"We are not witches"

A member of the Dingaka tsa Setso Association Monica Madiba is not happy with Prophetess Kebelaele Ditsebe’s utterances that God wants traditional doctors to repent and renounce their practice because it is sinful. The leader of Solution House By Jesus Christ in Pilane said on Sunday during a service that people should refrain from visiting traditional doctors and asked the congregants to bring forward mediums such as muti that they were given by traditional doctors. In response, Madiba from Metsimotlhabe said that people are free to follow their own religious and cultural beliefs. She explained that God is not angry at traditional doctors. “As traditional doctors, we cure the flesh. The Bible heals the souls, so we shouldn’t despise each other,” she said. Narrating how she became a traditional healer, the 33 year-old woman said she started seeing her dead relatives in her dreams from a young age. She said they would even recommend traditional medicine for her to go and uproot in the bush whenever she was sick. “I work mostly with pregnant women by using water and mixed herbs,” she said. Madiba said however that she is yet to go to school for her practice. Another traditional doctor Molefi Seragwane said Christians who are against traditional doctors are not really born again. “They don’t know God. They should know that Moses was a traditional doctor and several times bones were used in the Bible to predict people’s lives,” he said, saying he believes it was God who gave him the gift of being a traditional doctor. He stated that he helps people against joblessness, no promotion at work, torments by thokolosi, car accidents and thunder, among others. “Witches in Kgatleng know me. They call me Molf,” he said. A man in his late 50s said that it is ignorance to believe traditional doctors are not called by God. “Every one of us was called by God to do something. For me, he called me to help people from their persecutions and afflictions by witches. This is Africa! Witchcraft is real. Even your sibling can bewitch you. Churches and pastors won’t tell you what we tell you,” he said.