Interview with Aleya Fraser

I just finished watering the garden and now I'm eager to share with you an interview of Aleya Fraser, a fascinating woman who wrote Caribbean Herbalism: Traditional Wisdom and Modern Herbal Healing, a book that will be available on June 17. Come back on June 17 for more information about the book and my review.

Jodi: As a child you answered the "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question with "A doctor." But now you're an ethnobotanist. Can you tell us a little about what an ethnobotanist is and how you came to follow that path?

Aleya: Ethnobotany is the study of people and how they relate to the plants around them. It is an interdisciplinary study because an ethnobotanists interests range from indigenous healing systems to agroforestry practices to plant nutrition to phytochemistry and pharmacology. Plants can be considered one of the most, if not the most important basis of human culture. We use them for food, medicine, shelter, entertainment, ritual, clothing and more. Most of this knowledge of how to use plants and commune with them to learn their secrets comes from Indigenous people around the world. It is an ethnobotanist’s job to learn about these topics and share them with the public to further scientific and cultural understanding.

I came to follow this path because while I was applying for medical schools and working as a lab technician at a viral research lab, I was taken over by the notion of food as medicine. I understood from my upbringing, that plants were useful, but I decided that I wanted to deeply study this concept and practice it in my own life. I withdrew my applications to medical school and began working on farms and growing my own food and herbs. Through experience, practice, research and sitting with elders, the world of ethnobotany unfolded in front of me.

When I moved to Trinidad and Tobago, I landed in the middle of an Amazonian rainforest ecosystem that is home to many of the plants studied around the world for their medicinal constituents. This green classroom outside my front door further solidified my path as I became intimately familiar with these ethnobotanically important herbs and trees. I joined the Trinidad and Tobago Field Naturalists Club and various ethnobotanical societies. I spent Wednesday’s at the Library in the National Herbarium of Trinidad and I spent countless hours in the bush (forest) and with elders to deepen my understanding.

Jodi: What is your earliest memory of time spent in the garden?

Aleya: My earliest memory of time spent in a garden is in my Grandmothers garden in south Trinidad. She is still alive at the ripe age of 96 and I am blessed to still be able to spend time in her same garden that I grew up visiting. I remember being 5 or 6, staying with her for the summer, and going into her garden which was full of Moko Fig ( a type of starchy banana used green or ripe). She would harvest Moko and exchange them with neighbors for other fruits like mangos and avocados. It always struck me as the ideal way to eat and live.

Both of my grandmothers loved flowers and had a green thumb so I always remember the beautiful colors of the bougainvillea’s and the different types of hibiscus flowers she always had blooming.

Jodi: Do you have a favorite plant from your book and can you tell us a little about its healing properties?

Aleya: I would have to say Cacao/cocoa is my favorite plant that I talk about and one of my forever muses. It is also the basis of one of my businesses, Panorama Cacao. Cocoa is a very synergistic herb and helps carry other medicines where they like to go in the body. For this reason, I will often mix other herbs in a cocoa tea or healing chocolate bar to maximize effects. From the tree to the leaves to the pods to the seeds to the chocolate bar, the whole tree is medicinal.

Everyone already is well versed in the virtues of dark chocolate, but I like to talk about the lesser-known uses of cocoa that can only be found at source of origin. For example, if you cut yourself in the forest, you can cut or grate the pod and stick to your wound because it is highly styptic (a substance that stops bleeding). This is due to the high presence of tannins. On the other hand, the seeds and finished chocolate products are known to be vasodilators due to the presence of compounds that increase the production of nitric oxide in the blood. This leads to it being known as heart warming because it quite literally opens the vessels leading to and from your heart!

Jodi: Fascinating! I come from Pennsylvania where farm crops are often the very uninteresting potatoes and corn. You've managed farms in Maryland, Virginia, Trinidad and Tobago. Could you tell us what crops were grown on your different farms?

Aleya: I have actually visited a few cool Pennsylvania farms with my work as a produce safety educator for farmers! I tend to work with small scale and diverse vegetable farmers who sell to farmers markets and direct to consumer because that is the type of operation I have always had. When I was an urban farmer in Baltimore, I focused on crops that can be grown in bulk in a small space. This included things like arugula, salad greens, radishes, and strawberries. Then I scaled up and rented 2 acres on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. There we grew almost everything you can find at a farmers’ market from potatoes to tomatoes to kale to carrots and beets. However, what we grew best were sweet potatoes out there

thanks to the fertile, sandy soil.

In Trinidad, I have 20 acres of forested land that was already planted with many edible fruits and plants. So in this case, we are more so managing the forest and planting new trees, instead of short crops. Our main trees are rough skin lemons, Portugal (a type of mandarin),

mangoes, breadfruit, coconut palms, tonka bean, cacao and a few lime trees. We are also focused on planting and propagating important herbs like lemongrass, jack ass bitters, turmeric, and other local important trees like genipa (Genipa americana), roucou (Bixa orellana) and wild breadnut (Pachira insignis).

Jodi: What made you decide to write a book about the healing plants of the Caribbean?

Aleya: Regarding herbal medicine, the Caribbean is a place that should be studied more intentionally. It is well known that many western medicines come from plants in the Amazon rainforest. It has been found that up to 25 percent of all pharmaceutical drugs come from Amazonian plants. Caribbean islands are right next to and a part of the Amazon River basin, so we have many of the same plants. We also have a unique creolization of herbal medicine practices from Indigenous, African, European and Southeast Asian influences that takes these medicinal plants and creates unique remedies and traditions borrowed from around the world. A Caribbean tanty or grandmother may be calling on Chinese Traditional Medicine, Ayurveda, European folk medicine, African and Indigenous based practices at the same time, when practicing Caribbean herbalism. Therefore, I wrote about Caribbean herbalism to highlight these lesser known stories and traditions and to honor my lineage of Caribbean ancestors who used them.

Jodi: It's interesting to think of all those cultures and the medicinal knowledge melding together. Caribbean Herbalism opened my eyes to so much more than the plants that are native to that area - history, politics, culture. I'm imagining so much research and consultations with other experts on the Caribbean...how long did it take you to research and write your book?

Aleya: Well this book was a lifetime in the making and I would say that the bulk of the research started in 2017 when I first started visiting Trinidadian elders with ethnobotanist, Francis Morean. That is when I realized the importance in documenting these traditions. At the time, I did not know I would write a book yet but I started collecting pictures, audio and taking notes that would later be the basis of the book. However, many of the remedies and plants I mention are things that I grew up using and learning about from my family and grandmother.

Once Ulysses Press reached out and asked me to write a book on Caribbean Herbalism, I spent 6 months in deeper research where I flew to different Caribbean countries like Guyana and Barbados to do interviews as well as immerse myself with the plants in different Caribbean regions.

Jodi: So what's up next? Another book? Another planting season?

Aleya: Right now, I am on a 3 month sabbatical at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Virginia. It is an amazing botanical space with an extensive library of rare herbal manuscripts and botanical paintings. While here I will be spending a lot of time on the trails and in the library and gaining inspiration for my future writings.

When I get back to Trinidad, I plan to use what I learn at this space to further our biocultural

conservation efforts on our estate. We will put in some trails, plant some of the trees and herbs mentioned in my book and create an ethnobotany garden that can be a space of inspiration and learning to others.

Jodi: It's sounds like a wonderful plan to encourage others to learn more about healing plants. thank you for sharing with us. Readers, don't forget to come back on June 17 for more about Caribbean Herbalism: Traditional Wisdom and Modern Herbal Healing