The Best American Travel Writing 2013

by Elizabeth Gilbert

  Despite Francis Tesha’s faint warnings, by February of last year, Babu was a national phenomenon, and the BBC reported 6,000 people in line at his clinic. Unlike Francis, many people returned from Loliondo with powerful testimonials. Diabetics swore their blood sugar had normalized and they could drink sodas and eat bread again. Stomach ulcers subsided, and aches and pains vanished. Newspapers reported the woman Babu treated in 2009 was confirmed HIV negative, and people excitedly related stories of cousins or neighbors who were cured of HIV/AIDS.

  The Tanzanian government seemed internally conflicted about how to respond to Mwasapila. In March, the Ministry of Health announced they were ordering the healer to cease his activities. At the same time, ministers from other parts of the government enthusiastically made the trip to Samunge. Dr. Salash Toure, the Arusha regional health officer, declared publicly that his hospital had tested dozens of people who claimed to be cured of HIV, and all had tested positive. However, the influential Lutheran bishop Thomas Laizer lobbied on Mwasapila’s behalf, calling the liquid “a gift from God.” The lines at Samunge grew.

  On March 25, the government reversed course, announcing that the herbal concoction was safe to drink and that they would take no action to stop people from visiting Samunge to take the cure, but would start registering vehicles and providing basic services like first aid and toilets to the overtaxed village. The Ministry of Health appointed a team of doctors to study the effects of the liquid. In April, the government acknowledged 87 people had died while in transit to Samunge.

  Kati Regan, the American managing director of Support for International Change (SIC), felt compelled to go directly to the Ministry of Health to clarify government policy toward Mwasapila. The NGO provides treatment and counseling to people with HIV, and she estimates 20 percent of their clients abandoned ARV therapy in March or April. Some of her Tanzanian colleagues told her Mwasapila’s cure worked, and she had to fend off HIV patients who wanted to borrow the organization’s truck to make the trip. For Regan, this was a huge setback. “You never want to see someone going off treatment, especially when you’ve worked for years to have it be part of their routine,” she said. But Regan still refrained from offering an opinion of Mwasapila’s liquid out of respect for her clients’ beliefs. “I didn’t want to offend someone who decided to go, and I sympathize with someone who wants a cure.”

  Not all health workers were as circumspect. Pat Patten was especially blunt: “I don’t believe in faith healing; I think this is a deception. And I’m a Catholic priest.” Patten is also a pilot and the director of Flying Medical Service. He has lived and worked in Tanzania for over 30 years. A Spiritan priest, he wears secular jeans and T-shirts while flying bush planes to remote settlements, providing regular rotating clinics, and flying emergency evacuations. “I’m open to a powerful placebo effect, but placebo effects only relieve the symptoms, never the root of the problem.”

  He remembers the shock of flying over Mwasapila’s village in February, looking out the window of his Cessna 206 to see a traffic jam. Now, after talking to doctors throughout the region, he is convinced Mwasapila’s treatment has led to disaster. “What we’re seeing is a lot of AIDS patients dying in hospitals because they’ve stopped taking medicine. Diabetics are now going blind, suffering kidney failure, experiencing swelling in their hands and feet, and getting diabetic sores on their extremities.” He worries about an outbreak of drug-resistant tuberculosis and adds, “These are all unnecessary deaths, all of them.”

  And the famous story of Mwasapila’s first patient, Patten claims, was a lie. He spoke to doctors familiar with the case who said the woman had never tested positive before taking Babu’s cure, that she only feared she might be infected—but, Patten says, “the damage has been done.”

  And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.

  —Revelation 22:2–3

  Back in Arusha, after my first failed trip to meet Mwasapila, I spend the day in government offices, talking to clueless clerks, waiting in hallways, and pleading with bored and impatient officials. Nobody seems to know or care who can issue the proper documents to allow an interview. In the late afternoon, I find myself in an office with Jotham Ndereka, the Arusha regional information minister. I explain for about the ninth time that I need a permit to go to Loliondo to interview Mwasapila and take photographs, and he says brightly, “Yes, this is possible.”

