Ideas of Health

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  Asuncion, Paraguay
Saturday, January 21, 2006

So I've got a new friend these days, goes with me every where I go, takes everything it wants and gives me nothing but pain. Its a wierd stomach bacteria. For the last 10 days or so I've been having some extreme gut twisting stomach cramps. Havent really been able to do much but sit around. Then, for the last few days of this week I developed a fever with it as well. I came into Asuncion on Friday to talk with the medical doctor about the problems and after some laboratory analysis he gave me some antibotics to kill whatever is living inside of me. Anyhow, that brings me to the topic of this letter: Paraguayan Medical Beliefs.

Regarding medical remedies Paraguayans are incredible intelligent in one aspect, yet, in another, they are ingnorant. Almost every Paraguayan I've met has an incredible knowledge base regarding natural medicinal remedies. They know their plant biology inside and out. Even most people in the cities can identify many different types of medicinal plants as well as trees; however, those in the campo definately know many more plants and their uses. Over the generations, the medicinal plant knowledge of their indigenous ancesters has luckily been passed on to the youth of the next generation. I've only drank a few types of natural remedies so far and the remedies did exactly what they told me it would do. I drank one that helped calm my stomach and another that made me constipated (using the bathroom all the time was inhibiting my leaving of the house.) This incredible knowledge of plant identification and plant uses is accompanied by an unfortuante lack of knowledge regarding the causes of sickness. Paraguayans are not stupid people, they just lack key information due to a lack of good education systems to break from the curse of ignorance. Here are a few examples of why I say they lack knowledge of causes of illness. When I told my host family that my stomach hurt they replied "Your stomach ache is because you have drank too much cold liquids." Another response was "Well, you stomach must hurt since you waded through water higher than your stomach when you went fishing in the wetland." To both of these astounding responses, I thought "yaaaa, Right...especially in 95 degree weather...these things definately hurt my stomach!"
So..this is how it is, more or less. It can be very frustrating when they give me these crazy explanations as to why my stomach hurts. My mind, educated inpart by my fathers medical knowledge, just wants to scream at them how crazy their idea is. Of course, I dont do that. I just shake my head and say.."ikatu" (is possible). In time, I will try to explain to them the idea of germs and such, and hopefully, I can give them ideas on how to prevent illness. Unfortunately, the lack of reliable electricity may be the cause of many of their food borne illnesses. The power is unreliable at the worst of times: during extreme heat and bad weather. During these times, everybody plugs in their fans and eventually the system is overloaded and the power goes out (not to mention the electricity can go out when a bird lands on the wire. I've seen this happen: the bird landed and in an instant there was a loud pop, a poof of feathers, a falling bird, and no electricity). Thats when the power to the fridge goes out...and the food begins to rot. Let me tell you, the smell of the meat sitting in a fridge that is not working has come to be a fearful thing here. Whats worse is that these people have very little money, and so they can't afford to buy new meat just because the meat has a (in their opinion) "slight smell." So they just cook the meat a bit longer and still eat it.

Well, thats my speal for the day. Hope all is well..Eric

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