wooden penises to symbolise the seduction that the young women may encounter in life.

After the ceremony each girl is said to be ready to embark on her adult life. The long time away with her grandmother as her teacher and the climactic return have prepared her for all aspects of her future, from work, to marriage, to pregnancy and having a family of her own.

It was a privilege to spend time with the community and families of Puerto Esperanza and to observe the Tikuna tribe’s remarkable tradition of the Pelazón ceremony. I would like to give special thanks to Edgar, Otoniel, Obsimar, Vicente and all the other tribe members who allowed me to participate and photograph this very special and private ritual.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA.

FEDERICO RIOS

Federico is a Colombian photographer whose work focuses on developing documentary photography on social issues in Latin America. Explore more of his work at federicorios.net.