Peru slum goes cutting edge

Peru slum goes cutting edge as ‘fog catcher’ LIMA—Many of Peru’s slums can only dream of access to water. But thanks to a German NGO, simple technology, and hard work, some humble homes are the first to use plastic netting to harvest water from fog. In settlements like Bellavista del Paraiso—on Lima’s south end named “Beautiful View of Paradise” with some eye-popping optimism—there is no running water. There is no well. Buying water, trucked in by resellers, costs nine times what it does in richer urban areas, precisely in places where no one can afford it. And Bellavista’s more than 200 residents are used to making do without water; they are among the 1.3 million of Lima’s eight million people who have no access to water. Part of the water is channeled to a vegetable garden where vegetables and spices are grown. Most, though, is kept in ground-level storage tanks for residents to use at home for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. Vocabulary Slum: poor area with houses in bad conditions. Guttering: pieces of pipe that carry rain water.