Adios a Mexico!

My last few weeks in Chiapas...

Just an Update

I don't have any cool new pictures to post or exciting adventures to rave about but I want to give you all a little update.  Life since Cancun has been pretty tedious.  I finished the fieldwork portion of my research project the week after got back from my fabulous vacation.  Now, it is pure writing.  It is going pretty well.  I have plenty to say.  I am of course, super hard on myself, and am not thoroughly impressed with my analysis.  But, I am going to stick with my same ideas for my senior thesis  so hopefully, they will develop.  And of course, I will be better able to articulate myself in English.  I have until April 25th to finish everything up.  Then, I will take a week to make corrections and receive feedback from my mentor.  I leave for Mexico City on May 3rd.  I present on the 4th.  I wasn't nervous until I learned last week that the presentation counts towards my final grade.  That adds to the pressure. Dave and I are meeting up in the Mexico City airport on May 5th and then it is off to Cancun, Palenque, Yaxchilan, and Bonampak.  YAY!  That sort of shows how much I love Chiapas.  I leave and then come 2 days later!!  But there is so much that I didn't get the chance to see.   And besides, this way I can leave a lot of my stuff with the lady I live with.  I will pick it up right before heading home.  I didn't really want to travel with 3 months worth of crap.  I head back to the US on May 17th. But I fly directly to the bay area so that I can move out of my apartment and figure out all the details of where I will live next year.  Adult stuff.  I can say that for reals now that I am an official adult.   Hopefully adult life will be more exciting than my 21st birthday was.  I didn't do much.  But that's ok.  I will make up for it in a few weeks!  

I am really starting to miss everyone.  I love Chiapas.  Although I could definitely live and work here forever, I don't know if I could leave my family and friends.  I know that the Lord put me in my family for a reason.  I am who I am because of them.  I have a testimony that we will be together forever, no matter what.  My testimony is not perfect.  But nobody, and I mean nobody, can convince me that there is nothing more to our existence than the short time we live on Earth.  Perhaps I could accept it if I lived in a bubble.  I could say to myself, 'my life isn't so bad.  i am pretty comfortable.  maybe this is as good as it gets...'  But when I see people living in extreme poverty, when I see people struggling with mental illness or physical handicaps, or when I see people grieving over the loss of a loved one, I am overwhelmed by the feeling that there is a God.  Their pain will be but a moment.  We will all have the chance to live in perfect peace in the presence of Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Parents for all eternity.  I believe that we will be surprised by the mercy of our Savior.  Black, white, rich, poor, Mormon, and not Mormon--everyone will have to opportunity to accept the infinite and intimate Atonement of Jesus Christ. That's what I believe.  That's what helps me make sense of the pain and suffering that I have seen people endure.  My faith doesn't make me perfect, but it makes me a better person than I would be without it.  And that's precisely why I believe.  

I love you all!

CANCUN

I take back all the bad things I ever said about Cancun.  It is wonderful.  Yes, it is overly touristy.  You could get around without ever speaking a word of Spanish.  You don't need pesos--everywhere accepts dollars.  There are outbacks and tgi fridays and all the other american chain restaraunts.  But it is still wonderful.  The water is beautiful. Parts of the ocean are turquoise and other parts are a deep blue color.  It is warm and perfect for snorkeling.    The sand is soft and doesn't get hot like the sand in California beaches.  It was great to spend time with mom and hanna and hayden.  And grandma and grandpa tanner!  How cool is it that my grandparents came?!  Hayden has changed the most.  He is 6 ft tall and has armpit hair!  When did that happen?  Hanna and I had a lot of fun together.  She is growing up.  I feel like the age-gap between use is starting to close.  Most of the days were spent migrating from beach to pool to bar for pina coladas.  Not too bad!  One of the days we went to Chichen-Itza with a Mormon guide.  I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.  Our guide, Nephi, had a lot of interesting things to say about the connection between the Mayan people and the Lamanites.  All in all, it was an excellent vacation.  I dreaded coming back to Chiapas because now the pressure is on.  I have the goal to be finished writing by April 25th. That gives me just enough time to make corrections and prepare a presentation by May 4th.  

I love and miss you all!

