Father's Day/Sangoma

Today, I joined my host parents, Lou and Rosemary, at their retirement community for a Father's Day dinner. We were joined by two other couples (Milton and June; Robbie and Sunny) who turned out to be, along with my folks, hysterical company.  Milton seems to have done everything, in his lifetime, from piloting to being a bush vet/warden/something in Rhodesia, and all three men seemed to have lifetimes of mischief.  God bless long-suffering wives.

After that, our group went to Daveyton. There seems to be suspicion of a bad curse/spell/vibe cast upon the family/house, so a sangoma (healer) was called in to try to solve it. Well, technically, this was a backup sangoma. The original wanted us to show up this morning at 2 a.m.; he was subsequently cancelled and another drummed up.

We sat on the floor, shoes off, and he lit a candle, sprinkled some soil/tobacco/spices/gunpowder (hey, it was dark) on the floor, and started chanting in Zulu. In my mind, he was consulting the ancestors and accessing the situation. This WAS just a consultation, by the way. The real work will follow next week. As flippant as that sounded, it was fascinating.  I caught roughly 3 words in Zulu (or three words that sound like the three words that I know, albeit disjointed and lacking any context), but watching his body language and concentration on the faces of the clients, something was definitely going on.

Not sure what the outcome was, but next week we're to show up with a chicken (live, of course) candles, and needles, then we'll be taken out to a field to do something….  yeah, it was vague, but I didn't have to understand anything.

And I don't have to catch a chicken.

On the way home, I asked why it's always a chicken.  Not to question his ability or disrespect beliefs, but it's always a chicken. Never a cat, a hamster, a buffalo…

A few of us DID, then, get private consultations.  It would be a breach of protocol to tell other's results, but after a long few minutes of very passionate Zulu, and gestures (hang-wringing, tracing a belt around his waist, and something that looked like turning a doorknob), I was told that I have trouble concentrating.  And that I have trouble with my legs.

What I was concentrating on was how I was going to get up off the floor without creating total bedlam.  I DO have trouble with my legs, after all.