Mukandoli Ange in her mid 70s is battling for her dear life after a strange disease struck her in July last year. She lives in Gatsibo district, Kiziguro Sector in Ndatemwa cell.
On 19th August 2024, her son named Celestine ran to the nearby trading centre to call a motor-taxi operator to hurriedly take his mother to hospital since her condition was rapidly deteriorating.
“I was placed on drips for a few days at the hospital. I noticed there was no change in my situation. I asked the Doctors what i was suffering from, they told me they couldn’t find anything,” Mukandoli told Taarifa as she basked in the sun on the verandar of her house.
She was alone sleeping on a traditional mat, covered in a thin blanket. After greeting her, she raised her arm gesturing that we pull her hand so that she could sit upright and see who we are and talk to us.
“Who are you and what do you want?,” She asked in a faded voice while struggling to raise her head to have a glimpse of us.
Have you gone to the hospital to receive any treatment? “Yes, I went there but the doctors said I was not sick at all. So I decided to return home,” Mukandoli says. “I think I was bewitched by someone,” she says while taking a deep breath and pointing towards a nearby house where the alleged witch stays.
“The day before I got sick, that witch came here at night and called my name about three times. Me and my husband were sleeping, we identified the voice and the person behind it. It is of our neighbour over there,” Mukandoli narrates.
She adds that the following day, “I developed a mysterious sickness which has sucked energy and life out of me. Look at how I look now, Wasn’t I better than this before?”
Has any local leader visited you here? “Not at all, what would they come to do? By the way, are you also a leader? Why have you come to see me?”, she asks before resting her head on her knees.
“I have not eaten for a while. If only I would get some food I would not be in such a situation. I can manage some rice and beans with some oil,” Mukandoli pleads.
She says Celestine has been taking care of me but he doesn’t have any financial means to get me food.
“I have been taking care of her for the past one year, I can’t leave her in such a condition to find jobs like I used to do,”Celestine says as he reaches to light a rolled tobacco puff.
Mukandoli told Taarifa that recently when her daughter visited, she left her with Rwf2000, “It is what I have been pushing on with but it is finished.”
“My husband ran away. He abandoned me because of this prolonged sickness and poverty,” Mukandoli says.
One of the local leaders who prefered not to mention her name said, she is aware that Mukandoli has been sick for a long time. Asked whether they have visited her or even helped her, “Not yet, but we are aware she has been sick.”
Taarifa shared this story with the local leadership shortly after the interview with Mukandoli.