JuJuWitch
and the Black Ghost
©By Harold Gower May
11, 2012
as told to
him by Henry Elfonsi Gumenuk III, RPCV.
“Anyanui is a quiet little fishing village on the eastern
bank of the estuary of the Volta River. The Africans pronounce it On-yon- we,
but we liked to call it Any-a-new-e. I had been teaching there a year, so I was
an old-timer when Mary Lee arrived fresh from the States, full of enthusiasm,
and after eight weeks of intense training, ready for the rustic life. She was
actually quite good looking, and I had the enviable pleasure of showing her the
ropes. So the first rope I showed her was the one tied to the bail of a bucket.
“This is one of those things they don’t get around to
explaining in those university classes. Since our only source of fresh water is a well
and there are no water pumps, we have to draw the water using a bucket on the
end of a rope. Now if you drop the bucket into the well, one might expect the
bucket to fill, but instead of filling, it floats. Sooo, what you have to do is
raise the bucket just above the surface and wiggle it with an up and down
motion till the bucket swings upside down, and then drop the bucket into the
water, let it fill and then draw it up. We have a two burner kerosene hot plate
to boil our drinking water for ten minutes before we cool it. However, since we
don’t have a fancy dancy modrun water heater, we draw our bath water just
before we bathe because the water fresh from the well is several degrees warmer
than after it sits topside for a while. And since we don’t have bathtubs or
showers, we bathe with just one bucket of water which is doable with a little
practice. One of the worst things you can do while you’re here is to drop your
end of the rope while the bucket is in the well.
“Now whether you are religious or not, religion is
interesting especially to the Africans. Many Africans confuse us with Christian
missionaries, which of course, we are not, but religion is a curious thing on
both sides of the fence. If you ask them about their pagan beliefs, they will
clam up and shut you out. The best way to get them to open up is to not mention
it at all, because eventually they will ask you,’ what do you believe? Do you
believe in juju?’ and you can truthfully respond ‘I never heard of juju what is
it?’ I must tell you that Anyanui is in the region of the Ewe tribe and the Ewe
people are the originators of Voodoo. It is all about witchcraft, black magic
and juju, but on any normal day you will never see any of it in practice.
“I took Mary Lee down to the river to show her the
marina. Unlike the marinas in the
states, this marina had a pier with an old rusty ferry boat powered by a diesel engine, and a couple of
long dugout canoes powered by outboard motors which were also used to ferry
people, goats, chickens, and market mammies with their wares from and to the
market. And since we were on the estuary of the river, fishing trawlers from
the Gulf of Guinea would tie up here to unload their catches. Some of the trawlers were owned and operated
by Africans and others were owned and operated by Europeans often from
neighboring countries. Ghana had been a British colony and Togo is still
French. So it was not unusual to hear people speaking French.
“Months later we were alone in the house on a quiet
Sunday afternoon when he walked in uninvited. Short and stocky and filthy, with
red curly hair and a grubby beard, he clearly expected the house to be empty
for he seemed surprised to see me and delighted to see Mary Lee. His gray-blue
eyes gleamed as he grinned through his jagged yellow teeth. Clearly, he had
rape on his mind, though he wouldn’t have called it rape. She was just another
toothsome morsel and he was not about to let me stand in his way. I was younger
by a few years and too clean cut to appear to be any threat to a rough, tough
sailor, so as I stood between him and Mary Lee, he grabbed me by my shirt front
and snarled as he shoved his fists up under my jaws. I must have looked a bit
ridiculous wearing my broad brimmed Bolgatanga hat. It had been hand woven in
that northern village, and I was, and am still, very fond of it. It is a very
sturdy hat with a sturdy crown.
“The moment he touched my shirt I reached up to defend
myself, so before he had time to threaten me or tell me to get out of his way,
I grabbed his right wrist with my left hand, and squeezed with much more
strength than he anticipated and twisted it backwards which caused him
considerable pain. I then got a grip on his little finger with my right hand
and bent it backwards till it broke. By this time he was enraged and trying
very hard to recover control. As he was drawing back to hit me with his right
hand, I brought my heel down hard on the instep of his left foot and I could
hear at least a couple metatarsals break. As he was still attempting to fight,
I hit him in the solar plexus with the tips of my fingers of my open right
hand. He collapsed to his knees and speaking English with a heavy French
accent, he begged me to let him go, as all the while I maintained a firm grip
on his wrist.
“I told him that my name was Pipewrench, and that he was
the pipe. I also told him that her name
was JuJuWitch and that she was in total control of all my actions, and that I was
only her vassal.
“By her powerful juju, she can turn herself into a snake,
a cobra in fact. She can even turn the likes of you into a beautiful young
woman. You must leave this house
immediately to escape her awful power. I whispered.
“By now he was more than willing to go, whether he
believed me or not. I followed him as he hobbled out of the house as fast as he
could on his broken foot, and cradling his right arm. I followed him at a
distance, all the way to the pier on the river where I saw him board a black
fishing trawler used to smuggle contraband from Togo. As he stood on the deck I
could swear I saw him look at himself to make sure he was still a man and not a
beautiful young woman.
“When I returned to the house, I was shocked to find
myself facing a very large Black Mamba. It is considered to be the deadliest
snake in all of Africa. Its bite is called the kiss of death.
“No, No, No”, I thought, as panic began to set in, “this
cannot be Mary Lee! I was only messing with the sailor’s head about JuJuWitch.
“And yet there it was right where I’d left her, Mary Lee
that is. If this is not Mary Lee, then where is she? If the snake had bitten
her, then her dead body would be lying on the floor. I listened. I heard no other sounds. The
mamba, with its head raised two feet off the floor, lay poised and still as a
marble statue, and looking straight at me. And I, I was afraid to breathe or
utter a sound, knowing that this creature was the fastest and most aggressive
serpent in all the world.
Just then, Mary
Lee came out of the kitchen, and screamed when she saw the mamba. The mamba
turned its attention to her and began to move in her direction. With no further
thought, I took my hat by the crown holding it in front of me and presenting it
to the mamba, the viper turned instantly toward me and struck the inside of the
hat band several times in rapid succession before hanging on, and sinking its
fangs into the fibers of the hat. I seized the opportunity to grab the snake just
behind the head gripping it as tightly as I could. I let go of my hat and gripped
him with both hands for it took all of my strength to hold him. He was long and
slender, sleek and powerful, and not accustomed to not having his own way. I called to Mary Lee to bring a knife from
the kitchen, so as I held his head to the floor, she drove the knife through
his skull three times before he stopped writhing.
The mamba measured
out to be nine feet in length, and I estimated his weight to be more than twenty
pounds. I found his fangs protruding from the inside of my hat band where they had
become detached when I grabbed him by the neck.
Mary Lee and I got married, for as she had saved my life
and I hers, what else could we do? And as far as I know JuJuWitch is still
haunting the trawler known as Le Fantรดme Noir.
.
…and dats da trut, so help me Hannah, or my name ain’t
Henry Elfonsi Gumenuk III, Esquire, RPCV.
©Harold
Gower
