Mal de Ojo

The children in Cartagena are absolutely adorable!  When women in the barrios were asked to identify threats to their children's health, they named respiratory problems, diarrhea, worms, etc..  When I asked if mal de ojo (the evil eye) was a health belief in their communities there was lots of shy smiles and giggles.  The explanation they gave me was that older women still might believe in it or if a baby is especially homely, they will teasingly say it suffers from mal de ojo.  One older lady went from this subject to that of worms.  As she described one case she knew of, the number of worms involved kept growing.  One of the women fially exclaimed "Madre de Dios!" and everyone laughed.  Mal de Ojo may not be a significant problem here but it is still a belief that is shared in many countries.  There are a wide variety of beliefs around this concept but basically the belief is that someone (not necessarily evil or bad) admires a child causing serious illness.  Some believe the result is severe diarrhea resulting in death.