Don’t talk to me talk to my “HEALER”

Perhaps we should be grateful to these traditional healers, who seem to have sprung up in such proliferation that there must be one of them for every twenty members of the population.
A pamphlet thrust into my hands the other day caught my attention (not least of all because the depressed-looking ‘distribution assistant’ hadn’t taken one look at me and decided that I was hardly a member of the target market).
How come there’s always a tag team of Dr Someone and Mama The-other? The names seem contrived, as if you took the first two letters of your favourite food and the last two of your favourite ancestor’s name, add Dr (if male) or Mama (if female) and hey presto! you’re in possession of a valid traditional healer’s licence (no need to register with the Health Department).
This sounds like the process of applying at the municipality – issue yourself a certificate, change your name (to hide past disciplinary action) and bingo – you’re in possession of a valid manager’s certificate.
So anyway, perhaps we should foster the development of traditional healing, as these Mamas and Doctors seem to be able to perform the duties of several departments simultaneously. The pamphlet listed a function of Dr Okie and Mama Toda (names changed to protect identity, any resemblance to persons living or dead is completely coincidental) as ‘Bring back stolen property’. I reckon the police should outsource to these guys.
As should the clinics, for the ‘HIV/AIDS’ service (or could that mean, “Come get your HIV/AIDS here”?! Eish…).
They also list ‘Court cases’ – affordable legal services: “Don’t talk to me, talk to my healer!”
As for ‘Swollen bodies’, there are a couple of officials at Endumeni that have recently had their swollen heads shrunken, so perhaps they’ve already started with a course of consultations. Maybe if the municipal management had awarded them the tender earlier – for the ‘Job promotion’ service perhaps – they’d have avoided the situation they’ve found themselves in of late.
Anyway, right under ‘Swollen bodies’ comes ‘Enlargement of parts’. If they mean vital organs (I mean the brain) then the municipality is the place to ply their wares. ‘Organ enlargement’ is also listed, and that is a growth market after all… (coincidently, I don’t believe the municipality needs this one).
But I digress. With advertising costs – in terms of classifieds in the papers, stickers all over town, staff for distribution and printing costs – business must be very good (‘Visiting hours Monday to Sunday’). Consultations are priced at R30, so those pamphlets must be paying for themselves somehow.
I wonder if one could get a traditional healing package deal, like at the boutique – ‘3 for the price of 1!!! Get job promotion, insanity and bad luck all for R60!!!’ (Those municipal guys must have been in for consultations, I tell you…)
A friend of mine even found ‘ladies’ intimate tightening product’ for sale in Durban, with the address listed on the back in lower Victoria Street, Dundee. Yep – sounds like the kind of thing that a traditional healer may produce. (Or some dodgy DVD dealer, who stocks anything from Bollywood thrillers, to Kung Fu specials, to those of the ‘blue’ variety.) Wouldn’t the powers-that-be rest easier to know that Dundee has become the site of a booming business in exporting quality products for consumption in larger markets? That’s the kind of thing that puts us on the map, we should capitalise and invest.
And finally, at the end of this most surprisingly well-spelled document, it invites me to ‘Come talk to your ancestors’. If such were possible I know what my ancestors would tell me: “Get off your backside and go apply for a job in a government department!
“And don’t bother wasting your money on ‘Enlargement of parts’ either!”