While visiting a family of healers in the Peruvian jungle, I realized what it’s like to struggle on the brink between life and death without the support of the community or the government.
Sleeping beside the healer and his patients
We visited a healer living in a remote village on Maranon river, located in the jungles of Northern Peru. We slept in one room along with his family and other patients, who in this case was the elderly mother of the healer’s wife. She was almost 90 years old and was being taken care of by her partner, who was 58 and half-blind from an accident he had in the fields. To aid his vision, he asked if I had any glasses to give him, and seemed sad to hear that I didn’t.
Intimacy and long days together
His wife was constantly holding his hand or trying to grab it, just to be sure he was around, even when he’d occasionally leave for a moment in order to empty her urine bucket. In the
She woke in the middle of the night, screaming. That was her life: on the wooden floor, waiting for the end. That was his life: without nurses to help, without government benefits, without free days to rest from the unexplainable burden of being a full time caretaker. This is surely only known to those who have experienced it. Even if there were someone with a TV in the village to distract his mind for a while, he didn’t have this pair of glasses to watch it with.
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Editor’s note: This article previously appeared on the Blog of Tata Mundo
Cover photo: Tata Mundo
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