Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
JESSE DUKES
Babu on the Bad Road
FROM
Virginia Quarterly Review
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from
the throne of God.
—
Revelation 22:1
O
N JANUARY
10, 1991, Ambilikile Mwasapila dreamed a cure for AIDS. A woman appeared
to him, a woman he knew to be infected with HIV, and God sent him into the bush for a cure.
It was only a dream, and at the time, Mwasapila, a Lutheran pastor in the remote northern
Tanzanian ward of Loliondo, was not sure what it meant. He continued to work in Wasso, an
outpost town surrounded by dry and dusty plains occupied by the cattle-herding Masai, and
earned a reputation as honest and upright, humble and kind. In 2001, he retired from the min-
istry and considered moving back to the more populous Babati, where he had lived as a young
man. But he heard the same voice, God's voice, in dreams, telling him to stay, for there was
work for him in Loliondo.
Mwasapila remained, and the voice returned many times in the next few years, sometimes
when he slept and sometimes when he just closed his eyes. He saw a recurring vision of a
multitude gathered under a ridge. He saw tents, cars, and even security guards. In 2006, he
moved to a small house in the village of Samunge, at the base of the ridge he had envisioned.
One night, he dreamed of a ladder stretching across the sky from the west to the east, colored
redasblood.Theladderstoppeddirectlyabovehim.Then,in2009,God'svoicereturnedwith
specific instructions. God told him to climb into the hills to find the bark and root of the tree
the local Sonjo people call
mugariga
. There was a woman in the village whispered to be HIV
positive, and on May 25, he gave her a cup of liquid made from boiling the bark. Three weeks
later,God'svoice told him the woman wasnowcured. Later,doctors fromthe WassoHospital
tested the woman—and she was shown to be HIV negative.
Mwasapila continued to give the cup of liquid to people with HIV/AIDS, telling them that,
after seven days, God would seal the mouths of the viruses inside them. Unable to feed, the
virus would die within weeks. In 2010, God told him to give the same medicine to patients
with cancer, and later with diabetes, asthma, and epilepsy. In October, the word had spread so
that Mwasapila had visitors nearly every day, some traveling a day or more to see him.
InNovember,anewspaperjournalistnamedCharlesNgerezahappenedtobetravelingfrom
Lake Victoria to Arusha. In the small town of Mto wa Mbu, 200 kilometers south of Samunge
on a major route, he saw crowds of people waiting for a bus to take them north, to the middle
