Cultural Taboo

My teacher, Mariela.

I finished my intense week of school today. I was really sad by the end! I had a total blast with my teacher and will miss our daily conversations and mix of work and play. At the end I was talking about how I wasn’t sure where I was going to live from now on and she offered me a place in her house! I feel like my learning has come leaps and bounds from where I started last week. I hope to do another week of studying in January. It all depends on finances as it isn’t cheap.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is world Aids awareness day. Yesterday Ella and I dropped off about six hundred condoms with a gringo who is organizing stuff for tomorrow. He runs an art centre of sorts and has set up permanent residence here. Later when I was digging in my bag at school for a pencil I pulled out some condoms that I had missed. My teacher, Mariela asked what they were. I asked if she had ever seen a condom before and she shook her head no! I was shocked so I opened one up and gave her a demonstration on how to safely use it. Afterwards I blew it up into a balloon and tossed it onto the floor of the classroom and we both forgot about it. Today when class started she told me that the director of the school was angry at her for it being in the classroom. I told Ella on break and she told her teacher and it turned into a bit of a fuddled mess with Mariela feeling worried that she was going to get into further trouble for it. Ella and I were both rather shocked at what big deal it was made into. It was yet another reminder of the taboos and lack of sexual education in this country.

Pure Honduran Goods

I've befriended one of my schoolmates. Last night Ella came over and we watched a movie and made popcorn in a pot on the stove! We were both surprised at how well the popping went. We made it candied by melting brown sugar and margarine (butter would have been better) and drippling it all over the popcorn, I highly suggest trying it! We had a good laugh at watching the popcorn pop through the glass lid and talked about how in many ways everything is an adventure in Honduras. This morning she came over and we both took Tucker for a walk in the jungle while macho guys drove by in their trucks kissing their fingers and whistling. I found myself laughing and relaxing, loving the company and simple comradery of another female. Its Ella's first time traveling on her own, she left Belgium three weeks ago. Today over black coffee and purring kittens we talked about travel and being in foreign countries. I think we both found a lot of comfort being able to talk to somebody about the ups and downs of it all. She has a travel blog too and we talked about how easy it is to only write about the good stuff. To not mention all the small things that ware you down. At home one doesn't even think about crossing the street, buying fruit, catching a bus. When travelling even the simplest things become a whole new venture and it gets really tiring. We talked about how wonderful traveling looks from a distance and how its easy to forget about the down right dirty grit of it all. The smells, the lonley times, the desire to be involved in the culture but finding ways to be involved in a way that you want to be and not in a way you think you should be. All the things that she has struggled with and continues to struggle with match mine. Its nice to take a breath and have some conformation from another person.

By the end of class today I was itching to move around and didn't want to practice any more past tense verbs so my teacher and I walked over to the local market and bought one of the local delights, cigars. They supposidly rank the third best in the world and cost me a whole five cents each! Ella and I are going to give them a try tonight.

Hotsprings

Today I went to the local hot springs with the other kids in my school. Every afternoon from 1:30 to 5:30 we study in separate rooms with your teachers. Throughout the week the school organizes a few local outings for the students. The hot springs were a major let down. There were two options. The first only cost twenty limpiras ($1) and the second was 200 ($10). The first got you into the "pools" which were empty and access to the river where a water fall of EXTREMELY hot water meets up with the cold river. The second and more expensive option let you up a little higher into the mountains where it was more spa like. Most of us chose the cheaper option and had a heck of a time trying to feel comfortable. It was either MUCH too hot or MUCH too cold, we tried in vain to make a decent wall with the rocks so as to get a good combination of hot and cold in the pool where we sat but none of us had much luck.

I'm really enjoying being in school four hours a day for the most part. My teacher and I were really playful today making jocks and playing around in Spanish. I asked her how much she makes an hour, 36.80 limps! That’s about $1.50. I'm paying the school about $6 an hour. It really reminded me of what different worlds and countries we come from.

escuela

My charges...

The last few weeks I have been studying at the locally run language school, Guacamaya, with Julia the teacher that my mom had a few years ago and is about half my height. This week she is on vacation so I decided to check out the larger language school here in Copan that is run solely by women. I had a rather lazy weekend recovering from having two of my wisdom teeth pulled and was feeling ready to be challenged mentally and take my Spanish to the next level. For the next week I will be studying with my teacher, who is the same age as me, for four hours a day. Since I started house sitting I have not been speaking as much Spanish as I was when I was with Maritza and found myself converting back to thinking and writing in English. Four hours of conversation and studying has once again switched by brain to Spanish and it feels good. I was really surprised with myself today how much I could understand and how I could carry on a conversation. I am starting to be able to form complete sentences instead of knowing only a few words. After each day of school I find myself leaving almost surprised and how much I love it.

