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make them tired and dizzy. We must try God’s medicines first, I tell my<br />
children. If that doesn’t work, then let’s go see the doctor.”<br />
“Yes, sister, you are right,” said Don Elijio. “Sometimes what the doctor<br />
can’t cure, bush medicine can.<br />
“Rosita, bring a small amount of Contribo vine for this child,” he said. I<br />
released Marina’s neck and shoulders. She looked disappointed. She had<br />
been enjoying the massage.<br />
Back I went again into the dark hut, searching through the dozens of<br />
unmarked sacks for Contribo. I located it easily due to its strong, almost<br />
unpleasant, aroma.<br />
Once again, I handed Don Elijio a ten-cent plastic bag stuffed <strong>with</strong><br />
plants.<br />
“This Contribo vine is to be soaked in a glass jar all day and then given<br />
to the child by the spoonful,” he told the girl’s mother. “Give her six<br />
tablespoons every day. Soon you will see that the phlegm worsens and<br />
seems to increase for a while, but that is good—it must all come out before<br />
she can be cured. Do you understand?”<br />
“Yes, grandfather, I do,” she answered using the <strong>Maya</strong>n word nol for<br />
grandfather. Nol was another familiar term of affection, like tatito and<br />
viejito.<br />
I thought the family might be ready to leave, but Doña Juana shoved the<br />
other woman before Don Elijio.<br />
“This daughter has a very serious problem <strong>with</strong> a fungus on her foot that<br />
is too stubborn for my treatments,” she said forcefully. “Show him,” she<br />
commanded the woman, who obeyed immediately.<br />
This granddaughter, Josefina, was the mother of the newborn baby. She<br />
dutifully took off her plastic sandal and turned her left foot around so we<br />
could see the sole of her foot.<br />
“Good grief!” I thought.<br />
Don Elijio and I glanced at each other in disbelief. There were deep<br />
tunnels in her heel. Several fissures, the width of a pencil and an inch deep,<br />
cut into her flesh. The flesh itself was white, peeling, and cracked.<br />
“What have you been using on it so far?” he asked Doña Juana.<br />
“Like always, I bathed it <strong>with</strong> a hot, hot tea of Jackass Bitters,” she said.<br />
“It’s better than it was—if you can believe that—but it doesn’t heal. What<br />
should I have done, hermanito?”