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Interesting to hear that you are using it so far away.
I use the "neem cake" as a fertiliser. That is the stuff left after extracting the oil .
Some years ago,I also collected the fallen leaves and used them to produce the smoke which keeps the mosquitoes out of the house at dusk.
When my daughter and I had chicken-pox, 10 years ago, the torture of the vesicles was eased
by bathing in water boiled with green neem leaves and the irritation soothed by stroking the limbs with a bunch of green neem leaves.
A bunch of green neem leaves tied to a doorway tells the world that there is an infectious disease around so please don't come in--one of my neighbours had put one up a few years ago.
My grandfather's sister, who had six younger brothers, told me the tale that when she returned from school, she would see the neem leaves tied to the doorpost and say, "Ah-ha, there's a new baby in the house today."
My grandfather planted three neem trees adjacent to our compund wall when he was 75 years old, as he wanted shade in his bedroom, on the ground floor. All of us grandchildren, laughed and said, "He expects those to grow and give him shade!" What we did not know was that he would live to 95 and that the trees gave shade not just to his room but also to my bedroom above his.
I was forced to chop the last of the trees last year as the roots were messing up our water-meter chamber. However I salvaged one small stump which I use as a pot-stand in my drawing-room.
Padmini Raghavan in Chennai, (formerly Madras) South India.
