Traditional Healer

Hello! Marion, Becca, and I had a very busy week last week, all of which I'd like to share, but it would be way too long in one posting, so I'll just do a bunch of postings in a row (if my connection is good enough!). I'd like to start with the traditional healer we went to see at Miango. Paul, the man who takes care of the dogs and guards and generally the whole compound, took us, as it is his home town. It is about 30 minutes-1 hr away, and it is a lovely small town in the country, surrounded by big rocks. We were expecting that they would be old men who had been taught the art of herbs as a family tradition, but they were not that at all. The healers were two or three men, in their late 30-s to early-40s, who believed God gave them a gift of learning healing herbs. They didn’t have a teacher, it seems, they taught themselves. They told us they gathered their own herbs, which mostly seemed to be from common trees and plants around. They took their children to help and teach them about the herbs. They are farmers for a living, and they charge patients if they can pay and don’t charge if the patients can’t pay. They see it as their calling from God, their way of service. They have a house that acts as an inpatient ward of sorts, when needed. They see themselves as healers as much as doctors are, except that know there are some conditions they can’t treat and then they send them on to the hospital. They have absolutely no quarrel with the hospital or Western medicine. They just wished their practice was accepted by Western-style doctors with the same equanimity. They showed us many of their herbs. They had herbs for everything from colds to cirrhosis to anemia to giving energy. They even had a combination of herbs that they say cures early stage HIV infection. They say they had four patients who were tested for HIV and were positive but were still healthy and unaffected, and after taking the herbs, they were re-tested and were HIV negative. Of course, we were somewhat skeptical, but I encouraged them to keep very careful track of their research and bring it to the attention of the hospital, because if it really can cure early stage HIV, well, it’s a priceless thing. I believe in herbal medicines; after all, many drugs we have now are simply chemicals distilled from plants and herbs. But still, they need to have good strong evidence before anyone will believe them. It’s not good to get your hopes up with HIV treatment, as nothing has panned out yet!

They asked for prayers, that they find money to have a real inpatient ward and that people might believe in what they do. In Nigeria, traditional healers are often the occult, also witch doctors of a sort. Herbal medications often come along with charms and belief in the spirits and things like that. It’s not that I don’t believe in evil spirits or spiritual warfare, but when you start believing you can manipulative spirits or nature through charms and incantations, well, that’s witchcraft. So being a Christian herbal healer is a very rare thing. We prayed for them, and they prayed for us, and then we went to the market. Apparently, each small town had a market day, where sellers from many different towns and villages would all come, and they’d have a very big market. It seemed you could buy just about anything from credit for a cell phone to pots to fish in this market. Becca took a picture of the market and managed to offend the ladies we were trying to buy cose from. Apparently, many Nigerians don’t like having their pictures taken. Some, because they feel you shouldn’t take a picture of them unless they are in their best outfits. Others, because they think you’re trapping their spirits in a picture and won’t be able to get them back. And still others think you might be trying to scam them and steal the patterns of their goods, so they don’t want any pictures taken of what they are selling. Anyway, we were trying to buy cose, which is a generic term for some sort of dough-like substance deep fried in palm oil, which is a very fatty, red oil. The dough can be a bean paste, or pounded cassava or yam (both are starchy roots like potatoes but taste different, more starchy and bland). I love the bean cose. They have a big pot of boiling oil at the market, and they cook them right there in front of you and you can get a big handful for next to nothing. Paul finally sweet-talked them into selling some to us and we burned out tongues eating them right out of the pot!

On the way home, Paul had to stop and greet every person we came upon. Since it was his village, he knew everyone, and in Nigeria it is so impolite not to stop and have a long greeting with people you know. It was remarkable; even 15 minutes from the village, at a military checkpoint, he ran into someone he knew. Apparently, the army men at the checkpoint, Paul, and two men on a motor bike all played together as children. Somehow, the two men on the bike insulted one of the army men when they were asked to stop for a routine search, so the army man took the keys to the bike and refused to give them back until the bike men apologized (or gave money, I suspect). Paul got out and spoke to the army men at length, reminding them that no matter who insulted who, God asks us to forgive and give grace to those who insult us, and so on. The army men were finally swayed and gave the keys back. We go back on the road (most roads in Nigeria are either run-down potholed sort-of paved roads or bumpy dirt roads but neither are particularly comfortable and none have any traffic rules of any sort) and finally arrived home tired, hot, and hungry (this is a common way we arrive home from anywhere). Wow!