Propolis

I'm always looking for the best throat soother, especially when I have a heavy storytelling schedule and a headcold. I know the rules: warm up the voice before performing, drink lots and lots of water to hydrate the vocal chords, avoid mint and decongestants (they dry the throat), don't whisper, rest when possible, keep the throat warm. Still, there are times when I need to take decongestants because I straight out can't breathe through my nose and there are times when I need to use cough drops. When I'm having a coughing fit in the middle of a performance, as I did today, I have to do something quickly.

My very favorite are propolis candies. Here's a selection of caramelos de propoleo (caramelo is the general word for hard candy) I've found here in Argentina:


Not all of these are created equal. The very best are those in the brown wrappers, available from health food stores and some pharmacies. I put one in my mouth and had an immediate sense memory: Bulgarian Orthodox churches. Huh? They taste like beeswax candles, which are lit in profusion in Bulgarian Orthodox churches. The other two kinds have a small amount of propolis, but are mostly sugar candies.

I've also been using regular cough drops:


These are not considered to be cough drops in most of Latin America, as far as I can tell. They're eaten as candy or breath mints and they're available at kiosks, newsstands and grocery stores. I've also been drinking a concoction of lemon, chopped ginger and honey, heated with water. Yum! Though my cold is mostly gone, I'm going to be drinking this for the rest of the tour. I've done 54 performances in the last four weeks, with nine more before I leave for home on Friday.

Aaaachooo!

Picture this: about 125 kids, ages 5-8, sitting on the floor of the library, with teachers at the ends of the rows, all listening to stories. About three rows back was a kindergartener, a little girl in a pink shirt, who got a funny look on her face and then quick, pulled the neck of her shirt up over her nose and sneezed. I think her funny look meant "I'm going to sneeze! What do I do?! Oh, how about inside my shirt!" The teachers were too far away to get to her with a kleenex.

I guess that's better than spraying everybody with germs. "Bat wing" (sneezing or coughing into the elbow) would be preferable. This was at the same school where I said something about coughing and suddenly twenty or so of the kids began to cough. Must be something infectious.

Teachers and administrators are doing their best. Every room has a few boxes of tissues, every school bathroom has a sign about handwashing. Here's one I saw yesterday:

When was the last time you washed your hands? Germ Farm. Scrub 'Em!

At another school, this sign was wordier:

Tips to prevent colds and flu...

Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze.

Do not touch your eyes, nose or mouth.

Sneeze into your elbow if a tissue's not available.

Soap.

Wash your hands often with soap and water, or use hand sanitizer.

I'm guessing I ate more than a peck of dirt in my childhood, and we hadn't heard of antibacterial soap or hand sanitizer. Still, I'd rather not catch every cold that comes my way. I wash my hands often and I don't fill my water bottle from the drinking fountain (or bubbler, as we called it in Rhode Island). Too many mouths have been on those. I sometimes spray my puppets with rubbing alcohol, in hopes of killing off some of the germs.

On the other side, I've changed the way I do the song Poor little bug on the wall. We do the last verse underwater (about 2:43 on the video), but with the finger of one hand acting as a snorkel in the air , instead of making an underwater noise with a finger on the lips. Darn. It was funnier that way.