Medicine Woman

Today started as most--up at 6am, boil water for tea or coffee--fried eggs for breakfast and out of the house by 830am. We walk the half mile/mile to our destination and gear up for stove-building somewhere in the village.

Today was exceptional, as we visited with the oldest lady in the village. She is 87, and lives in a small hut made of mud and homemade brick with a dirt floor, as most do. The special thing about this lady is that she was recently given a bite on the foot by a deadly viper, and survived because she is the village healer. She treated herself with herbs, and the bite was not fatal. People from as far as 50 miles away come for her advice. (and that's a big deal, because nobody has cars here, and it's a hot walk!)

While we were there, 4 separate groups came and went, looking for advice on all manner of ailments. The lady had the kindest face you've ever seen and all manner of dried whatchamacallits hanging from the ceiling of the kitchen hut, including hair from pigs, lots of dried chicken parts, and something like mushrooms. Most people here prefer witch doctors to trained medical doctors.

We learned that the teenage girl living with her was her granddaughter. She had been there since she was 2 years old. The girl's mother died, as well as 6 other children belonging to the elderly healer. As we are learning, this is very common in this village. The older generation is taking care of the youngest generation, and the middle section has died out due to the AIDS virus. There is a stigma attached to testing the blood, so not many do it. It the virus is diagnosed, there is rarely the money to afford the expensive medicines, so by the time folks go to the medical doctor the disease is so severe that death is the likely scenario.

Tradition also plays a part in the AIDS crisis. Locals tell us that in the Batooro tribe, if your brother dies, you are supposed to take on his wife and children as your own. Until AIDS this was a workable solution, but supposed the brother died of the virus, then the wife likely has it, gives it to the new husband--you get the picture. There are lots of orphans in this community. To change it is to change a tradition thousands of years old...and it's almost an impossible task.

On a lighter note, we got some terrific photos of this special old lady in action, and she enjoyed our gifts of Cadbury 'sweeties" (that's candy--but there is no word for 'dessert' in the local language) we brought along.

The stove we made today was a modified version of a former design. This family had very little mud/clay for packing around the bricks, which form the base of all the stoves. They had very few bricks, as they were extremely poor. Normally it takes about 30, and they only had 14--so we substituted a combination of dried banana stalks on either side of the front--like a hearth on a fireplace (check out the photo of the stove on the Kibale Wood Fuel Project website). We tied the stalks together with banana leaves to make a series of squares, then stuffed the squares with mud.

If it sounds like we spend alot of the day making mud pies, you'd be pretty close to right! Just TRY to keep your fingernails clean here. It's not possible!

Monkeychatters