The Liar, Our Witch and my Wardrobe

Sometimes I am just completely blind sided by Ghana. There are moments when I am busy minding my own business, living my little expat life within the confines of this African republic, and culturally I trip over something that just has me reeling.

And then I remember that despite my hard drives full of pirated American TV series that fill us with the ultimate superficial each weekday evening, and the goat cheese in my salad, made with imported iceberg lettuce; this is NOT North America, and this little capsule called our home is situated squarely within an entirely different world.

There are undercurrents that pulsate just below the surface in Ghana, in my office, in my yard, in the strangers who pass me on the street. And there are moments when they peek out, when that reality faces me. At those times I am never prepared.

Last night I was bopping around my humid kitchen, wearing my Hello Kitty pyjama set, with my freshly washed hair tied up; I was dishing up our supper plates, anxious to head back into the relative cool of the living room to watch some mind numbing TV series.

“Madam” came the low voice from the pool of darkness beyond my kitchen window.
“Eric?” (assuming it was our gardener, (term used very loosely) who lives at the back of the house).

“Madam, I believe you are busy but I need to speak to you. Very important, very urgent. I beg.”

I begrudgingly put down my ladle and agreed to meet Eric around the side of the house.

So we met, I in cartoon pants with brightly coloured kittens scattered about my legs, opening the sliding doors, the bright and cool mixing with the dark heat. Eric stood glumly almost out of sight on the veranda.

“Yes Eric, what is wrong?” – I of course, assuming there would be a long winded story of medical or other woe, and a plea for money. But this was a different problem altogether.

Eric shifted and stuttered and said Madam a few times.

“It’s about Gilbert” (our cook and cleaner who has worked for the company over 12 years).

“Yes Eric?! What about Gilbert?”


“Well Madam, he is disturbing me in ways you won’t understand. In fact, it is very serious.”

“Ok, well you tell me and I’ll see what I can do” (me, clueless)

“Madam, in fact, he has been trying to… trying to… well he has been determined to kill me spiritually”.

Silence.

My first instinct is to laugh, which probably won’t go over well. I can see the shiny sweat on Eric’s forehead, reflecting the light from behind me. He is very serious.

“Madam, maybe these things you cannot understand. But even physically, he has been doing things. I am having so many challenges in life. Josephine has gone (this was Eric’s girlfriend, who was always way out of his league in my opinion), and Gilbert even today, he…. Well I must confess there was a problem in this house today”

Eric went on to explain that Gilbert had called a certain driver and started to talk to him loudly about how Eric had not been pulling his weight around the house, implying he was useless, and ‘damaging’ his name. Eric then came out of his room and they argued. Gilbert is a liar and possibly a witch?!

I was really not sure why the two of them would be arguing, nor what I was expected to do. But mostly I was pinching myself, wondering if really, I had been called out to hear that one of my staff was trying to kill the other spiritually. Juju. Again. This theme keeps reappearing.

And it’s not just among the relatively uneducated. Making that assumption would be to miss the undercurrent and remain completely oblivious to how this society functions.

I got up this morning with last night’s event freshly in my mind. I greeted Gilbert who was busy making eggs and saw Eric through the window. He was wielding a machete, and hacking away at the overgrown weeds. He gave me a look. His eyes narrowed, his brow furrowed. And he nodded. As if we had shared something… as if I should now understand… Yet I just smiled and carried on as the shallow obruni I am.

I arrived at work, thinking I’d left behind the sinister world of magic cooks and revengeful gardeners… and then I saw this.

A respected Member of Parliament in Ghana’s opposition party, on Ghana’s most popular morning television talk show this week, has claimed he has ‘conclusive evidence’ that the current president, John Atta-Mills, used a magic ring to win the election. He apparently wore the ring only during the election campaign – never before and never after. That is the only proof needed apparently. So there it is. Juju. Things I’ll never understand.

Eric left me with one final comment/warning as we parted ways at my sliding door last night.

“Madam- there are other things. When you go away Gilbert brings his own things to wash at your house. He delays in doing your things. And madam, I just want to say, THAT IS THE MAN WHO MAKES YOUR FOOD.”

