Week 1: Nouriyah Saleh

I have never experienced anything supernatural myself, but have heard countless stories from friends and relatives. However, there was an incident with my younger sister when she was just a few years old. I remember she was being incredibly fussy over the course of a few days. When she cried, she threw the biggest tantrums my family ever witnessed. No one had done anything to really upset her, nor was she sick. My parents grew annoyed and my dad was convinced that there was a demon possessing her. A day or two later, my dad brought my sister and I to this elder man's apartment who was probably a distant relative (all Cham people are related and the community is super small and tight-knit). I watched as the elder recited a verse in Arabic (we're Muslim) to my sister, who was sitting in my dad's lap. I don't remember how long he was reciting the verse for, but it was maybe for 10-15 minutes. At the time, I didn't think much of it. I remember after we left and as the day went on, my dad kept raving about how my sister was calmer. I was skeptical whether the blessing worked or if my sister was just going through a phase. Aside from the ghost stories I heard from my brother and friends, this was the first "supernatural" event I witnessed. Up until this day, I'm still unsure how I feel about it because to me, I just took it as something that happened and didn't question it. But what I've experienced from taking this class so far, I think I'm becoming more accepting of the existence of spirits because it's too crazy for so many people to have ghost stories for them to not be real.