I was sent to Mugumu, a village in the heart of Africa dubbed “A Hard Place,” an area known for its old rivalry between the two fierce tribes of the Kuria and Maasai. Schools in this desolate, sparsely populated corner of Tanzania are few and far between. It was my assignment to help supervise teachers in their efforts to incorporate forms of physical education into the school day. On the surface, the project seemed straightforward, since my employer was an apolitical, secular organization. There were, in other words, no hidden agendas. The non-religious stance of the organization went along well with my own skepticism about cults and religions. But it was a skepticism that grew far more nuanced in the course of the events that followed.
A skillful driver, one who knows the area well, is a necessity for traveling to and from schools located along ruined dirt roads or tucked behind hills that are difficult to pass through. The hazards of the African night, always a gamble, made a certain faith in one’s driver essential as well.
While I visited with a school and its teachers, the driver would normally sit and wait in the pickup. One day during such a visit, my driver, Francis, a local Kuria, sat and chatted with some friends. When I was done, it was already late and the sun was starting to set; we should have been heading home a long time ago. Approaching the group of men, I realized they hadn’t been drinking just tea all afternoon, but also the local pombai, a homebrew made from bananas, a mystery drink with an unidentified alcohol content. However, it wasn’t any mystery whether Francis would be able to drive the truck home. Fortunately, I found a driver from a nearby and very exclusive safari hotel who offered to take me back. Francis was left behind with the message that his actions were going to have consequences.
The negotiations the next day were both simple and complicated, and had I known the problems I would be having later on, I might have acted differently. With a sad look on his face, Francis arrived at my house—which doubles as my office—accompanied by his mother, a proud woman with penetrating eyes. She was the one to speak on behalf of her son and ask us to give him a second chance. There was almost an imperative tone in her voice, like that of a person unaccustomed to being told no. She practically demanded that we give him another chance. I’ve always had a hard time with authority, and so in my mind the mother’s added pressure only heightened my resolve that Francis would no longer be my chauffeur. They both left in a fury.
I didn’t think much more about his mother’s rage until a few weeks later. It was no problem finding a replacement for Francis. The job of a driver for the local “Mzungu”—“White Devil,” a favorite nickname for whites in Tanzania, or slur, depending on how you took it—was a good job. Physically speaking, it was no comparison to the hard labor in the fields which for most people was the alternative. At the same time, it was a steady and good income in an area of the world where most live on less than one dollar per day.
The next driver, Moses, a gentle soul, hadn´t had the job for long when he went home for a visit in his village, his first salary in hand to give to his family. However, he fell ill during the visit. After a week of pain and sickness, Moses died in the village, the place where he was born.
When I asked people what caused Moses’s demise, they would usually grow silent. I had encountered this with other deaths in Africa. Death was always present and a reality to most people, unlike where I came from. But whenever someone died by some mysterious illness, the reply would either be silence, or “Well, he had been ill for at long time,” or “Maybe it was the malaria?” Mentioning HIV/AIDS is taboo. But everybody knows. So when silence was all the answer I got, I assumed it was The Disease. At the same time it had suddenly gotten far more difficult to find a new driver. It was as if the town had become empty of men with a valid driver´s license, or the prospects suddenly all had something else they had to do. In the interim, the hotel lent us one of their drivers.
As I have said, I hadn’t given Francis and his angry mother much thought until one morning when I looked out and saw Thomas, our guard, having a heated discussion with Francis by the gate. Thomas was the perfect guard. He was young and strong, a real Kuria, a people known throughout Tanzania for their feistiness and strength. He would guard our house with a strong arm and a bow and arrow. As Francis left the gate, I saw that Thomas was visibly shaken, almost pale. When asked what had happened he wouldn’t answer at first, but eventually he told me what had gone down between the two men. Thomas had initially gotten the job through Francis; now Francis wanted a chunk of his salary. Thomas had a wife, children and an extended family to feed, and needed every penny. Nevertheless, he now considered giving Francis what he demanded. This sounded absurd to my ears.
“Yes, but Francis threatened me,” said Thomas.
Thomas was somewhat younger and much stronger than Francis, so I didn’t understand the nature of the threat.
Thomas went on. “Francis said to me, ‘Just look what happened to Moses! The same can happen to you!’”
