Just KIS Me: A Neighboring Project focused on Plants and Indigenous Culture
By Kealy Rudersdorf
About eight years ago, Kealy and Ivannia were talking about how they wanted to continue to be strong, badass women. They wanted to support one another and thrive, and step outside the stereotypical woman’s role that is often seen in the Mastatal community. Kealy was once again visiting for a few months from the States and was leaving in a few days so plans needed to happen soon!
The previous year, they had decided to go to the river at night to catch shrimp together--the snakes and darkness under the new moon never scared them off. This year, they were going to bushwhack to the top of La Cangreja National Park mountain. If you have gone in recent years, this was before the path was maintained and the hike was truly an adventure in the jungle. They needed a guide, as neither had ever been. Ivannia suggested her cousin, Solin, who was incredible with the machete and always full of jokes. It was bound to be a great day!
That day marked the very beginning of KIS Botanicals, as Solin described different uses of a variety of plants and Solin and Ivannia shared stories about how their family used the different plants they found along the trail. It was an immemorable day, filled with laughter, love, and the sharing of stories - the same energy we strive to bring with us into KIS Botanicals today!
What is KIS Botanicals?
KIS Botanicals is a growing herbal business, up the road from the well-known Rancho Mastatal. We are focused on the preservation of plant knowledge and culture in the Mastatal/Zapaton region of Costa Rica. As Solin and Ivannia say, our ancestors have a beautiful interwoven history with plants from the rainforest; our goal is to awaken and share this history.
In our project, we make a series of plant-based, herbal products (to heal the skin, aide in sleep…), using recipes we learned from our grandparents and community members. We also provide educational programs for locals and tourists through medicine making workshops, medicinal plant tours, and food-as-medicine classes.
PRODUCTS
Our artisanal products are inspired by tried-and-true recipes. All of our plants are hand-harvested and our products are handmade – by us! We have access to nearly 100 different medicinal plants that Solin farms sustainably, using traditional agriculture and permaculture techniques.
We currently have 8 artisanal herbal products that we absolutely love! These include a skin healing salve, a muscle and bruise salve, a sleep aide tincture, a tincture for colds and flus, a cough tincture, a bug repellent, an immune booster tincture, and a bug bite relief roll-on. There are many more products in the works, for example an aphrodisiac spray, an anti-fungal spray, stomach calming tincture, energy clearing spray, anti-anxiety tincture, etc. With so many plants to choose from, it’s hard to know where to start! As our apothecary grows, we will continue to add to our line of products.
When we start to make a new product, first, Solin and Ivannia remember plant uses they’ve witnessed throughout their lives. In addition, we frequently talk to community elders or remember conversations from years past. With these memories and conversations, we make a list of plants. We spend time trialing recipes and researching to make sure our products are stellar. The stories and memories are shared on the back of our products, so you too can share in the story!
Currently, we are selling our products at our wonderful friends and neighboring projects: Rancho Mastatal, Villas Mastatal, La Iguana Chocolate and La Choza del Mundo.
EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS
We are excited to offer a variety of educational programs. Come, partake in our programs - we can’t wait to learn with you! Here are our current and future offerings:
A Cultural and Medicinal Plant Walking Tour: Come walk leisurely with us while we share with you our local history and culture. We will bring artifacts and stories from our grandparents' lives and describe the uses of many of our medicinal plants. We will provide a tasty and traditional treat or drink!
Medicine Making Workshop: Together, we will enjoy a short leisurely walk to explore medicinal plants. We will share with you an ancestral recipe (or two!). Tradition will be combined with modern herbal techniques. You will leave with an herbal product, made by you!
Food is Medicine – A Traditional Cooking Class: Come to a cooking class, using traditional techniques and foods. Over a wood burning stove, we will share a traditional recipe (or two!), laughs and stories.
In the future, we plan to offer an intensive two-week long course on cultural and medicinal plants. We will offer the opportunity to learn from us and other community members, as well as play and experiment with our farm of medicinal tropical plants. Your teachers will be primary-source voices!
Once we are properly on our feet, we plan to provide classes to the local schools. We will teach students about how their/our ancestors used plants to cook, to clean, and to heal. Students will learn new and old techniques with hands-on lessons and tutorials. We hope that they take these lessons back home with them and share their enthusiasm with their parents and grandparents, calling forth memories and providing inspiration. We are SO excited about providing this service to our community.
Who is KIS Botanicals?
The original KIS Botanical team consists of three people: Ivannia, Solin and Kealy. Ivannia and Solin are cousins and lifelong members of the Mastatal / Zapaton community and grew up learning about the medicinal plants in the area. Ivannia is a wiz in the kitchen. She is the one responsible for processing the plants, making the products, and giving thanks to the plants as we compost them. Solin has been working with plants his entire life, being handed a machete as a 2-year-old. The depth of his plant knowledge, understanding of nature, and love of plants is key to KIS’s success. Kealy has been visiting the Mastatal / Zapaton area for over 11 years, and Solin and Kealy are now married with a baby. Her role in KIS is to research plants, formulate recipes, share her knowledge of making shelf stable herbal products, translate our programs into English, promote KIS with marketing, and give the plants extra love.
Why we started KIS Botanicals?
From the words of Ivannia and Solin: We started KIS because we saw our generation and the following generations pull away from plants and the environment. We witnessed the high schoolers obsessed with their new cell phones and motorcycles, littering the street with their chip wrappers and soda bottles. Our community was changing dramatically. Starting in the late 1980s, houses received electricity, running water, and phones, but also within that same generation, the community received access to the internet, cell phones arrived, and all of a sudden there was almost a motorbike or car per person in town. In most of the United States and Europe, these changes happened over several generations.
We have witnessed a huge disconnect from our ancestors and the understanding of how they lived in harmony with the rainforest. This younger generation has mostly left the area for other opportunities after high school, leaving the community void of a generation. With KIS Botanicals, we hope to show that our ancestor’s way of life continues to have value. We aim to re-awaken our ancestral plant knowledge in the younger generations with our products and educational programs within local schools. We also want to be an example of how to be a successful, locally owned business, making our local economy stronger and more diverse.
How to help us??
We have come a long way from 3 friends bushwhacking to the top of the La Congreja mountain to making KIS Botanicals a reality. To be successful in preserving and sharing our ancestral knowledge, we need your help!! This is what would be most helpful to us:
When you visit Costa Rica, come to the town of Mastatal to buy our products and learn with us by signing up for one of our educational programs.
Help us spread the word. Tell your friends and family about us. If they plan to visit Costa Rica, encourage them to take a workshop or tour with us and check out our products.
DONATE! Keep your eyes peeled. Shortly we will be fund raising to build a Ministry of Health approved processing kitchen. We would greatly appreciate your assistance in reaching this goal!!
Send us love and positive energy.
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Instagram @KISBotanicals
We can be contacted at KISBotanicals@gmail.com.
Thanks for your support! We hope to see you soon.
With love,
Ivannia, Solin and Kealy