My Neighbor's the Witch Doctor!

Ok so I don’t know that he is actually a witch doctor, but he is a dispenser of some sort.

I was washing some dishes and (who I assume is) his daughter comes by to invite me over for tea (that sounds really British, doesn’t it?). I can understand this in Bambara: I be gaa taa dute min (you come and drink tea). I can also understand “you come and eat” – I be gaa taa dumunike. They do tea differently here. It’s not nearly as strong nor does it take NEARLY as long to make. In fact, I don’t even think they use the gunpowder tea like they do in Guinea. I think they use teabags! Weird!

Anyway so I follow her over to the neighboring compound and she leads me to one of the rooms where Yusufu is with some lady (who seems kind of well-to-do: she had a giant red leathery purse – high class). Plus she spoke French, which means she went to school and definitely past the required 6th grade (even the 6th graders can’t speak any French, though). He is sitting on the floor and she is sitting on a bench. At first glance the room looks like a junk room. There are bottles of who-knows-what all over the place (there was even an empty bottle of Jack Daniels Whiskey in there – where did he get that??), little packets of something wrapped in paper, all kinds of bundles of leaves and herbs and then the weird stuff. Like animal horns and skins, dried snake skins and some weird, small, dried, skinned animal hanging from a hook in the ceiling. And bones. I don’t know what he is saying to the lady but she is paying him (maybe, like, 500 francs or about a dollar) and he is loading her up with paper packets, bundles of leaves, powders, etc… I notice a little paper packet hanging above the door from a string. It kind of reminded me of a mezuzah (the thing Jews put on every door that has some scripture inside it).

I recall that Drissa once told me he doesn’t go to pray (but I could swear he said he was Muslim), but he does something with Yusufu. Maybe he’s an animist. I don’t know.

Yusufu seems kind of young to be the village witch doctor though. He is maybe in his early 30s. But he has a very well-organized compound, lots of animals AND he has a moto (which means he has some money). I don’t know how many wives or kids he has, I’ll have to ask him sometime.

But anyway. Maybe he can make me some funky African charm to keep away the sorcerers. That would be awesome.