Health and Healing: Ep 2 Transcript

Health and Healing
Episode 2

Chris Chicoine and Kamil Mahamed

Chris: Hello and welcome to another episode of significant stories. The history of science podcast from

Harvard university. This is episode two of a three-part series on health and healing. I'm Chris

Chicoine. And in today's episode, we're going to hear the story of Kamil Mahamed

and that of theAfartribe in East Africa.

As we heard in our last episode with Maia and Judy biopiracy is not only a real and integral part

of the history of medicine, it is still occurring. And unfortunately its victims are some of those

most in need. In this episode, we'll explore the context in which cultural healing integrates with

Western medicine specifically in the Afar region fixed between three nations, Ethiopia, Eritrea,

and Djibouti.

Before going to Harvard, I was a medic in the United States Army, where I ultimately became a

medical advisor for a civil affairs unit and deployed to Djibouti Africa. On this deployment, I

worked with USAID and the state department as well as many NGOs to develop critical

infrastructure, to include power, water, education, and medical care.

We were only able to succeed because of a truly amazing individual, a person. I now call mon

frere, my brother Kamil.

Kamil: So thank you for having me, my friend, Chris,

C: In addition to an abundance of patients with my horrible French, Kamil is an incredibly smart,

driven, and compassionate individual. He's a proud father and husband.

He speaks eight languages and has worked with the UNHCR, USAID, state department, US

military, and countless NGOs. Last year, he was selected to be a fellow for the Mandela

Washington fellowship for young African leaders. He'll be coming to the United States to receive

his graduate education next year, after this pandemic allows for safe international travel and

then we'll continue his work in growing the educational access and the horn of Africa,

particularly for his Afar tribe.

Kamil is a truly exceptional individual in his accomplishments alone. But Kamil, like so many

Afar people, has had to overcome an immense amount of adversity in order to be where he is

today.

K: Dife is not easy, back home. So I grew up in the Ibo region of Djibouti, I raised by single mom.

My father passed away when I was young. I don't remember him. I was a baby. It was a car

accident. As my mother told me, and she was alone and she was disparate, you know? And she

never tell you the reality what's happening on her, but she tried to make life easy for you, you

know?

Our community, you know, are nomads, so we didn't get a chance to go to school, uh, like, uh,

10% of a hundred percent. So she gave me that opportunity and that platform to do something

for others, you know? So, she teach me to be a better person to, to take care of the neighbors.

C: What is so inspiring about Kamil to me is not just what he's overcome, but how hard he works to

help others around him.

Kamil is a proud member of the Afar tribe an often forgotten nation of people without a border.

Living for millennia in the regions now considered to be Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Eritrea.

Post-colonial borders have divided this region to separate countries in which the Afar tribe is an

often slighted minority population.

K: I'm proud to be Afar, and one of the Afar Tribe. The Afar tribe they call a minority right now. And

they live in Eritrea, Djibouti, and Ethiopia. In every country they're under other community, other

tribes. It's a long way to go, and my priority is like focusing on how to make a change. 60% of

Afar are nomadic and uneducated.They have a lack of access to healthcare, a lack of access to

education, who we are is not easy.

C: Most Americans and Westerners are unfamiliar with Djibouti and Eritrea. Let alone the Afar

tribe. The Afar people I've lived in the hottest region on earth for millennia drawing a proud

ancestry back to the now infamous Lucy, the Australopithecus remains, perhaps the mother of

humanity and certainly the mother of the Afar tribe culturally.

The Afar people are nomadic people falling livestock and water around for some of the most

austere terrain on the planet with the equatorial temperatures reaching over 120 degrees,

Fahrenheit, or 50 degrees Celsius with only four inches of rain per year on average. This

climate mandates a nomadic lifestyle, which means that fixed infrastructure like Wells, solar

arrays, schools, and hospitals are not a reality.

This means that the Afar people have relied upon their own customs to survive for thousands of

years, including French colonization in Djibouti, globalization, in which roughly 10% of the

world's economy floats by on the way to the Suez canal, and gross regional instability from

conflicts in Yemen, Somalia, and now a resurgence of armed conflict between Ethiopia and

Eritrea. These external forces have greatly affected the Afar people and it made it extremely

difficult for them to stick with their cultural traditions, which have endured Kamil's people for

millennia.

K: If I talk about the Afar tribe it will be a long day, for Afar History and who they are. They are

warriors, and they did not get along with the colonization peoples. That is why we are

discriminated from in all things. You can have access in the big city, hospitals, clinics, water,

good water. But when you go to the village is not easy. I know life is very difficult. I have been

there, you have been there, watched these people who are suffering a lot.

You can see them in the road, and they will ask you for water. That is the reality, they are not

asking for fun. I know how hard it is, how many distances it takes to get water. So that's a big

challenge, also medical care, and they're suffering a lot. And, I know the government, their

plans, they're trying to have clinics, but, I know maternity sometimes, you know, she gave birth

in the middle of the road.

Now we are in the 21st century and there's no hospitals, there's no clinics, you know, in some

villages. And when you sit down with them and they don't talk about it, their feelings, emotions,

they can't tell you because of how proud they are. Life's not easy. I'm not strong enough as my

father’s, my fathers’ fathers. They found that they were strong enough, they could live long lives,

and are proud of themselves. We depend on the culture. Our culture is built on adversity. And

we have cultural healing taking place in the villages. It is still existing and they are depending on

it.

C: What Kamil calls cultural healing is a history of medical knowledge and locally sourced

treatments. Cultural healing continues alongside what we in the West considered to be more

traditional healthcare practices.

