Macedonia is the name of a Wounaan indigenous settlement on the bank of the San Juan River, in the Colombian province of Choco. The Wounaans have an estimated population of 20´000 people. They live in houses located on riverbanks, built on stilts to protect them from flooding.
As most of the indigenous groups in Colombia, the Wounaans have been greatly affected by the internal conflict, which has left thousands of people displaced and dead. Indigenous groups in Colombia also suffer confinement, severe discrimination and poverty and they are often victims of illegal and large mining and agro-industrial projects.
Despite all this, Macedonia’s Wounaans maintain a traditional way of life, managing to hold on to their ancestral socio-political and economic structure.