The Academic Sangoma

01/12/2025

When I saw a post recently about the “three stages” of a PhD, it stirred a deeper reflection in me - because my own journey didn’t unfold neatly within Year 1, Year 2, Year 3. Mine stretched across many years, multiple disciplines, shifting identities, and the full complexity of lived experience.

But the emotional arc?
That part was familiar.

Frame 1: “I’m going to change the world.”
I remember those early years: bright-eyed, fuelled by conviction, carrying big questions and even bigger purpose. I believed knowledge could transform lives, that research could heal, and that ideas carried power. I stepped into scholarship with naïve courage… and with the kind of courage that was absolutely necessary. It was a season of possibility, where the intellectual fire burned hottest.

Frame 2: “What exactly is my research again?”
Then came the years where the ground shifted under my feet.
Theory challenged me. Methods stretched me. The more I learned, the more I realised the vastness of what I didn’t know. I questioned my direction, my assumptions, and at times, my identity as a researcher. I revised, rewrote, reimagined.
I discovered the quiet truth that learning isn’t linear, it’s a spiral.
You return to the same questions at deeper levels, thinking you’re lost, when in fact you’re becoming.

Frame 3: “What is the world?”
Eventually, that profound intellectual humbling arrives.
You begin to see the limits of every framework, the messiness of lived reality, the complexity of human meaning. You realise your research isn’t just about producing knowledge; it’s about understanding yourself within the knowledge. It’s about asking better questions, not chasing perfect answers.

For me, that stage didn’t end with the thesis.
It stayed with me, shaping the years that followed.
Looking back now, I see with clarity:

The PhD was never the destination. It was the apprenticeship.
A training ground for learning how to learn.
For unlearning.
For reframing.
For beginning again with more depth and more honesty.

And somewhere along that journey, I quietly internalised another assumption:
that publication was supposed to be the ultimate marker of scholarly success, the academic “it.” The rhythm of “publish or perish” created an unspoken expectation about what impact should look like.

But here I stand: several years post-PhD, just beyond the emerging researcher phase…
with one publication from before the doctorate
and several unpublished manuscripts afterwards - not discarded, but intentionally repurposed.

Used for teaching.
For curriculum design.
For conceptual scaffolding.
For building new pedagogic pathways in Traditional Health Sciences Education.

At first, I wondered if this made me unconventional.
Now, I understand:

Knowledge doesn’t only change the world when it appears in a journal.
Sometimes it changes the world when it reaches the right people, the right classroom, the right community, the right moment.

Impact is not always reflected in citation metrics.
Sometimes it lives in the transformation of a discipline still emerging.
In the shaping of a field imagining itself anew.
In the intellectual futures we are building, often in uncharted terrain.

So perhaps I am changing the world -
Just not the one academia traditionally measures.
But the world of Traditional Health Sciences Education -
one framework, one conversation, one paradigm shift, one culturally grounded insight at a time.

And maybe that, too, is scholarship.
Maybe that, too, is legacy.

05/11/2025

💭 “Was not able to pay myself a salary end October. Just want to cry…”

That’s not a complaint — it’s a confession.
A moment of truth many independent practitioners, creatives, entrepreneurs, and healers rarely say out loud.

As a Traditional Health Practitioner (THP) working in independent capacity — with a small but committed support team — the journey is as sacred as it is uncertain. We hold space for others’ healing, teach about Indigenous Health Systems, serve communities that trust us with their deepest wounds… and yet, some months, the arithmetic simply doesn’t add up.

Because the work of service — ancestral, spiritual, and communal — does not always move in sync with the financial calendar. Healing doesn’t follow payday cycles. Impact doesn’t come with a payslip.

October tested me. Not because I’ve lost faith, but because even the most purpose-driven work sometimes collides with real-world pressures — rent, data, groceries, medication, fuel, the quiet dignity of being able to say “I’m okay.”

My support staff — who believe in this calling — reminded me: “This is part of the process, Jameo. The work you do is bigger than one month’s income.” And they’re right. The calling doesn’t pause when the balance dips. It deepens.

But I share this not to elicit sympathy. I share it because we must normalize honesty among professionals — especially those in community-facing and traditional healing spaces. We can’t decolonize health and wellbeing while romanticizing struggle or silencing vulnerability.

This moment reminded me:
- Healing work requires not only spiritual stamina but economic resilience.
- Running an independent practice requires business literacy, strategy, and support just as much as clinical and cultural competence.
- And most importantly, rest is also medicine.

So today, I choose to breathe. To acknowledge that I’m still standing; still serving, still believing.

To those walking a similar path, may we remember: the value of our work is not always reflected in what the bank shows at month-end, but in the lives we touch, the lessons we teach, and the lineages we honour.

🕯️ May our work continue to find the sustenance it deserves: spiritually, emotionally, and yes, financially.

31/10/2025

hope to see you online on the 5th😉!

Over 70% of South Africans consult traditional health practitioners at some point, even when biomedical services are accessible. This reflects an understanding that health, illness and healing are also relational, spiritual and communal experiences.

In our upcoming webinar, a panel of experts will discuss how South Africa can harness indigenous knowledge systems to strengthen resilience, innovation and equity within its health systems – and why it’s essential to do so.

The speakers are:
• Dr Jameo Calvert: Indigenous health practitioner and president of the South African Traditional Health Practice Association
• Thabisa Mpazwa: Deputy director and safety promotion coordinator of the Khayelitsha Eastern substructure, Western Cape Provincial Department of Health and Wellness
• Priscilla Monyoba: Forensic nurse at the Free State Department of Health

Register online by 3 November to secure your spot: 1ef13485-90e0-4c75-92c7-3e783d01822f@a6fa3b03-0a3c-4258-8433-a120dffcd348" rel="ugc" target="_blank">https://events.teams.microsoft.com/event/1ef13485-90e0-4c75-92c7-3e783d01822f@a6fa3b03-0a3c-4258-8433-a120dffcd348



Stellenbosch University Munya Saruchera The Academic Sangoma

27/10/2025

Did you know that teachers also hold registration numbers?

