(U-WIRE) COLLEGE PARK, Md. -- Ian Simon had a sty growing on his eye for three months that would not get better. When he went to Mexico in June, the sty worsened, growing big and red due to the hot and humid weather.

Simon, a junior microbiology major at the University of Maryland, was in Mexico with a class from the campus to study the traditional Mayan healers, their ways of addressing health and their culture Traditional healers use plants, spirits and other methods not typically used in modern Western medicine to treat patients.

Knowing this, Simon asked such a healer, who was leading a hike through a tropical reserve to pick some medicinal plants, if he could do anything about his eye. The healer simply said he would take care of it later.

During the hike, the healer took a hat from one of the women they were hiking with and fanned Simon's eye while counting to nine four times. The healer said the sty would go away, and Simon would never get one again.

The sty grew until it popped two days later.

Simon's class, "Discovering the Secrets of the Mayan Healers," which ran from June 4 to July 1, combined classes at the University of the Yucatan in Mexico with fieldwork. The National Indigenous Institute taught the classes about Mayan culture and medicine.

The students experienced Mayan life firsthand in the Mayan homeland of Peto on the Yucatan Penninsula. For example, a lecture on horticulture preceded a visit to help families plant gardens to supplement the nutrients lacking in their bean and corn-based diet. They planted radishes, cucumbers and other vegetables to reduce the number of illnesses caused by malnutrition.

Campus anthropology professor Fatimah Jackson and her husband Robert, a campus nutrition sciences professor, led four study-abroad students, one Gemstone student and two graduate student coordinators on the trip.

"We were not trying to do research to establish the legitimacy of medicine, but learn from traditional healers and what they hope to change," Fatimah Jackson said.

She said there is more to anthropological research "than going into a village with a clipboard and pen in hand. It takes a while to get into other people's brains and understand why this place is special and sacred (and) understand the why -- not from the Western mindset, but from the Mayan perspective; that is when you begin to grow Interacting with very different people, you come back and see how strange we are, you see your mind has grown. We, too, are strange and different for someone coming with a different mindset."

In Peto, the students went on rounds with traditional healers of various specializations, including a parasite expert and a midwife. They visited nature preserves to gather plants, went through the process of drying and preparing the plants for medicine and learned about the power of suggestion to discover the secrets of the Mayan healers.

The students had one-on-one contact with healers, which meant much of the experience depended on an ability to speak Spanish and an outgoing personality.

The students implemented new programs developed by a health clinic run by the National Indigenous Institute in Peto. One wing of the clinic offers patients traditional Mayan medicine and another side offers Western medicine. These programs included building fences for pigs and chickens and visiting the remote village of San Antonio Chuc to give baby food to young mothers.

"We talked for two to three hours, then they gave us presents and really welcomed us, and by five o'clock we were a part of the family," Simon said.

"The clinic teaches people how to be healthy and do it on their own, because you can't depend on the government or non-profit organizations to help you keep up a healthy way of life," he said.

The villagers built Jackson and her campus crew four huts, "Casa de Maryland," complete with swinging hammocks on the clinic's grounds for them to live in during their stay. They ate frijoles, tortillas and other traditional Mayan foods.

"You really have to understand the culture they are coming from, what their lives are like, to understand their medicine," Jackson said. She also said staying with the people for the whole time and really sticking it out to be anthropologically committed to the experience can be hard.

"We were dumbfounded that the people said 'We'll stop what we are doing and educate you,'" Jackson said. "This was a wonderful outreach and statement of confidence to use it for good and not disenfranchise and exploit them."

Simon went to Mexico as a representative of his Gemstone team, Medical Care in the Third World, for which he gathered primary research information. Simon plans to bring his Gemstone team back for a full-scale research trip in January.

Maria Jose, director of the clinic, introduced Simon to the villagers as Michael Jordan's nephew and later as Jordan's son. This led to Simon playing basketball with the local young men. Simon noticed the young men were barefoot or wearing thin sandals while he was wearing Nike sneakers. He spent time with them and went to a few town dances and saw how men his own age interacted socially.

"I learned to enjoy spicy food, picked up some more Spanish and realized that there are still people out there that are not distrustful when they meet strangers," he said.

The Mayans were very open in sharing their types of medicine. They had a remedy for many of the common ailments in Western society.

For example, plants from that region were used to develop treatment and drugs such as Bincristine to treat childhood leukemia, Cortisone to relieve skin irritations and contraceptive drugs. The Mayan healers also claimed there was a plant that would cure AIDS, which Jackson said seemed worthy of investigation.

Jackson said the trip was "a reminder that we don't have all the answers and that our search is enhanced by traditional knowledge.

"There is a reciprocity," she said. "They show us their medical and science tricks and we show them ours."

Jackson said she would like to run a course the semester before the actual trip to make the journey more worthwhile. She said to make the experience as positive as possible, students should be culturally sensitive, have an aptitude for language or a willingness to learn, have something to offer the Mayans in knowledge and have technical competence in an area of western science.

"The most important thing in communication is personality, not just language," she said. "Cultural anthropology softens your heart and opens you up to diversity you will encounter and look for similarities to bond over in a non-judgmental way. Personal interactions were more important than technical efficiency."

Simon said his sty returned after the trip, but that he still believes in the traditional healers from his experience and other examples of their work that he witnessed.
　　
　　(From HwalthWorld Online)