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Leechcraft Fans Keep Poor Albanian in Business
Mon Sep 30, 9:31 AM ET
By Benet Koleka
BERAT, Albania (Reuters) - The man they call the "doctor" is illiterate. He cleans the public toilet and can afford only salads in the summer, beans in the winter and vodka throughout the year.
But come May or August, Kujtim Selami and the leeches he catches for a living are a fashionable commodity in the southern town of Berat, the oldest settlement in poverty-stricken Albania.
Townspeople and outlying villagers alike knock at his door to have leeches applied where their bodies ache, hoping the worm-like creatures will suck out the "bad blood."
Selami refers to the leeches he catches in the marshes near Berat as "pills." He sells them for a pittance on which he ekes out the most meager of existences.
"This is just like changing the oil and filters of a car," said Selami in an attempt at a scientific explanation.
"She cleans the bad because she has a liquid she throws inside your body and sucks out the bad blood."
BENEFICIAL BLOODSUCKERS
The leech is a parasite the size of a man's little finger which clamps itself to the flesh of its host and sucks out blood, injecting a foamy anti-coagulant at the same time.
The backs of the ones Selami sells in Berat are covered in black, red and blue dots and their bellies are a deep green. On a feast of blood they can grow to the size of an adult's middle finger and drop away from the body.
Then, Selami says, they should be disposed of carefully "not to let the bad blood spill out," and be buried.
Leeches were a popular form of medical treatment for centuries throughout Europe, believed to be a cure for anything from headaches to gout, much like in Berat nowadays. But they were discarded with the advent of 20th century medicine.
Now, they are back in vogue as a clean, effective treatment for wounds. Since the 1970s surgeons have regained respect for the little bloodsucker, whose body was seemingly tailor-made for establishing and maintaining blood flow to damaged limbs.
Hospitals need them so much that leeches are being farmed.
Only in Albania, however, can you see them in the market.
When Selami sits by the sidewalk exhibiting his writhing leeches in glass jars and looking at women's legs, his thoughts are on sales.
"Leeches are very good for bulging veins in the backs of the legs. But the women are afraid of using them," he said.
He used to sell leeches at about 100 leks (70 cents) each but competition from two other leech-catchers from Berat forced him to cut the price to 30 or even 20 leks.
Sipping his glass of cheap vodka with a trembling hand, Selami says he may break even at the end of the month or have as much as four dollars left over.
He splits the work and the proceeds with Shame Karavolli, a broad featured man whose job it is to sell the leeches on the market when Selami is out hunting in the marshes.
In Berat people apply leeches for illnesses such as high blood pressure, hemorrhoids, skin afflictions and boils.
A local engineer said he took the treatment in addition to mainstream medicine to lower his cholesterol level "because even respected doctors and pharmacists told me to go ahead and friends told me they felt relaxed after the cure."
"It felt just like the light pricking of a bee for 45 minutes and I have to admit I felt better," he said.
Selami says old people take his cure regularly even when they are in good form.
BY THE FISTFUL
He reaches the leech marshes through a field full of oil well pumps. His hand stops trembling, his lost look focuses on the pond and he starts stirring the water with his legs and hands.
A few minutes later, his fist comes out full of what looks like thick, writhing worms which he detaches with difficulty.
He returns to his bare room, a bed and table full of plastic and glass containers. He bottles his catch in plain water, no more than 20 at a time "because they might eat each other."
"Last year I had 30 live for one year by changing their water every day," Selami said, smiling with pride at this rare feat of leechcraft.
Despite being the only respectable leech man in town, he has not yet achieved the status of his teacher "Sadik The Leech," who died 30 years ago.
But while Sadik is enshrined only in memory, an Albanian national daily has devoted a small story to Selami, which he cut out and keeps in his jacket pocket.
