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weakness in the legs, and constipation. Your periods are early, then late.<br />
You see clots of blood, dark blood. You feel tired often. Is all this true?”<br />
“Why yes, tatito, it is all just as you say!” Lola shot me a look of shock<br />
and wonder. “What should I do?”<br />
“It is what I will do, not you,” he answered as he went to work.<br />
Deep, deep into her flesh he dug his gnarled, expert hands. Lola groaned<br />
and stiffened in discomfort. She covered her face <strong>with</strong> her hands and turned<br />
away.<br />
“Come here, Rosita, feel this,” he said.<br />
He manipulated her abdomen to expose under his fingers a soft, bulbous<br />
object off to the right side just above the pelvic bone. Copying his hand<br />
movements, I too could feel the uterus. I saw what he meant: it did seem too<br />
low and too far to the right.<br />
“Now watch,” said Don Elijio, smiling. He leaned over Lola and pulled<br />
upward <strong>with</strong> his hands, dragged her skin to a center position, and then<br />
jiggled the flesh vigorously. He repeated this again and again, then slowly<br />
pushed from the right side of her abdomen to the center, and from the<br />
hollow above the pelvic bone upward. As he kneaded and massaged, he<br />
whispered prayers.<br />
I could see the uterus responding and moving. “Now feel this,” he said.<br />
I put my hands on the woman’s pelvis. Where the uterus had been just<br />
minutes before was a soft hollow. The organ had moved to its proper place<br />
quickly and, this time, almost painlessly under his deft care.<br />
He showed Lola how to use a faja, a band that is tied around the pelvis<br />
to help hold and heal the uterine ligaments. As she sat up and straightened<br />
her clothes, he cautioned her sternly about going barefoot on cold floors,<br />
especially cement floors. He told her not to take cold drinks, then warned<br />
her against having sexual relations <strong>with</strong> her husband when she had her<br />
period. The latter, he explained, was the greatest abomination ever<br />
perpetrated on women.<br />
“The semen mixes <strong>with</strong> menstrual fluids and causes large clots to<br />
adhere to the uterine wall,” he told her. “This leads to ulcerations and<br />
tumors.”<br />
He motioned for us to follow him back into the other room, where he<br />
rummaged through his plant bags and prepared the Sacca Todo mixture.<br />
“Drink the medicine for ten days before menstruation for the next three<br />
months,” he said, “then come back when the medicine is finished.” He told