Medicina

I have been working in Fundacion Leon XIII for two weeks now. The first week I felt a bit lonely, longing back to La Selva, to Carolina, Virginia and you guys. Now I feel happy again, made new friends and my hands wear the lovely smell of compost and dung...

This first week was spent on introduction and I got to see something of the work of most of the employees here. That led to some beautiful oral history talks again like the one of Don Alfredo. I also very much enjoyed my talk with my ´tocallo´ (naamgenoot) Juanito, the herbal doctor here who explained me how he obtained his knowledge on medicinal plants:
¨Since the age of 11 I have dreamed with plants. In the dreams it was revealed to me how to use each of these plants. I later checked this knowledge with my mother and the ancianos, the eldest, and it was all true. That is how knowledge comes to some of us in our communities. It is a gift, like the hueseros (ones that can repair bones), who have not medical education, but know as a little boy or girl already how to touch and manipulate the bones so that they heal.
Later I studied allopathic medicine with the nuns. The church and government have tried to destroy our ancient knowledge, making us dependent on chemicals. But I try to combine the best of two worlds and want to make sure our knowledge is not forgotten. So I give workshops, first in my community and now in many. Although the people have become divided or have been replaced from their lands by the government, they have brought the knowledge that we gave them with them. Knowledge on plants, but also on how to prevent illness by cleaning the water tanks and the garbage¨.
In the weekend I got to know Isaid, the other volunteer better and we went to the Museum on Maya Medicine. Traditional midwifes know how to massage the mother´s belly to change the position of the baby. ¨Modern¨ doctors conduct many ceseareans nowadays that might not be necessary…

Don Chebo (Rancho Salvador Allende) told us earlier how his son Sebastian possesses the gift of huesero. When Chebo once fell of a horse during a drunken man`s race with his compadre, he fractured his knee. The eleven year old Sebastian started manipulating the fractured bones causing a lot of pain, but the knee recovered well.
However the people also warn us for bad healers: brujos malos or witches.
In the Museum there was also explanation on the rituals to clean body and soul. In DF (Mexico City) on the Zocola (main square) I had already seen the performance of these `purification rituals`, involving a lot of smoke of copal (a sort of incense) and prayers. In the church of San Juan Chamula (see: Tzotziles) eggs and a lot of candles are used. A doctor complained to me that these rituals can actually cost the patients life: they sometimes take up to three days whilst which the patient is not allowed to leave the house, then it is too late to bring the patient to the hospital…
In general doctors (I happen to meet quite a lot …) complain that patients often come late to them, when illnesses or deliveries have already complicated.
In general it is not easy for doctors coming from a completely different reality, although within the same country, to work here. First of all there are the language barriers. Not only do many of the patients (especially women) have difficulty to express themselves in Spanish (or Castiya as they say), but the way of explaining health issues is different as well. Patient: ¨Yesterday I was on the street when a wind blew by. It came to my belly that started hurting. The badness reached my blood who took it to my heart, which now hurts as well¨.
Secondly there is a lack of medicines in nearly all the public health centres. (In the communities in La Selva Lacandona this is even worse). People are often unwilling (since they feel it should be provided to them for free) or unable to buy medicines from the pharmacies. Ignacio used to take medicines with him to San Quentin: ¨If I do not bring medicines myself, I cannot do my work properly. During my studies, I was part of a group called Humanitarian Doctors. We used to go to the communities. Because of the lack of medicines, we started contacting big pharmaceutic companies to ask them for donations. I still use those contacts to obtain medicines. Even the many soldiers that are located here in San Quentin from 1994 do not have enough medicines. I sometimes bring some to them, they are also humans, not always having had a choice for another career and some have become friends. But I do not take of my Zapatista t-shirt when I enter the base.¨
For another doctor it is frustrating to see how the porridge provided to children who suffer malnutrition (African style blown up bellies you hardly come across, but yes children are small, sometimes with white stains on the skin etc.), are later fed to the pigs and dogs. Maybe the nasty taste is one of the reasons? But of course it is hard to see how later money is spend on a children´s diet that is mainly based on Coca-Cola and totis (sweet crisps), even though you have explained a millon times how bad this is for the kid…
Workshops are organised on hygiene in schools and communities, but often the teachings are not followed. On the other hand access to clean water is often limited especially to women: so bathing and washing hands becomes a luxury. (In La Selva this is not the case and people bathed more often then I did: every day. Brr... in the cold river. They always pointed out to us where the water was to clean our hands before the meals and rinse our mouth afterwards.)