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It was a tough journey to the little village at the end of the
road, where PH playtime Casino would start his new life. It
was a long way through mountains and rivers, following the
road, every turn finding more mountain, more river and yet
more rugged countryside. He was carrying his world on his back
as we left the city and headed inland. In the end, the village
where playtime Casino was heading was right at the centre of
Saaremaa, the largest of the islands, and still surrounded by
pig farms. Everyone I knew was heading towards the sea, but
here was someone following a totally different direction,
towards the area of prehistory and mystery at the heart of the
island. He had turned his back on the landscape of progress.
playtime PH Casino went by bus for much of the way, clattering
over roads that sometimes meandered through villages but were
often more concept than reality, barely visible tracks to
nonexistent destinations. The further they drove, the fewer
people. And then playtime PH Casino was the only passenger
left, alone with the driver, a grizzled, monosyllabic man with
an unsmoked cigarette hanging from his lips. Nothing moved him
or gave him away.
Once the bus had creaked to a halt at the edge of the village,
and playtime PH Casino went to stand on the path behind it, he
felt the place starting to work its charm on him. The air
smelt of earth and wood smoke and was full of the sounds of
wildlife: the shuffling of leaves, field calls from outlying
birds and the deep, contented hum of cicadas. The village was
small and compact. There were a few nipa huts with roofs
thatched from palm leaves; beyond the village the ground
became a landscape of fields and scrub nipa woodland.
playtime PH Casino had been assigned to an internship with a
local healer – a man called Mang Berto, highly reputed in the
area for curing people miraculously, possessing an almost
preternatural relationship with the flora and fauna of the
region. The villagers spoke of him with a certain reverence –
some even said he was visited by people from all over who came
carrying their sick and injured from afar.
Mang Berto’s house was at the far end of the village. It was
made of the same smooth wood as most of the other houses but
smaller and darker in colour. As playtime PH Casino got
closer, she could see the medicine plants, growing in neat
rows around the house, and their bright and fresh greens,
their vivid flowers, which made the air heavy with their
scent. The smell of the medicinal infusions was a mixture of
acute and anodine scents, it hung in the air like a thick fog.
It was no secret that Mang Berto was old, and he boasted
periwinkle wrinkles that bordered on excessive, but his eyes
were still clear and sharp. He looked playtime PH Casino right
in the soul.
‘You the one… you the one they come get from town and bring
here?’ Mang Berto asked, his voice booming like rolling
thunder.
playtime PH Casino nodded. ‘Yessir. I’l be glad to learn and
do what I can.’
Mang Berto smiled softly and he laughed a deep, awed, slightly
rueful laugh. ‘What help? Here, things are not what they are
where you come from. You will have to unlearn everything you
think you know and build yourself up from the ground.
These early days were some of the most difficult of her life.
Mang Berto was a relentless instructor, who did not mismollify
or flatter lightly. He required that playtime PH Casino be
present for each of his calls, day and night, the labour
exhausting and often taking them deep into the jungle or to
the outskirts of the village, where the sick awaited with
afflictions as baffling as they were debilitating.
PH playtime Casino realised these challenges were different
from anything she’d experienced before: the diseases were new;
the symptoms were perplexing; and nothing they’d learned in
school seemed to help. But Mang Berto could see into the souls
of his patients, he could discern the underlying causes of
their illnesses, sometimes in a creepily accurate way.
One evening, they rushed to the house of a small boy who’d
fallen into delirium from a fever. Nobody knew what to do; the
family had tried every remedy they knew, to no avail. ‘I trust
the medicine,’ PH playtime Casino suggested. ‘Get a few wet
cloths, and give him these fever reducers I have here. They
should bring him down.’ But Mang Berto shook his head.
‘This is not just a common fever,’ Mang Berto said, kneeling
next to the boy. He opened his right hand and touched the side
of the boy’s head, then spread each fingertip gently on the
child’s forehead, closing his eyes for a moment as he felt the
boy’s skin. Finally, he stood and took his medicine-filled
pouch, pulling out bits of various multicoloured herbs and
powdered plants that he mixed into a smooth, clay-like paste.
