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Published numbers General index of translated articles vol.18 nº4 2009 vol.18 nº3 2009 vol.18 nº2 2009 vol.18 nº1 2009 vol.17 nº4 2008 vol.17 nº3 2008 vol.17 nº2 2008 vol.17 nº1 2008 Año XVI, nº 58 2007 Año XVI, nº 57 2007 Año XVI, nº 56 2007 Año XV, nº 55 2006 Año XV, nº 54 2006 Año XV, nº 52-53 2006 Año XIV, nº 51 2005 Año XIV, nº 50 2005 Año XIV, nº 48-49 2005 Año XIII, nº47 2004 Año XIII, nº46 2004 Año XIII, nº44-45 2004 Año XII, nº43 2003 Año XII, nº42 2003 Año XII, nº40-41 2003 Año XI, nº39 2002 Año XI, nº 38 2002 Año XI, nº36-37 2002 Año X, nº35 2001 Año X, nº34 2001 Año X, nº32-33 2001 Año IX, nº 31 2000 Año IX, nº 30 2000 Año IX, nº 28-29 2000 Año VIII, nº 27 1999 Año VIII, nº 26 1999 Año VIII, nº 24-25 1999 Año VII, nº 23 1998 Año VII, nº 22 1998 Año VII, nº 20-21 1998 Año VI, nº 19 1997 Año V, nº 18 1996 Año V, nº 16-17 1996 Año V, nº 15 1996 Año IV, nº14 1995 Año IV, nº 12-13 1995 Año IV, nº 11 1995 Año III, nº 10 1994 Año III, nº 8-9 1994 Año III, nº 7 1994 Año II, nº 6 1993 Año II, nº 4-5 1993 Año I, nº 3 1992 Año I, nº 2 1992 Año I, nº 1 1992

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   If someone wishes to get into the village of Santa Barbara, he must go deep into the moor that extends from Duitama, within the core of the mountainous and libertarian administrative district of Boyacá. An endless and uncovered trail that only rural people used to adventure dare to walk along, leads through valleys and stony gullies until it reaches this cluster of houses crowded around a colourful parish priest chapel. Nowadays, the church does not have a priest, as the village of any other institutional representation, if we exclude Emilce, a young teacher who does not remember the last time she was paid her salary.

Hardly a dozen inhabitants are there to keep the village alive, half old women, half children, because the people that could do the physical work went away to the outskirts of Bogota searching for better fortune. All this situation has been caused by a new social class of big landowners that have been oppressing peasants until they have been thrown out the lands that so painfully maintained their families since time immemorial.

Virginia and her granddaughter, Natalia, live there. See them posing under the rosebush showing us their eternal smile. The old lady has been the midwife of the village for long years, until she has lost her job perforce, faced with the lack of women able to give birth. Crawling behind the steps of his grandmother Leonor is little Mauricio, the last one in being helped to be brought to the world by Virginia with those arms she shows under her rolled up sleeves. She tells she learnt the job when she was very young, working alongside a druggist of the town, that is the reason why she knows so well the herb teas to alleviate the pains of labor or to avoid the afterpains. Ramo, sweet camomile, mint, brown sugarloaf, all her pharmacopoeia is obtained from within the perimeter of her tiny farm. Some tepid boiled water, a spoonful of sugar-cane syrup and a card bearing virgin Maria Auxiliadora, that was enough for a woman to give birth. And they used to give birth standing up to avoid pulling the baby out, as it is usually done in hospitals.

Thank goodness, the druggist taught her some other disciplines besides delivering, and so she has been required from other villages to heal eye, hand and foot diseases or even to deal with recholones children. Virginia is sixty-four and conscious that her wisdom has expired, that sooner or later she will be forced to leave the village, probably when her smiling granddaughter will reach a working age and her parents will need her. An unavoidable process it is: old people stay in their houses preparing themselves mentally while they bring up their grandchildren away from the lack of safety of the urban slums, where the displaced peasants concentrate. However, all of them know they will share a same destiny. It is a matter of time.