When I came to live with her things were fine, she was pushing her life well. But things changed in time as my mother lost her job because the company she was working for was running low on funds. They had to retrench some of the workers they had and leave a few. Well that brought a crisis. We couldn’t afford to buy any food, but all she could afford was to pay for my education at least. Because my mother regarded my education as top priority, she saw a star out of me even though I had failed in the farms.

Things got worse and worse every day. We slept for two days with our lips dry because of hunger. It seemed as if grace was not working in such situations and we felt that God had abandoned us. Months passed by with my mother not finding a job. She had no choice now but to beg for me to eat. She never ate anything but as long as my stomach was full she was fulfilled and thanked God for that. I could feel the pain in my mother, even though she was a strong woman but she had become wrecked, filled with distress every day.

My mother then decided to go see a traditional healer because that wasn’t normal anymore; the struggle. My mother had become very curious about all of this because since I had come to stay with her, things became worse and she began to lose everything. I remember that we were even getting attacked in our house at night. A group of thugs broke in to our house and pointed us with guns. I just gazed at the gun that was pointed at my forehead and did not make any noise because even though I was young, I understood that making noise was a dangerous move.

Those thugs had shoved my mother in the corner of the room. She was crying. I understood because she was terrified and it had been the first time she had been pointed with a gun. She was crying in her nightdress. In my thoughts I just wished that they mustn’t rape her because they could’ve. They were armed and there was no man in the house so it would’ve been easy to take advantage. But they only took our radio and TV. The bastards even took my lunch my mother had made for me for the morning. For this reason my mother went to Ndlovu, who was a strong traditional healer.

“Phumla, the problem here is your son. There’s a dark cloud following him and thank God you came because it was going to kill him and effect the family too.” Ndlovu said.

“But Ndlovu, why the little child?” My mother asked.

“Your child’s gift!” He began to roar… It was scary now. “He has a gift that… he is powerful… It’s disrupting their plans and they will do anything to destroy him and the family.” He prophesied.

“What plans is this child disrupting, Ndlovu?” With curiosity my mother inquired.

“Haibo, yithi makhosi!”

“Makhosi!” My mother shouted in that hut we were in. I was at the corner just shaking with fear. I had never seen something like that in my life.

“You my child…you can’t get a job, angithi?” Ndlovu asked in a weird way pointing my mother with a broom. His lips began to shake, as if he was feeling a strong force of power entering his body.

***

Tell us: Have you ever visited a sangoma? How was that experience?