Church adherent steers clear of hospital

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Friday November 2, 2007 00:00

Today, as she goes about attending to her chores, Kegone (not her real name) is in a pair of faded jeans that accentuates her figure ala Kaone Kario and a Botswana flag headscarf covering a braided head. She shoulders a stylish handbag, courtesy of one of the Chinese shops in the Francistown main mall.

She has just finished her errands at the mall, and as we are neighbours in the townships I approach her and we chitchat about this and that. When I throw in the issue of religion, she is initially reticent, to talk about her experiences. However, eventually, Kegone loosens up, largely due to my considerable charm and the fact that we are far from view and also not within earshot.

She knows I am a journalist and I am on a mission to write about churches that choose to worship out in the open. She reveals the contents of her bag: a tiny bottle filled with a liquid, which she says is holy water, a stone the size of a snooker ball and a powdery substance that could equal a teaspoon measure wrapped in a piece of worn plastic. The bundle, she says, is a sewacho made of ashes of a particular tree.

The holy water, she says was a result of a prophesy by one of her Bazalwane (church mates) after she suffered a miscarriage. The church mate had told Kegone that some aunt of hers did not want to see her happy, hence she put a spell on her. The spell led to her miscarriage. 'I was given this water as protection against the evil spirits,' she says, though still childless, she cannot say whether the water will help her conceive again.

She was given the stone after a hoodlum attacked her on her way from work as a security guard with one of the companies in Francistown. The stone would make her invisible to her would-be assailants, she was told. The 'prophets' at her church also foresaw an impending disaster for which they gave her sewacho as a preventative measure. Kegone's church days start on Thursdays up to the big day of worship - Sunday - when she dons her garb and walks all the way from Monarch to the thicket behind Area-A location.

The dress code includes a Mo-Nasaretha (Nazarene), a flowing white gown and a thick green entwined woolen rope, which is tied round the waist, on top of the gown. There is also another red rope which is tied such that it makes a cross on her chest and back.

Then there is a sephika, a blue waist-length headscarf with a red line that starts at the back right up to the forehead. At the forehead, it is crossed with a line of a similar colour and as a good measure two identical stars - also in red - have been sewn each side of the red divide by the forehead. Kegone's church does not allow her to go to hospital.

When she first went to the church, called Lehoko-la-Modimo, she was told in no uncertain terms that her association with medical facilities was a thing of the past.

'In fact, Moruti (priest) read us Leviticus Chapter 11 which told us what to eat and what not to eat, and how we should behave as we are now Children of Israel. He said for us to receive the Kingdom of God, we must adhere to the teachings of the Bible.

'Since then, I have never been to the hospital. If I have a problem, they pray for me at the church and also give me salty water that has been consecrated by prayer to drink and vomit. I can also use the water for enema. 'I do not plan to go to hospital in the near future because ke Moiseraela (I am an Israelite). The clothes that I wear when I go to church depict me as such. I am a holy woman. 'There are also days that I fast. I can go up to seven days without eating anything except water. Members of my church are prophets and if I have a problem, or there is an impending disaster they can foresee it and inform me so that I protect myself.

So why should I go to hospital,' says Kegone suddenly becoming agitated. I now ask her the thorny issue of HIV/AIDS whether in the event that she is diagnosed with the dreaded disease, she will not visit medical facilities. She says just like any other ailments, there is nothing that cannot be cured by her church.

'You just have to have faith. If you have faith you will get healed. I have seen many people who have come to our church suffering from the disease and after sometime, they got healed completely. 'Some went back to the hospital to check if they still had the disease and they came back to tell us that they were found to be free of the disease,' she says. Kegone is particularly impressed with a 'prophet' who comes from Zimbabwe whom she says has healed many people in Botswana.

When I broach the issue of abandoned tablets that were found in the vicinity of her praying ground, she stands up quickly.

'I do not know anything. O batla go nkgolega wena (you want to incriminate me, you). In any case, we have been sitting for too long. My husband will soon be here and we are going to the golf club (for their rendezvous with her Bazalwane),' she escorts me out of her home and playfully shoves me away with her left hand, whose ring finger is devoid of the shiny metal. I am well aware that she is not married and that the 'husband' is nothing but a live-in lover.