How people in different countries are treated: a travel photographer showed home first aid kits

Milan-based amateur photographer Gabriele Galimberti has been researching the lives of people around the world for many years. The objects of his attention are ordinary things from everyday life, from children's toys to your grandmother's family recipes. Gabriel compares life in countries with different levels of development.

In the 2018 photo project “Home pharma”, Gabriel studied how people around the world are treated and what their first aid kits look like. There is a clear connection between the wealth of people and the amount of medicines in their home.

Michael Chamorro Suarez, 32, Flor Parkinson Valla, 33, and (left to right) Julia (age 1), Johan (age 7), and twins Jamie and Sofia (age 5) are photographed in the living room of their home in Cahuita, Costa Rica . Flor graduated in Italy with a thesis on the migration of Italians to Costa Rica. Now she has a bakery in the country, and her husband has one of the few restaurants in the small town of Cahuita. Their eldest son, Johan, was diagnosed with ADHD and was prescribed Risperdal, an antipsychotic drug (top left first drug). Risperdal is used to treat schizophrenia in adults and children over 13 years of age. It is also used to treat symptoms of irritability in autistic children between the ages of 5 and 16. Johan's parents bought the medicine, but have not yet given it to their son, fearing that it may have more negative effects than good.

Susan Fischer, 35, is a yoga teacher and owner of a popular yoga studio in the trendy district of Zurich, Switzerland. She uses only homeopathic remedies. In the red jar in the center of the photo, you can see ayahuasca, a traditional decoction of leaves and roots used as a spiritual medicine in the ceremonies of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon basin. Its effects include hallucinations, spiritual revelations, and vomiting, which is considered an integral part of the experience as it represents the release of negative energy and emotions. The use of ayahuasca is becoming more and more popular among Westerners who take the tea under the supervision of a shaman.

Ana Cristina, 33, Leonardo de Andrade Bernardo, 24, and their children Rafaelia, 12, and Guilleme, 3. They are photographed in their tiny apartment in the Vidigal favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The photo shows their entire apartment. At night, another mattress is pulled out from under the bottom bed. Ana works as a cleaner and Leonardo as a plumber.

Aurélie Chauffer-Ivar and her husband Alexis Chauffer-Ivar, 33, in their Paris apartment. Aurélie works in a publishing house, and Alexis has launched a startup in the real estate market. Like most French people, they have medicines in abundance in the house. They have all kinds of medicines, from antivirals to antidepressants, from painkillers to antibiotics.

Beckett Cudmore, 29, is from Irvine, California. Becket was born in Washington state. As a child, he was very thin. At the age of seven, he was sexually abused, after which he ended up in a foster family. When the boy was 10 years old, he began to have eating disorders. He began to obsessively eat and in a short time gained a lot of extra pounds. At 15, he was very obese.

He is now taking medication for depression and eating disorders.

34-year-old Mohammed in Marsa Alam in Egypt. Mohammed works in a pharmacy, which is located on the territory of the Belgian beach resort "Three Corners", which is mainly used by residents of Northern Europe. The drugs that tourists most often buy at his pharmacy are Viagra and suntan lotion. And his personal pharmacy consists of Egyptian generics, which are much cheaper than Western versions.

Ingrida Pauleske, 85, lives in the small village of Pelci in Latvia. She is a retired school teacher and now has a vegetable garden where she grows cucumbers and other vegetables that she preserves for the winter. Ingrida lives in a small apartment in a Soviet-style house. She is in good health and the medicines she has at home are usually leftovers from past illnesses.

Ilio Gezimail, 40, his wife Sonia-Sazian Joseph, 37, and their children, Donalson, 11, Visline, 11, and Myrna Matramia, 2, at their home in the Carrefour-Feuil area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti . Ilio, better known as Wilson, is a motorcycle taxi driver. He is actually a bricklayer but can't find a job and when he does he doesn't get paid so he prefers to work in a motorcycle taxi to support his family. They have very little medication at home, including a broad-spectrum antibiotic, lice shampoo and cough syrup. Ilio would like his wife to take birth control pills because he doesn't earn enough to support four children and he doesn't want more. But Sonya-Sazyan refuses, because the pastor of the Protestant church where she goes claims that it is against the will of God.

Arnaud Brunel and his wife Candelita at their home in Lausanne, Switzerland. Arno is a businessman and CEO of Tectona. He is also an avid photo collector. The image shows some of his work, including works by Richard Avedon, Andrés Serrano and Vik Muniz.

