Traditional Therapy Field Trip
By the MYP 4-5 Class
This past Thursday, the MYP 4/5 class visited a local Dukun Patah (bone doctor) and Oukup (traditional therapeutic sauna) as part of their traditional health and human physiology unit.
At the Dukun Patah’s clinic, we met with three of his patients and were taken on rounds while he changed dressings and talked us through the injuries and how the treatments were proceeding. We learned that a lot of the injuries he deals with are a result of motor vehicle collisions, so please be careful out there! Setting the bones did have a lot of similarities to what one would encounter in a hospital, but some things differed quite a lot. For example, minyak Karo (Karonese medicinal oil) is used to aid in healing and splints are used instead of a cast. A surprise came when we learned that patients stayed with the Dukun Patak for months to heal from their injuries, sometimes longer if they ignored the Dukun’s instructions and continued to put stress on the broken bones. After visiting patients, we went outside to see how minyak Karo, the key medicine of the traditional healer, is produced.
Then we were off to the Oukup. We were shown the plants, including ginger, lengkuas, and kunyit, that would be used as part of our therapeutic sauna experience. We were introduced to the long…long list of ailments that could be treated with Oukup. We helped grind the herbs and saw how they would be added to the tanks that would be heated and used to produce steam. As the herbs started to cook down and the steam started to seep into the Oukup several of our courageous students and teachers prepared for their sauna experience. Once inside the individual steam rooms, the air filled with thick fragrant steam and after a few minutes, it was so thick that it was hard to see half a meter away. As the sweat started pouring, and the herbal scents sunk into us, it certainly felt calming. Some students only lasted a few minutes in the steam, but most enjoyed the full experience.
This field trip was a unique experience and gave us a fresh perspective on traditional medicine. We would like to thank Dukun Patah P. Guru Singa for sharing his knowledge with us, and we recommend unwinding at Golden Eleven’s Oukup (just around the corner from the school on Jl. Jamin Ginting) for a bit of steamy therapy.
