To my infinite chagrin, frustration, and general delight Honduras is a country filled with folk knowledge and customs. Imagine if every person you encountered from age 2 to 102 constantly tried to give you advice, insights, and play-by-play (sometimes solicited, other times not so much) on your current state. That is Honduras. If you walk in to a room and mention that your stomach hurts, I can guarantee you that every person present will share their opinion about your state as well as their advice as to how to alleviate said stomachache. There are some occasions where a room full of people you hardly know ends up talking about how you have had diarrhea for a week and what plants you need to go out and boil to cure yourself. I really like this aspect of Honduran culture because it is a good way to get to know people and become instant friends…Honduran folk knowledge!
Drinking hot soda will give you a UTI.
Drinking cold soda (if you have a cold) will make you worse and give you a cough.
If you are a woman, walking barefoot on a cold floor will make your uterus hurt.
Walking barefoot on a cold floor will make your legs ache.
Talking a shower if you are sweaty/hot will make your whole body ache.
Eating hot bread will make your stomach inflated.
Eating bread will give you parasites.
Everyone has parasites all the time and you have to go to the doctor every three months for your anti-parasite vitamin.
If you are “empachado/a” (inflated stomach/indigestion/general stomach problems), you need to get an intense body/stomach massage to basically detoxify (getting “sobar’d”).
There is a pill for every illness (I have never lived in a place where people take more pills constantly than here).
Bus vendors of vitamins and general remedies are worth your time and money. (Selling medicine/vitamins is extremely common on buses here. People just stand up in the aisles and offer packets of pills and vitamins. Sometimes they even have charts of the body and talk about how certain vitamins will improve brain function or help to clean your kidneys. To my distaste, these sellers are wildly successful and people will buy 10 pills of something completely random to help their brains function better or to reduce their anxiety.)
Eating beef soup will cure a hangover on a Sunday (this is 100% true).
Women are more likely to give birth 2-3 days after a new moon.
If you are going to kill a turkey to eat, feed it a glass of firewater/moonshine so it is drunk and easier to kill.
This is just a sampling of the tidbits of things that I hear every day. If you have any special inquiries and want to know if there is any advice from my Honduran friends on how to handle things, just let me know!
