 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
|
||||||||||
|
|---|
 "I myself am HIV positive, I know what my clients are going through physically, emotionally, and in their relationships with family and community." |
|---|
C: What conditions does musao treat?
Saturday: Nattembo treats people with mental upset and mental disorder, including people who are affected by HIV, who think too much about their condition. Some people are desperate, jobless; some have domestic problems related to their mental illness. What she does is a kind of counseling which puts you in the mood of what a right person is supposed to be. She gives natural herbs, which give rest, and some natural herbs for appetite. That is how she treats.
C: How did she learn that certain herbs treat certain conditions?
Saturday: Normally she learns how to treat people through supernatural powers. She can be asleep or she can be seated in her treating chamber. Then she gets some directives from supernatural spirits, and they tell her go to such and such a place, look for such and such a plant, such and such a root. She goes, finds the plant, and boils it. The whole message is told to her by the ancestral spirits as she is not just a medical practitioner, although she is trained so. She inherited ancestral spirits that help her. It is a long line, from father to grandfather. She can get a vision, it is like a dream, and knows what to use and how to treat. In addition she says she has the experience that she has got from Theta in how to handle different cases. So with the knowledge she got from Theta and what she has learned through experience, it makes her work easier.
C: Could she share an example of a vision?
Saturday: Sometimes she can suddenly get a vision when someone is talking to her. 'Go to such and such a place, get such and such a plant, treat it, crush it, dry it, an,d in seven days, boil it'. After seven days there will come a patient with a sore throat, and she will use the medicine to treat that person. It is like someone is talking to her and it feels like the spirits. Normally what she is being told is very right, where to go and what to find. Normally she never misses.
C: Are there any challenges in her work?
Saturday: She experienced a lot of problems before she got in touch with Theta. At first, there were some difficulties between modern (biomedical) healers and traditional healers. But when Theta trained them together, they were able to prove that if a patient had certain symptoms and signs, the patient was suffering from a certain disease. Hand and hand with Theta, traditional healers can be given referral forms (to biomedical healthcare providers) for their patients to get a diagnosis with modern instruments. Then the patient can be treated with local herbs. It can be proved that the symptoms were (specific to a disease), and now, due to the treatment they got from the traditional healer, at least there is some improvement. So, thanks go to Theta, they have made traditional healers unite with the modern biomedical healers.
Before the Theta training, she had a problem getting herbs as they were from quite far, and she could not access them easily. But after training with Theta, they were taught to grow herbs around their homes. There is a problem with the lack of space to plant the as many herbs as they need. They know many different herbs but lack the space to cultivate them. They would like a wider, bigger place, so there could be a collection of medicines and more research could be done.
C: How has she mobilized the HIV widows and orphans?
Translator: She is the number one victim; she has suffered the fate herself of being HIV positive. After having the experience she became attached to the suffering of others. She could see by the symptoms if someone was HIV positive and could call that person, talk to them, and make a friend of the patient. One by one she has managed to get this number and more into a support group. If one is open to the other, at least they know that somebody cares. It is through being open to each other, telling the patient the pain you felt, that you have gone through it, and how they can be assisted. This has enabled her to make a very big group because they are like members of one family.
C: How had the community accepted her work?
Saturday: The neighbors always see people come and go. That gives a very good impression because the neighbors normally say 'if she was a wrong person, people wouldn’t be going and coming back'. Secondly, people come during the day, and whatever is being done, is being done during broad daylight. There is no hypocrisy. And patients come and go over time. The neighbors are watching and say “ ah, that person, when he was almost on his death bed (you saw him coming there.)” They keep trust in her.
C: What has she learned from Theta?
S: The most important benefit she can talk about is the bridge which it is building between the modern health practitioners and the traditional healers. Previously, a patient might be neglected when he went to a modern clinic if he said he had gone to a traditional healer. They could just send you away and abandon you. But due to the connection between Theta and the modern healers, they know that so and so treats and they are under the same umbrella. Thanks to Theta, when a patient is beyond the control of a traditional healer. they can give him or her a referral to go to the main hospital and the referral form will be recognized. The traditional healer as well can be recognized. Theta has made a bridge between modern and traditional medicine.
Secondly, Theta provides traditional healers with seminars on new knowledge, such as information on new medicines and new kinds of treatment.
In addition, besides workshops, Theta organizes get-togethers. We visit some patients from different places, and we learn from each other. This has helped us to acquire new ideas like information on handiwork, organizing clubs, dancing, and singing. We also meet with some other patients and normally learn a lot. All that is done by Theta.
