Carl Roberts » 2010

Sleeping Beauty and Snake Oil

There is a line from Monty Python which went goes; “Isn’t nature wonderful! Listen to the sound of a cockroach sneezing. Aachoo!” The send up reminds me of my weekend in the Berg and just for the record I do not hate nature. In fact there are very few things I enjoy more than walking in the bush, hiking on a mountain or exploring a cave, albeit I fear heights and expect the overhanging rocks to fall down at any moment. My ignorance of things “natural” was brought into sharp focus when our family spent a night in the Sleeping Beauty cave.

We went with gang of healthy, herby types and I have to admit I was a little intimidated as they all looked rather robust. Especially the women who carried on their backs provisions and bedding for their entire families. They looked like Tensing Norgay carrying Hillary’s camping gear on their ascent of Everest. Fortunately with my considerably lighter pack I, like Hillary, was able to stride out ahead. It also helped me put some distance between me and the two herby doctors as my ability to communicate with the veggie types was limited. My experiences with natural products and natural healers have been unfortunate and now I doubt the potions and lotions they peddle. I might as well have been hiking with a posse of witchdoctors.

Whatever I think matters little as my wife always brings home the expensive, herby, healthy stuff. I think she sees it as insurance. No matter how unlikely, you should take it just in case it is good for you. In case you wonder, I think that inside every woman is a hex who wants to deliver a potion. The brew always seems to be something recycled or made from materials readily available and every month there is a new a new miracle cure for a problem I didn’t think I had. We have been through many; Spirilina, Echinaforce, Propolis Kid, charcoal pills, molasses, flax oil and a host of others whose names I have forgotten. Now, I see her eyeing out those bangles with the holograms which I am convinced is as significant as the cockroach’s sneeze. To say the least, I am sceptical. Bran used to be pig food. I first ate molasses on my grandfathers’ farm as it was used as supplement for cows. Spiro Giro is something that grows most happily in dams on a sewerage farm. I am always a little disbelieving when a cheap and freely available thing becomes expensive and is a cure for almost everything. To my mind it is just another kind of snake oil.

My scepticism was sharpened after I had paid R400 for the magic Blue Myron bottle which I was told was essential for Spirulina. I later discovered that the refill came in the not so magic plastic packet. Personally I have a lot more faith in sleep, food and sex. (It is not an accident that exercise is missing from this list.) All of which were in short supply on this trip and that is when I am most likely to be like one of Sleeping Beautys’ gnomes, Grumpy. In my crabby state I tried to figure out why the cave is called Sleeping Beauty cave. I wondered if it was because we left like the dwarfs Happy and Doc and returned like Grumpy, Dopey, Sneezy and Sleepy. Or. By the time we returned were as smelly, sweaty and dirty as dwarves returning from the mines. At least one witch offered me an apple and naturally there were plenty of potions around.

I must have turned down the apple as I did not sleep a wink. The wind howled, the dust poured into my every orifice and the ground was cold and uncomfortable. I cowered into my sleeping bag and prayed for a fairy godmother to whisk me away but on this occasion there was no pumpkin, no prince and no happy ending. The cure for all my ailments was to found at home where this ogre has gone to considerable lengths to keep nature at bay. There my Sleeping Beauty and this happy dwarf snuggled merrily into a warm, soft bed and slept for what felt like a 100 years.

Perhaps that was the happily ever after.

Regards,
Carl