Superstition

I just got back from my vacation to the Tanga region, in the northeast part of Tanzania. On the coast, the Tanga region couldn't be more different from my area down in the Southern Highlands. It's stiflingly hot and humid, the Muslim population is huge, and, well, that's most of it really. Tanga was a lovely town, and it was great being in a place where cold showers felt good anytime of day or night. The whole area seemed relatively laid-back, which was perfect for a vacation, and swimming in the Indian Ocean was a lot of fun. I also managed to get up to Lushoto, a town up in the nearby mountains, where the weather was cool like at my site, but still more humid creating a jungle environment with lots of monkeys.

The Tanga area is supposed to be more superstitious than most. Out in the villages it's common for kids to hear stories about white demons or people who drink the blood of children, so one volunteer, Neal, has fun with the slightly older children by saying "Ehee, watoto watamu," (Ah, delicious children). He's pretty good at making them laugh with it, but a couple times he says he's tried it on kids just a little too young to find it funny, which causes them to run away screaming.

More superstitious evidence is that another volunteer, Krista, had 2 kids possessed by demons at here school in the week prior to our visit. The kids start thrashing around, and maybe babbling (perhaps it's just a seizure? perhaps they're just bored?). When possessed, a kid is brought into the staff room and put on the floor while the teachers argue over who should pray over her (both of Krista's cases were girls). They say that they need someone of great faith and pure of heart to pray over them to cast out the demon, so if a teacher prays and the demon remains, then clearly the teacher's faith is not strong enough. The second possession was spasming violently and hitting her head against the concrete floor, so the teachers brought in a couple students to hold her down.

Krista says that the first possession was successfully exercised by a Church official who was luckily visiting the school, and the second sort of went away by itself during the half hour while the teachers were arguing.