(This was told to me by teh healer himself)
The young man was working in the fields. It was just him, laboring in the hot afternoon sun, with his Jembe and the rising dust. His labor rewarded him at the end of the day with a kilo bag of potatoes. Trudging along the narrow path home he suddenly stopped.
Abruptly he changed course, towards teh woods. The spirits, they walked with him, looking like people but never speaking a word, just followed him as he made his way deeper into the forest.
For four days he wandered teh forest, no food, nothing. This wandering only stopped when he came upon a waterfall. Without hesitation he stepped into the spray. But he was unable to become wet. He merely stood under the direct stream of water, reamaining dry, in silence, unmoving.
After the fourth day he was found, standing under the water fall. A man tentativly reached out and touched him lightly. The young man shook his head, like emerging from a dream. He felt the wter for the first time.
He returned to his village and wife but for two years he was unable to recall his own language. For two years he spoke the language of the lakeshore people, tonga, a language he had never known before.
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