Yes, we do.
The last time I was in the classroom, I too had one: 12603902.

It might look like an ordinary combination of letters and numbers to most people, but to me, it was a badge of purpose. Proof that I belonged to a sacred profession; one that shapes minds, spirits, and destinies.

That number connected me to something bigger: a community of educators who wake up each day carrying the weight of possibility. It meant I was accountable - not just to policy or curriculum, but to every learner who walked into my classroom with questions, fears, and potential waiting to be seen.

When I think back to those days, I remember what it felt like to stand before a group of learners - curious, restless, radiant - and know that, for that hour, the world rested in our shared imagination. I taught Life Orientation, Business Studies, Tourism, English HL, and Afrikaans FAL. But more than that, I taught people. I nurtured thinkers, dreamers, and doers.

And as I transitioned from the classroom to other spaces of learning and healing, I realized something profound: once a teacher, always a teacher.

Because teaching isn’t a job; it’s a way of being.
It shows up in how I mentor.
How I facilitate community dialogues.
How I hold space for healing, growth, and reflection.

So even now - though the chalkboard has been replaced by sacred herbs, ritual work, and community engagement - I still carry the same heart that once stood before those learners. The same commitment to emancipating minds and spirits from the chains of ignorance and fear.

When people see me in my sangoma regalia, they often forget that behind the beads and ancestral cloths is also a born educator - registered, trained, and passionate about human development in every form.

Because whether I’m teaching Vygotsky’s social constructivism or facilitating a healing process guided by ancestral wisdom, the principle remains the same:
learning is relational.

It happens between people. Between stories. Between worlds.

So yes, I still remember my teacher registration number - 12603902.
Not as a relic of the past, but as a reminder that education, like healing, is a lifelong calling.

And though the classroom has changed, the lesson remains the same:
to teach is to serve, to heal, and to awaken.

15/10/2025

Big shout out to my newest top fans! Tshwarelo Kwenaite, ProfShobede SZ, Lethukukhanya Donga

28/09/2025

Earlier today I shared how stressed (and excited!) I’ve been about preparing for CREATE 2025. Just a few hours later, my inbox lit up with something that made it all feel real - the official welcome email from the organising committee.

📩 “On behalf of the organising committee, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the inaugural Creative and Engaged Transdisciplinary Research for Health Equity Conference (CREATE 2025), held at Stellenbosch University, Tygerberg, Cape Town…” - Prof Lynn Hendricks, Conference Chair

Reading through the details, a few things stood out immediately:
■ 257 delegates registered, proof that there is real appetite for creative and inclusive approaches to health equity.
■ Plenary sessions on indigenous knowledge, research ecosystems, and community-led manifestos, deeply aligned with the commitments I hold as both a traditional health practitioner and scholar.
■ And then the walkshops, immersive storytelling, jazz, fashion, astronomy, and First Thursdays - a reminder that learning and knowledge are alive in culture, rhythm, and community.

This feels bigger than just a conference. It is a bold experiment in doing research differently - one that connects policy, practice, healing, leadership, and decolonial knowledge-making in ways that matter.

The stress of packing still lingers (😅 my mom may still have to rescue me there), but my excitement has now doubled. I can’t wait to step into CREATE 2025.

20/09/2025

A Dream Deferred…

When I hear those words, I don’t think of poetry first.
I think of my grandfather.

I think of the dreams he buried in silence because to speak them aloud was dangerous.
I think of the knowledge carried in whispers, hidden in indumba(s) and backrooms, because the law had made it illegal to be what I am today.

Deferred is the right word.
Not erased.
Not forgotten.
Deferred.

Because here I stand, ngaka ya setso, initiated as a teenager while my peers filled out career forms. I didn’t choose this path—it chose me. While others wrote “doctor, lawyer, engineer,” my life’s paperwork was already sealed by spirit and ancestry.

And yet, for most of my 14 years in this work, I’ve watched how society continues to delay the dream:
- Universities that pretend African healing is not a science.
- Policymakers who call us “unregulated” while refusing to build the very structures that would legitimize us (with our own voices).
- Health systems that invite us only as tokens, never as equals.

This is what “a dream deferred” looks like in real time. It looks like communities denied access to their own healing. It looks like knowledge disrespected until it is appropriated. It looks like generations of practitioners treated as a threat instead of a resource.

So I ask: what happens when a dream is deferred?

It ferments.
It sharpens.
It refuses to die.
It waits for someone stubborn enough, unapologetic enough, to carry it into the open.

That is the work I do. Not because it is glamorous, but because it is necessary. Because I know what happens when dreams are delayed too long: people suffer. Families grieve. Communities lose access to healing that has sustained them for centuries.

This is why I fight for Indigenous Health Knowledge Systems (IHKS):
⚖️ Not as folklore.
⚖️ Not as nostalgia.
⚖️ But as science.

Science that is rigorous.
Science that heals.
Science that must stand shoulder to shoulder with biomedicine, not beneath it.

So, no—I will not counterfeit myself to sit at anyone else’s table.
I know my table.
My table is here, in the house of bongaka ba setso.
And it is long overdue that the deferred dream of African Indigenous Health Sciences takes its rightful seat in the halls of policy, education, and healthcare.

Because a dream deferred is not just about me. It is about us. About the generations who carried, and the generations who will inherit.

And I refuse to pass on a deferred dream.

Thokoza! 🪶