Kamil was quick to point out that the Afar people have a proud history of healers using locally

sourced botanical material to treat illness and injury. Kamil conducted some interviews with

cultural healers on my behalf and explained what they had to say.

K: Yeah his name is Ahmed. They call him the Shik Ahmed, and he is a well known cultural doctor.

He is in Djibouti and he treats different sicknesses. He told me, “I treat cholera, gastric ulcers,

kidneys, infections, and also broken legs, also the blinding of the eyes”. Also he “has waters,

and like alcohols he will give to drink for stomach and intestines. I treat different sicknesses by

my own materials, by cultural materials. By grass and leaves, green leaves. But every leaf is

different and has their own name in Arabic.” And not everyone can do this, I cannot do for you,

because it is a part of culture, and a part of ethnicity, who you are.

C: These local treatments have allowed the Afar people to survive for thousands of years. And in

the research for this project I found over 50 plants in the Afar region currently being studied by

Western pharmaceutical developers for new potential treatments for malaria, diphtheria,

infections, parasites, and so much more.

There's also research being conducted on the microbial healing properties of camel milk and

goat's milk and their region in order to support a multitude of regional illnesses. This research

inspired and troubled me at the same time, I find it amazing that this research is being

conducted in the first place and that its potential healing ability could greatly increase the lives of

many people in this region, not just for that of the Afar tribe, but even globally.

And this is where I began to get worried. What prevents these researchers and big pharma

companies from exploiting the Afar people? I asked Kamil what he thought about this potential

exploitation.

K: Yeah, it would be an insult, for me personally, because, if, well, you can come and join the

community and, you know, they can give to you, and if you explain why you are using that plant,

and if you go back to your home land and you don't help impact to the community, that would be

weird for us. But if you you go and aid, you do something, medicine, obviously clinics, or go

building a school, and educating maybe 10 or 20 people to go to the university. That's a really

big impact. And that will be, give, take away, and take, give something together. Yes

C: This makes so much sense to me in order to be truly ethical. There needs to be give and take,

with heavy emphasis added to the give. It needs to come from people who truly care about the

Afar people and are there with them helping them advocating for them, not just taking from

them. From the people who have already lost so much and are enduring so much hardship still

today.

While this sentiment moves me deeply, I wondered if this was at all possible in practicality.

Kamil once again educated me, telling me the inspiring story of Valerie Browning and Australian

missionary turned Afar advocate for life.

K: There is a woman named Valerie Browning. She's from Australia. And, when she came, she

came by missionary and she was a nurse. She came to Djibouti. And then she meets one

interpreter and then they become a husband and wife. They got married and they have now, in

Ethiopia, they have one of the biggest NGO in Afar region.

They focus on health and education and women's rights. Also maternity stuff. They have a

clinic. I work as a volunteer for two months at that NGO and they call her Molica, Molica means

good woman to give back, to give you know? Monica is like, they call it her in the Afar

community, they give her her own name. And she, like almost 40 years now and she has kids

there and she's become one of Afar.

And that's what you call cooperation, you know, to give back to the community and the

community, you will be, you will be part of them and you represent the whole of the country. And

as a white person, if the community loves you, they will love you and your country. So that's

what you call teamwork.

C: Teamwork saves lives. There's human to human cooperation needed here, but also medical

teamwork. The Afar people are proud and have been capable of surviving with their own cultural

healing for hundreds of years now. They have an incredibly detailed knowledge of local flora

and fauna, knowing what can save or harm them. And it is critical to include this knowledge into

the teamwork and cooperation going forward, without it just being exploited by Western pharma.

There is however a need for education and medical services there still. These services must be

given freely and openly. They must be given in a way that fits with the Afar culture and way of

life. They must be given by people like Valerie Browning and Kamil, and soon,

K: They say Afar may disappear from this land because of lack of access to medical and

education. And, I can't rise. I don't know how. I do not have a way to raise my voice to speak to

CNN or speak to the big international media about ourselves. How we are feeling and what we

are living, and we can work together and they can make impacts on lives and it will be big

partnership.

This is a reality, for our generation. And I can see my friends, my friends dying, but it's not easy

to help him because of economical issues. And that is our standard of living.

C: I love Kamil as my brother. And he's taught me so much that I fear I might not be able to give

back as much as I've learned and taken from him and his people.

But I can give Kamil and the Afar people, hopefully, a voice. It might be a small one here on a

Harvard podcast, but I want to make sure that Kamil is heard. I want to leave you with his final

words here. So please listen to them. Think about them, and find a way to share them with

somebody else who might be impacted by them, as I have been.

K: Thank you for having me and giving me an opportunity. You are my brother, and you are a part

of my journey, and you are one of Afar. You dedicate yourself to the community, and to me, and

that makes me very emotional, and also to make an impact in this life, that is a priority in human

beings. Regardless of religion, regardless of ethnicity, or color, we are human beings.

So that is what we create, to make, as a team, a lot of young Ahmed, or young Kamil, or young

Emily, or Lucy. To be a doctor, to be an engineer, a pilot, to be a scientist, to be a driver, to be

someone in life. We still have a lot of challenges and a long way to go. And, as my mom always

says to me, keep trying.

C: Thank you, Kamil. And thank you for the generosity you've shown me while in Africa and in the

production of this interview. I hope you've enjoyed it. Thank you for listening to significant

stories. The history of science podcast from Harvard university. I'm Chris Chicoine. Please

check out the next episode in this series on health and healing from my friends Nick and CJ.