Would You?

One of the announcements today before the mass service was about sharing.

If you're from where I come from, there will be a blood donation activity on the 10th of October from 7:00 am to12:00 nn at the Sta Cruz, Laguna Parish Church grounds. This activity is organized by our local parish church in coordination with the Philippine Red Cross.

If you need further information, please go to the parish office.

Just a thought. I am assuming that this is a campaign launched in line with the need for blood lately because of so many dengue cases. But, we should bear in mind that donating blood is not only for these occasion. There is just a big need right now because of the outbreak.

Another Natural Dengue Fighter

I just got off the phone talking to my cousin from the States. Of course, after the brief 'how's everyone' one topic after another follows. And who wouldn't talk about dengue? After a lot of people have been confined and treated at hospitals, it seems to me that the problem is still there.

A good friend of mine was not saved after all. No, not her. But her husband, her middle daughter and youngest son were all confined the past two weeks all of the same cause.

So, my cousin shared what she read over the internet. She told me that our very own talbos ng kamote (Sweet Potato Greens or Ipomea Batatas) is said to be one of the nature's answers to the disease. So, I googled and found the link to what she shared. Go to this website here, Sense & Serendipity: Some Amazing Local Leafy Greens and find out more on how this can help your patient fight the dreaded dengue which won't seem to go away.

But going back to preventive measuresinstead of cure, like my previous post here about tanglad (lemongrass), I think that what we really need to do is to keep our environment free of stagnant waters and things like old tires which could be home for these mosquitoes to reproduce and multiply.

I have observed that many of our households today do not clean their yards anymore using our good, old, reliable walis tingting (a local broom made out of the spine of the coconut leaves). When I was in Dubai, I was kind of frustrated not having to find walis tingting to clean our open-air kitchen free of water that I used to wash out the floor. There was a plastic broom and this thing that wipes away the water very similar to a car's wiper, but nothing does it better than the walis tingting.

Maybe it's really time for us to get back to some of our old ways, to eat some of our local plants. I believe it won't harm us all if just try. After all, we still get some benefits out of this talbos ng kamote aside from fighting dengue.

Nature's Insect Repellant

the Lemongrass in front of our home

I was doing some research about Filipino herbs, particularly the lemongrass, or more commonly known locally as tanglad, or salay to some.

One interesting fact is this plant could help us shoo away mosquitoes in our house. At this point in time that dengue is becoming a big problem in our country, I think we need all those things we need to fight these mosquitoes from getting anywhere near us.

True. These mosquitoes could be anywhere in the market, at your children's school grounds, at the back of your office, or in the corridors of the church.

But still, we need all things, any thing that could help us prevent these flies from coming near us.

Lemongrass is said to be a natural mosquito repellant. At least, we won't need a handful of Off! Lotion on our body when we are within the four corners of our home. According to the Filipino website, philippineherbalmedicine.org, all you have to do is place crushed lemongrass leaves in places around your home; on window sills and near entrances. It's a plus if you already have this grass anywhere near your house or in your backyard.
We have this grass in front of our house. It's not really very hard to reproduce this plant. We bought a small plant from the Anilag Fesitval last March and we have been able to plant this across our yard and right now, we are already growing a good number in front. All you have to do is get a portion with its roots and let it grow by itself. As my dad says, it's not going to be very hard because, since it belongs to the grass family, it won't be hard to maintain.

If you're interested in planting lemongrass in your yard and you live near my place, click on contact me and leave your message. I'll give you a shoot to start with once we arranged a meet-up.