Mucho Gusto!

Hola amigos! I write to you from Chiapas, Mexico.

Car Trips

Today is my one-week Mexican anniversary. We arrived here, my friend Jessica and her fiance Edwin, a few days ago; we drove fifteen hours from Playa del Carmen, a resorty place, over bumpy highways and through checkpoints, listening to music from bootlegged cds, and trying not to barf.

Carrie's Mexican Backseat Carsick Cure:

mentos

sleep

Dosage: until you feel better!

I wrote this in my book as we drove. Buy something minty at a gas station. Sleep, stretched out in the backseat, with a shawl draped over you. Reading and writing should be limited, as should obsessing over details of things already past. TRUST YOURSELF NOW, and trusting your past will be even easier.

Our car was searched a few times at highway checkpoints; maybe it was the gringa and reggae music combination. ha! One searcher examined my 'medicine bag' (six or so tinctures) and wondered about the bottles. A bottle of eucalyptus essential oil was even brought to the supervisor to examine. Nobody could figure it out! My friend's fiance, a doctor, said, "those are medicinal herbs. She's an herbal doctor." ha! In Mexico, he says, herbalists (curanderas) are very common and often practice out of their homes. He works at a clinic in a small rural town where he sees patients who come "as a last resort," after the herbs have been tried.

Markets

For breakfast on Sunday we went to the market, ate eggs and plantains and pineapple water, and bought some fruit and vegetables. A few vendors were selling herbs, fresh and dried. I recognized dried horsetail in a bag, and fresh watercress in bunches on a table beside mangoes. Since my Spanish is so limited, I can't ask as many questions as I'd like to. That will come.

Mal de Ojo

I finished Clan of the Cave Bear yesterday in the hammock, and last night, we went to Edwin's parents' house for quesadillas. Yum. After supper and rosca (I got the baby, so it is my responsibility to throw a party in February. You are all invited...), we talked herbs. Scarlet, Edwin's mom, brought out some fresh albahaca (basil), we tasted it, and then she removed the leaves into a bowl. She placed a whole egg in the bowl, added a splash of ethanol, and lightly rubbed the egg with the alcohol and basil as she described mal de ojo, evil eye. [Purists, she said, would only used eggs laid by chickens that you raise in your backyard; never factory farm eggs.] Then she rolled the egg over my arms, neck, and shoulders. When someone is extremely stressed, the egg cracks instantly. "The back of your neck is hot," she said, an indication of mal de ojo. When she cracked the egg into a glass of water, her eyes widened. She pointed to the ten tiny bubbles in the whites; they indicated times someone had directed powerful energy toward me--for example, she said, a man who was attracted to me. MAL DE OJO!

"This is not witchcraft," she assured me. "I go to church."

She goes to an Adventist church, which Jessica describes as "a nutrition club." She lent me a book about medicinal plants that she got through her church. (photos)

Urtica dioica!-->

Then we drank rosemary tea (it's strong) and she gave me a recipe for healthy digestion and cleansing. It's a three week program:

Tea

Week 1: Rosemary tea every day

Week 2: Rue tea every day

Week 3: 10 purple garlic cloves mashed with lemon juice; 1 tsp after each meal

(Until you feel better.)

I hope you all are well and happy of heart, wherever you are. I will keep trying to learn, and I will keep keeping in touch. Love to you all.

MUCHO GUSTO!

PS: Did you know that plants can germinate and grow inside of you? I heard about it on the beach. Some Russian guy had a fir tree growing in his lungs.