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Visiting a healing garden

Den Paradera, a botanic garden in Curaçao, focuses on traditional remedies.

Treatments for colds, insomnia, headache, rheumatism, high blood pressure, asthma, sunburn, eczema, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, stress, fever, stomach complaints, dandruff and hair loss. This sounds like a list of products in a typical North American drugstore but all are traditional plant based remedies in Curaçao.

Fruit of calabash tree (top) is used in medicines & for vessels. A syrup made from calabash & lunara blanku (bottom) is good for a "cold with slime".

Mortar & pestle (top) for mixing medicines. Indigenous calabash (bottom) has small fruit used to to make goblets and spoons. It is also good for washing dogs against ticks.

In January of this year I had the opportunity to visit a botanic garden focused on traditional healing plants. Located in the countryside outside Willemstad, the capital city of Curaçao is Den Paradera (the place where you feel at home). Described as a botanic and historic garden, Den Paradera is owned and operated by a local woman, Dinah Veeris, whom I met briefly in the garden.

When I paid my modest admission fee I received a leaflet for a self-guided tour. This was a typical January day in the Caribbean with a temperature of about 30°C/85°F and I appreciated the cooling features of a small waterfall, a fountain and trees that gave shade.

Some of the remedies seemed a bit more unusual, such as a plant that is mixed with rum to kill head lice and basilicum (basil) that is given to a new baby to maintain a link with the cosmos.

Put a weak plant in a hammock & sing to it. Place a donkey skull in the garden.

Plants too sometimes need special care. I loved the idea of putting a weak plant in a hammock and singing a special song to it. The whole garden will benefit from a donkey skull placed to avert negative energies.

Traditional healer at a bedside.

There were several small buildings with figures depicting traditional life. The garden is homey and its exhibits growing shabby. My wish for Den Paradera is a sponsor who would help with the upkeep but not turn it into a glossy showplace. It was a pleasant morning. I was glad I had visited and glad that Dinah Veeris is preserving the traditional healing knowledge of Curaçao.

Signs are in English, Dutch & Papiamentu. Old tires make surprisingly good tropical bird ornaments even though I am not usually a fan of such décor.

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