“Yes, Moses fell ill and died. It happens often around here,” I objected.
“You think just that Moses was so ill?”
“Yes, perhaps he had a virus,” I tried.
“Don’t you know what people are talking about? After you fired Francis, his mother went to a witch doctor who put a curse on the job as a driver with you.”
“Rubbish. No one can do such things. The most that a witch doctor can do is slaughter a chicken and say a bunch of mumbo-jumbo incantations. You know that.”
“You do not know what they are capable of,” Thomas said. “They can fly through the night and pursue you wherever you go. They can put a curse on you if they want, or on things, or in this case, on a job.”
I had always regarded voodoo as nothing more than superstition along the lines of Santa Claus, something used for getting children and other naïve people to behave in a certain way, nothing that could ever be taken seriously. This was what I was thinking as Thomas went on about the witch doctor’s powers. No one in their right mind could actually believe the story about my first driver falling ill and dying because of a curse put on his job. But Thomas was not so sure. And neither were the people of Moses’s village, who issued a sort of fatwa on Francis. He’d probably do best to stay far away from that village, Thomas implied, because people were really angry and afraid. Death threats, and the realization of death threats, were not unusual in these parts. As I said, the local tribe had always had an antagonistic relationship with the Masaii. Neither dared to enter the other’s territory as it could have catastrophic consequences such as mutilation, or even death. I had also heard that the controversy over the rights to a piece of land or a woman could lead to violence. Maybe Thomas’s warning was worth considering?
Thomas was more fearful of a possible curse from Francis’s witch doctor than of a physical fight, and was pretty shaken by his threat. I told him not to worry about it and to tell me if Francis approached him again in this way. This part of the affair was soon resolved on its own. Shortly after talking to Thomas, Francis disappeared. There was talk in town about how he had fled to Uganda in order to avoid falling into the hands of Moses’s relatives. This did not solve the problem of finding a driver, however. The interim driver who was helping us out was not happy about the situation. But since he was technically employed by another employer, and the curse was on the job with me, he could reassure his family that he was not my employee. It ended up that I had to search for drivers in a larger geographical area, which eventually paid off. It seemed like no one in Mwanza, a town eight hours away, had yet heard of the curse. Jackson was from Mwanza and was willing to take the job and move his family to Mugumu. I never told him why I needed a driver. I didn’t think rumors and voodoo were anything to take too seriously, and I needed someone to drive the truck because the project depended on it. A week later, he moved to Mugumu with his wife and two small children.
It was not long before Jackson heard the rumors and had experiences that made him reconsider the appointment. Mugumu is a small town and rumors get around very quickly. When Jackson heard about his predecessor’s misfortune, he didn’t mention it. The job was too good to give up for the sake of a possible spell, at least not right away.
Most of the houses in Mugumu have no electricity, there are no street lights, and when darkness falls early so close to the equator, the town grows dark and quiet. People go to bed early. On just such a quiet evening, Jackson and his wife were getting ready to go to bed when suddenly the front door flew open. They closed it again, thinking it was just a strong gust of wind. When this happened a few more times, the small family grew worried. The two girls began crying, and Jackson’s wife begged to leave the place. But the front door eventually quieted down, and so did the family. The next morning, however, they saw that their table and chairs had moved during the night. The wife fretted. She talked about moving. The next night they were awakened by something crawling on their tin roof. It sounded like a large animal with sharp claws running across the rusty corrugated iron. It wasn’t unusual for there to be wild animals in the city; it is, after all, on the border of one of the world’s largest national parks with everything from big cats to giraffes and elephants. However, it was entirely unheard of for a big cat to be running around on people’s rooftops at night. Jackson was convinced it was not an animal that had kept them awake most of the night.
His fears were confirmed on the following nights when the mysterious incidents intensified. Jackson and his family then learned that their landlord was the very same witch doctor who had put a curse on his job. They moved out that afternoon. In doing so, they forfeited half a year’s rent which they’d had to put down as a deposit, a relatively large sum for such a family. But they were no longer in doubt that there were things going on there that should not be trifled with or taken lightly.
On the way to a school I asked Jackson about the situation. “Well, Jackson, you’re Catholic. Do you still believe in the traditional religions and voodoo?”
