Journalists in Mozambique Tread a Careful Line Between Medical Fact and Local Lore

By: Mercedes Sayagues | 12/11/2010

On the first day, only the girls in the afternoon shift at one classroom fainted. First one, then four, 20 by the end of the week. In the second week, the fainting spells spread to all the classes of the Quisse Mavota High School in the periphery of Maputo. Among its 4,475 pupils, only the older girls fainted. By the end of the second week, 120 girls were having fainting spells and these were spreading into the satellite school. Panic followed: parents, teachers and students alike were scared.

The girls explained that the ancestor spirits were upset. In 2004, when the school was built over a small informal graveyard, the bones of the Mavota and Magaia families were exhumed and reburied at the town cemetery with ceremonies. But the ancestors were not appeased, said the girls. They needed closure. They needed another ceremony.

The Ministry of Health reacted promptly. Before the end of the first week, it sent a team of 15 specialists (psychologists, doctors, counselors) and stationed an ambulance and nurses at the school. Anemia and pregnancy test were carried out: negative. An engineering company tested the air for radioactivity and toxicity: nothing. The food canteen, toilets and water supply were tested: clean.

The Secular versus the Religious

A conflict arose: The Ministries of Health and Education refused to accept the explanation of angry spirits because “our duty is to instill a spirit of rational thought and scientific reasoning at school,” said the provincial director of education. The traditional healers protested that traditional African culture and rituals were sidelined. Pentecostals rejected the rituals as witchcraft and demanded an exorcism. Muslims were unhappy with both proposals.

A compromise solution was found: the community, not the government, would bring the healers into the school on a Saturday. The municipality would pay for the goats and cattle to be slaughtered, wine offerings and gifts for the healers. Only Magaia and Mavota family members would attend the ceremony, no students or parents.

Relief flowed through the 1,000-strong crowd of tense parents who gathered on a Saturday at the basketball court of Quisse Mavota to hear the authorities. As of that Saturday, the fainting spells ceased for good. After long discussions with journalist Alves Talala, we did the story as a conflict between knowledge systems, between the traditional spiritual explanation and the western, rational explanation. We did not take sides and treated both positions with respect.

He interviewed parents, girls who had fainted, authorities, and sociologists. There were mug shots with quotes, a Q&A with a sociologist, and a fact box with results from the Pew Research Institute survey of religious beliefs in Mozambique (and other 14 African countries, see ) released in April 2010.

It found that 44% have witnessed a devil being expelled from a person, 35% have witnessed miraculous cures, and 27% believe in the protective power of rituals for ancestors and spirits.

Alves Talala and colleagues in the newsroom, were not sure about the causes of the fainting spells. When asked, I spoke of collective hysteria. And then… as I was reading Alves’ first draft of the story at home one evening, I was filled with dread. My heartbeat quickened. I had a sense of foreboding. I stopped work, sat on the couch, did some deep breathing, and decided to finish reading tomorrow.

The following day, as I am telling Alves what happened, my teen daughter Esmeralda calls from Cape Town, South Africa. The day before she had been taken sick, with heart palpitations and chest oppression. She went to the university clinic, got anti-anxiety pills, and was fine. I have no idea what this means.

What I do know is that traditional beliefs shape the perception, definition and interpretation of health in Mozambique, beyond the normal narratives set out by Western medicine and donor-funded health campaigns. At Quisse Mavota, the girls’ health required, in their view, restoring harmony between the living and the dead through the rituals.

This story is one of two finalists for the first prize for features at the gender and media awards in Southern Africa. The winner will be announced early next year in Maputo. Perhaps the ancestors liked the story.

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