La curiosidad mató al gato (curiosity killed the cat), or in this case the guinea pig.
Don Juan, a grade school teacher, and his family invited us to their home in Pihal, a village ten minutes outside of Otavalo. We spent the morning walking up the steep hillside that most of his neighbors farmed in some capacity. Pihal is an indigenous village of 3000 and like most indigenous villages around Otavalo, they are being farmed as they have been for centuries. The people with houses down towards the valley have flatter, more fertile ground, while the people up this hill farm phenomenally steep slopes as their livelihood. Steep to the point that on our decent through one field, we had to sidestep so as not to go rolling down the hill. Apparently this rolling down a hill is a concept that has earned its own word in the local language of Quichua.
From the top of our hike, we could see the valley below: the large grids of flower fields and grass fields that now serve as major employers in the area, San Pablo Lake with the fabled giant asleep in its depths, Otavalo sitting at its side, several raised beds in the valley floor thought to be Incan burial sites, scattered villages with farms up the precipitous hillsides, and peaks in every direction.
After our descent, we were served a lunch traditionally served on special occasions in the village. Guinea pig in a hominy based soup, colorful salads, hominy, potato pancakes, and beef, all to be eaten with a giant wooden spoon. As with seemingly all of the home-cooked meals we receive here, we ate until we could hardly move and moved on to the afternoons presentation.
We had been hearing about this presentation for weeks preceding it. We were to meet a local traditional healer, a curandera, who would demonstrate a traditional diagnostic procedure using a guinea pig, as well as introduce us to some of the plants she commonly used to treat patients. As I love to get involved in these things, I volunteered for the diagnostic procedure. The curandera asked me to step into the middle of the a palm leaf mat. She then took a guinea pig from its coop in the family´s yard, brought it over and spent the next five minutes shaking it along the surface of my body. In the tradition of the indigenous people of the Andes, it is thought that in this process the guinea pig absorbs the energies of the patient into its body. The poor guinea pig. . . I stood there watching the trusted village healer with her wrinkled and leathery skin and traditional adornments go from front to back and then front again, shaking the squeaking guinea pig at me, tapping me occasionally. Eventually the guinea pig died. The process went on. At some point, the curandera deemed the process finished, whereupon she took the guinea pig to a basin of water and began to skin it. The trunk of the animal was skinned in under thirty seconds, and the curandera examined it for possible signs of maladies. She then took the knife and cut into its abdomen, inspecting its organs. She and another older woman began pointing at organs and discussing amongst themselves. “Do you have digestive problems?” she asked, poking at intestines. “It looks like you might.” The gallbladder looked like it would give me problems in several years, and with a concerned tone she pulled some pebbly thing out of the guinea pigs lungs, discussed it with her friend, and went on to the head. She told me that I carry stress in my shoulders and neck and that caused headaches.
I´m still not sure what to make of the experience. Do I believe her diagnosis? Not especially. And she seemed to leave things a bit unresolved. But as I stood there with curandera and squeaking guinea pig, I could feel the centuries of diagnosis that had come before me in this style, the paradigm of which this was a part, and a vastly different picture of how the human body was understood by the indigenous people of this area. As health and healthcare are intricately woven with culture, in this experience, I caught a glimpse of the truth of this different vision.
With the guinea pig in pieces, the curandera went on to tell us about the plants she used to treat patients for anxiety, digestive problems, and other common ailments. Surprisingly, many of them were familiar. Among her stash were catnip, St. John Wort, and peppermint.
So ended her demonstration and we went on to take a took a look at the intricate traditional embroidery that the women wear and sell. Apparently, it takes almost two months to complete one shirt by hand, and they sell them for $150-200. But I´ll leave those details for another time.
Come back again next time as we take our health professional student gig on the road to another local indigenous village and set up a clinic.
From the top of our hike, we could see the valley below: the large grids of flower fields and grass fields that now serve as major employers in the area, San Pablo Lake with the fabled giant asleep in its depths, Otavalo sitting at its side, several raised beds in the valley floor thought to be Incan burial sites, scattered villages with farms up the precipitous hillsides, and peaks in every direction.
After our descent, we were served a lunch traditionally served on special occasions in the village. Guinea pig in a hominy based soup, colorful salads, hominy, potato pancakes, and beef, all to be eaten with a giant wooden spoon. As with seemingly all of the home-cooked meals we receive here, we ate until we could hardly move and moved on to the afternoons presentation.
We had been hearing about this presentation for weeks preceding it. We were to meet a local traditional healer, a curandera, who would demonstrate a traditional diagnostic procedure using a guinea pig, as well as introduce us to some of the plants she commonly used to treat patients. As I love to get involved in these things, I volunteered for the diagnostic procedure. The curandera asked me to step into the middle of the a palm leaf mat. She then took a guinea pig from its coop in the family´s yard, brought it over and spent the next five minutes shaking it along the surface of my body. In the tradition of the indigenous people of the Andes, it is thought that in this process the guinea pig absorbs the energies of the patient into its body. The poor guinea pig. . . I stood there watching the trusted village healer with her wrinkled and leathery skin and traditional adornments go from front to back and then front again, shaking the squeaking guinea pig at me, tapping me occasionally. Eventually the guinea pig died. The process went on. At some point, the curandera deemed the process finished, whereupon she took the guinea pig to a basin of water and began to skin it. The trunk of the animal was skinned in under thirty seconds, and the curandera examined it for possible signs of maladies. She then took the knife and cut into its abdomen, inspecting its organs. She and another older woman began pointing at organs and discussing amongst themselves. “Do you have digestive problems?” she asked, poking at intestines. “It looks like you might.” The gallbladder looked like it would give me problems in several years, and with a concerned tone she pulled some pebbly thing out of the guinea pigs lungs, discussed it with her friend, and went on to the head. She told me that I carry stress in my shoulders and neck and that caused headaches.
I´m still not sure what to make of the experience. Do I believe her diagnosis? Not especially. And she seemed to leave things a bit unresolved. But as I stood there with curandera and squeaking guinea pig, I could feel the centuries of diagnosis that had come before me in this style, the paradigm of which this was a part, and a vastly different picture of how the human body was understood by the indigenous people of this area. As health and healthcare are intricately woven with culture, in this experience, I caught a glimpse of the truth of this different vision.
With the guinea pig in pieces, the curandera went on to tell us about the plants she used to treat patients for anxiety, digestive problems, and other common ailments. Surprisingly, many of them were familiar. Among her stash were catnip, St. John Wort, and peppermint.
So ended her demonstration and we went on to take a took a look at the intricate traditional embroidery that the women wear and sell. Apparently, it takes almost two months to complete one shirt by hand, and they sell them for $150-200. But I´ll leave those details for another time.
Come back again next time as we take our health professional student gig on the road to another local indigenous village and set up a clinic.
posted by Alexandra @ 4:15 PM
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