June 3rd

Today we went to the Cherokee Hospital, Cherokee Indian Museum, and the Indian Village.  My first impression of the environment in Cherokee is that they want to teach people about their culture and history.  Kayla, the nurse manager at Cherokee Hospital, emphasized that the elders in the community loved to teach interested people wanting to learn about the Cherokee way of life.  I enjoyed meeting Kayla and I enjoyed touring the beautiful hospital.  It is truly a holistic setting that puts the patients need first.   I really liked that the Cherokee people get to be in charge of their health care.  Kayla told us that you had to have Cherokee blood to be treated at the hospital, except in the Emergency Room.  I found most interesting about the culture's history that it is a matriarchal society.  I found it amazing that women were/are treated as equals.  When the British wanted to trade corn and other food they were surprised to find that they had to deal directly with women because women owned the crops in this culture.  I found that the value of family is a similar belief that I share with the Cherokee people.  Kayla told us that when the mother or grandmother becomes hospitalized, that all of her children and/or grandchildren are there in the hospital room with her and that they are rarely every left alone.  I know that I share similar values with that.  The culture is integrated into the children in the community by offering a private school that would immerse them completely into the Cherokee language and culture.  They would go to this school rather than a public school.  The children and the parents have to sign a contract that they will only speak Cherokee in the home.  The Cherokee community is similar to my own community when I was growing up in the sense that everyone knows everyone.  It was said that people would listen on the scanner for medical emergencies of addresses and they would know right away whose house the ambulance was being called to.  People would show up to the hospital in support of the family suffering a traumatic tragedy.  The pictures below are from the Indian Village and show handmade pottery and basket weaving.