"They say: 'Look out. I'm a witch. I'll hurt you,' " Kalumuna said. "Believe me, if they really were witches, I would have been dead a long time ago."
When asked recently, Naomi at first insisted that she didn't believe in witchcraft. Later, she accused her paternal grandfather of sorcery, saying he visited her and her mother in their dreams.
With a low, raspy voice and intense almond-shaped eyes, Naomi is a natural storyteller, reenacting her mother's death-bed scene as though it were the plot of one of the Nigerian soap operas she occasionally gets to watch on television. She imitated her mother's frail voice crying out the grandfather's name before dying.
Such dramatic tales have worsened relations with the family.
"We're convinced she's a witch," said Rachel Nazombo, 25, Naomi's eldest half-sister.
Naomi's eight half-siblings share two cramped rooms in an eastern Kinshasa slum. Proudly displayed on the living room wall is a magazine advertisement for something the family can only dream of: a Western-style kitchen, with a stainless steel oven and wood-paneled cabinets.
The siblings say the death of their father and Naomi's mother is proof of witchcraft. Even in a country where life expectancy has dropped to 42 years because of disease and poverty, premature death is often difficult to accept. Two deaths occurring so close together can only be caused by an evil spell, the family members say.
What is their evidence against Naomi? Local preachers and prophets confirmed their suspicions, they say. And a 3-year-old cousin once screamed Naomi's name during a nightmare. According to the family, Naomi also confessed to witchcraft when confronted during a family meeting a year ago.
When told that Naomi denied being a witch, Nazombo shook her head.
"She's hiding herself," the sister said. "You don't understand how tricky people who live in the night can be."
After her family threw her out, Naomi survived on the streets by selling what little extra clothing she had. Later she sold charcoal and resorted to robbery before being brought to the center by an outreach worker who had found her.
Wamu, her counselor at the center, began visiting the family to discuss reunification. Relatives stiffened when they saw Naomi and Wamu approach. Some refused to even look at the girl.
On a recent evening, Wamu returned for her fifth visit, this time without Naomi.
"The family should live together," she pleaded.
