“Ventosas are a tremendous treatment for getting rid of aigre from various places in the body. Sometimes it gets into the shoulders and back, not only in the stomach! I do ventosas to treat my patients who have rheumatism, too. Candles, as we know, are very special for helping us with our prayers and the ventosa requires the use of a candle. In the old days, I used candles that were brought from the church, but now I use store-bought candles. If I remember I take them to be blessed by the priest and if I can’t do that, I dip them in holy water, and when I can’t get to the church to have the priest do it, I just say an Our Father over a jar of water. A small candle is placed on a penny on the troublesome spot on the patient’s body. Steadily, you light the candle. Then you place a clear glass directly over the lit candle. You will see how it sucks out the mal. You can repeat this as many times as you like until the patient feels some relief.” Mal de ojo (evil eye): “This is something that is usually given to children, mostly infants and sometimes even to one that is still in its mother’s womb. People don’t usually give mal de ojo on purpose. It comes from admiring the child too much and the way to prevent making the child sick, as we all know, is to simply touch it, a little stroke of the manita or a pat on the head y ya. The parent understands and you will be free of worry that you have made the baby sick because you admired it too much. When I have seen a pregnant woman who has mal de ojo I recommend for her to eat the meat of a black hen. Usually the black hen is not a good thing for people to eat, it is more for the use of cleansing and to be thrown away, but because of the daño caused to her child within, it is not too potent for her. In the case of children, I lay the little child down, arms spread in the form of a cross, to diagnose whether it is mal de ojo or not. While I rub an egg over his little body I pray the Apostle’s Creed, and always I say at least one Our Father. It doesn’t hurt to commend oneself to the Virgen Maria either, by the way. Afterward, I break the egg into a clear jar of water and leave the jar with the egg underneath the child’s bed for the night, right under where his little head rests. In the morning, if it is mal de ojo, you will see the “eye” there—in the form of a clotted substance that clings to the yolk. If the white has risen high up, the mal de ojo was given to the child by a man. If the white stuff stays around the rim, it was a woman. Then you take the jar and throw the contents in the toilet—or if you are out where you can dispose of them in a river or ditch, do that. Just get rid of it for good.”