Nurjaha Saghri, 56, her husband Abbas Ali Saghri, 67, and their children Faisal (24), Hina (17), and Rafik (22) live in a one-room apartment in the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, India. At night they pull out the mattress and everyone sleeps in the same room. Parents are unemployed, and children work occasionally and are the only source of income for the family. The father of the family suffered a stroke, so most of the medicines in the photo are for him.

Wall-Lima Baltazan, 56, her mother, Silemouye Charicable, 76, and her son, Lozema Astrel, 20, at their home in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Woll-Lima works as a secretary for the Haitian cultural organization Fokal. She uses traditional Haitian medicine to treat herself and her loved ones. These are mainly leaves that can be found in local markets or from Madsen Fey, herbalists.

Ieva Luste, 34, in her modern apartment in the center of Riga, Latvia. She works for the Latvian government in the public relations department. She is divorced and has a 10-year-old son living with her.

Yasumasa, 70, and his wife, Nobuko, 66, in their bedroom. They live in the Honatsugi area of Tokyo, Japan. They have two sons who come to visit with their families for the weekend. Yasumasa has a heart condition for which he takes several medications every day (they are in transparent bags in the photo). Nobuko takes calcium for osteoporosis and aspirin for heart.

Marco Segato, 47, Vittoria Ruzzi, 30, Gerardo, 4, and Pietro, 1, all live in a luxury apartment in Miami, USA. Marco is a sales agent for luxury yachts built in Italy, while Vittoria is an architect. They travel, often to exotic locations, both for pleasure and work. Many of the drugs they have at home come from Italy, where, unlike the US, there is a unified taxpayer healthcare system.

53-year-old Arunas Andriejauskas and his wife, 52-year-old Alena Andrijauskaite, at their home in Preila, on the Curonian Spit. Arunas is an engineer and Alena is a teacher. They deeply believe in the healing powers of nature and do not use industrial pharmaceuticals. Instead, they prepare their own medicines by gathering herbs, mushrooms and berries from the forest around their home, harvest from their garden and honey from their own apiary. They have a large selection of essential oils that are used to treat various diseases.

Isidro Flores Gonzalez, 48, and his son Adrian Flores Mendoza, 25, at their home in Xochimilco, a district of Mexico City, Mexico. Isidro is a biologist and founder of the conservation group Santuario del Ajolote, which is trying to protect the axolotl, a rare species of salamander that lives in nearby lakes.

Piero Galanti, 50, and his wife Catusia Gazza, 43, are Italians vacationing in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. Katushia works as a nurse, and Piero works as a PR manager for discos. They call themselves hypochondriacs, and their travel pharmacy stocks medicines for many ailments: antibiotic creams, medicines for fungal infections, rheumatoid arthritis, and so on.

Nicole, 25, her mother Sonia, 60, and grandmother, 85, live in an apartment with dog Toto in the Los Martires neighborhood of Bogota, Colombia. Nicole strives to become one of the SuicideGirls, gradually getting tattooed. SuicideGirls is an online community that is also a modeling agency for girls who have a lot of tattoos, piercings and general pin-up style.

Henri Caillier, 92, plays sports at his home in Brétigny, Switzerland. Henri once ran a factory in the German part of Switzerland and played petanque very enthusiastically. He is in very good health and does not have many medicines. The only thing he regularly consumes is cough syrup, as he used to smoke a lot.

36 year old Lara Reeves in Aliso Viejo, California, USA. When Lara was 14 years old, she began to have problems with eating behavior. First she developed bulimia and then anorexia. In the past, she used many medicines to cure her illnesses.

After several years of treatment, she overcame her problems and therefore decided to help people with anorexia and bulimia. She now works for the Rebecca Foundation, a foundation that helps people with eating disorders. She still takes medication and supplements, but no longer for eating disorders.

Jean Toussaint, 28, in his newly built house in the suburbs of Jacmel, Haiti. Like many of his compatriots, he does not have much medicine and usually buys individual pills from street vendors if he needs them. In the photo - a little cough syrup and paracetamol.

Remo Ballardini, 65, at his home in Riva del Garda, Italy. Remo is the librarian of the Alto Garda Museum, a museum dedicated to Lake Garda. He is a heavy smoker and has cough syrup and unused hair loss lotion in his home pharmacy.

As you can see, Europeans and Americans, as a rule, keep a bunch of medicines and dietary supplements at home, although they don’t get sick with anything serious. Plus, people from large cities fill their first-aid kits with antidepressants. Residents of countries with less developed economies prefer to be treated with folk remedies and buy medicines only when necessary. For example, a woman from Haiti did not have a single pill in her house:

What is in your first aid kit?