Another Good Week

      I posted new pictures but I didn´t have time to write anything. I will make up for it in this post:)  The pictures are of Los Lagos de Montebello and some nearby waterfalls.  Seven of my girl friends from the study abroad program came down to visit me in Chiapas last weekend.  It was soooo much fun.  We hiked to an assortment of caverns, lakes, and waterfalls that are close to the border between Guatemala and Chiapas. As you can see, the waterfall was an absolutely beautiful aqua blue color. The water is clean but it is not perfectly translucent.  The minerals make it milky.  It was so pretty that me and my friend Gloria could not pass up the opportunity to go on the zipline.  We got in line after a huge group of british tourists.  But it was well worth the wait.  We were so excited that we must not have paid very close attention to the instructions that the man gave us.  We both totally ignored the rope that they throw out to you to help you stop.  Oops!  I went shooting back to the center of the rope.  It ended up working out great though. I got to spend an extra few minutes overlooking the beautiful jungle from high above the treetops!  Gloria and I thought that the tour group left without us but we learned that our group was waiting for us outside the park entrance.  Apparently they had been politely asked to leave since our other friends had spent their afternoon bathing nude in the pools.  That is against the rules.  Crazy American girls!!  We went to a set of lakes after the waterfall.  They are famous because each one is a slightly different color of green-blue.  My friends went to tons of other places as well but since I have already done most of the stuff, I stayed behind and tried to get work done.  I saved my energy and money for the partying!  Just kidding, sorta:)  They all stayed in the hostel that my friend Wenda lives in.  (I feel like it is my home too sometimes because I am there so much).  It worked out great.  It was really nice to have friends for the weekend!  

   I had a really important meeting with my research advisor and the program director this week.  They said that I was doing well, but I lacked experiences in the field.  I tried to make up for that this week!  I did more observing in the clinic in Tenejapa.   I talked with a few women from church and then today, I had an interview with a traditional midwife in a remote community in the mountains.  Again, I went with an anthropologist and translator.  They filmed the interview. I can´t wait to show you all.  This time, I was more prepared.  I brought fruits and sweet bread to give to the family.  It´s a good thing that I brought alot because the entire family (like 10 people) participated in the interview!  While we were driving home, I asked the guys if they considered the conditions that the family lived in "extreme poverty."  They said that it is not extreme, but it definitely is poverty.  As an anthropologist, you ask a lot of stupid questions.  They are good questions, but to the people, they are so obvious that they can´t help but give you a blank stare.  For example, today I asked the midwife if the majority of women in her community use midwifes during their pregnancies.  She responded with a definite yes.  I then asked her why she thinks this is.  This is exactly the type of question that I am talking about.  The answer is so obvious it is unexplainable.  Firstly, there are no doctors in the community.  A doctor comes about once a month to the local school to give consultations.  And secondly, it is just the normal procedure.  It is what women do.  Imagine how difficult it would be for a woman in the US to explain why she chose to go an OB/GYN while she was pregnant.  It is not even really something that we think about.  It´s the same thing for the women in this community.  This all occured to me in the temporary silence that followed my question!  

      The anthropologist brought his daughter.  During our conversation, she got up and left because she didn´t feel well. I went out to check on her and she said that her stomach and her head hurt from a bad case of culture shock.  It was a lot for a little girl to handle.  We went back in after talking for a little while.  We both started to giggle when we saw the little girl (the grand-daughter of the midwife) pretending to make tortillas.  She had a bowl with a pretend tortilla mixture of mud and rocks that she rolled into little balls and then smushed with a little bloc.  It was adorible!  Little girls play house all around the world.  We had easy-bake ovens; little indigenous girls have tortilla presses!  

    I feel like I am starting to get the hang of this fieldwork thing.  You have to be really pushy, and kind of annoying.  I know that nobody wants to talk to me.  I am a young, foreign girl who doesn´t speak perfect spanish.  Nobody wants to take time to answer my silly questions.  But I have finally learned that if I want to get anywhere with my project, I need to get over all my insecurities.  Today I met these two girls in Tenejapa.  They are youger than me but both are married with kids.  While the anthropologist was talking to their dad, who is one of the leaders of the community, I cornered them and started a conversation.  At first, it was a little forced but it ended up going really well.  They asked me questions, I asked them questions, and then I gave them my cell phone number so that we can meet up to talk again the next time I am in Tenejapa.  It sounds simple, but it was a big deal for me.  I could not have done that a month ago. 

