{"id":11286,"date":"2018-08-06T16:04:07","date_gmt":"2018-08-06T23:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeandhealth.wordifysites.com\/?p=11286"},"modified":"2019-08-19T13:17:31","modified_gmt":"2019-08-19T20:17:31","slug":"whos-healthier-a-kenyan-tribe-or-a-group-of-american-health-professionals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/lifestyle\/whos-healthier-a-kenyan-tribe-or-a-group-of-american-health-professionals\/1611286.html","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s Healthier? A Kenyan Tribe Or A Group of American Health Professionals?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I went on a mission trip to the Masai tribe in Kenya. I thought that we would be teaching them<\/em>, what with our advanced Western technology and medical knowledge, but they ended up teaching us <\/em>valuable lessons.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou never asked.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Before I get to that though, a story. There was an interesting TED talk about some Italian aid workers who came to Africa to help locals farm more efficiently. After planting the crops and watching them sprout up, they were stunned to see hippos come out of the river and eat everything they had just planted.<\/p>\n

The locals said, \u201cWe knew that was going to happen.\u201d
\nThe Italian aid workers replied, \u201cWell, why didn\u2019t you tell us?\u201d<\/p>\n

Their answer?
\n\u201cBecause you never asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

The point is, just because you know more technically doesn\u2019t mean you actually know more.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>My initial impressions were not that far off. The Masai lived hours west of Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. To get there required over six hours of driving, the majority on unpaved and rough roads. Our drivers called it an \u201cAfrican massage\u201d since you get rather unlovingly \u201cmassaged\u201d and tossed around in the vehicle for so much of the drive.<\/p>\n

When were arrived, the Masai people were thin as I\u2019d imagined. Most of them were farmers, and many of them were barefoot. There were lots of children running around, and they were looked healthy overall.<\/p>\n

A difference in lifestyle = a difference in chronic disease<\/strong><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>Of the more than 500 patients that we treated, only two had high blood pressure, one had diabetes, and one was obese. The obese patient happened to be our driver, who lived in the city and snacked a lot while driving people around. The majority of complaints were infection-related, both viral and bacterial. Worms were also a big problem due to the drinking water situation, which I\u2019ll get to later.<\/p>\n

The Masai walked\u2014a lot. We set up our mobile clinic under an acacia tree and initially, just a few people trickled in. There were barely any houses nearby. But then, people got on their phones and told others that there was free medical, dental, and vision care, at which point people just seemed to appear out of nowhere. There were no donkeys, bikes, horses, or cars. They all just walked over to where we were to get seen. Their level of daily activity seemed to help their overall health as well as their ability to maintain weight.<\/p>\n

Their diet was comprised mostly of veggies and beans (I had beans on a daily basis there). Contrary to what I\u2019d expected, meat is a treat over there, not a daily staple. Cows are actually a big deal. The Masai still have a dowry system and the standard is 10-15 cows for a wife. The number of cows you own correlates with your wealth status, which makes the killing and eating of a cow both rare and significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive me sweets.\u201d<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Sadly, one of the most commonly known English phrases seemed to be, \u201cGive me sweets.\u201d It appeared that foreign tourists who visited before us had completely corrupted the children\u2019s taste buds. Can obesity and diabetes be far behind? The dentists on our trip were especially frustrated, as they were spending most of their time treating cavities or rotten teeth that wouldn\u2019t have been there if not for visitors from first world nations. What made it worse is that the young patients in the dental clinic were in pain, pain that would have been avoided if they only didn\u2019t eat candy. And who could hardly blame them for eating candy that was brought in by visitors?<\/p>\n

This brings up a few important points.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Sometimes, giving someone what they want isn\u2019t in their best interests.<\/strong> Our group made it a point to not pack any sweets in their luggage so it wouldn\u2019t even be an issue.<\/li>\n
  2. Sometimes, you have to do something you\u2019d rather not do because it is in someone else\u2019s best interests.<\/strong> For example, pulling a rotten tooth. It\u2019s never fun inflicting pain, but the little bit of pain can save the person from experiencing more pain down the road. Both of these lessons are important for parents to learn.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Identifying the root issue<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    \"\"One of the major projects we undertook was delivering clean water filtration systems to as many families as we could. One of the parents that came with us had started a fundraising drive and gathered $8,000, which led to the purchase of over 500 portable water filtration systems that could serve the family for as long as they lived.<\/p>\n

