Chapter 16: El Shaman Y El Doctor

Urubamba, Sunday, August 21, 2011  The day began with a fascinating visit to the surface salt mines of the Urubamba area and then the site of the Inca experimental farm. But first I want to tell you about the Shaman, and the doctor who respects his kind.

The day after the ProPeru staff transported us from Cusco to Urubamba, the Shaman blessed us in a ceremony that began at dusk and continued into the chilly night as the stars began appearing overhead. It ended with fire. We sat in a semicircle while he spread before him the materials he would burn. We introduced ourselves. Our words were translated by ProPeru staff into Spanish for the interpreter who would then translate them into Quechua, although at times the Shaman seemed to be using Spanish phrases as well as Quechua. We folded  coca leaves and placed them in our mouths, sucking on them as he invoked the spirts of the surrounding mountains and Mother Earth, asking the mountains to accept us as we traveled there, and to welcome us back if we should return. He glanced around as if speaking to each ¨apu¨ that dwelt with each mountain. He prayed that we be kept safe in Lima and in our own country. And he asked Mother Earth as well to welcome us back on our return. He completed the ceremoney with a Christian benediction.

A fire was lit from small twigs. In it he placed alpaca meat, rice, garbanzos and a variety of other ingredients. He sprinkled wine and beer on the fire. Then he removed some ingredients, tailoring the fire to our nature.

The interpreter explaned that some ingredients might cause harm, so the Shaman removed them and would afterward throw them in the river.

This Shaman is 62 years old and has been a Shaman for 30 years. He is known throughout Peru and has conducted ceremonies at Machu Picchu. He also is a farmer.

The interpreterexplained that doctors call him and pay him when there are things they cannot figure out with patients. One technique he uses is to rub a guinea pig agaist the body of the patient, then break its neck and look inside the animal to see what is wrong with it. Whatever is wrong with the patient would appear in the guinea pig.

Two days later our group, which includes two physicians, a pharamcist, a nurse and aspiring medical professionals sat in the same room at ProPeru´s Urubamba officer to receive a presentation from Dr. Victor Alfredo Del Carpio Yanez, the director of Minsa, one of the health authorities in Peru. That´s him on the right, below. On the far left is Lynn Morrison, our group leader; her husband, Chuck, a physician; and Kate of the ProPeru staff, who served as translator.

Dr. Victor has 6 years of field experience, 10 years of standard experience, and 4 years experience as Minsa director. During his stint in the jungle, he became aware that people who went to the hospital for snake bites died, while those who were served by shamans had a better survival rate. He went to the shamans to find out why.

What he learned was that the shamans were administering an herb that slowed down the heart rate to 12 beats a minute, slowing down the distribution of the poison through the body. They also had a mushroom that would be rubbed over the wound. When Dr. Victor sent the mushroom to a laboratory for study, he learned it had properties similar to penicillin. He had never seen anything like this, but when he conducted a search of world health practices, he learned that the same idea of slowing the heart rate was practiced in Australia. (I wish I could be more precise. There was a lot being lost in translation, but our medical staff was fascinated, nonetheless.)

There was another surprise in store. Some children who did not respond to medical treatment were bathed in intestines. Dr. Victor´s research turned up the same practice in Russia. The reason this worked: apparently this reintroduced a good balance of bacteria into the gut of the child.

How about childbirth? His research suggests that the idea the woman should be lying on her back during labor was introduced by a French doctor, and the idea took hold. Regardless of whether that story is accurate or not, what Dr. Victor found was that in none of Peru´s 74 ethnic groups (and 14 language groups!)  did the mother go through labor on her back. Around the world, some women squat, some recline at an angle, some crouch and lean forward against an object, and some even stand.

Each ethnic group in Peru has its own medical history that has evolved over thousands of years, and what they have learned has frequently proven useful for Peruvian doctors who have studied standard Western medicine.

At the same time, there have been significant strides in reducing infant mortality and the deaths of mothers during childbirth.

All Peruvians have health care, but 80% have supplementary insurance. Peru has the most complete national vaccination program in all of South America, Dr. Victor said.

The top three health issues are malnutrition, infant deaths and childbirth deaths of mothers. But there are also chronic breathing problems due to poor cooking practices, and severe body ailments that arise from the packing of large loads on the back. The toughest health challenges are in the high, remote mountain areas.

There is so much more to share, but I must apologize again for the slow computer speed. It has taken me more than 90 minutes to write this small amount.

I hope to soon share with you soon the experience of installing our first cookstove and hawking clean water filters in the marcado of Urubamba. However, getting to a fast internet site can be difficult due to our training, work and travel demands. There is so much here to see and share.

Love,

Roberto