{"id":1305,"date":"2014-04-25T14:07:55","date_gmt":"2014-04-25T13:07:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/blogs\/english\/?p=1305"},"modified":"2014-04-25T14:07:55","modified_gmt":"2014-04-25T13:07:55","slug":"love-potions-he-will-love-to-love-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/love-potions-he-will-love-to-love-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Love potions: \u201cHe will love to love you!\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

That was the promise made by a \u201clove doctor\u201d. In Bujumbura, many are the celibates craving for love and single ladies waiting for a husband. However, the ticking clock makes people take extreme measures: love potions.-<\/strong>Joanna Nganda<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Various<\/a>

Various powders to find love, secure your marriage, and soothe angry husbands\u2019 tempers.\u00a9Iwacu<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/em>Anita, 34, is single since 2007 and she can\u2019t stand it anymore. \u201cMy friends are married and have children\u2026but here I am, still living with my mother. The pressure from my family is unbearable: they hold family meetings to advice me, they make me go for blind dates, etc\u2026\u201d she laments. In 2013, Anita\u2019s aunt decided that enough was enough and urged her to see a \u201cspecialist\u201d. \u201cOne afternoon she took me at JABE\u2019s market and introduced me to a man who swore his products will work, but I was very skeptical. He gave me a couple of roots and powders. It cost me BiF 20,000\u2026I paid it thinking that it was money thrown by the window\u201d, remembers Anita, who is now married. \u201cI was very surprised to see how many people were attracted to me; I had a lot of marriage proposals! I am happily married and we are now trying to have a baby\u201d, Anita says, while showing me the thick gold wedding ring on her finger. So, I decide to go to look by myself. When I arrive at JABE\u2019s market, it\u2019s two o\u2019clock in the afternoon and the beaming midday sun is heating a variety of sun-dried bushmeat, along with unusual-looking plant roots. The smell is terrible.<\/p>\n

Dried bushmeat powder to drink<\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the \u201clove doctors\u201d approaches me and pulls me towards his shop. There, underneath a large bird\u2019s carcass, between a black live chicken and tortoise shells, he shows me a seat and starts his consultation. I explain that I am looking for \u201clove medicine\u201d and quickly, he starts his skilled salesman speech \u201cI will give you the whole package on discount! You will get a powder to dilute in water to purify your body in the shower. See this red powder? Mix it with your body lotion, it will attract love and success, this is so powerful that you will even get a new job. I will also give you a slice of this root\u2026put it underneath your tongue before talking to the man you are interested in: he won\u2019t resist a word you say! He will love to love you!\u201d he says. However, when he mentioned shredding some sun-dried bird\u2019s meat into a drinkable powder, my attention started its downfall. He shows me the white-feathered carcass hanging from the ceiling: \u201csee how white this bird is? This is to purify your soul\u201d. Lonely hearts get the package for the modest cost of BiF 50,000. He promises fast results, \u201cif in a week you don\u2019t get results, come back and I will give you your money back.\u201d Ernest bought the BiF 50,000 package but his experience wasn\u2019t as successful as Anita\u2019s. \u201cThe woman I was trying to marry did not change her behavior and kept ignoring me. Later on, she got engaged to someone else\u201d Ernest fulminates, \u201csince there were no results, I went back to ask for my money but the charlatan failed to pay me and even blamed me for not using his potions as prescribed!\u201d Whether these concoctions work or not, dried bushmeat in one\u2019s tea does not sound like the safest way to meet one\u2019s soulmate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That was the promise made by a \u201clove doctor\u201d. In Bujumbura, many are the celibates craving for love and single ladies waiting for a husband. However, the ticking clock makes people take extreme measures: love potions.-Joanna Nganda Anita, 34, is single since 2007 and she can\u2019t stand it anymore. \u201cMy friends are married and have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[389,390],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.iwacu-burundi.org\/englishnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}