    The reason why we focused on this is that Masai drank water that we would barely swim in. It was brown, animals stood in it, dirty clothes were washed in it… It\u2019s no wonder that so many suffered from worms. What was interesting is that they didn\u2019t seem to be concerned about the condition of their water. Their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had all drunk it and fared well. The animals drank it and seemed fine also, so why should they be worried?<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    It was interesting to see their reaction when the water filters changed the brown water to clear water in seconds. Soon, everyone wanted a filter. The camp we were staying in received an onslaught of calls from people asking if they were any more filters. Our translator was actually a bit angry when he saw these filters in action. He asked, \u201cWhy is this simple technology just now making it to my people?\u201d Good question. They have smartphones, motorcycles, and Coca-Cola, but no clean water.<\/p>\n

    The water project was the sustainable portion of our mission. So what if we treated the people for worms? If they drank the same polluted water, they would\u2019ve gotten worms again and fared no better than before. We wouldn\u2019t have done much except make ourselves feel better.<\/p>\n

    There were two main lessons I got from this.<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. If you don\u2019t know any better, how can you change?<\/strong> The Masai simply didn\u2019t know that drinking that brown water was bad for them. They just thought that was the way it should be, based on their predecessors\u2019 example. This points to how knowledge truly is power. Education at all levels and in all areas is a good thing.<\/li>\n
    2. If you don\u2019t take care of the source<\/em> of the problem, i.e. clean water, then everything you do, from antibiotics to de-worming kids, are just very temporary \u201cBand-Aid\u201d remedies<\/strong>. I truly believe that most of Western medicine is at this superficial level. We treat the symptoms of disease, but fail to address the root cause of chronic medical conditions, which are mostly based in unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as smoking, poor diet, and lack of exercise. It sounds harsh, but the American health system is the best if you\u2019re trying to actively die, but not so great if you are trying to live a long and abundant life.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      The Masai quality of life<\/strong><\/h3>\n

      One the first day we arrived, our camp hosts told us that the Masai people have a very different pace of life than we do. \u201cThey\u2019ll want to talk to you,\u201d our hosts said, \u201cThey are not in a rush.\u201d<\/p>\n

      Even when we were haggling at the local markets, the Masai would strike up conversations during and after the negotiations. They would want to keep talking to you even if you didn\u2019t buy anything from them. There wasn\u2019t a big emphasis on outcomes and productivity. Now, that might drive some of us crazy, but isn\u2019t that the problem? The Masai are not stressed.<\/strong> Can you say the same for yourself? Most of us tend to get stressed about this, this, and that, and then get stressed about others not<\/em> being stressed! I\u2019d say that that\u2019s a bigger problem.<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/a>One thing that everyone\u2014including the kids who came with us on this trip\u2014agreed with is that the Masai are generally happy. They are happy with very little. They also show a lot of gratitude for even little things we gave out, like coloring books, crayons, balls, and small toys. They were so happy to get them. To be honest, though, they were happy even before we gave them out. We in the first world are conditioned to think of those
      \n\u201cpoor African children.\u201d I suppose it is true to an extent, but the overall reality is that even walking barefoot, wearing poorly fitting clothes, and drinking brown water, the Masai children had huge smiles, played with exuberance and life, and were happy.<\/p>\n

      There are multiple studies showing that gratitude<\/em> prolongs life and improves the quality of life. It seems that the Masai have that figured out. We\u2019re the ones who haven\u2019t figured it out yet. We struggle when the Wi-Fi is bad, or if our latte isn\u2019t made the way we like it. How long are we going to allow these first world problems affect us?<\/p>\n

      Which group is better off?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

      I\u2019ll get to my question now. Which group is actually healthier? The Masai tribe or the American mission team? Which has less chronic medical conditions? Which is taking fewer medications? Which has more people at a healthy weight? Which has less stress? Which group has more happy people? The Masai people have us beat in all categories.<\/p>\n

      I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not happy with the answers above. We may be more \u201cadvanced,\u201d but that doesn\u2019t mean we are healthier and better off. There is a lot we can, and should, learn from the people that we thought we were going to help<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Recently, I went on a mission trip to the Masai tribe in Kenya. I thought that we would be teaching them, what with our advanced Western technology and medical knowledge, but they ended up teaching us valuable lessons. \u201cYou never asked.\u201d Before I get to that though, a story. There was an interesting TED talk…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":11288,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,10,2,5],"tags":[200,323],"thb-sponsors":[],"yst_prominent_words":[720,708,729,693,705,726,736,740,717,665,742,695,702,714,732,699,711,697,723,691],"class_list":["post-11286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-emotional-health","category-healthy-habits","category-lifestyle","category-relationships-community","tag-emotional-health-2","tag-lifestyle-medicine","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"views":839,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11286"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11511,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11286\/revisions\/11511"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11286"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=11286"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeandhealth.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=11286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}