Summer camp teaches children bush medicine
Since June we’ve been running stories on different children’s activities taking place during summer vacation. On Monday I had the chance to participate in a summer camp with a special purpose and a lot of tradition.
Belize’s rainforest is not only best known for its wide variety of exotic woods, animals, flora and fauna, but for hundreds of years, many have ventured into the thick green jungle to collect plants that have been used to heal and cure the sick. Today, for the first time, the Ixchel Tropical Research Foundation in the Cayo District, is teaching children about the plants and their medicinal uses.
The children, all eleven of them, arrived at the camp on Monday, July twenty seventh. Since then they have been involved in a number of activities that include from plant collection to herbal preparations and First Aid and safety and Traditional Healing. Thara Gamero-Blanco, a senior counselor at the foundation, says the purpose of the camp is to make children more aware of the importance of the rainforest.
Thara Gamero-Blanco, Senior Counselor, Ixchel Foundation
“The kids, if you start showing them, you know let them start focus on that, certainly when they get older they will start to be more aware of the things in the environment and what is happening around them. At times these children have grandparents, parents who know a lot of these plants and some of them are just passing away and this information is not shared.
One week has gone and you can totally see the difference. I mean we passed a plant and they say this is good for the blood, this is good for the blood. For example, you eat the red bell for the blood and they would just pass and the plant and just start eating it. I am sure if other kids see them doing this they would wonder why they are doing this and they would explain that this is very good for the blood and they would start eating it.”
The day we visited the children, they were taken on a rainforest medicine trail to collect and study the plants.
Dr. Rosita Arvigo (showing kids a plant)
“And here is the flower and there is the pod. See that, it looks like a leaf, doesn’t it? But it’s actually a pod.”
One plant the children took great interest in, was the Polly Red Head or milkweed. The boys and girls learnt how on a new moon, the milk from this medicinal plant is used to cure sinus congestion. But just as how good the plant is to the nose, the children were cautioned that if taken as a drink, the flowering plant can be deadly.
Dr. Rosita Arvigo (showing kids a plant)
“You never drink this plant. You never ever drink this plant. If anybody tells you to drink this plant, it is not a good thing to do, cause it is poisonous. But that is why it works on your nostrils. One drop forces all of that to come out, because your body does not want that milk from the plant inside your nose and your body doesn’t want all that mucus congestion.”
Dr. Rosita Arvigo, the Director of Ixchel says its amazing how interested the children have been in the lessons they’ve received on bush medicine. While the subject is new to some of the children, there were others who had some knowledge on the matter.
Dr. Rosita Arvigo, Director, Ixchel Foundation
“Already how much knowledge they bring to the bush medicine camp from their grandmothers, from their aunties, the elders that they interact with in their villages that send them out to collect Hibiscus to bathe the babies diaper rash, to collect Sccogineal for headaches. So the children are also amazed how much they already know and even they can teach us things their grannies taught them that we haven’t yet recorded.”
The trail also took the children to the “twelve o’clock prickle” or Sensitive Plant. The root of this plant is used to heal snake bites.
Dr. Rosita Arvigo (showing kids a plant)
“This is the plant that we are looking at. Tiny little leaves and its got prickles on it, so it’s not easy to collect. This plant is called Sensitive Plant. Anybody knows any other names?
Now watch what happens when we touch it. You see that? You see it?”
Just before heading back to camp, the group stopped by the Gumbo Limbo tree, where they were given a refresher course on what this medicinal plant is used for.
Dr. Rosita Arvigo (showing kids a plant)
“Who can tell me what they remember about how we use the Gumbo Limbo in bush medicine? For skin, for cooling and for measles, bathing. Bathe yourself when you have measles, when you have fever and you drink it for… You use the young leaf for tea. It’s nice or does it taste yucky? It tastes nice. You use the young leaf for tea. Yes, it’s nice. We are going make a tea today. We are going to make tea with our china root and Gumbo Limbo. You find it taste really nice.”
According to Dr. Arvigo, the bush medicine camp was a dying wish of her mentor and teacher Don Elijio Panti who died in February, 1996.
Rosita Arvigo
“The last words he said to us on his death bed were take the children as though they were your own, train them and teach them to help each other. So that was the purpose.”
For the children, the bush medicine camp has been both informative and enjoyable.
Tricia Ciego, 12 Years Old
“I am learning about all kind of medicine that they are using. Some of them are used, like the Gumbo Limbo is usually good for the skin and for the black poison wood.”
Ian Cryer, 11 Years Old
“That they have some that are good for food and they can heal and they are good for eating.”
Catalina Funez, 11 Years Old
“We go out in the fields. We look for plants and put them to dry and we color the plants sometimes and the books that we have. That is what we always do.”
Doctor Arvigo said it is important for the children to share the information they have received, as their research reveals that while the practice of traditional healing is not lost in Belize, as it has in most parts of the world, it never the less is on the brink of loosing respect and being forgotten. Arvigo believes that even if the children will not be able to recall specific plants and their application, it is important for them to remember that plants heal and that nature is there to support us and assist us to heal when we need it.
The two-week bush medicine camp comes to a close on August ninth.