If only the answer was that simple...

I’ve recently started reading a book called “In the land of God and Man” written by Silvana Paternostro woman that was born into a high class Latin America family but later moved to the states and become a journalist. In reading her words I have begun to become more aware of the culture around me and am beginning to understand what I see more and more.

Through a thread on FaceBook a conversation has come up around the issue of birth control and thoughts on solutions. In this entry I’m going to try and address some of the things that I have witnessed being here in Central America and quote some of the disturbing and shocking entries in the book that I mentioned above.

If only the answer was as simple as handing out condoms and addressing education issues with the women. As I have begun to discover the issues go much deeper then that…There are several factors that must be taken into account. Religion, many people here are Catholics and it is against their beliefs to use birth control. Another is availability when it comes to reaching the smaller towns and villages. And yet another obstacle is the culture itself along with suppression. The roles that men and women play here are very old fashioned by many western standards. Living with Maritza I witnessed this first hand. Even as a doctor she is still the woman of the house and is responsible for the meals, cleaning and child care (with the help of the two other women which most families would not be able to afford.) In the book Silvana Paternostro talks about the women’s reluctance to bring up the use of condoms with their partners. Many women believe that it is not their place to bring such things up and see sex as part of their duty in the marriage. As I become more fluent in Spanish I hope to be able to begin talking with the women first hand.

Here are some of the shocking entries found in the book, In the land of God and Man:

“In Argentina, last year, a cook as accused of systematically raping his eleven-year old stepdaughter every time the girl’s mother-his wife-left for work was immediately released from prison when he announced he would marry the girl. Under Article 132 of the Penal Code, his ten year sentence would be repealed if the marriage took place: ‘In the case of violation, rape, kidnap or dishonest abuse of a single woman, the delinquent who will marry the offended will be exempt of his sentence, if she consents after she is restituted in her parents’ home or to another safe place’. The girl, who was pregnant, accepted the offer-with her mother’s consent-to marry her mother’s husband, her rapist, so that the newborn would have un papa.


In Peru the penal code states that ‘a women who causes an abortion, or consciously allows someone else to practice one, will punished with no then two years of her liberty or with community service of 104 days.’ In Colombia she can get up to four years in prison. But scarier than the legal punishment was the list of methods used to have them: knitting needles, clothes hooks, spoons, umbrella rods inserted into the vagina. Women of all ages take a wide range of pharmaceuticals and folk medicines. The list ranges from effective and dangerous to ridiculous and dangerous: high doses of estrogen; laxatives; marijuana mixed with oak and avocado or parsley and coriander. They veterinary prostaglandins or inject muscle relaxants, swallow bleach or cheap hair dye or laundry blueing mixed with urine. They will use anything they can afford or get their hands on to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Many dance and drink for days. Some pray. Others make themselves fall intentionally from roofs, staircases, trees. The last item on the list sent a chill down my spine: Voluntary blows by the husband in the stomach.”

Anna, Maritza, Dr. Carla and some other women are working on getting a program started here in Copan. It’s called:

Life To Life
Vida a la Vida
Addressing family health and education in the Copan region


Mission

To provide comprehensive, affordable, and sensitive health care to reduce infant and maternal mortality, and improve the quality of reproductive health care and education available to women and their families in the Copan region.


To support and improve training of rural midwives to improve their skills and enhance their role as outreach workers and community educators in remote Maya Chortí villages, thereby enabling partnerships between midwives and health centers and the communities they serve.


To provide dynamic and gender sensitive youth education on the topics of self-esteem, sexuality and HIV/AIDS, and to provide prevention programs, testing, treatment and counseling for HIV/AIDS in the region.


Here are some of the stats that they have gathered on women here in the area of Copan Ruinas.

THE MAYA CHORTI OF COPAN
The highest concentration of rural poverty in Honduras is found in the western region of Honduras, including the department of Copan, which also has the greatest concentration of extreme poverty, with an estimated 71 per cent of indigenous peoples living below the poverty line. There are over 220 Mayan villages in the Copan region, encompassing Copan Ruinas, Santa Rita and Cabanas, with a population of over 70,000 indigenous people.

