Have you ever looked at your surroundings and thought, I saw
a horror movie that started just like this! Maybe you are on a deserted road
late at night, or you are in a creepy basement with the lights flickering
overhead. Either way, you can’t help but think any minute someone is going to
jump out with a chainsaw and hack you into little pieces. I think everyone has
had those moments where they turn on every light in the house, because for some
reason we think that will save us if there is a killer hiding behind the couch.
Some things I had thought only happened in horror movies. Some things I thought
were just crazy stories that parents tell kids so they would behave, or maybe
just so they would eat their vegetables. Then, today ( 2/4/14) I watched a 14
year old girl be held down at school, and I couldn’t help but think, holy sh*t
this is actually happening!? These people are preforming an exorcism in the
middle of the staff room!
Starting from the beginning, I never saw this coming. We
were all standing at the morning prayer assembly, just like any average day.
The teachers and I were all lined up in the shade by the class rooms, while the
learners stood packed in line in the already 80°F sun. With heads bowed, arms folded, and eyes closed it
was a little hard to see when one of my grade 6 girls went down. When there was
a little commotion the teachers realized another learner had fainted; no one
was too concerned. After 19 months in country, even I have become less
concerned when I see a learner pass out in assembly. Normal protocol is that
some of the older boys will drag the learner off to the staff room, where they
lay them on the floor, and then head back to class. Not the most sympathetic
procedure, but it happens about once a week, so I wasn’t even paying attention.
Then, right as the learners were finishing their final amen, a blood curdling
scream stopped everyone. Heads turned just in time to see the poor girl who
fainted violently trying to escape the hold of the boys who were carrying her.
She started thrashing, kicking and punching at nothing in particular, all while
screaming her lungs out. In hindsight, my first warning should have been the
fact that none of the teachers moved. It was like they all had the same thought
at the same time, and that thought was not to jump in and try to comfort the
obviously distressed learner. No, they calmly asked four more of the older boys
to assist the other two and drag her off to the staff room still kicking and
screaming.
Now,
maybe it’s because I am not religious in general, but when I see a child who is
in distress, right after waking up from fainting, my first thought is not to
let three boys pin her down in the staff room. While I imagined getting her
some water and talking to her in quite, soothing tones, the other teaches took
a different approach. Apparently here, comfort comes in the form of being
pinned to the concrete floor while five women surround you screaming about the
devil! If that doesn’t make her feel better, then I don’t know what will. With
her arms and legs pushed into the floor, this girl fought with everything she
had to get free as the teachers held their bibles over her body and screamed at
the devil spirit to be gone. No dark smoky cloud was forced from her throat
like it does in the movies, but the terror of watching this girl scream and
wither on the floor was the closest I ever hope to come to a true horror movie.
After
15 minutes of screaming and chanting, the teachers were convinced that the
devil no longer had hold over the girl. She had stopped screaming a few minutes
before, and her body finally went slack on the floor. I think she was just
exhausted, but everyone else agreed that she was now cleansed. Luckily,
everyone else agreed that she needed to go home and rest for the remainder of
the day. If I was her I would never come back to this crazy school, but once
she was drug off to the back seat of someone’s car, the teachers went off to
make tea as if nothing had even happened. At this point I was finally able to
scrape my jaw up off the floor and pretend that what I had just witnessed
didn’t completely horrify me. Not because I think the girl was actually
possessed by a demon spirit, but because a child was held down against her will
in the middle of a school. Maybe there is a reason exorcism are featured so
often in horror movies.
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