On a cool rainy season day in Kedougou (90 degrees!), I was at my friend Karamba’s house in village catching up and drinking tea. We were talking about how someone in my compound was sick, and I asked him how she got it. He looked at me and half joking he said a “Jinoo” gave it to her while she was in the bush. This sounded weird, and with my language not being where it’s supposed to be, I tried to have him explain to me what a “Jinoo” was. Over the course of an hour, him and some other people in my village tried to explain it to me in a way I could understand... but I kept on hitting a brick wall. I felt like I was playing 20 questions trying to figure what a damn “Jinoo” was.
Karamba said it’s something that lurks in the bush and it can see you but you can’t see it. He went on to say that it can do good things for you if you want it to, but if you’re scared of it, it will give you diseases. In fact it’ll come to your house and physically hand you a disease. On the other hand, if you’re not scared of it, it will give you a special medicine that helps you become rich with gold, cows, and sheep. This description made no sense to me and I couldn’t tell if he was talking about
something mythical or real at this point. But then he said it’s as tall as a tree and dogs can see it but humans can’t. Ok, so it’s mythical... but I still didn’t figure it out. I could feel everyone getting annoyed at me for not understanding. Someone else chimed in and said that it’s white and only sits in trees.
 |
| My dog Booga sniffing out those bush spirits |
Is it an animal? No.
Does it bite people? No!
Someone else exclaimed that it only grabs children when they’re out in the bush at night. Another pointed at me and said that it saw me while I was biking to the nearest Road Town the other day ago. I asked if this was in America too, and they all nodded yes. This thing is everywhere at all times.
Finally someone took their phone out and showed me a video of a “Jinoo” and then everything fell into place. The video showed a white mist coming out of the ground that proceeded to chase down a random person just wondering around in the forest. After all their hard work, and after getting frustrated at myself for not picking up a lot of what they were saying, I FINALLY discovered that they were talking about a ghost. “Jinoo” in Malinke means genie!
It occurred to me that describing a ghost in English would also be difficult to someone that doesn’t speak the language well. But how the people in my village understand ghosts and spirits like these is completely different than how Americans understand them. Growing up, ghosts would be something lurking under my bed or in the basement, but here it only exists in the forest. The people in my village believe that ghosts can either help or hurt you, while at home they just symbolize dead souls coming back to haunt people. It’s incredible how different cultures perceive things, but now I’ll have to watch out when I’m in the bush wondering around...because there’s a Jinoo watching every step I make!
ReplyForward
|
No comments:
Post a Comment