Just before dinner last night I heard my 4 year old daughter scream in pain in the adjacent house. Now as a hands on parent I know what screaming in pain is, there is a possibility of real injury and you had better find out quick where the injury is. Luckily I have a good ear when it comes to children’s talk. My daughter pointed to her right foot. I had her sit and show me the sole of her right foot. There was a big ugly angled gash carved out on the sole of her foot, some 1 centimeter on each side.
Immediately her 5 year old brother explained that my daughter had stepped on a playing block. Then I noticed they had tied ribbon strings on a small 2 inch lego type block each and were playing fishing. Unfortunately my 4 year old girl stepped on the block at a bad angle while barefoot and thus the resulting gash.
Presence of mind. Where is that dried cayenne pepper bottle? It should be in the kitchen rack… and it was. So I opened the cayenne pepper bottle and grabbed a palmful of dried cayenne pepper and slapped it on the bleeding gash under the sole of her right foot. Our cook was nearby and I asked for a hankerchief. With my wife holding our girl, my cook helping me tie the hankerchief on her right foot to keep the dried cayenne pressure on the right sole of her foot.
Our 4 year old did not seem to mind nor care that we did put cayenne pepper. She found some relief but still could not walk on it. So we had dinner, she lost her appetite and only had a mango for dinner. She had to be carried to bed and she wanted to retire early. Her nannie put a sock on her foot to keep the hankerchief and the dried cayenne pepper intact.
Next morning at 6am my 4 year old daughter asked that the sock and the hankerchief be removed. She said she was fine. I did remove her sock and hanky and inspected her wound. It was obviously still there but she said she could walk fine with it.
Now that is the power and the speed of cayenne pepper. Locally we call it “sili”. A lesson was imprinted in the minds of my children, that when you have a wound, the very first item to reach for is cayenne pepper. To stop bleeding wounds, dried cayenne pepper. For puncture wounds, get fresh cayenne pepper and jam it in the puncture wound.
Here is a picture of our dried cayenne pepper.
Dried Cayenne Pepper
Here is a picture of my daughter’s wound.
Whole foot view with gash
Close up of gash showing the wound after 12 hours of application of dried cayenne pepper. Now able to walk fine without pain.
Here is a picture of fresh cayenne pepper we currently have. I’m ready to make cayenne tincture on Tuesday with it.
This is what 1 kilo of cayenne pepper looks like