Bobo-Dialasso Burkina Faso

“I am the malady genius of Bama. I can ease your pain, cure your sickness. Do you have swollen feet, fiery bowels or a bite from a scorpion? Do you have crooked vision, painful teeth or a bad finger? Yes, yes, you are correct. I can cure them all. With powerful medicine and guidance from the spirit, I will heal you of any problem. I am the greatest guérisseur, master of the maladies and genius of the genies. Where is your pain today?”

A young man, fidgeting from foot to foot stands before her, nervously, and explains. “I have a knife in my liver, madame guérisseur, it twists and stabs. The pain makes a sickness in my stomach. When I lie sleepless in the hot dark of night, a cold sweat forms on my skin and I hear the demon who wields that knife, laughing at me. They say you are the best healer, but I don’t think even you can cure this ill and free me from my pain.”

“You doubt my ability?”, the wise woman retorts. “You doubt my power? You are free to return home and live with your torment. But you are here, asking for my help. First you must bring me a goat, to show you are willing to make sacrifice. Without sacrifice, there is no cure. Come back when you are prepared to commit to your recovery.”

The next day he brings a goat. A sad scrawny kid. The great guérisseur eyes it with disdain. She sighs, disappointed that people don’t show the respect they used to. Disappointed that the people are so poor, and their animals so thin. And disappointed that her dinner looks so stringy and tasteless. But she will do what she can for this unhappy man, he is obviously in pain.

She sits alone on a rough wooden chair in the shade of a grass roof. Her patients, petitioners and helpers gather on the opposite side of the compound. Distanced by respect for her, or more probably, fear. She starts to chant, the familiar words that will summon the spirit to guide her. Her familiar spirit guide, that is both the source of her power and her jailer. The connection that binds her and the spirit allows her to demand his service, but also allows him to feed on her soul. She once tried to sever the bond. To free herself from his control. But it left her mind in tatters, raving and mad, and only with help from the marabout was she able to re-establish the connection and her sanity.

The spirit enters her mind, and controls it. Her eyes roll back into her head and her body spasms in protest, as alien words pour from her lips. She can hear herself speaking, but can make no sense of it. The stink of the spirit in her mind smothers all rational thought. But her assistant will be listening and interpreting the words. When it is done the genie disappears. The healer slowly regains conscientiousness, no idea of how much time has passed and though her body is exhausted, her mind is calm and clear.

Her assistant explains to the sceptical patient what sacrifices he must make. First you must give nine biscuits and thirty five francs to the mother of twins. Next you will give a white guinea fowl to a beggar. It must be white. Then you make a potion with the gizzard of a chicken, the liver of a goat, the intestine of a sheep and a brown cola nut. You wash your belly with the liquid and drink the remainder of it. When you have carried out the sacrifice then you can return here for the treatment. The guérisseur listens intently, the sacrifice demanded by the spirit identifies the nature of the patient and the corruption caused by the illness. This knowledge will guide her when she chooses his medication.

With the help of her assistant she retires to her hut to rest. Moving is painful, her body is frailer every day. Every patient she heals leaves her weaker. Like the cobbler who wears no shoes, she cannot heal herself.

———-

The young man is Wamain. Wamain Kaid from the village of Songo. He was the village mechanic until he became sick and could no longer work. He worked hard and was well respected. He ate well, he was strong and he dug the graves at the cemetery when someone died. But the sickness was killing him. The pain stopped him sleeping. The illness sapped his strength. He couldn’t work, so went hungry. He didn’t even have the strength to dig his own grave.

Everyone said the wise woman of Bama was the best healer in the country, but she wanted so much. The sacrifices and the payments were more than he could afford. She was too greedy.

The headman of his village was a good man. He used to have a name of his own, but when he became the head man he gave it up. Chief Songo he is called. Songo is the chief. Songo is the village. Chief Songo had given the the goat to Wamain and even a little money to help buy the sacrifices.

The biscuits, galettes they are called here, were cheap and easy to find and. Wamain would often go down to the main road for breakfast and buy them hot from the women who cooked them. Thirty five francs was more difficult. The smallest coin in normal use was the fifty franc. Twenty fives were not so uncommon, but tens were rare indeed. By asking all the traders in the market he eventually managed to swap his fifty for thirty five. Looking at the smallest coin, worn smooth, Wamain mused, ‘I have just bought a ten franc coin for twenty five francs. Possibly I am crazy. Can it be true that a coin can be worth more than itself?’

He knew a woman, on the other edge of the village who had young twins. It was a long walk for him. The sun was getting hot. The pain from his sickness stabbed him with every step. He reached her house, exhausted, to be told by an old man that she had gone shopping in the market. The place he had just come from. He sat in the shade from the house. ‘Maybe I will just die here,’ he thought, ‘It would be much easier’.

