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We opened the door wide to let the flood of humanity through the gates<br />
of healing. They breezed in, smelling of soap and smoke and taking over<br />
the small room.<br />
Don Elijio sat down at the consulting seat at his wooden table. Doña<br />
Juana took the patient’s seat. Several young women accompanied her, each<br />
<strong>with</strong> several young children, and a teenage girl held a newborn baby<br />
wrapped in a light cotton blanket. One of the women was about seven<br />
months pregnant.<br />
“I have brought two of my granddaughters and their children to see<br />
you,” she announced.<br />
Don Elijio looked annoyed. “Why do you not come in the daytime?” he<br />
asked. “The daytime is for healing, the nighttime is for sleeping. <strong>My</strong> useless<br />
eyes are worse at night. You’re just lucky Rosita is here or you would all<br />
have to come back for your medicine tomorrow,” he scolded in a not-toostern<br />
voice.<br />
“<strong>My</strong> granddaughters live at Mile 7 up the road and only got a late ride<br />
here,” she explained. “We had to feed the children first, and tomorrow they<br />
must leave by dawn.”<br />
Doña Juana and Don Elijio conversed in <strong>Maya</strong>n for a while and then<br />
shifted to Spanish. As they spoke, the rest of us yawned, stretched, and<br />
chatted lightly about the weather, the moon cycle and planting season, and<br />
the crop of pineapples that year. It was clear her granddaughters couldn’t<br />
follow the <strong>Maya</strong>n any more than I could. It looked to me like the greatgrandchildren<br />
couldn’t speak much Spanish either. They teased each other<br />
in Creole English.<br />
“Now this daughter suffers from terrible headaches,” began Doña Juana<br />
as she pulled the pregnant woman by the hand and sat her in a stool in front<br />
of Don Elijio. “I’ve given her teas, but it hasn’t helped much yet. I thought<br />
you would have something stronger for her, little brother.”<br />
“Tell me, do these headaches come in the day or in the night?” inquired<br />
Don Elijio.<br />
“Oh, my headaches always come just around two o’clock in the<br />
afternoon, when the day is the hottest,” said the woman, whose name was<br />
Marina. “They can last for hours, even days.”<br />
“Uh huh,” he said. “Daytime headaches need different treatment than<br />
nighttime headaches. Those that come in the day must be treated <strong>with</strong> a
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