Island herbalist preserves traditional Caribbean cures

By Brian Ellsworth Wed Jul 2, 10:41 AM ET

CERRO GRANDE, Curacao (Reuters Life!) - For years Dinah Veeris ignored the traditional Caribbean medicine of her native Curacao, but while recovering from an operation she found only her mother's teas eased her stomach pains.

Casual chats with her mother about the herbs in her garden turned into a five-year study of herbal medicine that took Veeris from the island of Curacao through the mountains of nearby Aruba and Bonaire isles, just north of Venezuela.

"There was so much knowledge that I started to do an investigation with older people. They went with me to the mountains to teach me how to use the plants," she said.

Veeris, a former teacher, also collected native plants threatened by Curacao's economic development. In 1994 she opened a garden outside the capital of Willemstad to preserve herbal medicine and the traditions of an island of 130,000 residents that is a self-governing part of the Netherlands.

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