Friday, January 29, 2010

To solve all your problems

These leaflets and signs have been around for years, generally not around the area I live in, but enough that I would see them and chuckle a little bit sometimes. I was aware of the following in certain areas, as I’ve been to pharmacies near campus where I’ve actually seen ‘Luck Oil’ on display (the things I’ll do for antihistamines) and I’m very aware of the following that traditional healers have around here.

Recently they seem to have… exploded. There are people handing them out at robots (traffic lights), they’ve been appearing in my letter-box (we live in the Northern Suburbs, not somewhere we thought there would be much of a following for miracle oils - although if they can make you win the lottery, you never know…), in the newspaper, stuck to lamp-posts…

So as any good scientists would do, we started collecting them, giggling over them, sighing over the way that they seem to be targeting groups of people who would have to save for the R100 consultation fee and then further to buy the magic oil/stick/love remote (really). From there we began to compare the grammatical errors, testimonials (Rosie van Wyk from Morningside – who has recently moved to Witbank – and Andre Mpho from Kathlehong share a cellphone number…, making sure than none of the “Healer of the Year awards coincided, as well as followng the blossoming careers of some of our favourite healers (Prof. Lumumba is doing particularly well, with almost ten different leaflets and four healer-of-the-year awards!).

We’ve collected well over a hundred (my very precise estimate from glancing over at the pile) over the last few months, from as far afield as Nelspruit and Polokwane and I felt that I must share these gems with you (click to enlarge I think):

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you have to wonder what he means by “some conditions applied”… note the matching phone numbers too – they didn’t even put them on separate leaflets!

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So are you disappointed in your living life? And I know I totally identify with problem 14. Although I wonder about the ‘chronicle diseases’

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Ah, Professor Sir Apollo… my personal favourite, and one of the first leaflets we collected! Plus he’s one of the top 10 in the world; SCORE!

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  This guy is a close second for awesome name-ness, although I worry about the stress of keeping a marriage AND an affair together…herbalist3

One of many Mamas…herbalist3aAnother ‘Mama’! Anyone got any idea why there is a picture of a hand there? High five?herbalist3b

These guys went to Harvard! The Harvard University of Witchcraft… in the U.S.A! And they can give you Great Success in Life Foreverherbalist4

Prof Dungu gets bonus points for the lion pictures AND the pixellated Africa background! Plus he can remove bad luck to good luck!herbalist4a

I do not even want to know about the Love Remote, K? But he does have a picture of a lion too, which has to count in his favour.herbalist5 Not to mention the Sex Low Drive.

There are others, but I try to keep this child-friendly(ish). Seriously, there is even a small selection with visual aids…

Have a great weekend!

5 comments:

That Kind of Girl said...

LOVE REMOTE! That's cheered up my blah Friday quite a bit! Thanks for the laugh.

po said...

I saw one that highly amused me while I was in CT, it claimed that they had a "spiritual chicken to cleanse your home".

I had weird mental pictures with that one.

Kath Lockett said...

Wow. Maybe I need me some of that - especially from the guy who's located next to the tyre place and the fishmarkets!

EEbEE said...

I met someone who actually went to one of these doofies. This person was told to bath in their own urine every morning for 'results'.

i guess if you are stupid enough to go to them you would be stupid enough to bath in your own urine...(imagine the smell!)

Till, quite a few around Pmb as well.

Susan said...

Seems to have every base covered!