Okay, I am going to try to slam this out, cuz no internet
yesterday and have to catch a car in a bit.
Please excuse the typos -- I've been working on an American keyboard at
the PC office the last couple dqys qnd it's hard for me to make the transition
back to the French. It'll take me
forever to correct them all, but will do what I can!
I just wanted to make sure I got something out to y'all, so
you know at least that I am fine and I love you and thanks for all the birthday
wishes (and thanks for calling Kath!), and for the packages. Nina, I got your box from
I'll start from the beginning:
New Years was spent on a beach with a bunch of Rastafarians,
drinking rum out of fresh coconuts, sprinkling hedwig glitter over all the
party-goers and the bar staff (much to their delight), dancing around a bonfire
to the beat of the djembes, running into the ocean at midnight with a bottle of
champagne... Great way to start the year,
which I have decided will be my year of miracle. I have a sticker on my water bottle that
proves it, and people keep asking what is going to happen. I don't know, but you just wait and see...
Then began the long long dusty dirty voyage north to Burkino
Faso and
Once back in village at the end of January, I was happy to
find some unexpected and fun side effects of my health training in November,
notably that one of the traditional healers I invited to it has become a buddy
of sorts and claims he will show me the "power of Africa" via his
art. He invites me to his healings, I
bring him gin, and I learn a lot of crazy shit.
One of the most interesting days so far was his healing of a woman with
an intensely swollen and infected breast (happens a lot here). The ancestors do the work, he says, via
himself, and they had told him to tell her to bring a certain amount of gin,
some specific plants, and 3 freshwater crabs.
I didn't even know we had crabs here, so that was a shock to see. The process was long and crazy and several
times I thought the healer was going to throw up. In between shots of cheap gin, he would suck
on her back and her breast, and I watched him cough up a total of 3 bb looking
pebble things plus one that looked like a tiny crystal. The woman was in a lot of pain, which became
excruciating for her when he had finished his 'extractions' and moved on to the
crabs. He chose one (or, I should say,
the ancestors did), smashed it on the floor, and proceeded to rub her breast
down with the milky liquid before then taking the whole broken shell and
essentially exfoliating her breast with it.
She was screaming and crying, and many others in the room were as
well. I was just transfixed. After, he told her to wait a week before
paying him (1100 francs, about 2 dollars), to see if it worked first. They told me it was gris-gris, a curse, and
when I asked him if he knew who it was he said yes but he didn't have the right
to say because he is not licensed. It
turns out, there are healers licensed by the state, and only they have the
right to reveal who has cursed their patients. Otherwise, the person will be able to complain
and call the healer in front of a local tribunal of sorts. I never knew.
My healer is planning on getting licensed at some point, and it requires
many proofs of your power and ability to 'see'.
He read my palm briefly one day, and asked me a startling question that
has made me decide to have a full-on reading by him, just to see...
Okay, that is it for now.
More later on the fuulani, my bday and the voodoo wedding, and my bday
again in
Love you all and miss you still terribly!
Laura