I always remember my parents or grandparents using herbs for medicinal purposes when I was younger. I always thought it was fake or that they just made it up. As I grew older, I came to realize that sometimes nature is the best medicine. On the 2nd day, the Close Scholars visited the Jauri Tropical Farm in San Carlos and it resonated a lot with me because of my family's medicine practices. From their uses of lemongrass, bitter leaf, basils and more. Basils are great bug repellents, so one of the first activities we did was crush some by hand and apply it onto our skin. Lemongrass is used to treat colds, flu, pain or inflammation. While listening to all this, I remember when I got COVID earlier this year my dad told me to steep some ginger with honey to drink to help with the pain from the coughs. My dad would also tell me to boil some water and pour it onto lemongrass to create a sauna with its steam so I could inhale the steam into my system and relieve pain. Going to the farm and listening to Costa Rican's way of medicine truly reminds me of my family and makes me appreciate Mother Nature's medicine all the more.
- Chia Yang
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