  “It is?” I say, surprised. Ndereka explains that I need a filming permit, such as one might get to make a TV commercial, and for an extra fee, the Ministry of Information can issue one in a week. I spend the next week looking for patients with HIV who drank Mwasapila’s liquid but can find nobody willing to talk to me. I do manage to talk on the phone with the Wasso Hospital administrator, Madame Josephine Kashe, who invites me to visit in person if I make the trip to Samunge.

  A week later, I rent the same Land Rover, load it with supplies, and return to Jotham’s office. The minister presents himself in a gray suit, smiling smugly. He hands me a handwritten “Filming Permit” signed by the national minister of information. I thank him and start to leave when he says, “Wait! If you look at the permit, you will see that your activities are to be done under the supervision of the Arusha regional information officer. This means I am to accompany you.” My heart sinks. It appears the government has assigned me a ride-along censor.

  “I do not think that will be possible; I have to leave today,” I say.

  “Today?”

  “Yes, you told me the permit would be ready, so I have made arrangements that I cannot change.” He leaves to make a phone call and returns five minutes later to say that everything is fine, his boss has given him permission to go with me for three days. I tell him I am planning a four-day trip, and he says that’s fine, too; he’ll just need me to pay a $40 per diem for his meals and lodging.5 He has me over a barrel—I need him to ensure an interview with Babu—so I ask, “How soon can you be ready?”

  Two hours later, we are driving into the setting sun, five hours behind schedule, but moving at last. Jotham has changed into a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, loose jeans, black leather jacket, and baseball cap. He looks like an American executive at his son’s soccer game in Connecticut. For the next four days, we will be constant companions—and frenemies. We call each other Mr. Jesse and Mr. Jotham. He will claim to help me, but apart from arranging an otherwise impossible interview he will offer mostly foot-dragging and his own unverified opinions. For my part, I will act grateful and keep my skepticism to myself. We talk about world leaders—he admires Mandela and Qaddafi—and acknowledges the latter should have stepped down while he was still popular. He admires John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, and Dale Carnegie. The night we drive west from Arusha, Jotham recalls the time, when he was just a boy, he saw Henry Kissinger on an official visit to Tanzania. I say, “Oh, yes, he was Nixon’s secretary of state.”

  “Yes,” Jotham says. “Also, he was with President Ford.”

  I once again pull into Samunge at dawn, just as Mwasapila is preparing to greet his visitors. At the widening in the road, Mwasapila’s medicine station, a tall, middle-aged, balding man addresses the gathering crowd. He wears a clean shirt and tie and speaks with a high throaty voice in Swahili, using the tinny public address system. After a time, he pauses and tells the crowd they will now hear from the man they came to see. Reverend Ambilikile Mwasapila takes the microphone. He is a short, old man, with close-cropped, white hair and a round face. He greets the crowd by lifting one hand high above his head, silently waving hello. Several hundred hands rise to return the greeting.

  He begins speaking in Swahili, first acknowledging he is the same Babu they’ve seen on TV or in the newspapers. Then he launches into a practical FAQ about the medicine itself, taking on the tone of a shift supervisor laying out the safety rules of the new machinery: Okay, folks, there are only two size cups of medicine, child and adult. It doesn’t matter how large you are: you still on
ly get one cup. (This draws laughter.) If you vomit here in Samunge, they will give you another cup. If you vomit after you leave, don’t worry, the medicine has already worked.

  He lists the diseases the liquid cures, but he stresses: You’re not immune, just cured. Don’t engage in risky activities like unprotected sex. By all means, don’t commit rape or be promiscuous. Keep your diet moderate. Don’t drink any alcohol today because it may interfere with the medicine.

  After covering the practical matters, the speech becomes more theological, and Mwasapila takes on the familiar rhythm of a Baptist preacher, asking for assent every few moments. I don’t know anything about medicine. I was surprised when God called me to give you medicine. It is neither the tree nor the hand of Babu that heals. It is God who cures. He has put his power in the medicine, but he could have cured you directly. Okay?

  Yes!

