Medicine Man

While we waited for the medicine man to come we sat in Jimmy's room and listened to Michael Jackson. (Don't you like that sentence??) so Micheal is going Thrillllerrrr....Thrii-ii---lllerrr....and then he comes in and was very serious in the face sometimes glaring his eyes in this way that makes you sit up straighter like you're a kid and you did something wrong and your moms mad... He had a priest's hat and a fancy coat that he kept adjusting. He sat in the corner with his arms crossed folding and refolding his white scarf under his coat. We all drank cokes together and clanked our glasses...so it was a real funny set of worlds all brought into this blue-blue room with a quote from the bible in Amerik on wood behind a dangling nintendo controller and the flies buzzing around us. Music from next door was blasting and a little black cat kept poking her head under the door.

He took some herbs out from his bag and through translations and a lot of hand gestures, told us what he uses them for. One for stomach ache, which was a stick that you chew on. Another for pains in the ears. One plant you boil in a pot of water for half an hour and a woman will sit over the steam to cure an infection. He gathers the herbs himself in the countryside. He said people come to him for breast cancer too and for curses and things like this. He practices abortions which are illegal...in hospitals here the traditional medicine men have a really bad rep, because a lot of girls and women are dying from their practices. Sometimes with an abortion a woman will end up bleeding too much. Its a catch-22 because a lot of these women can't afford to go to hospitals and the traditional medicine man is cheaper and easier to reach and less scary than a big hospital with doctors and paperwork and all that mess. Lisa had the idea to try to contact a medicine man so that she could hear their side of the story...and also cos we never met a medicine man before

After showing us his herbs he performed a ritual. All of us had to stand while he read from a book. He read low, sometimes whispering or muttering sing-song sometimes almost laughing. I liked how he read, he held my focus in a good way if that makes sense...In between he spat on his pile of herbs. He came to each of us and slapped us on the head. Lisa was so shocked when he slapped her she started hysterically laughing! Then he started to laugh also but said "SHH!" He came around again and kissed our hands and gave us his to kiss and then sat back down and it was done. He said whenever he practices he does this first. He said he wished we could have met his father because he had a lot of knowledge but his father is dead.

He was asking us whether people like him existed in our country. We told him how in America there is a lot a lot of pills, a lot of chemicals and machines that make you sicker than you were even. He said that his is the original, the best. I think I wish that the world of hospitals and traditional medicine men like him worked together. I think a lot more people could be helped if we took from both worlds.