What is the nationality of this man, who is saying his Shabbat Brachas in a Moslem country with a glass of wine (sorry it was a white wine from South Africa, rather than the required Red!)
A
Doctor without Borders with a group of Indigenas sin/sim Fronteras/Fronteiras
When
people ask me what is that I do, trying to figure out my way of life, I evoke
Doctors Without Borders. That venerable institution, one of the founding forces
behind it, all of them were French, was the Jewish Doctor just completing his
studies in Medicine in Paris in 1968, Bernard Kouchner, who would later become
the Foreign Minister of France. He said: It is very simple, Go Where the
Patients are. Don’t worry about the Borders:
Medicins Sans Frontieres. Or Doctors without Borders. Cuba has an
excellent, possibly the best, record of Humanitarian Medicine around the world,
I applaud them.
While
they went to Biafra, Nicaragua, Honduras and other war torn or places with
natural disasters, my destinations are usually calm and I usually visit
indigenous people and instead of Treatment I am far more interested in their
Culture and how to use it for prevention of Diseases.
Imagine
trying to explain why I was in Rapa Nui, soon after visiting beautiful
Minnesota with its thousand lakes and friendly people. Now I am on my way to
Barranquilla where my colleagues, doctors and psychologists attending a
Conference on Reproductive Health, do not yet know my dinner plans for them.
I
normally do not identify myself as a Doctor, if pressured about my wandering
professional style; I would say I am an Anthropologist. Most people seem to be
satisfied with that answer, much like the life of the fictitious Maqroll, my
alter ego, brought to life by the late Colombian writer, Alvaro Mutis. I do not
easily open myself for examination of the symbolism of my persona. Like
Maqroll, I too work hard to stay away from the mean spirited hypocrisies of the
convictions of the bourgeoisie, which has spread around the world with the new
colonization of the mind, the Globalization.
As
I am interested in promoting Cuba, conversations would include that country and
its lovely people, otherwise well used passport(s) bear no resemblance to the
symbolic references to my ancestry, place of birth or place of growth, and the
current strong connection to the future through yet another language.
It
was the director of Museu Maguito in Benjamin Constant in Brasilian Amazonia
who reminded me: I speak Portugese, but I am a Ticuna. The Colombian Ticuna
identify with their Indian Country rather than the Colombian Nation, the same
applies to Peruvian Ticuna. We are Ticuna first and last, they tell me. They
all speak their language, so they do not become dependent (or remain colonized)
in the language of their conquistadores, to connect with each other. Across the
Amazon, a Brasilian Ticuna can connect with a Colombian or Peruvian Ticuna but
may not be comfortable with other Brasilians or Colombians or Peruvians. The
school at Nazaret, where my some of my Ticuna friends live teach the youngsters
the culture of Ticuna in the language of Ticuna. To them speaking Ticuna among
themselves seem natural.
My
Kickapoo sister, Mena, once told me, when we were living in Mexico we did not
become Mexican, so I don’t see why we should identify ourselves are American
when we are living in USA?
So
this Doctor without Borders is already looking forward to his return to
Nazaret, possibly in January, to his return to the Ticuna, the Indians without
Borders in the Amazon.
