THE UNEMPLOYED DOCTOR
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...