“You are wrong if you do not also take witch doctors seriously. You know they can fly at night, even over great distances, and persecute you, wherever you are. That is why we are not moving back to Mwanza, she would come after us there, too. They can kill you if they want.”
“Come on, no one can fly.”
The discussion went on like this for some time. I was wondering how a pretty sensible guy with both feet on the ground like Jackson could believe something so irrational. But then again, I thought, wasn’t the Catholic Church full of stories and ideas close to what was happening here? I was starting to entertain the thought that I at least had to take seriously the fact that people around me believed all of this and acted accordingly. Not that I believed it myself, but people around me did.
~*~
Several months went by without further incident, and I had almost forgotten about all the commotion about curses and superstitions. But then something happened that made me have to take action, maybe not so much driven by the belief in witchcraft as by the regard for a man and his private parts.
On a regular day on the job, Jackson and I traveled to a distant school in Kono, a 2½-hour drive up into the hills of the Serengeti. We arrived to find that the teacher we were supposed to see was not present. I asked another young teacher where Ezekiel was.
“Well, he is ill. Do you want to see him?”
Why not, I thought, and followed the teacher up the hill behind the school, to where the young teachers lived in very simple houses that were often nothing more than concrete walls, sometimes without a proper roof. I found Ezekiel in his bed. The bed was the only furniture in the room and took up most of it. Ezekiel shared his bed with books, some batteries and a flashlight as well as most of his wardrobe. A student brought me a stool to sit on and some warm milk and pieces of papaya with different jams. Ezekiel seemed okay in spirit and could even joke a little bit about his situation. I asked what the matter was. He told me that he had fallen off his bicycle and hit his groin.
“Do you want to see?” he said, and lifted up the sheets.
It was not just because of his Afican heritage that his dick was big. It was swollen and very inflamed. Politely, I had a look and offered my pity, “Pole sana!” I could feel how bad it must hurt. He had no injuries from the fall other than the inflamed dick. Strange. He told me he had only hit his groin, and nothing else. I tried to find out what the medical help was like up there in the hills. Not good, I was told. A doctor was supposed to come see to him soon. I hoped for this to happen, thanked Ezekiel for the milk, and wished him the best.
When I visited the same school a week later, Ezekiel was still not around. I heard he had not gotten better. I was again shown to his room. This time I brought Jackson, hoping he might be able to understand some of the Swahili I failed to. Ezekiel was not looking any better, far from it. As a matter of fact he was no longer fit at all had lost weight. We talked about his condition, and he once again showed me his swollen dick. I could tell from the expression on Jackson’s face, even though I had warned him in advance, that this was something extreme. Jackson asked him a few quick questions in Swahili. It was obvious that the young teacher had not gotten any better.
I don’t know what truly caused the situation, or if it was going to fall off like in those old jokes about the missionary, but I knew something had to be done. The other teachers at the school were either unable or unwilling to help. So I decided that we had to drive the poor guy the 2½ hours to the hospital in Mugumu. Obviously, it was not my mandate to act as a ambulance. But what can you do? When a man’s nobler parts are falling off, you help him. Even if it might be a venereal disease he brought about through his own doing.
Our truck only had room for one passenger. I waited in the village while Jackson drove the unfortunate teacher to the hospital. During the drive Ezekiel told Jackson what he realy believed was going on here: witchcraft. The former principal of the school had left to study in Dar es Salaam. In the meantime, Ezekiel had been made principal. However, he was from an entirely different region of Tanzania and had no network of people close to him there. He also tried to make the older teachers get to school on time, or come to school at all. Tardiness and absenteeism among schoolteachers in this region is a huge problem. According to Ezekiel, the older teachers didn’t like his style of leadership, nor his ambitions. Therefore, they had a witch doctor put a curse on him. It was not only his swollen cock which was evidence of this. He had had similar experiences to Jackson’s in his house at night: claws scraping on the roof, furniture moving, and so on. He was convinced that this accident with the bike had been brought about by the spell.
