Answers to Some TLP Questions

How much technology do you have in your place?

Here in Colombia the majority of people are poor, because of that technology is not important for a lot of parts in Colombia. Only in the most important cities of Colombia you can find the latest technology, but here in Cartagena you can find the new technology very little and expensive. For example, the Nintendo Wii was released in October in the United States, and here in Cartagena it was released a week before the 24th of December, and it's price was more than twice than in the United States. I would like that here you could find the latest technology in many places and much less expensive.

Is poverty a big issue in your place?

Colombia is one of the poorest countries in America. I think that more than 70 percent of the country is poor. About one million people live in Cartagena, and eight hundred thousand are poor. The government says that they are helping, but nothing has changed for the poor people, instead, they are having more kids and less food and money to live. Poverty is one of the biggest problems that Colombia is facing right now. Some causes of poverty are that when people are poor, they rob or kill to have something to live with, so the crime in our country grows along poverty. In Bogota, a major named Antanas Mocus made really good things, he reduced the assasinations in Bogota from 30 death for every 1000 people to 5 dead for every 1000 people.

What would you change about your community?

Some things I would change to my community are poverty, technology, and security. The first change I would make to my community is poverty. I would make that every poor person has a good job, so they could have food and commodities. This change would make better in many ways, such as reducing crime. The second change I would make would be adding more security. To do this Cartagena would need more police men, that would produce more jobs, with more jobs there would be less poverty, and with less poverty there could be less crime. With a better security people from all the world would visit Cartagena, that would bring a lot of money. Also people would be more secure about making stores and stuff like that. Security and less poverty would make Cartagena a much better place to live and to visit. The last change I would make to my community, Cartagena, would be to add more technology. I would add skycrapers, malls with technology stores, and many things. I would like that all the new technology arrived in Colombia at the same time they arrived in the United States. I would also like that everything was less expensive. Oh, I forgot, another change I would make to Cartagena would be to add better transportation. I would make bigger streets, and all the busses I would sell them and get new ones with air conditioner. Also, I would add a subway to get easy transportation all arround Cartagena. At least the goverment is making a project called TransCaribe, which is like trains but they are busses, and they are adding water taxis which are taxis that you take on the sea. Those are all the changes I would make to my community although I like my city a lot.