And he wandered off pensively into the night.

And there I stood. I looked down. Hello Kitty smiled innocently back up at me. And I acknowledged that I who knows nothing, will have to resign myself to that fact.



Above - a table at a fetish market - selling ingredients for magic brews and curses....

The Fetish Priests of Modern Ghana - self serving soothsayers or prolific prophets?

(Some) Ghanaians take their fetish priests seriously. So seriously that the poorest of folk are willing to bet their last pesewa on lotto numbers read out by one such priest during a ‘trance’.

Yesterday’s local media covers the story here:

MASS WEEPING AS FETISH PRIEST’S LOTTO NUMBERS FAIL TO DROP

Despite the failure of the spirit man’s predictions, you can’t take these guys lightly – they even have a Wiki page!

Traditionally, despite the influence of foreign religions like Christianity and Islam, people have consulted fetish priests for everything from illness to financial troubles.

Here’s a quote from Africaloft blog on the topic:

“It is not strange to find many Africans walking the gray line between their accepted religion (Islam/Christianity) and traditional religion. For example, a woman who might be having problems conceiving might be visiting a traditional healer on Saturdays while going to her church on Sundays. Are traditional healers quacks? I believe that is a story for another day. But, many educated people outwardly state that they are while they inwardly fear them.”

Driving across Ghana’s rural expanse, one can see small signboards peeping out from the tall grass along empty stretches of road, with the advertisement of a powerful fetish priest – claiming to cure everything from AIDS to sexual frigidity.
Sure enough, there will be a narrowly plodded footpath leading away from the road, toward this mystical man’s chambers. I’ve always wanted to venture in, but have reigned in my naïve curiousity and limited myself to taking photos of some of these wild and wonderful roadside signs from the safe seat of our 4x4.







But some of Ghana’s mystical miracle workers have come to meet me (and others) in the modern world of websites and e-mail consultations!

Take Nana Kwaku Bonsam. His website intro reads:

Nana Kwaku Bonsam is ready to help. Be it spiritual guidance, business promotion, bareness, visa problems, marriage problems, want revenge, ?, etc

There’s an orange button on the site just below this that says: Send me your problems: GO!

Now there’s a modern traditional man. I have to say I’m amazed how easily his craft lends itself to the online world. I have no idea how many people use his services, but he has been interviewed on local media and youtube features some footage of his ritual performances…



His services page claims that wherever you are in the world he can assist you with: visas, barrenness, madness, poverty, spiritual attacks, impotence, vengeance and others.

He claims to charge nothing except the things needed for the rituals, but makes an open threat that those who fail to honour this stipulation will be further cursed…

Scary stuff.

I encourage everyone to take a virtual tour of the site.

On a serious note however, due to lack of education in many instances, and a failing medical system on the other, many Ghanaians (and other West Africans) attribute undiagnosed illnesses to the spiritual world. It is common to hear that someone is under spiritual attack. January 2011, Ghana reported that a well known Nigerian actress is suffering in this way.

ACTRESS SIKIRATU SINDODO UNDER SPIRITUAL ATTACK

The spiritual world also dominates the entertainment industry with Nollywood (Nigeria’s Holly/Bollywood) being the third largest film industry in the world, and pumping out nearly $300m worth of movies every year, many with such a theme.









I've watched a few minutes of Nollywood's finest here, with the bad special effects, showing serpents escaping from people's mouths in the night, and 'witches' disappearing with a snap, only to reappear in another scene. And though I was less than impressed, it was the hordes of Ghanaian kids, huddled around the TV in my compound, enthralled, and shrieking with fear, that got me wondering how much of this was taken as fact, and carried along into adulthood as a cultural belief.

And this week's lotto disaster has sadly answered that question.

The Voodoo and the Juju

I love when I stumble upon a great link or some amazing photos on the net. Better still when they relate to my part of the world.

I have lived in West Africa for close to 15 years now, and apart from visits to the juju and voodoo markets in Ghana and Togo, where one can buy dried chameleons and other ex-living bits for spells and curses, I must say that I haven't been around or involved in many rituals.

