Boomerang Voodoo!..Removing US$35 hex from son costs US$700

NEVER pray for your enemies to die, you might bury your own relatives . . .

A woman from Magwegwe suburb in Bulawayo is a living testimony to the adage.

She experienced the mind-numbing agony of getting home to find empty rooms after thieves looted her property.

As her heart bled, she vowed to seek revenge on the unknown brood of low-lives who had raided her home.

Her quest for vengeance turned out to be the worst decision she had ever made after a spell cast on the "thief" backfired on her son.

When she discovered her son was the culprit, he was almost dying and screaming from excruciating pain every day.

A few days after New Year, the woman, who asked B-Metro not to name her in exchange for sharing her ordeal, lost her household property to a thief.

She had visited family out of town when the robbery took place.

The woman decided to fix whoever had broken into her house by engaging the services of a sangoma named Sekuru Chimoto from Chipinge.

As fate would have it, things are not always what they seem to be and in an unfortunate turn of events, the woman's own son suffered from the spell cast by Sekuru Chimoto as he fell sick, and lost the ability to speak and perform any duties.

The sangoma charged her US$35 and told her the thief would suffer terribly until he showed up to confess.

If he delayed, the sangoma said, the thief would lose the ability to walk and speak and would deteriorate until he died.

She said she contacted Sekuru Chimoto and asked him to reverse the spell but he demanded US$700.

She took to social media asking for donations and ended up selling her only remaining possession, a car, and the sangoma allegedly reversed the spell.

Narrating her ordeal, the woman said: "Days after sending the US$35 to Sekuru via EcoCash, my son started complaining of shooting pains that radiated from his loins to the rest of his body. He would scream and say he felt like red hot needles were being sprayed through his bloodstream from his abdominal area throughout his body,"

"I was devastated when he confessed that he had sold my property. I could not even get angry because I could tell he was dying. Sekuru would not relent on his request for US$700 and members of the public were not responding to my SOS" she said.

After a few days of suffering, she sold her car which was her only remaining valuable possession and sent the US$700 to Sekuru Chimoto.

According to the woman, her son has "significantly recovered."

Sekuru Chimoto on the other hand is proud of himself and the work that he does.

"I give people what they ask for and if it backfires you re-consult for it to be undone because it is not my fault. I rarely meet my clients in person as they are spread all over the world. However, when I speak to them, I see them in a mirror that I got from my ancestors," he said in a telephone interview.

He emphasised that undoing a spell is more costly than casting it.

Contacted for comment, Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers' Association (Zinatha) president George Kandiero was initially appalled by the development.

"In my own opinion, it could be a scheme that someone uses to make money, the difference between the figures is not justified. If you can do something you can undo it.

What does he mean undoing the curse is costly? These are some of the issues that make people doubt us as healers," he said

Later, after consulting other traditional healers, he said what the sangoma did was justified because a thief is a thief and he should be punished.

"He says the sangoma did his job and the person who should have been responsible for paying the sangoma to undo the curse is the thief. So according to this practitioner, the sangoma is right," said Kandiero.