00:00Here in Soweto, South Africa, traditional healing still holds meaning to many young people.
00:05We meet Zuko and Tumi.
00:07For both of them, it has become something deeply personal.
00:10A way of finding their place in the world.
00:14There's no gender equality between boys and girls.
00:19They will say, you're a girl, you're supposed to wash dishes, you must know how to cook.
00:25In this picture, I think that one day I could have a chance to see her again in a real
00:33motion.
00:35Tumi has brought a young client to Kwezi, a spiritual site in Soweto.
00:39He is about to finish school and hopes his ancestors can help guide his next steps.
00:48Something has to happen.
00:49If I don't have no communication, it's going to happen between me and them, right?
00:56So I want to learn how to take accountability first day and stop, like, procrastinating.
01:06Stefan, do you hear those birds that are singing?
01:09Those are my ancestors. They go with me everywhere I go.
01:13They go with me everywhere.
01:17Tumi believes this place helps her connect Kwezi with his ancestors.
01:22On the other side of Soweto, Zuko helps prepare Muti, a mixture of plant and animal ingredients used in traditional
01:29healing.
01:30He found his way here after losing direction as a teenager.
01:34Grade 9. First year, Grade 9. I failed because of the wrong game that I was training.
01:44After school, when taking off the uniform, I don't wash it. I just leave it there.
01:49Go outside and go smoke and go chill with the guys.
01:54Zuko says drugs helped him avoid a deeper pain.
01:58His mother left when he was still a baby and never contacted him again.
02:03I can't remember my mother's face.
02:05Not knowing her face means that I didn't have a mother.
02:12That's what makes me that I feel rejected on this world.
02:20Tumi's journey began about six years ago with intense dreams and visions.
02:27In them, she encountered powerful women who were not told what to wear or how to behave.
02:36The women in my dreams are very powerful because they were prayer warriors.
02:42They used to heal using water.
02:46If they can make me sick, then that's how powerful they are.
02:53I woke up one day and decided that I'm going to do this journey with or without my parents' support
03:01or anybody's support.
03:03Zuko started working as an aide to a traditional healer.
03:06He learned all about plants and traditional medicine.
03:10Around the same time, his dreams became more vivid.
03:13One dream, in particular, keeps returning.
03:17I dreamed about my mother.
03:20Then she was calling me with a loud voice.
03:22I couldn't come to the top because there were some bad spirits and I didn't make it out to where
03:31my mother is.
03:32For Zuko, traditional healing and these recurring dreams have become parts of a deeply personal healing journey.
03:41Even though you are alone, you are not alone.
03:46You are just with somebody else.
03:50You can see them by connecting, by meditation.
03:59This picture is a gift from God. It reminds me where I come from.
04:11And that does not determine where I'm going.
04:15I can endure any obstacles or challenges. That's what I've learned through this journey.
04:22I was a very fearful person.
04:25I literally didn't follow my guide. I would listen to my friends a lot.
04:28So now I can say I'm confident in my own skin.
04:35And I love who I am now.
04:39For Zuko, traditional healing became a way of searching for the mother he never knew.
04:44For Tumi, becoming a healer was also a way of becoming the woman she wanted to be.
04:49Because of the way, she was not alone, she was not alone.
04:51She was also aćØććććØ of the mother.
04:52For someone to go to her mother he used to be, she was a liar, and she was a liar.
04:53She used to be the mother and she was a liar.
04:53She was a liar for her, and she was a liar for the child.
04:53Because of the mother's sake, she would have to come into her death and see her.
04:53She has to remember everything.
04:54You
Comments