Wandering through the arts centre in Accra, you come across various statues and implements that were presumably used for various traditional ceremonies, but we can only use our Western imaginations to surmise what the actual uses were.

To be invited into the secret world of the traditional as an outsider in West Africa is rare indeed. Many times foreigners are invited to watch or participate in events that are rigged up for the very purpose of impressing or intriguing the tourist. There is nothing intriguing in those.

Phyllis Galembo, a widely traveled photographer managed to gain the trust of her subjects across West Africa, and gained access to various ceremonies that have remained shrouded in mystery for centuries. As a result, she has produced a glimpse into a world I can not quite imagine - despite living here!

The photos are taken in Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana and the collection is called West African Masquerade.

The photos are so worth sharing though:



















"Created for festivities and ceremonies such as weddings and burials, initiations, chiefs' coronations, and holidays like Christmas and the New Year, the costumes can be worn to disguise anyone, from a grown man or woman to a child. The subjects range from adults to teenagers, but Galembo does not know the identity of the individual beneath each mask. This mystery lies at the heart of her interest in costuming and masking — acts that allow the wearer to become something else, to change gender, or species, or even into spirits."

The Pale Plight

Here are some faces of Albinism:

Albinism affects people from all races.







This inherited condition, characterized by the absence of melanin (which gives us our colouring), is known to affect mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, and amphibians.




Global statistics indicate that about 1 in 17,000 people has some form of albinism.

In Africa the statistics are much higher - about 1 in 4,000.






People with albinism can suffer a variety of physical ailments, from vision problems to photosensitivity and various skin cancers, but it is the discrimination and superstitions which make the lives of albinos around the world unbearable.












In Africa the problem is endemic. Due to lack of education, many fear how different an albino child looks - hence there are a variety of reactions - all are dehumanizing.

From the belief the child is cursed to having supernatural powers; some albinos are killed at birth, others are coveted for potions in spiritual medicines.












In Tanzania and Kenya, ritual murders of albinos made international news over the past few years, but sadly the problems have persisted for these people in their communities for centuries.

In Ghana, no international attention has been focused on the plight of the albino, but it doesn't mean they are not suffering. Every day.



Let's let go of these silly superstitions. Ignorance is it's breeding ground. For the kids - let go of fear and bigotry. Hug someone with albinism today!

Child Witches Plague Ghana

Sometimes when I’m sitting at my modern desk, in my air-conditioned office, sipping a Diet Coke and writing e-mails to colleagues and clients around the globe, I’m inclined to forget that just outside my window lurks a world caught up in many ways in ancient and crippling beliefs.

Sometimes the headlines of the day for Accra catch my attention and bring the reality of the clash of worlds and cultures to a resounding crescendo.

Today’s headline did the trick: ‘Mother Goes To Jail For Whipping Daughter With Wire’. The story goes on to explain that a mother in Accra had beat her 5 year old daughter to the point where she was bleeding profusely all over her body – and the reason given was that the little girl was a witch. Seriously.

We're not talking the pointed hat, long black haired, wart on chin witch of Halloween fame, no - we're talking the unwarranted, unfettered prosecution of unassuming, poor, innocent people.

Modern Ghana is a place that witchcraft, or certainly the belief in witchcraft, is rampant. The belief forms a strong part of the cultural milieu in Ghana. Despite the work of missionaries over the centuries, despite the global village where such ideas are exposed as being ignorant and backward… witches are alive and well and apparently all over Ghana in the form of small children and poor elderly women.

Just Google the words ‘Ghana’ and ‘witch’ to see what is really going on.

Northern Ghana is home to over 10 massive witch camps – each housing up to 1000 people – the majority of these are young children. Soak that in. THERE ARE STILL WITCHES CAMPS IN GHANA IN 2010. All of these people have been banished from their villages for all sorts of crimes, including allegedly killing people who died from ‘mysterious illnesses’.

Some estimate that there are over 10,000 identified witches in the country.

Abuse and denial of basic human rights is the norm in these camps. As pariahs of society, none of these people can depend on the social catchments that the poor majority depend on – no one wants to help. And there is no recourse for these people either, since none of their crimes can be proven or disproved. An accusation is all it takes.



