Traditional Medicine

Ever since I got back from Lake Kenyir, my eyes have been bothering me. They have been red and watery and sensitive to the sunlight, and it's been annoying. I figured that I got some kind of germ when I went swimming in the lake, and maybe something got stuck in my contacts. Anyway, when I went to school on Monday I ate breakfast with a group of teachers at the canteen, and all of them were commenting on how my eye was red and looked "sore." Many of the teachers thought I should go to the doctor to get things checked out, but Hayati, my ever-entertaining foster sister, had her own unique solution to the problem.

She announced that she knew a non-medicinal way to help heal "sore eyes," and then began to explain her method.

Hayati: "So what you need to do is find a woman who has recently given birth. One who is producing milk. Because, you know, breast milk is full of antibodies. So you lay down on her lap and have her drip a few drops of milk into your eye, and then the antibodies will get in there and and heal your eye. No medicine!"

Wait, wait, wait, wait, let's just back up there for one second. She wants me to lay on some woman's lap and have her put her breast milk in my eyeballs. Wow, Hayati, this takes your craziness to a whole new level. Even if the milk was helpful with healing, why in the world would we use that particular method to get it into the eye? It seems like the accuracy would be so off, not to mention the awkwardness of the situation in general.

It's during moments like these that I'm especially disappointed to be the only Westerner at my school, so that there's no one else to share these priceless moments with.

As a bonus, we went to the doctor and my eyes are fine (I got some drops), but Hayati told the nurse to write me a medical excuse through Wednesday, so I don't have to go back to school until Thursday (I had my appointment on Monday morning). It's perfect because the students are taking exams from now until the end of the month, and so I'm missing nothing by not being there. All in all, the eye thing was a good experience because I got an amazing story and some free time out of it.