Sorcellerie (Wednesday, 2011 August 17)
I’m at another village working on some kind of reproductive health/AIDS camp for kids, and we’re up way too late. I want to go to bed but people are on the couch where I’m sleeping. It’s 12 midnight and we’re talking about creepy stuff.
Apparently there’s a terribly weird French lady in Lindsay’s village. She’s a Catholic missionary, and we’re hearing stories about her now. Apparently she’s really gotten into traditional medicine. Also sorcery. Apparently she can look at you and tell you when you die. Also, she’s the king of the creatures of the air. It’s late now and all of this is super creepy. African sorcery stories are normally laughable and ludicrous, but this is nuts. She’s super rich and has a fully-stocked lab, but people abused her kindness. Nobody enters her compound.
This is already a little weird because Lindsay’s village is cursed. It got that curse when a Cameroonian from France came back to visit, to tell his villagers that it was necessary to ally themselves with the Europeans or something. Anyhow he didn’t do a traditional greeting to the chief, so they buried him alive. Every two years, the village notables do a dance to ask God to forgive their village. The road going to this village isn’t paved, but not because they won’t — because they can’t.
I’m remembering now about the crab sorcerer in Rhumsiki. Seems a lot less funny now that it’s dark out and every noise sounds like a burglar. So, with new eyes, let’s look at his prediction. I asked him (with an aside to my companions first: "Don’t judge me") whether shit with [name] was really really over. He told me that yes, it was really over — someone else was cherching her — but not to worry about it, because someone else was cherching me. I guessed at the time about the one cherching [name], but couldn’t figure out who was cherching me. Still don’t know. Was it you? This was around early April. Maybe he was just cold-calling me? Maybe even in Rhumsiki, they know the old saying, "The best way to get over someone is to get under someone else".