Living the Life

Do you Remember

Who was the first women's world chess champion ?

a,    Katalin Szoke   b,  Lyndia Skoblikova   c,   Carol Thompson   d,   Ludmila Rudenko

A neat way to store Garlic 

Place peeled garlic in a jar of olive oil. It extends the life of the garlic and as a bonus gives you garlic flavored oil.

Ecuador hospital offers indigenous Andean treatments

A hospital in Riobamba, Ecuador, offers patients traditional indigenous Andean medicine alongside Western treatments.

When a patient arrives they are asked what beliefs they have - and then if appropriate they are referred to a "yachak" (or shaman) instead of a conventional doctor.

The traditional treatments offered include "limpias" or spiritual cleansing treatments, which are meant to clean the patient's aura.

According to the team behind the hospital, their ability to offer a combination of cures is very important especially in indigenous areas, where people are often skeptical of accepting Western medicine.

They say people are more willing to take other medication if it goes alongside what the shamans say.

Irene Caselli went along to the clinic to meet patient Jenny Layedra and yachak Mariano Atupana.

Produced by Irene Caselli and Pablo Gordillo.

Mercado

·      One day off to the market here in Salinas. The market here In Salinas is called the Mercado. This is not a trip to the opera; this is a  place where the local community can buy fruits, vegetables, fish,and chicken. They also use this place for social gatherings, and this is also a place where they can sit down and eat. While we were there, we were able to buy some fruits and vegetables, a DVD, and a whole chicken. The process of buying a whole chicken I found very interesting; basically, pick out the one you want and while you wait, it is cut up for you.

.     So, instead of describing how they do this, I used my camera and made a video of what was going on.  Before I get to the video, I will describe what it is I’m seeing and hearing.

From where we live to the Mercado is about five blocks away, so we walk there and back.  When you get there, it is a large steel covered area with stalls inside arranged in areas: meat, chicken, fish. There are also stalls which sell all sorts of things and stalls which sell vegetables and fruits. There are two DVD stalls and about a quarter of the area is devoted to food service. That is to say that you can buy food to eat there or you can buy food to take away. Take away food is in general served in a gray plastic container, which would hold about  2 pints and this seems to be a take away for workers. While there, as I said before, we purchased a whole chicken.  Now these people that you see on the video are doing this from seven in the morning till three in the afternoon, seven days a week. And by the way, we have not gotten sick from chicken or fish bought from there.