“You’re only twenty-two. How did it get a grip on you so
young?”
“In my circles, it’s easy to get your hands on. Everyone’s doing it, and everyone’s shoving a drink in your hand. They never let your glass go dry.”
“So it’s everyone else’s fault that you drink too much? Spare me the sob story.”
“Nice bit of compassion there.”
“I’m a firm believer that you can’t change what you don’t acknowledge. Unless people are pouring it down your throat, you can’t blame them.”
“That’s a little harsh from someone who doesn’t even know me. And a little judgmental.”
“Telling you that you’re responsible for your own actions is judgmental? Must be a thing in the States. Where I come from, it’s called the brutal truth. And trust me. You aren’t the only person who’s had to accept responsibility for something they’ve done that they wish they hadn’t. I’ve got three of them living in my house right now.”
“Three alcoholics?”
“Three murderers. Former LRA members. They killed hundreds. Like you, they didn’t feel they had a choice. They were told to kill or they’d be killed themselves.”
“Then you can’t blame them for what they did.”
“I don’t blame them. They blame themselves, and that’s what eats them up inside. And I’d like the record to reflect that I never said I blamed you for your drinking. I said you should take responsibility for your part. That’s not blame; that’s truth. And the truth is what sets you free. Denial and pointing blame only give the issue more power.”
As much as I hated to admit it, she had a point. If I had had her around to tell me that earlier, I could’ve saved a lot of time and money on therapy.
“Well, I haven’t become a full-blown addict or anything. I got pulled over, arrested for a DUI. It kind of set me straight.”
“And when was this?”
“A few months ago.”
“Are you going to prison?”
“No. Community service. Parole. That kind of thing.”
“You don’t have to tell anything more. It isn’t my business, but I’m glad something set you straight. Thank you for sharing.”
“Sure.”
I reached into the backpack and pulled out a bag of Sour Brite Crawlers.
“What are those?” Her voice was full of curiosity, and she easily changed the subject.
“A sweet-and-sour candy that you buy at movie theaters. They’re my snack obsession, and when nobody’s watching my diet, I always have a bag on hand.”
“You just sounded like a female.”
“I know, but they’re good.”
Her nose crinkled into a grimace.
“Don’t knock it ’til you try it,” I said, holding the bag out to her.
She grabbed one and held it between her thumb and pointer finger like it was a real worm and she was about to bait a hook with it.
She looked completely disgusted, so I urged her on. “Go ahead.”
“Is that sugar on the outside?”
“I think so, but I’ve never dissected the thing. Just put it in your mouth already.”
She looked closely at it, licked some of the white dusting off one end, and then stuck it in her mouth. Her eyes immediately enlarged, and her eyebrows arched high in delight.
“Told you.”
I held out the bag, and she reached in and pulled out a handful and laid them on the blanket in front of her.
“What’s the weirdest thing you’ve seen when you were out in the different villages?”
“More about Africa, huh? You aren’t tired of hearing me babble on?”
“Not even close. Come on. Spit it out.”
“The weirdest? Hmm?” She divided the crawlers into piles according to color as she thought of a response. “It’s hard to say. What Americans would find as weird or scary might be commonplace over there.”
“Like what?”
“Well,” she said with a shrug and then sat up and crossed her legs. “There are a lot of different religions represented in Africa, not to mention all the villages that worship different gods or spirits. There’s a lot of witchcraft, a lot of voodoo-type occult. Most of the IDP camps have several medicine doctors.”
“Witchdoctors?”
“Yes. Although there is a law against the practice of witchcraft, it’s still performed often.”
“There’s an actual law against it?”
“Oh yes.”
“Have you met a witchdoctor?”
“Several, but just the ones in the camps. I’m not permitted to go on the trips that take you out into the farther villages. That’s where things can begin to get more odd and dangerous, sadistic, evil. Child sacrifice and so on.”
“That stuff really happens?”
“All the time. My parents came back telling me about one village they went to where if the oldest male child dies, they bury the youngest alive, in honor of their death.”
My body shivered in revulsion.
“They literally dig a hole and then begin filling it up with the baby or child screaming in terror. And all of it is to appease some spirit that they worship. They believe that their older child died because evil fell on the family and that only sacrificing another child will cause the evil to go away.
“Then there are witchdoctors who tell parents that they have a curse on them and in order to reverse the curse, they must sacrifice one of their children and bring him back the body. They do, and then he turns around and sells the body to a businessman who believes that if they bury that body under a business or home, it will bring it luck.”
I had nothing even remotely intelligent to say in response. I was horrified, shocked, and disgusted. All I could do was sit with my mouth hanging open and still watering from the sour candy I’d just swallowed.
She, on the other hand, didn’t seem fazed and kept right on talking. Nothing new there.
“Then, of course, you have the babies who are sexually
assaulted—”
“I don’t think I want to hear this.”
She looked up at me with the end of a candy worm peeking out of the corner of her mouth. Giving a shrug, she chewed as she waited for me to say something more.
“Okay. I do.”
She swallowed before starting again. “Infant rape—”
“Hold on.”
My hands flew over my ears as I took a deep breath and tried to prepare myself to hear the rest. I wanted to hear the truth, but I didn’t. I knew that once she told me, I wouldn’t be able to ignore the reality anymore. I knew that the information would change the way I saw the world forever.
