VRANCKX: “THE WITCHES OF GUSHEGU”
Red = voiceover
Green = subtitles
| TEASER This is the market of Nawusuju in the north of Ghana, West Africa. These women are bound together for life, they share each other’s tragedies and all of them have a similar story. They were chased out of their villages, and most of them were abused and beaten. / Woman A: You don’t like me, you have never liked me, don’t pretend you do! / Woman A: I’m in so much pain, so much pain! I’m dying! I’m dying! (at the same time) woman B: See what you have done?! Take your witchcraft away from here! / pause: all speaking at once / woman C: She has done nothing wrong, leave her alone / woman C: Stop lying, it’s not true. These are the witches of Gushegu |
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7 seconds to display the title “The witches of Gushegu” |
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| TRAVELSHOTS It takes about a day to travel from the south of Ghana, where I’ve been living for about a year and a half now, to get to the north of the country. I’m on my way to a small town called Gushegu, which is really not much different from all the other villages in Ghana. However… only this area is known to have witch camps, where anyone who’s been accused of witchcraft in the north of Ghana can find refuge. […] I’ve been picked up by Vincent Ngota, he works as a volunteer in the witches village of Gushegu. |
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Me in the rearview mirror
Village on the side of the road
People on the road
Vincent looking out of the window
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| INTERVIEW – SUBS The witches camp in the north here, are mainly because they accused the ladies of being witches. A person can dream in the night, the following day and say I slept and dreamt and this person was hunting me. I’ve seen this person, the fellow wants to kill me. |
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| These women then flee to one of the many witches camps in this area. It is estimated that about a thousand so-called witches live in such villages |
| Village + shots of me filming |
| It’s late when I arrive in Gushegu. I’ll be spending 10 days here, following the witches in 3 surrounding camps. |
| Nightshot entering Gushegu from the car |
| The next morning I’m being picked up by Zenab, she is one of the volunteers working in the Witches camp of Gushegu. She will take me everywhere en help out with translations. |
| Signboard ‘Gushegu’`
Zenab walking towards me
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| CLIP ZENAB Here we don’t just care about that thing, witchcraft. Nobody will chase anybody away. So if the witches are there, we only see them as human beings, as we are, and we work with them. |
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| Walking through the fields we arrive at the witches village of Gushegu |
| Walking through the field
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| About 116 women live in this camp, they all have a similar story. Someone in their village got sick or died and they got the blame. Other people in the community were afraid they might bewitch them as well, so they were abused and chased out. Not only older women are the victims of witch hunts, younger women, mostly widows are affected too. They are not strong enough to protect themselves. Here they can live together in peace. Some of them still get regular visits from family, others have no-one, except for each other. A lot of them also care for small children or grandchildren, who are allowed to live with them in the camp. |
| Shot from between huts
General shots of the camp
Women sitting together Woman preparing a meal, stamping
Woman with children behind
Children closer
Girl stamping |
| Tipaa can’t even remember just how long she has been living here. A man in her village said she was trying to murder him in his dreams. She got severly beaten but managed to escape. (She still has problems on one eye, where you can see the old scar. ) |
| Introduction shots of the interview
Tipa close
Points at her eye |
| TIPAA SUBS / I have given birth to 14 children, 10 of them died // When they chased me out of the village the kids were not even teenagers / but I had to leave them alone in the house / my sister checked in on them, to make sure they had food and were ok, until they were grown up. // So I’ll have to stay here until I die, I’m no longer afraid to die. |
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| While a group of women is harvesting maize, I get a chance to talk to Damata, she has only moved to the camp 2 years ago |
| Gopro shots of me going to talk with a group of women |
| DAMATA 1 SUBS It was my own son who accused me of having caused his daugther to die. |
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| TUSSENKOMST ZENAB SUBS You are accusing your own mother as a witch, who else will defend her? This one is a surprising thing because if it is a different person then, we have, you can say something. But your own son, your own son. How could it be? |
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| Her other 6 children all took sides with their brother and since then, none of them has ever come to visit her. I ask her whether she likes living here? |
| Close of Damata at work
Hands/Close |
| DAMATA deel 2 SUBS / Yes, I don’t have choice, where else can I go? / They will only accept me back into the village when I’m dead.
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| Everybody here has a tragic story. The brother-in-law of Wakombè said he had seen her, standing on top of a tree, while he was drunk. She got chased away. Without a husband these women really have no way to defend themselves after such an accusation |
| Close-ups of the other 2 women working with Damata |
| Later, Zenab takes me to her home outside of the camp. Witchcraft is very popular here in soaps and movies. And everyone believes in what they see there. Zenab shows me a part where two witches are killing the brother of one of them. It all starts with some kind of curse. |
| Zenab walking into her house
Zenab sitting down in front of her TV |
| ZENAB SUBS |
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| So they are calling Wombee in the mirror, that Wombee, come, come, come, come. He should come from the ground, have you seen? He has just appeared. That is his shadow, His shadow appeared before them. |
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| Kill him, Kill him, kill him. |
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| The shadow died like that, but he himself is still sleeping. But when he gets up, he will feel of headache. He is dying. |
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| That’s what people believe, all these activities, some people perform really, and they say they are witches. And sometimes, some people who cannot contain it will drive them away. |
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| Simon Ngota and his wife Evelyn work in three different witch camps, with about 200 women in total. He helps them to survive, pays medical bills or helps to get their children into school. He also negotiates with their families and old communities about a possible reintegration. |
| Simon walking through the field with Evelyn
Simon walking through the camp |
| He even has his own room in the witches village. | | Simon showing his room |
| SIMON CLIP It was much easier for me, to do that work. Staying with them. And that one too, they got used to me, and they were free to tell me their problems, because I came in as a stranger. |
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| He basically runs things in this camp, which means all the witches are free to come and go whenever they want. In all the other witch camps it’s the chief priest who decides, through fetish rituals, who can live in the camp and when they are allowed to go back home.
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| Various shots of the camp
Woman separating seeds |
| SIMON SUBS Except Gushegu, the other homes, they have shrines. And they believe that their shrines are powerfull and when the women go there they will not be harmfull especially when they are staying there. So the people too believe that as the shrine is there, the shrine is guiding and protecting the accused women, and they will not be harmfull to that community. And sometimes, some of the fetish priests they say they can exorcise them, so that if you are sending the woman back home they will perform a ritual, to purify her. So that you can take her home, so that is why they accept them. |
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| QUESTION So do you believe in witchcraft? Do you believe some of these women are witches? |
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Go pro two-shot |
| As for me I have had some strong faith, and I in particular, I don’t believe. I don’t say that there are no witches because if you alone you say you don’t believe, you don’t believe nobody will even listen to you if you are going to talk. Sometimes you have to sympathise, though you will not just say you believe in it very very strongly. And because we are also christians, even if the thing is an evil spirit, that is influencing them, once they are in the church and we are praying with them, we are not afraid, and we feel that, with god, they will not be able to do anything. Because it is, we feel that it is the devil that is influencing them. So that’s why I am not afraid. |
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| Life is tough for these women, they survive by working the fields of farmers in the neighbourhood, or by farming their own small pieces of land. We’re now in the middle of the soyabean season. But this work is tough, and not everyone is physically strong enough to do it. And even so, sometimes it’s just not enough to live off. |
| Woman harvesting Soyabeans
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| So when the market comes to town once a week, the witches take off. They are looking for anything that falls off the side of the market women’s baskets. […] |
| Woman walking on the market We see her collecting the waste that has fallen out of the other ladies buckets.
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It is very early when Zenab picks me up to go to one of the neighbouring camps, Kpatinga. It’s about a hour’s drive from Gushegu […] |
| Visual transition: roaster
Sunrise on the road
Me and Zenab on the motorbike |
| The chief of this village is chief priest of the village’s shrine at the same time. They believe the shrine makes the witches powerless. |
| Chief sitting in front of his hut |
| CHIEF SUBS / When a woman gets accused by someone, often her family / when they think she is a witch / They will come here and bring her to me / So if they don’t calm down, they can bring her here / But if they do, they have to bring a cock / and 100 cedis (+/- 25 euros) / if they don’t have that, they shouldn’t bother coming / because if they bring her here, and she is really a witch / then she is dangerous for me as well / and I will have to ask protection from the gods / Then a cock will be slaughtered, if it dies face-up she is not a witch, otherwise she is. / And if her family wants her to stay here forever / they will have to bring a sheep to sacrifice and she will have to drink a magic potion and her head will be shaved / after that she is harmless and she will be allowed to stay
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| This woman has been allowed to go back home after 10 years. All she needs, is to wait for her family to save enough money to pay for her parting ritual. |
| Close of woman in yellow |
| And because I would like to see such a ritual I have paid her fees and I have bought a cock which will be slaughtered on the shrine. The way that cock dies will reveal whether the gods favour her return and whether she will be allowed to go back. |
| Close chicken in hands of the chief
Woman ready with the chicken |
| The shrine is a flat stone, in front of the small wall. Out of respect we can’t go closer than the small road in front of it. |
| Woman sitting in front of the shrine, chief performing ritual |
| RITUAL + music
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| The cock dies on its side, she’s lucky, that is not a very good acception of the sacrifice, but it is good enough for her to be allowed back. She leaves straight away to gather her things. All that is left now is for her family and the people in her old village to prepare for her return, as soon as they are ready she can move back home. |
| The chicken’s head is cut off
Woman walks away with bag on her head |
| Visiting this village has left me with an awkward feeling. The chief clearly profits from having these women here. Apart from working their own land, they also have to work his. He charges ridiculous amounts of money to perform the fetish rituals and basically the women are completely in his service. All he has to do is guard the shrine… BUT, the women do get something in return. He offers them protection when they have no where else to go, and they are safe in the camp. While some of them would have faced harsh abuse or would have risked being murdered had they stayed in their villages. |
| Woman spreading out harvest to dry in the sun /// close ups of the witches |
| Visual transition going back to Gushegu |
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| But Simon also told me he is not happy with the way the chief of Kpatinga takes advantage of the women, but there is not much he can do. Back in Gushegu in the mean time, he is also preparing for one of the witches to go back home. But here there’s no need for any rituals. |
| Biker passing Chicken with its babies
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| Budali was banished from here village 24 years ago. The son of the second wife of her husband died and she was accused to have murderded him through witchcraft. Now Simon, along with his volunteers, will bring her back home. |
| Close up of Budali |
| (sfeer) inladen vd laadbak |
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| Clip SIMON met Budali
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| CLIP BUDALI SUBS / I am happy to go back / I still love my sons and they love me, so I am happy to go home / But I don’t know if everyone will be happy to see me come back / Because I am weak, I cannot even cook for myself anymore / Here I have to fetch my own wood, I really can’t do that anymore |
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| The only means of transport that can reach these remote villages is a kind of trailer on a motorbike. Budali is sitting on the floor because she is not strong enough to face the bad road sitting up. |
| Getting into the motorbike
Close budali in the back
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| Saying goodbye |
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| The road is long and tough and Budali is totally exhausted. […] After an hour and a half we reach the village. Tradition demands we first go visit the chief to ask for his permission once more. |
| Shots of us in in the trailer Budali having to lay down
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| He listens carefully to what Simon has to say… Almost everything that happens in this village will get his approval or disapproval, whether Budali will be safe here will therefore depend on him. In the meantime her son patiently waits for the chief’s decision. |
| Hut from side
Close of chief Wide in hut Close of Budali’s son
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| MY QUESTION Are you happy with the meeting? Yes What happened? What did he say? |
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| CLIP Simon SUBS They have accepted, the chief has accepted her, the son has agreed to take good care of her. So we are going, we are now going to discharge her. |
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| We are going to drop her off at her son’s house. […] The road has weakend Budali a lot and she can barely stand up […] The reunion feels a bit cold, only after a while does her eldest son come to talk to her. […] A friend helps her unpack in her new hut. She hands her a little money, collected by the women in the camp as a goodbye gift. It is not much, a little less than a pound, but it will keep her going for a few days. […] I can’t really shake the feeling that she might have been better off if she’d stayed in the camp. |
| Walking towards the house
Budali gets out of the trailer and falls to the floor, crawls further Money being counted and given
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| SIMON CLIP SUBS It doesn’t actually look very nice, because she was in Gushegu in a concrete house, with zinc roof on top. Even there was some solar lights there. She herself will not enjoy staying here for the first time, unless she gets used to it.
But one important thing is that, once she has come to the family, the children are here, the daughters-in-law are there, the grandchildren are here, that is more consoling. And she is old and weak, at times if she even die here, she is going to die in the hands of her own people, and they will give her a befitting burial according to their tradition, so that alone is consoling, that is why I said I am happy with the reintegration.
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| Visual transition But in order to really hélp these women it’s the root cause that needs to be addressed, the overall believe in witchcraft itself. |
| Poultry/ empty trailer |
| […] To educate people to stop these witch hunts, Simon often visits the local villages to set up drama performances with a group of witches from the camp. to show that there is no need to chase out a woman accused to be witch. […] We’re on our way to the small village of Nawusuju. Here too we need to pass by the chief’s palace first, to ask his permission to perform in this village today. The chief is supportive of Simon’s work and there is no problem. |
| Women get into the trailer
Us getting all covered in dust
Driving into the village Entering the chief’s hut
Chief nods
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| Visuele overgang hond |
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| […] First the women dance enthousiastically, to attract the attention of passers-by As soon as a small crowd has gathered around them they pretend one of them is being accused of witchcraft. It’s two women with the same husband who are supposedly fighting TONEELTJE SUBS / I am going to move back in with my parents, otherwise she’ll end up killing me! / let the shrine decide… / pause / the chicken is not on it’s back / She’s guilty! She has bewitched me! / The shrine is wrong! I haven’t done anything, I am not a witch! / The shrine is mistaken, we have to perform a new ritual / She is really not a witch.
It will turn out that it was all a big misunderstanding and the woman in the play will not be chased away. But in reality these women are all scarred for life. |
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Women dancing
Women shaking hands
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| And it will take generations before people will really stop witch hunts. The government claims it is working to solve the issue and close down the camps. But that seems to be a shortsighted solution and some of the witches are terrified that, without the camps, they will face new abuse. It is the root cause that needs to be addressed, not the symptom. And yet there is hope, and it IS possible for witches to live peacefully among others, without being chased away. Because in the south of Ghana, where I live, the believe in witchcraft is just as strong, but witches there are not being chased away or beaten. People also fear them, but they are left alone.
In Europe too, in the olden days I think there was witchcraft cases there, today I am told it has stopped completely and you know we are in a developing country, we are thinking that in the future we will also develop to some extent. Our people, most of them, they are illiterate, they haven’t gone to school. If they have gone to school they will be able to interpret issues, and their way of understanding will be different. So it will take time, but we are hoping that one day it will be a thing of the past. Yes. |
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Close ups of all the witches, some looking straight into the camera
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| Met dank aan: Simon Ngota & The Witch Hunt Victims Empowerment Project Steunen kan via www.witch-hunt.org |
| Sunset |