Naturalpath

    I recently was accepted to travel to Ometepe, Nicaragua in December 2007 on a Natural Doctors International medical brigade to participate in naturopathic medical outreach clinics and learn about how global economic policies impact healthcare in developing countries. Naturopathic Doctors practice in the U.S. as well; they can prescribe medication and perform minor surgeries, but try to resort to changes in nutrition, supplements, or herbal remedies as much as possible.I was able to join three naturopathic doctors, an herbalist, and two naturopathic students as we took classes, treated the farmers on Ometepe, and experienced what life is like on the island. We were on a serious mission to build bridges of solidarity and community; to pro-actively engage in activism for access to naturopathic medicine worldwide; to work alongside our brothers and sisters in Central America for a more just world, to provide healthcare to a community that is in dire need of it and provide support to healthcare systems that would make most North Americans cringe, and to envision and enact a brighter future. I truly had the best experience of my life combining my love of traveling, Spanish, and naturopathic medicine.

    We began by taking an hour-long ferry ride to Moyogalpo, the main city on the island of Ometepe. The island is breathtaking, two volcanoes attached by an isthmus. We were staying in Los Angeles, a small barrio on the foot of the live volcano Concepcion.

    The first day, I met my homestay family, where I would be staying with the two other students on the trip (who didn’t speak any Spanish, so I became the translator!) The mother, father, two daughters, and son accepted us into their home as if we were their other daughters, cooking us typical meals such as spaghetti with ketchup and fried rice and beans, and teaching us to clean our laundry on a rock washboard. Most families on the island make 20 cordobas a day, which is equivalent to a dollar, so this diet is very typical, and things such as toilet paper are a luxury item.

    Our second day, we drove over to a coffee plantation at the foot of Volcano Maderas, an inactive volcano with a lake in the crater. We wore large woven baskets tied around our waists and picked coffee beans all morning as howler monkeys passed by overhead in the trees. While this work allowed me to relate to a farmer’s lifestyle, I felt very fortunate that I was not picking beans, which is the most common crop around December. Bean plants are only two feet tall maximum, causing lower back problems, neck problems, and headaches for almost everyone on the island, including everyone in my host family. Other crops on the island include tobacco, plantains, and corn.

    Our NDI brigade group spent a total of 24 hours together taking classes on globalization, Nicaragua’s situation, the U.S.’s role in world economics, as well as processing classes where we shared what we were thinking and feeling. I learned that the US has a 15% vote in the UN, giving us the power to veto any decision and allowing us to control the world bank, giving loans to developing countries which inevitably lead to large unpayable debts in the future. I gained a better understanding of Neoliberal theory, which, among many outcomes, leads to deregulation of environmental and safety practices in order to push unregulated and free enterprise. It also leads to SAPs, structural adjustment programs, which allow other countries to own large chunks of the developing country’s economy, monopolizing the price of service. For example, the US owns the rice production in much of Central America, making local rice farmers unable to compete and causing most of the rice consumed in these countries to come from the US!

    Nicaragua is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere. 80% of the population lives off of less than $2/day, 43% on less than $1/day, and 12.5% on less than 50 cents a day. In turn, ¾ of the population does not get proper food to develop.

    In four days, we visited two clinics and the only “hospital” on the island. We spent 90 clinic hours, saw 188 patients, and donated a total of $2600 worth of medical supplies. Every day we would set up shop, unloading suitcases of tinctures, homeopathics, herbs, immune boosters, teas, and salves from the US and from local companies in Nicaragua. I worked one on one with a naturopathic doctor and helped to come up with a treatment plan for the various cases we saw. There were so many patients to see that we had to give out numbers, and people would often wait the entire day to get in.

    I especially loved giving massages to the farmers to help relieve their back and neck pain and headaches. One lady even fell asleep as I massaged her neck! I also got on the floor to demonstrate different lower back stretches.

    We saw many coughs and colds and often gave out 4-5 different remedies per patient. I helped with two cases of scabies, which were infected with staph. One girl was so inflamed that her eyes were almost swollen shut.

    One woman came in with two boys- an 11 year old with autism and epilepsy, and a 9 year old that we found out had either a kidney stone or a severe kidney infection, causing him to urinate blood. His pain was so bad that his mother had been giving him very strong adult painkillers. It is very common for Nicaraguans to take random drugs to relieve their symptoms; they will use whatever they can get their hands on and, as you can imagine, it is often not a good choice. For this particular boy, we gave him an herbal tincture targeted for the kidneys and an order for a urine sample to identify the problem.

    Another family came in with their two-year-old son, who had developed tuberculosis. The entire family had tuberculosis and lived together in a small hut, and did not have money to get treated.

   We also did a house call for one girl who had a month-long infection after giving birth. I had never done any kind of pelvic exam, and throughout the trip I experienced three. We gave this girl a tea-bath to soak in, some salves, shampoo, and homeopathic treatment.

    I had the opportunity to work alongside a Nicaraguan doctor, and he shared with me what symptoms call for what treatment in their system of medicine. We saw several women with unplanned pregnancies- most girls have children around age 13 or 14. In general, the islanders seemed to age VERY quickly. A typical 50 year old would have sunspots, wrinkles, missing teeth, stooped shoulders, veiny hands and feet, and cataracts in their eyes.

    The hospital was really just a larger clinic. I can’t even fully describe how bare and poor the building was, I literally almost broke down crying after the tour and had to exit the building for fresh air. The surgery room consisted of a cot and a few scalpels, and was also used as a consulting room. There was a lab where they collected urine, blood and feces samples- the feces were turned in in matchboxes, and the urine in whatever container people could find.

    The inpatient room had several people lying on bare mattresses waiting to see if their condition would get bad enough that they would need to be shipped to the mainland. One girl was going through contractions, and I had the opportunity to feel her baby’s head come down into her pelvis, and measured the baby’s healthy heartbeat. It was here that I met a funny old lady who looked like she was passing out. When I asked her what happened, she whispered, “I swallowed a cordoba!” She had been hiding the coin in her mouth from her grandkids when she fell asleep! We learned that she had already passed it and assured her that she would be ok, although she was convinced she had been poisoned from the coin. As we left the room, she asked for some treatment for constipation. When we offered her a treatment, she was ecstatic!

    Overall, the trip confirmed that this medicine is something I love and am passionate about and would like to devote my life to. This trip gave me the opportunity for my heart and mind to be expanded, nourished and opened, making me more excited than ever for what the future holds for me. More than ever I feel drawn to working in another country. I love the way people are on such a different level in Nicaragua; it feels so real the way people interact with each other and with the earth. One of my favorite times of day was sunset- as we would drive home from the clinics EVERYONE would be standing in the streets watching the sun go down and socializing with the neighbors. After I graduate from Cal Poly this June, I would love to spend a year or two to go and equilibrate other parts of the globe and educate, empower, and help people in countries such as Nicaragua to heal. I am also looking into going to one of the Naturopathic schools in the US, which would be an intensive four-year study. We will see what the future holds for me!

    Natural Doctors International (NDI) is a non-profit organization, so all of their revenue comes from fundraising. NDI is a 501c3, grassroots medical outreach organization committed to international health. Since 2003 they have worked to bring needed medical attention on an international level by providing naturopathic medicine free of charge to more than 5,000 patients and at the same time, teaching classes about the state of global healthcare. Also, medical brigades such as the one that I joined occur twice a year, and volunteers are welcome year round. To learn more about NDI, go to www.ndimed.org.