Girl possessed or bad-tempered brat?

By Julius Matonya RESIDENTS of Ggangu, Mpigi District, witnessed a rare drama last week when a 15-year-old girl identified as Teddy beat up her mother Nnalongo and her step-father, Joseph Ssentongo, accusing them of "habitual fighting". According to neighbours, the couple, as usual, picked a fight at around 10:00p.m. that evening. Teddy, who had been sleeping, awoke from her sleep and warned her parents to stop disturbing her. "I'm fed up with your fighting and, if you don't stop it now, I'm going to beat you up," she warned her parents. The warning threw Nnalongo into a rage and she caned her daughter. Teddy, who claimed to possess ancestral spirits, said it was taboo to beat her. She wrestled her mother to the ground and started raining blows upon her. When the step-father came to his wife's rescue, the daughter boxed him too. This raised a commotion in the house, bring neighbours running to the scene. As some neighbours began sympathising with the girl, other onlookers slapped her and accused her of indiscipline. "It's taboo for a child to beat parents," they shouted. The next morning Nnalongo and her daughter reportedly visited a witch doctor to cleanse themselves of the bad luck that would befall them for disobeying custom. Ends.