I found an interesting article written last week by Ghanaian journalist Caesar Abagali, where he compares the witchhunting in Ghana 2010 to the Salem witchhunts in the USA in the 1690’s. Ghana, there is a long way to progress if this is where we are at.

The bottom line is that in both cases, the fear of the masses is/was able to run rampant, and people accused and convicted without legal trials, as long as the accused were poor and powerless.

In both cases, the culture of the time, allowed for ignorance to prevail over science and reason, and many opportunists with charisma jumped on the wagon to stir up the fear and public sentiment. The result is that innocent and vulnerable people are victimized – and to a tragic extent.

Education and empowerment on a massive scale are the only solution. But sadly, it’s not only in the impoverished Northern villages where the ignorance exists – today’s story of that poor little girl in Accra attests.

When I lost my son to a mysterious 3 day illness some years ago in Accra, in our grief and disbelief, some of his Ghanaian relatives insisted that a curse had been raised, by way of finding a reason… And I’m sure that many a witchdoctor made his share of money off that fear, in claiming to exert revenge on the person, the witch, who caused this horrific event.

As usual – none of this ever helps the children. Not those we’ve lost, nor those who live under the wrath of adult ignorance. Ghana, what does this say about us?



To borrow the lyrics from Barry Manilow:

I am your child
Whatever I know, I learn from you
Whatever I do, you taught me to do
I am your child
And I am your chance
Whatever will come, will come from me
Tomorrow is won, by winning me
Whatever I am, you taught me to be
I am your hope,
I am your chance,
I am your child

The Cobra the beans and the belly

So today is Monday. We promised (JW and I as a team) that the diet starts Monday. It was with conviction, after a few months of excess and due to the fact that our clothes are stretching to the limit to accommodate our girth…

So this morning my colleague comes to my desk, and assaults me with an offer I find I can’t refuse. Red red from the roadside seller in Osu. For lunch. Today.

“Ok! Great, thanks.” I’m all excited.

All those vows taken last night, as I chomped on a biscuit smothered in butter, with accompanying warm tea…forgotten in an instant.

But how could I fall so quickly? Day one, meal two?? (Breakfast was a very controlled scrambled egg. Plain. With water and multivitamins).

“Oh, but I shouldn’t. My diet started today.” Laughter from colleagues ensues… You see, this 'diet starting Monday' may have had quite a few public false starts…

The thing is that this red red from this seller is not something you can resist.
Red red is a local Ghanaian dish consisting of a tomatoey bean stew, served with fried plantains. Not low cal stuff. It’s yummy.

The famous seller has been sitting at her tiny outdoor stall, serving up the delicious stuff in bright green banana leaves, for literally YEARS. She sits on a bumpy untarred dead end road, near the old American Embassy in Osu (before they built their new fortress of epic proportions). People come from miles around.. (My colleague being a case in point. I will call him Ernie here, to protect his innocence).

On Friday Ernie mentioned going there and how amazing the food was – the smell, the texture as he indulged with his hands, scooping the beans from the waxy leaf, just like the good old days. The experience transported him to his youth and the carefree days of school.

As he was narrating the story, another colleague walked by and said:

“You know what you are eating!” in a warning tone and walked off. Ernie called her back.

“No, come back! Tell us what!”

A small crowd of us gathered. All the Ghanaians knew what she was going to say. I was the only clueless one (A common occurrence for me here!).

“The cobra under the table!”

Everyone laughed. It is apparently common knowledge/superstition/rumour that this woman uses juju (in this case a mystical cobra snake that hides in her stall), to get her customers craving her food and coming back for more.

I was amazed at this silly belief people hold, creating a witchhunt mentality – just because someone is doing well and has maintained a customer base.

Now it’s Monday. I am supposed to be on day one of a strict and purposeful diet, and yet my mouth has been watering since first thing this morning at the mere suggestion of the red red…

Perhaps there’s more to this juju thing than I care to admit???

On the other hand I could just be a typical diet failure, losing the willpower before it began!!!

The diet starts Tuesday.