Hands-On Brigade
Tao Institute Volunteers Treach Out to Remote Mexican Villages

By Margaret Motheral

The medical brigade from the TAO Medical Institute of Mexico reached its remote destination, the small village of Agua Fria in Guerrero, one of the mountainous southern states of Mexico, about 9 p.m. The tropical sun had given way to the shadows of a warm night, yet nearly 50 people from this rural community waited patiently for medical services brought to them by Dr. Salomon Garcia Jimenez, leader of the medical brigade. Many had walked for hours to reach Agua Fr'a. They carried babies and helped along their aged grandmothers and fathers bent over in back pain. Some brought chickens, corn or beans to trade for the medical services.

Dr. Garcia and the medical brigade of volunteer acupuncturists and bodyworkers were as exhausted as the people who waited for their services. One of the volunteers, an acupuncture intern from Denmark, used his Spanish skills to explain to one tired, pregnant mother the reason for the group's late arrival. The combi, a van used as a collective taxi, had met up with a felled tree across the rough road leading to Agua Fria. But true to the camaraderie and spirit of he volunteers, everyone pitched in to push and drag the heavy tree out of the road.

Improvisation and flexibility is an important part of the medical brigade's job, whether it is making do with limited medical supplies or chasing chickens out of makeshift treatment rooms. This night, in spite of the late hour, the dedicated volunteers would not allow their patients to wait any longer. They began reatments immediately, working until past midnight. With the dawn, they started again.

A Marriage of Vision
The brigade is the outreach branch of the TAO Medical Institute of Mexico, a non-profit organization dedicated to providing Oriental medical treatment and training to rural and urban areas of Mexico. Twenty-five years ago, Michie Kikuchi, a young, newly trained acupuncturist arrived in Mexico City from Japan with a group of elder acupuncturists. Dr. Garcia was a Western medical student at the time. His curiosity and the desire to find medical help that would benefit his rural home state of Guerrero brought him to introductory lectures presented by these Japanese acupuncturists. A wedding of mutual vision, two very different cultures and eventually the real-life marriage of Kikuchi and the young medical student from Guerrero was born from this introduction of Oriental medicine into Mexico.

Kikuchi and Garcia's relationship began with the formation of study groups on acupuncture, shiatsu and Oriental medical theory. Kikuchi took the role of teacher and Garcia learned everything he could, recognizing the profound potential for applying this type of medicine to the destitute rural communities of his home state. Guerrero state is one of the poorest areas in Mexico, and its mountainous terrain makes access difficult. Agua Fria is one of the rare villages to have a bare-bones health clinic. Few medical supplies or personnel ever reach these communities.

Most of the people in the southern states of Mexico are indigenous farmers who work the land to grow their own corn, beans and coffee. They present a wide variety of symptoms. Pain, arthritis, injuries from hard work, women's health issues, skin problems and parasites are some of the most common issues presented to the medical brigade.

"All the children have parasites," said Futoshi Sato who trained in acupressure and shiatsu both in Japan and at the Acupressure Institute in Berkeley, Calif., and is a frequent member and representative of the brigade. "We have to use Western antiparasitic medicine to knock out the parasites first and then we do a lot of health and sanitation education to help the people prevent further problems."

During the early incarnation of the TAO Medical Institute, Kikuchi and Garcia spent 13 years in the town of Atoyac. They were also married in this town. During those years, they went out to remote villages every weekend, bringing a combination of the Western medicine from Dr. Garcia's training and the Oriental medicine Kikuchi practiced and had taught to Dr. Garcia. Smiling, Kikuchi recalls the incident that made her "famous" in those early days.

"A 50-year-old man came in with a very bad cough and cold. The medicine he was taking had not helped and the cough was worse. It is frightening for these people to get sick, as help is so rare and simple matters can lead to more serious and grave illnesses. I treated him with moxa (an herbal heat treatment), bladder points on the back and the point called 'Wind Gate.' In one treatment the coughing stopped. Then all the village knew me," she said.

