Joburg- When Letoya got a call from the ancestors to be a sangoma, she left it all behind to follow their wishes. But her experience didn't pan out the way she expected.

Talking to True Love magazine recently, Letoya says she put work aside to attend an initiation school in KwaThema, Springs.

“The first three months were hell – ukugida nokufutha took its toll on me. After three months, I ran away,” says Letoya.

It wasn't long after that, that she got the call to present Idols, a gig she says she never auditioned for.

Wanting to go back

“When Idols finished, I went back ephehlweni (initiation). I spent eight months there, but sadly when I came out I struggled to fit into the outside world. I had no idea how I was going to go forward. I wanted to go back ephehlweni; I called ubaba (her spirtual father) wanting to come back, but he said: ‘Your time here is up. You are a sangoma now, go to work and heal people’," she says.

She says she didn't want to rely on the industry to give her work, so she she set up a practice at home and decided to run it like a business.

But when she started working on Isidingo, she says it got too much and so she set up a consulting shop.

Setting up shop

"That’s where I work from now," she says. "People come with genuine problems, and not just because I’m famous. I do my work properly, and they even forget I’m in the public eye. Only at the end will they ask for a photo, but very rarely. For me, healing people is like counselling," she adds.