Finding My Rhythm: The Real Talk About Balancing Work and Studies as an International Student

This is my personal opinion and my experience. Every person has different thoughts, and not everybody may agree with it.

The modern reality of healing in Brugge: A strip of Dafalgan Forte and a reminder of how far I am from home..

Sitting in my small apartment in Brugge, feeling the familiar ache of fever creeping through my bones, I stare at the pharmacy receipt in my hand. Around €12 for a strip of Daflagan Forte, 1 g paracetamol. The pharmacist spoke in rapid Dutch, explaining dosages and side effects, while I nodded politely—already knowing I’d be back tomorrow if this cough got worse.

But there’s another voice echoing in my head—not in Dutch or English, but in the ancient rhythm of my grandfather’s morning chants. It’s telling me about a completely different kind of medicine, one that doesn’t come in neat plastic packaging.

You see, when you’re born into a culture where every backyard is a pharmacy, you don’t realize how extraordinary that is until you’re shivering in a Belgian winter, completely dependent on strangers in white coats.

A Pharmacy in the Forest

The quiet pharmacy of the forest, where every leaf has a story and every root holds a cure.

My grandfather lived until 97, and in all those years, I never once saw him swallow a single manufactured pill. His medicine cabinet was the forest behind our stone house in central Nepal. When my stomach churned from too much rice, he'd disappear for ten minutes and return with a handful of bitter leaves. When fever made me delirious, he'd brew something dark and earthy that tasted like the mountain soil itself.
"Drink," he'd say, the same way my mother says it now. Not a request – a gentle command from someone who's watched this work for nearly a century.

The irony hits me hardest when I'm sick abroad, like now. Here I am, in one of the world's most advanced healthcare systems, yet I find myself desperately missing the simple certainty of my grandfather's weathered hands crushing fresh herbs.
From Singapore's hospitals where doctors prescribed antibiotics for my persistent cough, to Busan's clinics where I bought flu medicine that left me dizzy and nauseous, to the countless healthcare visits in London, Portugal, Denmark, and Brugge – I've consumed pills manufactured in sterile factories, swallowed capsules with names I couldn't pronounce, and paid premium prices for relief that often came with a list of side effects longer than the symptoms themselves.

Yet through all these experiences across continents, through all these modern medical marvels, my mind kept drifting back to that small stone house where healing grew wild in the backyard.

There's something profound about medicine that grows from the same earth that feeds you. Picked by hands that know every leaf's story, it carries history in its very touch.
But I carry two truths in my heart, and they don't always sit comfortably together.

Two Truths About Medicine

The first truth fills me with deep reverence. This knowledge represents an intimacy with our environment that took centuries to develop. My grandfather didn't just "avoid doctors" – he lived in harmony with his body and his land. He knew which leaves soothed coughs because his grandmother showed him, just as her grandmother had shown her.

I remember being eight years old, burning with fever that wouldn't break despite my mother's constant worry. My grandfather walked outside, not to the road leading to town where the nearest clinic was, but to the patch of wild tulsi growing beside our water tap. He picked exactly seven leaves – always seven, never six, never eight – and boiled them with a piece of fresh ginger until our entire house smelled like earth and spice and something infinitely comforting.

Within hours, my fever broke. Not gradually, like it does with paracetamol, but suddenly, completely, as if my body remembered something it had forgotten.

This wasn't superstition; this was survival wisdom, tested across generations. When antibiotics failed me in Singapore, leaving me weak and dizzy, I found myself recreating that same tulsi and ginger combination in my hostel kitchen, feeling foolish yet desperate. It worked. Not because of magic, but because somewhere in my genetic memory, my body recognized this ancient conversation between human and plant.

Survival wisdom tested across generations—the physical act of turning nature into medicine.

The second truth is more complicated, and it has followed me through every country I've lived in. I've read the studies in hospital waiting rooms across Singapore, Busan, London, Portugal, Denmark, and Brugge. Some traditional medicines contain dangerous levels of mercury and lead. The unregulated commercial products flooding the market aren't the same as my mother's freshly picked herbs.

In Busan, I watched a Korean grandmother teach her granddaughter about medicinal roots in a traditional market, while just blocks away, scientists published papers about contaminated herbal supplements. In Brugge, I visited a shop selling "authentic Ayurvedic medicines" that looked nothing like the fresh, earth-scented preparations my grandfather made. The irony was heartbreaking – authentic knowledge being commercialized, commodified, stripped of its soul.

I respect my grandfather's knowledge, yet I also acknowledge these modern warnings. There's a vast difference between my grandfather's garden pharmacy and mass-produced pills claiming ancient wisdom.

