Mal de Ojo

My last visit to El Porvenir was going to be a quick one. They were ready to start selling, and all I needed to do was give them a notebook I had prepared to track their inventory and teach them how to use it. I was also going to make plans to meet once more, a month from now, after we return from FBT. The idea is to discuss the inventory fluctuations, and help them decide if they need to change their production at all. I couldn’t fix all their problems, but at least I was doing something.

While I was there, new visitors arrived. It was an older woman, a younger one and a baby. The young woman was holding the baby in her hands, looking at it with sad eyes. They came in the house and sat in the living room. There was an exchange of looks between the visitors and our host María. I said I wasn’t in a hurry, and it was ok to interrupt our meeting to attend the visitors.

The older woman started talking. She said the baby is very sick. They have taken it to several doctors and they have not been able to cure it. They also took it to another woman in the town down the road; she helped the baby get a little better but not cure it. Evidently, they were in the house for help.

My host said she knew about the other woman. She has a reputation of using tarot cards and candles… all things from the devil. She went on about how she has a God given gift to know people and she is insulted when people suggest she’s like the other woman. The visitors agreed tarot and candles are from the devil, but they didn’t know that’s how the other woman worked. And, after all, she had not been able to help them with the baby.

I realized what was going on. María Marcelina, the pottery woman I have been working with, is also a “curandera”. “Curandera” is the word for a person that heals others by using a mix of herbs and spiritual rituals much like a witch doctor. She is a Christian “curandera”.

María asked about the condition of the baby. The young woman, who had not said much till this point, said she has really bad diarrhea. María asked if the color is green to which the Mom replied yes. She asked her to turn the baby to face her, looked it in the eye and made a diagnosis. This baby has “Mal de Ojo” or The Evil Eye. The older woman asked which eye had it been and María replied that it was the left eye. I looked at the baby’s left eye and it looked normal, just like the other one. To cure it, she explained, they would have to bathe it with a raw egg, she would prepare a herb remedy for the baby to drink, and a potion to be placed under its crib. That would take care of the bad spirit. She asked my 13 year old friend to go and get an egg from the chickens and took the baby, the egg, and the mom to a back room.

Since María can not read anyway, I proceeded with the inventory meeting with the other two attendants. In the background, I heard the baby crying while it was being bathed with the raw egg. I left before they came back from the room, and am still wondering if the baby’s diarrhea was miraculously cured.