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is not a radish
- Joined
- Oct 23, 2005
- Messages
- 3,142
When I signed on to browse the forum, there was a message at the top of my screen pointing out that I have not posted anything in a while. This is true, as my regular web surfing was disrupted a little while back when we took a trip to Zambia to visit some friends. Let's just say that Zambia does not have the best internet connections.
I did, however, return with a story you might enjoy: Our visit to a faith healer.
While in Zambia, we spent several days in South Luangwa National Park on a safari. The safari company we were staying with also has a relationship with a nearby village and organizes day trips for people to hang with the local folks and experience their way of life. It sounded like an amazing opportunity so we jumped at the chance.
The village is on the small side, with about 45 residents. We're talking mud huts, no electricity, no running water; the most technologically advanced thing we saw there was a portable radio that was pulling in some jazz on a far-off station. The contrast between their lives and our own was so dramatic that it was really quite impossible to fully process.
I could go on and on about the people and life in the village, but let's get to the good part.
One of the components of the village tour was a visit to the faith healer (herein FH). We had absolutely no idea what to expect, but we figured it would be a good idea to suppress our reactionary skeptic outbursts for the time being and just take it in.
We made our way to the FH's hut, and after removing our shoes we were invited inside. The FH presented herself to us and set in a chair upon a small riser. She was dressed head to toe in white, in an outfit that was made to look like a nurse's uniform. There were several large red crosses upon her, and just for good measure she spread another white cloth -- with it's own red cross -- across her lap. Then she started talking.
She spoke in the local dialect, so our guide had to interpret. She began by explaining that she was absolutely not a witch doctor. No no no. She was a FH and she was only doing God's work. The way she led off with this made me wonder if this was part of a sanitized script to appease Western visitors who might get jumpy being around a witch doctor. But dammit, I was supposed to be suppressing those skeptic thoughts, so I went back to listening.
She explained her technique, and I have to admit, I haven't heard of this style before. When someone comes to her, they are to stand before her in the hut and not say anything. The FH then sings a song and says a prayer. Then she selected a bible passage for her assistant to read aloud. Once this is done, she knows what's wrong with the person and is then able to prescribe a remedy. The most common ailments? Aches, pains, upset stomachs, and young women trying to get pregnant. To be honest, I wasn't too impressed with hearing that she could diagnose the person's problem, because this was a small village where everyone knows everybody else and everything about them! If a young, timid, recently married woman comes to her hut, the odds are pretty good that the FH has already heard how she's eager to start a family. Oh wait, I'm skepticizing again. Sorry...
After a few days, if the prescribed remedy is not working, the person returns and receives something new. This process will continue until the problem is solved. At this point some form of payment is expected, and it seems to be on a form of sliding scale with anything from some ears of corn to a chicken to money being acceptable.
Once she had explained the process to us, she took us to look at her pharmacy. I was expecting to see a large collection of jars and bottles holding all sorts of powders and herbs, but I was only part right. She had the large collection, all right, but no jars or bottles. Everything was strewn across a large table, and she apparently knew just were to dig to pull out the particular root that will improve male vitality, or the powder that will cure an upset stomach.
Afterwards, we thanked her and gave her a cash donation for her time. On the walk back to the village, we learned some more interesting tidbits from our guide. Since there is a real clinic about five miles away, we wondered how people decided to go to one or the other. It seems that's it's just understood that for one kind of ailments you go to the FH, but for others you go to the clinic. It was really no surprise to find out that people go to the FH for those vague physical annoyances that would probably clear themselves up after a few days. This pretty much guarantees a stunning success rate for the FH: "After taking her potion for 10 days, my cold totally went away!"
If, however, someone contracts a more tangible illness such as malaria, they go straight to the clinic. In fact, our guide came right out and said that faith healing doesn't work on things like malaria, anemia, typhoid, or broken bones. Even now, several weeks later, I'm quite proud at how I was able to keep my mouth shut and just nod politely at this. I guess I was just happy to hear that for the most part, people did not waste any time trying to cure potentially deadly ailments with herbs and bible passages... they knew to get to the real clinic asap to get the real medicine a-flowing.
