Swine Flu in Papagayos, Mexico

First of all we want to let folks know that we are well and there are no known cases of swine flu in Papagayos at this time. Now I'd like to tell a little more about how folks here are reacting to the health warnings.

On Sunday April 26, 2009 we went for a picnic in the next valley with our good friends Simón and Rosa. The day was bright and breezy and we enjoyed a spread of good food under the shade of a Huastecan Fresno tree, then a walk along a stream bed to the site of a waterfall. We were unaware of a pandemic. All was well with the world. It was great to be alive and sharing time with friends.

After our picnic and walk we headed into Ciudad del Maíz to do a few errands and a little visiting before heading back to the village. In the stores and on the streets we saw a few people wearing masks over their noses and mouths. We asked one shop keeper about the masks after a masked customer left the store. He said there was some kind of disease going around.

We headed to the Ortegas' house to do our visiting. Jazmín was sitting in the shade outside the kitchen. She stood up to greet us with the traditional handshake and kiss on the right cheek. After the usual exchange of pleasantries she asked if Chuy was going to school the next day. As far as we knew there would be classes the next day. She reported that she didn't have to go to school until May 6th. That all the schools were closed because of the swine flu. She also explained that some people were wearing tapabocas to prevent the spread of the disease. We made a point of washing our hands well with soap and water before asking for a drink of water and going to check in with Jazmín's elderly grandparents.

The next day we checked online about the swine flu epidemic. We found the websites of the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control to be especially useful to us. Now we are checking them twice daily for updates.

In the afternoon on Monday our teenaged friend René stopped by to visit. Instead of a handshake he had settled on linking crooked elbows as a suitable form of greeting that was more sanitary. It was a little funny, maybe a little too physically close, but a great conversation starter about the influenza and health precautions. But then he leaned over our lunch that was heating on the stove and asked what was cooking. Steve pointed out that he could be more thoughtful about health precautions around food.

That evening we walked over to Simón and Rosa's house. On the way we saw another friend. The automatic handshaking ritual froze in mid-air. He said what with the flu and all, maybe it would be better not to shake hands and we agreed. Clearly we need to find a friendly, healthy alternative to this national custom.

At Simón and Rosa's we were greeted by traditional firm handshakes with everyone there. We were offered chairs and then food, but no chance to wash our hands first. We ate anyway. We'd come to find out if they had heard if the meeting planned for next weekend had been canceled or not because of the flu epidemic. Simón is in charge of a group of folks in our state learning to make and use herbal microdoses for healing. A large meeting was planned for as many as forty people to gather here from all parts of Mexico. Simón said he was waiting for the call. If someone didn't call him by tomorrow he would initiate the idea of postponing the meeting until after the flu passes. That seemed like a good idea to us.

Last night, Wednesday, Hector and Chayo came to our house for a little visit. I think they smelled the chocolate chip cookies that were baking in the oven. We offered them coffee and cookies which they were glad to accept. While the water heated for the instant coffee we also offered them anti-bacterial alcohol gel to clean their hands. Hector held out his open palm to receive a squirt of hand sanitizer and explained that he had washed his hands many times during the day and had just showered so his hands were probably pretty clean. I know they had just passed through the barb wire fence near their pig pen to get to our place. I guessed that another cleaning wouldn't hurt.

Our conversation centered around the flu news reports and rumors, the numbers of sick people and deaths and questions about which states in Mexico were already affected. We shook hands when we said goodnight, then went to wash one more time before brushing our teeth and heading to bed.

I was awake in the middle of the night with my mind full of unanswerable questions. We have planned for months to travel to the U.S. at the end of May. Steve had questioned if maybe we shouldn't be prepared to leave sooner than that, possibly on short notice, if there was a warning of imminent border closings, for example. My mind was a tempest. Should we leave Papagayos as soon as possible? Or should we wait and leave on our planned departure date?

After tossing over and over for an hour I finally woke Steve to talk about it. We came to a compromise decision. We will prepare now so we could be ready to leave on short notice. These preparations are all work we would be doing in the next few weeks anyway. If we stay until our original departure date we can get all the gardening done and leave the house and yard in great shape. If we have to go early, Hector and Chayo will help harvest the garden and water the new plantings for us.

The other main decision we made is to keep in close touch with our grown children, our family and all of our friends both near and far.

Our true security still comes from our broad network of close relationships. At the deepest levels, all is well.

Belief In Cures

Chayo came over to visit on Saturday. She was worried about her young adult nephew who lives in the north. He has had headaches for a month and has not been able to work because of the pain. The young man's mother, Chayo's sister, had called to see if information about a cure could be found here in the village. This was a last resort for them following doctor visits and expensive prescriptions that did no good. If they could concoct a cure at home that would be great. If not they were thinking of coming back to the village so he could be treated by a healer in the village.

The healer that was consulted is doña Luisa. After a phone conversation a cure was suggested of bathing his head in a tea made from romero. By the time this information was passed back north Chayo's nephew had been scheduled for an MRI to rule out a tumor in the brain. Chayo believes it is best to follow every possible option to find a cure.

