Sick? Just find some leaves, bark, and roots!!

---

So its Friday afternoon, I'm back in Stone Town after living in the small, rural village of Mungoni for three days earlier this week. Absolutely some of the coolest stuff that I've experienced thus far on my trip. It has made me very happy that I've become an anthropology minor. I apologize in advance for the long post but there aren't many things I can omit from my last few days. Please, if you do have 10 or 15 minutes, read the whole post. Its as long as a book, I know, but I promise its worth it.

Recap: I'm wrote a 5ish-page cultural study paper on the local medical practices in Mungoni, how they use medical plants, and how they treat sicknesses and injuries. Medicines and health have never been of real interest to me but I wanted to find a topic where I could study one village to summarize how they use resources of the environment. I originally wanted to do how every part of the coconut tree is used—the leaves, branches/stems, trunk, coconut juice, coconut shell—literally they've found uses for everything on it, but someone else happened to do that exact same topic a few years ago.

So I arrived at Mungoni on Saturday afternoon after an hour dala dala ride and found my little guest house. It was creepy at night but not bad otherwise. No electricity, no problem. My only real issue with the place was that the toilet didn’t flush. The sink and the shower worked fine but not the toilet and we're not going to talk about it because I've already had way to many bathroom stories here.

Ok. Within Mungoni is Zala Park, a small animal sanctuary with some a couple of hectacres of protected forest around it. Its not much but I enjoyed it, especially the turtles there. I'd picked them up daily and pet them and tell them that I loved them and how cute they were as they struggled to escape my vice. They had snakes, monitor lizards, crabs, and other reptiles too, but turtles are just so awesome.

So I meet up with Muhammad, my project advisor, Saturday afternoon. He's an amazing guy: the manager of Zala Park, villager of Mungoni, spoke great English, unbelievably generous and really made me feel welcome from the moment I arrived even though we had only meet briefly once before in early February. He was overjoyed that I was studying in Mungoni/Zala Park and would tell me a couple times a day that myself or any of the other students should do our month-long research projects here. Later that afternoon, he introduced me to a villager who had an impressive knowledge of medical plants and gave me a tour of the forest, pointing out medical plants for me and identifying them in basic Swahili and broken English as we past.

I collected leaf samples of each medical plant and after an hour and half of walking, I had about 30 or 40 different species. Its gets dark early, especially without electricity, and by 7 its pitch black in the forest. Didn't do much that night, played with turtles probably and by flashlight, tried to organize all the information I had just received. The next day, after a funky breakfast of fruit, fried bread, and some unidentified sea meat, I had an informal interview with a villager who taught me the medical benefits of many of my plant specimens. He knew crazy stuff and would tell me how they used the leaves, bark, roots, flowers, fruits to treat many different sicknesses, diseases, and injuries in Mungoni. I wish my Swahili was better because I only comprehended a fraction of what he said and there was probably some incredible information that went over my head. Nevertheless, its truely impressive how they utilize available resources.

Then he brought me into Mungoni to see an elderly woman (his grandmother maybe???) who had a swollen knee to tell me how they treat it. A bunch of young kids followed us there and after I finished talking with my interviewee and woman, chatted it up with the kids. I don't think they could believe that I could speak Swahili because after everything I said, they all just laughed, especially this little girl with this cackel laugh. She was a maniac. I told them that I love soccer and they laughed and laughed. Then I told them that I loved pineapple and they laughed some more. And then I told them that I loved them and they just lost it and started laughing uncontrollably. I think some villagers heard me too because I heard some laughs from nearby front porches.

My day got better. Next, I watched about an hour of Rambo 1 and part of Rush Hour 3 with Muhammad's teenage son. He had no idea what they were saying but he enjoyed the action scenes. Haha syke but that's not reallly why my day got better. Late afternoon Muhammad and I biked to a "witch doctor." Well not really. He biked, I sat on the rat trap and waved to those we passed. Most people were laughing when they saw us (me??), not too many white people riding shotgun on a bike around those parts apparently.

So we get to the local healer and the three of us go into his one-room mud hut. It was absolutely surreal. We sat on the ground on mats. It was tiny, no more than 8 feet by 10 feet. The roof was made from coconut branches and natural light came in through the holes in the walls. On one side of the hut, the side he sat on, tree roots lay in a pile and throughout the interview he would occasionally grab one, chop it up, and bundle it with string. Little jars of leaves, roots, and unknown substances were scattered around. On the far wall, a century-old Quran was displayed prominently and stacked near it were lots of old books handwritten and never "in print." A large stick, probably for mashing stuff, stood in one corner, although couldn't locate any mashing bowl. I saw a small wooden bowl next to me with a funky red recipe (hopefully not lunch) though I didn't dare to ask about it. Empty Coke bottles, markers, a stapler, a plastic model airplane, and his sleek slider cell phone stood in sharp contrast to our surroundings (myself as well). Throughout the interview, unsurprisingly, ants and flies were all over us and I even spotted a gecko up in the rafters.

