LESSONS FROM OUR ANCESTORS
Ingrid Irma Jones
I love to hear stories about rate. Oumensrate. Lotions and potions our mamas and oumas taught us. Lessons from our ancestors. The potions that kept us healthy.
I will never forget the spoonful of cod liver oil I had to swallow every day. There was no spoon of sugar to help the medicine go down. When I had a toothache or a hole in my tooth, my mother or a neighbour would unceremoniously stick a naeltjie (clove pod) in there. Or clove oil on a piece of cotton wool, either in my ear or in my mouth, and then wrap a baby nappy around my head.
Our neighbour, Aunt Spaas, had terrible leg problems and she wrapped her legs in kanna leaves every day with a pink bandage and stockings over it. She lived to a ripe old age.
Boegoe brandy. Wildeals. XXX Mints finely ground on a teaspoon mixed with coconut oil, and off you go.
I wonder if there are concoctions or potions you had to take that you still give your children or grandchildren. The that healed us. . with sugar for period pain. Let me not even start the conversation. I swear my grandmother took it
