Working Girl

Natural History, April, 2001 by Lynn A. Meisch

Mama Cata is fond of Rosa, watches her carefully, and sees to her religious education. In 1999, in preparation for her first communion, Rosa attended catechism lessons in the afternoon; it was her only chance to go out unchaperoned. Rosa has no friends her own age and no opportunities to make them. But she hasn't been abandoned by her family. For her first communion, her mother and grandmother, along with some older siblings and other relatives, made the trip to Riobamba. Afterward, Rosa went home with them to the slopes of Taita Chimborazo to celebrate. She had grown so big that her cousins barely recognized her.

Lynn A. Meisch has conducted fieldwork in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia since 1973 and has published extensively on Andean life and culture. Meisch (far right, with Marta Conteron and son Alex) has twenty-four godchildren in Ecuador; they--not only her research--draw her back to the Andes each year. Deciding that education is wasted on the young, Meisch returned to school in her forties, receiving her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Stanford University in 1997. She is an associate professor of anthropology at Saint Mary's College of California in Moraga.