Exorcising AIDS.(in Kenya)(Brief Article)

At Saint Luke's Church, it is Rhoda Otieno's turn to be "prayed over." She sinks to her knees and with both hands raises a crucifix to the sky. Two men and a woman surround her. One of them holds a wooden sword, another a fly swatter; the third has a large key ring hanging from his belt. The oldest of the three lets out a fearsome howl: the exorcism has begun.

Otieno is certain it will work. She believes a demon sent by an envious relative or neighbor is making her sick. She knows there is a disease called AIDS, she has watched it decimate her community, but she doesn't like to think of herself as another of its victims. Drugs to treat her tuberculosis are out of the question; she can hardly feed her three children and wouldn't know how to start raising $7 a week for treatment. A follower of Legion Maria--one of the myriad sects that have grown out of the poverty of Nairobi's slums--told her that at his church people get cured all the time. They get "prayed over" and have their demons cast out.

After Otieno's first mass, she stood outside the church--a shack of corrugated-iron sheeting--with a dozen others, praying but also keeping an eye on the three exorcists working their way down the line toward her. When her turn came, she dropped to her knees, whispered her name and closed her eyes. By the time she was deemed purged of her demon, she had been repeatedly struck and shouted at, forced to the ground and had "blessed" water poured into her mouth and ears. "I have often wondered about the psychological impact of so much violence on an individual," says Alex Zanutelli, an Italian, Roman Catholic missionary who lives among the poor in the slum. For her part, "I already feel better," says Otieno.

Healing has always been central to African religious belief. But as AIDS decimates the continent, the belief that sickness can be healed through prayer or exorcism compounds the challenge of fighting the plague--obscuring its origins and giving many the impression they are no longer contagious. Nowhere is the faith in religious healing stronger than in Nairobi's slums, where 2 million people live with little hope of growing old. There, sects like Legion Maria celebrate not one but five services a week: each mass lasts all day and brings new converts. On any given block, at least two or three sects compete for space, recognition and followers. They have names like Israel Roha, Fire of the Holy Spirit and African Divine, and all proclaim the power of prayer over disease.

Thanks to a landmark revision of Kenyan law this week, the government will now be able to import cheap generic drugs to treat HIV/AIDS, raising hopes for 2 million HIV-positive Kenyans. Still, at a cost of between $30 and $100 a month, antiretrovirals from ...