Three hundred miles from Chimborazo and one hundred miles from the snow of Cotopaxi – deep in Ecuador’s Andes Mountains – there is a green valley. Most men do not know about it – it is a mystery. But the valley has a name, and its name is The Country of the Blind. Many years ago, the valley was open and many people went there: the sad, the hungry, and the poor. They went there because they wanted to escape difficult lives in their own countries. So they climbed over the steep slopes and icy glaciers of the Andes and settled in that beautiful place. Then, years later, an earthquake caused a landslide. Mud and rocks came down the side of a mountain and cut off the path to The Country of The Blind forever.
But one man knew about The Country of the Blind because he lived there. When the landslide happened, he was on one side and his family and The Country of the Blind was on the other. After the mud and rocks tumbled down and blocked the path, he never saw his family or the valley again.
He had a story and told everyone. And everyone who heard his tale never forgot it.
The valley, he said, had everything: sweet water, green grass and a warm climate. It had healthy brown soil and trees with fruit; rivers fed the valley from the glacier and helped grow the crops. People and their animals prospered. But one thing happened to mar their happiness. A strange disease hit them – an illness no one understood or could explain.
All the children in the valley were born blind…
Adapted by EFLshorts.com
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