A lady bizarrely claims that she cheats on her husband with a demon. She claims a spirit has been defiling her since the couple moved to Mlaleo in Kisauni, Mombasa three months ago.

“When I am alone in the house, I sometimes fall unconscious and then this man comes over me, and we make passionate love.

Though he fulfils my wildest fantasies, he does not allow me to see his face. I wake up aroused and sore, which makes me feel violated and dirty. I usually take a long shower, to wash the demon off,” she explained.

Rape

Asked why she has never sought help, she said: “Rape is a difficult thing for any woman to talk about. I told my husband that we need to move to another house, but he accused me of nagging.”

But a friend she confided in frightened her more, saying the demon would not leave her simply because she had changed houses, and that her ordeal would continue till proper ‘purification rites’ were conducted.

Another of her friends claimed nearly all houses in Kisauni are haunted and that the phenomenon is not new. Halima, a housewife, claims that during her pregnancy, two years ago, a spirit almost made her lose her baby.

Fled to parents

“He used to come to me at three in the morning with my husband lying right beside me,” she said. “It got so bad that I had to finish my term at my parents’ home in Kaloleni.”

She says her mother organised for a religious teacher to conduct a cleansing ritual and gave her ‘protection’ which she wears round her wrist at all times.

Apparently there are cases where a woman is betrothed to a spirit from birth.

“This usually happens in homesteads where the family is rearing a djinn for financial success, but you can never get them to admit it. However, one of the daughters, usually the prettiest, never marries. How do they explain that?” wondered a Kisauni resident.