we’ve got floors, a staircase, windows and doors…almost enough to call it a clinic…well, not really…
almost enough to call it a building! will hickerson, myself, my little brother kevin, scott rowland (santa claus), and pablo zuleta were the members of this trip’s team…
our first day in Chisec was filled with negotiations with the women’s group, (Q’ana Tz’uul Taq’a, a group dedicated to preservation and promotion of the ancient Mayan traditions regarding medical care)…they want to make sure that western medicine will truly be supplementary to what they are trying to accomplish and not replace/change their mission…
i assured them that would be the case. Ricardo, the local medicine man still comes once a week. he is becoming very popular in the area as patients are seeing results. he cannot, however (in the women’s own words) “cure everything”…neither can we…
imagine, for example, being an american doctor during a medical mission and trying to tackle a psychological problem in a Maya Q’eqchi patient (there are many…massacres and civil war only ended a little over 10 years ago)…
no, we can’t do that, but Ricardo can…he also recognizes local sicknesses better than we probably could, and knows herbs that work and have worked for thousands of years to cure them…
i signed the contract that we drafted up, but only on the condition that we’d re-negotiate in 3 months…some interesting things included in the contract were: the women’s group wants CHILA inc. to help fund activities involved in their mission (ie: Ricardo, the medicine man’s paycheck), they want to manage all construction funds (pay of local workers, purchase of materials), they want to ensure that Mayan medicine plays a major role in CHILA medical missions alongside the western model…
next trip is March, 2010, pretty soon…we’re broke, so back to the fundraising drawing board…calendar sales, concerts, donations, all of it…
we were given chickens and turkeys as a gesture from several communities (not affiliated with the womens group or our clinic construction work) reminding us that they’d like us to help them find roofing (corrugated metal) for their houses, and rainwater capture tanks…i have a meeting with Rotary Club of Johnson City next week, and continue to look for sponsors interested in helping in those areas…
we had a great time! that’s what our group is all about. we work hard, but laugh and play hard as well…CHILA inc…
