The first official morning, Thursday, we all loaded into our vans bright and early and headed to Hospital Makewe. La Región de la Araucanía, Temuco’s region, is known for it’s large Mapuche population. The Mapuche are one of the largest indigenous groups in South America that are located primarily in Chile (and also in Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia). Because of the high indigenous population, the region boasts many intercultural health centers that are designed to meet the needs of the diverse population. Essentially, the entire focus of this excursion is exactly that – intercultural health and traditional medicine. Hospital Makewe served as our first look into this system. We were greeted at the hospital by our excursion director, Juan Antonio, and the hospital director, who showed us into the ruka (a traditional Mapuche “hut” for lack of better words) where we’d be having class that day, and in the consequent days in different locations as we were soon to find out. The hospital director gave us our first introduction to intercultural health in the Mapuche context, and then we went out into the woods with a wantuchefe, or Mapuche herb specialist, who taught us of the importance of la tierra, the earth, to the Mapuche and Mapuche medicine.
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| the ruka |
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| Hospital Makewe |
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| Miguel the wantuchefe, or herbalist |
Intercultural health, in short, asks the question “How can we utilize and value both the Mapuche and Western health systems?” Interculturality, in terms of health, takes into consideration how the patients, la machi (Mapuche medicine man/woman) and doctor relate and compliment one other. It can either mean that a machi and doctor work side by side or that they refer patients to one other when needed. Interculturality is all that is cultural awareness and respect between the customs, traditions, and beliefs of the Mapuche people and the sistema de salud occidental, or Western medical system. It is not something that you can impose on somebody; it has to be practiced every day.
Day 2 we once again loaded into the vans and set off for Proyecto Intercultural de Salud Boroa Filulawen, or Boroa intercultural clinic. Hearing the history of this place was particularly interesting to me. 20 or so years ago, the people of the Boroa region (about 6,000 people in total) only had a posta rural – a small, rural health center only equipped to care for very basic medical attention, for a very small amount of people. The people of this region were unsatisfied with their options for health care (or their lack of health care), so they joined together and made a petition which almost 2,000 people signed asking for funds from MINSAL (minsterio de salud, or minster of health) to build a new clinic. Their wish was granted. They now have a full intercultural health center, staffed both by a western medical team (doctor, nurse, OB-GYN, psychologist, kinesiologist and nutritionist, but also by a Mapuche team as well (machi, herbalist, etc.) The center is still lacking in resources, but it is worlds better than what the people of Boroa had before. Another aspect of this clinic that I found really interesting was their development plan for when more funds are available. They don’t want to buy an ambulance or hire more staff, but they want to build a casa para los adultos mayors, a home for the elderly, para que no mueran solos con su sabiduría, so that they don’t die alone with all of their wisdom.
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| eyesight exam |
We spent the next two days after that travelling to similar intercultural health centers and learning about various forms of Mapuche medicine; we even had a chance to talk to a machi. Then on Sunday the 23rd we packed up and left Temuco en route to Llaguepulli. I’m not quite sure how to describe Llaguepulli, I don’t think it’s a town (I never actually saw a cluster of houses together), so I’ll just call it a region. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to in my life. Lush, rolling green fields eternally spotted with free-roaming cows, sheep, and chickens – but not in the “farm” sort of way, more in the all-natural-way-the-earth-should-be way (if that even makes any sense). We spent the day learning about the Mapuche philosophy and cosmovision I think it’s been my single favorite day of this entire semester. To top it off, we spent the night sleeping in rukas. We were all split up into groups of four and my group’s ruka was separated from all the other ones. We were literally isolated on the Chilean countryside in our Mapuche ruka, hanging out around the fire, the only other life around us being the cows moo-ing in the pasture over and the cat that was climbing on our roof. I was so at peace, and so content with life. Who gets the opportunity to learn about Mapuche cosmovision from a leader in the community, take a Mapudungun class, and then sleep in a ruka?! I felt so lucky, and at that moment didn’t want to be anywhere except exactly where I was.
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| inside the ruka |
Waking up the next morning feeling more calm and centered than ever, I was very reluctant to leave the ruka. But our tourist vans showed up bright and early and once again we were off to our next destination. Our first stop of the day was an intercultural school in the town of Chol-Chol. We listened to a very interesting presentation by the director of the school about how intercultural education works in the country. We then headed back to the bus stop in Temuco to part ways for our estudios de pueblo, or village studies.
The village study was a 3-day (more like 1.5 day) trip to one of the rural villages surrounding Temuco. We were split into groups of 3 and given the task to “get to know the town,” or learn about various aspects of the town such as the economy, education, transportation, health, arts, communication, etc. My group got to the bus station and bought our tickets to Cunco, a 75-minute bus ride that only cost us $2.20. When the bus left it was only about half full, but as we snaked our way through town on the way to the campo more and more passengers hopped on, until all the seats were full and a few were standing in the aisle. Various venders would also hop on and off while we were still in Temuco, selling various items such as candy, gum, and nuts to all of the passengers. I wasn’t a big fan of these guys because they were loud and took up so much space trying to move throughout the bus with their giant bags of goods. Once we got outside of Temuco, however, I was just in love with the scenery. The best part (besides all the wild sheep) were the fields of flowers. I’m not sure what type they were, but there were just fields and fields of bright yellow flowers. It reminded me of Dorothy in the poppies in the Wizard of Oz. So, so pretty.
Anyways, after a short drive we arrived in Cunco, a town of about 10,000 (it seemed way smaller) about 55 km east of Temuco. The village study was easy and not too time-consuming, so I’m not going to talk about it too much. However, a few funny points to bring up about our hostel:
· No electricity. Apparently it had gone down the day we got there, but of course we didn’t realize that until night time and after we had already paid.
· No toilet seat or toilet paper.
· Chickens next door that would hop through the fence and into our yard. One morning one got inside and pooped on the floor.
Showering by candlelight, using a t-shirt as a towel, going to bed at 9 because doing anything in the dark is impossible, and not having any clean clothes. I think you could definitely say I have lowered my standards, haha.
Yesterday we all reunited in Temuco and drove to Pucón. Pucón is seriously one of the coolest towns I’ve been to. It’s situated right next to a volcano and a beautiful lake, and is one of the most touristy places in central Chile. We didn’t have any actual classes there, just did presentations on our village studies and had an orientation for our ISP travel. I really hope I can go back to Pucón (maybe during ISP) to try out some of the fun adventure tour options they have there, and just to enjoy the general ambience of the town.
As for today, I’m currently in a bus on the way to Bariloche, Argentina. Hopefully we have internet in the hotel tonight (I’m sure we will) so I can post this. Other than that I’m super excited to see the city (it’s supposed to be awesome) and find some chocolates (Bariloche is know for their chocolate, apparently there’s an entire street of just chocolate stores and factories!). We’re here until Sunday and have a cena de despedida del programa (program farewell dinner) on Saturday, which is both sad and exciting at the same time. Then Monday it’s off to Valdivia to start my ISP!
Always in the back of my mind: class registration and spring/summer internships. I hope I can find some free time soon to get all that straightened out… it’s already November (basically) and that’s kind of scary.
Anyways, more stories soon, hopefully. I really don’t recount even half of what we do or of the cool things I learn about... there’s just so much to say. But I really hope this is semi-enjoyable to read and that you all are getting a good feeling and understanding of my experience in South America.
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