Copan has some of the highest infant and child mortality rates in the country, high teen pregnancy rates and an untreated AIDS population. The indigenous Maya Chorti population is especially marginalized, live in remote areas and are under -serviced in every way, especially in access to education and health care.

The average indigenous Maya Chorti woman living in the mountains has between 7 to 10 children, and children are literally dying of malnutrition, starvation and diarrhea. Maternal and infant mortality rates for the remote Maya Chorti villages are among the highest in the country, with the majority of women in rural areas giving birth alone or with the aid of a midwife who has little to no formal training or sterile equipment. Many infant births and deaths go unreported, but the scant reporting that takes place indicates that mortality rates are high. There are very few health services available in the remote mountainous areas of the region, as many are only accessible by foot, and not at all in times of heavy rain. Because of little to no health education services in the remote Maya Chorti villages, there is generally very little knowledge or access to contraception and family planning methods. It is not unusual to find 12 year olds giving birth, and the doctors in Copan Ruinas have seen 19 year old women with three to five children.

Finding Beauty

The voices and words of Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and Neil Young lulled me into a sense of peace today. Day to day life here has simplicity to it which I rarely find. The feeling of cutting an onion or running my hands along the cutting board, of doing dishes under a thin stream of water or washing a shirt by hand. I find such pleasure in these moments because I am not rushing onto the next thing. I’ve started cooking for myself and love the challenge of discovering places to buy food, using my Spanish in the fruit and vegetable market and creating meals for myself. I have chickpeas in the crock-pot as I write that I am going to make into a coconut curry. My time is filled with the basics. Cook, clean, study and just be. It’s a wonderful thing which I haven’t had for awhile. It’s been a pretty transient summer moving from place to place since July and I’m enjoying the sense of settlement I have now. Every morning I take Tucker for a walk, the golden retriever that belongs to Anna and Andy the couple that I am house sitting for over the next two weeks. This morning as I followed the winding, muddy, garbage strewn trails with Tucker I paused to look around me and to absorb the scenery. A thick leafy green sky above my head, the hills a rolling canopy of jungle. The calls of roosters, dogs, bugs and birds providing a constant background of noise. I often catch myself walking through life with my eyes focused down being careful to watch my step and not trip instead of taking a chance and looking up. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what I’m doing, instead of enjoying what I am experiencing.

60 mothers to be

Anna, Maritza and I met up with Dr. Carla at the main clinic here in Copan on Thursday. Once a month there is gathering specifically for expecting mothers. Maritza gave a demonstration on the steps of labour with the practice dummy and then coffee and cookies were handed out.

Before I left Canada I gathered a suitcase of baby clothes donated from my grandparents and some friends that had just had a baby, after the demonstration I handed them out. There was around sixty or seventy pregnant women and it was rather hectic and a bit of scramble trying to make sure everybody got something! The blankets and socks were the most popular. Most of the babies that I have seen here are usually wrapped in rough, brightly coloured towels.

Prenatal check ups

This morning I headed out to a small local clinic with Carla, a local female doctor. She spends one day a week working in a small clinic four kilometers outside of Copan that was far from well equipped. When I went to the washroom there wasn't even running water to wash my hands with. I set myself up beside her in the small office with a stack of thick files that she would spend the day working through. The waiting room was full of expecting women. The first woman came in with a tiny premature baby. I was shocked to find out she was two months old! From the look of her face and movements I'm guessing she had Down Syndrome. Her skin was almost transparent, her hands making jerking movements. The mother was silently crying over the baby as the the doctor talked to the woman that had accompanied her. Later I found out that the grandmother of the infant had died the day before. My heart ached.
The rest of the day followed with prenatal consultations and check ups with the women in various stages of pregnancy from two weeks to eight and half months. First came the questions of where do you live, how old are you, is this your first child. I was shocked over and over again at the ages of the girls, they looked as if they should be in elementary school! One woman came in, she was 33 and this was her fifth child. After her came a sixteen year old expecting her first. Turns out they were mother daughter and their due dates were a month apart! Doctor Carla was great letting me listen to the heart beats of the babies and locating the heads. Several of the baby's were turned in different directions and we had fun guessing what part of the baby we were feeling and watching the babies kick or punch their moms so hard we could see it!! It amazed me how each one was so different, varying in size and even feel. The first few women I touched I almost felt high. To make that contact and begin learning was such an amazing and inspiring gift

My weekend....