C: How will she sustain her work?
S: First and foremost, thanks must go to Theta. Any problem that she experiences with her patients and support groups she normally runs to Theta. Since Theta is like a mother, they normally give her some good advice such as trying to do some handiwork, such as this kind of mat making which acquires some little money. They give good advice on building the group members morally and socially so that they don’t think too much. But, most important is that whenever there is some difficulty, Theta comes in to help.
C: What was Nattembo’s relationship to her community before Theta, and then after her training by Theta?
S: She is among the local leaders. At the village level, she is a leader. When the local leaders came to know Theta, they thought that this lady is doing something progressive, that she has an external relationship with these people. It strengthened her work with the community. At first they thought maybe she was doing something for her own benefit, but when they saw there are some other people that are in touch with her, it strengthened her work
 |
|---|
S: Nattembo is trying to explain the fireplace, it is both cultural and traditional. The ancestral spirits like the fire. Our culture is slightly similar to that of the Greeks as there is the god of the sun and the god of the sea. There are many spirits in the universe and they long for the smoke. When she lights the fire, it is with the smoke that she invites them to come near and sit beside the fire. Whether she is asking or praying or talking, there is always supposed to be fire for them. When she is working there they guard the place.
The two spears symbolize the strongest spirits. They have to be there symbolizing security. The spirits are there, ever there.
C: Which spirits does she work with?
Saturday: There are very many of them with different names and different purposes. There is one called Demoanga, there is one called Dungo, Kolikoampoli, each for a different purposs. Normally their main work is to protect the healer and to give her dreams to guide her in what to do and where to get medicine. So that is why she has to keep that fireplace burning. In case of any problem they can protect her: they can guide her they can tell her what to do at any time.
C: Many people associate traditional healing with witchcraft. Could Nattembo say something that would help people to better understand the difference?
Nattembo: The differences between traditional healers and witchcraft are traditional healers normally associate with the public. Since it is the general public that always reports the evil, they know what these people are doing. Secondly, traditional healers always their work is in broad daylight but witchcraft practitioners normally tend to hide their activities. We would be locked inside to hide what we are doing because it is against the law, but traditional healers, whatever they are doing, it is in broad daylight. The medicine is picked from the bushes. They plant it around, and when it comes to giving some sacrifices as is normally acquired by custom and culture, they normally present goats, sheep, and chicken. That is allowed traditionally and customarily. Thirdly, a person approved to be a traditional healer, they normally have their theories, their tests which they must undergo, like talking to spirits. If you are called a traditional healer, they are called, they come. They give you some interview. Definitely, spirits cannot come to he or she who is not doing this same work.
If there is any problem around here she calls, makes a report, and that person is taken out to answer for anything evil within the community. She has a healer’s association she belongs to, so now they are looking around for such people.
Saturday: Normally the calabash (which is placed on the mat near Nattembo) contains the traditional brew so whoever comes in who is part of the culture can take.
Rose: What would Nattembo like to say in conclusion?
Saturday: She is trying to explain some of the other problems, which she has not talked about. The patients who are in the support group, the small activities that they do like handicrafts, normally it is not enough for them. Normally we have here a problem of nutrition. Nutrition is the best medicine for human health so she finds it hard where there is not good nuitrition. Also the effects of the mosquitoes, malaria, and the need that every home has enough mosquito nets. She is finding such problems.
We now leave the shrine. Nattembo leads us to a group of women sitting under a tree. There is a drummer there. The women in the AIDS support group sing a few songs for us. Then Nattembo leads Rose, Saturday, our driver Sam, and myself along a path, which quite unexpectedly opens on to a pond.
.
 Nattembo's Catfish Pond Healers are finding innovative ways to sustain their activities for two of the most vulnerable sectors of their communities: AIDS orphans and widows |
|---|
Saturday: We have catfish type fish in the pond, so normally, when they grow up, they are used by the members of the support group as a source of income. Sometimes a little money is gotten, and everyone is given a portion to buy sugar and sauce. They are now at least one year old. Each baby costs a 100 Ugandan pounds. When you plant 150, the birds take about 50. You can plant 200, and at the end of the maturing stage, you get 150.
 The children are making bricks that will be used in the houses for the widows. |
|---|
We walk by children learning to make bricks. We are told they are learning to make bricksto be used for the widows houses. We pass a goat eating greens, a dog tied to a rope. The women in the AIDS support group wave goodbye.