 I could sing the song forever. This song, made famous by Miriam Maikeba, and known to many as the click song, was told as a story to young Miriam by her mother. Ikrych, in my home language, is a kosa, is the term for a traditional healer or diviner. And the song tells us the story of a knock-knock beetle, the dung beetle, who is the diviner of the road. Early last year, my grandmother gave me a call to tell me the news that my younger sister, troubled younger sister, had been to visit a sangom, or ikrych, troubled. My sister had recently resigned from a chef job at a prestigious hotel because it was too much hard work and she just didn't want to be a chef anymore. Granny went to great lengths, explaining to me that this particular sangom was different in that she was a Christian, like ourselves, and she even employed Christian, God-like methods in her work, such as using the Bible to profess her visions. I saw how Granny wanted me to relate somehow, but the bones and the Bible phenomenon created a very fuzzy picture for me in my head. My sister then got revelation of what the sangom had to say, because you see it is not uncommon for black African cultures to employ the services of a traditional healer to help God along, as my family sometimes makes me understand. I remember growing up I used the term witch doctor, and I remember desperately trying to reconcile the idea of a witch simultaneously being a doctor. Somehow the two just didn't fit together. Granny then came back and she told me that my sister, who had been to visit the sangoma, went back to the sangoma and the sangoma revealed what it is that was wrong. The revelation, of course, was that it wasn't my sister who had anything wrong with her. In fact, it was two friends who were responsible for her bad relationships, her lack of drive, her laziness, these two friends were apparently doing everything in their power to sabotage all her efforts. Naturally, I wanted to find out from Granny, but Granny, what does this mean? Why is the story of my sister visiting a sangoma relevant or important to us in any way? It's important because my sister left that sangoma's room a victim. And central to the analysis that these sangomas give to their many patients is a tendency, as I've been told by many, to want to put the blame on some third or other dark force as having caused your problems, your woes, your issues, giving scant regard to empowering each person to take responsibility for some of the things in their lives. What does this tell us? It tells us that perhaps there is a room for tradition. It tells us that perhaps there's room for us to be able to allow ourselves to interact with our tradition. Now I've always alienated myself. I've always alienated myself. I grew up on Cinderella and Snow White. There was no way I was going to be called dead visiting a sangom. That's just who I was. And I became very harsh and judgmental towards my sister's visit to the sangom, simply because I didn't want to allow myself to be associated with it. I realized that in the country in which we live, this confusion and this wanting to distance ourselves from that which is traditional is very widespread. So widespread, in fact, is this, that those who visit sangomas will do so in secret. Nobody must know. So what does this do? It creates a situation where rumors fly about in our communities, Andy Doris, who's 50 years old, use the special blend of herbs, mooti, to lure and keep that potential 30-year-old lover. Gogo, over there, uses mooti because she's bewitching the neighbor's neighbor. All sorts of stories. What these stories tell us is that perhaps it is important for us to allow ourselves just to understand the system of healing a bit more. Perhaps it's important for us to, as we open ourselves up to understand it more, to see how it can feed into aspects of who we are. In redefining this Africa, somebody came up here and spoke to an Africa, solving Africa's problems, African solutions for African problems. And I think the big, the big thing is really just to say, as we redefine this beautiful Africa of ours, perhaps we need to go back to some of these traditions. We need to take a collective, a collective approach, a collective approach that says we need to recognize that Africa is a collection of histories, traditions, religions, social norms. We need to identify the reality that Africa is an Africa of societal norms that differ across the board. And the minute we do that and allow ourselves to do that, I think we can, as scientists, and some of us, somebody pointed a few minutes ago that there is Sangoma, but that as scientists and traditionalists, perhaps, that there's room for us to find that connection, the nexus that brings this world of science and art, science and art, science and tradition together. And in so doing, we can renegotiate Africa's identity and our future globally. Thank you.