He treats gourmets of love

Press, 23 September 1987, Page 54

He treats gourmets of love

NZPA-Reuter Lusaka In love? Looking for the right partner? Heading for divorce? Suffering from Impotence or something worse? Take your problems to “The Bedroom,” Lusaka residents will tell you. “The Bedroom,” a small, battered, blue, green and whitepainted caravan parked in downtown Lusaka, is where Alfred Nawa," a traditional herbalist or "nanga,” holds his daily surgery. The back of the caravan, which faces on to an open car-park, bears the words "Mobile Delicatessen” in large black letters. But Nawa, aged 45, caters strictly for the gourmets and gluttons of love. He treats what he calls “social diseases,” ranging from venereal diseases to impotence and barrenness, using medicines

made from roots, herbs and bark. He also provides love potions, aphrodisiacs and contraceptives, all from natural ingredients.

“I’m a herbalist and I call this ’The Bedroom’ because it’s where I combine all the social problems into one,” Nawa said in his surgery, which contains a low bed, a handbasin and a rack of jamjars holding a variety of ground herbs and roots. Sticks and pieces of root and bark are piled in one comer.

"I collect and dig them all myself,” he says. Nawa proudly shows an official permit allowing him to practise in the Lusaka area as a herbalist on the condition that he does not contravene Zambia’s ...... dangerous drugs laws or the Witchcraft Act, which bans certain

kinds of witchcraft. “None of what I do is witchcraft, it’s all straightforward,” he said. “This is for venereal disease,” he says, holding up a jam jar of coarse brown powder made from a root called mushakashela. He guarantees a cure in two or three days and says it also works as a remedy for barrenness.

For impotence, Nawa prescribes a bark and root called mutototo. His recommended contraceptive is . a herbal fibre known as chileshi, which is tied around the waist of the woman.

The remedy for men and women seeking a marriage partner is a bark called mpeto. “You smoke it and call the xame of the person you Kant,” Nawa said. Arrother potion for the

lovesick and to reconcile those headed for divorce is kanenga, a paste rubbed on the forehead.

Again, the name of the loved one is invoked. Nawa, who is from Mongu in Zambia’s western province, says he has been practising as a herbalist since 1958. “I inherited it from my grandmother, who was also a herbalist, but I’ve been making it more of a commercial proposition,” he says.

Custom is good, especially for remedies for venereal diseases, he adds. Asked whether he has found a cure for the killer disease, A.1.D.5., which can be sexually transmitted, he ruefully shakes his head:

“I have nothing the moment. But research," he says.