Exorcism in the Village

October 28th, 2008 by Taylor Jackson

Cell phone service is really better outside the house, so on Monday evening I headed outside and I really couldn’t believe what was going on.

There was a group of girls that live in the same compound as myself, all huddled around a tree, heads down. I thought at first they were Muslim as many people are here and since I don’t know much about the religion I thought they were praying because I do know most Muslims pray many times a day. I asked one of the girls who wasn’t involved what was going on and she said “Satan is disturbing her.”

That’s when I realized they were all circling one smaller girl who was still in her school uniform and was having trouble standing. All of the girls began chanting prayers out of the bible and holding the girl up. Then they lead her out to the front lawn right in front of me where she collapsed on the ground and they covered her with copies of the bible continuing to chant.

Jenn who is one of the Ugandan’s that works at VOLSET with me was a part of the ceremony I guess and later when I was helping her make dinner she told me the girl was feeling better and talking again. Previously she wasn’t able to talk I guess.

I really couldn’t just believe I witnessed a serious exorcism, Ugandan culture traditionally is based in witchcraft and spirits and I had known that and I don’t know why it shocked me so much to actually me seeing this done and practiced.

Other than that though I have been busy doing home visits meeting amazing families that are really struggling and working at the clinic. You can rent movies here and got the first season of Grey’s Anatomy to watch on Festus’s laptop after dinner with everyone. But that really got lost in translation I don’t think Festus or Jenn really understood what was going on and just looked at me like, “how can watch this show”.