Essay on "Mountains Beyond Mountains: Farmer's Dilemma Tracy Kidder"

Essay 4 pages (1084 words) Sources: 2 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

MOUNTAINS BEYOND MOUNTAINS: FARMER'S DILEMMA

Tracy Kidder's "Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer, A Man Who Would Cure the World" is a true story of one man's crusade against infectious diseases in some of the poorest nations in the world- most prominently Haiti. The story revolves around many philosophical, ethical and political issues concerning healthcare to highlight the inequalities and disparities in healthcare access and distribution of wealth around the world. Dr. Farmer goes into the depth of some of the very modern but highly puzzling political issues such as role of the U.S. In Haiti and inadequate healthcare situation that U.S. has not been able to improve. Farmer notices that despite their best intentions, the peacekeeping forces of the U.S. In Haiti have not been able to bring about any real change in the social condition of people in Haiti. The soldiers have failed to go to the depth of cultural beliefs and traditions that heavily affect Haitians and their thoughts on healthcare. He understands the cynicism of soldiers as he believes that "had done their best" and felt that they "would not cry over things beyond their control" in Haiti (p. 8).

Farmer's work in Haiti focused on more than simply offering medical cures. He tried to get to the very roots of people's beliefs and noticed that Voodoo played a major role in their belief system and accounted for many healthcare issues. People did not always believe that they were sick. They would attribute it to Voodoo and hence Farmer had to get more involved in their belief system to offer them better treatments for infectious diseases like tuberculosis. "In one of his books, Farmer had written that there was a distinction, in the Haitian countryside, between belief in sorcery and the theories and practices called voodoo but virtually everyone including Catholics and Protestants and Voodooists, believed in the reality of maji, of sorcery. From many people around Cange, magic spells sent by enemies were the deep cause of many illnesses. And many people around Cange believed that Farmer like all good Voodoo priests, knew how to contend with maji" (p. 28) Thus sorcery was deeply embedded in the psyche of Haitian people and Farmer was clever enough to learn various beliefs in order to contend them successfully and offer better healthcare options to these poor and uneducated people.

Farmer would work with both science and magic to understand people better and to actually cure them. He was compassionate enough to realize that there was a much deeper political reason why poor people in some of the most downtrodden places still believed in the power of sorcery. The politics dictated their lives because in the absence of modern education and modern medical practices, they had come to rely on the old practice of magic which still held meaning for them. He explains: "Haitians believe in sorcery because their culture has evolved in the absence of effective medicine. So of course they believe in sorcery, in sicknesses that someone has sent to them. Why else would someone fall into coma? And when someone is very sick and people are used to seeing them die with the same symptoms and you give them meds and they rapidly recover,… READ MORE

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