Curses and Blessings

To explain a bit of the cultural beast we’re dealing with here, it’s an animistic system—a system of witchdoctors, landlords and rainmakers. It plays out in almost every area of life. They have to get the blessing of the landlord in order to have crops. They have to make the rainmaker new gardens or slaughter cows in order for him to call for the rain. They take their sick to the witchdoctor so he can poke and prod at them, cut them and let their blood and make them do silly things so they can get well. (You often see these scars and things when the people finally come to the clinic to be taken care of with the white man’s medicine.)

I’ve never had to deal with curses and blessings. And, really, I don’t know how to tell which one is going on. We thought they were cursing us when they’d take our heads, blow on both ears and spit in our faces. Turns out that’s a really good greeting. (And… really… really… sick…) We’ve been told we can’t have our curtains open in our house while we’re inside because people will look in from the outside and give us the evil eye to put a curse on us. Some think, I’m sure, that I fell down the mountains because a curse had been put on me. It’s a hard thing to deal with—they think every good thing comes from the god “Holum” (or something like that) and every bad thing comes from “Jok.” They often “send” Jok along to other villages so he takes his bad there. A child dies, it’s Jok. It rains, it’s Holum. Or the rainmaker, depending on who you’re talking to. Not only is this difficult for us Westerners to understand, but it makes a very complex problem for new believers who have grown up in this system. You have people who say they are Christians—normally, they think just because they have a Christian (English) name, they’re a Christian (remnants of an old Catholic ministry gone awry here, I’m told)—who are still working in the rainmaker’s garden or calling on Jok or slaughtering goats for the landlord.

Here’s one neat story for you, though. Cath, one of my teammates, was doing her homestay at a guy’s house and the wind picked up quite a bit. He said he wished the wind would stop and the rain would come, because they needed it for the gardens. So Cath asked, do you believe my God can stop the wind and bring the rain? And he said yes. And so they prayed for it. And sure enough, the wind stopped and it poured. And this guy just danced and danced in the rain. He knew who brought it. I pray he soon knows from whom all good things come!