On Changing your Life

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also to keep this constructive, what special qualities do you think seperated you from other whites or tourists in africa? do you think anyone can go there and survive, or do you need some special qualities to make it?

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Smurf,

I'm not really sure. Some guides turned up that we were sure would fit in well, but only lasted a month at most. Others whom we were dubious of caught on immediately. I suppose the only way you can know for sure is to go there yourself. I will note though, that often it's the bigger guys who are 'tough' back in the first world who don't go well in these situations.


Mick came striding out of the shed and looked at the askari holding the gun. “What do you think you’re doing, you idiot?” he said to me. “We used all his bullets the other night.”

I sheepishly stood up. “Did you find out who did it?” I asked.

“Of course not. I said, ‘Was it Juma?’, and he said that it was indeed Juma. I then asked him if it was Charles, and he said that he was sure that Charles is guilty.”

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

Mick shrugged. “Fire the lot of them and start over.”

I was very reluctant to bring it up, but I decided that I had nothing to lose. Besides, he should have been arriving at any moment. “There is the witchdoctor,” I said with some caution.

Mick just stared at me. “The witchdoctor?” he finally said. “What the hell are you on about?”

I explained how his employees had pooled their money to get this dude over. We asked Paul how much they had paid, and the answer came to about $40. Impressive stuff, considering the average monthly wage was about $25. They assured us that this guy was the best witchdoctor money could buy. “What the hell,” Mick said. “Might as well give it a shot. Stranger crap has happened.”

Some time later, the matatu bearing the witchdoctor arrived. We kept the group back, apart from Paul, as we didn’t want anyone telling the witchdoctor who they thought had done it. At this point most of the staff had returned from wherever it was they had run to. Mick and I had no illusions about getting the stereo back, it was gone. We wanted to see if this guy was for real. We walked over to the matatu and met the witchdoctor.

He was a tiny little old man, dressed in a three piece brown suit, carrying an old-fashioned suitcase. He had a huge smile that was perpetually on his face. I liked him immediately. There was now a crowd of about thirty people gathered around and we selected a few to hold the others back. Word was apparently flying around the area that a famous witchdoctor had shown up to help the mazungu’s.

He asked us where the crime had been committed and we took him over to the banda hut. He instructed us to wait outside. The huts consisted of just one room with two front windows and a door. We peered into the gloom to see what he was doing. He set his suitcase down on the ground, unfastened a belt that was tied around the middle, and opened the lid. Out scrambled a live chicken. He immediately grabbed the chicken, and with one swift movement cut off its head with a knife. Holding the twitching body with one hand, he began spreading blood around the hut. Mick gave me a look that seemed to indicate, ‘this had better bloody work’.

The witchdoctor then began throwing all sorts of sh*t around the hut. Spices, leaves, bark, roots, berries, all were flung into far corners while he chanted in some weird dialect. There was a continual low murmur from the growing crowd. The witchdoctor then began to dance. He jerked around and around, the chicken still grasped in his wiry hand. Blood continued to fly as he flung himself around the room. His voice rose with every passing moment. The crowds voice began to rise in unison.

“Gonna have to wash those mattresses,” Mick whispered to me. I told him to shut the feck up. I was getting a little bit worried. What if this kindly old man pronounced that the mazungu’s were the bad dudes? I had no doubt that the crowd would tear us to pieces.

Then he stopped dead still. His hands hung in the air above his head. He was perched like a hawk about to strike. The dead chicken fell from his fingers and hit the ground. At once he flung himself down with his face on the ground studying the chicken. He moved his body in a complete circle around the chicken while holding one eye to the floor. We were hanging on his every action. And then he stood up, brushed down his suit, and asked if he could have a cup of tea. Mick sent one of the young boys flying down to the bar to get the great man some tea.

He motioned to Mick and I and we went into a huddle. “The one you seek,” he began in his high pitched, giggly voice. “He is young, maybe 15 years. Tall, very tall. But very slim. Maybe he should eat more. Perhaps he steals as he is hungry. He lives very close, in the village at the crossroads. He likes to wear the color blue.”

Mick and I looked at each other as we both said the same name. “Godfrey.”

We marched up the road together with the witchdoctor and the now sizeable crowd. The village was about a mile down the entrance road to Bujagali where it met the main dirt road. On the way we met the local police chief. He had heard what was going on and had rushed over to see. On seeing me he smiled and said, “Ah, the lunatic. And how is everything now?” We filled him in on the developments. He was deeply impressed at our wisdom at obtaining a qualified witchdoctor. Normally mazungu’s were not that smart.

We reached the village. They were waiting for us. It was obvious that we wouldn’t find Godfrey. We entered his home where he lived with his mother and his siblings. We asked which bed was Godfrey’s. Mick turned it over and a black cobra shot out from under the mattress. We all jumped back and the crowd went, oooooooohh. The cobra slithered outside where the crowd quickly beat it to death. Under Godfrey’s mattress we found an interesting history of petty thievery. There was a small treasure of mostly worthless items pilfered from guides and customers. We recognized Colin’s waist-bag that had gone missing some time earlier. We collected this booty while the police chief grilled Godfrey’s mother. Apparently the accused had cleared out only fifteen minutes before we arrived with the stereo under his arm.

We declined the offer of a boda-boda bicycle chase, tempting as it was. Paul shambled over nervously and told us that the witchdoctor performed other services as well. Really? Such as?

“If the mazungu’s would like, I can put a curse on the boy and he will suffer a horrible disease.”

We liked the sound of that one. “Any others?” asked Mick, as he guided the witchdoctor out of earshot of the thief’s mother.

“I can perform one where he will drop dead in three days,” said the witchdoctor.

“That’ll do,” said Mick. “We’ll have one death in three days, thanks.” Mick leaned over to me and explained that he didn’t believe in this crap, but the locals believed in it. He wanted them to know that if they stole from him, they were going to deal with a mazungu who played by their rules.

A couple of weeks later, we located the stolen stereo in a pawn-brokers. Godfrey was never seen again. I spoke to Mick about this situation a few months ago. He said that we had been incredibly foolish marching into the village like that. It could have quite easily turned nasty, and if it had, we wouldn’t have had a chance. At the time it had seemed like a good idea.