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Beat It! 2000 Episode 12

Traditional Healers have a role to play in the response to the HIV epidemic. In this episode the team met with Mercy Manci, a traditional healer, and spoke to her about how she coucils and advices her HIV positive patients. We then invited Manci to join the support group where she showed what the major benefit of enlisting traditional healers into the response to the epidemic can be. Traditional healers can and do provide the very necessary emotional and spiritual support that people living with HIV require.

Paddy and Mercy Paddy Nhlapo: Masinamukele futhi emakhaya. [Welcome again to those at home] Welcome back to Beat It! – the programme that provides supportive and reliable information to all those affected by HIV and AIDS.

Mercy Makhalemele: Hi Paddy, ke dumedise lelona kolapheng {Sesotho} [and the viewers at home]. Do you know this is our second last programme of this series? It really has gone by fast.

Paddy Nhlapo: Okay, your feedback is really crucial for keeping the programme on air. If you find it helpful to you, please, send us your letters.

Mercy Makhalemele: You know why we started the programme? We started the programme because we knew that there are thousands of people living in silence with HIV, no-one to talk to, no-one to share with, to confront many challenges of living and surviving with HIV.

Paddy Nhlapo: Beat It! – brings us all together and allows us to talk to each other. Listen to this letter from an HIV positive viewer from Mpumalanga who wrote: “I feel it is imperative to express my thankfulness for the programme. It really built my confidence to hear what other HIV infected people say, how do they feel and think. I’m also HIV positive, but do not like to speak about it, especially in public. I think the programme helps since I do not discuss with anybody.”

Mercy Makhalemele: Getting letters like this really helps us to know that some of you have been helped by the programme, and that it has been worthwhile.

Paddy Nhlapo: So this week, we bring you something that we have been waiting for. Our Special Edition on traditional healing with Mercy Manci, Thokozani bogogo {IsiZulu} [Enjoy}

Mercy Makhalemele: Nyangas, sangomas, traditional healers are part of our tradition. A great many people with HIV consult with traditional healers, so we went to visit Mercy Manci who works with the Department of Health at her home in Pretoria. We were so impressed with what we found, that we invited her to come and have a session with us in the support group.

Profile - Mercy Manci

Mercy Makhalemele: Let’s go back to this part with the shingles.

Patient: You want to see?

Mercy Makhalemele: No, no, no not now, not now. You know that amashingles always comes back.

Patient: U-doctor told me that ama-shingles ayeza especially when u-stressekile or kuna something ekhuphethe kabi, so the more ucabanga kakhulu yi the more nawo ama-shingle afika and kufuneka uwa-controlle wena, so athi akuna treatment yawo but kufanele uwa-controlle. I did not trust the doctor ukuthi akuna treatment cause mina ngiyenze le ka-Mercy ngabona ihamba fast. {IsiZulu} [Ja, I know that. The doctor told me that shingles come when you are stressed or when you don’t feel well. So, the more stressed you are, the more the shingles attack you. They need you to control them. There is no treatment for shingles, but you need to control them .I didn’t trust the doctor when he said there’s no treatment. I did Mercy’s treatment and I saw that it’s working fast.]

Mercy Manci (Traditional Healer): This is the cima mlilo {IsiZulu} [fire extinguisher]. It is very hot, you see, like you are burning, then, the way which we did it.

Mercy Makhalemele: Does this medicine burn as well?

Mercy Manci: No, it doesn’t, it’s cold. This is a piece of labatheka {IsiZulu} [medical herb] Then we put the hand gloves, mixing the paste and starting to dab it onto the patient’s shingles, the dark patches.

Patient: It’s nice.

Mercy Manci: Many of my client or my patient, you will find that when they come, we will discuss, because it is important to check whether this person is under a drug trial, or under just a medication. Because there is a different to drug trial, because drug trial you cannot really disturb and to put the other medicine. But to those who are under treatment, like her, she knows the medicine who use to help her. Like the medicine which help on vitamins. You said it was Bi-ko or B-com. Vitamin B-Com, things like that. People are free, meaning that the patient are free to use the medicine, the western medicine. If a person is, let’s say for three days you were giving treatment as a traditional healer, and instead the person become worse, you have to refer. We do refer to the hospital.

Mercy Makhalemele: How did you become a traditional healer? What made you become? Is it like me, when I grew up and saying, ‘I want to be a social worker’? How does it work?

