Creature demands P1500 payment
Kelebogile Watlhaga is one tormented woman. The source of her trouble is witchcraft, muti and a thokolosi that has apparently haunting her for a debt owed.
When the troubled woman walked into The Voice offices last week Thursday, she was carrying a small bottle containing blood and a rolled P10 note, which she presented as evidence of witchcraft activity targeted at her.
She said, “I found this hidden inside my boyfriend’s closet. He has failed to explain to me what the muti is for. But this blood mixed with muti cannot mean anything good!”
The 39- year- old mother of two maintains she has been living with her fiancée at Boseja ward in Maun for many years, but of late, strange things have been happening in their house.
“There is muti everywhere. I can taste it in the food, in the bathtub, in my tea; almost everything in the house is contaminated. When I ask my fiancé he says somebody envious of our relationship could be sending the muti, but the big question is how can muti from afar end up in my plate when everybody else’s food is clean?” She asked.
Cecilia who maintains she is in desperate need of spiritual intervention added that, “Last week a Thokolosi was removed from our house! We do not know its sender, but according to the pastor it is demanding a P1500 debt and we don’t even know who owes it that much from our house and for what exactly.”
Contacted for comment, the fiancé confirmed that Cecilia has been acting strange of late, “She might not be well. It could be depression or another mental illness. She is very restless and keeps accusing me of bewitching her,” he said.
Cecilia’s condition he says is seriously beginning to disturb him and the house, “she has lost focus, she is no longer her old calm and collected self.”
IS IT A MENTAL OR WITCHCRAFT PROBLEM?
A local psychiatrist based in Gaborone says it is possible that the woman may be unwell.
However, Dr Mpho Thula of Pula medical Fund declined to discuss Cecilia’s case in particular as he has never met or assessed her.
The psychiatrist could only advise that if a patient presents out of character behaviour, they need to be taken for a psychological check because, “There are so many mental related illnesses out there such as psychosis which presents with abnormal beliefs. The believer holds them with conviction and believes they are real. The person may have hallucinations, taste and smell things which in reality are not there. They can have these abnormal believes that somebody is bewitching them,” Dr Mpho explained.
Meanwhile an abstract from a Board of International Affairs of the Royal College of Psychiatrists has revealed that the annual reports of the Lobatse Mental Hospital and Jubilee Psychiatric Unit suggest that the five conditions most commonly presenting in the in-patient unit were: schizophrenia, depressive disorders, alcohol use disorders, bipolar affective disorders and epilepsy.
In the out-patient unit they were, schizophrenia, cannabis-induced disorders, depressive disorders,alcohol use disorders and epilepsy.