We talked for a little over an hour, with Muhammad translating. Just unbelievable. We started by talking about common health issues in Mungoni. Stomach issues, usually caused by water, seems to be common. I was a little surprised then to hear what kind of issues were considered stomach issues: vomiting, diarrhea, appendicitis, liver issues, lower abdominal pain, morning sickness during pregnancy, and a lot more that I can't remember or I couldn't translate. It really seemed to be a catch-all category.

For each issue, the local healer had a different medicine or recipe to treat that issue. If used correctly, these medicines are always effective at treating the relevant health issue. Leaves, bark, roots, fruits, flowers, and spices from countless plants held medicinal properties according to him and he was one of four healers in this rural village of 1,300 to possess this detailed and highly localized knowledge. I got a bunch of different medical recipes and when we presented our research papers to the other 14 students in my group on Thursday, I started it off by telling them how to cure polio, toothaches, body itches, wounds, and not being able to concieve a baby. I think they found it informative, if not a little entertaining.

So my encounter with the "witch doctor" of Mungoni on my second day was great. The next day, equally so.

After breakfast, I waited for a dala dala to go a few kilometers to a local hospital where I had arranged to talk to the doctor there. But one never came and I got fed up and decided to walk it. It took me about 30 minutes or so but I made it. Many women with there children were waiting on the front porch/waiting room of the 4-room hospital and everybody just starred at me as I stepped foot on the property. I'm getting used to being starred at, you know.

Had an okay conversation with Dr Nrisho. His English was good but I got too much info on modern medicines in Mungoni and not enough about traditional medicines and methods. Then headed back to my house, took a dala dala half way. Chilled out for a little while, then walked with Muhammad to visit a different local healer, a mid-wife.

She was old, probably 60 or 70, but feisty. She spoke Swahili quickly and with a thick accent and I had much trouble understanding even basic words. The first thing I noticed about her was her eyes. Only her right eye worked, her left was sort of rolled up into the back of her head. Meeting her for the first time, I was a little shocked at what I was seeing and in combination with not able to fully understand her, right there I pretty much forgot all the Swahili I knew. I managed to get out hello in Swahili and shikamoo (a respectful greeting for elders) but those two words were it. Muhammad ended up introducing me.

Her husband came out and sat with us. He was tiny, just like her, a probably even skinnier. They were both knowledgeable about the various local medicinal plants and occasionally during the interview, they would bicker with each other about who-knows-what.

Yet once again, I got some excellent information for my paper and for my brain. I learned their attitudes during pregnancy, how they treat common illnesses before, during, and after the pregnancy. That pregnant woman are not at any heightened risk for sicknesses and illness. That any sickness during pregnancy can effectively be treated with local medicine. That if you are having trouble conceiving a child, you need to find a mrimba tree, dig up a piece of its root, tell the root that you want to have a child, put it in your bed, "play sex" (Mohammad's words) and you will have a child. That the msukuma root boiled in water and drunk before childbirth will help to push the child out. Yet be careful—if a woman consumes the root of the msukuma tree to early in her pregnancy, it can cause a miscarriage.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to ask her many questions about childbirth in Mungoni (sorry Jill, I failed) but I know she does assist many women. After her interview, I ate a late lunch and took a dala dala back to Stone Town. And for the last few days I was writing my paper up, going back over all my notes.

In particular, there are a few thing about my experience in Mungoni that really struck me. There is little experimentation with new medical combinations and recipes by the local healers. Additionally, medicines are exchanged among villages, although this seems to be somewhat uncommon. Based on these two pieces of information, one reasons that the medicines of Mungoni are generations old, unchanged for years, decades, maybe even centuries. These traditions are ancient and deeply interwoven into the culture of the village. More important than their medical benefits are the "psychological needs" that these local medicines fulfill. The villagers of Mungoni are reliant on nature for these medicinal resources, dependent on their ancestors' knowledge and expertise. And despite the growing popularity of modern medicines in the area, traditional medicines are going to be around in Mungoni indefinitely.

For sure this has been one of the coolest research projects I've ever done and I'm thinking about traditional medicines seriously as my independent study paper topic. Stay tuned. I leave for Dar el Salaam on Sunday, adventures await (and a safari!!!!!!). Take care yall. Bye!!

---

Comments

[Grandma C]

Your research shapes up
Could just picture your village trek and interviews! How did you manage to preserve 30 or 40 wilting leaf specimens as you walked along and then how did you manage to organize them by flashlight in your little guest house? (And have time left over for turtles?)