      I didn´t post any new pictures cause as of right now, it is impossible.  I don´t have a computer.  Mine broke and I finally gave up on it.  I have given up on pc´s alltogether.  I went to Tuxtla and bought a new macbook.  All by myself.  In a different language.  Well, ok.  The money wasn´t my own!  I still can´t believe I made the switch. I don´t have the laptop yet but hopefully it will be ready by the end of the week.  

     This week I am going to work really hard so that I can take a wonderful vacation with my family next week! We are meeting in Cancun on Saturday.  So exciting!!  And I love the fact that Grandma and Grandpa Tanner are coming.  I have such cool grandparents.  Everyone cracks up when they hear that I am going to Cancun with my entire family during Spring Break week. Keep your eyes out for us when watching mtv! Woo hoo!  

Wow! What a Week...

This has been one of the most, if not the most, eye-opening/consciousness-raising weeks of my life. Yesterday, I went to Tenejapa with my neighbor, who is an anthropologist who lived and studied this community for 7 years. Tenejapa is a small community of Tzeltal people. I went to La Casa Materna to talk with the doctor who attends to this small clinic. I talked to him for almost two hours about the way the indigenous women of this community are using (or more like not using) modern medicine during their pregnancies and for the births of their children. I got to sit in on two consultations. Both were so interesting. The first was a young girl and her husband (I later learned that they are 15!) inquiring about

anticonceptives. I try to be "culturally relative," but I admit that in this instance, I was sooooo happy to see that this young couple wanted to wait to have babies. The jovencito as the doctor called him looked like he was 12. It doesn't even seem possible that they could be parents. The second consultation had an even bigger influence on me. A pregnant woman, her husband, and their young daughter came in for a check-up. The woman did not speak much Spanish so the doctor asked the husband how his wife has been feeling. The doctor asked the husband how many kids he had and he said, "Six, with this woman." She was pregnant with her 7th child. Polygamy is still practiced in the small communities. It is an right/obligation for men who can afford to support more than one family. The man's comment made us think that either he had more than one wife or he and the previous wife were no longer married. Both were very timid and seemed unsure of the whole process. The doctor felt the woman's tummy to check on the baby. The husband stayed in the room, as is custom. All in all, it was a very short consultation. It was one of her last consultations because she is going to have her baby with a traditional midwife. When this is the case, the partera ususally begins to take over at the end of the pregnancy. The doctor signed a little card that the woman brought and then they left. I asked the doctor what the card was for and he told me that if the women attend all their prenatal appointments and keep up with their children's vaccinations, they recieve a small subsidy from the federal government. This of course fascinated me because it suggests that the government must bribe indigenous women to use modern medical services. I asked the doctor if he thought this was the case and he said a definite yes. This disproves my research hypothesis. But that's ok. I am learning so much! Then, today, I went to talk with a traditional midwife. In Spanish, she is called a partera. The community that they live in is absolutely beautiful. It is coffee-country but there are also tons of banana tress. The scenery was breathtaking. This woman was 79 years old and told me that she started to learn the art from her mother when she was 7 years old. She does not speak Spanish either so her family helped me translate. Luis, the anthropologist, video-recorded our conversation. I can't wait to show you all. She and her family live in another world. Really. I fell in love. I decided today that I am going to come back to Chiapas when I am a doctor because there are people like them. They don't need anyone's help. But they could use some of it. There house in tucked away in a coffee plantation. I am going to return so that I can give them a little gift, un regalito. And I would really like to see her with one of her patients. She told me that she sees about 8 women every day. I was shocked because the day before, at the clinic, the doctor saw two patients. This just shows that the majority of the women in these rural communities do not use modern medicine. The parteras do it all. We went back to Tenejapa and were suprised to see that the town was celebrating the last day of carnival!! Some of Luis' students are filming the event to make a documentary. I was able to take a picture because I was with them! The people came around and offered us sugar-can juice by the gallons. It was really good--it tasted like the green naked juice. But after 10 huge cups, I don't ever want to drink it again!!