"This is about me but I cannot read. I have had it read to me, but I guess that is nothing compared to reading it myself."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...3&e=4&u=/nm/20020930/od_nm/albania_leeches_dc
sakina:blah::hmph:
Mon Sep 30, 9:31 AM ET
By Benet Koleka
BERAT, Albania (Reuters) - The man they call the "doctor" is illiterate. He cleans the public toilet and can afford only salads in the summer, beans in the winter and vodka throughout the year.
But come May or August, Kujtim Selami and the leeches he catches for a living are a fashionable commodity in the southern town of Berat, the oldest settlement in poverty-stricken Albania.
Townspeople and outlying villagers alike knock at his door to have leeches applied where their bodies ache, hoping the worm-like creatures will suck out the "bad blood."
Selami refers to the leeches he catches in the marshes near Berat as "pills." He sells them for a pittance on which he ekes out the most meager of existences.
"This is just like changing the oil and filters of a car," said Selami in an attempt at a scientific explanation.
"She cleans the bad because she has a liquid she throws inside your body and sucks out the bad blood."
BENEFICIAL BLOODSUCKERS
The leech is a parasite the size of a man's little finger which clamps itself to the flesh of its host and sucks out blood, injecting a foamy anti-coagulant at the same time.
The backs of the ones Selami sells in Berat are covered in black, red and blue dots and their bellies are a deep green. On a feast of blood they can grow to the size of an adult's middle finger and drop away from the body.
Then, Selami says, they should be disposed of carefully "not to let the bad blood spill out," and be buried.
Leeches were a popular form of medical treatment for centuries throughout Europe, believed to be a cure for anything from headaches to gout, much like in Berat nowadays. But they were discarded with the advent of 20th century medicine.
Now, they are back in vogue as a clean, effective treatment for wounds. Since the 1970s surgeons have regained respect for the little bloodsucker, whose body was seemingly tailor-made for establishing and maintaining blood flow to damaged limbs.
Hospitals need them so much that leeches are being farmed.
Only in Albania, however, can you see them in the market.
When Selami sits by the sidewalk exhibiting his writhing leeches in glass jars and looking at women's legs, his thoughts are on sales.
"Leeches are very good for bulging veins in the backs of the legs. But the women are afraid of using them," he said.
He used to sell leeches at about 100 leks (70 cents) each but competition from two other leech-catchers from Berat forced him to cut the price to 30 or even 20 leks.
Sipping his glass of cheap vodka with a trembling hand, Selami says he may break even at the end of the month or have as much as four dollars left over.
He splits the work and the proceeds with Shame Karavolli, a broad featured man whose job it is to sell the leeches on the market when Selami is out hunting in the marshes.
In Berat people apply leeches for illnesses such as high blood pressure, hemorrhoids, skin afflictions and boils.
A local engineer said he took the treatment in addition to mainstream medicine to lower his cholesterol level "because even respected doctors and pharmacists told me to go ahead and friends told me they felt relaxed after the cure."
"It felt just like the light pricking of a bee for 45 minutes and I have to admit I felt better," he said.
Selami says old people take his cure regularly even when they are in good form.
BY THE FISTFUL
He reaches the leech marshes through a field full of oil well pumps. His hand stops trembling, his lost look focuses on the pond and he starts stirring the water with his legs and hands.
A few minutes later, his fist comes out full of what looks like thick, writhing worms which he detaches with difficulty.
He returns to his bare room, a bed and table full of plastic and glass containers. He bottles his catch in plain water, no more than 20 at a time "because they might eat each other."
"Last year I had 30 live for one year by changing their water every day," Selami said, smiling with pride at this rare feat of leechcraft.
Despite being the only respectable leech man in town, he has not yet achieved the status of his teacher "Sadik The Leech," who died 30 years ago.
But while Sadik is enshrined only in memory, an Albanian national daily has devoted a small story to Selami, which he cut out and keeps in his jacket pocket.
"This is about me but I cannot read. I have had it read to me, but I guess that is nothing compared to reading it myself."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...3&e=4&u=/nm/20020930/od_nm/albania_leeches_dc
sakina:blah::hmph: