The spring sun shines through the doors of my colleague's office in Johannesburg. We are having a brainstorm session about which topic about South Africa we haven't told yet. Outside Greshon slides past. Greshon has been living for a while in a little house on my colleague's estate. He helps in the garden and at other jobs. Like it happens in South Africa.
He looks worse than ever. Years ago, he got contaminated with the HIV virus. Since the end of the age of former President Mbeki, this isn't a death sentence anymore: medications are now available. Now, one pill a day helps millions to get on their feet. Like Greshon. But for a few weeks his condition is deteriorating. Now he does not even have the strength to get up the garden path on his own.
My colleague decides it's time for the hospital and helps Greshon to pack his stuff in his home. On the bedside table is a bottle of brown drink. Floating leaves. Recommended by the traditional drug doctor, Greshon explains. Because that's the way things are done in South Africa too. Western medicine and traditional healers operate next to each other. A life-threatening combination, the doctors in the hospital tell him a little later: the drink of the traditional healer has neutralized the action of the medicine. The doctors are just in time to convince Greshon of his mistake.
In South Africa, magic is for both poor and rich or black and white and it plays an indispensable role in life. "You can decide that it's just madness, but by doing so you will miss the essence of what is so important to many South Africans" says Bram Vermeulen. In an open-minded way, through 8 short films, he shows us this bizarre world of faith, so weird to us, but real to the South Africans.
© VPRO - Presented and directed by: Bram Vermeulen
Camera: Henner Frankenfeld
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