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It was 1993 when NN, a 37-year-old doctor who had graduated from the Central University, was worried about earning money to support his family. Despite not having to pay rent for his home, he didn't feel capable of pursuing postgraduate studies because he felt claustrophobic in hospitals. Life as a hospital doctor forced him to live a double life: one inside the hospital, distant from his family, in a world of doctors, nurses, and assistants who were different people inside the hospital than they were outside. Since completing his rural medical service in the fields of Esmeraldas province, working in the countryside had become his obsession. However, in Ecuador at that time, jobs were only available in the Ministry of Health's sub-centers, where newly graduated doctors could only practice for a year. He didn't see the possibility of working in the Social Security system for rural workers, as he would many years later.
The non-renewal of his contract as a professor of History and Geography of Health, where he could also be a researcher, at the School of Environmental Sanitation of the Faculty of Medicine; the impossibility of simultaneously managing the radio station his father had named after him, a station he had loved since childhood, when it operated on Avenida Amazonas, in the same house where he lived, and which had made him dream of being a journalist, but at that time journalists were the lowest-paid professionals; however, he thought he could create a radio station specializing in health and sports.
Finally, as an unemployed doctor living with his father, a famous lawyer and owner of a large estate in Tandapi, a parish in the Cloud Forest on the Quito-Guayaquil highway, with forests and wildlife, where his grandmother, the woman who had loved him most since childhood, lived. Accompanying his father every weekend and visiting his grandmother became a ritual that brought him joy on Saturdays and Sundays. From Monday to Friday, he dried, packaged, and sold the medicinal plants he brought from the ranch in natural health stores. His wife worked as the building manager where they lived, was also a mother, and was pursuing a master's degree. It was on that ranch that he discovered medicinal plants, one used in pregnancy.
He went to Russia to study how to do business with that new nation born from the former USSR, so he could export medicinal plants, especially the gravidica, which he believed was an extraordinary plant because it was simultaneously an antispasmodic for all kinds of colic, an aromatic tea, and a spice used by the Incas. He also dried other Andean plants, such as the pedorrera for gas colic, quinine, sarsaparilla, and dragon's blood, which were abundant in that valley where the Sarapullo River, which originated in the snow-capped Ilinizas mountains, flowed down to join the Toachi and Pilat Rivers at a place where a hydroelectric plant now stands.
In 1993, after studying in Russia and legally establishing a company there to sell his medicinal plants, NN returned to his country. However, Russia had become the most corrupt country in the world; the mafia ruled the country during Boris Yeltsin's presidency. In Moscow, he opened a shop to sell roses and his medicinal plants, but selling medicinal plants required that they be studied and certified by a university. When he had his shop at Lomonosov University, he paid the scientists there every month. Since practicing rural medicine in the fields of Esmeraldas province, working in the countryside became his obsession, but in Ecuador at that time, there was only work in the sub-centers of the Ministry of Health, where newly graduated doctors could only practice for a year. He didn't see the possibility of working in the Social Security system for rural workers, as he would many years later.
The non-renewal of his contract as a professor of History and Geography of Health, where he could also be a researcher, at the School of Environmental Sanitation in the Faculty of Medicine, and the impossibility of simultaneously managing the radio station his father had named after him—a station he had loved since childhood, back when it operated on Avenida Amazonas, in the same house where he lived—made him dream of becoming a journalist. However, at that time, journalists were among the lowest-paid professionals, but he thought he could create a radio station specializing in health and sports.
Finally, as an unemployed doctor living with his father, a renowned lawyer and owner of a large estate in Tandapi, a parish in the cloud forest along the Quito-Guayaquil highway, surrounded by forests and wildlife, where his grandmother, the woman who had loved him most since childhood, lived. Accompanying his father every weekend and visiting his grandmother became a ritual that brought him joy on Saturdays and Sundays, while from Monday to Friday...
