Living for a full year in one of the most remote places of the country: Nuevo Rocafuerte. No other doctor volunteers to go here. A year in service of the government is mandatory, but you have some say in where you’d like to complete this year. All doctors are split into groups based on priority. A priority could for example be the highest grade for the state exams, or having a physical handicap. Neither apply to us. Based on our marriage certificate we are placed into the all but one lowest priority. Next you may, per priority, by means of a lottery choose a location. The most popular: in and around the big cities. No one wants to go to Nuevo Rocafuerte, so remotely located in the jungle. But we do! It was an easy choice.

We’re currently residing in a small room in one of the two ‘hotels’ that are in the village. A tiny bed in a room that isn’t much more than some mosquito net. It may sound strange but it’s a fine place. We can watch monkeys from our window, every morning a crowd of screeching parrots flies by and at night it’s a circus full of strange and especially big insects. For us it’s paradise.

It takes a day of traveling, but you’ll end up in a completely different world. Despite the poverty the people are friendlier here than in any other part of the country. Old and young greet each other politely. You don’t need to lock your door. You hear nothing from the outside world – apart from your patients. Nuevo Rocafuerte is the entire world.