Sowing seeds...


As Yekuana populations aggregate in valleys, moving from the small and isolated mountainous villages of yesteryear into modern-day supervillages and 'cities', as they travel and interface more and more frequently within the western world, they become the hosts, vectors and breeding grounds for 'new' diseases such as Malaria, Dengue, novels strains of influenza, etc; yet they remain twice removed from the distribution of big pharma and her expensive 'treatment' of these 'white-man's' diseases... In Jodoimenna, however, community leaders have welcomed our offer to help them seed some Artemisia, an effective herbal malarial preventive used more and more throughout the 'developing' world. Two problems must first be solved, however: 1) getting a temperate plant to grow successfully in tropical latitudes, 2) then working to prevent its spread as an invasive pest if it does. Tell you what: we're working on it. At least Hans, our student agronomist from Cornell, seemed to know what he was doing (his caring hands photographed above).
Image (c) Val Druguet. Posted by Picasa