Story time! When I was in second grade, I had a series of huge, massive, and terrible headaches. I remember one Friday, I had a really bad one. I came home from school and instead of going straight to the TV, I just curled up on the couch and went to sleep so that I could avoid the pounding. My mom had tried to wake me up for dinner a few hours later but I didn't want to get up so she sat with me, her stroking my head on her lap until I fell asleep again.
Well, I guess it isn't really normal for a little girl to have terrible headaches so often. We always used to spend school breaks in our grandparents' houses (sometimes our mom's parents and other times my dad's). So the following school break after that incident, we drove over to my mom's parents' house. Of course, my parents shared the news of me getting these weird headaches all of a sudden and so, immediately, relatives and neighbors agreed that it may have been caused by something supernatural.
Of course, the Filipino culture has its own share of superstitions and stories about black magic, vampires and monsters. But we were a pretty "modern family"; we're religious, and plus, my mom was a Physics professor and my dad an electrical engineer. So supernatural stuff was the last thing on their minds. That's why I thought that my headaches must have been really worrying because they agreed to some sort of healing process that my grandmother suggested.
We had to collect, I think, 300 pesos in coins from neighbors and relatives and friends. As a whole family, we went to someone's house for the ritual. The man who was going to do the process boiled some sort of plant leaves in hot water and I remember that it smelled very heady and herby. I think we prayed inside his house for a while. Then we all went outside (I think the man was still praying) and he told all of us to tie white cloths around our wrists (I think girls had to have it on their left, and guys had to have it on their right...or maybe it was the other way around). After that, the man told us all to crouch together and he covered us with a large white sheet. Then he took the warm water that he used to boil the special plant leaves and poured that over our heads (we got wet, of course). Then he took a clay pot filled with the 300 pesos' worth of coins and dropped it on our heads (it didn't really hurt that much). And to conclude the ritual, we had to eat sweet rice and boiled eggs.
I'm not sure if it worked because I still have headaches. But I guess they're "normal" headaches now.
It was pretty exciting. I can't say that I really 100% believe in this stuff, but sometimes, there's just no other explanation, you know. I've heard stories from my parents, close relatives and neighbors about these kinds of things. At the time, I just thought it was cool because it was different. Come to think of it, I actually have a lot of these stories so I'll just make these the theme for my blog posts in the next several days.
Today......
I loved...NeverShoutNever.
I smiled because...OLIVIER WON A CHALLENGE YES YES YES YES.
Lyrics playing at this very moment as I type this part of the blog:
"I'm not falling for any more of these tricks. I'm so tired of everything here..."
(California by Hawk Nelson)
Hours of sleep last night: 8
-Jen
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