Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

the sacks filled with the day’s harvest. The pain increased with every step.
As we walked, he tried to cheer me up. “If you’re going to die today,
you might as well marry me,” he suggested.
His comment infuriated me. I was scared and didn’t want to be teased.
Through my tears, I told him he was completely shameless. When we got
back to the hut I said I wanted to go home to my paramedic husband.
Don Elijio showed little sentiment, which made me angrier. But I guess
he’d seen too many bush accidents to get emotional over my less-than-fatal
injury.
I left for home, and by the time I stumbled and winced my way through
the forest trail to the river, I was nearly hysterical. Greg was sipping a beer
with Mick at Chaa Creek. He was startled by my surprise homecoming and
quickly offered the sympathy I was craving before putting me to bed. He
went into our stash of homeopathic remedies and gave me Arnica pills, then
rubbed Rescue Remedy into the wound. I lay down on the wicker couch as
Crystal prepared cool compresses. Then, as Don Elijio had said, we could
do nothing else but watch my crimson and blistering palm slowly heal
itself.
My absences were also hard on Crystal, now ten. It was a delight to see
her when I would return home. She’d run to me and give me an update on
everything that had happened while I was gone, recounting tales of tomato
bugs, visiting iguanas, and the escapades of our live-in cats, one of which
showed her love by bringing Crystal a fresh decapitated lizard every
afternoon.
Crystal was often lonely, and for a while she moved in with the
Flemings and their children. As the only two homesteads for miles, we were
one big extended family. We shared a common goal of carving out a
wholesome, nature-based lifestyle. The children were inseparable, and Mick
and Lucy were our closest friends.
Without much hired labor between us, we often had to help each other
fight back the encroaching forest, which never stopped threatening to
reclaim its ancient domain. We offered each other support when one of us
ran out of fresh food, supplies, or a sense of humor.
Together we worked to make our tropical existence safe for ourselves
and our children. Greg’s paramedic experience was invaluable, as was my
increasing knowledge of home remedies. When Crystal, Bryony, Piers, and
Gonzalo all came down with tropical measles—much more dangerous than