Medicine women on a mission

Minister of Foreign Affairs Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett pays keen attention to the products of Medicine from Trees at the Rupununi Music and Arts Festival at Annai last month. (Photo by Nigel Mattan)

If Veronica Farias has her way each person in the indigenous Makushi villages perched on the edges of the north Rupununi savannah would be using natural oils, locally-made soap and medicine from trees.

For three days a month, Farias and her colleague Rita Francis gather their oils, soaps and medicines and with hardly any protection from the harsh Rupununi sun, traverse up and down the hills of Annai, Rupertee, Kwata-mang, Aranaputa, and Wowetta telling, selling, demonstrating and dispensing their products to the local residents.