The Best American Travel Writing 2013 (21 page)

Samunge transforms itself into the world’s largest brew-through, serving over a hundred vehicles in roughly an hour. There are safari vehicles, Toyota HiAce minivans, Toyota Coaster minibuses, and full-sized coach buses as well as a handful of private SUVs. They pull up to Babu’s station, and workers of all ages carry trays of bright plastic cups, placing them into hands stretched out from windows. One little girl drinks her cup and vomits out of the window a few seconds later. Workers quickly wash each used cup and return it to service. Mwasapila, with his head bowed, works quietly alongside his assistants, ladling the liquid into trays loaded with cups. After each vehicle is served, it turns left and uphill, looping behind Mwasapila’s station, and begins the long trip back to Arusha, Kenya, or even farther-flung destinations.

An hour later, I find Mwasapila resting in a white plastic chair on a patch of red earth just a few meters from his newly built but modest block house. He has on a printed T-shirt, green pants, and pink low-top Converse All Star knockoffs. He shakes my hand and gestures for me to sit down.

A handful of people gather around to listen. Through Jotham, Mwasapila tells me his given name, Ambilikile, means “one who was called,” and explains about first seeing the visions of this place, Samunge, in 1991. I press for details about his visions, and whether he actually sees God. He says he never sees God, only hears a voice. When he tells about the first woman he treated for HIV in 2009, Jotham tells me, “I would ask about the patient who has been cured of HIV, but he said that she is living far away. Maybe ask the next question.”

I ask Mwasapila why he won’t take his cure to Arusha, Dar es Salaam, or any other populous place so people don’t have to endure hardship, spend their savings, or risk death in order to travel here. Mwasapila’s answer is that it’s God’s choice.
If I was another healer, I might advertise and travel here and there, but God chose here, so I will do my work here. If he decides later that I should move and go to another place, then I will go
.

He tells me the medicine works by faith. To be cured, one must drink and believe. I ask if a Muslim, Jew, or Hindu would be healed as well as a Christian.
God doesn’t look at the religion; he looks at the person who comes here with belief of faith. If they used the medicine, they will get better
.

As we talk, the tall bald man who earlier spoke to the crowd pulls up a chair and begins to listen intently. He says nothing at first, but begins to chime in during Jotham’s translations, emphasizing or elaborating certain points. Unlike Jotham, or Mwasapila, he seems impatient with my questions and scowls at me. The effect is disturbing, and I start to get the sense that I am no longer interviewing Mwasapila but instead arguing with this unidentified man.

Finally, he asks me whether people know about Mwasapila in America, and I say there’s only been one newspaper article. “I think in America we are used to putting our faith in doctors even though we are also very religious. So some people will say, ‘That sounds like it can’t be true.’ Other people will think, ‘That sounds like something I would like to see for myself.’”

The man tells me Americans should read Revelation verse 22, lines 1 through 3. “You will see what God did during Jonah’s time.”

“Since you have now offered something, may I have your name?” I ask. This is apparently daring and makes the small crowd titter.

He tells me it’s Frederick Nisajile and that he works for the Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service, which I later learn is an NGO affiliated with the Lutheran Church. Both Frederick and Mwasapila seem intently interested in America. The healer predicts many more people will come.
God has already shown me people from Asia, Europeans, Americans. Right here is not big enough. The place to do this service is behind this mountain on the great plain
.

Frederick and Mwasapila both want to know what American doctors or drug companies would think if they heard about this cure. I joke that they probably wouldn’t understand, and would instead take the plant to test in laboratories to extract and make money.
⁶
Frederick and Jotham both chuckle. Sensing my audience will end soon, I make one more attempt to ask an important question. I explain I’ve spoken to at least one person who believes there might be something wrong with Mwasapila’s brain, causing him to hear God’s voice. “And I just have to ask, respectfully, did you ever wonder, when you first heard from God, if your brain was playing a trick?”

Jotham hesitates, and then starts to translate this, but Frederick emphatically cuts him off, almost shouting, “No, no, no!”

