Just KIS Me: A Neighboring Project focused on Plants and Indigenous Culture

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

Year of the Ear: Nursing in the Tropics

Year of the Ear: Nursing in the Tropics

Ashley is one of our 2016 Apprentices in Sustainable Living. She has a Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Florida. This post is about the challenges of nursing in the tropics, common ailments in the community and how these challenges are managed at Rancho Mastatal.  If you would like to learn more about medicine outside of hospital settings, consider joining us this June for our annual Wilderness First Responder Certification.

The sun rises in Mastatal around 5:30 am, and with the light comes a symphony of sound. Buzzing, chirping, and humming act as constant and steady instruments to the jungle orchestra. Every morning without fail they fill the Hankey with music. In the comfort of my bed, I can hear the roosters crowing and a chorus of bird songs. This natural symphony signals the dawn of a new day. But recently many of the residents of Rancho Mastatal have been unable to hear this daily symphony. Tropical ear has literally blocked the music of the jungle.

Halfway through a bowl of breakfast pinto, a student from the visiting Villanova University approaches me with the familiar symptoms of hearing and ear discomfort. David had just returned from a trip to the local waterfall and fell victim to an ear full of trapped water. This condition is called swimmers ear and not ironically is also called tropical ear. What is a nurse to do in the tropics? No otoscope, no problem. Allow the ancient wisdom of observation to begin.

The best way to examine an ear is to pull the ear gently down and away from the face to straighten the ear canal. A headlamp is best for visualizing blockages. "If the gentle pulling of the ear causes pain, then the canal is infected.(1)" A simple recipe, despite limited resources, can be the front line defense for ear infections. "Drop into affected ear 1 spoon of vinegar with 1 spoon of boiled water 3 to 4 times a day. (2)" Fortunately, an ear infection is not what David has. My headlamp has spotted a crusted golden plug. "The ear canal cleans itself by moving dead skin from the eardrum out through the canal as if they were on a conveyor belt. Accumulated debris and earwax tends to trap water that gets into the ear canal during a shower or while swimming. The resulting wet, softened skin in the ear canal is more easily infected by bacteria and fungi. (2)"

David looks around nervously, aware his classmates are peering into his ear with me. Their faces scrunch up with amusement and wonder. David's ear needs to be irrigated. We sit at a bench around the corner and he comfortably lays down. I proceed to place 10 drops of mineral oil into his affected ear. His classmates are commenting on the size of David's golden wax build up.

If mineral oil is not present in your community any natural oil is a good substitute. The oil needs to be in the ear for 10 minutes to break up the earwax. With the help of his classmates' good company, the 10 minutes flies by. When you irrigate an ear, warm water is important. Using an irrigation syringe, I gently flush his ear. With his classmates on my heels, I feel them starting to lose hope as I continued to flush and flush. I gave his ear a grand finale flush and the golden treasures came pouring out. The "ohs" and "ahs" of his classmates shortly follow. David faces us with a look of confusion. "I can hear again!" He says remarkably as he catches a glimpse of the golden nuggets that left his ear. 

Nursing in a small community has its challenges. With limited resources you are forced to get crafty. Books supplement my medical knowledge. The realm of Google and quick answers is unavailable. The lack of privacy can be daunting; as the majority of treatments are centered around meal times. The main house is the keeper of the medical supplies and the maker of all meals. Still, when David full force hugs me, I can feel his appreciation osmose into my body, up to my face where it turns into a smile. He thanks me for opening his ears to the symphony he's been missing. I've learned in the short time I've been part of this community that together we are capable of some very amazing things. 

(1) Berkow, Robert M.D., The Merck Manual of Medical Info, 1997

(2) Werner, David. Where There is No Doctor: a Village Health Care Handbook, 1992.

Ashley Chow

NEWS AND NOTES

We have a number of life changing workshops coming up.

• The Art and Practice of Live Culture Fermentation--May 10th to 13th

• Wilderness First Responder--June 8th to 17th

• Sustainable Homestead Design--June 22nd to 26th

Please share around if you know anyone who is ready for a trip to beautiful Costa Rica, a swim in the waterfalls, nourished with homemade meals, and challenged with an intensive educational experience.

Abrazos,

The Ranch Crew