Don’t be fooled, the real healers deal in herbs and traditional medicine

BIG PENIS for sale! A remote control so that you can make your lover listen to you. Lotto riches. Pamphlets offering the services of faith healers and herbalists, who promise the world, have become the biggest scam to hit the streets since pyramid schemes.

The question is not how they proliferate, but why. These little ambitious pamphlets find themselves into the hands of desperate people who are pinning their hopes on everything from having a child to saving a failing marriage to winning millions to escape poverty. Common sense fails to prevail when desperation meets blind faith.

People spend their hard-earned money and clean out years of savings on a promise of instant results. This perpetuates the vicious circle of poverty.

James Ngwavhugwengwe, a tourist guide who specialises in cultural tours, explains: “Gifted traditional healers don’t advertise. It is a widely held belief that when one graduates from twasa (traditional healing school) it is the ancestors who draw the sick to you, not an advertisement.”

Maria Rachidi, a traditional healer, doesn’t advertise on pamphlets. She warned against doctors claiming to have a potion to quell every plague known to men. Healers are given specialities according to the abilities of their ancestors. She explained that just as you would find specialists in the medicine world the same applies in the traditional realm. “Be wary of a jack of all trades,” she said.

Rachidi says consultants who claim to be professors and doctors, like Dr Abdul Malik, who offers penis enlargement and bringing back lost lovers among other services, are not the real deal. Genuine healers refer to themselves using the traditional names of their ancestors to give honour to the source of their healing powers. In Zulu they are called inyanga, which means herbalist. Herbalists are concerned with medicines made from plants or animals.

Dr Abdul Malik and company will always thrive as along as penis size, lotto riches and bringing back lost lovers are important. There is no quick fix for these problems. “Expecting an affliction that has ailed you for years to come to a grinding halt overnight defies logic,” said Ngwawhungwegwe.