DISCOVER!-Rosita Arvigo

Rosita is dedicated to the preservation of the science and art of traditional Mayan herbal healing for the benefit of the people of Belize and the world.

About "Dr. Rosita"

In 1981, Dr. Rosita Arvigo, an American doctor of naprapathy, moved with her husband and family to Belize, where they were determined to start a farm in the jungles of Western Belize and establish a natural healing clinic. "Dr. Rosita" (as she is fondly known in Belize) had studied herbal medicine in Mexico, and she began to hear stories of an old Mayan traditional healer who was reknown for his ability seriously ill patients. Two years after her arrival, Dr. Rosita finally met 86 year old Don Elijio Panti, who eventually became her teacher. For ten years, Dr. Rosita studied and learned from Don Eligio the art of traditional Mayan natural healing. She also studied and learned the Mayan spiritual traditions that are an integral part of Don Eligio's tradition.

The 35 acre farm on which the family grew their food, as well as her healing herbs, was named Ix Chel Farms, in honor of the Mayan Goddess of Healing.  To this day Rosita has kept her promise to her mentor Don Elijio to preserve the knowledge and traditions he passed down to her so they would not be lost and to take care of his people when he was gone. Sadly, Don Elijio died in February of 1996. His death was mourned throughout the world. But, Rosita has remained in Belize passing on the Mayan healing traditions to the next generation through her Children's Bush Camp.  She established Rainforest Remedies, a company that prepares and distributes herbal remedies and medicines from the tropical forests of Belize and Mayan medicinal traditions.

Not only has Rosita's life's work kept Mayan medicine alive, but she has been instrumentally responsible for cataloging and preserving hundreds of healing plants and trees through her work with Michael Balick and the Belize Ethnobotany project, the creation of the Tera Nova Rainforest Reserve and the Traditional Healers Foundation.

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Rosita Continues her dream and work...

"My goals right now are to touch the lives of as many young children as possible, particularly in Belize and Central America. I feel that if we can affect the lives of children, to get them to understand the value of the plants in their environment and the value of the cultural backgrounds that they come from. If you teach them the plants and they learn about their own cultures they will learn about the importance of the earth. Through our summer Children’s Bush Medicine Camps, we are being very effective with teaching children about the value of the plants that grow in their backyard, and the value of talking to their grandparents about home remedies for things like earaches. We show them how to treat earaches with plants, how to take care of kitchen burns or sunburn with herbal remedies and herbal baths. So it's a way of linking children and the land and plants. So my hope is to inspire as many children as possible to become traditional healers or to consider careers with plants, like forestry, agriculture. There are many possibilities. Besides becoming a traditional healer, they could become plant gatherers for traditional healers, especially those who feel they don’t want to go on to university level, there are many careers in the forest that young people can have and do very well, be successful and serve a real purpose and make a contribution to the world as well."  

Rosita Arvigo