Mercy Manci: It is not like that. To be a Traditional Healer, you can to be called by somebody. . I grew up in rural areas. I used to see Traditional Healers I used to hate Traditional Healers. Although my grandmother was a Traditional Healer, she was helping a lot of people. When she goes to dig medicine, we find that nobody, actually except me, she would take me to the forest and ask me to dig and it’s difficult, actually, it was difficult actually to dig medicine but I had to do it because she wanted me. I didn’t know that it is a call. I used to dream of myself actually crossing, flying like a bed, crossing the bed, and the whole body, it’s a leopard I find that I talk, saying, ‘My name is Nyangazesiwe’, my name is Nyangazesiwe, it’s a world healer. My grandmother now, she appeared and she said to me, ‘Didn’t I say to you, take my work?’ She told me, ‘You are called, you are supposed to be trained. But, before that you must go home to tell the family, the village, that you are accepting to be a Traditional Healer. I went home, there was that ceremony, and then I was under training. When you come in, they don’t just take you to forest. You find that they go without you. So, to you, they connect you to the ancestors, more connect you with the ancestors. You have to, early in the morning, eat the ancestral medicine, and you sing and you dance. And everyday in the evening again, they beat their drums. On the third day, you see, it’s when the spirit came, meaning that the ancestor came, and she told them what is her name, meaning that I became possessed, do you understand, and it’s when she started to use this body now, to sing her song, to also dance. I didn’t even know how to dance, to also dance. It’s when it started. And then, at night again, she continued, showed me medicines. But what you do, you wake up early in the morning to go and get the medicine where they show you.

Paddy Nhlapo: You’re watching Beat It, the programme that keeps you informed on all aspects of HIV and AIDS.

Mercy Makhalemele: As we promised Mercy will be joining us in the support group.

Support Group - Traditional healers

Paddy Nhlapo: Traditional healing is good, but we need to work with western doctors. The medical world needs to be more open to izinyanga zethu {IsiZulu} our traditional healers.

Busisiwe Maqungo: To be honest with you people mna [I’m] not taking any advices nakubani nakubani na [from any, any person]. In fact, akhonto endiyenzayo nge-status sam ukuba ndatya le, ndathi, ndasebenzisa lena to prevent ukuba ndingaguli okanye ndingathini [There’s nothing I do to treat my virus; like taking this or that type of treatment to prevent me from getting sick. I’m just sitting here, waiting for my doomsday, because I know eventually I’m going to die. And ever since umtanam wasweleka andisaboni isizathu sokuba ndibe ndi-stragglisha mna ndizi nyanga [my child died, I see no need to struggle to treat myself], I failed my baby and …

Mercy Manci: Ngubani ingama lakho ke sisi, abakubiza ngalo abantu? {IsiXhosa} [What is your name: the one people use?]

Busisiwe Maqungo: Busisiwe.

Mercy Manci: Busisiwe. Wase manini? {IsiXhosa} [From which clan?]

Busisiwe Maqungo: Emabheleni.

Merci Manci: Sizaqalise ke Busisiwe, sikhe sibuze ke, awuqali mos ukuza, ukhe weza ngenye imini, anditsho? {isiXhosa} [We’re going to ask the ancestors, it’s not your first time here? You came once before. Am I right?]

Busisiwe Maqungo: Ewe {IsiXhosa} [Yes].

Mercy Manci: Uzomane usithi ke siyavuma, andithi nawe uzomane utsho njalo siyavuma, uyeva ke? {IsiXhosa} [You must say, I agree, I agree, are you going to say? I agree, do you hear?]

Merci Manci: Emveni koko ke, ndizocacisa ukuba athini amathambo, nivile, okanye amathongo. {IsiXhosa} [After that I’ll explain what the bones tell us. Or what the ancestors tell us.]

Merci Manci: Vumani bo? {IsiXhosa} [Agree?]

Busisiwe Magungo: Siyavuma. {IsiXhosa} [We agree.]

Merci Manci: Kuthiwa masihambe emzimbeni womtwana bo, vumani bo? {IsiXhosa} [It is said we must explore the body the body of the girl, agree?]

Busisiwe Magungo: Siyavuma. {IsiXhosa} [We agree.]

Mercy Manci: Kuthiwa aniphilanga bo, vumani bo? {IsiXhosa} [It is said I am not well, agree?]