A Weird Story, That Isn't Finished Yet.

Z waited two days before he told us about Dee. After eating our evening meal together, we all sat around the fire and Z told us what had really been on his mind, the neighboring village of Dee. Dee is a larger village on the main road to the Gold mines; it’s a trade a village. Z told us the story of a crazy man, prophesy, and ensuing chaos after the crazy man’s death.

 

The story goes something like this (we picked up bits and piece from several people), in Dee there was a crazy man who died a few months ago. When the crazy man was young (old enough to be keeping flocks) everyone watched as he climbed a tree in the center of the village all the way to the top and then flung himself off as if he was attempting to fly. He lay on the ground below unconscious under the tree, when he woke up he was never quite the same. From that time on, everyone in Dee called him crazy. That night he told his mother “I don’t know why I climbed the tree but when I got to the top there was a person who looked not like a man or a woman and was dressed all in white and I heard the name ‘Jesus’. I tried to go to him and forgot I was in a tree.”  After the tree incident whenever the man spoke to people they either could not understand him or did not believe what he was saying. In recent month he began to tell anyone who would listen that he was going to die soon. He gave the day and said that when he dies he wanted to be buried by the Christians because only they had the truth. He told many people but they would not listen so him finally he went to his only friend that trusted him, a Catholic priest named Vance. Vance believed him, on the night that the man said he would die, Vance went out to look for him. He saw the man shouting at the sky and praying at the place where the first white men (Catholic missionaries) came to teach. Later when Vance returned, he found the man’s body there in that place. After his death, the perspective towards the crazy man changed in Dee. Suddenly people began to remember things that he said and some of the things started to make since to them.

 

We visited with the crazy man’s two remaining brothers they told of some of his “prophesies.” “He said that after his funeral when everyone returned back to their houses it would begin to rain and it did just like he said. He said also that a very old man in the village would die a week later and an old man did die the next week.” His brothers also reported that years earlier their brother said that when the time of guns and shooting started that it would be time for him to leave, the coup began back in April. He was buried as a Christian per his request. Now all the people in Dee are considering this man’s life and what he said for the first time. Could this crazy man be right? Do the Christians know the best way? His brothers say that now that the man is gone people are beginning to understand his words.  His brother reported that the crazy man said there would be a time of suffering in Dee and then they will all become believers. Z told us that since his death there have been reports of great confusion and even though the crops were good this harvest for some reason the people of Dee are suffering. Z said that people in Dee are poisoning themselves and that there was so much confusion in the village after the man’s death the police had to come out to calm everyone. When I asked why people were poisoning themselves he answered me solemnly, “It is because the prophesy.”

The story is weird isn’t it? I was sitting their asking questions right there in the village and it still does not make a lot of sense to me. A crazy guy jumped off a tree, said he saw Jesus and now people are poisoning themselves? Is this real? But our very well educated translator believed it enough that he would not allow us to accept any tea or buy any food items while we visited Dee.

There is something going on in Dee, but I don’t know what. We asked to share stories in Dee and both the crazy man’s brothers and the chief promised to gather people if we came back a week later on their rest day. We did as they asked but when we returned both the chief and the brothers flatly refused to gather anyone. They were only interested in what monetary support they might be able to procure from the white people.  We were disappointed and angry. Apparently Dee has not suffered enough yet, they refused the Good News when it was brought to them and denied the village access to it stating that “the people here are no good, they would not come even if we asked them.”