An award winning documentary short about an indigenous midwife and healer in the high sierras of Ecuador.

At a young age in the wake of the devastating loss of her own baby during childbirth and having seen friends suffering similarly, Carmen Cumba decided to learn the ancient ritual of Pakarina (child birth) to prevent more mothers and children from dying unnecessarily during the birthing process.

Carmen spent years apprenticing and studying the ways of the Partera’s (midwives) and also those of Yachak’s (shamen) learning as much as she could about plant medicine even though she could not read or write. Through a thirsty curiosity, stubbornness, tirelss dedication and a lot of hard work she now has one of the largest organic medicinal plant gardens in the Andes that serves as her pharmacy where she, much like a pharmacist, expertly gathers all the right ingredients straight out of the ground to create medicine to treat her patients. She turns no one away. People have been known to travel hours to consult her for health issues they cannot seem to remedy through other means.

Carmen is now considered an authority on plant medicine locally and regionally. Even the Red Cross has consulted her. She wants to share her knowledge before it is lost as fewer and fewer youth in her community are interested in learning this ancient knowledge, instead choosing to pursue higher education to earn more money. She believes that if more people understand how natural medicine works, it will become normalized as a part of overall health practices. Carmen and her fellow partera’s share their knowledge through seminars, training programs, tourism and even a few published books even though she and most of her colleagues cannot read or write.