The wound and the mend

The Costa Chica of Guerrero has historically been characterized by intense processes of struggle and community organization. Indigenous and Afro-Mexican women who share this territory, have been a fundamental part of these movements, building both from mixed organizations and from their own spaces for reflection and strengthening.

There are two problems that directly affect the health and integrity of women, these are pregnancies of girls and adolescents, and maternal death. This situation is due to various factors such as cultural practices rooted in machismo that violate women's bodies, the marginalization in which vulnerable groups in the region live and the poor health infrastructure of the state, among others. In this sense, traditional midwives together with activists in the region play a very important role to make visible and lessen the consequences of this situation.

In this project I follow the stories of different women who wanted to share a part of their lives with me. They have been mending their wounds through resistance and the struggles they undertake every day to improve their own lives and those of their community, regardless of which social or ethnic group they belong to. Likewise, through ancestral knowledge such as midwifery and the use of healing plants that their indigenous and Afro-descendant grandmothers inherited from them and that represent respect for memory and self-management of health.

© Tania Barrientos - Dawn in Rio Iguapa, Mountain region
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Dawn in Rio Iguapa, Mountain region

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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“On the path of the struggle there is a lot of envy, a lot of criticism, it is not easy, there is a challenge, there is a stick, there is a thorn, there is a stone on the road”. She is a Mixteco leader from the community of Buena Vista in the Mountain of Guerrero. She is the president and one of the founders of the CAMI San Luis Acatlán. House dedicated to traditional midwifery and sexual and reproductive rights, which provides support with an intercultural perspective, to women from the Costa Chica and Montaña region in Guerrero. CAMI was founded in 2010 with the help of other civil organizations and other activists. Since then, Apolonia continues to organize mainly Tlapaneco and Mixteco women with knowledge in traditional midwifery, who are also provided with constant training through workshops and activities that take place in that space and that dignify and strengthen their work. In 2015, a case of violence against a minor came to the CAMI. Apolonia became directly involved in her defense, which cost her threats against her life and against the safety of the other midwives at the CAMI. In addition to this, her family life has been complicated. In the Mixteca region there is a violent practice that consists of the sale of girls and adolescents by their own families to improve their living conditions. This was the case of Apolonia, who at the age of thirteen was given away to marry in an arrangement made between families. At the end of her husband's life, who had been ill for several years and whom she had to care for until his recent death, Apolonia says that she did love him but it took her a lot of time to get used to the life that others chose for her, because her dream was to have been able to study to become a teacher.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Teenager with her baby on a sidewalk of Río Iguapa community, Mountain region. Sheet of the registry book of users of the CAMI San Luis Acatlán with data on pregnancies of girls and adolescents

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Offering flowers to place in the placenta as a way to bless the life of a new being who was born in the CAMI. In this region there are different rituals to honor the placenta. Rituals that are related to respect for the land and water and that symbolize the productivity and good health of the newborn.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Adelaida Constancio was one of the founders of the Casa de la Mujer Indígena (CAMI) San Luis Acatlán. Her photo lies in the altar of this house.

© Tania Barrientos - The hands of Francisca, a Mixteco midwife
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The hands of Francisca, a Mixteco midwife

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Genealogical tree of the family of Gelacio and Francisca, a couple of Mixtec midwives. Their parents in turn were also midwives and their daughter Teofila practice as well this ancestral knowledge.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Francisca Holds her youngest granddaughter Gelacio, Francisca’s husband, has taken courses to train in midwifery through the CAMI of San Luis Acatlán, these courses allow him to attend births in his community and to be able to issue the birth report sheet (next slide), which is very important for families because when a woman is attended at birth by a traditional midwife, this document is a requirement before the official body to be able to register her newborn and thus be able to generate their identification documents. In many communities there are people who work as midwives because they have the knowledge and because the community recognizes them as midwives, however they do not have this document since not everyone has the opportunity to attend the courses offered by organizations such as CAMI.This represents a problem since in the case of very remote communities, pregnant women have no other option than to attend their births with traditional midwives in their own community. Unfortunately, there are cases in which the official bodies that issue birth certificates deny this document to children born with midwives, since there is no document that proves their birth in this way, thus violating the right to identity that we all have.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Maria Adelaida is an Amuzgo traditional midwife. We met at the CAMI house in Ometepec. She arrived there to do her weekly guard. She told me in a mixed Spanish with Amuzgo, that her mother had died recently, before that, she lost her speech as a result of the blows that she thinks her brother-in-law gave her. She told me that her house was in front of the river in Paso Cuahulote, and that she had given birth to her children alone, kneeling on a petate. She also told me about her devotion to the virgin and how precarious her situation as a midwife was. In her town very few people pay for her services as they should and she practically survives with the “scholarship” the CAMI house give her for doing her guard duty and with what her husband earns as a farmer.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Gorgonia Ramirez holds a picture of her children who all migrated to the United States. Gorgonia is a midwife from the community of San Nicolás. She no longer performs this practice due to her age and because most of the women in this community seek care in official health centers or with private doctors, however, her life is an example of how valuable this profession was and continues to be for the communities. She has lived for more than sixty years in the neighborhood of La Zapata, and she tells us that she received dozens of people at birth who live in that neighborhood and who are now adults. Many families did not even thank her, she says, many others paid in kind, next to her there is a wooden table that was the payment for one of the births she attended.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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I met Ema Dominguez during the sixth meeting of Afro-Mexican and Afro-descendant women in San Marquitos, Oaxaca. She was one of the cooks at the event and she hosted me for the three days of the meeting. During this time she shared with me her extensive knowledge about medicinal plants and her personal health history. Ema was diagnosed with cancer just under a year ago and underwent surgery where her womb was removed. She told me her feelings about it and how this event affected her not only physically but emotionally due to the false beliefs that exist in her context, things that she hear as “if you do not have a womb you are less of a woman”, or “you will no longer have the same sexual desire”, false beliefs that often affect even the mental health of women. (right in the diptych) Recipe Ema shared with me, and which she uses to cure the bad air. Plants in the recipe are: Ruda montés Basil Lemon Hierba mora Candó Estafiate

