Dee Dub and the Fetish Priest Tuesday, June 15th

Several worried villagers arrive at 6:30 am to tell me the problem is not with the pipe. The problem is that we did not do the proper ritual before we began the work, and they will never find water until we rectify the situation. The fetish priest has told them he will perform the necessary ceremony if we give him 450 ghana cedis, a fowl, a bottle of schnapps, and lavender. Someone explains the lavender must be six blossoms. The committee chair, Mr. B, is a Christian and an officer in the local Presbyterian Church, but he says we must follow the local custom. If we don’t, and they don’t find water, then the
villagers will blame us. The shaman, Mr. M, arrives, there is much negotiation, and he finally agrees to 250 cedis. Everybody says the contractor must pay the money, because he should never have started the work without the proper libations being poured. I call Mr. A, owner of the company, who says he is a serious Christian and “…doesn’t hold with that stuff.” Just let him know when his men can come back to work.

Then everybody agrees that the NGO must pay the money. They had this same problem with another bore hole a couple of years ago, and the NGO paid then and should have known they would have to pay this time. I call Alex, the NGO rep who is working with me on this project. He says absolutely not, no way, no how. They have never paid for magic, and they never will. The villagers say not so, Mr. L, another NGO rep, has always paid the fetish priest for the seven years they were doing work here, but never told the NGO director. I ask Alex to check with Mr. L. Alex calls back, to say well, ok, but they’ve never paid more than 100 cedis (and this is all news to him). The NGO director authorizes 100 cedis, we hand over some money, the schnapps, and the fowl, but are stuck on the lavender. I have a spray bottle of lavender that a friend brought back from Rome, that I use when stuff in the closet gets just too musty. We spray me, the priest, everybody else, and I point out that it was made from real lavender in Europe, and he decides it will work. He will do the ritual at midnight tonight (Tuesday) and the crews can come back to work tomorrow. We’ll see, and that will be the next update.