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!!