Jabari Tull Clinic overlooks a lush valley in Kongowe, off Mbagala, a place where one would expect a filth-infested disturbing atmosphere, but instead, is met by a group of women preparing ugali in an environment that looks more a fiesta than a bad-news milieu.
If at all there were once white washed walls and septic smells, they now appeared to have been replaced with an assembly of muddy and wooden huts lining up against the clinic’s dusty yard.
Pushing a khanga curtain aside leads one into a cool office of the clinic illuminated only through a tiny window, high enough to meet the ceiling designed in the form of a pyramid, but whose underneath are the dangling clubs and dry pumpkins.
In between, are two mirrors swaying lazily in the haze but they illuminate a toy parrot that looks out of place, at least in the eyes of a stranger.
Copies of the Holy Bible and the Holy Quran and the invisible spirits of his ancestors guide the owner of the clinic, Akumitumba Juma Mtundunya, a man bending over water bottles with sea salt and sand to probe on the internal secrets of his patient’s body reminiscent of an X-ray in conventional medicines. His, was a witch craft, he prefers to call treatment because it has proved effective to most patients in need of his services.
"Remove your shoes and take a sit on that chair (stool)," he gestures to the reporter to sit on a chair that suits his star, that also guides him into making right diagnosis.
He registers his customers in a folder in the same manner as in any reputable health centre elsewhere in the country, signaling the status of the clinic he had established in 2005 as an officially recognized institution under the national organisation of natural herbalists, CHAUMUTA, of which he boasts being its member.
"It is important for me that the government acknowledges his services" says Mariam Daudi, who has travelled all the way from Morogoro, more than a month ago to find a cure for the disease she cannot express in simple terms, but “general body malaise.”
She has already spent Sh450,000 for her stay at the clinic since December and although still speaking in a feeble voice, she says the treatment is a success. Mariam has attended three different hospitals over a three month period.
Without the help of her relatives the financial burden would have crushed her, she says. “They tested me for all female diseases, but ended up sending me back home with painkillers".
Last year Mohammed Kilemba's four year old son fell sick with seizures. He went to Temeke hospital where "they told me they can only treat him when he turns five; they didn't give me any medicine for him," he sighs. "Now I learn witchcraft to take care of my son on my own," says the man who is learning the craft from Mtundunya.
The family of Khamisi Issa Abdallah also belongs to Mtundunya’s clientele, since their son, the 21 year old fashion vendor from Kariakoo, is now a patient at the clinic.
Khamisi used to be a normal boy of his age, says his mother Salima Abdallah until he started to "scream and shout at night."
The family consulted Muhimbili's psychiatric unit but failed to diagnose the troubles despite his one-month stay at the hospital until late in November when they resorted to Mtundunya’s clinic. They vowed never to go to hospital anymore if anything went wrong.
Mtundunya has recently diagnosed the disease. “Khamisi has been bewitched” he told the parents, without revealing the names of the bewitchers to avoid personal grudges. But even his mother would bar all strangers from seeing her son in volatile state.
But while Mtundunya is proud of belonging to Chaumuta, its chairperson, Dr Ahmadi Salim pours every scorn on everything the former does, saying he tarnishes the image of his reputable organization especially by using the mysterious spirits of ancestors in healing, instead of natural herbs.
Dr Salim, however, is of the opinion that Mtundunya is not alone among Chaumuta members who misuse the herbal office through shifting to spiritual healing.
“It’s the language typical of the market,” he says, that tempts some Chaumuta doctors into going public to declare they could rid people of evil spirits. He says he does not belong to them as he would simply refer his patient to hospital when his treatment is exhausted.
But Mtundunya is not the only one administering treatment at the clinic. His assistant and cousin, Kulaga Salum claims to be treating impotence and freeing patients from evil spirits.
To get patients rid of evil spirits, he pours a transparent liquid on grinded powder that is neatly arranged on a piece of paper, on which runes representing prayers to the spirits are scribbled.
The liquid soaks into the powder, the piece of paper set on fire until is burned to ashes. Salum tosses the ashes into a bowl and grins, "I have just called the spirits."
Though Salum says the liquid contains nothing more than water and ashes, a laboratory test at the University of Dar-Es-Salaam's department of chemistry revealed its true composition.
The liquid in question is glycerin, a component that is found in household products such as skin care crèmes. Only that Salim’s glycerin was a mixture with other substances used in petroleum and kerosine. It is a liquid that could easily set powder on fire.
But Babu Njonu, a young man living just across the clinic’s compound, ridicules both Mtundunya’s witchcraft and his clients, saying “they are taken for a ride.”
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