Magical African Remedies

So lately the TMT meetings have been unproductive. ): unproductive in terms of people not showing up, or all they do is argue about the same things. But as of late, its been unproductive in terms of people not showing up. I think its been a month now. The first week, there was a Black Stars game (football match), the next week it rained so no one showed, the week after I had training but I heard they didn’t meet because everyone was out of town, the week after, some people showed but they just argued, and then this week, only two people came… so we decided to talk instead about magical african remedies! (try at your own risk)

This is probably my favorite remedy of all…

Breast milk in eye to cure eye infections!

So apparently, if you have an eye infection, you can get someone (I guess it can’t just be anyone for given reasons) to drop some breast milk in your eye and that will cure your eye infection! When we had a session about HIV/AIDS during training we were asked to write any questions that we had about HIV/AIDS that we wanted answered… and this was one of the questions. If someone that has HIV drops breast milk in your eye, will you get HIV? Of course since breast milk is one of the ways of getting HIV it was a valid question, but since none of us knew about this magical African remedy, there were so many thoughts about this questions that were running through my mind.

Alata Samina prevents skin infections!

So there is a soap here called alata samina, I believe its Nigerian soap. But anyways, if you use it, it cures skin infections! Like if you have a pimple on your arm, then you rub some alata samina on it and it will magically disappear! I have a story about alata samina!

So here it goes… I decided to make some soap, okay, technically according to Julie I didn’t make soap, I just put them all together. So I haven’t used bar soap in a really long time thanks to bath and body works, but I figured (when packing) that it would be best space/usage wise to take it old school and use bar soaps. I used to be so jealous of the people here when they were bathing because their soap would lather up so much in the shower (and no, I don’t watch people showering, its just that little kids bathe out in the open courtyard or showers are low and outside so you can see from the shoulders up) like how my bath and body works used to… and I could never get my bar soap to do the same, no matter how much soap I applied. So I decided to ask Steven (host-brother) what he used and he showed me a smorgasbord soap concoction that he made. I was so intrigued that I knew I needed to make my own, so the next day, I went to a shop and bought a whole bunch of different soaps. All the while Julie was laughing at me because she didn’t understand what I wanted to do, I barely understood what I needed to do to make this happen, and Steven was very vague in his directions. So I basically went out and bought soap not knowing if I was doing the right thing, but I figured if anything I could use it to wash my clothes or hands. When I came back he told me that I needed to cut the soap into little pieces. So cut I did. Julie asked him why they use all different soaps and his answer was we use all the different soaps because they all have different qualities about them, so together they will protect our skin from diseases. Then we sent our little boy to buy some Nigerian soap called Alata samina and then we rolled the cut pieces with alata samina into balls. Then we placed it in a container. I was pretty excited to bathe that night, more than most nights… and I was not disappointed. I think bath and body works has a new competition. Also, Julie who was laughing at me the whole time I was on my mission to gather the soap and while we were cutting the pieces fantasizes about the smorgasbord soap every time she bathes. [not to mention that she was so inspired by this soap smorgasbord that she decided to make it as her secret santa gift.]

Purple ink instant fix to all your cuts!

So when I first got to site, I would walk around my town and see all these little kids with purple lips. I didn’t know what it was and since so many of them had it, I figured that they all ate some candy that dyed their lips purple. Then later it dawned on me that their lips were chapped/cracked and they put the purple ink on it to fix it. Their purple ink was our chap stick! But not only do they put it on their lips, if they have cuts on their hand, leg, face, arm, anywhere… purple ink is applied! One day a boy showed me a cut that he had on his arm and I was “oh damn” that looks horrible… but then I realized it wasn’t all that bad… the purple ink made it look worse (like it looked bruised as well as a big gash). Another story about purple ink (there is actually a name for it, but I can’t quite recall it) so anyways, I decided to castrate junji. The experience was rather pleasant from what I expected it to be like, junji pissed on the table, but I guess it’s a step up from shitting on the table right? Anyways, I got the fortunate opportunity to hold down his legs/tail while the vet castrated him. While he was doing it, the other lady that was holding junji’s head kept asking if I was going to be okay (ha, I guess I looked a little queasy.) well, the point of this story was that I told my lady friend that I castrated junji and lifted up junji’s leg so she could see… and she was like ohhh, you should put purple ink on it!

ALCOHOL cures everything!

So maybe this isn’t necessarily African, since I know Japanese practice this as well, but I’ll add it anyways. But I guess its different in a way because they add “sticks” (I call it sticks because that’s what it looks like, but its some sort of herbal stuff) to their akpeteshi that is suppose to keep them strong. But anways, there was a man in my town that died from hernia, and I was told that to try and get better he refused to go to the doctor but decided that it would be better for him to drink akpeteshi. Okay, so I guess this is a bad bad example because it didn’t cure anything. Maybe it just works for Japanese? Can’t sleep? drink beer! Can’t think? drink beer! Sick? drink beer!

So that’s all I got for now… I’m sure there will be more, and I’ll make sure to inform you all about them. Never know when these remedies might come in handy. [I was trying to think of magical remedies that we have but I kept drawing a blank… the only thing that kept popping in my head was that if you have the hiccups you stand on one foot, bounce around in a circle, while closing your eyes and singing journeys don’t stop believin. Oh and of course my cold sickness remedy, flaming hot cheetos, cup of noodles, and oj! It’s a miracle worker, no joke!]

Twi word of the day: meyare (I’m sick)

Adinkra symbol of the day: internet won't let me post a picture. and i'm hungry, so i'm leaving you with no picture. google it. (:

SANKOFA
"return and get it"
symbol of importance of learning from the past

JUNJI!!! He's adorable right?! haha, caught him at the right time!

talked some small boys into bathing junji for me... he was not having it at all! and there were three of them trying. was funny to watch!

shoutout to: aunty karen... sent me homemade cookies!