Ti Mubai

I'm the first born in my family, which, according to the locals, gives me special powers.

One night, I was playing cards with some kids in my house and there was a sound outside the door. They all looked over apprehensively, then looked at me and realized I hadn't even glanced up. “What was that?” they asked. I replied, “I don't know, probably a dog.”

They began talking quickly in Ngäberre and eventually asked me if I was the first born in my family. I said I was and they all nodded knowingly. Mä mubai they said, you're mubai (pronounced 'moo-bye').

One kid explained that the first born is fearless. What I would have called deductive reasoning (i.e. it's either a chicken or a dog and it sounded heavier than a chicken), they called lack of fear. But I'll take it.

Fearlessness is the first of my special powers.

Later, a community member, Juan, was telling me about a neighbor of mine whose house was being haunted by a witch. Apparently, the witch was throwing rocks at his house at night, booming them off the zinc roof. After a few days of this, his brother had a seizure in the house.

Do I look wicked fearless and stuff?

I suggested that his brother is probably epileptic and that kids are probably throwing rocks as a prank, but they dismissed these ideas in favor of the witch theory.

Anyway, Juan explained that unfortunately, at the time of the seizure, no mubai were around. If they had been, a single touch from the mubai would have stopped the seizure.

My second special power is stopping seizures.

This one touch remedy also apparently applies to demonic possession. Which means my third special power is exorcism. If only someone had told that dude from the movie, The Exorcist, he wouldn't have had to throw himself out of the window – he could have called his oldest brother.

The first and last born in a family are called mubai. Out here, that means only two of eight or twelve siblings are distinctive. However, I've pointed out to several community members that in many American families, including mine, that would mean all of the two children are mubai. Maybe that's why these powers don't work in the States – mubai saturation. Kind of like Superman isn't as awesome in Krypton.

Which means I need to test my powers down here, where they still work. I can't wait to yell “THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!” and then write a blog post about my one-touch exorcism.