Witch Doctors Join in AIDS Fight

South Africa's Traditional Healers Read Gospel in Exchange for Baptists' Medical Help

FISH HOEK, South Africa -- When it comes to fighting ailments from witches to the common cold, many black residents of this windswept fishing village have long trusted the medical expertise of the traditional healer Nkonjani Themba.

But when AIDS descended on South Africa and the herbs of the ancestors failed to stop chronic sickness and debilitating diarrhea, even Themba began looking elsewhere for answers.

"A lot of people are dying every day," Themba said in Xhosa, an African language interspersed with rapid pops and clicks. "The drugs that are available, they help people for a certain amount of time, but eventually the people will die."

Out of answers, Themba and 14 other healers turned for modern medical advice to the nearby Living Hope Community Centre. Workers at the Baptist-affiliated treatment center jumped at the chance to align with the powerful healers -- also known as "sangomas" or witch doctors -- and, in a controversial move, designed an eight-week course for the healers to simultaneously spread the gospel and AIDS awareness throughout the Cape Peninsula.

The resulting partnership represents a marriage of convenience between evangelical and witch doctor that has rapidly bolstered the influence of both -- and caused some concern about misplaced proselytizing.

"Traditional healers, the government, churches, we can work together in this," said Nobuntu Matholeni, a chaplain who works at the center and translates the gospel course from English to Xhosa.

"[The Gospel of] John said that hope dies last. We're not just winning them for Christ, but together helping these people, to give them hope," Matholeni said.

Here in this coastal community an hour's train ride south of Cape Town, approximately 20,000 live in the cramped shantytown known as Masiphumelele -- an apartheid-era black township perched on a rocky outcrop distinctly removed from the comfortable white homes near the bay. Many townships like this one bear messages of hope for the future; in Xhosa, Masiphumelele means "We will succeed."

The present reality, however, is more dire. Officials estimate that a quarter of the residents here are infected with HIV/AIDS -- a rate that surpasses the national average of 19 percent.

In reaction to the mounting health crisis, Fish Hoek Baptist Church created the center in 1999 as a community outreach project. Gradually, the expanding organization won the acceptance of many community elders and recently provoked even the sangomas to take a closer look.

"Living Hope is the one that put light on what is going on with AIDS in the community," said Sivuylile Tshetsha, a soft-spoken man clad in the colorful beads and necklaces worn by healers. "So it is them that will help us."

Given their prevalence, affordability and cultural significance, sangomas remain powerful spiritual and medical figureheads in communities such as Masiphumelele. The South African Department of Health reports that more than 200,000 traditional healers are active in South Africa.