My hands lowered to my still-in-pain lap region. “Okay. Go ahead and tell me.”
“You certain?”
I nodded slowly.
“Infant rape is rampant in some areas because witchdoctors have told men with HIV that if they have intercourse with an infant, it will cure them. Then, of course, not only does it not take away the man’s AIDS, but it infects the child. Some say that AIDS has killed more people in Northern Uganda than the twenty-year war has.”
“It’s horrible.”
“I know.”
“And you’re around that all the time? Aren’t you in danger?”
“Who’s to say I’m in any less danger here?”
“We don’t have stuff like that going on.”
“You’re making a joke, correct?”
I shook my head.
“Cabot, people are murdered here every day. Children are molested by relatives or abducted and tortured by strangers on a regular basis. The elderly are abused. Women and children are trafficked across the country for use in the sex industry. It’s all happening here. It might not be under the instruction of a witchdoctor per se, but it’s happening. Evil is everywhere. It’s not limited to certain continents or colors of skin.”
“But we don’t sacrifice our children in the name of some god.”
“Parents murder their children here too. They might not bury them alive, but they drown or stab them and say that God told them to do it. I’ve heard of it happening. Certainly you have to.”
“You’re right. I never thought about it like that.”
“I believe people from first-world countries like to look at other countries and point fingers while at the same time tell themselves they aren’t as bad, aren’t as evil as others.”
“We don’t have the wars and we aren’t abducting children and forcing them to kill.”
“No, they aren’t doing that. But they are ignoring that it’s happening other places. So doesn’t that make us somewhat
accountable?”
I still couldn’t think of an intelligent response, so I said nothing.
Her face drooped. “I apologize. I got serious and totally sacked the night again. I don’t know what it is about me that must turn so serious all the time. Maybe I’m just a depressing individual. Have I depressed you beyond reason?”
“Yeah. This is by far one of the most depressing campouts I’ve ever been on. Actually,
it is
the most depressing, hands down.”
She slapped her hands over her face and fell back onto the sleeping bag. “Bollocks!”
“Yep.”
Uncovering her face, she looked back over at me. “Let’s try this again, shall we?”
“I, for one, would appreciate that. You can do it, Kei. Humor me and rally back.”
“I don’t know what ‘rally back’ means.”
“Un-sack the night.”
“Oh,” she said with a nod. “I can do that.”
“Prove it.”
“Okay…the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen?” She sat back up and grabbed some more worms out of the bag. That time, she used them to make a circle in front of her on the sleeping bag. “It would have to be the time a witchdoctor in one of the IDP camps did some sort of chant or incantation and then threw himself down on the ground and started writhing around like a snake.”
“Shut. Up.”
“On my honor. It wasn’t just shaking; he was literally moving like a snake along the ground. It made the hairs all over my body stand on edge. Utterly freaked me out and almost caused me to tinkle in my britches.”
“I would run away screaming like a girl. I’m not gonna lie. I would not do well with that kind of thing.”
“It was mad. And we had a group of people with us who were visiting from the States. Their eyes were the size of half dollars. It scared them to death. They talked about it all the way back to the mission house, and everyone was completely gutted that they didn’t get it on video.”
“Wow.”
“That’s pretty much the craziest that I’ve seen with my own eyes, but I’ve heard a lot of other stories. Like I said, I’m not permitted to go into the places that end up being the strangest.”
My curiosity was so piqued that I couldn’t wait to hear more. “Like what have you heard?”
“Well, several of the team members swear there’s a village in Southern Sudan that they go to sometimes where the tribe members are heavily into voodoo.” She grabbed another worm off the blanket and ripped one end off with her teeth. “When they need more workers for the fields, they get the witchdoctor, or whatever it is they call them there, and he goes into the graveyard and does a spell, and they come out and work in the fields and then go back to the graves at the end of the day.”
“Who does? The dead people?”
“Yes.”
“No!”
“Yes. I swear. That’s what they’ve told me.”
“I would never go back. I’d leave saying, ‘You weirdoes can burn in hell for all I care. You start waking people from the dead and you’re all on your own.’”
“Then you’d make a horrible missionary.”
“I’d get over it.”
“Of course, I don’t know that I’d be able to handle it either. But they talk about it as if it’s not an issue, as if they see it all the time.”
“What else?”
“I’ve personally seen a multitude of demon possessions. We pray over them all the time.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“How do the people act? What do they do?”
“No possession is exactly like another. Some are silent and don’t move at all. Some, their eyes roll around in their sockets, and some growl or hiss.”
My body shivered, and it wasn’t due to cold because it was hot as…well, Africa, or at least how hot I would imagine Africa would be.
“You’re freaking me out,” I admitted.
“I’ve had several go into convulsions. A lot scream in your face in a guttural voice. Most of the time you know you’ve finished because they just fall down completely limp”—the upper half of her body acted out the events as she explained them—“as if all the energy has drained from their body.”
“And you don’t find this weird at all?”
“I’m accustomed to it.”
“Okay. Can I just admit how crazy it is that I’m sitting here with a girl who’s telling me about watching demon-possessed people and talking about it like it’s an everyday occurrence?”
“It is an everyday occurrence. I’m odd. What can I say?”
“You’re not odd. Your life is odd.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“What else?”