Something about health, something about revolutions

On Revolutions:
It´s possible that, at the bottom line, Carlos and I see the world in the same way, as a disaster with beautiful potential which can be accessed all the time. But our methods of enacting change, and therefore our methods of living, are at opposite ends of pretty much every spectrum pretty much all the time. It´s been good to receive so much to think about, really. Carlos is primarily about inner peace and tranquillity, which of course is a state I can hardly even visualize. But at heart, this idea of living your values daily, and putting your ideas into practice in your life, learning as you construct, is a basic revolutionary principal which we share. Whether we have to be at peace or have to struggle in order to find a better world; that is the point where we diverge. We always seem to find people, in the mountains, in the towns, who want to talk to us about our revolutionary potential. About the youth who will change the world. I suppose it helps that we find ourselves in remote locations, but still, it's heartening to find adults and farmers who tell us we are onto something good.

On top of this general tendency, we get the 2012 legend and all its myriad formulations. I have come to enjoy the interpretation given to it here. In 2012 (the Mayan date for the end of the world), what's to come is not so much global destruction and the elimination of the human race (a la the upcoming film where it seems John Cusack will fly a plane as a giant boat crushes the White House), but as a time of intense changes in social, political and economic structures, in lifestyles and global conditions. Or rather, a word will end, but it will only be this terrible kind of world we have created. Disaster may strike, but it will only mean that we will have to learn to live together in new ways. In fact, basically, this interpretation means that disasters will come and they will force the global revolution, and the anarchist autonomous hippie punk socialist revolution, the better world we've been dreaming of, will be forced into existence, and everything will change. We will have to learn to live together, share, and recreate the modern world. It means that our generation will live to see it. If you know, you buy into that Mayan legend stuff...

On health:
Carlos is obsessed with natural and indigenous medicine. It is one of his primary passions and something we are often reading about, looking at, or trying out. I have actually become rather interested in the practice as well, which seems strange in some ways, because natural medicine is pretty much at direct odds with public health programs. But then, massive social change and activism are also mostly at odds with public health. It seems tragic, really, that things which are so closely tied in reality can be so isolated in both the academic and professional worlds. Natural medicine has its values, and even though it drives me crazy when Carlos tells me that Malaria and Dengue are just health myths invented by those in power which we can ignore, I can see that natural medicine can be healthier, more sustainable, and more honest than dealing with giant drug companies. It is another form of DIY action, I suppose, a means of putting power, once again, into the hands of people. That doesn´t mean that the absence of doctors and lack of access to services can be dismissed, or that there is no need for health systems and planning. It is something to consider though, and so now I'm left with yet another paradigm to think about as I try and do something that I think is positive.

I have also been doing a series of interviews with health providers here in Oaxaca for the Public Health Delivery Project, a venture organized and sponsored by Harvard's medical school and Paul Farmer's non-profit, Partners In Health (my favorite health non-profit ever). The program aims to create an online forum for health practitioners to share best practices and discuss challenges and successes in the health world. The survey project aims to collect data from health programs all over the world in a attempt to aggregate and analyze data and basically look at the way we provide health care and figure out how to do it better. You can join up with this program at ghdonline.org, or learn about it at globalhealthdelivery.org/blog. I interviewed a lady from a project called Puente al Salud, a non profit doing community work in Oaxaca, as well as a doctor at Hospital Carmen, a private hospital in the city. These two interviews provided the perfect example of the gap between community work and health services. While Puente did amazing projects with nutrition, empowerment, training, and community development, they offered no clinical or advanced medical services. The private hospital, on the other hand, provided no social services but had a high capacity for technical health provision. The doctor I spoke with there told me that private care is actually cheaper than the public option, which I imagine is true, but the lack of community connection was striking. The lack of a single organization that can provide both health and justice was expected but somewhat frustrating. It was satisfying to get in some studying time on my favorite subject, however. Onwards, then.