My chucake

I was standing, paintbrush lifted in front of our world map mural when it hit me like a wave pool: crippling, urgent nausea.

It was 4:30 p.m., and I had to walk the 2 kilometers to my house under the pounding heat with 10 pounds worth of paint in my backpack. People wished me a good afternoon as I stumbled past. I waved half-heartedly, often without direction, and tried not to empty my stomach on the sidewalk.

When I got to my bed, I collapsed. My tiny fan blew on my face, and I clutched my pillow in one hand and a small plastic tub in the other.

I thought it could have been the raw veggies I had for lunch or perhaps SODIS water gone wrong. My host mom, however, had no doubts. I had chucake.

Chucake, or extreme shame or embarrassment, is believed to physically manifest itself into sickness or pain. The nausea and pain I had in my stomach was caused not by a virus or bacteria, but by a meeting I had had that morning where my counterpart bailed and the youth misbehaved.

After making me some chamomile tea, she told me she was bringing her mother-in-law in to bless me, and was that all right?

I nodded, too sick to object.

Panchita, my host grandmother, is a small and happy woman, who was quick to warm to me. She eased herself onto my bed, and lifted up my shirt. She rubbed menthol over my abdomen in a circular motion, stopping every minute or so to pray. As she said her Our Fathers and Hail Marys, her lips mouthed the words silently as she repeatedly made the sign of the cross over me.

When she left, I thanked her profusely and lay back down.

A little while later, a neighbor came in with her young daughter. She did the same thing, rubbing my skin in patterned motions and praying over me quietly. She pressed her fingers deep into my stomach and nodded to my host mother.

“Oh yes, she has chucake all right,” she told her. “Her insides are jumping.”

When she had finished, she stood in my doorway discussing the situation with my host mom. As I had emptied my stomach moments before she arrived, I was actually feeling a little better, but my host mom was horrified when she found out I had thanked my host grandmother.

“No, no, no,” she scolded me. “You’re never supposed to thank those who bless you when you have chucake.”

I figured the chucake would go easy on me, seeing as I was new to this whole thing and had no idea. But my host mother was beside herself and ran to get a lemon for me to smell.

“Whom else can we bring?” she muttered to herself over and over.

There was an old man who has miracle hands, she said, very good at blessing people — but would a man give me more embarrassment.

“If he’s old, no,” I assured her. She smiled and quickly ran to go get him.

The man who arrived was about 75 years old and short with a single patch of gray in a sea of jet black hair.

He, too, lifted my shirt and rubbed my abdomen with menthol, digging his rough hands well into my insides. It hurt. I seriously thought I was going to have bruises the next day. But just as abruptly as he had started, he stopped. And without speaking, walked out of the room.

“Was it chucake?” My host mother asked.

“Oh yes,” the old man replied. “Who would possibly give the poor gringa chucake?”

When he left, she instructed my host brother to get me a glass of red soda and lemon.

“It has to be red,” she told me. “Red is the counter to chucake.”

You also aren’t allowed to take any medications, she added, as they are the enemy of chucake. My family told me stories of children who had been brought to the health center and given an injection, only to die because the real cause had been chucake.

But I don’t feel embarrassed, I had told them. They dismissed my protests with a wave of their hands.

In Peace Corps, you often have to make the choice between being open-minded and sticking to your guns. That night, after several more times of my body ridding itself of every last thing in my stomach, I took a Dramamine and went to bed.