***This is a true story. Re-told with the permission of my family***
Many years ago, my grandmother became deathly ill.
The previous day she was well and happy, but then she woke up the next day feeling sick.
She went to many doctors over a long period of time but no one seemed able to help her. My grandfather, the rice farmer, was spending lots and lots of his money trying to get her well.
Many doctor bills and eight years later, grandma was still sick. My mother, the eldest child, was an older teenager at this time and she was forced to take up the slack caring for her siblings. There were nine children in all, and she was the third child and the first girl.
My grandmother had a very good friend that lived in another part of the country. She had seen my grandmother several times over the course of her illness. Finally, after eight years and she saw that my grandmother was not improving, her friend made a 'delicate' suggestion. You see her niece was married to a spiritual man from a tribe in South America.
This tribe of people, call the Djuka. These are African people brought to Suriname in South America to work the plantations as slaves. They have maintained their way of life and are touted to use their spiritual practices passed down from their ancestors to help heal.
My grandmother's friend had a family member who was married to a man from the native Djuka tribe and they offered to take my grandmother over to Suriname to help get her well.
After being bedridden for eight years and spending much of their fortune to get well, my grandmother was willing to try anything else at this point. She agreed to travel and seek help.
So, surrounded by her friend, her husband, and grandma's sister they traveled to get to the native village. Eventually, they were to travel to the remote area where there was a 'temple' and a creek surrounding the sacred space. They were told that to gain access to the temple, they would be required to cross on the back of the Caiman crocodile they could see lying there. They were told that if they were there requesting to cause harm to someone, the Caiman would throw them over and drown them, but if they were there to seek help and healing, it would bring them safely to the other side.
At this point, my grandmother had been so ill and for so many years, she decided to take the chance and she went alone on the back of the creature while the others stayed on the other side. Grandma said she was so afraid, but decided she had nothing to lose. She of course got safely to the other side.
Grandma said as soon as she got to the other shore, she felt a change in the atmosphere. The air seemed charged with something she could not describe. And that before she entered the temple building, she felt better than she had felt in a very long time.
Suffice it to say, my grandma returned to her home and country and became a healthy woman again. This happened when she was in her early 40s. She continued to work long and hard and she was so healthy that she lived until one month shy of her 87th birthday.
********
This is a true story as told by my grandmother.
If you were in her shoes, would you have gone on the back of an animal that could eat you?
Comments / 31