Why This Knowledge Matters More Than Ever
So why is it important to learn these old ways, especially when modern medicine can cure diseases that would have killed our ancestors?

Because this knowledge is more than medical – it's cultural DNA. When my mother instinctively knows which herb will break my fever, she's carrying forward thousands of years of human observation. She's maintaining a connection to the natural world that most of us have lost completely.
I felt this loss most acutely during a bout of food poisoning in Portugal. Lying in a sterile hospital bed, connected to an IV drip, I found myself crying – not from physical pain, but from a deep homesickness for my grandfather's hands checking my pulse, for my mother's worried face as she prepared bitter herbal tea, for the comfort of being cared for by people who knew my body's history, who had watched me grow from the same soil they drew their medicine from.
Learning about medicinal herbs isn't about rejecting hospitals or dismissing scientific advances. It's about reclaiming some control over our basic wellbeing. It's about not feeling utterly helpless when the pharmacy is closed, or when you're far from home, or when you simply want to understand what your body needs.

During my months in southern Europe, I lived with an elderly woman named Rosa who grew chamomile in window boxes and made digestive tea from wild fennel seeds. Watching her tend to her grandson's scraped knee with lavender oil, or calm his nightmares with lemon balm tea, I realized I was witnessing the same ancient knowledge my grandfather carried – just dressed in Mediterranean flavors instead of Himalayan ones.

The Weight of Disappearing Wisdom
But here's what breaks my heart: this knowledge is dying faster than we can preserve it.

Every time an elder passes away without sharing their plant wisdom, we lose a library. Every time a young person moves to the city and forgets the names of healing herbs, we sever another thread connecting us to our ancestors. Every time we choose convenience over curiosity, we trade away a piece of our heritage.

My grandmother died when I was 28, taking with her the knowledge of which mountain flowers eased women's pain, which bark helped children sleep, which roots strengthened aging bones. I was too young to ask the right questions, too eager to embrace the modern world to value her ancient wisdom. Now, living in countries where people pay fortunes for "wellness consultations," I would give anything for one more afternoon learning at her feet.

A library of nature: We must document this ancestral knowledge before the threads to our past are severed.

Preserving Knowledge Responsibly
But how do we learn responsibly?
Start by listening to the elders while they're still here. Ask your grandmother about the plants she used for common ailments. Learn their names, their preparation methods, their stories. Document this knowledge before it disappears with the generation that carries it.

However, approach it with modern wisdom too. Understand which remedies are gentle and which are powerful. Know when a home remedy is appropriate and when you need proper medical intervention. The goal isn't to replace doctors but to complement modern medicine with ancestral wisdom.

During my time in rural India, I met a village doctor who perfectly embodied this balance. Trained in Western medicine but raised on traditional knowledge, he prescribed antibiotics when needed but also taught families which local plants could prevent common infections. He saved lives with modern techniques while preserving cultural wisdom. This is the harmony we need – not choosing between old and new, but weaving them together intelligently.

My grandfather's 97 years taught me that true health isn't found in either extreme – neither in complete dependence on modern medicine nor in blind faith in tradition alone. It's found in the intelligent harmony of both.

The Taste of Home
As I finish writing this, my fever has started to break. The paracetamol helped, but I also made myself a simple ginger and turmeric tea – something my mother taught me, something her mother taught her. The familiar warmth spreads through my chest, carrying with it not just healing, but home.
This connection to my roots is something I’m now trying to pass on to my son as we navigate our new life in Belgium. You can read about that journey here: Two Languages, One Child: Growing Up Between Nepali and Dutch. The bitter taste on my tongue is more than just medicine. It's the taste of my heritage, my identity, and a responsibility to keep this ancient conversation between humans and plants alive, even as we embrace the miracles of modern science.

I may live in Belgium now, travel across Singapore, Busan, London, Portugal, Denmark, and Brugge for work and study, and carry health insurance cards from multiple countries, but my grandfather's pharmacy travels with me – not in my suitcase, but in my memory and in my hands that still remember how to crush leaves and brew hope from the simplest ingredients.
When I'm homesick in foreign cities, when expensive medicines fail me, when I need comfort more than cure, I close my eyes and hear my grandfather's voice in the pre-dawn darkness, chanting ancient verses that somehow still heal the parts of me that pills cannot reach.

The ancient rhythm of my heritage travels with me, healing the parts of me that pills cannot reach.

This is not about being anti-modern or pro-traditional. This is about being completely human – honoring both our technological achievements and our ancestral wisdom, carrying the best of both worlds in our hearts as we navigate this beautiful, complicated life.

I would love to hear your thoughts. How do you connect with traditional knowledge or remedies in your life? Please share your experiences and opinions in the comments below.