Always Pay the Witchdoctor

The
headline and lead are strange enough, although not unprecedented;
a male athlete competing as a female is exposed.
That’s why Olympic athletes undergo genetic testing. From today’s Times

Zimbabwe’s sports world was agog Wednesday over the revelation that one
of the nation’s leading female track stars, a winner of gold and silver
medals in an array of events in Zimbabwe, Botswana and elsewhere, is in
fact a man.

The specifics were a little weird, and the charges
definitely from an alien legal system.

Samukeliso Sithole, of the midlands village of Silobela, was charged with
offensive behavior and impersonation after an acquaintance identified him
as a man during a chance encounter last month at a Zimbabwe rail station.

But the kicker was in Sithole’s excellent explanation and alibi for
the misunderstanding.

According to the newspaper, Mr. Sithole told the court that he had been
born with both male and female genitals, and that his parents consulted
a traditional healer for help. The healer, he said, prescribed a mix of
herbs that caused his male organs to disappear entirely.

Unfortunately, he said, his parents paid only half the healer’s fee. And when
the healer recently tired of waiting for the balance, Mr. Sithole said, he caused
the male genitals to spontaneously grow back as punishment. Mr. Sithole said
that he had made arrangements to pay the debt, and that he had been scheduled
to turn over the money – and revert to exclusively female status – on the day
he appeared in court.

Doncha hate it when that happens? An old Proverb learned while
living with the Kubeo Indians in northwesterrn Amazonia goes "Always
pay the witch
doctor in full lest you wake up a snake".

from the New York Times