It was a pretty amazing experience. Now I have to figure out how to get the FH to appear at TAM next year...
I did, however, return with a story you might enjoy: Our visit to a faith healer.
While in Zambia, we spent several days in South Luangwa National Park on a safari. The safari company we were staying with also has a relationship with a nearby village and organizes day trips for people to hang with the local folks and experience their way of life. It sounded like an amazing opportunity so we jumped at the chance.
The village is on the small side, with about 45 residents. We're talking mud huts, no electricity, no running water; the most technologically advanced thing we saw there was a portable radio that was pulling in some jazz on a far-off station. The contrast between their lives and our own was so dramatic that it was really quite impossible to fully process.
I could go on and on about the people and life in the village, but let's get to the good part.
One of the components of the village tour was a visit to the faith healer (herein FH). We had absolutely no idea what to expect, but we figured it would be a good idea to suppress our reactionary skeptic outbursts for the time being and just take it in.
We made our way to the FH's hut, and after removing our shoes we were invited inside. The FH presented herself to us and set in a chair upon a small riser. She was dressed head to toe in white, in an outfit that was made to look like a nurse's uniform. There were several large red crosses upon her, and just for good measure she spread another white cloth -- with it's own red cross -- across her lap. Then she started talking.
She spoke in the local dialect, so our guide had to interpret. She began by explaining that she was absolutely not a witch doctor. No no no. She was a FH and she was only doing God's work. The way she led off with this made me wonder if this was part of a sanitized script to appease Western visitors who might get jumpy being around a witch doctor. But dammit, I was supposed to be suppressing those skeptic thoughts, so I went back to listening.
She explained her technique, and I have to admit, I haven't heard of this style before. When someone comes to her, they are to stand before her in the hut and not say anything. The FH then sings a song and says a prayer. Then she selected a bible passage for her assistant to read aloud. Once this is done, she knows what's wrong with the person and is then able to prescribe a remedy. The most common ailments? Aches, pains, upset stomachs, and young women trying to get pregnant. To be honest, I wasn't too impressed with hearing that she could diagnose the person's problem, because this was a small village where everyone knows everybody else and everything about them! If a young, timid, recently married woman comes to her hut, the odds are pretty good that the FH has already heard how she's eager to start a family. Oh wait, I'm skepticizing again. Sorry...
After a few days, if the prescribed remedy is not working, the person returns and receives something new. This process will continue until the problem is solved. At this point some form of payment is expected, and it seems to be on a form of sliding scale with anything from some ears of corn to a chicken to money being acceptable.
Once she had explained the process to us, she took us to look at her pharmacy. I was expecting to see a large collection of jars and bottles holding all sorts of powders and herbs, but I was only part right. She had the large collection, all right, but no jars or bottles. Everything was strewn across a large table, and she apparently knew just were to dig to pull out the particular root that will improve male vitality, or the powder that will cure an upset stomach.
Afterwards, we thanked her and gave her a cash donation for her time. On the walk back to the village, we learned some more interesting tidbits from our guide. Since there is a real clinic about five miles away, we wondered how people decided to go to one or the other. It seems that's it's just understood that for one kind of ailments you go to the FH, but for others you go to the clinic. It was really no surprise to find out that people go to the FH for those vague physical annoyances that would probably clear themselves up after a few days. This pretty much guarantees a stunning success rate for the FH: "After taking her potion for 10 days, my cold totally went away!"
If, however, someone contracts a more tangible illness such as malaria, they go straight to the clinic. In fact, our guide came right out and said that faith healing doesn't work on things like malaria, anemia, typhoid, or broken bones. Even now, several weeks later, I'm quite proud at how I was able to keep my mouth shut and just nod politely at this. I guess I was just happy to hear that for the most part, people did not waste any time trying to cure potentially deadly ailments with herbs and bible passages... they knew to get to the real clinic asap to get the real medicine a-flowing.
It was a pretty amazing experience. Now I have to figure out how to get the FH to appear at TAM next year...