Mi Abuela Sabia

Our grandmother is sad because she has to walk much further, which is harder and harder as she’s now very old; she has to walk around the forest to search for her plants. She’s also sad because she has 10 children and only one of them (one of her daughters) has shown any interest in learning about these ancestral practices meaning that when she dies, her knowledge will likely be lost with her. Our grandmother sings, spins, practises steaming therapy and has saved the lives of many people including me. When we’ve been sick, we haven’t gone to hospital or to buy tablets; instead we’ve used the plants around us to help cure our ailments, alleviate our menstrual pain, and even support mothers as they give birth. This is what my documentary is about - the fear of losing all this knowledge, through lack of interest from anyone new to learn it, through our failure to take it seriously. We worry about the loss of our indigenous identity and about discrimination - if others see us in our kushma (our traditional dress), they tend to insult us and this means that some young women are scared to wear the kushma. But now schools are starting to give space to learn about and express our cultures, so we don’t lose our sense of identity. This is what our film is about. We hope you like it!”