---
title: "AmaBookaBooka: My Life With The Raincoat People (Podcast)"
description: "South African author, Lesley Smailes, describes her decade inside a mysterious cult. By JONATHAN ANCER."
type: "NewsArticle"
publisher: "Daily Maverick"
site: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za"
section: "South Africa"
author: "AmaBookaBooka"
author_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/author/amabookabooka/"
canonical_url: "https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2017-10-31-amabookabooka-my-life-with-the-raincoat-people-podcast/"
published: "2017-10-31T00:50:46"
lang: "en-ZA"
word_count: 281
---

# AmaBookaBooka: My Life With The Raincoat People (Podcast)

> South African author, Lesley Smailes, describes her decade inside a mysterious cult. By JONATHAN ANCER.

By AmaBookaBooka · Published 31 October 2017, 02:50 SAST

## Content

[Media: "Content hosted by iono.fm"](https://embed.iono.fm/epi/496403)

Before Lesley Smailes left South Africa to go on a gap year to the United States, her mother told her not to get married or join a cult. She did both. A gap year is usually an opportunity for young people to “find themselves” but instead of finding herself Smailes found the Raincoat People – a mysterious end-of-the-world cult. She joined them. Ten years, one marriage and three children later, she came back to South Africa. Smailes, who is today’s guest on AmaBookaBooka, wrote *Cult Sister* – a book that documents her life in one of the world’s most secretive cults. In fact, it’s so secretive it doesn’t even have a name and has been called the Bicycle Christians, the Dumpster Divers and the Raincoat People.

She talks about eating pickled-flavoured ice-cream, her craving for antelope steak, witnessing, why she was glad to have been “brainwashed” and suddenly being able to speak fluent Spanish – oh, and the end of the world.

Smailes spent a decade hitch-hiking across the United States as she and her fellow cult members searched for redemption.

During that time she got married to a man she hardly knew and had three home-births with no medical assistance. The members of the religious cult lived almost completely off the grid, sewing, cleaning and squatting in abandoned buildings.

*Cult Sister* is a fascinating account and tells a story of hope and healing.

We then subject Smailes to AmaBookaBooka’s world-famous Sound Effects Rorschach Test.

During this week’s Self-Publishing corner at the end of the episode, Dave Henderson debunks some myths around self-publishing. Interested in self-publishing? Visit the [MYeBook.co.za](http://myebook.co.za/) website for regular news. **DM**

*Photo: Lesley Smailes*