  There is no illness that is too tough for God. He has decided to eradicate this disease from all over the world. We associate it with Him, saying: “God has brought it; it is a punishment by God,” but that is not true. It is the devil who has brought this disease. Do you hear?

  Yes!

  People tell me they have to take ARVs every day for HIV or pills to control diabetes, so after drinking from the cup, should we continue with our drugs? I want to be clear about God’s instructions. He told me the medicine here is stronger than the drugs; it takes over from the drugs, unless you just want to be a slave of the drugs. You can keep taking those drugs like a person swallowing clay.

  The entire speech lasts for about 20 minutes, after which he concludes with a short prayer. People begin shuffling to their cars, and an East Indian man from Kenya taps Mwasapila on the shoulder. He asks in English if he should continue taking his blood pressure medication, but the healer doesn’t understand. The two struggle to communicate for a moment, and then Mwasapila is called away. One of his assistants, who looks about 16, overhears and tells the man in English, “You should throw it away.”

  Samunge transforms itself into the world’s largest brew-through, serving over a hundred vehicles in roughly an hour. There are safari vehicles, Toyota HiAce minivans, Toyota Coaster minibuses, and full-sized coach buses as well as a handful of private SUVs. They pull up to Babu’s station, and workers of all ages carry trays of bright plastic cups, placing them into hands stretched out from windows. One little girl drinks her cup and vomits out of the window a few seconds later. Workers quickly wash each used cup and return it to service. Mwasapila, with his head bowed, works quietly alongside his assistants, ladling the liquid into trays loaded with cups. After each vehicle is served, it turns left and uphill, looping behind Mwasapila’s station, and begins the long trip back to Arusha, Kenya, or even farther-flung destinations.

  An hour later, I find Mwasapila resting in a white plastic chair on a patch of red earth just a few meters from his newly built but modest block house. He has on a printed T-shirt, green pants, and pink low-top Converse All Star knockoffs. He shakes my hand and gestures for me to sit down.

  A handful of people gather around to listen. Through Jotham, Mwasapila tells me his given name, Ambilikile, means “one who was called,” and explains about first seeing the visions of this place, Samunge, in 1991. I press for details about his visions, and whether he actually sees God. He says he never sees God, only hears a voice. When he tells about the first woman he treated for HIV in 2009, Jotham tells me, “I would ask about the patient who has been cured of HIV, but he said that she is living far away. Maybe ask the next question.”

  I ask Mwasapila why he won’t take his cure to Arusha, Dar es Salaam, or any other populous place so people don’t have to endure hardship, spend their savings, or risk death in order to travel here. Mwasapila’s answer is that it’s God’s choice. If I was another healer, I might advertise and travel here and there, but God chose here, so I will do my work here. If he decides later that I should move and go to another place, then I will go.

  He tells me the medicine works by faith. To be cured, one must drink and believe. I ask if a Muslim, Jew, or Hindu would be healed as well as a Christian. God doesn’t look at the religion; he looks at the person who comes here with belief of faith. If they used the medicine, they will get better.

  As we talk, the tall bald man who earlier spoke to the crowd pulls up a chair and begins to listen intently. He says nothing at first, but begins to chime in during Jotham’s translations, emphasizing or elaborating certain points. Unlike Jotham, or Mwasapila, he seems impatient with my questions and scowls at me. The effect is disturbing, and I start to get the sense that I am no longer interviewing Mwasapila but instead arguing with this unidentified man.

  Finally, he asks me whether people know about Mwasapila in America, and I say there’s only been one newspaper article. “I think in America we are used to putting our faith in doctors even though we are also very religious. So some people will say, ‘That sounds like it can’t be true.’ Other people will think, ‘That sounds like something I would like to see for myself.’”

  The man tells me Americans should read Revelation verse 22, lines 1 through 3. “You will see what God did during Jonah’s time.”

  “Since you have now offered something, may I have your name?” I ask. This is apparently daring and makes the small crowd titter.

