A FELLOW JHR REP PUBLISHED IN THE TORONTO STAR

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A marriage proposal from the `keeper of witches'

`I think I'll have to turn him down'
Bone-shaking ride to mud-hut village

Sep. 21, 2006. 01:00 AM

JANEY LLEWELLIN

SPECIAL TO THE STAR

Tamale, Ghana—The chief of Gambaga wants to marry me.

Not only is he a chief, he's a "keeper of the witches." I wouldn't be considered a witch if I stayed in his house as he's offered. But I'd have to share him with seven other women, whom he also considers his wives.

I think I'll have to turn him down.I took a tro-tro — a communal taxi — to visit him at Gambaga Witch Camp in northern Ghana. The dirt road beyond the village of Wale Wale is especially bumpy because the rainy season's gift fills the potholes, deepening them into craters. Every inch of my body is reverberating, causing my left knee to ache.

As we crawl toward the camp, the butterflies turn from white to black. A girl leans mysteriously against a tree in the middle of a barren field. Boys tending to cows, sticks in their hands, run through the soft, long, bright green savannah grass. Another boy of about 10 wearing a stiff straw hat encourages two remaining cows from his herd to get off the road to avoid the tro-tro.

We finally lurch into Gambaga, and I am suddenly surrounded by children. "Sillaminga!" the children shout when they see my white skin. A few follow me toward the information centre.

"Sillaminga! "Fine! How are you?" I ask. Hello! How are you?" they all chant."Fine, thank you!" they squeal, beaming.

I find Seidu, an elder in Gambaga who is well-respected and close to Chief Gambarana. Seidu was my interpreter the last time I was here. "What did you bring me from Canada?" he asks. "Sorry, nothing. But I do have some money for you." I'd been warned they'd want money. So I give him 60,000 cedis, or about $9.

I climb on the back of his motorbike and he drives me to the witch camp, which looks like the rest of Gambaga, a collection of mud huts with grass roofs and concrete floors. The chief is sitting and Seidu bows. I do the same, and am offered a plastic chair but say no thanks and settle down on the floor. "You are an African!" the chief says to Seidu in Dagbani, the local language. I give the chief a present of 40,000 cedis and Seidu explains that I'm here to make a film on the camp.

"What's your agenda?" the chief wants to know.

"To show Ghana and the rest of the world that regardless of the fact that a woman is accused of being a witch, she is still a human being and shouldn't be discriminated against," I say. "That this camp is here to protect the women from being stoned or beaten to death or lynched in the streets. I want to follow a woman back home after spending time in the camp and I'd like to film the initiation ceremony."

Seidu interprets and the chief nods and then speaks. Seidu laughs."He wants to know if you're married. He likes your speeches." "No, I'm not married."Seidu tells me the chief wants to put a ring on my finger. I laugh and then wait for the chief's response to the film. Gambarana nods again, telling Seidu I have permission to shoot at the camp. I'm happy. A weight has been lifted.

He starts talking about how a pastor in Gambaga has seized the truck that belongs to the camp. It is used for the Go Home project — to take the women back to their communities after they are accepted by their families and considered Satan-free.

"He's taken it for himself and we can't ask for it back."

"Why?" I ask.

"Because he's the pastor. He's driving it around, so we have to transfer the women's belongings on a donkey cart. He's had our truck for nine months.

"I tell them I'll do a story on this for my radio station and Seidu and I leave in search of the pastor."Where's the pastor?" Seidu asks a neighbour.

"He's out with the truck."

"Doing what?" Seidu asks, telling the man the camp needs it because it was donated by an American for the Go Home Project.

"Well, he's doing an evaluation of the project," he replies.

"Evaluating what?" Seidu and I say in unison. The man laughs. "Well, tell the pastor that if the chief doesn't get his truck by Sunday, none of the witches will go to church anymore," I say.

"What?"

"Yes. That's what the chief said." (And it was true.)

"What is your agenda?" the man asks. "I don't have an agenda," I say. "I just came to visit the camp. I'm from Diamond FM and I'm doing a story about the Go Home Project. "

The neighbour, obviously disturbed, says he will pass along the message.

Back at the tro-tro station Seidu and I order groundnut soup and rice balls. Then I hug Seidu goodbye and tell him I'll wait for his call. "Safe journey," he says.

Damn. It's the same old tro-tro. Three more hours of aches and pains.

---

Janey Llewellin is a Canadian who hosts a human rights show on Diamond FM Radio in Tamale, and is working on a TV documentary on the plight of women in Ghana