Jackson, of course, gobbled all of this right up and told me later on with great enthusiasm about the poor teacher’s fate. Ezekiel told Jackson he is so afraid, he will not be returning to the village once he gets out of the hospital. He fears for his life. I don’t know how this story ends, as I have not visited Kono in the last two weeks because of our trip to Mwanza (by car, not on broomsticks). All I know is superstition and voodoo are real to the people I work and deal with. It’s a part of life here, like so many other things, and has to be taken into account.
Jeg blev sendt til Mugumu, A Hard Place på det lokale sprog, i hjertet af Afrika. Kendt for sin gamle fight mellem Kuria og Masaii stammerne. Skolerne i dette øde og tyndbefolkede hjørne af Tanzania er få og ligge langt fra hinanden. Der var min opgave at hjælpe og supervisere lærerne på disse i deres forsøg på at implementere en form for idrætsundervisning. Et hverv som på overfladen syntes ligetil, da min arbejdsgiver var en apolitisk og irreligiøs organisation. Der var med andre ord ingen skjulte dagsordner. Yderligere passede det min skepsis overfor enhver kult eller religion. En skepsis som blev nuanceret i løbet af de følgende begivenheder.
En lokal kendt og dygtig chauffør er en nødvendighed, når skolerne ligger gemt bag svært fremkommelige bakker eller ad ødelagte grusveje. Den afrikanske nats hasard gjorde ligeledes tilliden til chaufføren afgørende.
Mens jeg besøgte en skole ville chaufføren normalt sidde og vente i vore pick up truck. En dag havde min chauffør Francis, en lokal Kuria, under sådant et besøg, siddet og snakket med nogle bekendte. Da jeg var færdig, var der ikke længe til at solen gik ned og vi burde være på vej hjem snart. Da jeg kommer hen til gruppen af mænd, går det op for mig, at det ikke kun var the, de havde drukket, men også pombai, hjemmebryg lavet på bananer. En drik med et uvist alkoholindhold. Det var dog ikke uvist, at Francis ikke var i stand til at køre med hjem. Heldigvis tilbyder en chauffør fra et eksklusivt hotel i nærheden at befordre mig hjem. Francis må blive tilbage med den besked, at vi måtte tage dette op næste dag, og at det ville få konsekvenser.
Næste dags forhandlinger var både nemme og komplicerede, og havde jeg kendt de senere problemer, hvad jeg måske handlet anderledes. Francis mødte brødbetynget op den følgende dag sammen med sin mor, en stolt kvinde med gennemborende blik. Hun førte ordet for sin søn og bad os give ham en chance mere. Der var nærmest en bydende tone i hendes stemme, som hos mennesker, der ikke er vant til at blive talt imod. Hun nærmest forlangte, at vi gav ham en chance. Jeg har altid haft det svært med autoriteter, og jeg vil ikke udelukke at morens facon måske var med til at Francis ikke længere skulle være min chauffør. De forlader begge vrede mit hus, som fungerer som hjem og kontor på samme tid.
Jeg tænkte ikke meget mere over morens vrede indtil et nogle uger senere. Det var ikke noget problem at finde en erstatning for Francis. Jobbet som chauffør for den lokale Mzungu, Hvide Djævel, et yndet skældsord eller kælenavn, alt efter hvordan man tager det, for den hvide mand i Tanzania, var et godt job. Det var ikke særligt slidsomt i forhold til arbejdet i marken, som er alternativet, samtidig var det et godt og stabilt betalt arbejde i et område, hvor de fleste lever for under 1$ om dagen.
Den næste chauffør, Moses, en blød og venlig sjæl havde ikke haft jobbet længe, da han havde været hjemme på besøg i sin landsby og var blevet pludseligt syg. Efter en uges sygdom og smerter døde Moses i den landsby, hvor han var blevet født.
Da jeg spurgte folk til hvad Moses havde fejlet, blev de som regel tavse og ville ikke svare. Jeg havde oplevet denne reaktion på dødsfald i Afrika før. “Han havde været syg længe” eller “Måske var det malaria?” var nogle af standardsvarene, jeg fik. HIV/AIDS er bogstaveligt talt tabu og må ikke nævnes. Så da jeg ikke kunne få andet end tavshed som svar på bagrunden til Moses’ død, tænkte jeg, at det måtte være “Sygdommen”, som havde gjort at det af med ham. Men det var lige pludseligt blevet vanskeligt at finde en ny chauffør. Det var som om byen var tømt for mænd med kørekort, eller også havde de lige noget andet at lave. Ind til videre lånte hotellet os en af deres chauffører.
