Hikmet Tunç 

 

VAN-Nezahat Gür, who produces herbal remedies against rising infections, rheumatism and menstrual pains with rising cold due to the coming of winter season, shared her herbal tea recipes. Nezahat has improved the recipes that she learnt from her mother and grandmother and says, “Every woman can reach the healing plants on the mountains during the summer”. 

 

The women of the Neolithic Age symbol 'goddess culture' and 'the granddaughter of the witches you couldn’t burn’ still continue to produce herbal medicines. For centuries, women continue to distribute remedies  by using the female plants just to spite the male-dominated system, which has been producing the alternative scientific inventions that are the stolen by the female mind. Nezahat Gür, who resides in Karşıyaka neighborhood of Van's İpek Yolu district, is just one of these women. Nezahat, who makes natural medicines with natural herbs for many diseases that strengthen the immune system and particularly for colds, flu, high fever, cough, rheumatism, menstrual pains, shared with us the magical words in her prescriptions. 

 

Nezahat's recipes... 

 

Nezahat explained how natural syrups are made for diseases such as bronchitis and asthma that are common with children. The recipe of Nezahat is as follows: “Divide a piece of lemon into four pieces and put in a pot, add one liter of water over it. Then add a handful of thyme and a handful of mint and filter the water after five minutes of boiling. The water that you kept in a closed jar up can be drunk morning and evening with a tea glass. This recipe comforts your breathe. It is also very beneficial for cold and cough.” 

 

If your cough continued after applying this recipe then you can prepare this recipe: “Whittle inside of the black radish. Put a spoonful of ginger and two spoonfuls of honey into the radishes you have dumped. Make three holes under the radish and make it wait for a while. Then take this mixture to a jar, and then eat with a spoon in the morning, after lunch and dinner. 

 

Sharing the recipe made by her mother when she was a child, Nezahat says that this is good for upper respiratory infections: “You can drink mix potted plants like honeysuckle, ginger and mint with honey. Also, boil cinnamon, avocet, ginger, cowpea as a handful of each, and squeeze a lemon over it. After waiting for a while, you can drink water of it. " 

 

 Stating that licorice, sage and lime are very good for cold, Nezahat says, “You can also drink ginger powder with a spoonful of honey. This opens breathe. It relieves your body. They also need to consume the galangal with hot water.” 

 

'They can reach the plants from the mountains' 

 

Stating that she has a unique recipe for womb diseases, cyst, and period diseases for women, Nezahat says that Kurdistan lands are very rich in terms of plantal and adds, “Every woman can reach to the healing plants on the mountains during the summer season. People can go to the tablelands instead of buying expensive spaces from space stores or seeing doctor.” 

 

‘Plants don’t have side-effect’ 

 

Emphasizing that she has never needed the hospitals, Nezahat says, "I don’t say anyone that you shouldn’t go to doctor but I have never gone to doctor because I use herbal medicine. Our children also don’t go to doctor. The antibiotics given by doctor harm other organs of the body when they treat a disease. If herbal medicines are used correctly, there will be no side effects. I am now providing economic support by herbal medicines that I have learned from my mother and grandmother by improving their treatment methods. I also apply natural treatment methods for my own children."