This island is in many ways a great paradise to live in, but also a huge challenge. Getting drinking water is a delicate situation, cockfighting and gambling are ingrained in their culture. Many say that this island is a scale model of what the world will experience in the future. We are arriving to the densest piece of land on the planet. This is the island of Santa la Cruz del Islote, in Colombia, where more than eight hundred people live on an area smaller than a soccer field. Some estimate that close to one thousand, which would give, according to calculations, a density of more than sixty thousand people per square kilometer. How do people live in this very peculiar territory? That is what we are about to find out. Come on, let's go inside, let's talk to the locals. Let's hit it. Wow, it does feel very crowded, everywhere you turn, you're going to see people. And the alleys are very narrow, look at this one here, a house here, another one over here. And it's even very common to have to go through someone else's house to get to your destination. Yes, there is very little space, we are appreciating it. Despite being surrounded by water, one of the biggest problems in this community is getting water for human consumption. It has to be brought by boat from the nearest point of land, which is more than forty minutes away. And absolutely everything has to be imported. Fuel, for example, which is used for electricity generators, is brought in by many locals and then resold, and drinking water is stored in large drums outside homes so that it can be shared with the rest of the community. Many say that this island is a scale model of what the world will experience in the future, with lack of space, lack of certain resources. It is an extremely resilient society. In certain little towns on the street they sell these delicious crab empanadas. I am Hojita, the prettiest, the prettiest. I make seafood empanadas, lobster, crab and snail empanadas, the coastal Viagra. In terms of security, the truth is that nothing happens here. They don't even have police, they even have a local saying that they use a lot as a joke, which is that in Santa Cruz the only thing you will lose is suddenly the phone signal. To buy everyday products, people go to one of the four stores that exist. These are supplied by boats that come daily, sometimes weekly, from the mainland to bring bottled and canned goods. They tell me that in that aspect there is not really a problem, they are always supplied. Since there is so little space, people put their dishes, clothes to dry, buckets, etc., in the street. It's crazy that you can walk the whole territory from end to end if you go very quietly in five minutes, at a good pace, even in two minutes. You have already reached from one end of the island to the other. Everywhere you go you hear music, it comes from here, it comes from there. Because the island is so small, if a neighbor has loud music, the concert reaches everywhere. In the same way, it is a very festive island, very cheerful. Just now that I am visiting, a few cockfights have just happened, which makes people want to dance in the street. They play champeta at full volume, there's a DJ. Yes, a very pleasant atmosphere in general. So, people go on from today to tomorrow and the day after. What do they drink the most here? Agua ardiente and eight-year-old Carta, and most of all, beer. You can see that it is a very cheerful town, very estero, isn't it? Of course. If we talk a little bit about the history of the island, about why so many people live in this small space, we would have to go a little more than one hundred years in the past, since it is believed that the first inhabitants of the modern era arrived here at the end of the nineteenth century. The community here is of African descent and it is even said that many came here because they were escaping. The real population boom came after the year nine-teen sixty, when only a few families lived here and made their living from fishing. I was born on December twenty-one,nineteen and thirty and I am ninety-three. I was born here, my parents were born here and here I grew up, here I got married and here I had my children and I am still here. Today my husband was also from here. This was a beach, there was no house here. Just my brother's house, that one over there. In other words, this whole structure did not exist? All of it... None of this did not exist. None of it. Nothing but thirty-six houses, mom. And now look how many we don't have. With my father, they made me here. So I also stayed right here. To leave for another place, to be in need, I'd better stay here on the island. And one is free, out of contamination. Already here, I don't go anywhere else, if not here in this place. There is only one health clinic where doctors come periodically. How does it work? A doctor comes, lives here for a week, the next week another one comes and so they rotate. There are several things that can be attended here, but nothing really complex. In terms of childbirths, human births, how does it work nowadays? People come to the clinic and then they are taken to a health center in a city with more infrastructure. Until a few years ago, the midwives on the island were in charge of this. She is Doña Marciana, one of the legendary midwives of the island. She has