Obeah Lady, Part 1

At the age of eleven I moved to Belize; I knew very little about the country on a broad scale, but was familiar with its cultural customs such as being polite to my elders and remaining silent if I were amongst an adult conversation. I had learned all of this because my mother is a Belizean. We moved to Belize from Los Angeles and instead of experiencing culture shock, I was very excited about being in a new place. Overwhelmed with my mother and her children—there were five of us—my aunt who we stayed with since we had arrived, helped my mother get a place. Before we got the place, we were staying with my aunt's family; my mother was constantly job and house hunting, so she wasn’t there to discipline or control us. Therefore, it is understandable that my aunt asked around, until someone had a place available.

The house was small and wooden and sat on a lonely, dusty road in Stand Creek, Dangriga. Dangriga is a very unique part of Belize because most of the Afro-Belizeans live there. Afro-Belizeans are direct descendants from African slaves and still speak their original language and practice very different spiritual activities that differ from Creoles; Belizean Creoles are descendants of British Colonialists and African slaves and practice Christianity. These Afro-Belizeans are called the Garifuna and have a reputation of being able to do "Dugu" or Obeah. According to several sources, "Obeah is a system of belief among blacks chiefly of the British West Indies that is characterized by the use of magic ritual to ward off misfortune or to cause harm." Usually the older women of Dangriga practice Dugu and as a child, I never thought I would encounter such a woman.

As we moved into our little wooden home, we were excited that we had a neighbor—an older Garifuna woman. Her house was directly behind ours and we would watch as she bent over a large wash basin, pulled out soapy clothes onto a scrubbing board, and pushed them up and down it. Sometimes, my mother would go and talk to the woman, they talked for so long that we were sure my mother had made a new friend. But one day, my mother had taken us to town to buy groceries, and when we returned home there was a large pile of meat in front of our stair way. As I looked closer, I noticed that there was a perfect circle drawn into the red clay with a star in the middle. At the center of the star were chunks of meat that were peppered with flies. My mother told us that we should leave right away and prayed as we went to our aunt’s house. My mother told her what happened and we stayed there until dusk.

When we got home, ants had filled the circle and eaten most of the meat. My mother, instinctively, poured water over the circle and whispered a prayer under her breath. We went up stairs and into our house without saying anything; even though my mother was very confident, I could tell that she was worried. Soon after the incident, our neighbor stopped talking to my mother and she assumed that the old woman was either involved with the incident or knew who had tried to put dugu on us.

One night, I was awakened by my mother’s screams as a blazing fire glowed near her bed. My brother squeezed the water-filled gallons near head and ousted the fire. After the fire was put out, my mother examined her room, and noticed that the window was open; the screen that was usually over the windows to keep out flies had been neatly ripped from the seam and was hanging off the window. The window was directly near her head and someone could have easily ripped open the screen and had thrown a match or candle that had started the blaze. My mother, couldn't understand how this was possible as there was only one stairway in front of the house, leading up that high. Since there were no stairs in the back of the house (where her room was located), it would be impossible to get near her room, much less her window. So, how one earth did some one get up to the window, open it, neatly rip the screen and start a fire in my mother's room? I always remember this line from Hamlet, “There are more things in Heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” Even when humans can't explain something, it doesn't mean that unexplainable events do not exists or are impossible.

My mother, very afraid for us, decided to move from the yard. When she told people what happened, they said that our neighbor was known as an infamous Obeah lady.

This wasn't the first time someone tried to put dugu my family.