I asked some locals (in a dialect I only recently became familiar and fluent with) where I might find the healer. A young kid was told by an adult male who I assumed was his father to guide me through a path. I was led to a small hut where an elderly lady was doing what seems to be sifting though rice grains. Separating stray awns from the polished grains before they get cooked. For supper, probably. Her graying hair was poised in a bun over her head and some loose, wiry strands fell to hide portions of her wrinkled face. She was dressed in old tattered clothes as though she wasn't expecting any visitor soon.

She raised her head and brushed a lock of hair away from her face to reveal kind, dark eyes as she laid down her bilao when we drew near. The kid went ahead in a sprint and told the old lady I was looking for her. I asked her if she was the healer for which I got a nod in response. I thanked the kid, gave him a candy I had been carrying in my pocket, and with a cheery, toothy smile, he ran back up the path without looking back. She had me sit beside her on a bench made of old wood. I told her about my ear: symptoms, what it felt like, time line, and stuff. She peered inside it and muttered something barely audible. She turned around to get a folded newspaper that wrapped several near-dried leaves. From the layers of paper wrapping, she took a sheet and had me secure the page over my palms. She had me rest the back side of the same hand over my left shoulder (just under my left ear region) like telling me I should expect to catch something with the paper soon.

What happened next came like a bit of a shock. She crumpled a leaf and began rubbing in cautious circular motions around the infected ear area. I heard a pattering on the paper I was holding and took a sideways glance to see what made the sound. I saw small pebbles, most in the size of your regular Nerds candy, in different shades of grey and black. She explained that the stones had been the impurities causing most of my pain. They were not in stone form while inside of me but the healing process transforms these impurities as they are drawn out of a human body. There were probably six or seven of them from what I could remember. I stared in awe. It's just like magick, I thought.

I felt weird. The pain did not stop then but I felt weird. I expected the pebbles (from the stories I heard) but her next action caught me offguard. She took a smaller leaf from her stash and rolled it between her hands to resemble a pipe with a diameter no wider than a regular cigarette stick. She inserted it in my ear hole and told me to wait and alert her in the event that I felt something moving inside.

Several seconds passed and still no wiggly sensation. Weird. I decided to lie and tell her I felt something even though there was nothing. With a gentle motion, she pulled the leaf out. On instinct, I turned my head towards her to look at the leaf pipe. I saw what seemed to be a bug poised perpendicular to the end of the leaf. It was thin, glistening from earwax, and it seemed dead and immobile. More like a worm with legs. She then lit a candle and burned the leaf, insect first. I heard it give off small cracking sounds as it burnt and chared before my eyes.

The events that transpired in this story happened a long time ago to a young student desperate for a cure. I was the student and this is my story.