SPIRITUAL THINGS

MINISTER ABSENT ON SPIRITUAL LEAVE

STRANGE: She will return once the unholy curse has been  painted away
STRANGER: She threatens to fire ALL her staff, branding them as  reptiles
KWAZULU-Natal's education MEC, Faith Gasa, has abandoned her ministerial office for three weeks because she believes an evil spell has been cast on it by her axed predecessor, Eileen KaNkosi Shandu.
Gasa presides over 2.6 million pupils and a budget of R7.8-billion. But, while her department is under pressure to improve on last  year's paltry 51% matric pass rate, her husband, Professor Enoch Gasa, says his wife has stayed away from work for three weeks because she fears falling prey to evil spirits.
Gasa said she would return to work tomorrow to fire all her staff, whom she accuses of being loyal to Shandu.
"They are all going. By Monday I will have proper staff, not a bunch of reptiles," she said.
Gasa, who replaced Shandu in August, believes her predecessor is gunning for her because she wants her job back.
Shandu was fired after being found guilty of nepotism. She was also involved in a power struggle with Premier Lionel Mtshali, the Inkatha Freedom Party's national chairman.
In July, Shandu was kicked out as chairman of the IFP's Women's Brigade and replaced by Gasa.
Professor Gasa said on Thursday that his wife had not been to their Empangeni home for 10 days and had called him on Tuesday to say she was "doing okay".
"There is a common belief that she is being bewitched by Shandu.  Her two cars have been in accidents and if she had been in them at the time she would have been dead," he said. "Shandu is a thorn in my wife's flesh. Even the premier knows there  is something unholy in that office and he has ordered it to be  repainted and refurbished."
His wife was "terrified" to go to her office and would return only once it had been refurbished.
Gasa would not confirm that she was in hiding because she was afraid of "muti", but said many people believed she was being  bewitched. "Even if I believe that, I can't go to the newspapers and say it. But what I am afraid about is my son's safety.
Gasa's receptionist said she had no idea where her boss was. The department's offices were in a state of chaos with most of the floor space cleared and desks stacked along the walls. Documents lay in heaps on the floor.
When the Sunday Times tracked her down to her ministerial house in Ulundi, Gasa said she was spending the day preparing  for this weekend's annual Women's Brigade conference.
Shandu said she was "sad and sorry" that she was suspected of using muti to get her job back. She had challenged her dismissal through the Labour Court but held no grudge against anyone. "I don't know anything about muti. I am a Christian. I don't want evil to affect anyone."
See: Gasa returns to her office.

MISS SOUTH AFRICA

The 21-year old Peggy-Sue Khumalo, hailed as an "African beauty" and "plain Zulu girl" was elected as Miss South Africa on August 25th, 1996. Five days later it emerged that she was indeed Peggy Priscilla Erasmus, 24 years old, who had her names changed first to Peggy Priscilla Khumalo and subsequently to Nonhlanhla Peggy-Sue Khumalo, as was publised in the Government Gazette on April 4th, 1996.
She explained: "The spirits of my forefathers do not like the surname Erasmus. Since I have changed my surname to Khumalo, it is going very well with me. For example, I immediately received more job offers".
Khumalo subsequently applied to the Legal Aid Council for financial aid to defray her legal costs for changing her name. In view of the fact that she received more than R1 million in prizes for winning the Miss SA contest, the application was denied.
She was born in Newcastle, Natal, on December 7th, 1972 as the daughter of Jumaima Khumalo and James Erasmus, a coloured farmworker. She was raised by her white grandmother, Afrikaans-speaking Cornelia Susanna Dunn. After assuming the surname Erasmus, she was allowed to attend Chelmsford, a coloured school in Newcastle, and matriculated from Haythorne High School in Pietermaritzburg. Her mother, Jumaima Khumalo, claimed that Peggy-Lee "spent her carefree childhood days cleaning pigs, herding cows, catching fish and being brought up in the Zulu tradition".
Ms Doreen Morris, organiser of the Miss SA contest, said that the 24-year old Peggy-Sue Khumalo was eligible for the contest after having stated on her application form that she was 21, despite the stipulation that entrants must be under 24.
Before her election Peggy-Lee said: "I am going to sacrifice a white goat to my ancestors to thank them for my success. And if I become Miss World, we'll probably be so happy we'll slaughter ten oxen".
The Animal Anti-cruelty League subsequently asked her to withdraw from starting a charity fun run for people and their pets held in Johannesburg because of her "support for the ritual slaughter of animals, which causes intense and needless suffering to the animal". SPCA national council spokesperson, Barbara Nash, said in traditional slaughtering "ancestors must be able to hear the bleating or bellowing of the sacrifice or it will not work. The sheer terror and suffering that those animals have to bear is appalling".
Said the Sunday Times in a leading article: "Khumalo is an African and chooses to celebrate in an African manner by slaughtering a goat or a cow. That is her right".
Elias Maluleke in his column "En Passant" wrote in the Sunday Times of September 29th, 1996:

"Certain traditional rites cannot be altered... Ours is a need which can be satisfied in one way, and one way only. The blood of a slaughtered animal forms the basis of our ceremonies to appease the ancestors. Stunning the animal before slaughtering it would interfere with its blood circulation. Equally, shooting the animal is not an acceptable alternative. Guns are not part of our African tradition, culture and rites".

APPEASING UNSETTLED SPIRITS

S'bu Ndebele, Kwazulu Natal transport MEC, had a cow slaughtered next to the swimming pool at his suburban home in Durban in 1998 honour of his eldest son, which was killed in a road accident four years earlier.
Ndebele claimed that the slaughter was also in response to public demands to Ndebele's department "to hold traditional ceremonies around the province to settle the spirits of road accident victims believed by some to have been stirred up by a recent road safety campaign".
The local municipality gave special permission to Ndebele to slaughter the cow, stipulating that "the killing be done in private and with a sharp knife".

PARLIAMENTARY ABBATOIR

South Africa's traditional leaders are hopping mad at the Speaker of Parliament, Frene Ginwala. At a ceremony held early in 1997 to inaugurate the Council for Traditional Leaders, they intended to "sanctify the body" by slaughtering an ox in the precints of parliament in Cape Town.
Ginwala turned them down on the grounds that it would "lower the tone" of parliament. The poor chaps had to take their hapless victim to Fernwood, the parliamentary playground, to be slaughtered and eaten.

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