Gambaga Witches Camp

I was certainly enjoying the look of the north, which is more savannah and scrub, what I traditionally associate with Africa. The south looks more like rainforest, or parts of Costa Rica, with huge palms and plantains and banana trees. The houses of the north were round, red clay, with walled compounds and thatched roofs. It looked like something out of a fairytale. Some of the huts were even grown over with wildflowers and pumpkins. A few were hidden in fields of millet.

We bought “tickets” for the tro-tro, basically wooden blocks that Grace promptly lost. It took about 40 minutes for the van to fill and I mean fill. It was the first ugly American experience I’ve had since I’ve been here and I don’t want it repeated. I cottoned on pretty quick that we didn’t have to wait inside the tro-tro, but we needed to leave our bags in our place, and there were going to be a lot of people in the van judging on the number of bags littered on the seats. Joanna didn’t catch on at all. Eventually she climbed in beside Grace and made a big production of hefting her bag onto the seat next to her. She bag was an oversized backpack and it weighed roughly 300 lbs. I have no idea what she had in there – rocks, maybe? Anyway, she decided there was no way she could ride for an hour with it on her lap, so she bought another ticket, thinking it could take up the space next to her. What she didn’t realize is that, unlike the Accra tro-tros, where there are usually four people to a seat, this tro-tro didn’t leave until there were five people wedged onto each bench. There were five benches, plus the front seats and three guys, including one big, fat man, sitting on top of the van with the cargo. That’s thirty people, in a van meant for probably 10. It was insane and insanely hot. I swear, if I get thinner, it will just be from being squeezed into tight spaces. I just marvel at the idea that women want to be fat in Africa. It’s so impractical! Anywhoo, between Joanna and another overweight person, there was no room for a fifth person on the bench anyway, but the tro-tro driver was willing to squeeze one in if Joanna hadn’t bought another ticket. She was really, really upset and said so. Everyone in the tro-tro chimed in with advice. Some thought she should get her money back. Some thought she should pack lighter. Some thought she should just put the pack on her lap. I was horribly embarrassed and kept absolutely silent, figuring Joanna could manage. In the end, she held onto the second ticket and ended up with her bag on her lap. I thought for a minute she was going to burst into tears.

The ride was bumpy, but pretty and we spilled out at Gambaga, hot, tired and slowly turning a dusty shade of rust. We made our way to the chief’s palace and encountered an amazing looking old man, dressed in a pale blue Muslim shirt with a little skull cap. His teeth were pretty much rotted away, but he was so striking looking. He spoke no English, so we found someone local to translate. Two little boys joined us. We asked a few questions and the chief told us the witches come from all over West Africa, that the camp has been here longer than the community and that he and his forefathers attempt to exorcise the women of their witchcraft using a concoction that is taboo to talk about. He also talked a little bit about ju-ju and how all the women confess to being witches before being permitted in the camp. If there is a dispute, he settles it using ju-ju, or magic. At the shrine, a cock is slaughtered. If it dies lying on its back, then the woman is telling the truth. If it flops on its stomach, however, it’s a sign she’s imbued with witchcraft.

We paid our kola so we could take some photographs – kola being an ancient tradition of paying homage by bringing the chief bitter-tasting kola nuts. It has since been replaced with giving the chief cold, hard cash.

By the time Alahasson led us to the witches camp, Grace was pretty jittery. Grace has two cuts on her cheeks, which sort of look like whiskers. When I asked how she got them, she explained that when she was two months old, she fell very sick, so her parents took her to a shrine to get a fetish priest to cure her. He made the cuts and although she recovered, Grace doesn’t see a connection. In fact, she told me, she doesn’t believe in any of that stuff since she became a Christian.

But she was certainly nervous, pushing me ahead of her when we entered the witch’s compound and refusing to shake hands. (She later told me she wasn’t nervous at all, she just doesn’t want other people’s germs.)

The witches, as far as I could tell, were just skinny old women who’d outlived their usefulness at home. It was sad and pathetic, like a sort of perverse old age home, where the women live without family in a culture that is built on the idea of respecting elders and carrying for community leaders and raising everyone in a village. It was just sad to see. These women experienced so much upheaval and by the time we spoke to them, they were so beaten down by it and used to it, it almost seemed like they were reading from a menu when we asked them about how they came to the camp and what they were accused of. (They couldn’t talk about. It’s a taboo. But Grace got it out of them.)

After three hours, we went and hired a cab to take us back to the junction. The sun was beginning to set and along the equator, when the sun drops, it does in a hurry. The driver charged an outrageous fee of c100,000, then drove along the rutted road as though his car were in the hands of a pinball master. We had to stop several times to make sure the muffler was still attached. When it was still light out, people gave us a wonderful reception, stopping to smile and wave and laugh. By 6:30, though, it was pitch black. There was no electricity to compete with the night sky and you could see all the stars, spread out across the sky like spilled sand. It was breath-taking, and also a welcome distraction from the rollercoaster ride unfolding before our car’s headlights.

At Walewale, we had a typical Ghanaian taxi-driver experience, where three punks tried to gouge us into paying c150,000 for a ride to Bolgatanga. We refused, then had to rethink, since there were no other cabs passing by, no tro-tros running the route at night and no Good Samaritans in sight. In the end, I spotted someone washing his car and convinced him to take us for c100,000, completely blowing our travel budget. He turned out to subscribed to a theory that I was ascribing to Grace more and more: speak first, think later. Despite all my bickering about money and moaning about how poor we are, he asked us where we wanted to stay (“The Catholic Mission, please”) and took us to the most expensive hotel in town. We ended up staying somewhere slightly, but only slightly more downmarket, but only because after a half-hour of searching for the mission, we were so thoroughly frustrated we just wanted out of the cab and away from the inanity of it all.

We checked into our rooms and agreed to meet right away for dinner, saving showers for after, since the kitchen was about to close. Grace showed up a half-hour later, freshly showered, offering no apologies. She then had the audacity to ask whether we’d washed our hands. I said to her: “Grace, we’re not five.” She chitter chattered through the meal and later, after we’d gone to bed, Joanna and I agreed that she was good, but her manner and personality made her difficult to work with.

I slept the sleep of the dead that night, even though there were no sheets and the only cooling device was a fan whirring overhead like a chopper about to take off. All that white noise makes Karen a very happy girl. Plus, the mattress was a dream. It was actually firm foam! I am giving serious thought to just buying a new mattress, before my right hip gives out entirely.