He launches into an explanation in English that I barely understand, saying David and somebody else in the Bible heard God’s voice many times, and in David’s case, he spoke to an elder to verify it really was God. He claims Mwasapila heard God’s voice for nearly 20 years before acting on the instructions, even writing down the date each time he heard the voice. His point seems to be Mwasapila has done his due diligence. Frederick says, “Now, forget about that. After hearing all of this, what is your comment, sir? Do you believe people can be cured through voices or this medicine?”

Surrounded by the faithful, my skepticism feels like a dirty secret. Struggling to form a polite answer, I tell Frederick that while I have heard of many people who seem to be doing much better with minor complaints or even diabetes, I am still trying to find people who have had HIV who could tell me directly what happened to them. “I do not know what to believe,” I say. “I think if I were suffering I would take the medicine though.”

Frederick tells me to drink a cup of the medicine right now, and I say that I will, even though I am not suffering. Frederick says that we all have many unknown problems with our body and I may be cured without knowing it. Then he tells me to swallow the entire dose; don’t try to keep a small amount in my mouth to take back to a laboratory.

The audience is over, and I thank Mwasapila, who just nods and shakes my hand. Frederick walks me down the hill to the road, where plastic cups of Mwasapila’s cure sit on a card table. A small crowd follows to watch the action. He presses a cup into my hand. The liquid is warm and slightly bitter, with a subtle and distinctive flavor, like anise or ginseng.

Later, I speak with Madame Kashe over the phone, and, despite the bad connection, it sounds like she has found a patient for me to talk with. Jotham spends about two hours eating lunch and chatting with Frederick and a couple of policemen, while I wait impatiently in the car.

Much later, when I read the translation of my audience with Mwasapila, I will realize Jotham blatantly mistranslated a small part of the conversation. When Jotham asked about his first patient, the woman he treated for HIV in 2009, Mwasapila actually responded that she lived in Samunge and might be available to talk. This is most likely the same woman Pat Patten told me about, the woman who famously tested HIV negative but, according to Patten, had never been HIV positive. Jotham knows full well I am trying to find people who have taken Mwasapila’s cure for HIV, but he says nothing as we drive toward Wasso, away from Babu’s most famous patient.

In Wasso, Jotham introduces me to the district medical officer, and I interview him outside of a loud bar while PA speakers blare global hip-hop in the background. His answers are noncommittal. When I ask him if there’s evidence that Mwasapila’s cure works, he says that many diabetics have demonstrably better blood sugar levels after drinking the liquid. He says he knows of no cases of HIV patients testing negative after taking the cure, but he also says some have shown small improvements in their CD4 counts. “The Ministry of Health is conducting a study about this now, and you should really go to them for answers.” I ask him if he can help me speak to HIV patients who went to Mwasapila, and he promises to make inquiries on my behalf. When he leaves, I have to remind him to take my contact information so he can follow up.

After the medical officer leaves, Jotham grins and says, “I do not think anybody with HIV will speak to you. These people do not like to talk about their condition. I am glad we had this conversation with the district medical officer. He is a better person for you to speak to than the hospital administrator because he is the official in charge.”

“Maybe so,” I say, “but I did tell Madame Kashe at the Wasso Hospital we were coming today, and I promised to visit her. So I think we need to go there at least to say hello to be polite.”

Jotham counters, “We will not have time to go tonight, I think, since we will have to find a hotel and something to eat.” We check into a small guesthouse, and Jotham negotiates the price from $15 to $10 a person. A man promises we’ll have hot water, which Jotham seems to really care about, and the man begins heating a barrel of water with charcoal. After an hour, the water is only tepid, and Jotham insists that we cannot go to find Madame Kashe until it’s hot enough to bathe.

My mobile phone rings: it’s Madame Kashe calling. “We are waiting for you here,” she says. “When are you coming?” I explain we’ve checked into a guesthouse and are waiting for hot water to clean off the grime of nearly two days of travel.

She asks me why I went to a guesthouse. “We have hot water here. And food, and beds.” It dawns on me that when Madame Kashe told me we would be welcome, she was inviting me to stay at the hospital, apparently in guest quarters.

I apologize for the misunderstanding and hand the phone to Jotham. He speaks in Swahili for a few minutes and then hands the phone back. I say, “I think we made a mistake, and I really think we should go see Madame Kashe now.” Jotham surprises me by agreeing—maybe it’s the promise of hot water—and we wrap up in our warmest jackets and head into the suddenly cold desert night.

