A young farmer named Alex (Franchesco Ortiz Segovia, pictured right) works in the fields carrying logs. He then heads home and finds his mother ill, coughing a lot. She asks him to go to their neighbor's house to get her some medicine. He replies that he'll look for work on a farm because a friend has promised to help him and that he'll come back for her later so she can get better. Alex leaves sadly. The woman goes to her neighbor's house to get some medicine. The neighbor gives her a liquid to drink, made from boiled medicinal plants.