I have a cousin who grew up in her paternal grandparents' household. Her dad passed away in a car accident. Her mum went to work in the Middle East as a nurse and remarried to a Filipino man there.
During the final illness of our grandfather, he seemed to be delirious and repeatedly told me that his wife was involved in witchcraft. I was a little surprised to hear him talk so insistently as normally he was a man of few words. Well, one should not encourage a patient in his delirium. Neither did I take what he said seriously. It could have just been a fancybecause his mind was wondering.
A few years later, our grandmother passed on also. My youngest aunt, who was unmarried, was cleaning the old house and throwing away the grandparents' effects with my cousin mentioned above. I happened to be visiting that part of the country and went to take a last look at the old house before it was to be sold.
My aunt showed me old photo albums and allowed me to choose a few as keepsakes. In the course of the conversation, she told me she threw a fair amount of herbal preparation. There were packets of powders with Thai scripts and quite a few were made in Indonesia.
Shortly after that I visited an old friend in Silver City had long chats with her long-serving maid. Apparently, married Indon maids would buy herbal preparation, usually in a pair. Before leaving home, they would swallow the first portion to stop their period. Keeping the second pack, they would then take when returning home for good. According this maid from a hilly part of Jawa, she believes that one could purchase similar products of different brands in most of the islands of Indonesia. As far as she knows, her relatives and friends have used such products and no one had any undesirable side effects.
After listening to what one person said, I dutifully went for a second opinion. When I had a chance, I asked my neighbour's maid who hailed from Sulawesi and had been woriking in Sabah for the past thirty years. She told me more or less the same thing and even offered to buy me a pair. She said it was available in Indon shops in town.
It is commonly known in the extended family that my cousin had never menstruated before. She is almost forty years old now. My grandma was adamant that her granddaughter was born defective and resolutely refused to let anyone take her to the hospital. Since she had no father and her mum was away, there was no one willing to go against the fierce old lady. Who knows? Maybe my grandfather was trying to tell me something in a rather indirect way which I did not undeerstand until it was too late.
Linking all the invisible threads above, I wonder if my aunt and cousin had unwittingly thrown away the second half of the herbal preparation. Anyway, it probably does not matter anyway. My cousin has decided not to marry and is earning a stable income looking after children others entrusted her with.
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