By rmattiola
Our trip to Santiago seemed a bit like an obligatory stop at a tourist destination. Nonetheless, we acquired more important information regarding public health and traditional cultures. The two most educational aspects of this week were our visit to the Panamerican World Health Organization and a community ruka (traditional hut) in a highly indigenous section of Santiago called La Pintana. Our group was fortunate enough to have been the first of SIT to have this small conference with the Panamerican World Health Organization.
The information was pertinent and well organized, but I’d like to focus this blog on the observations and information gained from our visit to the urban ruka. Unfortunately, for some reason I struggled to understand a large part of the lectures in the ruka. I felt frustrated and disappointed to know that I was missing out on very important material. Regardless, I feel responsible to share the little information I gathered. It is necessary to share these experiences in order to help make the Mapuche voice heard.
There is an obvious clash between the Mapuche and the government. It seems some are even resistant to the laws and organizations put in place to improve their situation. Our director in Makewe (a community outside Temuco) seemed disguisted with PESPI, the government organization that focuses on the health of indigenous people. This well-spoken, intelligent, calm, professional Mapuche leader crinkled his nose and crossed his pointer fingers in the form of an X when he heard we would be lectured from a PESPI leader.
Although this situation seemed emotional, I would not consider it hateful. Rather, I have come to understand the confusion based on miscommunication and misrepresentation between the state and the Mapuche citizens. I am honored to finally have this profound knowledge of the actual indigenous opinion and not only the superficial opinion from the policy makers and observations in health centers.
Just before arriving to the ruka, we passed barren fields of waste. Garbage that was dumped by outsiders or perhaps by the surrounding community was scatted across the dirt wasteland. Somehow, soccer fields were laid out amongst the trash, some cleanlier than others. Immediately after these fields, the bus slowed and turned into a small complex with two rukas, a totem poll decorated with flags and a surrounding garden. I describe this setting in order to emphasize a statement heard from within the ruka: “The poorest of the poor are indigenous peoples”. Of course this is a generalization, but still a valid point. What I saw was systemic environmental discrimination. It happens not only in Chile, but across the world. The abstract concept of social determinants of health is brought to life when traversing into the indigenous communities.
The students heard from the owner of the ruka (and the cook for the day), 2 women intercultural facilitators, a psychologist, an HIV activist, and a lonko (community leader), each from indigenous decent. Even if someone did not speak Spanish, they could understand the indigenous sentiment from the body language of these lecturers. I was especially impressed by the force and energy emitted from Sra. Juanita (ruka owner), Karina (young facilitator) and José (lonko). Their facial expressions and voices were void of anger, but full of determination. They sounded strong, clearly resisting suppression from the state.
Karina gave the indigenous history and a brief review of the polices. She was sure to explain, “It’s not that the government decided to help us out of the kindness of their hearts, it’s that our leaders fought for the few laws we have. This is our version. The public professionals have a different version [of how the policies were made]”. She reminded us of the tragedy that was chilenization. In the late 1800s, the government decided it wanted one country, one culture, one way of life. She prefaced her comment; “I don’t want to say this so strongly, but it was Mapuche genocide”. This long history of “pacification”, colonialization and discrimination created a widespread identity crisis. Parents had low motivation to transmit ancestral knowledge. It’s not that they didn’t want to identify as indigenous, it’s that they lived this tragic, psychologically scaring reality. A common occurrence in the last census was asking citizens with indigenous last names if they are indigenous and receiving the answer "no". They have the right to autoidentify, thus the size of indigenous population is well undershot. Also for this reason, apparently 70% of the users of traditional medicine in the ruka are “non-indigenous”. It is hypothesized that only 30% of their users are indigenous because those who identify as indigenous already have basic knowledge of traditional herbal medicine and can self-treat so long as they can obtain the herbs. Those who don’t have this knowledge but still want to use traditional medicine go to the ruka for their treatment. It's interesting that although the majority of their users don’t identify as indigenous, they still prefer to use traditional medicine.
Of course urbanization makes identification even more difficult. The barriers to practicing traditional culture are doubled. For example, we have discussed over the past few weeks if it is sufficient to put a traditional healer in a western health care center and call this intercultural medicine. It seems that this measure is a superficial step towards interculturality. Francisco, the director in Makewe gave his well-thought out opinion on intercultural medicine. He said true interculturality is giving each person the freedom of choice and accessibility without barriers for their treatment. We learned from many other indigenous peoples that removing a machi (traditional healer) from their own territory, with their own ruka, breaks the spiritual connection they have established with that land. Their procedures are most powerful in their own location. Hence, urban living makes it nearly impossible to practice their traditions in a truly traditional manner.
Although 25% of the Mapuche population lives within Santiago, their urban setting does not thwart their desires to be respected as autonomous peoples. They have been perceived as violent in the past, but in fact I’ve found them to be quite caring. They refer to eachother—even to Aymara people—as “brother”, “sister” or “my love”. They share a focus on humanization. One of the intercultural facilitators declared, “[he] is not an animal, [he] is a human being. [He] needs to converse and to be listened to”. Mutual respect and elimination of the dangerous hegemonic system is what they fight for. The lonko was the last to speak and ended an energetic debate with wise words. I felt chills down my body when I heard his voice quiver as he said, “they think the Indians are dangerous”.
High of the week: Playing Palín, a Mapuche game similar to field hockey, climbing the beautiful Cerro San Lucia and strolling through Santiago
Low of the week: Continuing to get bites from bed bugs/ fleas (gross. after a wipe down with rubbing alcohol and making baking soda shampoo, I think the issue is resolved...hopefully)
Chilenismo of the week: weón: friend, buddy, enemy, strong word to use towards an undesirable person