Meeting up with the withdoctor

So, I wanted to tell a story of one of the last days at site...I went to visit a traditional healer/witchdoctor...I asked my friend, George, to take me to some in our area, so he took me to the one near the market. It looked pretty normal from the outside, just a house. We went to the back and went into the "consultation" room. Sitting on the mat on the floor, I looked around and saw his potions and magic stuff. It was interesting. George explained the purpose of our visit: to meet him and to see what he could offer me. He said that he could offer me three services: to tell me who has stolen from me (MK85) , fix any illnesses that I have (MK75) , or to fix any problems associated with my family (MK65) . Of course, as soon as I heard he could tell me who was robbing from me, I told him to help me with that.
From this point on, he went into some sort of trance thing. He started speaking to his dead mother's spirit in this gourd-like thing that had hair on it. He said that it reminds him of his mother. In order to get any information, he had to ask his mother (amayi in chichewa). He blew over the hair on the gourd before he started asking his mother for information. He kept chanting things at this object, saying "amayi" over and over until he felt satisfied with his answer. He told me that two male students from the technical college were the ones stealing from me. They come to my house only when I am not there for a few days and tell each other that information and go together to take things. They sell my stuff in the market and to people in the village. It should be easy to catch these guys because they come to my house so often to check to see if I am around.

There are three punishments towards the person who stole from you: 1)put some sort of spell on them that makes them frozen in your house until you catch them stealing from you 2) sores will appear all over the body of the person who stole from you 3) the witchdoctor can put a curse on them to kill them...sounds brutal...

There are 2 things I can do to keep them away from my house: 1) put some seeds around the perimeter of my house and when the person comes close to my house, they will just not feel like robbing from me and walk away 2) put a oil mixture on my windows and doors and will do the same thing as the seeds...I only found out the price for the seeds: MK800! Ridiculous!

After the information sharing, he described how he came to be a traditional healer. He said that in first grade, he started having dreams with his dead uncle in them, telling him what seeds from trees to collect to heal people. He kept having the dreams and by 4th grade, he decided to start helping people against his father's will. A few years later, he had another dream from his dead uncle telling him to charge people for his gift. He then explained some of his potion things and gourds: 1)Mwatida: protects a person's body if harm comes 2)Kusala: a strange gourd thing with horns or something that recognizes who is a witch 3)Mwuzayani: assists in fertility 4)Mwazangati: a stuffed snake (like what you would win at a fair) that turns into a live snake that can be sent to bite someone and kill them...

I discussed the visit with George after we left. We both agreed that he must of thought that I worked at the technical college for him to say that it was students stealing from me. I told him that I suspected my watchman and he agreed that it could be him. He doesn't really believe in traditional healers like a lot of other Malawians, so it was interesting to hear his opinion.

Well, that's it for now....will write later! Just wanted to share this quick story