Fish falling from the sky.

When I was a little girl I used to be freaked out from hearing stories of witchcraft. The stories were always so bizarre and seemed like a fairytale gone bad. The western version of witchcraft is Cinderella and her evil stepmother. An old woman wearing black clothes, long nose and stirring a black pot with a black cat by the fireplace. These images are nothing compared to what my aunt used to tell me.

Stories of people travelling at night in a loaf of bread because they don't want to be seen when doing their evil deeds. Can you picture a grown woman inside a loaf of bread? This sounds absurd and those were my sentiments exactly. The scariest story is hearing someone uthwetyulwe. This means that a person's soul is possessed by a witch and the person's family believes they are dead. This person will be buried by their family believing he/she is dead. The person will work for the witch doing evil deeds. My friend says these witches are scientists that didn't get an education.

Now that I'm graduating I am scared of having a big party celebrating my achievements. In black communities witches are known to bewitch achievers. You will find people ekasi or ezilalini that are crazy and some of them are known to have been bewitched because they were intelligent. These beliefs hold you back in life even when you are a Christian because you grow up believing them.

These stories have not been proven to be true or disapproved untrue. They are told from one generation to another and could be myths with the intent to give life lessons, I don't know. What I know is that believing fish falling from the sky is as bizarre as my stories.