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Why Travel With Us: Help sustain regenerative traditions.
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- We know the culture! This is our land! We are locally owned and operated.
- Eric Chavez Santiago is tri-lingual --Spanish, English, Zapotec.
- Eric was founding director of education, Museo Textil de Oaxaca + folk art expert
- Norma Schafer has lived in Oaxaca since 2005.
- Norma is a seasoned university educator.
- We have deep connections with artists and artisans.
- 63% of our travelers repeat -- high ratings, high satisfaction.
- Wide ranging expertise: textiles, folk art, pottery, cultural wisdom.
- We give you a deep immersion to best know Oaxaca and Mexico.
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We organize private travel + tours for museums, arts, organizations, collectors + appreciators.
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Creating Connection and Meaning between travelers and with indigenous artisans. Meet makers where they live and work. Join small groups of like-minded explorers. Go deep into remote villages. Gain insights. Support cultural heritage and sustainable traditions. Create value and memories. Enjoy hands-on experiences. Make a difference.
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What is a Study Tour: Our programs are learning experiences, and as such we talk with makers about how and why they create, what is meaningful to them, the ancient history of patterning and design, use of color, tradition and innovation, values and cultural continuity, and the social context within which they work. First and foremost, we are educators. Norma worked in top US universities for over 35 years and Eric founded the education department at Oaxaca’s textile museum. We create connection.
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OCN Creates Student Scholarship at Oaxaca Learning Center Giving back is a core value. Read about it here
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Meet Makers. Make a Difference
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Oaxaca Cultural Navigator LLC has offered programs in Mexico since 2006. We have over 30 years of university, textile and artisan development experience. See About Us.
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Programs can be scheduled to meet your independent travel plans. Send us your available dates.
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Arts organizations, museums, designers, retailers, wholesalers, curators, universities and others come to us to develop artisan relationships, customized itineraries, meetings and conferences. It's our pleasure to make arrangements.
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Select Clients *Abeja Boutique, Houston *North Carolina Museum of Art *Selvedge Magazine-London, UK *Esprit Travel and Tours *Penland School of Crafts *North Carolina State University *WARP Weave a Real Peace *Methodist University *MINNA-Goods *Smockingbird Kids *University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Tell us how we can put a program together for you! Send an email norma.schafer@icloud.com
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Not All Definitions Are the Same
Leilani has been living in Teotitlan del Valle with the Chavez family and volunteering at the public health clinic. She has two weeks remaining of a four-week summer externship program that is part of the UNC Chapel Hill School of Nursing global health education curriculum. Because I work at the university, I was able to help arrange this learning experience for her and what she is learning is hands-on, on-the-ground public health nursing. The take away message: not all definitions are the same when interpreted from different cultural perspectives.
Leilani is experiencing public health intervention and education. She happens to be there during one of the three times during the year — February, May, September — that vaccination campaigns are underway. With her co-workers, clinic doctors and nurses, this week Leilani spent three days walking the hillside village of 7,000 people to administer vaccines. On another day, they drove to the highlands to remote mountain villages to see people. “We are working on keeping everyone vaccinated,” she reports. So many who need vaccines are children. Leilani noticed that people are not always eager to be vaccinated and she surmises that they don’t totally understand the benefits. Even with local health care providers doing the explaining, there is a lot of resistance, according to Leilani, who wonders how much people still rely on folk traditions to drive their decisions. In a relatively prosperous village like Teotitlan which has one of the highest standards of living in Oaxaca because of their national rug-weaving reputation , this is not really surprising. There are other barriers to accepting health care technologies — many of the older, traditional people still only speak Zapotec as their sole language.
In the last week, Leilani helped around the clinic, worked with patients who needed their vital signs, height and weight measured before seeing the health professional for a consultation. She changed out the sheets and medical instruments in the consultation rooms. Leilani reported that she cleaned the instruments using a mix of bleach and detergent, then wrapped the instruments in paper as instructed. Her supervisor explained that this was to keep them “sterile.” This was not the definition of “sterile” that she was used to working in the U.S. health care system. She wondered how the word “sterile” translates differently from one culture to another?
Her co-workers are friendly, warm and gracious. They tease her about her curly, thick hair and plaster it down with cream to make it more “work appropriate.” They laugh and sit around the kitchen table sharing stories about life in Mexico and the U.S. “I really like going to the village market,” said Leilani. “We usually make a stop there when we’re walking around the village to give vaccinations. I love the dulces, and I want to try some chapulines!”
Oaxaca dulces (sweets) are delicious, and chapulines (spicy, fried and ground grasshoppers) are a taste treat condiment that tops tacos, enchiladas and soups.
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Posted in Cultural Commentary
Tagged global health education, multicultural health, Oaxaca village public health education, public health system Mexico, student nurse in Mexico, student nurse volunteers in Oaxaca, UNC Chapel Hill School of Nursing