Medicine Blog

I learnt to use a machete for the first time. I tried to try peeling the yuca (manioc) to bring back to make Chicha (their sacred drink) and daily staple. OMG! It was an adventure....

As I concertina through the languages, the unknown dramatic curves of Achuar and its new acoustic shapes tumble me around in a wide sea of incomprehension. Spanish, half understood, gives me some ground, and then...

Some years ago we had a deep meeting with Agustin Tentets in Sharamentsa. He spoke on camera of the powerful will and total determination of his people to protect the forest for the sake of...

In Sharamentsa we get out of the plane into dazzling sun, the earth under our feet damp and hot. The huge river Pastaza, a sinuous powerful gleaming presence right there. We are in a completely...

I love what Phil Stutz says (in the film Stutz) about seeing each next thing we do, however apparently grand or mundane, as the next pearl on a string of pearls. He suggests that we give equal...

We were invited to a cultural sharing. Wonderfully unexpectedly, each dance or song they shared with us seemed designed to reduce everyone to hysterical laughter. At one point our whole group were asked to become...

Manari greets us. He talks quietly, gently, slowly and when he speaks I find myself listening in a new way. It's as if he is transmitting on another wavelength which I've unconsciously longed for but...

As the tiny plane takes off from the airstrip and soars over the forest, leaving behind the last roads and pipeline, tears spring from my eyes, and there is, simultaneously, a feeling of entering the...

We walked into the airport and looked at each other with some alarm. We both had the same feeling that the floor was moving and we’d both come to the same conclusion that there was...

In that quiet pause after Christmas and before New Year, we went slowly enough to recognise what, perhaps, deep down, we already knew. We realised that it just did not feel right for me to...

As we come to the end of this challenging year, I've been reflecting on the experiences, the learning, the growth and the gratitude that I can find for 2022. And there is so much. At...

I LOVE this magnificent beech tree which grows out of a wall close to where we live. I was so happy to catch this moment of early sun touching her red tinged branches. I was...