Mamy Wata

Like a piece of soft black cloth being pulled along an invisible wire, the bat flies silently around the parlor, staying equidistant from walls and furniture as it makes its fluttering circles. It flaps three times around the room and then abruptly exits without making a sound. I am growing quite used to wild animals in the house. The open breeze blocks that form one wall of a hallway allow the entry of both lizards and birds, but this is the first bat I’ve seen inside.

Groups of students often visit me in the evening and I always make them welcome. With no electricity, there is little to do after dark here except visit or be visited and these African children are very good company. This evening, five boys are enlivening my house with their jokes and stories. The bat causes a sudden stop to their laughter and chatter. When it leaves, they resume conversation, but in muted tones.

“Are people here afraid of bats?” I ask, wondering why they are suddenly so grave. They discuss this in Oron, the local language, before answering.

“Not when they are outside. But we don’t like to see them in the house,” Effiong finally replies. He visits regularly along with his brother, little Etim, and his best friend and cousin, Asuquo. They all have the inky black skin, slim build and fine features characteristic of their extended family.

“I don’t think bats like to be in the house either,” I remark.

“We think that when they come into the house they are bad juju,” says Asuquo. “If one comes in, it is because he is looking for someone.”

The boys wait to see what my response will be. They know that I don’t believe in juju, the local black magic. They are tolerant of my disbelief and attempts to debunk this collection of superstitions, but their convictions remain unshaken. One especially hot night last week, for instance, these boys were at my house in the evening and wishing that there was a moon so they could go to the stream to get cool.

“Let’s just go and take a lantern,” I said, wanting to bathe but not wanting to step on a cobra on the way.

“Oh no,” they explained, “It is not allowed to take a lantern to the stream at night. Mamy Wata doesn’t like it.” Mamy Wata is a powerful local spirit believed to live in streams and rivers.

“And what will happen if you take a lantern?”

“She thinks it is an insult and she will make the stream to become dirty and full of mud.”

I insisted we go and said that I would carry the lantern so they didn’t need to worry about the consequences. We visited the stream and cooled off without incident. The next morning when we went to bathe again, I pointed out to them that the water flowed as clear and clean as before. Later in the day they reported that this had been explained by the fact that I am a foreigner, so juju doesn’t work the same around me.

I add the bat to the list of animal forms that can be assumed by the juju practitioner and curse it inwardly for the ominous atmosphere it has left behind. To combat this, I busy myself making a pot of lipton, the local name for tea, and break out a packet of captain’s biscuits. These dry, almost tasteless cookies are thought by children here to be a treat and by the time the last one has been consumed, the conversation is once again lively and carefree.

I have one more visitor before I go to bed, Akpan Udo, the night watch. He often drops in as he makes his rounds with his bell and his lantern. He is infectiously good-natured although he usually has some tale of trouble to unfold. He is father to forty-five children, a very large family even by the standards here, where many men father ten or fifteen children by several wives. Akpan Udo has five wives. He has brought a bottle of kai-kai. Tonight he seems happy - his eldest son has returned from a fishing trip with a substantial profit and he is planning how they will spend it to get a wife for one of his younger, unmarried sons.

We share a few shot glasses of his fiery drink and I begin to feel pleasantly sleepy. This is good because I have not been sleeping well, an unusual affliction for me. For the past several nights I have had the same dream. I am lying in my bed sleeping when I suddenly become aware that there is someone else in the room. I wake up and see a shadowy figure approaching the bed. This thing is wrapped in dark cloths with a big hood overhanging an empty blackness where the face should be. I am paralyzed in terror and the creature grabs me by the throat and begins to choke me. My frantic struggles jerk me awake. There is no one in the room but a threatening presence lingers. It is usually an hour or more before my fear dissipates and I calm down enough to go back to sleep, after checking all the doors and other rooms of the house.

I attribute these dreams to a subconscious reaction to culture shock - life here is so different from what I have been used to in America - and I expect such nightmares will pass as I grow more accustomed to Africa. I assure myself that they are, though frightening, only dreams.

Akpan Udo pours out one more glass and asks me if I will do him a favor.

“Of course. What?”

“Please, I will give you some money and you will send to America and get some of their powerful juju for me. I am being troubled here by someone - some bad person has put juju on me and I need to get something from outside - something very powerful like they have in America.”

“Akpan Udo, there is no juju in America. People don’t believe in it so it doesn’t exist. There is no powerful juju there.” I can see that he doesn’t want to believe me.

“I will pay much money,” he says.

I repeat that there is nothing that can be bought in America to prevent juju, but assure him that I will make enquiries. Then I ask him, “What is it like? How do you know someone has put juju on you?”

“There is no place to hide. You are sleeping, and they will come through the wall into your very room at night.”

“And what do they look like?”

“They are just all black. You can’t see them, just blackness.”

“What do they do?”

“They will put their hands on your throat and kill you dead. Oh! They are very bad.”

Each lost in his own thoughts, we sip another glass. Then Akpan Udo departs to continue his rounds.

About three o’clock in the morning my heart races in fear as I struggle awake out of the dream. I am unable to return to sleep.

The following day is one of baking heat and I feel relieved when the sun finally sets. I am sitting out on the front step with Effiong, Asuquo and little Etim. It is too hot to sit inside the house. I am tired but not sleepy. I wait until darkness falls and the black sky is dusted with stars. Then I suggest, “Let’s go to the stream.” The boys agree.

“I will get your lantern,” offers little Etim.

“No thank you, Etim. Tonight we will go without the lantern.”

As we set off on the path to the forest, Etim shares his method of walking in the dark. “I can’t see the path, so I look up at the stars. My feets know where to go if I don’t trouble them.”

“Feet!” corrects Effiong.

It seems to work. We wind our way through the fields of cassava, down into the brooding forest, and approach the stream without mishap. There, under the dense canopy of trees, the darkness is complete. Strange bird calls echo with eerie clarity. It is so dark the stream is only a sound. Little Etim takes me by the arm and leads me into the water. For an instant I am possessed by the sharp, biting, snarling dangers that might be lurking beneath the surface and my heart begins to pound. But I lie down and let the coolness roll smoothly over me. The blackness enfolds me and seeps, gently now, into my mind.

As we leave the forest, cooled and refreshed, the newly risen moon lights our path. When we reach my house I bid the boys good night and retire. My sleep is blissfully undisturbed and I awake, for once, a little wiser.