I’m incredibly thrilled and honored to have been nominated by my graduating classmates to give our Commencement Speech! Thanks for everyone’s support, I’ll do my best to say something profound, and if not that, entertaining.

Anyone have suggestions?

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As found in a comedrona’s (midwife’s) clinic, glucose challenges for diabetes in pregnant woman use coconut flavored water, instead of the orange-flavored stuff in the US. Score one point for Central American medicine.

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As always, espanol first.

Pólizas/Policy Thoughts:

• Pienso ahora mas que antes que las personas que cuidar por el ambiente necesitan concentrar sus energias con la planificacion. Se parece que todos nuestros problemas estan aqui por que hay demasiados personas. Entiendo por que hay familias grandes en los paises como Guatemala, y necesitamos aumentar la vida de la gente, pero la planificacion tiene mucho mucho importancia.
• I think now more than ever people that care about the environment need to concentrate their efforts on birth control and family planning. It seems like all our problems with resource usage are due to too many people. I certainly understand why families in countries like Guatemala have many children, and we need to improve the lives of the people, but family planning has a ton of importance. It should be a bigger environmental issue.
• Tambien, apoyo microcredit mas y mas. No importa cuanto dinero yo doy a los pobres, ni cuantos medicinas ni cuantos clinicas gratis, no es sostenible sin la gente se ayuda. Acansejo mucho el libro Banker to the Poor , por M. Yanas, si quire aprender de microcredit o microlending.
• Also, I support microcredit more and more. It doesn’t matter how much money I send to the poor, or how many medicines or free clinics I open, it’s not sustainable unless the people help themselves. I really, highly recommend Banker to the Poor , by M. Yanas, who won the Nobel Peace Prize a few years back, if you don’t know anything about microcredit.
• Sin regulaciones, la gente sufre. Vine a Xela con la idea que tal vez las regulacions fueron malos. Tal vez la vida con menos leyes es mejor. No. No. No. Sin regulaciones, los ninos tienen vidas peligrosos. Sin regulaciones, la gente respira aire sucio. Si quiere experimentar con una economia lo mas free-market (cielo?), venga a Xela y mira la vida. En serio.
• Without regulations, people suffer. I came down here to Xela thinking, perhaps regulations are bad. Maybe life really is better with fewer laws. No. No. No. Without regulations, children live dangerous lies. Without regulations, people breathe dirty, polluted air. If you want to experience the heaven of a truly free market economy, come see Xela and live the life. Seriously.
• La plastica ha cambiado la vida aqui. La plastica es la nueva sanitaria. No se necesita lavarse las manos si se puede servir la comida con la plastica. Una pastelita en la calle? Envuelto en la plastica. Yo puedo comer mas sano o saludable. Me gusta mucho, pero es terrible por el ambiente. (Tambien las bolsas de plasticas son muy utiles por la gente tambien, así como las cuerdas en plasticas.)
• Plastic has changed life here. Plastic is the new sanitary. Seriously, you don’t need to have your hands washed (which is an issue with dirty water) if you can eat out of plastic. A cookie in the street? Wrapped in plastic it’s much safer to eat. I like it a lot, as I think it makes my chances of getting ill less, but it’s terrible for the environment. (Also plastic bags are really useful here, and plastic ropes to tie things, too.)
• Los EEUU no son bueno por las familias Guatemaltecas. Muchas personas me han dicho que los hombres van a los EEUU para encontrar trabajo, pero despues los hombres olvidan sus familias y pasan el dinero con mujeres y alcohol, y la mayoria del dinero ellos no mandan a sus familias aqui. Necesitamos mejorar las paises de centroamerica, por nuestro exito, y suyos tambien.
• The US is not good for Guatemalan families. I’ve heard this from many people. Men searching for better jobs head to the US, but after they arrive they forget their families in Guate. They spend much of their money earned on new women and alcohol, and the majority of the money doesn’t get back to their Guatemalan families, who desperately need it. We need to work to improve Central American countries, for our success in the US as well as theirs.

Y otras pensamientos / And other thoughts:

• Es mejor de suponer lo mejor si una persona habla de usted. En Guatemala, la gente es casi toda bilinguale, hablando ambos espanol y una otra idioma, a menudo quiche. (Quiche es una idioma indigina.) A veces las mujeres hablaraban en Quiche despues de hablando con migo en espanol, con risitas. Supongo que ellas piensan que soy guapo. Mejor que piensan que soy gringo estupido.
• It’s better to assume the best if a person talks about you. Here in Guatemala, people are almost all bilingual, speaking both Spanish and another language, often Quiche. (Quiche is one of many indigenous languages.) Sometimes women will start speaking in Quiche after talking to me in Spanish, while giggling. I assume it’s ’cause they think I’m cute. Better than thinking it’s cause I’m a stupid annoying gringo.

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Español, English below:
Antes de comenzar nuestro tiempo con pacientes, tenemos una semana de clases de competencia cultural. Hoy, aprendimos de la cosmovision latina–que hay comidas que son calientes, neutrales, o frias. Los estudiantes y yo no estuvamos seguros de esos, pero estuvamos acuerdos que es importante de comprender como nuestros pacientes compredren el mundo.

Nuestro maestro nos dijo que el puede probar una comida y dice si ella es caliente o fria. Una lista partial:

Frio:
Grasas
Leche/Queso/Yogurt
Huevos
Frijoles
Arroz
Platanos
Carnes
Pescado
Vegetales Verdes
Limon
Pan

Neutral:
Chocolate
Maiz
Sal

Caliente:
Chile
Cafe
Azucar
Te
Naranja
Condimento
Genigibe
Ajo
Menta
Alcohol

Es un poco extraño con algas comidas. Por ejemplo, el pan de horno (que esta caliente en temperatura) es una comida fria. Pero el pan mas viejo (que esta la temperatura de cuarto) es caliente.

Muchas personas creen que si se come demasiado de comidas de un typo (frio o caliente), va a hacerse enfermo. Tambien, las medicinas de medicos son calientes, entonces un paciente que toma una medicina va querer una comida fria.

Ingles:
Before we start seeing patients, we have a week of cultural competency here. Today we learned about ‘heaty’ and ‘cooling’ foods, the belief among many Latinos (and other cultures) that some foods are innately heating, while others are cooling. If a person eats too much of one category, he or she will fall ill. While all of us were a wee bit skeptical (placebo effect, anyone?), we all agreed it’s certainly important to understand our patients’ worldviews.

Our teacher said that he can taste foods and instantly tell if they’re heaty or cooling, even if they’re not necessarily hot or cold temperature-wise.

Here’s a very partial list.

Cooling:
Fatty foods
Dairy: milk, cheese, yogurt
Eggs
Beans
Rice
Bananas
Meats
Fish
Green Vegetables
Lemon, Lime
Bread

Neutral:
Chocolate
Corn
Salt

Hot:
Chiles
Coffee
Sugar
Tea
Oranges
Condiments
Ginger
Garlic
Mint
Alcohol

It doesn’t always make sense. For example, bread straight from the oven (hot, temperature-wise) is cooling. Bread that has been sitting out at room temperature is cooling.

Interestingly, all drugs we give patients are inherently heaty, so patients may often want to take the medicines with a cooling food to balance things out.

Ack, back to class. More mas tarde.

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Quick update, got an email from someone at Student Doctor who showed me that the Stewart University website is dead. No idea what happened. I previously discussed it here.

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