July 1999
Zenzonta, Jalisco, Mexico

Doňa Chapina in her home preparing homemade corn tortillas for us.  We ate all of our meals here.  
During my stay here I came down with a common local sickness that aflicts most newcomers to the area.  I felt like a really bad hangover,
overexertion, and exhaustion at the same time.  My heart rate was just racing for several days! I did not tell anybody of my condition because I
didn't want them to take me to the hospital.  But my condition was obvious to others so when Doňa Chapina prepared me a tea comprised of
local plants.  I was prejudiced potenlial the potenial efficacy of drinking it because at the time I doubted that aspirin or antibiotics (assuming my
illness was bacterial in origin....which it probably was) would have helped me.  No possibility of placebo effect! But I felt like crap and if it worked
it beat the alternative (going to the hospital).  So I drank it before going to bed.  When I woke up in the morning I was virtually miraculously cured!
The headache and racing heart rate was gone and I was only slightly tired.  Because of my own stubborness, the straight up ethnobotanical
knowledge of Doňa Chapina may have saved my life!