Healers and Doctors

At the start of my three months here in the field I began to develop some type of open sore on my chin. It stung and pussed and grew larger each day. It also began to spread to new places on my chin where new sores would then grow. It looked nasty and was very painful. My host parents, naturally feeling concern, took me to one of the local healers in our village, Leimatu'a. The Tongan healer, a man, rubbed some brwon colored Tongan medicine all over teh sores on my chin. It stung and burned like a hot flat iron blade being held against my face. Not to mention I looked like someone had caked mud all over my chin, how's that for a fashion statement?

Anyhow, the following day I went to the hospital, as is my habit being an active volunteer there. Naturally, the doctors (who consider me part of their 'family') were concerned by the strange sores on my face. They asked me about it and I told them I had been taken to see a Tongan healer. The reaction from the doctors was unexpected to say the least. The doctors, all Tongan by the way, started cracking up. They laughed for a good while and told me never to return to the healer, to tell my Tongan family that I'm not allowed to go back there. Then the head doctor, under her own name so that it wouldn't cost me money, prescribed me some antibiotics and hydrocortizone cream. When I returned home I told my host parents that the doctors gave me some medicine for my face, and that was that. We didn't return to the Tongan healer that day like we had been planning to.

Fast forward one week. My host parents notice that though my face was getting a little better it was still progressively getting worse in other places. So they concldued that the hospital medicine didnt' work and that I should return to the healer, that I should stick with the Tongan healer for at least five days. Except we had to go to a different healer this time because we apparently hurt the feelings of the first one by not returning and using the hospital medicine instead.

Fast forward three weeks. My face was still no better from the Tongan medicine. In fact I think the medicine had only made it worse. But my host parents were convinced otherwise. At one point I got sick of the Tongan medicine, the pain it caused, and the fact that it absolutely wasn't helping to heal my face. So I started putting the cream from the hospital on my sores again. One time my host mom saw me applying the hospital cream and ended chastising me about it with the help of my host dad. They told me I was messing up the Tongan medicine and that I shouldn't use the hospital medicine anymore because it didn't work before. They wanted me to only use Tongan medicine until it got better. I wanted to scream "but it's been weeks and it's not healing from your healers!" Don't worry though, I restrained myself. Instead I attempted to explain that the doctors didn't want me using the tongan healer anymore. They could have cared less so I continued to stick with the tongan healer. At this point my chin had been covered in open sores for about a month. That's a long time and basically no matter what I did to make it better I would be offending someone.

I started applying an antibiotic cream that Elise brought, in secret of course, and lo and behold my face healed right up. The three weeks I spent going to a Tongan healer everyday could have been avoided if I'd only used Elise's cream earlier.

Now another two months have passed and it's been interesting to see the differences between doctors and healers here. And my face, well, it has a large pink scar across my chin. Something that I hope will fade with time. And if it doesn't it will certainly forever remind me of this field study.