Kisses

Carving of the moon goddesss....

Maritza brought home a mannequin from the clinic to practice birthing with...out comes the rubber baby!

The neighbours cat munching on chicken..

The neighbours mom...

...in the window.

The view from the road when walking into town

My first steps towards becoming a midwife

Yesterday I went back to the clinic to visit the woman that I had witnessed giving birth the day before and brought her some baby clothes which she was thrilled about!!!! I've decided that going to the clinic is not that best use of my time. Instead I am going to focus more on my Spanish. Since my mom was there, two years ago, things have changed. Its mostly male doctors now and in retrospect the birth was far from respectful or caring! I had a conversation with Maritza last night and she was saying that women no longer want to go there and ask her to attend their labors instead of going to the clinic! After our conversation Martiza pulled out a pamphlet written in English stating the goals of a new non profit organization she and about five other women, from Canada, the UK and locally want to start. Its a program designed to teach women in the community about health care and an apprenticeship program for Midwifes!!! It looks totally amazing and I really want to get involved.

Last night Danya's aunt came for a check up. She's due on the 10th and Maritza was saying that I could be her assistant with the birth! Martiza showed me how to measure the belly and thus determining the size of the baby. Its a big one! She also had me listen to the heartbeat and feel moms cervix which were surprisingly hard. I was so thrilled to be doing even the most simple thing and excited to be learning things. Afterwards Maritza and I used the Partera/Midwife books to talk about some health concerns around her age and possible risks with the swelling in her legs.

I'm struggling with the food and feeling slightly sick after meals. Lots of white flour, potatoes, sugar and almost no vegetables. Everything has a meat flavor to it or bits of flesh floating in it like the chicken noodle soup for lunch today which turns my stomach. Last nights dinner was more white noodles and yesterdays lunch was more potatoes. The beans I am fed here and there are good but are also always smothered in an really really salty and slightly sour cheese that turns my stomach...

My first birth experience...

I`ve been here in Copan for five days now and time is already starting to muddle itself in my mind. It hasn’t been an easy adjustment and I suppose it never is. I seem to have forgotten my other experiences and transitions when coming to a new country and adjusting to the culture, in the past. There are very few people here that speak English. When I do come across somebody that speaks English well enough to carry on a conversation it feels like a huge treat to be able to speak and share even the simplest things. Already I find myself translating English words to Spanish. Even in writing this I find myself halting and feeling almost awkward, lacking the flow and pleasure that I usually get from writing.

My first two days here, Maritza took me to the local museum where we browsed Mayan artifacts, sacrificial tools and carvings. The next day we went to a local sanctuary for rescued birds. Some of the parrots could bite up to 2000 pounds with their beaks and live up to 100 years in captivity! There were also spiders the size of my hands that had created massive webs between the banana leaves. These gave me the willies!

At first the food was delicious and exciting but has begun to lapse into repetitiveness. I´m sure soon enough I wont even think about it. Pretty much every single meal consists of corn tortillas, beans, rice and really salty cheese. The maize (corn) is brought in on donkeys and ground up in a store down the street from the house. The beans are always cooked in some sort of meat, sometimes I find pieces of brown shriveled-like flesh amongst them. The concept of being a vegetarian here seems to only go in partially. Hey, as long as your not actually eating the meat it must be OK to have hearts, kidneys and bones floating in your soup or beans! I´ve been so revolted a few times I just couldn’t eat it. I ended up skipping lunch yesterday. I had bit of a fever so wasn´t hungry anyway.

Yesterday I started at Guacamaya, the local language school. Julia my teacher helped my mom learn Spanish when she was here two years ago. Its been nice to have the extra structure of learning on top of the stuff that I have initiated learning myself.

Having had a few days to settle in, I headed to the maternity clinic
this morning. Maritza had taken me there a few days ago and introduced me to Dr. Nelson and explained that I was planning on
studying to be a midwife (partera) and was looking to gain some birth experience.

When I arrived today it was a different doctor on and nobody had an idea where I had come from or why I was there. I arrived at around 8:30am and spent the whole morning in the waiting room. I started to wonder what the hell I was doing there and why I thought I could just march in and get involved in such a thing as birthing when I can speak only a little Spanish and had never before even witnessed a birth! When I was peaking in my frustration and thinking it was time to take the 15 bus ride back to Copan, I hear my name being yelled down the hall, “Maya!!! Maya” I ran down the hall, the next thing I knew a smock was being thrown at me and I was in the birth room with a woman on the table, her feet in the metal stirrups. There were two women in the pre-delivery room where they ride out the contractions until it’s time to give birth. I had seen the woman briefly but didn't think that she was near ready as she was very quiet and her belly seemed really small.
But there she was, ready to deliver!

