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QUITO, ECUADOR - Claudia’s* life changed the day she saw a paramilitary group kill a man in her hometown of Buenaventura, one of the most violent places in Colombia. Not only did she see the killers. Worse, they saw her. They threatened to murder her if she told anyone what she had seen. She promised …
QUITO, ECUADOR — Paula had been in quarantine with her husband and two kids for 15 days by the end of March 2020 under Ecuador’s strict lockdown, which included a nationwide 2 p.m. curfew. Then, Paula’s boss called. Business was suffering; he would have to let some people go and cut salaries. He asked Paula if she would agree to …
Continue reading "Workers Resist Pandemic-Era Disaster Capitalism in Ecuador (In These Times)"
QUITO, ECUADOR - When the Kichwa community closed off their village near the Coca River in Ecuador's northern Amazon rainforest in March to protect themselves from the coronavirus pandemic, they planned to live off fishing and whatever food they could grow. But about two weeks into their quarantine, two damaged oil pipelines leaked thousands of …
QUITO, ECUADOR - In May, Al Jazeera interviewed me for their podcast The Take about how indigenous communities in Ecuador's Amazon were forced to deal with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, lock down, environmental disasters, and oil spills in their communities all at once. This is the outcome of that talk: https://podcasts.aljazeera.com/the-take-episodes/2020/07/27/escaping-coronavirus-in-ecuadors-amazon (Photo Credit: Jeronimo Zuniga/Amazon …
Continue reading "Escaping coronavirus in Ecuador’s Amazon (Al Jazeera’s The Take, Podcast)"
QUITO, ECUADOR - When Victoria Sanchez and her mother, Eufemia Nicolaza Sanches Pin, showed up at their local public hospital in Ecuador's Guayaquil for Sanches Pin's weekly dialysis treatment last month, hospital staff refused to let the mother, a diabetic, in because she had a runny nose. Hospital staff worried it could be COVID-19 and …
Continue reading "Coronavirus pandemic exposes inequality in Ecuador’s Guayaquil (Al Jazeera)"
QUITO, ECUADOR - The first time I cried was Saturday, March 21. It was a beautiful morning, and I was sitting at my window, staring at the sun-kissed Andes Mountains around Quito. But I couldn’t hear cars honking on my normally bustling street. There were no car alarms, either. The furniture store next door wasn’t blasting reggaeton …
Continue reading "Visions of a Crisis: Difficult days in Ecuador (Literary Review of Canada)"
[Co-written with Anthony Faiola] The doctors and nurses began boarding planes late last year, Cuban professionals who had come to aid Ecuador’s health-care system, their time cut short by a government that no longer wanted them. Ecuador is one of a handful of U.S. allies that fell in step with the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy on Cuba, …
QUITO, ECUADOR - Nemonte Nenquimo, an Indigenous Waorani leader from Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, watched as her Indigenous colleagues, family and friends rushed back to their territory this past week, attempting to escape the threat of the coronavirus engulfing the region. Some travelled by car or bus, others flew by charter plane or travelled by boat …
Continue reading "Indigenous race into Ecuador’s Amazon to escape coronavirus (Al Jazeera)"
LAGO AGRIO, ECUADOR - Galo Rodriguez uses his machete to dig a hole near the small stream on his farm in the north-east of Ecuador, on the cusp of the Amazon rainforest. As he digs there is nothing unusual to be seen – but when he hits 32cm below the surface, the soil releases a …
Continue reading "The people cleaning up the oil spills of the Amazon (BBC Future Planet)"
QUITO, ECUADOR - Across the American continent, from the north of Mexico to Argentina, the jaguar has long been revered for its strength and power. But in some parts of Ecuador, the largest cat in South America is increasingly at risk as roads, mining and agriculture take over the rainforests. The loss of habitat is …
