Nigeria"s mystic soul mates by Natalia Holvova

When I was younger I tried to imagine how it would be to have a twin brother or sister. It was real mystery for me to understand how it is possible to be born at the same time. It seemed there was special connection between twins that I couldn't explain and was thinking who can that work. My sister is only one year younger then I am and when we used to be kids our mother tried to dress us in the same way. I hated that. I felt like loosing my own face my own identity that I was made to share with my sister. I felt betrayed. But we aren't real twins. In Nigeria there is the area in southwest part of the country where the frequency of the twin's appearance is much higher then world's average. Almost in every single family there is one or more sets of twins. People don't even think about twins like about something unusual. It's very normal to have sibling who is according to tradition possessor of the half of my soul. There are many of traditional rituals in the region concerned with twin phenomena. People consider twins as a blessing from God and they believe that twins have special divine power to protect themselves. The most of the rituals is dealing with the death of one of the twins or both of them which isn't unusual in the area where health and medical support is failing all the time. It's hard to say if the half of the twin sibling is dying while another person needs to carry on living but when your best friend your soul mate is gone you necessarily feel alone. I would feel like that without my sister...

related story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071112/lf_afp/nigeriafamilytwins;_ylt=AqGbFNC58UruZNa3nbwEQMus0NUE

by Natalia Holvova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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