“I have to find the mother of twins to make a sacrifice.” he explains to the old man who had sat beside him.
“Ah,” he replies unhelpfully, “but she is not here. There is another lady in that house over there. She is one of twins and I think her mother still lives.”
But Wamain is not thinking of solutions. He is only thinking of how hard living is. Of how unfair life is. Of how he just wants to sit in the shade and wait for the end. “But she is the daughter of the mother of twins. That is no use to me” he mutters despondently.
“You brick! You stone. You worse than useless thing” the old man snaps, “did you really think life was going to be so easy? You are sick. Are you just going to give up, and wait for death? Better that you’d never been born at all, and saved your mother the pain of pushing your worthless soul into the world. Get up! We’ll go to the woman. She will receive your sacrifice. “

The old man’s insults mean nothing to Wamain, but the summoned spirit of his mother leaves him no choice but to follow. The woman is home and yes, she is a twin. And her mother lives. When the old man explains the situation she agrees she will accept the sacrifice on behalf of her mother.
“But,” she adds, sensing an opportunity, “If you want my blessing you must pay me five hundred francs.”
“You witch,” Wamain blurts out, “If you take my money I cannot buy a white guinea fowl to complete my sacrifice. And I will die. You would kill me for five hundred francs? Have you no heart?”
“I have a good heart,” she answers quietly, “but it is called a sacrifice, because you must sacrifice something. How much money do you have?”
“I have only three thousand,” the young man starts, his anger subsiding as quickly as it came, “An ordinary grey fowl is three thousand, but a white one will cost four.”
She smiles. “I think the spirits are with you. I have a white guinea fowl. A fine fat bird. If you buy it from me for three thousand, I will receive your offering and give you my blessing.”

She takes the biscuits and thirty five francs and carefully wraps them in a cloth, holds then to her chest and mutters a blessing. She takes the three thousand francs and they miraculously disappear into a fold in her clothing. She turns and enters her compound and shortly there is a ruckus of squawking chickens and bleating goats. When she returns, she hands Wamain a perfectly white guinea fowl.

“Thank you Madame,” he offers humbly, “ I am so very sorry I called you a witch. You are very kind. I could kiss you.”
“I think you shouldn’t.” she states, and walks away.

The old man accompanies Wamain back through the village. He feels a duty to continue helping the boy. Once you intervene in someone’s life, you have a duty to them.
“What more do you need to complete your sacrifice?” he enquires.
“The ingredients for the potion,” Wamain answers, “ I need some sheep intestine and a cola nut, a brown one. Also a piece of goat liver and that bit from a chicken’s stomach that is not the stomach. But I have no money left. And I need to find a beggar”

“I will help you,” the old man says, then grins as an idea takes him. “ I have some cola nuts at home. We will find a brown one. And I am friends with the butcher. He will give you the animal pieces you need. I am not a rich man. Sometimes I have no food. So I sit in the street and ask for charity. I will be your beggar. You can give me the guinea fowl.”

Wamain starts to laugh. The cheek of the old man. The perfect circular logic of it all. The realisation that the spirits take care of everything. The woman has her money. The old man has a fat fowl for dinner. And he, poor sick Wamain, makes his sacrifices and receives his blessings.

After collecting the ingredients for his potion the young man presents the guinea fowl with some carefully thought out words. “I give you this bird in charity, not in payment. Your good fortune is to receive it, and my good fortune is to give it. This simple creature brings an blessing to both of us.” The old man happily takes the offering and responds with a Quoranic prayer. They shakes hands and Wamain goes off to prepare his potion and complete the ritual.

———-

The guérisseur has been out collecting the the medicines. Bitter leaves from a certain tree, scented bark from another. Grass that grows on the river bank and the roots of a shrub that is poisonous if not treated correctly. They are all stuffed in a large sack that she puts on the floor, then takes her customary place on her rough throne shaded beneath the grass thatched roof. A large crowd is gathered to receive their treatments today. Her assistant shushes the assembled patients, then instructs them one by one, to place the clay pot they have brought, in front of the healer. She sits still, making no effort to see which pot belongs to which person, but instead empties her mind. When the bright sun, and the clay pots and the moving people have faded away, she feels about the barren internal landscape to find the presence of the the Djinn. Always there in the shadows waiting to seize control of her. But she resists him this time, pushing him back. His presence is enough for what she has to do. Letting him possess her is too damaging.

In her trance like state, she squats on the floor. She takes a piece of bark from her sack, feels it, breaks it in two, and puts the pieces into two of the pots. Then a handful of leaves, and a root. Touching each item. Feeling the contents of each pot. Does this grass fit with the contents of this pot? No, this one maybe? Yes. The next handful from the sack is another root. Where does this go? And so it continues. The old lady, with glazed unfocussed eyes picks everything by touch alone, until the sack is empty and every pot has just the right ingredients. Her assistant helps her back to her chair. She relaxes and allows her mind back to the physical world. The patients come to collect their pots and and medicine, and she instructs them on the treatment. Wamain picks up his, examining the contents. He seems to have much more than everyone else. The guérisseur says, “Fill the pot with water and heat it over a fire. Not on the gas but a wood fire. When it boils, let it cool then drink one cup of the liquid and with the rest of it wash your entire body. Do this morning and night for ten days. Then you sickness will be healed. If you don’t do it exactly as I say you will be dead before the tenth day.

———-

Wamain had been sceptical. Wamain had been without hope. He was sick and death was closing in on him. But returning home with his pot of herbs he is already feeling more positive. The pain is still there in his body, but it doesn’t dominate his mind as before. After five days of taking his medicine he is starting to feel better and his appetite returns. By the seventh day he feels much stronger and allows himself to believe he might actually recover. On day nine he forgets he was sick and starts to repair the taxi that he had abandoned in pieces in front of his house.

He doesn’t really know if it is the medicine that has cured him, or if it was the magic of the guérisseur. He thinks about his experience with the sacrifices, and wonders if his fate was always in the hands of the spirits. Has he just been following the path they set before him? Was his recovery always inevitable?