Drama as haunted house girl scandalises her boss over 'juju' use

‘Juju’ tools                                            Photo: Courtesy

Residents of Maraba estate in Kakamega County were treated to free-for-all drama after a fired house girl returned to read her former employer the riot act, laying bare shocking details of how her (the boss’s) black magic had haunted her for close to three years.

The house help, only identified as Ayuma, had allegedly run mad, prompting her boss to relive her of her duties. For three years Ayuma had been crazy.

And it was until her concerned father took her to a traditional healer to be exorcised that they discovered her former boss’s hand in her insanity.

It was discovered that a pot that Ayuma’s former boss sent her to collect from a rural out post (Tiriki), allegedly containing ‘traditional medicine’, was actually full of black magic, which the boss was “using to protect herself”.

Interesting, it is the black magic that later haunted Ayuma after her boss failed to fully meet her end of the bargain with the sorcerer who had supplied the juju-filled pot.

“I vividly recall being sent to collect ‘medicine’ from an alleged herbalist in Tiriki some time back. It was in a pot wrapped in a plastic bag, and I was sternly warned not to open it.

And after I brought it, they (boss and herbalist) kept communicating via phone on how to use it,” said Ayuma.

Immediately she delivered the pot, her boss ordered her to put it in the ceiling without anyone else seeing. Something she says surprised her, but she chose to keep mum about.

“I was given a pot in polythene paper, I was told by my boss to put it in the ceiling board in her house. I did not know it was black magic” she confessed.

Strange noises in her tummy

After sometime her boss “was unable to take good care of the pot” and fell out of favour with the original owner, who directed her wrath at Ayuma after an emissary sent to collect the pot was turned away on three different occasions.

Before going crazy, Ayuma reveals that the only thing she recalls happening to her was that she heard strange noises of fighting animals in her stomach. She has been mentally unstable until her father intervened.

“I have suffered for three years, because of this woman. I am now healed, and back to normal,” she said.

It’s amazing how Kenyans, like many other Africans, are fascinated by ‘juju’ tales. Last year, a South African woman made headlines, following reports that she was haunted after she unknowingly ate her witchdoctor father’s juju chicken. 

The embattled woman, Thandeka Lamani, finally confessed to reporters – seven years down the line – that she was craving chicken and seeing as she was broke, she could not resist the temptation to grab, slaughter and eat her fathers ‘special chicken’ before lying it was run over by a car.

Unfortunately, the chicken returned to haunt her. “Since eating the chicken I have become an alcoholic. I fight with my boyfriend every weekend and once I was arrested for shoplifting.

People don’t want me near them because they think I am a thief and my three-year-old son suffers from terrible eczema,” she confessed to local journalists.

Gift from ancestors

“My guilty conscience tells me it is because of my father’s chicken I ate. I am so sorry. This chicken was very special to my father,” she went on.

The chicken was not only special to her father, it was reportedly a well-known and special chicken to the entire community.

“I always thought my chicken was killed by a car but today I am shocked and disappointed to find my daughter actually ate it,” the woman’s father was quoted complaining.

He said because of his chicken he never lost a court case. “See, people call me Sivuruvuru (which means “shake things up”) because of the work I did with that gift (the chicken) from the ancestors.”

“I would put her on my head or my shoulder and walk with her to the court where she would inspect the yard,” he said.

“If she cackled twice it was a sign that there was an evil person in court. If she cackled three times it was a sign that I would need strong muthi to win the case.”

He said, besides being cleansed, it is possible for him to forgive his daughter only if she bought him another white chicken.