Interviewer
Alejandra Zavala
Project
Creosote
Summary of Interview
Her name is Carolina Sandoval Maynez, she is from Chihuahua, Chihuahua, she has a really big family and all summers they all go to a ranch on Valle de Allende, where she spends almost 2 months every year of her childhood. She learned a lot from this vacation because workers at the ranch had a lot of knowledge on horses, plants, cleaning, and cooking. The ranch is located near Parral, Chihuahua which is a city 2 hours away from Chihuahua, Chihuahua. At that time the phones and tv weren’t something that kids paid attention to, they would prefer going outdoors and enjoying nature. This story is not that recent but like 10 years ago, she stopped going to the ranch that often and that long because now she is married and she has kids now so it’s not that easy going with the whole family because of school and work. She says 3 sisters, and plus her they were 4 and all of them had their first steps when they were babies in that ranch and that brings her good memories. When it was time for vacation all of the family went to that ranch, including cousins, uncles, and her family, the part of the family that was older such as her mother, her uncles, and grandmother, were from a small town called Valle de Allende, but all of her cousins, sister and she grew up in Chihuahua. Some of the hobbies they had as kids were going to the river and taking a swim or climbing trees, looking for a clover of four leaves, looking for very tiny flowers of the color yellow that they used as an accessory that flowers grew in a plant called Gobernadora. The Gobernadora was a very bad-looking plant but the birds used that plant as a nest so her mother told her that they needed to take care of that plant because it was the home of the little birds. There was a person that used that plan as a cure and asked her mother for permission to use that plant called Gobernadora, that plant was a very common plant on the ranch even though that plant grew on the side of the river, on the side of the highway and even on the backyard, was a very good plant. The person that used that plant was called a wizard. They use that plant to cure any type of pain in any part of the body. One time her sister fell down and then the wizard cured her pain using that plant. After that incident, the wizard started showing her mother how to use that plant as a cure, even when the time passed and they were older they used to boil that plant in order to cure pain. The use of that plan stayed on the family as traditional medicine and that medicine will help them relieve any type of pain, she even uses that plant as a medicine for her own children. She even used that planned acid treatment because she couldn’t have kids. She went to the doctor and they didn’t know the cause of why she couldn’t get pregnant but she started using that plant as a treatment and helped her to have her kids. She can’t explain how that treatment works but after two months of being on the treatment of using the plant she finally got pregnant. After she gave birth the plant functioned as a medicine for her pain in her belly. Her cousin used it as a treatment for bad odor on his feet and worked very well. Her family uses Gobernadora for everything, her mother uses it as a pomade for her hands and she uses it for her knee pain. She mentions that not everyone has the same face on that plant because it’s not a medical treatment that is approved by doctors but her family as many others believe and have faith in that plant, and even her family prefers to use that plant instead of any kind of drugs or pain relievers because they say that he can be aggressive. She mentions that your family not only has faith in the Gobernadora but in every other plan that you can use as a medical treatment, of any kind. She tells a story of when one of her children went to a camp and accidentally he drops on himself a pot of coffee, and a woman came to the camp with a plant called, [sábila], most commonly known as Aloe Vera, from the moment that the lady put that plan juice on his son's arm it was an immediate reaction of a pain reliever and heal her son to cure faster. She says that the plant can be very strong enough to clean a car‘s battery but at the same time it can be very gentle to cure your pain. She mentions that she will prefer to use a plant as a medicine instead of going to the pharmacy and buying drugs that a doctor prescribed her. Details another story with the plant called Gobernadora, that one time one of her children got stung by a bee and they rub it and the pain was gone almost immediately, she mentions another story of her children getting stung by an ant in the used a piece of garlic for the pain and it worked perfectly. She mentions that her kids learned a lot from the range such as driving a car, hunting, swimming, fishing and many animal names.
Date of Interview
11-14-2012
Length of Interview
53 minutes
Listen to the Interview
Tape Number
No. 1698
Transcript Number
No. 1698
Length of Transcript
42 pages
Transcriber
Roberto Cristoforo
Interview Number
No. 1698
Terms of Use
Unrestricted
Recommended Citation
Interview with Carolina Sandoval Maynez by Alejandra Zavala, 2012, "Interview no. 1698," Institute of Oral History, University of Texas at El Paso.
Comments
Transcripts are in both English and Spanish