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market - Feria de los Deseos

The New Year 2008 I started with a tour of the "Feria de los Deseos" - the market's wishes . Every year after Christmas, "Curanderas" after the High Andes of Lima and offer to "market of desires" their services. A "curandera" is an herbalist, healer and shaman. The services offered by the shamans is large: it you read the future in coca leaves or trauma or disease dispel the fact that they emphasize an egg on your body. A guinea pig, or an armadillo fulfill this function: they draw the bad energies and diseases on the individual. as protection and defense of future evils one should wash with a decoction of medicinal flowers, or one buys one of the many charms that are offered for sale. There are amulets against and for all: the protection of home, farm and animal, to ward off illness or theft, a man making love with themselves or to separate a pair of lovers. "You have the amulet in a special place with you keep at home," said the saleswoman. Basically, these are the household, accident and health insurance for the poor. A proper insurance with monthly payments they can afford, but 50 cents an amulet, which is valid for one year - that is in it.

The "market needs" in Lima blend ancient healing knowledge with commercial and cheap superstition. Behind this however is an old wisdom of the Andean nations: a disease is rarely physically limited, but is triggered by trauma or a culprit. When I asked the shaman if they can cure the cough of a 4-year-old girl, she looks at me blankly: "You mean, if you can heal the horrors" - a cough is not simply just a cough, but a visible manifestation of something that is wrong in the soul - and this may be caused by trauma from the outside . Therefore, the shaman take away the trauma. Much of the Andean medicine today we would include under the Western term "psychosomatic".

But the most important is faith: just as the Virgin Mary in Lourdes, only helps those who believe in it, including the Andean medicine will only help those who are not infected too much of Western skepticism.

(from my newsletter El Puente 12)