Published in Tico Times on 18 March 2015

It all looked so professional. The healer had a clean-cut face; he wore neat clothes; and lived in a decent house on the outskirts of Matagalpa. But once Pedro saw the bottle with the murky potion, which he had to drink entirely, he started to have doubts. There was a little statue of Christ, looking down on them. Pedro asked what was in the bottle.

“A herbal mix with frogspawn,” the healer said. That was what the evil spirit would attach itself to, he explained. The laxatives on the following day would flush the spirit away.

The next day, they looked at Pedro’s diarrhea.

“You see”, the healer said. “There is the troublemaker. That is the Evil. From now on, you are healthy.”

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