Fantasmas

-I am afraid of the dark because I am afraid of fantasmas (ghosts). I am afraid of thieves and rapists, ghosts don't really enter into my thought process.
-Lightning is women killing men that have done bad things. You go girls.
-I don't like to eat the seeds of the tomatoes because they cause joint pain. ‘Well I have never heard that before’ – my mother, ‘that is probably because it isn’t true’ - me
-You shouldn't eat cold food at night, it is bad for your stomach. Just an excuse to chastise me for eating salad.
-The Mongoi family is very powerful, they will give you all the money you want and make you very rich and then will kill all of your family. 1) This sounds more like the Mozambican Mob than witchcraft 2) I hope the Mongoi family doesn't read my blog.

“Fictis (SP?) really exists here,” Iraque assured me.
“Fictis? What is that?” me, confused as usual.
“People putting spells on you. Voodo.” He responded.
“And what do you mean here?” again, confused.

“Here in AFRICA,” he responded in this sort of eerie voice. I swear I could hear a slight echo as these words loomed in dark ominous tones behind him.

But who am I to laugh or say it doesn't. Southern Africa is a very strange, at times bewildering, in many ways untamed, and often frightening place. I am not trying to say that development somehow drives out spirits, but it really seems like anything could exist here.

Although, I couldn't help but giggle when Iraque called me one night and said he couldn't sleep because he was afraid of fantasmas in the dark. Now I, as a 23 year old semi-worldly and sort of wise woman, am still irrationally afraid of the dark. But come on, the boy always sleeps with a candle burning to ward off fantasmas – I guess this is the electricity-less (and slightly more dangerous considering the whole he lives in a reed house situation) version of the night-light.