THE MUSEUM OF MAYA MEDICINE

We are getting our exercise. First a half hour walk to the Cross in front of the Cathedral. We gather in this public open space to an uplifting version of "New York, New York." It strikes us as somewhat odd as immediately afterwards a a platoon of soldiers marches in to raise three Mexican flags and dignitaries assemble. The soldiers smile as we take multiple photos.

Then a half hour walk to the Museum of Mayan Medicine. We walk with staff and volunteers of Natate, a Mexican based volunteer coordination organization. Michelle is staff, a young Mexican woman. We have an opportunity to talk in a quiet moment at the Museum. She is completing and undergraduate degree for which she took the thesis route. Studies for the thesis took her to Algeria and she will report on women's issues in refugee camps in the area. She informs me that her professors are quite interested in her work and there is a good chance for publication. In few weeks she will go to Mexico City to defend her thesis.

Her long term goal is to enter the Mexican diplomatic service. First, she says, she will have to gain entrance to the one school that does the training for diplomatic service. I mention the Nobel prize winner, Octavio Paz, who worked as a Mexican ambassador. We laugh. Now I recall that there has been a Mexican tradition of choosing ambassadors from accomplished Mexican artistic and literary figures. Michelle has ambitions.

A volunteer working at the Museum, Vicente from France, takes us through the Museum. I am happy that I will be returning to work at the Museum for five days. I find it relevant to my past experience with First Nation peoples in Canada. There are herbs that address specific conditions and I think of the Anishinabe I know who gather plants from the forest for healing purposes. There is much to observe about the curanderos who deal with mental and emotional conditions. We enter the replica of a Catholic chapel with figures of St. Peter, St. Lawrence, St. John, St. Andrew and Our Lady of Guadeloupe. The curandero is in process of calling the attention of each of the santos to the needs of a young indigenous woman with her baby. He moves from one to the other swatting them with a bundle of green herbs. We see how tobacco, chalk and garlic are ground together for a treatment of stomach conditions. In another room we observe the mock up of an indigenous mid-wife at work as the mother stands supported by her husband, the mid-wife receiving the baby from behind. Vicente tells me that after the delivery the mother is taken to what resembles the northern sweat-lodge. 

So much for the moment as I close to attend our reflection meeting. I hope to enter deeper into this other world.