By Anne Kraemer Diaz | Executive Director
Since August, we have had the great fortune of having Nora, a 2013-2014 Fulbright Fellow, work with us. Nora is a fourth-year medical student at Mayo Medical School in Minnesota, and she will be with us through June 2014. Her focus is to build capacity for data collection and training with our midwives. When Nora arrived, she immediately began to learn Kaqchikel. Since then she has been working closely with the midwives to complete an evaluation of the midwives training curriculum, which is unique because of its respect for Mayan values—among other things, it is one of the country’s only traditional midwife training program conducted exclusively in an indigenous language.
After several months in Guatemala, Nora has gained a better understanding of the midwives’ work and role in their communities and she is currently working with them on their program’s efficacy and acceptability, to set the stage for future internal evaluation.
Below is a Field Report from Nora
Yesterday, I met up with Elvia, one of the lead midwives, and we went to a larger outlying community or aldea about half an hour away.
In the aldea, we met up with Romina, an elderly and smile-filled midwife. She speaks mostly Kaqchikel, so we were able to chat a little and work on my Kaqchikel. We saw four patients in their homes, spending nearly an hour with each. I mostly observed and listened to the rapid-fire, real-world Kaqchikel.
At one point, we saw a patient whose baby was in transverse lie (which likely won’t be a problem, since she was only about 32 weeks along). I asked Romina for the word for transverse lie in Kaqchikel.
“Kotz’ol,” she said, which literally means lying down. Logical!
“Chuqa’ ke ri’?” I asked, motioning breech position
“Tzuyül!” she smliled, which means sitting. Also logical!
“Chuqa’ wi rujolom wawe?” I motioned vertex.
“Ütz!”–which is simply “good!”
Looking forward to another day.
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