The following true story I am about to relay to you comes only thanks to my mother who said that people are interested in knowing all about what goes on in the lives of the people we work with. While this story may cause you to think the whole continent is crazy, if not just C.A.R., my only hope is that it challenges your world view, and that you may begin to see things amongst the unseen.
Let me introduce you to a few people first. I have changed the names of most everyone in case for some reason someone gets a hold of the cow involved. (Will explain later.) Christy is a young, vibrant midwife at the mission hospital. She is widowed with 4 children and she is an active member of the church and the choir. Her Dad is a retired pastor, her brother Rick works for agri and her sister Janet is the head of the women's bible school. About three months ago Christy went, well, crazy. At first her family thought she was only praying and prophesying but after two days of not eating or sleeping she began to say all kinds of crazy things, pointing out sin in the lives of many of the nurses in our hospital and church, including the pastor and the top people at the hospital. She claimed that the hospital was killing people through the nurses use of black magic. The pastors at the church went and prayed for her, the doctor tried to get her to go to the hospital, but nothing was helping her. In fact she just got worse and worse. She refused to have anything to do with modern medicine or the hospital, she stopped eating, talking and was nearly always awake, never sleeping at night. After a week she confessed that her sickness was the result of black magic performed on her by the accountant and head lab technician of the hospital but of course there is no way to prove this. The two hospital guys both deny having anything to do with black magic. One is an elder and the other is a deacon in our church here.
Two weeks passed and Christy just got worse and worse so to help solve matters, they called in a village doctor to perform his own magic on her using village medicine. For the last three months they have been performing this medicine on her, which involves washing her body with the right kinds of herbs everyday. They say her sickness isn't all that uncommon and has been seen up north. They call it the cow sickness because when she first got sick she stripped all her clothes off and wanted to run into the bushes and eat grass. They said she was acting like a cow. Now it is 3 months later and she is showing little improvement. They have moved her to another city where she is still receiving very expensive treatment from a witch doctor which is eating up three peoples salaries each month. They are all very afraid she will die. But it isn't quite like you think. It isn't the physical symptoms that may eventually kill her. What they believe is that the person who sold her to the original black magician has put her soul in that of a cow somewhere in Nigeria. Should the cow in Nigeria die, then so too will Christy.
If this in itself isn't sad enough, not two weeks after she first got sick, the father, a retired pastor, let's not forget, went down to the local police station and put in a request to sue the two hospital staff members because they caused her illness by selling her to a black magician. I know this may sound crazy, and no this isn't a remake of the Salem witch trials, but it is possible to be charged with causing illness or deaths by means of black magic, sorcery or witch craft, whatever you want to call it. I have no idea how such cases are judged since to my knowledge, the hospital does not give out death certificates saying "Cause of death: witch craft". It remains as one more example of how everything here has more than just a physical cause. You don't just die of a heart attack here, there always has to be some underlying cause.
I can't truly say what is wrong with Christy. Maybe she just snapped, maybe she is possessed by evil spritis, maybe her soul is in a cow, or maybe she just thinks it is and fear itself has driven her mad. I can't say but I wish I could. I remain a physical evidence kind of person though the longer I am here the more my worldview continues to shift and challenge me.
One more quick example. My friend Elise recently moved away from Gamboula. Her husband took a second wife after having some 15 affairs and Elise left him and took her children with her. Technically, she isn't allowed to leave with her kids but she is frightened for their safety so they are with her. (She has 10.) Only 2 days after she left town her ex-husband had a bad motorbike accident, breaking his femur and doing incredible damage to his leg. After only 3 weeks in the hospital he left and headed for a small village in order to seek village medicine (which, by the way, after 4 months, is not working and he may never be able to walk again because of his stupidity). He has since filed charges against Elise and Clarisse for 'causing' his accident by magical means to prevent him from following after Elise. While it would have been a good use of magic the charges are false and how on earth do you prove that in a court of law. Could you imagine a black magic episode of CSI? Anyway, as long as her ex is hobbled, Elise is safe, though the military have come to warn her about the court case twice since she has moved. They won't proceed with the case until he can travel and the way he is going that won't be for a while.
You may think I am anti-village medicine but I am not. However, there are some things that work and some that don't and in the case of a broken femur I think traction and a hospital bed are better than herbs and rubs. I am also deeply concerned about women's rights and I am sure you will here more about this from me later.
Ange
