We had the opportunity to talk to or interview a young Togolese lady whose family had been involved, in various ways, in traditional religions and beliefs. We will publish her answers over the course of the next few days. Today we decided to publish her first answer to our first question. We believe this is an incredibly interesting and insightful document.

First question is about you. You’re a Togolese lady, living in Canada, and you are, if am not mistaken, a Christian, yet some of your family members were following the voodoo religion. When and why did you or your family switch from traditional religion to Christianity?

I was born and raised in Togo and grew up living with my mother and her family including Grand-parents uncle and aunties. As I was growing old, it was evident to me that all my family members were Christians. I had had the free will to choose between Catholicism and Protestantism. However, as I was growing up I realized that there were some traditional rites in the family who for me where just paying tributes to ancestors. Everybody in the household was a believer, however in the family story my great grand-mother meaning my grand-father’s (father of my mother) mother was a believer and worshipper of ancestors. Apparently she had a room in her village for different divinities… I heard that she was so involved in the spiritual practices that, it turned to witchcraft at the end. So here comes the blurry line between tradition and spiritism and let me explain my point of view. I strongly believe that, traditional practices aim no arm and to believers tend to offer sacrifices to the same almighty God as in different religions. However in many of the rites present in Africa in opposition to Christianity the rites are not clear and are fallacious. A lot of people unknowingly are born in practices they don’t know or even understand the depth of and the African spiritual practices are often deadly to the descendants when they do not perpetuate them (practices).

The story of my family is one in which the children of my grand-mother didn’t understand the depth of what was happening around them. My grand-father had two wives and my grand-mother was the second. The first wive was inclined towards tradition and the practices of her mother in law. My grand-mother wasn’t. The great grand-mother according to what we have been told, was a “special caracter”. Her words towards my grand-mother’s children who mainly had a lot of daughters wasn’t love….When she passed away I think her memory was so negative that, almost no one shared anything about her.

We grew up (myself and my cousins) with a very vague knowledge of our great grand-mother and her practices. We didn’t know much. However among the step-brother’s of my mother was a pair of twins. From what we understood since our childhood, twins deserved to have periodic rites. So there was a place in our house (it took years for our eyes to be opened and for myself, my cousins and the grown children of my grand-mother to understand that, that place in the family house, is a real and very strong spiritual altar), where sacrifices where given. So many week-ends, one of my uncles (the child who came after the twins; in the tradition it’s believed that, that child is more powerful than the twins), was the one (may be initiated by his mother we don’t know. The family dynamic was in a way that, by then we didn’t know what happened among the children of the first wive and all the resentment they had in their hearts against my grand-mother because of questions releted to heritage.) who all the time presented the sacrifice to the altar. I was so young and ignorant and curious, I remember few times I would follow the uncle to the place he would chant incantations and offer the beans and gari (made of cassava) and palm oil. After that ritual, we will share some of the offerings – meaning drink, the soft drink in one little calabash, taste the beans and the mixture of gari and palm oil and that was it. After that there would be a little party to share the food among family and family friends.

Our family home was known in those times for frequent parties.

Then years after, my grand-mother started receiving the teachings about those practices, this is when she would stop us from taking part in those. Amidst a lot of family quarrels and some tragedies that started happening (we’ve experienced deaths after deaths) and many other things, we finally understood that the family has a very tragic spiritual background. What people would do is to seek the oracles and try to understand what was happening… My grand-mother and her children and the children of her children (meaning us), we have chosen to be Christians and faithful so we do not engage in such traditions. But many prophecies (from Christian’s men of God) told us that we are under some sort of yoke from the great-grandmothers worships and some unknown stuffs. We have lost a lot of family members. To date none of the daughters of my grand-mother is happily married and among us, the grand-children, life is just weird, not as easy as it should be. Apparently spirits and altar in families want their dues paid even when no one is worshipping them anymore.

What is my point of view today. All my life to date, I have always been a strong believer. I one of these faithful Christians who have prayed and prayed and prayed a lot. Many times, I failed where people were having it easy and my men of God, when I was younger, told me things about my future announcing some sorts of hardships. Today my heart is divided. As far as I understand that generational curse might be a thing, in the pasts years I became interested in questioning myself on how can generational curses be passed on so easily and a group of persons accept that they are cursed and live the effects of the curse.

My first cure 10 years ago was my boldness when I decided to travel to Ivory Coast. That first detachment from family allowed me to explore Christianity to another depth, praying, praying and praying. To some extent I believe that the gospel is true, God does exist. That there is a realm powerful that protects us. I have experienced personal miracles but quiet miracles in my life to the point that, I know that I believe in God and Jesus. But what I no longer believe in, is the hypocrisy and faith of people who call themselves men of God. And second our African credulity is problematic. Spiritual powers, evil powers do exist and cause arm to people, but mostly because people believe in them.

I have observed that traditionalists have a faith sometimes higher in what they worship than the faith that we Christians have in God. Most of the time, our faith is hypocrite. We worship God because we want something out of life and want to be identified as good people. Also, religion has placed a lot of people in Africa under the yoke of poverty and life events, but the worst problems for us are laziness and a deep absence of anything related to self-identity. We have decided for instance to accept the final verdict. For instance because grand-parents told us that we are under some sort of curse, we would accept any hardship that we come across in life and blame them on that curse.

Today, I am a firm believer that in the spiritual realm, there are good and bad entities but that above all those entities there is the faith in God, the discipline toward a goal in life, and a life commitment to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal. I strongly believe today more than ever that faith and spirituality are the some of our core beliefs in God almighty and Jesus or any other divinity in the religion we choose. Second I am firm believer in our commitment to do good and contribute to our own life first and the lives of people around us with a high sense of discipline and self-improvements and the mission. When we do good we are protected, we love ourselves and others and study the scriptures and the holy books, we received the tools and knowledge to know and understand how to navigate life in other to be protected because there are many bad people who choose not to do good, when we love ourselves before other it means that we respect and accept our life mission and want to protect ourselves in other to achieve it and heal the universe. When we love others, it’s a proof that we love ourselves and want good things to happen to everyone the same way we want it for ourselves. But hardships are inevitable. Being born in families like mine is inevitable. We what we do of life and how much we are willing to commit to, to believe in to trust and be determined to achieve is an everyday’s decision; and that, no spirit can stop us, as long as we use the instructions written in the books, in nature, in the universe. The Laws and the gospel!

My family members are all believers but some extended family members, we didn’t know where exactly their faith stood. It wasn’t firm, but as you might have grasped it, not many recognize that they are believers of traditions, some do, some don’t some don’t know where they stand and others hide it just out of shame. The Bible and some book as “Outwitting the devil” and many more, are my reference.