What if they can't afford to purchase soap?
Mud works great (you'd want to probably have salt water and a dry dirt to start with to avoid parasites). I have done it. I think papaya + coconut works even better. I have lived in total squalor. I am not wishing for them to suffer, I am just saying that most of them look like they need to lose 15 kilos. I expected to see people really suffering, not fat, as I did for example dropping to 50 kilos body weight at one point in 1996 (before I returned to the USA to take a contract job). They are not yet in serious trouble. May be headed that direction. When they really can't eat, they will finally overthrow the military government. There will be war as necessary. Unless some outside influence is holding up the government. I haven't really studied it. Is Fidel in Cuba aiding and abetting the corruption?
Also these are to a large extent mixed races with native blood. They can survive in the wild if they really want to. They are only 2 or 3 generations removed from living off the land. But they want the modern and easy life, and to sit around and eat always (and dance and drink alcohol ... I visited Colombia in 2001 so I know). Look at those females, easily 10 - 15 kilos over weight.
Venezuelans thought that the high oil prices will last for ever. So they never cared to create a rainy day fund. Look at the other oil producing nations such as Russia and Saudi Arabia. They are not in this much bad shape, as they saved a part of their oil revenue in the past. No sympathies here. Venezuelans must blame themselves, and their leaders.
And they've become incredibly socialist, ideologically corrupt. Most of South America is also ideologically corrupted. So that is why Latin America will not do as well as Asia. Ditto Europe which is ideologically brain dead.
I am not wanting people to suffer. But also I am saying that people fuck themselves over by getting fat like pigs for the slaughter with free handouts from socialistic ideology. It is a shame that humans are so much similar to farm animals. You'd think they would learn but never do. Always the same.
Edit: I am not against myself surviving off the land, it would just be a shame because I think I produce more if I am connected to high technology. Also I don't think my body can tolerate another Dengue infection (as I read the 2nd reinfection likely leads to serious chronic health problems in many cases). I don't think I am sturdy enough to do it here in the tropics. Maybe in a temperate climate I can do it.
P.S. Of course I felt empathy for the guy who looks like a skeleton. But I think that the media is sensationalizing that to play on our emotions. Surely his country men can give him some food, even if a banana or camote or casaba. I bet he has a medical problem which is causing him to become like that. Maybe some of those fat women can give him some of their fried pork and they can eat the bananas and go on a diet. But of course many people aren't caring to the point of personal sacrifice.
I will acknowledge that if you are sickly and can't eat nutritious foods, your chances of recovery are much reduced.
Put it this way, I really feel a lot of empathy for people are genuinely suffering in pain or horrible health problem. But I don't feel empathy for people complaining because they bought into a fat socialist pig ideology and now are complaining because they won't have toilet paper.
It is like George Carlin's joke, that these people in Hawaii build their houses next to an active volcano and then wonder why they have lava in the living room. Go figure.
I understand we get caught in circumstances. So if they truly get the point that they can't eat, then yes of course I would be proactive (if I could), not just empathetic.
