Edzi from the Traditional Healer's Perspective

Today I learned about AIDS from the perspective of a Traditional Healer or asinanga in Malawi. I went to a botanical garden of one of the Traditional Healer’s Associations, and on the drive out there, we talked about the epidemic. It turns out that a German in Malawi is buying an AIDS cure, a mixture of medicinal plants, from this asinanga and giving it to AIDS patients in Germany. I read a letter from one of the patients who claims that he is now feeling much better again after stopping his drug cocktail with nasty side effects and relying entirely on the Malawian traditional medication. He sent along a photo of himself as well as a replica of a church that he created entirely from empty pill bottles and pill packets from his 7 years of ARVs.

The asinanga explained his “science” of how AIDS works and why his medicine can cure AIDS. He said that AIDS is a virus that feeds on blood so if you poison blood then the virus dies. This medicine poisons the blood. It makes perfect sense in his mind. I tried to explain that most of the virus dies from the medicine, but it is not possible to kill all of the virus, so that when people stop taking the medicine they get sick again. He didn’t buy it. On the up side, he said that he tells people that they have to be faithful to one person after they take the medicine or else they will get sick again.

This is a man who uses his knowledge of traditional medicine to help others, even when they can’t pay. Other traditional healers that I spoke with used magic to protect their forests by casting a spell on the snakes to bite anyone who tried to cut down trees. In this forest they have a problem with people stealing their small trees that were only planted 8 years ago. But they refuse to enchant the snakes because they don’t believe in hurting people.