One evening our friends Ryvus and Ryford reported to us
about a 14-month old boy that went missing that afternoon, just before a hard
rain. People were looking for him,
but with the rain continuing until the night they couldn’t cover much
ground. I am surprised that we
don’t hear about missing children or accidents involving children more often in
the village. The child care during
the day is often left to 5-year old sisters while the parents go work in the
field and some fathers go to their friend’s house to drink home brew. The following morning, a church-going
Sunday, a woman who typically greets us stopped a little longer than usual. With my rudimentary understanding of
her deep Lunda and knowledge of last night’s conversation, I pieced together that
there would be a gathering of people to help search for the missing child… at 2
p.m., five hours from now. I
wanted to ask why the wait, but was pretty sure I wasn’t going to understand
the answer and if I did I probably wouldn’t like it.
So Gina and I rode our bikes to church and on the way saw
the beginning of the gathering we had heard about, but everyone was in their
usual Sunday best. Many people
cherish their Sunday clothes and only wear them on big occasions, so it seemed
odd they would prepare for searching for a missing child in these clothes. We passed by the house of the family
who was missing a child around 10 a.m. and found people beginning to gather
there. I stopped to inquire about
the time to start searching and sure enough, 2 p.m. was the official start
time. We went on to church but
found it closed and fellow church members headed toward the missing child’s
house. We sat with our friends and
watched people slowly congregate until there was about 150 or so people. It seemed very similar to the way
people gathered for a funeral and I began to think that people had written off
the child for dead. Admittedly, I
already had. A 14-month old child
would not last long in the nearby small but deep stream. The light chatter around the area was
highlighted only by a man on a motorbike who left for the nearest town to find
the police, presumably to help the effort to search. I learned from Ryford that people were waiting for a prophet
to come and help summon the knowledge of how to find the child. Apparently you can hire one of these
helpful people from a village about 7 kilometers away. After about an hour a “Boma” Zambian
woman arrived on a bike. It is
usually easy to distinguish a “Boma” Zambian from a “village” Zambian by the
way they dress and act. This young
woman had tight blue jeans and a “better-than-you” attitude. After getting what seemed to be a
preliminary update on the situation she started shouting to no-one in
particular about how the child was not looked after well. Another village woman and man seemed to
join forces with her and as a group they ranted on this same topic for about
half an hour. Then a village
Zambian that Gina and I know fairly well came forward and politely asked if he
could interrupt the vocal group.
He was allowed to speak and stated that the child had been hidden from
us by evil spirits and that we needed to talk with respect to one another and
pray to God so that the evil spirits would go away and the child could be
found. This man, named Given,
quietly left after he spoke.
Ryford explained that the “Boma” woman was a relative of the child’s
family and that the caretakers of the child were at a local circumcision
ceremony when the child was found missing, so that is why the “boma” woman was
accusing them of being poor caretakers.
I didn’t disagree, but was surprised that only a few people seemed to be
on the “boma” woman’s side. It
appeared that now that the idea of witchcraft was on the table, people were
eager to blame some evil-doer instead of poor parenting skills. Not ten minutes after Given made his
statement, a 14-yr old boy walks into the area with the missing boy saying that
he found him walking around a big tree, apparently free of harm. The crowd got excited like a
congregation being wowed by a charismatic evangelist. Everyone started yelling and crying for joy, holding their
hands up to the sky thanking their God for allowing them to find the boy. Given, normally reserved and
mild-mannered, was seen running with his hands to his head, eyes closed, and
crying as if he had just witnessed a miracle. Even Gina was drawn into the crowd to see the child, drawn
to the relief expressed by everyone.
I was relieved, too, having prepared myself for the worst already. But there was something amiss about how
things unfolded. Was it a
coincidence that the child appeared just moments after Given’s statement? If the child had returned before Given
had made the statement to implicate witchcraft, would people have continued to
berate the caretakers for not watching after the child, or perhaps the
caretakers would be charged when the police arrived?
As I returned home I met the man who had left to go get the
police. I stopped and flagged him
down as he rode his motorcycle with the intent to tell him the boy had been
found, but I could tell from his manner that he must have already heard the
news. All he said was “My sister
was the reason the child was lost.”
This gave me the idea that perhaps Given knew that this man was going to
the boma not only to get the police to help with the search but also to press
charges against the negligent caretakers.
And perhaps Given wanted to protect those caretakers. Is it possible that he knew the child
was found before he made his statement so that he could set people up to
believe that their prayers were answered or possibly to deflect attention from
the negligent caretakers? I don’t
have any evidence except circumstantial behavior of people and convenient timing
of the return of the child, but there was just something weird about the whole
thing. I bet if you asked a
Zambian there about that same evidence they would say that it was evidence of a
miracle.
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