January 16th, 2010 | By Mary Stucky
Two Next Generation journalists Paulina Yanez Navarro and Nancy Huynh , will be in Mexico with Mary Stucky this month reporting for The World, the World Vision Report and other outlets, part of Round Earth’s project to mentor and help train the next generation of global journalists.
Paulina is from Santiago, Chile and Nancy (left) is from St Paul, Minnesota. Both are students in Hamline University’s groundbreaking international journalism program.
December 7th, 2009 | By Mary Stucky
Not long ago, Bolivia appeared headed toward civil war. But in the elections just being counted, Evo Morales has achieved a lopsided victory with his opposition in disarray according to AP reports. Why?
November 5th, 2009 | By Mary Stucky
The finest hats are woven of straw that is so thin and fine it looks like linen. | Photo by Andi McDaniel
Some of the finest straw hats in the world come from Ecuador. The best sell for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Most of that money goes to the dealers and retail stores — the weavers themselves don’t earn enough to live on. But a retired U.S. advertising executive says he has a plan to create more demand for the hats and pay the best weavers a decent wage. Mary Stucky reports from the central coast of Ecuador.
November 5th, 2009 | By Round Earth Media
Miner Serafin Sallama Copa | All photos by Kate McDonald
Last year, mining companies in Bolivia doubled their profits, thanks to soaring price of minerals. Despite that, Bolivia is the poorest country in South America. That’s because most miners don’t work for big mining companies. In Bolivia, miners usually form themselves into what they call cooperatives and pick through what’s left after the big mining companies pull out. There is virtually no government oversight of this industry and miners work under appalling conditions that have hardly changed in 500 years. 50 thousand mostly men toil in the mines of Bolivia. This is the story of one of them.
November 4th, 2009 | By Mary Losure
At Machu Picchu, visitors can wander at will along stair-step stone terraces clinging to the mountainside. | Photo by Don Losure
It’s one of the new Seven Wonders of the World, according to a global contest. Want to see it? It’s not hard. These days, the “lost city of the Incas” lies on the end of a well-traveled tourist trail.
Of course, if you’re hardy and intrepid, you can hike through the jungle for days, get up at 4 a.m. and see Machu Picchu as the sun rises over the stone city.
But don’t let anybody tell you that’s the only way worth doing it.
August 24th, 2008 | By Mary Losure
Juana Chambi Mejia lives in Cochabamba, Bolivia | Photo by Mary Stucky
Tourist brochures of Bolivia show women in bright traditional dress, often with the jaunty bowler hats worn in some regions of the country. Mary Losure recently returned from the city of Cochabamba in central Bolivia, and offers these thoughts about indigenous women’s fashions there, and the hard choices they represent.
May 6th, 2008 | By Round Earth Media
Papa Lisa in the market in Cochabamba, Bolivia | All photos by Don Losure
By Mary Stucky
Nowhere is the lowly potato more revered than in the Andes of South America. This is where potatoes originated. In just two countries — Peru and Bolivia — there some 10,000 different varieties of potatoes, in colors ranging from green to black to pink. Each has a unique taste and culinary purpose.
November 30th, 2007 | By Mary Losure
The Bataburo lodge is situated in the Ecuadorian rainforest. | Photo by Don Losure
By Mary Losure
“There!” Our guide, Cirilo Tapui, points with his machete. “A gigantic woodpecker.”
I follow his gaze. Gigantic is right.
A ray of sun backlights the bird’s brilliant red crest as it pounds its huge beak on a dead tree — THWOK! THWOK! THWOK! Here in the Ecuadorian Amazon, immense and flashy birds like this still thrive, along with monkeys, tapirs, caimans and even, here and there, a jaguar.
And it’s possible, with a reasonable amount of trouble and expense, to see this rain forest wilderness firsthand. It’s not always easy or comfortable, but if you like nature (in rather large doses), it’s worth everything it takes to get there, and then some.
November 26th, 2007 | By Mary Losure
Flower plantation worker Elvia Ordonez. | Photo by Don Losure
Planning to buy a bouquet of roses for someone you love?
If, like 90 percent of the roses sold in the U.S. today, they’re imported, they may have a dark history. The workers who grew them might have been child laborers. The blooms might have been exposed to deadly, environment-polluting pesticides.
But those scenarios are beginning to change. Move over, fair-trade coffee. Now, there are fair-trade flowers.
September 3rd, 2007 | By Round Earth Media
At almost 8 thousand feet, Machu Picchu perches above a lush valley in the Peruvian Andes. | Photo: Michael Beebe
Machu Picchu, one of the world’s great archaeological sites, dazzles tourists from all over the world.
But those tourists who travel to Peru can’t see hundreds of treasures that were found at Machu Picchu. Those treasures are in New Haven, Conn., at Yale University’s Peabody Museum of Natural History.
Peruvians are outraged that these antiquities are so far away, and they are demanding that they be returned.
How did the treasures end up at Yale?
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