Emily Becker
Welcome to the OTS Global Health Course Blog where course participants will be sharing their experiences
Thursday, October 23, 2014
A Long Four Days
Emily Becker
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
"Different"
Two Countries, One research student
Saturday, October 18, 2014
The Ngöbe Approach to Feminism
As we made our way to the EBAIS in the community and I saw more women clothed in traditional garments, questions flooded into my mind. Why this difference? How did the women feel about it? Was this something the men forced upon them? As a female from the United States who wears sweatpants and a sweatshirt daily because I prefer to wear what I think is comfortable, it seemed unfair that men were given the freedom to choose their clothing and women did not possess the same freedom to self-express through clothing. Was this a breech of human rights? Was there no sense of feministic pride in this community? I knew I had to find out if and why these women were being denied such simple freedoms.
After meeting with both the EBAIS doctor and traditional healers in the community, we made our way across the river on a less than stable bridge to the cultural house of the community. In this house, Ngöbe children were educated on how to write in their own language, as Ngäbere originated as an oral language. We met with two Ngöbe women from the community, and were allowed to ask them questions regarding the community and their customs. To preface the discussion, our professor Claudine informed us that both women were very political. This point confused me even further. Why would such strong, opinionated women settle for a lack of simple freedoms?
As the discussion began, it was apparent that I was not the only one concerned, as another student quickly inquired about the differences in apparel between men and women. All of the questions whirling inside my head were causing me to hope for a response secretly full of angst and plans to over throw the patriarchy. However, to my disbelief, the woman’s answer was so simple and completely genuine. She responded by saying that the women of the Ngöbe community preferred to dress in traditional garments because they knew that the men thought they looked beautiful in them. There was no hint of frustration or bitterness in her answer; they simply enjoy pleasing the men around them.
This complete difference between men and women is not only an accepted, but also a fully welcomed custom in the Ngöbe culture. To these women, their willingness and desire to please the men of their community are not considered degrading or lacking feministic characteristics. Instead, these women are fully aware of their rights and privileges and they choose to wear their traditional clothing out of respect for their culture and the men in their communities. Perhaps their dress is also a form of self-expression, but simply having a different aim than that of women in the United States.
Microbiology is cool!
The Power of Plants
While traveling, I have always been in a state of wonder. Whenever I go to another country, I am in awe by the different cultural practices, traditions, and ceremonies. My first year at Duke University, every freshman read Ann Patchett's State of Wonder, a novel detailing the life of a researcher investigating the discovery of a new antimalarial and fertility compound in the Amazon. She flies
to Brazil to see the drug first-hand and finds it comes from tree bark in an indigenous community. The researcher quickly becomes wrapped up in the community's lifestyle, learning some of their medicinal methods. Now, visiting the Ngöbe indigenous communities in Costa Rica, I cannot help but compare the ideals I'm learning to the ones in State of Wonder. Both the fictitious indigenous Brazilian tribe and the Ngöbe in La Casona, Costa Rica exemplify the importance of traditional
medicine in the world today.
Traditional medicine can help treat a variety of diseases and conditions using plants found in nature. Wild plants are a vital part of more than sixty-five percent of the global population's primary
form of health care, so should be taken into account in Western medicine (Farnsworth et al.). For example, the Bribri community in Talamanca, Costa Rica, frequently chew on Hombre Grande, a green leafy plant, because it is a natural insect repellent and antimalarial. Traditional medicinal methods can also relieve symptoms for illnesses Western medicine cannot cure, such as Diabetes, making traditional medicine an important part of the medical community. OTS's global health course recently visited the Ngöbe indigenous community to learn the different ways traditional medicine
is still practiced in La Casona. Within minutes of arriving, we quickly realized the local EBAIS has developed treatment options with the Ngöbe instead of for them. We first saw how CCSS has incorporated local customs into healthcare by visiting the new EBAIS. The EBAIS was built with the help of Ngöbe designers, complete with octagonal buildings and a room for traditional healers. We then spoke with the medicinal healer as well as saw disease prevention posters with pictures drawn by local Ngöbe artists. A midwife later outlined the ways maternal and infant mortality have improved in the area through the CCSS training programs and emergency kits for the midwives.
Through these changes, the local EBAIS has made Western health options more appealing and accessible to the indigenous community while at the same time preserving traditional healing methods. Visiting the Ngöbe community emphasized the power plants can hold in a community, especially in traditional medicine. Never before had I realized how much cultural importance plants can carry. At the end of State of Wonder, the researcher decides she cannot develop a drug from the tree bark, because pharmaceutical companies would then claim the tree grove. The indigenous community could then no longer perform a special ceremony with the trees and a part of their culture
would be destroyed. The visit to the Ngöbe community taught me how traditional medicine is not merely seen as a way to treat patients, but a way of life full of a community's beliefs and ideals.
Traditional medicine and its knowledge of plants needs to be maintained, if not for its usefulness to mankind but also for its preservation of a culture.
Works Cited: Farnsworth NR, Akerele O, Bingel AS, Soejarto DD, Guo Z. 1985. Medicinal plants in therapy. Bull WHO 63:965-981.
Thursday, October 9, 2014
Welcome Aboard
What a crazy week it has been, possibly the most exciting yet stress-inducing of the entire program. That's right, it's research practicum time. We are given three days to write a proposal for their independent research project for which data collection begins in local communities next month in November. For the most part, classes are suspended; we now live and breathe for our proposals. I can only compare it to embarking on a trans-ocean voyage of olden days, one that requires the willingness to work hard and a salty, ready for anything and anyone('s criticism) attitude.
Once we have chosen our research paths (with some suggestions from our OTS professors), it's on to the next step: recruiting a crew. Or in our case, a group of like-minded peers. Since most research nowadays is collaborative, our class was highly encouraged to form groups and collect data together. At this point of the journey all seven groups have selected diverse and interesting topics, from analyzing bacteria in fecal matter to rates at which adolescent mothers continue their education to obesity and nutritional issues in local indigenous women, the most fascinating topic for me.
However, at this point we still have to "build our boats". The ideas set before us were only mere skeletons compared to our 15 page final proposals. As a team we must comb through previous research literature, create and revise a survey for our study participants, tackle the International Review Board proposal for Duke, and of course write the proposal itself. The introduction was especially daunting. Trying to write a pithy and catchy summary for all my disorganized research interests felt like getting seasick for the first time. Unfortunately, there is no equivalent of a seasickness patch for writing a research paper. The only thing to do is keep my eye on the horizon, grit my teeth, and slowly work backwards from my research question, paragraph by paragraph. Not that the other sections were purely smooth sailing, but it was a process.
In the class, the level of expertise for writing research papers differs greatly. Some people have only done lab reports while one girl is working on her thesis. But we are all on the same blank page when it comes to working in the Ngöbe community. One wake up call was learning that the community can't read Spanish and are only partially fluent in speaking it. But a good sailor has to be able to deal with changing winds from all sides and adapt, something that we fledgling researchers can empathize with.
At this point our proposal-boats will be crafted, provisioned, and about to set off at 6 PM to our professor's inbox. And in a month all of us will venture into the mists of our own choosing. Our future schedules lay out a series of days with long hours of interviewing or data processing. We may encounter stagnant doldrums, the glory of significant results, or even, horror of horrors, no conclusive results. But now we are getting the chance to pursue our own fields of interest, and though the excitement is tinged with growing amounts of deadline stress, everyone is hopeful and confident. A new chapter is beginning, and it's time to set sail.