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THE UNEMPLOYED DOCTOR

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It was 2017 when NN, a 61-year-old doctor who had only contributed to social security for 15 years, became unemployed. He worked for the Social Security of Esmeraldas in the Galera San Francisco Reserve, the first marine reserve in South America. His routes ran from the Galera parish in the north to the San Francisco parish in the south, both belonging to the Muisne canton in southern Esmeraldas. He had worked in the area in 1982 when he did his rural medical training as a newly graduated doctor from the Central University of Ecuador. He was accompanied by his wife, a young woman like himself, just 26 years old. They lived their first year of marriage in Cabo San Francisco, when the town had no road during the almost 10 months of the rainy season. This was from December to September, when the El Niño warm current arrived; it only stopped raining in October and November. During those 300 days of torrential rains and thunderstorms, the road connecting this old town, founded by the Spanis...
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EL MEDICO DESEMPLEADO

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Era el año 2017 cuando NN, un médico de 61 años que solo había aportado al seguro por 15 años, quedó desempleado. Trabajaba para el Seguro Social de Esmeraldas en la Reserva Galera San Francisco, la primera reserva marina de Sudamérica.  Sur recorridos iban desde la parroquia Galera al norte hasta la parroquia San Francisco al sur, pertenecientes al cantón Muisne al sur de Esmeraldas.  Había trabajado en la zona en 1982 cuando hizo la medicina rural como médico recién graduado de la Universidad Central del Ecuador, lo hizo acompañado de su esposa, una joven como él de apenas 26 años, que vivieron su primer año de matrimonio en el Cabo San Francisco, cuando el pueblo no tenía carretera en los casi 10 meses de invierno. Esto es desde diciembre hasta septiembre, en que llegaba la Corriente Cálida del Niño; solo en los meses de octubre y noviembre no llovía.  En aquellos 300 días con lluvias torrenciales y tormentas eléctricas desaparecía la carretera que conectaba este viejo...
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THE FANATICAL PREACHER

In his youth, he experienced the craze of disco music and nightclubs when John Travolta was the person every young person wanted to emulate. He wasn't a brilliant student, but he was a good basketball player and later a good tennis player, which led him to found the Esmeraldas Tennis Club. He started working at the Housing Bank while studying journalism at Vargas Torres University. Besides being considered one of the most attractive and sexy young men in the city of Esmeraldas, girls sought him out for his discretion. He was never heard talking about other people, religion, politics, or soccer; he only laughed at whatever jokes his friends had. He also took them to parties and nightclubs, paid for their outings, and even gave them gifts without expecting anything in return. He was often the groomsman at their birthday parties, or the person to whom the parents of these girls entrusted their daughters when they went to parties or nightclubs, knowing he would bring them back safe and...
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THE FANATICAL POLICEMAN

NN was born in Cabo San Francisco, and her mother was the healer, the director of the children's center, and the one who led the community in the village. When the rural doctor and his wife arrived in the village, she became his assistant, since the nurse and the doctor didn't get along. That nurse thought she owned the Ministry of Health center and believed that the doctors had to do what she told them. Furthermore, she saw patients in a building located in the village and didn't want to work in the new health center, which had been built in 1980, somewhat distant from the village, at the north entrance. It had no water, electricity, sewage system, or equipment. The new doctor turned the health center into his home, as it had living quarters for the doctor, and his office was in another part of the building. The team provided electricity, first from a noisy generator, and then from the village generator, which provided electricity for 3 hours each day. The water was collec...
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The Gentleman The Gentleman, Part Two

It was 2004 when NN, a British gentleman, brought more than 60 students between the ages of 15 and 18 to practice Spanish and live in the Ecuadorian Amazon. This was possible because NN had founded a foundation with Ecuadorian citizens and farmers to promote smart tourism in Ecuador. Smart tourism was a somewhat vague concept at the time, but it was understood as traveling to another country to learn, teach, and help others. Ecuador, then one of the cheapest countries in Latin America, had become a favorite destination for learning Spanish, along with Guatemala and Bolivia, since the students, who were also backpackers, had to stay for at least six weeks to learn Spanish to an intermediate level. The foundation created by NN offered students accommodation in Quito in an apartment for students and volunteers, with rooms with private bathrooms, a shared kitchen, dining room, and living room, an internet café, and classrooms for one-on-one learning (one teacher per student). This allowed ...
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THE NATIONAL HERO

THE NATIONAL HERO NN was born in 1933 in Santa Rosa, El Oro Province, a town near the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border on the Pacific coast. In those years, the province had become the country's main gold exporter, hence its name. An English company was the primary exporter, while the Anglo-Dutch company Shell had discovered oil on the Santa Elena Peninsula, across the Gulf of Guayaquil in what was then Guayas Province, neighboring El Oro Province. In 1941, when NN was a child, the Peruvian invasion of his province and Ecuador took place. This invasion had been planned and financed by the United States, as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was interested in neutralizing Ecuador, which had become the main supplier of rubber, quinine, pyrethrum, an insecticide, scopolamine (or truth drug), tagua, and balsa wood to Hitler's Germany. The American president was interested in Peru's rubber, its main export through the Pacific. However, most of the rubber came from the Amazon rainfore...
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EL EXPORTADORE DE FLORES

En 1992 NN y su esposa habían concluido sus estudios sobre cómo hacer negocios en la recién creada Federación de Rusia. Él el aeropuerto de Moscú, con un gran sobrepeso que incluía vajillas rusas, cristalería ucraniana pesada, abrgos de piel.  incluso gruesos libros y diccionarios de ruso En el aeropuerto NN conoció a unos peruanos que le ayudaron a pasar el sobrepeso en el aeropuerto, pues trabajaban con la corrupta policía aduanera del aeropuerto Sheremietevo. Meses más tarde viajó con un amigo a Moscú buscando posibilidades de negocios, pues este amigo tenía una prima casada con un colombiano y ambos trabajaban para un banquero ecuatoriano, que había abierto una filial de su banco en Rusia,pero que además vendía petróleo ruso, e incluso estaba construyendo un oleoducto de Jabarovsk, a Vladivostock el extremo oriente de Rusia. Aquel amigo se regresó por París, mientras él logró contacto con unos peruanos que tenían una bodega de flores, que hasta entonces sólo vendían flores colo...
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