brought possibly hundreds of children into this world. Since I was twenty-two I was taught by my aunt who was the village midwife. She would take me to where the babies were to be born so that I could learn. But when she wasn't around, there would be someone to follow her. And so I did. In the course of my prophecy, not one child died. And how many people would you estimate you have brought into the world? That more or less, a term of about two hundred and more. Marciana has even been recognized by UNESCO as intangible heritage of humanity for her knowledge, skills and practices in midwifery. No, man, very valuable. It should be noted that the streets around the island are quite clean. Rarely do you really see garbage strewn around. There are many have a good collection system. They tell me that the way it works is that periodically a boat comes from Cartagena to take away the large concentrations of garbage. The general garbage dump is located on another island. Here, in fact, the waste from all the neighboring communities arrives and is later collected by a large boat that comes every month, every two months, which takes the waste to the mainland to be treated. The situation is that they tell me that they have never taken all the waste. So, there is a little bit, a little bit, until there is a large accumulation and it is estimated that even in the back there is garbage that has been intact since twenty eighteen. If someone needs to receive money from the outside or send money to the outside, use this Super heroes establishment. Here is daily moving money that my aunt sent me that I need, I take it out in cash, done. But what is most interesting about this site is that this is where local people come to gamble. They make betting systems, especially for sports, soccer teams, how many goals they are going to score, who is going to win, etcetera. And I know very young people betting. Kids, literally, on the computers, there they are playing, hoping to win a little money. Right here they receive them in cash and if they win, their winnings are given to them in cash. It is very curious to see such young people betting. And betting is really something even cultural in this island and its surroundings. The people here, for example, very daily make cockfights. Periodically they are organized, people come from different islands here for tournaments. People bring their roosters for this purpose. Also, on a daily basis, you see people playing dominoes, betting some pesillo or other. After fishing, they get together to play. Just now we were received by a man in his house who has a lot of roosters. They tell us that he has a few champions here who have been fighting intact for several fights. There is even a main henhouse in town, which is, so to speak, the Coliseo de Peleas de Gallos (Cockfighting Coliseum). This, at present, is no longer in operation because the state is no longer very favorable, even a little risky. So that we can really see how popular and everyday cockfighting is. There are people who earn here in one day a million pesos aiming roosters, two million, depending on how much he bets. Every day dominoes are kept, it is what is lived here day by day. People go to the beaches and in the afternoon, they play dominoes. Suddenly, walking through the alleys, one finds roosters tied up, look at their legs. And yes, they have them there as if they were exhibiting them and also because of the lack of space. During the day, most homes do not have electricity because there is a collective generator for the whole island, but it is not only turned on at night in order to save fuel. Therefore, people, in order to preserve their food, use a lot of ice and store it in big coolers, in big iceboxes. This means that fans do not work, houses with few windows are very dark. Yes, there is only public collective electricity after six o'clock in the evening, when the sun begins to set. We haven't had light during the day for eight months. We have to do everything at night, wash, do everything at night. And I have a plantica, but the cost of gasoline is very expensive. In terms of bathrooms, there really is no drainage system. Most homes and establishments have a septic tank, but there is not really a big sewage problem, at least not to date. Interestingly, some of the homes do not have toilets. So, many people have to borrow from the neighbor, go to the public, pay a small fee to relieve themselves. To flush the toilet, basically what people do is this. Look, you get water in a little bucket here, just from the sea, the houses are here. So, check right here, we grab it and let's go. We met Don Silfredo here, who is the only butcher on the island. He is the good one to come and get the steaks, the pork ribs, he has even sold Buffalo. That necklace you have, what's it made of? A tusk from a pig. But it was a hog, wasn't it? five hundred and eighty-six pounds or two hundred and eighty-six kilos. Meat, pigs, ribs, bones, all kinds of chicken, I bring it here to sell. And people don't raise pigs here? No, there is no space for that here. The space here is very small. What I have seen is that they raise a lot of chickens, right? That's right... Chickens, yes. They raise a lot of fighting chickens. Do you bet or not? No, I have a fine rooster and I have everything. I take care of them, I raise