Jeg havde som sagt ikke skænket Francis og hans vrede mor mange tanker indtil en morgen, hvor jeg så, at han havde en ophidset diskussion med en af mine vagter, Thomas, en ung, stræk Kuria, de perfekte vagtmænd, som er kendt for deres styrke og mod i hele Østafrika. Da Francis forlader vores have er Thomas ganske rystet og nærmest bleg. Adspurgt hvad optrinnet drejede sig om ville Thomas først ikke svare, men presset fortalte han alligevel, hvad der var foregået mellem de to mænd. Thomas havde i sin tid fået jobbet som vagt gennem Francis. Nu ville Francis have en del af Thomas’ løn. Thomas havde en stor familie med kone, børn og forældre, som han ernærede gennem jobbet som vagtmand, alligevel overvejede han nu at give, Francis en del af sin løn. Dette lød absurd i mine øre.
“Ja, men Francis truede mig”, sagde Thomas.
Thomas var noget yngre og meget stærkere end Francis, så jeg forstod ikke truslens natur.
“‘Se bare hvad der skete med Moses,’ havde Francis sagt, ‘det samme kan ske med dig!’”
“Ja, Moses var blevet syg og var død. Det sker jo ofte her,” indvendte jeg.
“Tror du bare, at Moses sådan var blevet syg?”
“Ja, han havde måske haft en virus,” prøvede jeg.
“Ved du slet ikke, hvad alle folk taler om? Efter at du havde fyret Francis, gik hans mor til en heksedoktor, som har lagt en forbandelse på jobbet som chauffør hos dig.”
“Pjat, det kan man jo ikke. Heksedoktorer han allerhøjest slå en hane ihjel og sige nogle besværgelser, det kan du da forstå.”
“Du ved ikke hvad de er i stand til. De kan flyve gennem natten og forfølge dig, hvor det skal være. De kan ligge forbandelser på dig, hvis de vil, og i dette tilfælde på et job,” blev Thomas ved.
Hidtil havde woodo for mig været noget med overtro på linje med julemanden, som skulle bruges til at få børn og andre naive mennesker til at opføre sig på en bestemt måde, men ikke noget som bure tages alvorligt. Sådan tænkte jeg også nu mens Thomas fortalte videre om heksedoktorenes kundskaber. Der kunne da ikke være nogen, som troede på, at min første chauffør var blevet syg og døde som følge af den forbandelse, der var blevet lagt på jobbet. Thomas var dog ikke så sikker. Folkene i Moses´ landsby havde udstedt en slags fathwa på Francis. Han havde nok bedst, af at holde sig langt væk fra den landsby, mente Thomas, folk var virkeligt vrede og bange. Mordtrusler og realiseringen af disse var ikke usædvanlig på disse kanter. Som sagt havde den lokale stamme altid været i et modsætningsforhold til Masaii stammen. Ingen af de to viste sig i hinandens områder, da det kunne få katastrofale konsekvenser i form af lemlæstelse eller sågar død. Jeg havde også hørt om, at uenighed over retten til et stykke land eller en kvinde kunne føre til vold. Ved nærmere eftertanke var Thomas´ advarsel var nok ikke helt af vejen.
Thomas var dog mere bange for en eventuel forbandelse fra Francis´ heksedoktor end en gang prygl og var noget oprevet over min tidligere chaufførs trussel. Jeg bad ham ikke tage sig af det og fortælle mig, hvis Francis igen henvendte sig til ham med lignende. Denne del af affæren viste sig at løse sig selv. Kort tid efter optrinet med Thomas forsvandt Francis. Snakken i byen ville vide, at han var flygtet til Uganda for ikke at komme i hænderne på Moses´ slægtninge. Det løste imidlertid ikke mit problem en chauffør. Chaufføren, som jeg foreløbigt havde fået stillet til rådighed, var ikke glad ved situationen. Men da han jo teknisk set var ansat hos en anden arbejdsgiver, og forbandelsen lå over jobbet hos mig, kunne han berolige sin familie med, at han ikke var min ansat. Det endte med, at jeg måtte søge chauffører i et større geografisk område, hvilket gav pote. Ingen i Mwanza, en by 8 timers kørsel væk, havde indtil nu hørt om forbandelsen. Jackson var fra Mwanza og var frisk på at tage jobbet. Jeg nævnte intet om, hvorfor jeg savnede en chauffør. Dels mente jeg ikke, at man kunne tage rygter og woodo pjat alvorligt, dels havde jeg jo brug for en til at køre bilen, projektet kunne ikke fungere uden. Han flytter en uge senere til Mugumu med sin kone og to små børn.
