Posts:
There are few moments in life when you can definitely feel your soul leave your body. One is when you realise you left the gas cylinder valve open when you went on vacation. Another is when you hear three large dogs growling in unison just as you slam your apartment...
When you live in Cuenca long enough, someone will eventually lean across a café table and whisper, “Have you joined IESS yet? You get a free funeral.” They usually say it like they are offering you a key to an occult club for expatriates that meets somewhere between...
I keep seeing the same couple in Cuenca. Or at least I keep seeing their online clones. He is always about sixty-one and grizzled with a baseball cap that says something about life being a journey. She is fifty-eight with blonde hair, brown eyes, and that smile you...
By Jim Smith Arriving in Cuenca often feels like a fresh start filled with color, mountain air, and possibility. Many people come here to slow down, to breathe, or to begin again. What is not talked about as often is the emotional shifting that happens after the...
I have a simple rule when talking about music, movies, or anything that is vaguely cultural in this column. If it is not free for everyone, I do not want to talk about it. Well, OK, if it is a book, you will have to buy it, borrow a copy from your local library or...
By Garry Vatcher Some call it giving — I prefer to call it investing. “Giving” often suggests something you’ll never see again. But when you invest in reputable non-profit programs, you help create a future filled with hope and opportunity. Your investment transforms...
By Amaya Verde and Luis Melgar For many of us, checking our phones has probably become an unconscious reflex, similar to breathing or blinking. And like Amy, a composite character who illustrates usual patterns of phone usage, we are interacting with our phones a high...
Editor’s note: This is the fourth of a four-part series about Married at First Sight, the international reality television show. The show originated in Denmark in 2013 and now has franchises in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The first part was My...
By Nicole Ruf (with Lydia Lovell) On the drive from Quito to the coast, somewhere where the mountains start turning into hills, right before the road starts to smell like salt, you’ll find people waving a fan of mixed CDs at your window. The CDs come in plastic...
If you sit with newcomers at a café near Parque Calderón, you can almost hear the expectations they carried when they first arrived. Some imagined peaceful days where everything feels slower and lighter. Others pictured a neat, organized city where life runs smoothly....
Editor’s note: This is the third of a four-part series about Married at First Sight, the international reality television show. The show originated in Denmark in 2013 and now has franchises in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The first part was My...
By Richard Sima You might think spending time on your smartphone or computer is bad for your brain. Indeed, “brain rot” — the slang term for a mental decline caused by mindlessly consuming social media or digital dreck — was Oxford Dictionary’s 2024 Word of the Year....
Editor’s note: This is the second of a four-part series about Married at First Sight, the international reality television show. The show originated in Denmark in 2013 and now has franchises in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Part 1 is My VPN took...
by Mark A. Mahoney, Ph.D., R.D.N. As our society (as well as other Nations) continue to have significant issues related to basic kindness and civility amongst groups of citizens we should all focus more on the overall benefits that may occur if we just take time to...
Editor's note: This is the first of a four-part series about Married at First Sight, the international reality television show. The show originated in Denmark in 2013 and now has franchises in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. I never meant to...
There are moments in Cuenca when you discover something that feels like a secret. A simple household discovery that makes you wonder why the rest of the world has not caught on. My latest discovery is cacao. The real stuff. The kind that comes in rough blocks or bags...
If you sit long enough in a café near Parque Calderón, you can watch an entire story unfold about expat life in Cuenca. One table hums with newcomers comparing apartment rents and favorite bakeries. Another hosts the veterans, trading tales of how things “used to be.”...
By Steven Barrie-Anthony For the vast majority of my psychotherapy patients, the gravitational pull of phones and social media alters the most important aspects of who they are, their relationships with others and how they move through the world. This is true for most...
The Americans have finally done it. After more than two centuries, the last US penny is rolling off the line, and the mint workers in Philadelphia are putting away the stamping machines for good. Perhaps they will reappear on E-bay and eventually be exported to China...
By Mikkael A. Sekeres, MD As an oncologist, I see patients who report both common and uncommon symptoms. The symptoms most commonly linked to a cancer diagnosis, not surprisingly, reflect the incidence rates of the world’s most prevalent cancers. These include feeling...
Week of August 23
Ecuador’s economy grew 2% during the first half of 2026 compared with the same period a year earlier, according to new Banco Central del Ecuador data.
Cuenca gets a prime view of next week’s deep partial lunar eclipse.
Ecuador’s economy grows 2% in the first half of 2026.
