The hike I did on Wednesday was as difficult as expected,
but mercifully there were some clouds so it wasn’t as hot as the previous few
days. I started from Morogoro at 7am with an enthusiastic trainee guide,
Grayson, and his qualified supervisor, Evans (who inaccurately and pleasantly
referred to me as Dr Jon, especially after I “cured” his aching feet with some
ibuprofen), and we gradually ascended up uluguru mountain towards the
rainforest. The higher we got the cooler it was and by the time we had reached
the highest point at 1pm, Bondwe peak (2008m), my guides had got out their
fleeces. It was especially steep in parts where landslides had obliterated the
path and we were forced to take shortcuts directly upwards through the forest.
The lower slopes of the mountains are densely populated with villages and farms
of the Luguru tribe but there is an abrupt change at the treeline where
pristine rainforest begins; I was lucky enough to spot an enchanting troop of
black and white colobus monkeys, which I’m told are usually very shy and rarely
seen. I ran out of water fairly early on but followed my guides in refilling my
bottle from a beautiful but perhaps less than sterile stream, an infection risk
that seemed necessary to combat dehydration as the afternoon sun came out
fighting.
A black and white colobus (Colobus guereza)
Nearer the bottom of the mountain we were alerted to a
woman’s blood curdling screams. My mind raced as I tried to think what could be
the cause (in order: childbirth, trauma, grief, assault, epileptic seizure,
psychiatric illness) and the guides quickly brought me to the source of the
commotion. I had a very basic first aid kit with me and very basic medical
student knowledge in my head but I concluded that if there was a medical
problem there was a slim chance I could help. It turned out that I could not.
We rushed to the scene, where a violently writhing woman was held down by four
others, screaming a mix of incomprehensible gibberish, Kiswahili and her local
language. There was no obvious physical injury and it didn’t look much like a
typical seizure to me so I asked my guide to translate what was happening, I
was surprised when he replied “evil spirits”.
The woman and her sister had been communicating with their
ancestors and had inadvertently become possessed by malicious spirits (this is
apparently very common and such communication with the ancestors is therefore
discouraged). The priest had been called and he began to exorcise this woman’s
sister who was being similarly restrained in a nearby house. The exorcism
involved two men, at least one of which was a priest, shouting (I picked up
some of the words from the daily church services at Machame e.g. “mungu” = God,
“yesu” = Jesus) and frantically gesticulating over the distressed woman. This
went on for some time and was watched by quite an audience of other villagers
alongside me and the guides. Eventually the woman abruptly came round (no
post-ictal state; further evidence against epilepsy) with apparently no memory
of the previous commotion. The situation was completely new for me but I was
just glad that I hadn’t had to do anything.
My guides explained that belief in witchcraft, evil spirits,
warlocks and witch-doctors is very common here, alongside simultaneous belief
in Christianity or, more commonly around Morogoro, Islam. Further, local people
are much more likely to first attempt traditional medicine for most problems
than consulting modern, western, medical help. I learnt that the beliefs
permeate all aspects of life; a person is as likely to visit a witch doctor to
bring them good fortune in work or love as they are for medical problems. I was
surprised that my university-educated guide explained to me, in perfect
English, how we keeps his money in a bible to prevent it being taken by evil
spells, as that had happened to his less-cautious friend. He also warned me not
to give money to warlocks lest they use my gift to magically extract the rest
of my money from me.
There are many many traditional beliefs and superstitions
that persist in Tanzania. People here are quick to confirm the existence of some
of these practices – for example in parts of Tanzania and elsewhere in Africa
twins are considered unlucky and are killed on birth, and albino people have
been killed to create good luck spells and remedies – but quickly deny that
they believe in these extreme examples themselves. As might be expected with
the existence beliefs like this to continue, health awareness in the general
population is mostly quite poor. For example my guide was amazed at my ability
to remove pain with ibuprofen, he’d never heard of simple painkillers before.
The dangers of smoking, alcohol or diet don’t seem to be widely known. “Blood
pressure” is an extremely vague concept for most Tanzanians and many have
bizarre ideas as to what causes and prevents it. Alarmingly given the
prevalence of HIV, knowledge of condom use (still a taboo topic in Tanzania) is
poor too; Laura and Rhi recounted how 20-40yr old taxi drivers in Moshi watched
intently as a condom was demonstrated and explained to them using a coke
bottle. Tanzania has a reasonable education and literacy rate for Africa (69%, ranked 19/52 countries, and improving), I suggest that increasing basic health
education in parallel would be beneficial.
