That means "how´s it going?" in quechua! In reply you´d say ¨Walejya" if you´re doing well!
I returned to Cochabamba a week and a half ago and finally finished my project report and presented to my professors this past friday. It was an amazing process, but man am I glad to be done!
My time in Torotoro was absolutely incredible. I interviewed about 60 doctors, nurses, traditional healers, and members of the population and lived with an amazing family that I fell in love with! I have so much to tell y´all about it, but not enough time right now to do it justice. I wanted to get these pictures up though, so enjoy, and I will elaborate more very soon (since I have much more free time now that classes are over!)
Chau!
Kirsten
The Centro de Salud Torotoro and the one ambulance in the county.
The intercultural birth room in the Centro; women can give birth kneeling or crouching or sitting on the mattress while holding on to the bar. They only have to use the gynecological position if there´s a complication and the doctor has to intervene.
The Asociación de Médicos Tradicionales los Amautas that attend patients in the Centro on Sundays and walk up to 12 hours each way to meet together once a month to discuss ways to improve their practices and elaborate better medicines. It was so inspirational to work with them!
Feliza, a naturalist and my host mom and good friend, in front of the Médicos Tradicionales' consulting room in the Centro de Salud.
Don Victoriano, President of the Asociación, in the consulting room in the Centro.
Don Luciano, Médico Tradicional, on the 4 hour walk to his community of Tambo K'asa, which I visited for a few days.
Feliza and I in front of her house where patients come to consult her for naturalistic healing. The dinosaur on the sign is because Torotoro is famous for the dinosaur tracks they found there.
Sonia, Olga, Lydia, and Santos, four of the seven kids I lived with in the main room of their house.
Vilma, the oldest daughter with a beautiful aguayo (cloth for carrying everything from babies to potatoes to coca to clothing, Andean backpack you might say) that her mom Feliza wove (more incredible aguayos in the background, all woven by Feliza).
Feliza and Olga laughing about something, as they were most of the time!
Parade that began the Congress of Sindicatos Campesinos from all over the North of Potosí that was happening the first day I arrived in Torotoro- notice the Wiphala, or multicolored flag of indigenous unity that you see everywhere in Bolivia.
1 comment:
I am so impressed by the scope of what you did with this project. I want to hear more about it, and what you learned from it all that you think is important to share. I think this experience will shape our thinking for sure about what kind of doctor you want to be, where, and what kind of training you think is important to get
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