Der gik dog ikke lang tid inden Jackson hørte rygterne og havde oplevelser, som fik ham til at genoverveje ansættelsen. Mugumu er en lille by og rygter kan ikke holdes i tøjler ret længe. Derfor hører Jackson om hans forgængers modgang, men nævner det ikke for mig i første omgang. Jobbet er for godt til, at han vil sige op med baggrund i en mulig forbandelse, ikke lige med det samme i hvert tilfælde.
De fleste huse i Mugumu har ikke elektricitet, der er ingen gadelygter og mørket sænker sig tidligt så tæt ved Ækvator. Byen bliver derfor meget mørk og stille ganske tidligt på aftenen og de fleste mennesker går tidligt i seng. En sådan stille aften er Jackson og hans kone på vej i seng, da hoveddøren pludseligt går op. De står det hen som et vindpust og lukker døren igen. Jackson og hans familie går roligt i seng, men bliver vækket om natten ved at stolene i rummet begyndte at bevæge sig, fortæller han mig ganske oprevet næste morgen. De var alle vågnet ved luden af stolenes bevægelse. Børnene var begyndt at græde, og de hører pludseligt noget kravle på taget. Det lyder som et stort dyr med skarpe kløer, som løber hen over den rustne bølgeblik. Det er ikke usædvanligt med vilde dyr i byen. Den ligger trods alt på grænsen til en af verdens største national parker med alt alt lige fra de store katte til giraffer og elefanter. Det er dog ikke sædvanligt, at store katte løber rundt på menneskers hustage om natten. Og Jackson er næste morgen overbevist om, at det ikke var et dyr, som holdt dem vågen det meste af natten.
Han bliver bekræftet de følgende nætter, hvor de mystiske hændelser tager til. Da det går op for Jackson og hans familie, at deres udlejer er den selv samme heksedoktor, som har lagt en forbandelse på hans job, flytter de ud samme eftermiddag. De mister det halve års husleje, som de har lagt som depositum, en forholdsvist stor sum for sådan en familie. Men de er ikke længere i tvivl, der er tinge på færde her, som man ikke bør spøge med.
På vej til en skole spørger jeg Jackson om sagen, “Jamen Jackson, du er jo katolik, tror du så også på de traditionelle religioner og deres mystik?”
“Man tager fejl, hvis man ikke også tager heksedoktorerne alvorligt. Du ved, de kan flyve om natten, selv lange afstande, og forfølge dig, hvor du end er. Derfor er vi ikke flytte tilbage til Mwanza, for de ville vi også bare blive forfulgt. De kan slå dig ihjel, hvis de vil.”
“Kom nu, der er ingen, som kan flyve.”
Sådan gik diskussionen et stykke tid. Jeg undrede mig over, at en fyr, som eller var temmelig fornuftig og nede på jorden, på denne måde kunne tro på noget så irrationelt. Men igen, nogle af den katolske kirkes beretninger og forestillinger lå måske ikke så langt fra disse ideer, at an nemt kunne begribe begge. Jeg var begyndt at overveje, om jeg ikke burde tage forbandelsen og troen på hekseri mere alvorligt. Ikke at jeg troede på det, men det gjorde folk jo omkring mig.
~*~
Der gik nogle måneder uden yderligere hændelser, og jeg havde næsten glemt al postyret omkring forbandelser og overtro. Men så skete der noget, som gjorde, at jeg i det mindste måtte handle, måske ikke så meget styret af troen på hekseri som af hensynet til en mand og hans ædlere dele.
