EAVESDROPPER’S EAR With POTIPHER TEMBO –

THERE are certain diseases believed to be suffered by Africans and cannot be cured using conventional medicines.
For this reason, people with such ailments have gone to clinics and hospitals for a long time, but have never been cured.
Due to failure by conventional medicines to heal these diseases, relatives of the patients have suspected witchcraft to be behind the disease.
The truth, however, is that there are so many diseases that not only Africans suffer from, but also other races worldwide. What differs is the rate of prevalence.
Diseases such as diabetics, commonly known as sugar disease, HIV/AIDS, high (or low) blood pressure, known as BP, epilepsy (icinkoninkoni) to mention a few, have no known cure and are suffered by all races.
Because of the agony people suffering from such diseases go through, their sympathetic relatives have done everything they could to ensure their kin and kith get healed but to no avail.
Recently, I was in Masala Township in Ndola where I had been invited to attend the after-burial meeting known in ici-Bemba as isambo lyamfwa.
At the meeting, there were many elderly people, especially women.
As we were relaxing while having some drinks after the meeting, an old woman came and greeted us.
Her mouth was hollow as she appeared to have lost all her teeth. This was not something strange because there are so many old people, again, especially old women, who have lost their teeth perhaps because of old age.
After the old woman greeted us and left, one of the other old women seated with us asked one man who was her nephew, whether he knew the woman who had just greeted us.
The man responded that he did not know the woman but suspected she could have been one of the grandmothers who had come from the village for the funeral.
The old woman shook her head and smiled.
“Mwebana bamutauni tamwishibana. Ulya mwaice wandi, ewa namba faifi pali ine. Ekala ku Luanshya(You town dwellers don’t know one another. That one is my younger sister and she is number five from me. She stays in Luanshya),” said the old woman.
She looked much younger compared to the toothless woman she was referring to as her younger sister and that she was number five from her.
If anything, the fact would have been vice versa…. she should have been the younger sister.
It was not only me who seemed to be surprised. Everybody around seemed perplexed.
“Awe anti mulebepa. Tetibabe abaicebenu balya. Bakote sana balya,” (No aunt, you are telling lies. That one can’t be your younger sister. She is too old,” said the old woman’s nephew.
The old woman swore that she was not telling lies and that she was the first born in the family of eight and there was a man around who agreed with her because he was number three from the old woman.
This man too looked much younger to the toothless woman.
“Icamukotesha nkashi yandi micene. Ameno yonse yalisokweke panuma yakuyakun’ganga iyamupele umuti wa ciyongoli icafwa lintu alwele ilino” (What has made my sister look that old is because of her toothless mouth. She lost all the teeth after she went to the witch doctor who gave her medicine concocted with a dead millipede when she suffered from a toothache,) said the man who was the brother to the two women.
As an eavesdropper, I wanted to hear more. How could a dead millipede medicine cause the loss of teeth to anyone? I wondered.
It was then that the old woman went on to explain what had happened years back when she and her younger sister were young women.
The old lady explained that she and her sister suffered from
toothaches and they were advised to go to the clinic but her sister refused.
“Elyo twalwele ameno, balitwebele ukuya kucipatala. Umwaice wandi alikana ati kucipatala balasokola ameno nacisipana. Ine nalile kucipatala necacine, balinsokwele ilino na cisipana,” (When we suffered from toothaches, we were advised to go to the clinic. My sister refused to go to the clinic saying there, they remove teeth using a spanner. Me, I went to the clinic and for sure, they removed my affected tooth with a spanner), explained the old woman.
We as the listeners burst out laughing when we heard her say her tooth was removed using a spanner.
Actually what is used is a pliers and this is done after some days when the medicine is prescribed to make the tooth weak or loose and a patient is drugged to make the gums numb so that he does not feel any pain when the tooth is being removed.
The tooth or teeth are removed because there is no known cure for them when one is infected. However, it is said that African doctors or witch doctors know different types of medicines which can cure decaying teeth and one of them was a concoction of a dead millipede and some herbs and roots.
The old woman explained that when her sister saw what had happened to her, she swore that she would never go the clinic.
As the delay was going on, her young sister’s toothache was getting worse and the woman was experiencing excruciating and head splitting pain.
She used to crash some panadol which she applied on the affected tooth to ease the pain, but this was only temporal.
“I told her that the only solution was to have her tooth removed, but she could not agree with me. One day, someone came and told her that there was a man who knew how to treat toothaches and decaying teeth permanently and she agreed to go there,” said the woman.
She narrated that what happens is that the medicine men picked up dead millipedes and mixed them with some pounded roots or herbs which they gave to their patients to apply on the affected teeth.
“But you know, when a millipede dies, its body disintegrates into pieces leaving each part on its own. It crumbles. That is exactly what happens when you apply that medicine to a tooth. The medicine gradually spreads to all the teeth in the gums including to those which were not infected and you lose them,” explained the old woman.
After the old woman explained this, other listeners including other old people contributed and explained that many people especially in villages had lost their teeth through that kind of medicine.
Another old woman also explained how some parents apply filth to their bed-wetting children for them to stop urinating on their beds or sleeping places.
She hinted that some traditional healers and witch doctors advise that you take chicken (rooster) droppings or dog stools and mix them in porridge, nshima , tea or any other drink and give to the unsuspecting bed-wetting children and after taking this, they would never wet their beds again.
Are these prescriptions worth it?
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