ACAM midwifery training in Chuicutama

Monday June 28

We are staying at the AMA (Asociación de Mujeres del Altiplano) house in Quetzaltenango (referred to as Xela).The house is in an area that allows us to walk around town and explore. We are sleeping dorm room style. This definitely makes for some interesting conversations at bedtime.

Every morning we get up around 6am (5:30 am seems to be the norm in our room)some take showers some don't. We eat a family style breakfast and try to get on the road quickly so we can get back into the city before the rain. We have been unsuccessful thus far. Tropical Depression Alex has been raining down on us since we arrived.
This makes for a precarious ride up the mountain with collective breath holding.

We arrived to a small Mayan village around 10am yesterday We walked what seemed to be about 2 miles up to the center of the village. We convened in the clinic of Chuicutama (a Quiche village). We were joined by midwives and health promoters in training which consisted of all women. Some of these women traveled from villages far up in the mountains for this training. They come down for training every Tuesday which makes sense that they stay for hours since they travel from far away.

After a long introduction since we had to translate from Spanish to Quiche to English, we split up into two training groups, the midwives in training which seemed to consist of the older women and the health promoters which had girls as young as fourteen.

I attended the midwives training where the ACAM midwives (http://www.mayamidwifery-acam-imlusa.org/)are in the process of training the village midwives. Yesterday we focused on how to assess a woman that is unsure if she is pregnant, common first trimester problems and how to treat these issues with plants and herbs found in their communities.

I found it very interesting that the midwives made a comparison between dogs eating grass to soothe their stomachs and how we can also use grass to soothe our stomachs. She meant literally munch on some grass if we have a stomachache.

After the training sessions we met in the clinic again and shared a lunch of fava bean soup and plantains. We decided that we should get on with our trip back to the house in Xela since it was raining.

We started down the mountain and it was quite nerve-wracking. We made it back to the house and ran some errands.....

More later since we have to get going back up to Chuicutama. Today's topic is going to be fetal positions and I am going to share the group prenatal concept and some pregnancy exercises with the women.

Hasta luego!