A Jamaican market vendor who lives in Falmouth, Trelawny has a harrowing story about her relationship with a Haitian man that ended on a sour note when she found out about his double life as a voodoo preacher and practitioner of the black arts.

"Him throw on some wicked voodoo pon me, mi haffi tek Jamaica fi it fi get weh from him and under some strong prayer fi get him outta mi life," Darcia* (not her real name) explained during a phone call to our offices this week.

She said that she met the man, Pierre* (not his real name), when he came to Jamaica to live over two decades ago. She said that it was a good marriage, nothing spectacular, but they were happy and the union bore three children, two boys and one girl.

She said she went to live in Haiti fifteen years ago, where they lived in a middle-class neighbourhood about twenty miles outside of Port-au-Prince. She said her husband was a self-employed businessman but she had no clue that he practised voodoo.

"He was such a gentleman, the only thing he had a secret room which he kept as a study, but he always kept it locked and mi never have no reason fi open it because mi like gi man dem space," she said.
 
She said that one day, he inadvertently left the door open and curiousity got the better of her, and walked in to find a room of horrors.

"One side of the wall was painted with what looked like a black bull with two huge horns, and there were candles everywhere, some of them in glass cases, and in de was stink, mi never know say ah voodoo him practise," she said.

She said that she tried to keep quiet about her discovery but he suspected something and confessed to him and confronted him about it. He became withdrawn from her, she said.

"Him start show mi bad face and then mi start having some breeda nightmares where tings ah pursue mi and mi start find all kinda tings inna mi clothes dem. One day mi find a scorpion inna mi sneakers and then a next day, bout three small frog jump outta mi dress, it frighten mi too backfoot," she said.

What she called a "series of unfortunate events" began to happen to her, and eventually, she couldn't take it anymore and one day, when he was gone on a business trip to neighbouring country of Dominican Republic, she took the children and ran. But before she left, she burned everything that she owned that she would not be carrying with her back to Jamaica.

She returned to Jamaica without incident and tried to re-start her life. Her children were upset but soon got over the shock of leaving a country they had called home for years. However, her ordeal was not over as after three months, she began to feel ill. She began to vomit a lot and began to lose weight because she couldn't keep down any food.

"Mi meagre right down and then, mi start have a smell..down there," she said, gesturing to her pubic area.

A visit to her gynaecologist led to one of the most bizarre sentences that have ever come from a woman's mouth.

"Frogs came out of my pumpum. If mi never see it wid mi owna eye when the gynae ah deal wid it, mi woulda say ah lie too," she said.

"The dutty man guzum mi, mi haffi go outta Old Harbour to some prayer warrior fi defeat him, him put a wicked ting pon mi, mek mi coulden get no man or something, ah six months before mi start feel better and even now, mi haffi under mi guard. Mi have a feeling say him still ah look fi mi, but mi hope say him never mek it through the earthquake wah day ya because him is a wicked man," she said.

"Sake a him, mi caan go back a St. Ann's go live."