Happy Sunday dear Hivers!
It's another interesting edition of the Hive Learners Creative Sunday and today I would be doing something a bit different from my usual sewing DIY's, because what I'm about to share with you was of great help to me during the course of the week, and I hope it helps someone out there too.
Growing up in an African home, one thing common about our parent is the love for using traditional medicine such as herbs to cure several ailments, these was their go to remedies before the introduction of the western medicine. Well, many of us have adapted to the western culture so well that we leave our traditional/roots behind, not knowing the gems we have because we don't value our own. I believe it's high time we begin to showcase what we have to the world too, and the first stage is seeking the right knowledge from our elders, go back to your roots.
As a child, my mother always loved treating us with some herbs first before going for the new generation medicine, she made us eat them in our food and other times, she juiced these vegetables/ herbs for us, thinking about it now, I believe that was one of the reason why we never had any reason to be admitted in the hospital throughout my childhood till adulthood, the firstl time I got admitted was when I gave birth to my daughter as expected.
So during the just concluded week, I had been feeling very ill, with symptoms like high temperature and off and on headache, and wasn't even in the mood to spend much on medicine since I had only recently just treated malaria, my diagnosis from my last doctor's appointment when these symptoms started only for it to be back in just a week time, my husband attributed it to the spread of fake malaria drug across the pharmacies around us and I was also exhausted for spending so much without any result. Then my mum suggested I take a glass of juiced bitter leaf, also called Eti-dot in my local dialect ibibio, and its botanical name is Vernonia Amygdalina. To be frank, I've never also been one to go to the herbal route for remedies as an adult, I only did as a child under my mum's watch, and I never took it serious which is quite the opposite of my mum, but considering the state I was, I decided to give it a trial.
To think I have this tree growing in my compound and never considered it medicinal or helpful.
- I plucked a few leaves,
- Gave it a thorough rinse with water.
- Then started squeezing it with my hands, a blender can actually do this, but the local girl in me preferred to use the traditional method of squeezing like I saw my mum do as a child.
- After through squeeze, imagine the leaves in between the friction of your palm, the juice of the leaves can be seen coming out after every squeeze also some foam like.
- Satisfied with the volume I've successfully squeezed out, I used my strainer to separate the liquid from the leaves.
- Pouring it into my glass cup after warming it a bit.
The taste isn't pleasant, so I had my chocolate by the side, you could decide to sweeten yours with banana.
Giving it a quick gulp while my chocolate followed, in the next few hours like magic, the headache stopped and my body regain its normal temperature, not high anymore like it has been through out the week.
I was amazed to say the least, underestimating the wonder plant I had in my compound, I did some reading online and found that, bitter leaf is packed with do much health benefits like treating malaria, diabetes, hypertension, high temperature etc, you can do more research on your own as I aim to give no medical advice but just sharing my experience of how going the herbal route relieved me of the persisting symptoms.
Of course I'm not undermining the western medicine, which have no doubt play a huge role in upgrading our health system, but the truth remains that our free gift of nature, and healthy eating of these vegetables or juicing them just like I did shouldn't be forgotten.
Image 1 is edited with Canva
The rest images are mine