En hel almindelig dag på jobbet kører Jackson og jeg til en fjerntliggende skole, Kono, 2½ times kørsel op i bakkerne. En af lærerne er ikke til stede. Jeg spørger derfor en anden ung lærer, hvor Ezikiel er henne.
“Åh, han er syg. Vil du se ham?”
Hvorfor ikke, tænker jeg og følger med op til de to bygninger et lille stykke bag selve skolen, hvor de unge lærer bor. Her finder jeg så Ezikiel i sengen. Han synes dog ved ok helbred og kan lave små vittigheder. Vi får serveret varm mælk, papaja frugt og jams af en elev, som varter os op. Jeg spørger, hvad han fejler. Han fortæller, at han kom til skade på en cykeltur, hvor han falder af cyklen og slår skridtet.
“Vil du se?” spørger han så og løfter lagnet.
Det er ikke kun fordi han er afrikaner, at han pissemand er stor. Den er nærmest opsvulmet og temmelig betændt. Jeg kigger høfligt på den og giver min medynk til kende, “pole sana!” Men man kan mærke, hvor ondt det må gøre. Han har ingen andre mén af styrtet en den betændte pik. Underligt. Han fortæller, at han kun slog skridtet og ikke andet. Jeg forsøger, at finde ud af, hvordan lægehjælpen er her ude i bakkerne. Den er ikke god, men der skulle komme en læge og se til ham en af de nærmeste dag, får jeg forklaret. Jeg tænker, at “lægen” nok kan hjælpe ham og siger tak for mælk og god bedring.
En lille uge senere er jeg igen på besøg ved samme skole. Ezikiel er endnu ikke til stede, og jeg spøger til ham. Han har det ikke bedre, får jeg at vide, om jeg vil se til ham. Jeg tager Jackson med denne gang. Jackson kan måske tolke det, jeg ikke kan forstå af Swahili og andet. Den unge lærer ligger stadig i sengen i sit lille kammer, som stort set kun rummer en stol og sengen, som er fyldt med ham selv og alt hans habengut. Ezikiel ser ikke bedre ud, langt fra, nu er han ikke frisk længere og ser afmagret ud. Vi taler lidt om hans tilstand, og han viser os igen hans betændte lem. Jeg kan se på Jackson, at dette er stærke sager, også selvom jeg har advaret ham. Jackson stiller et par hurtige spørgsmål på Swahili. Det er åbenbart at læreren ikke er blevet bedre.
Jeg er ikke klar over, hvad der er galt, eller om den vil falde af som i vittighederne om missionæren, men ved med mig selv at noget må gøres. De andre lærere ved skolen er ude af stand eller uvillige til at hjælpe. Derfor beslutter jeg, at vi kører denne stakkel de 2½ time, det tager til hospitalet i Mugumu. Det er naturligvis ikke mit mandat at være sygetransport. Men hvad kan man gøre? Når en mands ædlere dele er ved at falde af, hjælper man. Også selvom det måske er en selvforskyldt kønssygdom.
Da vores truck kun har plads til en passager, venter jeg i landsbyen, mens Jackson kører den uheldige lærer til Mugumu. Under køreturen fortæller han Jackson, at her er det hekserier på spil. Skolens hidtidigere leder er taget til Dar ez Salaam for at læse videre. I mellemtiden har Ezikiel fået overdraget ledelsen. Han er imidlertid ung og fra en helt anden region af Tanzania. Han forsøger at få de ældre lærere til at komme til tiden eller i skole i det hele taget. Ifølge ham bryder de ældre lærere sig ikke om hans ledelse og har lagt en forbandelse på ham. Om natten bevæger møblerne sig i deres hun og “nogen” kravler rundt på taget. Hans fald fra cyklen er åbenlyst heksedoktorens værk.
Jackson sluger naturligvis dette råt og fortæller senere med stor entusiasme om den stakkel lærers lod. Ezikiel er så bange, at han fortælle, at når han kommer ud af hospitalet vil han under ingen omstændigheder tilbage til skolen. Han frygter simpelthen for sit liv. Jeg er endnu ikke klar over hvordan denne historie ender, da jeg ikke har været på besøg i Kono i to uger pga. vores tur til Mwanza (i bil og ikke på kosteskaft). Igen tror jeg naturligvis ikke på hekse, men må forholde mig til at nogen gør.
