Serpent-Spirits

My neighbour was right; the hailstorm did hit our village, and came with big amounts of rain that washed out the fields and many of the houses were damaged. The worst part was that it damaged the only bridge that came into our village. Many of the builders and other villagers spent much of their time fixing the bridge, and thankfully we have been restored access to and from our village.

When my neighbour returned from his journey to collect the amulets, I took a few days to help him restore his farm. During that time I learned a lot more about the skill, and I planted my own produce for my uncle and I.

The saying “after the storm, comes the calm” does not exactly apply in our case, unfortunately. My uncle and I have become very busy and gotten a lot of business from local and passing doctors and ritualist. The village next to us has caught a naga illness, and it is spreading quickly.

I’ve learned in my classes that nagas are the serpent-spirits who could spread bad things onto people and the disease of leprosy. Leprosy is thought of as a psychiatric condition that focuses on how humans negative thoughts and actions and the karma following will never end, or be cured. Our innate need to do bad creates mental illnesses. In our culture, these illnesses are brought upon us because of karma of past lives of individuals or the community themselves. Therefore, I believe that this village has probably done something terribly wrong in the past…

Although we are getting good business, I still have doubts that maybe we shouldn’t be sending over our own doctors with our own resources to help a village that just received their karma from past actions. I’m continuously thinking about this, and my uncle explained to me that, whether or not the village deserved this outbreak, it is our responsibility as neighbours, as a community, to help, and from this we can receive good karma as well.

My uncle is right, and we should help. I just hope we don’t run out of medicine necessary…