Natural Remedies

Exactly one month after she retired from her post as Customer Service Representative, Jill packed a bag and moved to southern Thailand. Co-workers and relatives had always thought Jill the type to potter about in a garden and watch TV with a cat or two on her lap. For the first month of her absence, the shock led to a great deal of speculation about her motives for the emigration.

“Maybe she went for one of those sex change operations. She never seemed to have a boyfriend and she does have that short hair style.” “Nah, she’s probably got herself a hot young lover. Kudos to her!” “What if she didn’t have any savings and is a drug mule. I saw something like that on ‘Locked up Abroad’.” “I hope she doesn’t go to jail. Thai prisons are horrible!” Because of Jill’s lack of interaction on any social media, the chatter eventually moved on.

For the first year, Jill lived as most people would assume an ex-pat who had moved to a sunny, seaside town would live. Her hair grew long. Her arms and legs got tan as she drank 2:00 p.m. beers. She ate soft-shell crab and whole seabass steamed in a garlic-chili sauce and many a fried shrimp cake. She read books in the courtyards of the local temples and strolled aimlessly in and out of the daily markets. At night she often drank with other ex-pats, mostly men her own age who amused her by flirting with young girls their granddaughters’ age. She even started smoking again and found it surprisingly easy to remove the shackles of the last 30 years of diet and exercise.

Her first reaction when she learned that she had had a minor stroke while walking on the beach road wasn’t regret or resignation or even fear, but rather a dread of getting around a town with uneven sidewalks and no elevators with a half a body that was barely functioning. Not to mention using any of the public “squatter” toilets.

She stayed in her rented room on the third floor, pink curtains drawn, A/C and BBC at full blast to drown out the noise of the tuk-tuks and motorbikes below. In the evening she removed her sleeping gown and showered quickly to avoid looking at her useless left arm or her own reflection. May, the owner of the house, brought her packed lunches and bags of chopped fruit. She invited Jill to lunch in the garden downstairs but Jill feigned a tiredness she wanted but didn’t really feel.

On the fourth day, May arrived with a large mortar and pestle and a plastic bag. “Stay in room no good. We fix you arm. Come.” Jill followed vaguely aware she was still wearing the sleeping gown that reminded her of a Hawaiian Mumu. After a slow descent down the stairs they emerged into the garden and Jill immediately felt swallowed by the hot air. She lifted her arm to shield her eyes which made May smile, “Arm ok. No problem.”

They sat at the round concrete table under a mango tree and May placed the stone bowl in front of Jill. “We pok pok. Make arm strong same me.” May removed things from the bag, did a bit of cutting and whacking and made a pile of whole garlic cloves, tiny red chilies (“you like spicy?”), galangal, small purple onions, chopped lemongrass, and a handful of herbs. She opened a small plastic container of shrimp paste (“from my hometown. The best one.”)

With a sly smile, she handed Jill the pestle. “You pok pok.” and made a motion that would be comical to most adolescents but entirely confounded Jill. “I can’t.” May placed her tiny hand around Jill’s and showed her the angle and force she needed to use to both pound and grind. May let go and Jill continued, the rhythmic pounding creating a silent mantra that banished all thoughts. Though Jill didn’t have an entirely firm grip, she was surprised that after 20 minutes, she had been able to pulverize the contents into a dizzyingly aromatic paste. Sweat ran down her face and neck and her arm felt like jelly. ‘The old girl’s not entirely dead after all’ she thought as she stroked her arm with her good hand. May took the mortar and ten minutes later brought out a bowl of gang kua gai and a bowl of rice.

For the next month, Jill followed May’s regime of walking the 170 steps of Monkey Hill in the morning, buying ingredients at the market, and pounding a paste. Jill learned to make other pastes: namya, choo chee, green, panang, and the one she had the most affinity for: sour curry paste. May gave her what she assumed was high praise, “You cook same Thai grandma.”

Though her right leg dragged a bit and she still had difficulty with tasks like writing and doing up buttons, the gap between the abilities of the two halves of her body had lessened. She felt like celebrating and ventured to the ex-pat pub. The small group seemed surprised as if they had assumed she’d gone back to the West or worse.

Blowhard Bob as she silently referred to him, launched into a lecture about the lack of any qualified medical professionals outside of Bangkok. She couldn’t seem to hold onto his words and felt a sudden panic that perhaps the damage to the verbal/language part of her brain was worse than she thought. She noticed a silence and looked up to see everyone staring at her. “I’m sorry. What was that?”

“What are you doing for treatment? You’re not letting those assclowns in Hat Yai near you, are you?”

“I haven’t been going to the hospital.” She heard gasps. She heard a “Good on ya.” Then she heard herself, “Actually, I’m fine. My limbs work and my brain isn’t any foggier than usual. You see,” she paused smiling at the group, “I’ve been making curry.”