© Tania Barrientos - Basil flowers on Emma's scar and the marks left by the sea on the sand
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Basil flowers on Emma's scar and the marks left by the sea on the sand

© Tania Barrientos - The hair of a young afro-descendant woman in the town of San Marquitos, Oaxaca
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The hair of a young afro-descendant woman in the town of San Marquitos, Oaxaca

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Dalila Reyes, a 16-year-old teenager who is already a single mother to Estrella, a one-year-old girl. Dalila continues studying but now, due to her responsibility as a mother, she also works as house keeper in San Nicolas, Guerrero, her town.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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“Being an activist saved me” She is a leader in San Nicolás, her community. Tomasa's life has not been easy but her resilience has been very important to overcome the most difficult situations she has experienced. One of the most violent uses and customs in the Afro zone on the Costa Chica was the kidnapping of girls and women to rape them and later force them to marry their rapist. This happened to Tomasa at the age of twelve. She was washing clothes in the river with one of her cousins. On the way back they were on a path where a man over 50 years old attacked them, taking Tomasa with him. He raped her and intended to marry her but luckily Tomasa's family did not agree to this, since she had the strength to refuse to do so. Tomasa has always helped her community, and especially women, through various social aid that she has obtained thanks to the “gift” as she says she has, of being recognized by her community as a leader. For several years she has been the president of the Afro-Mestizo affairs committee in San Nicolás and now she is working on obtaining government financial aid to create a cultural project for the preservation of Afro-Mestizo musical and dance traditions in the region through the provision of instruments and musical instruction for the youth of her community.

© Tania Barrientos - Digna, one of Tomasa's granddaughters
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Digna, one of Tomasa's granddaughters

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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When I asked Ana about her parents, she replied that she doesn't know who her father was, and her face showed deep sadness when she told me about her mother, who gave her away at birth, arguing that she had been the product of rape. However, her grandmother went to pick her up where her mother had given her and she raised her until she was ten years old. Later, her mother took her to Acapulco where she suffered a lot of abuse from her brothers, some of which can still be seen on her face in the form of scars. As an adult, Ana learned nursing in a self-taught way and became the leader of her neighborhood, until the insecurity that exists in that area caught up with her. A criminal group came to her house and demanded that she leave the place because they needed it, to which Ana did not accept. She suffered constant threats and was even implicated in a crime she did not commit, since unfortunately in Guerrero, as in many parts of Mexico, the police are in complicity with criminals. So they forced her to leave her home. Months later, Ana was released from prison and decided to come to live in Talapilla on the Costa Chica where she serves her community through her knowledge of health.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Carnizuelo Thorns. Plant that contains ants in its thorns and that sting very painfully. It is said that it is used sometimes to punish people

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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Aurea Sorroza, Ana’s aunt. She knows various remedies through plants. She told me that when she was young she was always smoking her tobacco leaf cigars until the death of her husband. She believes that the smoke she exhaled from those cigars protected her from the bad air.

© Tania Barrientos - Image from the The wound and the mend photography project
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The Virgin of Juquila in Oaxaca is highly venerated by many women throughout the Costa Chica region. She is known for granting miracles. Before her surgery, Ema promised the Virgin to bring offerings to her sanctuary every year in exchange for her good health and recovery.

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