This conversation led to her telling us about other cures she has seen work. When she was a teenager the girls of the family had to carry water long distances to fill the needs of the family. She and her sister had made a trip to a pond with the large water buckets and were headed back home when her sister had an "attack." The girl fell on the ground and Chayo thought she was dying. After a few minutes she came back around and they went on home. In the next few weeks more attacks followed and the family sought a cure. The recommendation was to drink the blood from a male deer while it was still hot. This proved impossible, so blood was dried and later made into a tea. After drinking this concoction, Chayo reported, her sister was cured.

Chayo also knew another girl who had taken ill because she was afraid of dying after the untimely death of a friend. A curandera was called in and touched the girl in a certain way on her head and made washing motions in the air around her. Soon she found relief and was able to live fully afterward without fear.

With belief, with thoughtful hands and prayers, Chayo said, cures can be found for illnesses that pills and doctors can't remedy. (Here is where you read the disclaimer - don't try this at home without supervision, etc. This is the intercultural acceptance part of the story. People here believe in cures more than in doctors. People in the US believe in doctors more than cures. In your own life you get to choose a satisfying combination according to your beliefs.)

The Curandero

A few weeks ago I was riding our horse when he stumbled and pitched to his knees. I was thrown off sideways and landed on some rocks with the horse laying across my legs. I've healed for the most part - the cut on my elbow is now just a series of small scabs and the pain in my shoulder and ankle is hardly noticeable. For the first several days after my fall, I was walking really twisted as my left hip was out of joint. But after about a week of applying ice packs and ointments, I had thought I was better. I was walking straight again, and my hip no longer hurt. But perhaps I made a mistake by thinking I had healed enough to begin using the mattock and shovel and wheelbarrow to continue an earth-moving project I had going in our back yard.

When I started walking crooked again, Chayo suggested that our neighbor don Pancho could help me. Don Pancho is a curandero. Our dictionary translates the word as "quack," but the people here in Papagayos use the term with respect. It refers to a healer, one who may not possess a medical degree but nonetheless has a natural gift for curing others.

I went over to don Pancho's place and he agreed to see what he could do. Don Pancho is an elderly man with eyeglasses and long dark hair flowing from his ears. He explained in Spanish and mime that he would massage my hip. He led me across the yard and into the part of the house his family uses for sleeping. He pointed to the bed in the corner and I understood that would be the "massage table." I crossed the room, but before I could lay down, a very indignant chicken rose up from the pillows and squawked and fluttered her way across the room and out the door.

Hanging on the wall above the bed was a large and worn photograph of a much younger don Pancho dressed in the fanciest get-up you can imagine. As he liberally applied Vick's Vapor Rub and kneaded my muscles, I asked him about the photo. Yes, he had once sung and played guitar in a mariachi band in Mexico City. But his fingers hadn't touched a guitar for many years. I suggested that his fingers probably remembered. He wasn't quite so sure about that, and anyway his interests had changed. Music was no longer his passion. And besides, his beautiful mariachi suit had been eaten by the mice.

When he finished the massage, he rubbed on a tonic from a large Pepsi bottle. It was the color of Pepsi, but he assured me that it contained alcohol and a number of herbs and that he had concocted it himself. He said I should come back in a couple days for another treatment. Meanwhile, I should not shovel any more dirt; I needed some more recovery time.

As we opened the door and exited the bedroom, the very indignant chicken squawked and re-entered, ready to reclaim her spot on the bed. She had been waiting impatiently for us to finish so she, unlike me, could get back to work.

Easter Week in Papagayos

The week leading up to Easter is called Semana Santa. Here in Papagayos, it's a time for visiting and for families to gather. It's a time for picnics. We went with Chayo and Hector and about twenty of their relatives on a picnic on Thursday. We crowded into three pickup trucks and drove several miles down pasture lanes and through cattle gates to a place in our valley that Laurel and I hadn't seen before. We sat on the edge of a large pond surrounded by shade trees. In spite of the fact we had brought enough food to feed forty people, Hector repeatedly threw his net and hauled in small fish to be cleaned and deep fried there over a campfire.

A tradition we imported with us from our culture is watching the sunrise on Easter. Laurel and I got up early and took lawn chairs out to the yard. Facing the hills to the east, we sat and sang a couple Easter hymns. As we waited for the sun to clear the horizon, we watched a flock of about thirty garzas fly in from the north. These long-legged, long-necked herons wheeled above us. For ten minutes or so they were a mass of two opposing spirals as some chose clockwise and some counter-clockwise in their dizzy circling. As we looked upward, each garza was a profile without detail, a silhouette appearing dark gray to us against the brightness of the imminent sunrise. One by one they dropped out of formation and spiraled lower to land in the full lavender bloom of a jacaranda tree. As we watched each bird dip below the eastern ridge against a backdrop of dark green foliage, we saw each silhouette burst into a feathery collage of detail and change instantly from gray to bright white.

Our six-year-old neighbor Gabriela reminded us about a week ago that she remembered our annual tradition of hiding candy and colored eggs. Mid-morning on Easter, we went over to Gabriela's house and told her that yes, the Easter Bunny had come and had left colored eggs outside in our yard and candies in our house. She and her younger cousin and brother came over and searched and found the treasures. The Easter Bunny isn't accustomed to traveling to Mexico, but for us and our neighborhood children, he'll make the trip.