Posts:
Realizing that my wife Belinda and I may one day need living assistance, the Los Jardines Geriatric Center on Cuenca’s west side presents such an opportunity. After relocating from California thirteen years ago, we have made Cuenca our home. Our fifth-floor apartment...
A recent comment on one of my Cuenca High Life articles stopped me in my tracks. The commenter argued that artificial intelligence is advancing so quickly that many of the skills people spent decades developing may soon have far less value than they once did. After...
There are moments in Cuenca when you suddenly realize you are no longer living in the sleepy colonial retirement brochure sold on Facebook by people wearing alpaca sweaters and holding cups of artisan coffee the size of flowerpots. One of those moments arrives every...
By Garry Vatcher Several years ago, we attended an international conference in Munich. It was an eye-opening experience. The funders we met there were very familiar with Ecuador and the challenges organizations face. One issue stood out immediately: in most countries,...
It was probably sometime around June or July in1982, when I was working in Bermuda, that I was invited to the house of someone who had a satellite dish to watch a World Cup football match. During the afternoon I was introduced to a friend of a friend who worked as a...
By Sandy Kraft On Sunday, May 24th, the aroma of wood smoke and barbecue filled the air as friends, families, and supporters gathered for Fired Up for Hope — or Encendido por la Esperanza — a community fundraiser benefiting Mujeres con Exito. Hosted by Carolina...
By Michael Starling Take a look at almost any travel bucket list and Machu Picchu is likely to feature prominently. But visiting Peru’s famed 15th-century Inca citadel is becoming increasingly challenging, with tourists facing overcrowding, long queues and unreliable...
There is a simple test that reveals how someone learned Spanish, and it takes about five seconds. Ask them to say Tomebamba. If the word comes out “Tomebambay,” you can be fairly sure the Spanish was learned from a screen instead of from a speaker. I was reminded of...
There is a moment, usually around one o'clock, when the soup bowl arrives. It is placed in front of you efficiently, often before you have quite sat down. The color is usually some shade of yellow. Floating within it are lentils, perhaps a few grains of rice, and the...
By Kris Fischer I look to my left. A bus careening on two wheels and belching diesel fumes bears down on me. I leap backwards just in time. My fellow pedestrians who have stayed safely curbside look at me with raised eyebrows as if to say, "Silly gringa! She really...
The other day I was scrolling through Facebook when I came across a familiar sort of message. A man, perhaps in his fifties or sixties wrote that he was not actually sick, but he had the uneasy feeling that his body was not working quite the way it did when he was...
By David Farley Nomads have gotten a short shrift in history. As Anthony Sattin writes in his new book, “Nomads: The Wanderers Who Shaped Our World”: “People who live with walls and monuments, who have written most of history, have failed to find meaning in or to...
By R.S. Gompertz When the English language gives you lemons, you can make lemonade. Deciphering mixed metaphors in English is like comparing apples and oranges except that the apple never falls far from the tree, even when a bad one ruins the barrel. You may have...
There was a time, not so very long ago, when a doctor might look at your blood pressure, nod thoughtfully, and say something along the lines of, “Well, that’s about right for your age.” The rule of thumb was simple enough to remember and reassuring enough to repeat:...
The drive from the high valley of Paute to the sprawling beaches of Ecuador’s central coast takes all day. We left a little after dawn and arrived just in time to order a celebratory cocktail as our fatigue and the blinding heat of the afternoon faded into the...
One of the more interesting discoveries about life in Cuenca is that almost nothing is ever called what you think it ought to be called. Take garbage collection. A few days ago my landlady telephoned to announce, with the accusatory tone usually reserved for tax fraud...
By Carlos Calderón A couple of years ago, a recently arrived expat who I had only met a few days earlier asked if I could arrange a meeting for him with then-President Guillermo Lasso. He knew that I had been a consultant to the government on an archaeological project...
A curious thing happens after you have lived in Ecuador for a few years. You gradually stop lusting after the latest digital technology and begin evaluating it the way Ecuadorians often evaluate refrigerators, rice cookers, and umbrellas: Does it work, will it...
There was a time when many people described moving abroad in simple terms. Cuenca was beautiful. The cost of living was lower. The climate was comfortable. The pace felt easier. For many retirees and expats, that was enough to explain the move. But expat life in...
In Cuenca, most expats have figured out one way or another of watching English-language TV or videos, usually via fiber optic cable and a reasonably reliable internet connection. One quickly discovers, however, that the modern world rests on a fragile assumption: that...
