Every cold season, you're the first to catch the cough. One person sneezes in the daladala and by evening your throat is scratching. You wake up already tired. Your face won't clear no matter what soap you try. Your joints ache before you even reach the bathroom. And last time you checked at the chemist down the road, the nurse frowned at your blood pressure reading and said "watch it."
You're not falling apart. Your body is simply running low — on the one natural defense it has needed all along.
Grandmothers across Tanzania have trusted it for generations. But nobody could stomach the taste — bitter, sharp, like drinking petrol.
So it sat in cupboards, untouched. And people kept getting sick.