I'm having some blogging technical difficulties right now, so I wasn't able to get photos into the blog text just yet. To see photos, please go to the actual blog website (jhageman10.blogspot.com) and you can find a link to photos on the top right side.
I had the opportunity to do home visits with Nene, the home healthcare nurse, early this week. They take Nissan Xterras out so they can get to all the homes and navigate the rough dirt roads in the area. It was pretty eye opening to see the differences in the homes we visited. Interesting and sad at times. Many of our patients deal with diabetes and the multitude of complications that come along with the disease, familial alcoholism, a variety of socioeconomic levels (many heat their homes with wood stoves and some do not have running water), limited access to quality healthcare, and numerous medical co-morbidities. Conditions often go unchecked for long periods of time, years and even decades. It is commonly a very complex picture of health for our patients here. The Zuni tribal council is working to combat the health issues, which is encouraging. The Wellness Center is free to all residents, they have a wellness series of events throughout the summer with gifts for everyone who participates (even visitors to the community), the wellness center sends out a bus to pick up residents with diabetes to bring them to the diabetes group exercise sessions, there are nutrition education groups, and the behavioral health team at the hospital is very proactive with patients who come into the hospital. I am slowly gaining more independence in my patient load at the clinic, sometimes it is more like being thrown in head first than a gentle progression. But, it has to happen at some point and I will probably never really feel 100% ready.
I took a weekend trip to Arizona to visit the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest. I was a fiercely windy day! The wind and dust storms here can be intense. The drive felt like I was in the middle of nowhere without a town in sight for miles on end. The roads are also not always labeled so I was happy to have the navigation feature on my phone. I also decided it might be a good idea to buy a map of Arizona at a gas station. While I was looking at the maps an old wrinkled Navajo man came up to me and said “you are in Arizona, pick the Arizona map”. I laughed and said “what? I’m in Arizona?!”. He laughed and told me how much he liked gas station coffee. Okie dokie buddy and I was on my way again. I arrived at the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest, picked up a map and meandered through the park. It was beautiful and desolate. The colors were stunning; definitely worth the drive. The area has volcanic history and is filled with petrified trees lying all over the desert. Some have crystallized and are filled with a variety of vivid colors. Very nice indeed. The ancient Pueblo Indian called the area home and there are remnants of villages and petroglyphs as well.
My new room-mate is a 4th year medical student who attends Columbia. She arrived on Monday morning and we have been getting to know each other. This weekend we drove into Zuni to do a little turquoise jewelry, fetish and pottery shopping at the Turquoise Village. I found plenty to buy! After going around town we found a woman selling bread on the side of the road and bought some sourdough oven bread from her. As we drove back home I saw commotion in the road and slowed down to find that the mudheads and kachinas (embodiments of spirits) were making their rounds around the village. People leave their homes unlocked and the mudheads travel from house to house receiving gifts/offerings, in turn the mudheads bless their home. I really wanted to take a picture but that is a big no-no! Plus, I was advised in orientation that it would be very bad to run over a god in the street. It would have been especially bad to hit a mudhead or kachina with my car while trying to take a picture of them!
This is what a mudhead looks like
It was determined that the last religious night dance would occur Saturday night. These things are not really scheduled ahead of time. Somehow it is determined when the dances will happen and word gets around quickly. Carrie, our OT, invited me to join her family for supper and then attend the night dances in the village. We had supper at the house Carrie’s father designed and built and much of her large family was in attendance. They had blue corn tamales, mutton and hominy stew, sourdough oven bread baked in the big outdoor horno oven, and homemade desserts. They were very welcoming and I enjoyed spending time with Carrie and her family. After supper we waited a couple of hours and around 10pm we headed out to the night dances. It was cold and had been snowing all day, so it was quite muddy with sticky red clay mud. We ventured out into the cold with the smell of wood smoke from the fires warming the homes filling the air. The night dances are held in 6 designated houses built over the previous year for the purpose of celebrating Shalako. The groups of dancers, mudheads and kachinas representing the ancestors and embodying figures from the spirit world and heaven go around the village and from house to house with their singers and drums and dance for an audience inside the house. Since I am not Zuni, I had to stand outside and look in the windows to watch. Carrie and her boyfriend were kind enough to take me around to the houses and stand outside peering in the windows for several hours in the middle of the night. The dancers had elaborate colorful outfits and masks and were adorned with bells, rattles, greenery and a variety of other naturally noise making items that announced their arrival and added to the music during the dances. The dances are not put on for tourists, but are an integral part of their spiritual practice. It was a unique and wonderful experience. I’m glad we ventured out into the cold in the middle of the night for this.
The Entrance to the Old Pueblo
A Couple Examples of Kachinas
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