Callaloo

For how long have you practiced medicine?

Twenty-one years.

Where did you study medicine?

I studied here in Peru. I studied in the city of Ica, at the San Luis Gonzaga National University, in the Daniel Alcides Carrion College of Medicine. I did my general studies work here. I studied cardiology at San Marcos University in Lima.

Are you from this community? When you finished your studies in medicine, did you begin work here in Chincha and El Guayabo?

I'm from the district of El Carmen, from a community called San Rey. It used to be an hacienda. Now it's an agricultural co-op. I finished my studies and have worked primarily outside this region. I have worked in the city of Pucallpa, which is in the forest; in the city of Guano, which is also in the forest; and the city of Cerro de Pasco, which is in the mountains. In 1994, I came back here, after I'd done my medical specialty. I came to work as a specialist here in my community in Chincha.

What motivated you to study medicine in relationship to other children or young people in the community?

I was lucky to have a dad who was a farmers' leader. He organized the first syndicate here in Chincha province, which might have been the first one in the countryside to be at the national level.

What was your father's name? [End Page 427]

Maximiliano Advincula. Back then I was about twelve years old. My dad assigned me to be his secretary. My father taught us that the only way to not be just another farmer was by studying. He instilled in us since we were young that every one of us had to study. We dedicated ourselves to studying. Besides, because we were a large family, we saw the poverty at home.

How many of you were there?

Eleven brothers and sisters. We saw the poverty, the food in a large pot and that sometimes there wasn't enough of it. Almost all of us resolved to study. Now, why did I study medicine? I don't know. I think I was born with this calling because our game—besides playing with a ball or soccer or spinning top, ring-around-the-roses or other normal things—I always played doctor, and I taught the other children to give shots to banana plants. A liquid comes out of them when you pinch them, and I would tell the others that that was blood. And that's where I started. Anyway, when I left I enrolled at Federico Villareal National University and started studying accounting. But I didn't like it. I finished a year but I didn't like it. I left accounting.

I know that your specialty is cardiology, but what have you found to be one of the greatest health problems in this country or in this community, particularly within the Afro-Peruvian population?

If we start from the prenatal stage through infancy, the main health problem in the black community is malnutrition, especially in rural areas. Luckily, black adults are generally very healthy. Many of them do get sick; they have illnesses common to everybody, like bronchitis and pneumonia. There was a period in which there was a high rate of tuberculosis. That was at the end of the 1970s, the middle of the 1980s. It was from the time I was studying until I was starting my career. That had a lot to do with the social conditions in which people lived at that time. Purchasing power, especially in the countryside, was very low. It later improved. And because of it, malnutrition has also improved. TB also started to disappear, mostly because of an aggressive tuberculosis treatment program. And people in the countryside, despite the fact they don't have many resources, try to eat well, to educate their children, and enjoy themselves.

Nowadays among older adults, the main...