Love potion!

Written Thursday, 24 January 2008

 

 

Recently one of my host sisters has stopped eating with my host family.  At every meal I would ask where she was – shouldn't we call her to come eat? – and someone would tell me she was full.  Very fishy, I thought.  She wasn't sick, so I started to think that maybe there had been a fight in the family and she was avoiding hanging out with them.

 

Finally one day I saw her eating breakfast at my counterpart's compound, so I decided to ask him why she is not eating with us anymore.  The answer was about the last thing I would ever have guessed: love potion!

 

A man in my village has asked her to marry him, and she has refused, saying she doesn't love him.  So this man went to a marabout (religious leader) and got him to make a gris-gris (magical/religious object) – essentially a love potion – to put in her food, so that she will fall in love with him and agree to marry him. 

 

My other host sisters, who do the cooking for the family, of course found out about the plot, and they warned her.  So now she is not eating with our family so that no one can slip her some love potion.  And soon she and her mother are even going to leave the village in order to escape from the threat.

 

Now I am worried – what if someone tries to slip me some love potion?  My host mom would probably let them do it if they gave her enough money.  Let's hope love potion doesn't work on toubabs.