a dangerous healer in Tanzania

I've mentionned this guy a few months ago. The show doesn't subside, far from it.

For the last 3 days I was flying in Loliondo area and saw or heard new facts about the famous killer, sorry healer, in Samunge, Sonjo valley, northern Tanzania. He pretends to cure most diseases, including aids, nothing less.

I suddenly could see, coming from Kenya, dozens of cars through Olaika or Pininyi, 2 really remote locations where cars were usually extremely rare, and then only jeeps. Now, saloon cars, dala dalas and buses crawl on those tracks. People come from abroad to visit this healer, and of course no border control exists in those porous areas.

What has this healer done to be so famous? I mean over the centuries there have been healers and gullible victims all across the world but why is this man so sought after…? Better marketing and psychological skills I guess. As a consequence for drinking that beverage and stopping classic treatments patients die a lot as it can be expected but the counter rumor hasn’t kicked in yet.

The medical people I work with usually confirm their patients, usually stable or under control, start to die quickly after visiting Babu, as he is nicknamed, that is grandfather...

One doctor told me he was participating in a workshop in Arusha and all his colleagues confirmed one thing: there is in average a 50% drop in patients attending their practice.

According to the local newspaper, to read with a pinch of salt, more than 3 million people have visited the charlatan. True or not it still gives an idea on the crowds rushing there.

One patient walked 12 km from the “parking lot” to the healer, one aerial picture shows traffic jams as far as you could see, another man counted 300 vehicles (that is packed up with people, African style) that left Loliondo in one day (a remote village but near an airfield), transport businesses have flourished in Arusha, chartered planes go there about every day, even helicopters at 2300$ a round trip(there is a serious middle class in Tanzania!)…

It was the bush, there were no facilities, just a few huts. Now entrepreneurs have decided to cut a share of this flow of money. Can’t blame them right? Roads to improve, cell phone coverage, food, latrines, districts are more careful than ever to collect transit fees…

to be continued.

Comments

[ben wilhelmi]

I understand hope and optimism but in this case, common sense is totally blurred, obscured. People stop their regular treatment as well...

[Fatima]

Incredible!

I guess hope dies last! (when every other possibility has been exhausted...)

Not even sure of how I feel about it. Mixed feelings really: on the one hand anger at those naive people who go through all of that unthinkable difficulties and financial hardship to see the charlatan... on the other hand sympathy as those people see this little glimpse of light through the "healer" for their chance of recovery from whatever disease or fate that they are trying to escape.

I try to put myself in their shoes and sometimes it feels like I might have done the same thing (regardless the modern medicine's warning) because hope would be the last thing that kept me going...