Week 1: Welcome to San Cristóbal and ECOSUR

Looking out the plane window minutes before landing in Chiapas, I was impressed by the vast expanse of mountains, rivers, and green landscape. The images I saw out the window contrasted from the dry dessert that I remembered from Sinaloa and Jalisco, other Mexican states on the western coast of Mexico where I traveled before my freshman year. When I arrived at the Tuxtla Gutierréz airport, I was greeted by palm trees, heat, and Raul, a man who works at ECOSUR. We drove from Tuxtla Gutiérrez (the capital of the state of Chiapas) to San Cristobal de las Casas, which was about an hour drive through fog and rain into the mountains.

When I arrived in San Cristobal on Sunday night, I met Rahul at our apartment. We each have our own room and there is a small kitchen with a gas stove that you have to light with a match (I went to go buy one of those long barbeque lighters because I’m very afraid of fire). On Monday I spent most of the day walking around the city, going to the bank, doing some grocery shopping, and buying a big bottle of water for the apartment. The city of San Cristobal is really beautiful with windy cobblestone streets and brightly painted buildings. It is just small enough so that you can walk pretty much everywhere in the main part of the city. Our apartment is very centrally located next to the main square (Zócalo) and the Cathedral. There are beautiful mountains in the background and the backdrop of the city is picturesque from every angle. There is definitely an eclectic mix of cultures here – Rahul said that he had been to an Indian restaurant and I passed a Lebanese restaurant up the street from our apartment. There are indigenous women and their children speaking Tsotsil (an indigenous language), American/European backpackers walking around the streets, and, of course, the local Mexicans. Everyone seems to coexist beautifully and I love how nobody stares at us when we walk by J

The view from a café in San Cristóbal

Despite the different climate (chilly and rainy), the images in San Cristobal remind me of images from Jalisco and Sinaloa - most restaurants and cafe’s are open to the street, indigenous women with their small children sell crafts to tourists in front of the Cathedral and despite the continuous rain, there is live marimba music every night in the main square. I love the simplicity of life in Mexico - the stores are named ‘papelería’ (paper store) and ‘zapatería’ (shoe store) instead of big names like ‘Staples’ and ‘Aldo’. There are little shops everywhere selling everything from phone cards to piñatas and the names of the stores are hand-painted on the walls of the colorful buildings.

One of the main streets in San Cristóbal

On Tuesday we traveled via taxi to ECOSUR (located on the outskirts of San Cristobal) for our first meeting with Dr. Hector Ochoa (our preceptor). Before our meeting, we had lunch in the ECOSUR cafeteria (the food is amazing and really cheap). While at ECOSUR, I met Rosario (the woman who helped us find an apartment) and other people who work in the health department at ECOSUR, including an indigenous translator. Dr. Ochoa introduced himself and explained that for the next two weeks, we will have class at ECOSUR (in Spanish) to review research methodologies and learn about the ongoing health research projects at ECOSUR.

ECOSUR

Wednesday was our first day of the research methodology class. Dr. Ochoa introduced us to Enrique Eroza (a medical anthropologist) and we met other Mexican students who would be joining our class. Two of the students (Ronni and Milton) are getting their license in nutrition, another student (David) is completing his master’s degree, and another woman (Esmerelda) is completing her PhD. Dr. Ochoa reviewed the different types of research (health systems research, health services research, social health research, etc.) and the different stages of research (selection of theme, literature review, development of a research proposal, definition of variables, selection of research methodologies and instruments, etc.). He presented the schedule for the course and a calendar outlining the approximate schedule of our internship: during September we will complete the research methodology course and select a research topic. The first week in October is ‘planificación’ where we will complete a research proposal. The second week of October we will prepare instruments for data collection, and in the second half of October we will collect data and conduct field work. In November, we will finish our data collection, process the data and interpret the results of our findings. In December, we will draft our final report before presenting our research to ECOSUR. Sounds like we have a lot of work ahead of us!

On Thursday we had our second day of class. We discussed the homework from the night before, which was to find and compare health indicators for Mexico, another country in Latin America, a country in North America, and a European country. The other students in the class shared some of the graphs they had found illustrating various health indicators over time. I presented a few graphs that I had made this summer while interning at PAHO that illustrated trends in health research in Latin America. Here is the link:http://new.paho.org/hq/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5709&Itemid=4099&lang=en. We also learned how to find health data from the State of Chiapas using government websites (not always an easy task!).

On Friday we talked more about how to choose research topics and develop objectives and methodologies for a research project. Dr. Ochoa reviewed the different kinds of epidemiological studies, such as observational studies (including transverse cross-sectional studies) and experimental studies (including controlled clinical trials). We got side-tracked a little bit and started talking about the Zapatistas in Chiapas. We learned that there are Zapatista municipalities in Chiapas that have their own government, educational services, and health services. This system seems to work well for those who live in Zapatista municipalities, but many Zapatista families who live in other municipalities are rejected from their communities and may even be prohibited from accessing the water source L Next week we will talk more about developing surveys and hear more about the ongoing health research projects at ECOSUR.

After class, me and Rahul took the ECOSUR bus back to the center of San Cristobal. Since it was a beautiful day and it wasn’t raining (yay!), we decided to go for a walk. After passing a fish store and debating whether we should buy a pet goldfish for our apartment (we decided against it), we kept walking and followed two men pushing a giant cart of tomatoes towards a food market. I have never seen fruits and vegetables so beautifully arranged in my life. I think tomorrow I might go grocery shopping at the market and then go explore my surroundings … thank goodness I have 14 more weeks to see all that San Cristobal and Chiapas has to offer J