Tag: Ecuador
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Walking in the Sky
A small brown kestrel rises over the crest of a hill and pauses, hanging in the wind, scanning the fields below. With a tilt of its wings, it shifts vantage point twice, three times, hangs for a moment, then suddenly slides downwards, a gleam of silver under the high sun. Six foot from the ground,…
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The Junior Doctor
In the middle of a cabbage farm, an hour’s drive from the Andean town of Otavalo, Ecuador, is a small radio station on the ground floor of a farmhouse. Radio Ilumán is the local indigenous radio station, presented entirely in Kichwa. Each week Dr Nadia Montero and the director of Jambi Huasi drive to the…
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Psychosis in the Andes
Dr Patricio practices indigenous medicine in a small clinic in the Andes. Sometimes he describes himself as a doctor, sometimes as a yachac or shaman. Here, the two are interchangeable. Western and indigenous medicine inform and shape each other. The clinic in which he practices is called Jambi Huasi, meaning ‘House of Health’ in Kichwa,…
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The Jambi Huasi Clinic
The town of Otavalo, just two hours from Quito, is a place where Ecuador’s indigenous Andean population has thrived for thousands of years. The Quichua indígenas (indigenous people) in Otavalo make up a large proportion of the city’s population and although many still live in poverty, the socio-economic status of the community is high compared…