By Ian Ortega
The word ‘sangoma’ will, with no doubt, ring bells for any Ugandan who’s been to South Africa. Yes, it means a traditional healer or traditional doctor.
Of late, Uganda has seen an advent of new tycoons who seem to have made money overnight. These overnight tycoons pose around as great entrepreneurs in South Africa.
A quick check in South Africa will actually reveal that most of them are conmen posing as Sangomas.
The Ugandan conmen who hide under the umbrella of traditional healers are just ordinary people who left Uganda to try their luck in South Africa.
The fact that these dishonest traditional healers are foreigners in most places they conduct their business, gives them an edge over the local ones. People who visit them for ‘healing’ tend to believe they are better than the ordinary healers among them.
Well, a prophet is not accepted in his home town, huh? Africans and Latin Americans (majority) are thought or rather perceived to be superstitious and believe so much in ancestral spirits, black magic etc. Some people believe in curses by their long dead parents/grandparents to be the barrier of them not getting good jobs or having bad luck in whatever they place their hands on. Hence, the help of traditional healers is sought to appease the spirits and thus uplift the barriers!
Absurd requirements are often needed to appease the spirits. One may be asked to bring a spotless white cock, elephant’s waste, black piece of cloth, armpit hair of a wife or husband and many more. Well, most are impossible to get in the fixed duration given may be of 3 days. “If you cannot get, you can give me money and I will get them and mix in the concoction by the time you visit next,” such are common statements from the conmen. I highly doubt if any cent is spent on any of them.
Why would one leave their home town or even country for another place to just engage in such a dishonest business? One reason is that, if one is just not trustworthy and is into conning others for his/her income, he/she could not do such business in the place of origin simply because people will notice and shun him/her away. However, majority go to South Africa to check out the greener grass.
It is well known that foreigners who do not qualify for white-collar jobs find it harder than those with papers to get jobs. This forces them into such criminal acts of fake traditional healers so as to eke a living in the new land.
The marketing is rather easy due to the predecessors and the belief in superstitions among the locals. Large poster with very promising services of healing such as: TO RETURN LOST LOVE, PROMOTION AT WORK, SEXUAL DRIVE INCREMENT, GETTING A JOB IN A WEEK’S TIME, CONTROL OVER A SPOUSE, GETTING RICH EASILY, POLITICAL POWER and very easy-to-recall phone numbers. These kind of things are what greedy, faithless and vision-less people fall for. The promising healing ability on the posters and superstitious beliefs are well taken advantage by the fake traditional healers since people become desperate at such points in life.
Once the desperate lads have fallen into the traps of the con artists, they give out whichever amount of money required by the traditional healers. Others charge consultation fees ranging from $45-$100 and service of up to $2000 depending on the magnitude and urgency of the problem to be fixed. Both the poor and rich are victims of these fake healers. The poor will work hard to look for money to grace the healers in exchange for instant success in life rather than put the money into good investment, whereas the rich will splash their cash to get control over their rivals in business-all these being false belief that people have been dragged into.
On the flip side, are the conmen with broad smiles as they have ripped easy money where they did not sow? Cases of arrests of these fake conmen have been reported in South Africa and most of these Ugandans are being deported.
It is high time people came out of this darkness of superstitions. There are no elevators in success; one has to take the stairs! If you need a good job, get its qualifications. Dismissals at different places of work does not translate to angry ancestral spirits; you have to re-examine yourself to find out what is up with your personality, work performance etc. Lest we move on from such practices, we will see more posters of these con artists filling up electric poles and people crying of foul play day-in-day-out.
Indeed, it is hard to differentiate who are real traditional healers from those who aren’t. But for now, if you are a Ugandan in South Africa, you are most likely to be known for being a Sangoma, however professional you may be.
“[katogoaward]”
