Staying Power

August 11, 2007

Today, I sat down with the two operative staff members of COMPITCH, Ana and Juan Ignacio.

COMPITCH is integrated by 17 organizations with the objective to recover, defend and develop the practice of traditional medicine and knowledge of the indigenous community in Chiapas.

I had spent one day at its regional forum, and I was curious to see how just two people had planned such a large event.

Several representative leaders of the 17 organization members of COMPITCH were in the office to welcome me.

Don Arturo from the community of Margaritas asked me what I thought about the forum. I told him I was excited to have been there even if it was only one day, but I could already see the impact the gathering was making among the midwives present there. In addition, I'd enjoyed seeing how participative the midwives had been in their work groups.

Doña Francisca, another representative leader, said that actually this was the first time the forum had brought such a high level of participation because they were able to bring so many midwives. On other occasions, when COMPITCH tried to bring midwives together, they would get busy at the last minute because of women going into labor and would send community members instead. These members usually would not understand these gatherings and therefore, would not participate. This time, the midwives did come and thus, encouraged the constant dialogue among them.

From the brief conversation I had with these representative leaders, I noticed just two COMPITCH staff hadn't coordinated the forum, but it had been an enormous group effort from the 17 organizations that made the forum such a huge success. Without them, there would not have been the extensive outreach or planning for the forum to happen.

Talking to Ana and Juan Ignacio, demonstrated to me their depth of information in all biodiversity-related themes. They keep themselves updated on all the recent laws, actions, campaigns and research to be always prepared to protect natural resources.

COMPITCH's first priority is health for all communities - to the point that they will sacrifice their own salaries if it meant the money will help cure someone's sickness. COMPITCH is continually working and mobilizing to protect the indigenous culture, local biodiversity and the practice of traditional medicine in Chiapas. COMPITCH exists because the Mexican government is not encouraging these crucial elements to survive. Someone has to defend every citizen's right to healthcare, whether it is in the hospital or in nature.

At the office, Ana and Juan Ignacio are working seven days a week with few resources for this defense. I don't know how they manage but their determination to do the right thing, in spite of the odds, to ensure everyone's right to have good health is clear and inspiring. Money will not be an obstacle to them. Their work continues and one can be guaranteed that COMPITCH is not going to go away any time soon.

Katherine

Introducing COMPITCH

August 10, 2007

I arrive at CIDECI at 9am, a center that provides a space for indigenous communities to meet and unite. I'm here for the third and final day of COMPITCH's first regional forum for indigenous midwives.

During the first two days, several guests were invited to give presentations and lectures on health-related themes, linking them to food sovereignty and the right to practice traditional medicine.

Due to direct translations from Spanish to Tzeltal and Tzotzil (the two prominent Mayan languages in San Cristóbal de las Casas), and the active dialogue between the presenters and attendees, the forum delayed into the late hours. The third day was then meant to provide a space and time for midwives and traditional medicine doctors to reflect back on what they had learned from the forum and exchange their experiences with fellow attendees.

The groups were split into the three language groups: Tzeltal (20 participants), Tzotzil (21 participants) and Spanish (39 participants). I guess I had one choice of which group to observe....hmmm. You guessed it I observed the Spanish group!

What stood out for me during this time was the high level of participation the women midwives were demonstrating in their work group. There were times when the facilitator had to be disciplined to allow one participant to speak at a time.

Midwives had come as far as Oaxaca and Yucatan to learn from the midwives of Chiapas. Traditional medicine has been a discouraged practice in Mexico since the 1990s and as a result, no space had been offered to allow midwives from different states of Mexico to share their medicinal knowledge... until now.

It was amazing to see midwives giving advice to each other. One story that stayed in my head was the use of the placenta after it was taken out after birth. Do you really want to hear this? I didn't think so.

Towards the end of the form, the three language groups shared with each other the actions they were going to take in short, medium and long term in order to continue the practice of traditional medicine, as well as share their experiences in their respective communities.

After the forum ended, Ana the coordinator suggested to hike the mountain that CIDECI was on to identify medicinal plants.

This was a randomly selected mountain in Chiapas, but as soon as we started walking up the path, midwives were identifying medical plants everywhere. Not only that, they were taking the plants with them! Many of them, particularly those from other states, hadn't seen any of these plants before and wanted to try them. Others became excited about finding such a diversity of plants that they were taking as many as they could carry.

How cool to walk among women who could tell you which plant will help stop your coughs, your stomach ache, headaches and even help eliminate cancer. I had found myself amongst medicine in nature. It made me think of Golden Gate Park and how I never thought that a plant from there could actually provide me health care.

Young women, apprentices of traditional midwifery, accompanied us and took notes of all the knowledge that was sprouting from this field trip. This passing of knowledge to the next generation ensures the continuation of traditional knowledge.

It was a beautiful way to end such an incredible encounter!

Katherine