them and everything, but I don't bet. The money is better, in guaro and in food. But in cock, nothing. If we talk about religion, there is only one church on the island that was founded around year twenty ten and belongs to the World Missionary Movement. I am the leader of the current church here on the island. The Gospel here on the island arrived in twenty nine-twenty ten and the World Missionary Movement Council arrived two years later. It was established here on the island. This is the only school on the island, which was recently closed by the authorities because they declared that its structure was already very weak and had a high risk of collapse. It happened just a few months ago, in January twenty twenty-four, and about two hundred children were studying here, not only from the island, but also from nearby islets. From inside the school, you can see how the structure is indeed quite weak. The floors are cracked, the ceilings are very damp. This is one of the temporary classrooms that were adapted so that children can continue studying. The biggest inconvenience is the lack of light. It feels quite dark, they have to leave the door open to let sunlight in. It feels very hot in here. There are three fans, only one of which works. And that's when the power plant is turned on. Otherwise, you have to roast in here. See how with the door open, some light comes in, but if I want to close it to keep out the noise, I have to close it. No, there is nothing to see here. What will there be of the student's slate? What will he learn? It is a challenge. The teachers come from Tolú, they spend a week here working hard so that the children can be someone in life and can use the territory as a research center for whatever they want, because the territory is a source with many branches to study marine biology in the environmental area, everything. And this gold mine is being lost, this mine of knowledge. The children have told me many times that they do not feel interested, they are not active because the walls are valid. So, it is a big problem that we are going through at the moment. Below in the description of the video I am going to leave you information, links on how you, if you want, can support the school of this community and other initiatives. Night is beginning to fall and it is now that people are turning on their generators to the maximum. You can see wiring around the island, but it's not the most efficient thing there is. And in terms of connectivity, very commonly people have Direct TV discs in their homes to watch television. And there is plenty of telephone signal, in fact it works very well. And yes, for example, I am currently using Pillofón, which by the way, Pillofón is already available in Colombia. And yes, I have full LTE signal, all the little lines. Despite being relatively isolated, they are still very well connected. During the night, the community is much more isolated, because the tide usually rises sharply, preventing boats and ships from navigating in the open sea. That means that if there is any kind of emergency during the early morning hours, no one is really going to be able to come to the rescue. And it's not that unusual for the tide to partially flood the island. From when I am recording, just two months ago, in the month of March, the water covered the entire ground, reaching a height a little above the heel. Previously, about twelve years ago, there were periods, such as October, November, which were months of high tide. I mean tide, it is the rise of the sea level. It rises, like now, and they began to fill the streets of the whole island. But now, because of global warming, coastal erosion, many climate changes, it has been all year long. We send out the SOS that they should help us, that they should make us some kind of fortress, so that the sea does not hit us so hard that it does not get into the street. I am learning to drive a boat. Let's see if we don't crash here. See how just a few minutes away by sea there are certain hotels and certain luxurious establishments, very paradisiacal. It is a very contrasting lifestyle on the island and there are hotels that charge hundreds of dollars per night for lodging. We sailed to the cemetery which is on a separate island. Of course, since there is no place to bury the dead, they have set aside a separate island to be the cemetery and it is oriented towards the Christian belief. One of the most ambitious projects that the community is pushing for the environment is the regeneration of mangroves. This one, for example, was cut down a few years ago because someone wanted to build a cabin, like a little private island. The process did not materialize, but the mangrove was already destroyed. So, with groups of volunteers, what they do is that they come to plant one by one, with the hope that in many years it can regenerate, because the mangroves are home to many species, they help the water to filter, they are positive for everyone. So there you have it, a little bit of Santa Cruz del Islote, Colombia, the supposedly densest piece of land on the planet. An experience as paradisiacal as chaotic, in which I highlight the immense warmth of the people. We were received very nicely by the locals. Thank you for joining me. See you, as always, as you know, in a few days with a new video. Good bye.