  He tells me it’s Frederick Nisajile and that he works for the Tanganyika Christian Refugee Service, which I later learn is an NGO affiliated with the Lutheran Church. Both Frederick and Mwasapila seem intently interested in America. The healer predicts many more people will come. God has already shown me people from Asia, Europeans, Americans. Right here is not big enough. The place to do this service is behind this mountain on the great plain.

  Frederick and Mwasapila both want to know what American doctors or drug companies would think if they heard about this cure. I joke that they probably wouldn’t understand, and would instead take the plant to test in laboratories to extract and make money.6 Frederick and Jotham both chuckle. Sensing my audience will end soon, I make one more attempt to ask an important question. I explain I’ve spoken to at least one person who believes there might be something wrong with Mwasapila’s brain, causing him to hear God’s voice. “And I just have to ask, respectfully, did you ever wonder, when you first heard from God, if your brain was playing a trick?”

  Jotham hesitates, and then starts to translate this, but Frederick emphatically cuts him off, almost shouting, “No, no, no!”

  He launches into an explanation in English that I barely understand, saying David and somebody else in the Bible heard God’s voice many times, and in David’s case, he spoke to an elder to verify it really was God. He claims Mwasapila heard God’s voice for nearly 20 years before acting on the instructions, even writing down the date each time he heard the voice. His point seems to be Mwasapila has done his due diligence. Frederick says, “Now, forget about that. After hearing all of this, what is your comment, sir? Do you believe people can be cured through voices or this medicine?”

  Surrounded by the faithful, my skepticism feels like a dirty secret. Struggling to form a polite answer, I tell Frederick that while I have heard of many people who seem to be doing much better with minor complaints or even diabetes, I am still trying to find people who have had HIV who could tell me directly what happened to them. “I do not know what to believe,” I say. “I think if I were suffering I would take the medicine though.”

  Frederick tells me to drink a cup of the medicine right now, and I say that I will, even though I am not suffering. Frederick says that we all have many unknown problems with our body and I may be cured without knowing it. Then he tells me to swallow the entire dose; don’t try to keep a small amount in my mouth to take back to a laboratory.

  The audience is over, and I thank Mwasapila, who just nods and shakes my hand. Frederick walks me down the hill to the road, where plastic cups of Mwasapila’s cure sit on a card table. A small crowd follows to watch the action. He presses a cup into my hand
. The liquid is warm and slightly bitter, with a subtle and distinctive flavor, like anise or ginseng.

  Later, I speak with Madame Kashe over the phone, and, despite the bad connection, it sounds like she has found a patient for me to talk with. Jotham spends about two hours eating lunch and chatting with Frederick and a couple of policemen, while I wait impatiently in the car.

  Much later, when I read the translation of my audience with Mwasapila, I will realize Jotham blatantly mistranslated a small part of the conversation. When Jotham asked about his first patient, the woman he treated for HIV in 2009, Mwasapila actually responded that she lived in Samunge and might be available to talk. This is most likely the same woman Pat Patten told me about, the woman who famously tested HIV negative but, according to Patten, had never been HIV positive. Jotham knows full well I am trying to find people who have taken Mwasapila’s cure for HIV, but he says nothing as we drive toward Wasso, away from Babu’s most famous patient.

  In Wasso, Jotham introduces me to the district medical officer, and I interview him outside of a loud bar while PA speakers blare global hip-hop in the background. His answers are noncommittal. When I ask him if there’s evidence that Mwasapila’s cure works, he says that many diabetics have demonstrably better blood sugar levels after drinking the liquid. He says he knows of no cases of HIV patients testing negative after taking the cure, but he also says some have shown small improvements in their CD4 counts. “The Ministry of Health is conducting a study about this now, and you should really go to them for answers.” I ask him if he can help me speak to HIV patients who went to Mwasapila, and he promises to make inquiries on my behalf. When he leaves, I have to remind him to take my contact information so he can follow up.

  After the medical officer leaves, Jotham grins and says, “I do not think anybody with HIV will speak to you. These people do not like to talk about their condition. I am glad we had this conversation with the district medical officer. He is a better person for you to speak to than the hospital administrator because he is the official in charge.”