"Another man came at that time with an infected rash all over his body. Rashes are a common and serious problem in this area. He had been taking penicillin for a month without any effect and the rash was getting worse. I used moxa on some of the large intestine points on the right arm. I wanted to do the left arm also, but the moxa treatment was long and the burning was painful, so I let him go home. However, within two weeks his entire body was clear of the rash." 

The work of TAO Medical Institute
Today, the TAO Medical Institute is growing in several directions. It has broadened its base by including volunteer bodyworkers, acupuncturists and others who want to help in joining the medical brigades which travel out to the villages. As global interest grows for this humanitarian cause, the TAO wants to expand its capacity to include students of acupuncture or other bodywork modalities as part of an internship program. The need is great and the indigenous populations of this area are enthusiastic and thankful for the efforts of TAO.

An important and expanding aspect of the TAO's work is to teach the skills of acupuncture, Oriental medical theory, Shiatsu and moxa to the people of Mexico. Shiatsu and moxibustion classes are especially popular with the communities. The people learn about the five elements, the meridians, pulse diagnosis, and point treatment patterns for specific problems. It is still difficult to get supplies such as needles, medicines or Chinese herbs. Tiny Japanese needles called "hiaishin" are used for reducing pain and bringing health and balance back to system. Ear acupuncture is also taught. The people are avid students and take what they learn back to their villages.

The Tlapaneca Indigenous Women's Collective, community women concerned with health care, is very active in setting up workshops and health education classes. Dr. Garcia is particularly interested in studying and reviving the use of Mexican herbal medicine and, while in medical school, wrote a Spanish-language book about local herbal use. The younger generations have lost this art and there are only a few elders who retain some herbal medicinal knowledge.

This past March, the third teaching workshop was held at Colombia de Guadalupe in the mountains of Guerrero. Most of the participants were indigenous Tlapaneca women. Some of them had walked up to eight hours from their villages to the workshop, all the while carrying their babies - wrapped in shawls they call rebozo - on their backs. One participant, Luti, from the village of Tilapa, had participated in all three workshops and returned to tell the volunteers stories of how she had helped in births and cases of pain, including lower back and menstrual pain, using moxa and acupressure points.

Dr. Kikuchi returned with translated comments from a recent workshop. Most of the students can write very little, yet they show great enthusiasm and often return to the next workshop with dozens of case histories in which they had practiced moxa and shiatsu techniques in their communities. A main thread through all the comments was that these health promoters wanted more workshops, more supplies and more knowledge.

Maria Contreras Garcia from Columbia de Gape wrote, "As a health promoter, I feel very content because what I learned today is very important. This is going to serve me a lot and I will serve my colleagues who could not come today. This workshop is not enough. We still have to train more to be sure about ourselves to attend to patients with different health problems."

Sixta Neri Galena from Tilapa commented, "Doctors, I felt very good about the lecture today. I wish we can have orientations like this every week or every day, because we will learn more that way. Doctors, we as community of Tilapa want to have help for materials here. We are going to need needles."

Anastacio Bello Carranza from Columbia de Gape wrote, "I feel very content about the course I received. They applied hinaishin to me, to a part I felt most with pain and the pain disappeared. Therefore I would like to receive these theories and practices from your doctors together with my co-workers, the health promoters. Thank you."

Paying the Way
The medical brigade asks for a small donation from the people in order to provide them with the opportunity to contribute, but often there is no money at all and food or other items are accepted as donations. The days when the medical brigade visits a village to treat patients and teach classes are special days. Lucky volunteers are treated to delicious meals of hand-made tortillas, fresh beans, tomatoes, cilantro and corn. Sometimes, someone has a guitar and the children play among the groups of people waiting for treatment or the start of the next class.

In 1984, the TAO Medical Institute registered as a non-profit organization. The TAO headquarters is in Mexico City in a rented space consisting of two treatment rooms. It has supported its rural and low-income outreach programs mainly from treating middle and upper-class citizens and visiting business people from Japan.

