Health Notes

This may be too much information for some of you, but if you like hearing about stomach problems, foot fungus or menstrual issues, read on. I find myself fascinated that here in Guatemala my health has taken a turn for the better despite initial setbacks.

For the first several days I had diarrhea, and though I didn’t feel particularly ill, the symptom didn’t seem to abate. Then I started feeling not quite well. I was given a wormwood tea by the member of a local family who had a great deal of confidence in its curative powers.  I felt much better the next day, yet it still seemed as if something was living in my stomach that didn’t quite get zapped with the first two doses of wormwood, as I would burp at odd times of the day, as if something else was feasting and producing waste within my system. I also lacked appetite and felt a bit queasy. I decided to get more wormwood for myself and to try a combination of fasting and wormwood tea. Wormwood, an extremely bitter substance is well-known as a vermifuge, but it is also good for reducing stomach cramps. I fasted for 36 hours and took three doses of wormwood tea throughout this period.  I’m happy to report that since that time I’ve been feeling much better and have experienced only a few irregularities in my bowel movements.

I suspect also that the altitude was affecting both Sugata and I. We both felt a little queasy all the time for the first couple of weeks. We are at 5000 feet here in San Pedro, and though I grew up at an elevation of 5000 feet, I’ve not lived at this altitude for some time.

My other early health annoyance was with the wood smoke that permeates the air in the morning as the women prepare their meals in wood-burning stoves. You can’t really go out for a walk at 6:00 without having to breathe quite a bit of wood smoke. I longed for clean air. Thus I did not go out for early morning exercise my first few week here.

Meditating on these factors, I suspected my life here would not be as healthy now as when I had been living in Portland.

Thus said I’ve noticed several improvements. First of all, I’ve slept far better here every night than I did in Portland, despite a great deal of noise from the street (firecrackers, dogs, loud bands, radios). Second, I usually experience some pain early on during my period, but here, I’ve not felt a twinge of menstrual pain. Third, my feet seem to have become less susceptible to athletes foot. I’ve been wearing the same closed-toed shoes, without socks to my class for weeks now. Under normal circumstances this would give me raging athlete’s foot, but that has not been the case. When I first arrived here, I already had a little athlete’s foot, but it seems to have completely cleared. The worst I’ve suffered is stinky feet (which incidentally Sugata has taken it upon himself to cure by mandating that I purchase open-toed shoes. I’m wearing them now). Forth, though I’ve not weighed myself, I’ve definitely not had any significant weight gain, despite being nearly sedentary. It appears also that Sugata has lost a little bit of his belly. Fifth, Sugata’s eye seems to be doing. It was bothering him quite a bit even while we were traveling in the states but he no longer has problems with it.

What is the factor? Why am I doing so much better here, health wise? I have a hard time telling for sure as almost everything about my diet here is completely different. It is not so much that I am eating completely different foods, so much as that some are nearly absent and others are being consumed far more frequently than I used to, including some (such as white bread) that I don’t think are ultimately so good for me.

Note that these foods are eaten in a variety of combinations, but these are the basic ingredients that are eaten in some form.

 

Almost every day

Tomatoes

Lemons

Onions

Avocadoes

Corn tortillas

Watermelon (during the break at school)

Pineapple (during the break at school)

Salt

Spices (Chili, cumin, curry)

Every other day

Black beans

Parboiled Rice

Atol de Haba (porridge-like drink of broad beans)

Garlic

Twice a week

White bread

Eggs

Chocolate (the kind you mix in a drink, bought in cakes at the market)

Cucumber

Zucchini

Carrots

Pasta

Canola oil for cooking foods

Tostada shells

Once a week

Coconuts

Tomatillos

Potatoes

Bananas

Greens (spinach, chipilin, and unidentified green)

Beets (in very small portions on a tostada)

Wisquil (Green vegetable pictured in Sugata's earlier pic post)

Once in awhile

Oats

Eggplant

Strawberries

Fresh cheese

Cashews

Sweet bread

Plantain
Hibiscus tea
Whole-grain rice

Once or Twice so far

Yucca
Tofu
Broccoli
Cabbage
Pumpkin seeds
Peanuts
Apples
Orange juice
Roasted barley
Tamarind
Cookies my teacher brought me

For the last couple of weeks I have started running early in the morning. But that’s for my next blog post.