Tahitian Noni International

The WEIRDEST thing happened to me today. I went to a Warm Home out in the burbs. I carried a VCR there so we could watch a tape. It turns out when I tried to hook it up that the wires didn’t quite fit…All of the women there live within a few buildings of each other, so one woman graciously offered for us to all go to her apartment and watch the tape on her VCR. So we put all of our cookies in plastic baggies and headed over. We watched a clip about Eddie Rosner, a jazz trumpet player from the 40s….Any way, an hour later, all the ladies got up to go. Alla, the woman whose apartment we were at asked me if I could stay for a few minutes and talk with her. I agreed, figuring she probably wanted some company and wanted to talk to me about what I was doing here, being Jewish, reminisce about Ukraine and about the war, and to find out whether or not I was married (this is what most of the babushky I hang out with want to talk to me about).

This is not exactly what happened. Alla started out by telling about her family, that her husband died 8 years ago and how wonderful he was and how much she misses him and how bored and lonely she is—but that since she’s met people and started doing some activities through Hesed she is much less bored and lonely. Her kids (daughter and fam?) live on the floor below her, but they are all busy with work and school. Of course they love each other and spend time together when they can, and she is thankful for that, but she feels lonely sometimes nonetheless. I have heard spiels like this several times, and am happy to listen and nod and agree that life is very hard when you are an elderly widow in Ukraine.

She then launched into telling me about how last year she was sick in bed for all of January. Her blood pressure was very very high, her skin was white, her lips grey…and there was a 40 year old woman who lives in her building who was also very sick at that time. She had been sick for months and there was little that doctors could do for her. (At this point I started wondering if I was going to get sick from spending so much time around sick people…the other day Arkadiy coughed and when he saw my worried face said, “Oh its nothing, you know, the tuberculosis.” Oh my.) But then one day Alla saw the previously sick 40 year old woman and she was better. Not only healthy, but healthier than she’d ever been, and she looked ten years younger.

“She had been drinking this juice,” Alla told me. “You have probably heard of it since you are American and there is a factory there. Noni Juice.” I furrowed my brow and shook my head; no I have not heard of this Noni Juice. Alla, eager to enlighten me, gave me a brief history of the Noni plant and Noni Juice. Tahitians discovered the plant more than 2000 years ago and have been using it to stay healthy and young. It is a sort of “fountain of youth” plant…now there are three factories that make the juice, in America, Japan and Germany. It is very expensive, $70 a bottle here in Ukraine, and $50 in the US.

So Alla bought some juice, and drank some every day. And she got better. And felt better than ever. She still drinks it everyday, and even poured a couple sips for me to try, telling me that it was so concentrated; you only needed a little to get all the benefits. I smelled it, and then drank it. As it went down my throat (it tastes like thick, all-natural, fruit juice), I wondered if this is how I was going to die: In a strange old woman’s apartment in Ukraine from drinking weird juice. My mind was filled with all of the warnings I had been given over the years: the dangers of talking to strangers, the dangers of accepting unwrapped candy on Halloween, the dangers of drinking home made vodka.

It was around this time that I began to feel the way my family and I had felt when we visited a tea plantation in China…like I was on an info-commercial. Alla regaled me with several more Noni “success stories”, like a woman who drank the juice everyday and then gave birth to a very big, healthy, strong, personable baby. At this point Alla revealed to me that she had asked me to stay and chat with her because she figured since I was a) American and b) probably wanted to make a little cash, I might be interested in becoming a Noni International distributor…not unlike a Mary Kay or Avon lady. I think she is a distributor, but perhaps not a very successful one…she had materials about the history of the Noni plant, the history of the company Noni International, information about becoming a distributor (“becoming a part of the success story”), information about all of Noni’s products (juice, tea, oils, protein drinks, supplements, Noni Trim plan), and a pamphlet of photos of the Noni plant in Tahiti. She gave all of these materials to me and told me to tell my friends, both here and in the US about this product, see if there was interest, and then to call her (she gave me her number on a Noni business card…). I am dreading going back to see her when I next visit her Warm Home group…How will I explain to her that neither I nor my friends are interested in selling or purchasing Tahitian Noni International Dietary Supplements? If you are interested, I have lots of materials I can show you…Or check out these sites:
Tahitian Noni International

Become a distributor

World Wide Warning?