Foothills of the Andes Barquisimento ,Venezuela

I visited this village in 1986 while working in Venezuela with the Hereditary Disease Foundation on project Venezuela. Some of my team members had been going for years and they spoke of a village called Barquismeto in the foothills of the Andes about 150 miles from Maracaibo where we worked.
The pottery there were of pre columbian artifacts that the artists had sketched in the museums and reproduced them. The day we arrived there was a lot of unfired pottery that they initially refused to sell us but my ex wife talked them out of a double chambered serpent vessel that she carried home on her lap. I bought this pitcher and medicine man fiqure that rattles. The bird flute was made by different artisans around Lake Maracaibo.

[ Edited by: Ojaitimo 2007-11-19 12:59 ]

Here is a shot of some of the other pottery and the blurry picture is the double vesseled bowl she scored.

This shot is about two montha into the project. At the time oil was $13.00 a barrel and you got about 20 Bolivar per dollar. The best restaurant in Maraicaibo was called La Tinahera (water purifier). You could eat a 5 star meal there for under 30 Bolivar. So we ate there most nights. By the end of this trip I had gained over 20 pounds as you can see in this picture.

Dr Nancy Wexler is interviewing this family member in the photo. If you are interested in reading about this ongoing project and the Hereditary Disease Foundation here is the link.
http://www.hdfoundation.org/home.php

The Gene Hunter link
http://www.iwaswondering.org/nancy_homepage.html

[ Edited by: Ojaitimo 2007-11-20 13:29 ]