Maybe it’s that this town is too small, or maybe it’s that we’ve been here too long, but everyone is starting to look pretty familiar. When we walk in the market, our patients greet us and introduce their families to us. We know the local “collectivo” driver, who races his white van up and down…

This was the week I had been both dreading and anticipating.  Andrew was heading back to the US for a whirlwind week of seeing patients in DC and NYC, and I was staying in Ecuador with the kids. You would think that after spending no less than 1,800 continuous hours together, we would be ripe…

Hour 1: “Still cannot believe we fit everything in the back of the pick-up truck” -Gail Hour 2: “are we there yet?” -Julia Hour 3: “Mimi get off of me, you’re the worst” -Lena  Hour 4: “I can’t see the road- we are driving through a cloud” -Andrew Hour 5: everyone (except our fantastic chauffeur…

Each year, Halloween becomes a bigger and bigger deal in our house.  Decorations, parties, candy gingerbread houses, and usually a cauldron of witch’s brew made of dry ice left over from some shipping containers at work. This year, the mourning for a Halloween misspent started early.  Where will we be on Halloween? No one celebrates…

I could tell this story in real time – that is, if you have six weeks to listen to it.  I’ll try to speed it up, but you’ve got to feel a little bit of the excruciation.   Getting  to the airport in the Galapagos involves a taxi boat (bags piled high on the bow), 45…

One thing that I don’t miss at all in Maryland in Spanish conjugations. Not only have they caused me hours of stress, but they still haunt me to this day. Ironically, of the few things to follow me to Ecuador, conjugations have hitched a ride in one of our many suitcases to Cuenca. Every day from 3…

In our earlier blog about the Jambu Huasi clinic we wrote about some of the traditional medicine practiced by the local Yachacs (shamans), Parteras (lay midwives), and Fregadoras (medical masseuses). We promised to give an update after we completed our month in Otavalo. Since we wrote that first blog, Lena and I had the chance…