The doctor and his attendant took it all very casually, squirting the woman's crotch with a big plastic water bottle full of water and soap. Underneath her was a garbage can with a plastic bag to catch the water, blood and other matter. I expected it all to take so much longer. After the birth I asked her how many children she had, this was her second. As the baby moved further down the birth canal the doctor reached in with a pair of flat ended scissors and snipped the amniotic sac at which point water and blood came shooting out and w all jumped! Before I knew what was happening a small black patch of hair started to show itself at the opening of her vagina, retreating at times as she rested between pushes. The mother bore down in an almost eerie silence, the doctor inserting his finger in such I a way that made me visibly cringe and the doctor and his assistant laugh. After the head came out everything happened so fast. I was shocked at how hard the doctor pulled on the baby’s head, turning its body! When it was out he held the small purple thing in his left had as be clamped the umbilical cord with his right. I was shocked at how almost animalistically he handled the newborn infant, almost tossing it onto a small metal tray with a rough sheet and blaring light. It took only a few seconds for the baby to start crying letting out its first feeble gasps of air. What a way to enter the world! It didn´t even seem like a baby to me. I found myself not so much interested in the newborn but more in the mother and her reaction after the birth. I felt almost voyeuristic in standing there watching, a complete stranger. Something that would never happen in Canada. I had an intense moment of culture shock comparison and what different worlds she and I were from. At one point we were alone in the room, we locked eyes for a few seconds the only real interaction that we had. In lacking the language to speak to her, I hoped that for those few moments I was able to convey all that I felt by looking into her eyes. I wanted to thank her over and over again for letting me witness such an intimate thing as this. And like that it was over....

When I left the clinic a few moments later to catch the bus to Copan I found myself shaking with adrenalin, shock, excitement but mostly pure awe without the words to truly express the experience of my first birth.....

My first few days in Copan

Arrival in Central America

Yesterday morning at 5 40am local time I landed in Guatemala city airport with a bump.... I think only then I realized where I was. Somehow this trip seems to have snuck up on me.
I waited for almost an hour for my bag to come through, the last one of course, before heading out of the airport into a mass of pressing bodies and expectant faces holding up signs. I had a bus booked leaving a few hours later to Copan Honduras where Maritzia would be picking me up. What I failed to remember being so exhausted was which bus station it was! It took some time working with a cab driven in broken English and a few words of Spanish to figure out where I needed to be. Luckily in the end we figured out, with me paying an exuberant price in American dollars since I had no currency (lesson learned).

When I arrived at the bus station it was closed so I spread myself over my bags and passed out. For the next 7 or so hours I was utterly useless and would have been left behind in the bus station if I hadn't been woken up. When we arrived at the border I was once again fast asleep and drooling. I was rather dazed and confused and spent some time bumping around the border digging for American dollars not sure where I should be. When I finally arrived in Copan and saw Maritzia I was so relieved. It was an intense and long trip starting off with a nerve racking American border crossing where people were being searched and where the customs officer scowled and looked at me in utter disbelief when I told him where my final destination was. "Why would you want to go there?!?!?!" he said in utter and confused disgust.

Maritiza lives with her husband and two kids. David (three months) and Natalie (I'm guessing about three and a half) and Dunya the young girl that helps around the house.The house is located strait up a cobbled road off the Gran Plaza in downtown Copan. Its a simple house with iron gates creating one wall looking out into the courtyard. Attached to the house is a room with several beds and a shelf of books that she sometimes uses for births. In a few weeks she will be helping Dunya's sister give birth in the room. This is where I sleep.

I'm still feeling spun and not totally present, it always takes me a few days to "arrive" in a place, especially after traveling. I'm also adjusting to the intense humidity. Even though its a pleasant warm temperature out I find myself shivering with the dampness....

Tonight I had a little going away party...it was a hectic day but nice to have a chance to wind down and visit before I leave tomorrow. My grandparents, Susan and Denis, gave me two books, The Midwifes Hand Book, published by the Hesperian Foundation in both English and Spanish. My first textbooks for school! They will end up being a key asset as I start working in the clinic speaking only a few words of Spanish!!