A mysterious 20-year-old healer draws crowds to a remote African country

A whirlwind of motorcycles and cars raises a cloud of dust about 30 km south of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, in an unusual din for a Sunday morning. The cause? A 20-year-old healer with supposedly immense powers.

His nickname, Adjait became famous all over the country, from south to north.

At the end of the road, a multitude of motorcycles parked as far as the eye can see; a forest of tangled tents and a sea of ​​pilgrims dressed in white who form real rivers of people in the bushes.

There is everything: men with feet in chains, crippled, wretched and disinherited. All those that Burkinabe society no longer knows what to do with them or how to cure them.

“We’ve tried all kinds of treatments, but to no avail,” says Awa Tiendrebeogo, a relative of a patient who suffers from recurring ‘dizziness’. “Then an acquaintance told us about Adja and here we are,” explains the woman.

Adja care is free but donations are welcome. Various works have arisen in the surrounding area, financed by wealthy donors. The merchants sniffed the vein and filled the access road with stalls. Paths and gazes converge towards the healer’s shop, which stands in the midst of the crowd.

Various spells are heard through the speakers. “There is no deity but God”thousands of faithful repeat in chorus.

And then Adja appears: a young woman with braids dressed in a sarong and an old T-shirtbarefoot and with a wooden stick that never leaves.

For starters, Adja stares at the sun, her face twitching, then looks at the crowd. “The one over there in the pink sweater is going to have an accident soon,” she says. “There is a man over there who has come to investigate me,” she releases, without clarifying who she is talking about.

The aura of the young woman, according to her, would cause jealousy among the competitors. Among the crowd, there are many who wish things were bad for him, she says.

At night, in the spirit world, those sorcerers banded together to attack her with curses. Adja shows invisible wounds on her arms, legs… all over her body. Incessant torture, she says.

Still, the young woman’s reputation continues to grow. And it’s only been three years since the first treatment of her.

The curandera combines several methods, from Muslim prayers to traditional medicines, go through witchcraft ceremonies, in a Muslim-majority country with a precarious health system and where traditional beliefs are still deeply rooted.

Officially only 9% of Burkinabé declare themselves “animist”, but this percentage is greatly underestimated.

Of the patients who have come to see her today, mostly Muslims, many do not want to be filmed up close. “What is usually said around here is that, during the day, people criticize the tradition but, at night, they practice it,” says an assistant healer.

The most visible cases are the victims of “evil spirits”, such as Fatoumata, a young woman who suddenly lost the use of her legs.

She lies on the ground, inert, and Adja sprinkles “holy” water on her and slowly walks on her, barefoot. The prayers of the public become increasingly intense and mix with the screams of other “possessed” who are waiting their turn.

But it does not work. Fatoumata does not get up. The next patient will regain sensation in her legs.

Adja’s fame comes from its “transparency”. In desperate cases or beyond his reach, he tells them in no uncertain terms that he can do nothing for them.

“Adja’s reputation is due to her integrity,” explains Awa Tiendrebeogo. His father’s vertigo was cured.

The power of the healer, a sort of “spiritual” entity that directs her existence and that does not authorize her any freedom, forbids her to lie, she assures.

Surrounded by a legion of bodyguards, assistants and biographers, Adja claims she has given up the chance at a normal life.

But when she steps away from the crowd, she becomes Amsetou Nikiema again, a spontaneous and cheerful young woman who has just left behind a traumatic childhood.

tormented by the visions he had foreverAmsetou says her relatives, who treated her crazy and rejected her, beat her with a chain. “That’s why I laugh all the time so I can relieve people. Since people hated me in my childhood, I wanted everyone to love me,” she explains.

AFP extension