Futoshi Sato is part of a small core of dedicated health care practitioners who volunteer their time to the TAO vision. Sato is working in Berkeley, Calif. to gather support from those who share a love and commitment to bringing health alternatives to the people of Mexico. The Japanese government has presented an opportunity to further the goals of TAO. If TAO can raise $70,000 to buy land for a new clinic and classroom, the Japanese embassy will pay the cost of building the facility. The new clinic will consist of four treatment rooms and a classroom for training. This will greatly benefit the goal of TAO to provide treatment and training to the rural and low-income people of Mexico.

Volunteers Fueled by Passion
The volunteers involved with TAO are committed to their service and are full of inspiration. Sato fell in love first with the music of Latin America as a teenager in Japan. He followed his passion with extended visits to Mexico, Guatemala and other parts of Latin America throughout his early 20s. His altruistic and adventuresome nature impelled him to give up his career as an engineer in Japan and begin work for non-profit humanitarian organizations in Central America. He discovered Mexico to be his favorite place. When Sato met Dr. Garcia in Mexico City, the two passions of his life - bodywork and Mexico - came together.

"When I first arrived in Mexico my dream was to work in a nice beach resort doing shiatsu. I discovered the power of healing touch as a boy when I suffered long-term stomach pain until my father brought home a shiatsu practitioner who held certain points on my leg. Now I know these were on the stomach meridian. It worked and the pain was gone. That really impressed me. He also taught me how to do it for myself, so when the pain occasionally came back I could treat myself," Sato explained.

"The work with the TAO Medical Institute is very challenging and rewarding work. It's not exactly a beach resort, but the way it touches me and makes me grow is immense. The traveling is the most difficult part for me, because the areas are so remote. We have to be very organized and flexible. The people are wonderful and I feel closer and closer to them as we share our skills and knowledge of bodywork and health care in an area where basic medical care is rarely available."

Sata said the TAO Medical Institute of Mexico provides an important seed for the health and empowerment of rural communities which desperately need health care, yet can not access Western medicine. Jorge Nunez, another supporter of the TAO Institute and a native of Mexico who trained as a veterinarian there, found the need for medical care so great that the people came to him requesting treatment for themselves as often as they brought their animals. This inspired Nunez to attend the acupuncture college in Oakland, Calif. to train and take his skills back to the people of these regions. He chose acupuncture partially because the need for medical supplies is restricted to needles, cotton and a few other simple items, making it a practical and inexpensive health care system. Nunez met Sato in California and once again destiny seemed to bring the right people together to share the vision of the TAO Medical Institute.

In China these healing arts are ancient, grown out of a peasant society which was not much different from what we find in developing nations today. The knowledge and principles of Chinese medicine are easily understood and utilized when taught and practiced in developing nations such as Mexico. Today, a growing number of people are recognizing the possibilities of bringing this health care to underdeveloped regions.

The United States and other nations have been experiencing a renaissance of discovery and rediscovery in the natural healing arts. Every day the efforts of pioneers in this field take important steps toward integrating these alternatives into the mainstream of society.

Author's note
Part of the vision of the TAO Medical Institute of Mexico is to include practitioners from other countries by creating tours and internships for volunteers to participate in this gratifying and exciting work. If you are inspired by this story, please send us your thoughts and support. We'd love to hear from you and perhaps some day you, too, will be pushing a fallen tree away from the road so your combi full of chickens, women wearing rebozo and fellow TAO medical brigadiers can make way to the next village in Mexico.

If you are interested in supporting the efforts of TAO Medical Institute, contact: Ayo Heinegg, 1619 13th St., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20009; 202/462-5808. Send tax-deductible donations to Hesperian Foundation at the same address. Your help can make many dreams come true.

Margaret Motheral is a writer with a love for Mexico who grew up traveling in a Land Rover on the rough roads of Baja and in the jungles of San Blass with her family. She is also an acupressure and massage practitioner in Philadelphia, Pa. and can be reached at 215/991-5926, or via e-mail at wildmoth@earthlink.net.

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