Madame Kashe greets us outside what appears to be a chapel and welcomes us inside, where we find a table set with steaming food.

A tall, baby-faced young man sits in a corner, speaking softly to another man and woman, both middle-aged. The young man comes over and introduces himself as Gedeon Omari, a doctor at Wasso Hospital. Madame Kashe asks us about our trip and asks me what I think of Mwasapila. She makes it clear she is fond of the healer, but skeptical of his cure and adds, “I like how they’re taking care of Babu now! He seems much more energetic. He looked wasted before.” The food is delicious, and Madame Kashe invites Jotham to take a hot shower in some other part of the compound, which he gratefully accepts.

After a long meal, when I think we may be preparing to go to bed, Gedeon addresses me directly. Speaking very softly, in English, he asks me what I’m hoping to achieve. I speak slowly and match his quiet tone. “I have heard about Babu, for many weeks now. And I’ve talked to many people who tell me they have been cured of minor ailments. But I haven’t spoken to anybody who has gone to see him for more serious conditions. Like cancer. Or HIV. So I want to talk to people who have and find out what their experience is.”

Gedeon introduces the other man and woman, who have said almost nothing. He explains they are his clients; both are HIV positive, both are taking ARV therapy. Each visited Mwasapila in November 2010, months before he became famous. After drinking the medicine, they stopped ARV treatment for a matter of weeks. Their CD4 counts began to drop, so they resumed therapy. Both appear to be lucky—discontinuing ARVs can allow the virus to develop a resistance to the drugs—but both feel healthy after resuming their ARV treatment.

In the car on our way back to the guesthouse, Jotham clucks his tongue and tells me that neither patient seems to have strong faith.

The next morning, we meet Madame Kashe and Dr. Omari again, and this time I interview three patients. The first, Margaret, has type II diabetes, but her blood sugar has normalized since drinking Mwasapila’s liquid last fall. She also lost over 50 kilograms. Gedeon and Madame Kashe both suggest that she continue a low-sugar, low-starch diet.

The other two patients have similar stories to the two I spoke with the night before, the difference being that they both have marginally improved CD4 counts.

Jotham watches the interview with decreasing interest from the side of the room, and when he steps out to make a phone call, I ask bluntly: “Do you know any HIV patients who went to Babu and got sick or died?” Gedeon tells me that just three weeks ago, a man from Wasso died. I ask if he was friends with either patient, and it turns out he was the secretary of their HIV-positive support group. They say he was a good man and a friend.

His name, as it turns out, was Francis Tesha.

A few days later, I speak with Francis’s sister Flora over the phone and hear his full story. She tells me that shortly after Francis left the hospital in February, he was struck by another bout of opportunistic infections and left bedridden. He lost all hope. He couldn’t eat and refused ARVs. He coughed constantly from tuberculosis. Flora recounts, “We brought him to the hospital on April 12, and this time, he did not get out until he died.” Now Flora tries to warn people away from Mwasapila. “You can’t stop someone from going to Babu, but the fact is that all of the people who went to drink the medicine regret it now. Many of them have died. I get so angry when I see somebody going there to drink that medicine.”

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

—
Hosea 4:6 (quoted in an editorial in a Kenyan paper, advising people not to visit Mwasapila)

On my second-to-last day in Tanzania, I meet with Dr. Paul Kisanga at Arusha Lutheran Medical Centre. Unlike most Tanzanian hospitals, which could be movie sets for
A Farewell to Arms
, ALMC is a freshly painted steel-and-glass building, in which a director could film an episode of
House
. A large bronze plaque hangs on the wall with the names of dozens of donors, many of whom are Lutheran congregations in small towns in Minnesota.

Dr. Kisanga wears a dark, closely tailored suit, and I notice an iPad on a stand in his office. He is gracious but obviously busy. Like the Wasso district medical officer, his answers are politic. He reminds me that his hospital is part of the same Lutheran diocese as Bishop Laizer, who has enthusiastically promoted Mwasapila, and tells me, “As a medical scientist, I have no reason to think this works. However, we have a few people in the last three months with improved hypertension and blood sugars.”