Okonkwo turned on his side and went back to sleep. He was roused in the morning by someone banging on his door.
“Who is that?” he growled. He knew it must be Ekwefi.
Of his three wives Ekwefi was the only one who would have the audacity to bang on his door. “Ezinma is dying,” came her voice, and all the tragedy and sorrow of her life were packed in those words.
Okonkwo sprang from his bed, pushed back the bolt on his door and ran into Ekwefi’s hut. Ezinma lay shivering on a mat beside a huge fire that her mother had kept burning all night. “It is iba,” said Okonkwo as he took his machete and went into the bush to collect the leaves and grasses and barks of trees that went into making the medicine for iba.
Ekwefi knelt beside the sick child, occasionally feeling with her palm the wet, burning forehead.
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Okonkwo returned from the bush carrying on his left shoulder a large bundle of grasses and leaves, roots and barks of medicinal trees and shrubs. He went into Ekwefi’s hut, put down his load and sat down.
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“Get me a pot,” he said, “and leave the child alone.”
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Ekwefi went to bring the pot and Okonkwo selected the best from his bundle, in their due proportions, and cut them up. He put them in the pot and Ekwefi poured in some water. “Is that enough?” she asked when she had poured in about half of the water in the bowl. “A little more… I said a little. Are you deaf?” Okonkwo roared at her.
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She set the pot on the fire and Okonkwo took up his machete to return to his obi.
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“You must watch the pot carefully,” he said as he went, “and don’t allow it to boil over. If it does its power will be gone.” He went away to his hut and Ekwefi began to tend the medicine pot almost as if it was itself a sick child. Her eyes went constantly from Ezinma to the boiling pot and back to Ezinma.
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Okonkwo returned when he felt the medicine had cooked long enough. He looked it over and said it was done.
“Bring me a low stool for Ezinma,” he said, “and a thick mat.”
He took down the pot from the fire and placed it in front of the stool. He then roused Ezinma and placed her on the stool, astride the steaming pot. The thick mat was thrown over both. Ezinma struggled to escape from the choking and overpowering steam, but she was held down. She started to cry.
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When the mat was at last removed she was drenched in perspiration. Ekwefi mopped her with a piece of cloth and she lay down on a dry mat and was soon asleep.
My Comment:
Those leaves have high quinine contents. The steam cleans the nasal passage flushing all viruses.
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