On the sixth floor of an older building in La Paz is a small office with a modest sign printed on standard computer paper. The dim light in the narrow hallway makes it difficult for me to read the sign. I notice a poster on the door advertising the “Primer Encuentro Nacional de Plantas Medicinales de Bolivia,” the First National Meeting on Bolivian Medicinal Plants, held in December 2010 under the sponsorship of this office. …
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In October 2003, a tumultuous indigenous and popular uprising brought down the government of President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, following a massacre that cut short the lives of 67 people in El Alto and the provinces of La Paz. The so-called “gas war” was one of the climaxes of popular protests that had begun in 2000 with the “water war” of February—April in Cochabamba and the indigenous …
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When we finally pull into San Lucas Tolimán, after a winding drive through the Guatemalan highlands, I immediately notice the kids. Two small boys giggle as they roll motorbike tires down the road. A gaggle of schoolgirls in traditional fabrics walk linked arm-in-arm. A young girl holds an apple-cheeked baby. Boys play soccer in the dust of an abandoned store. The children exude happiness everywhere. They are a testimony…
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Upon asking a young woman living with HIV to describe HIV stigma and discrimination, she responded, “It is a person that is not worth anything, that is not worth anything, is a useless…
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I have traveled a lot in recent months, from Phoenix and Salt Lake City to Budapest and Amsterdam. I even purchased a world map, one of those for putting up on your wall…
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