Opinion / Columnist
A Sangoma can be a witch at the same time Pt 1
16 Jun 2015 at 14:45hrs | Views
I was born in 1956 the City of kings and Queens, Bulawayo. My parents lived in Njube Township. I had two siblings, both boys. I finished my primary education and got a division two. I was over the moon because it meant that I was eligible to do secondary education to any of these best secondary schools in Bulawayo. I was proud and I showcased my results to my friends in the Njube Township. I went to Luveve Secondary to enroll with my mother. I was one of the students who were registered without any interview because of the good results, just undisputable good. Again, I went to town with my father to buy the school uniform at Hassamals. I was given a choice of what kind of a school bag I needed because I was a day scholar.
The day before I started school my parents sat down with me and told me that I should work hard at school and never play at all. The poverty in our home did not even allow it to play around again with a good chance, a golden chance. I was given an example of girls who wasted their lives and engaged in silly mischief, ending up getting "children without fathers" and that should never happen to me. I listened and I was sure that, that could never happen to me. I took a bus from Njube to Luveve and from there we walked to school a good two kilometer walk. I would drop at Luveve- Bait Hall and walk to school proudly like all other day scholars.
It was this two-kilometer walk back and forth to school that harbored a lot of mischief. We left school in the afternoon at different times, sometimes it could be two o'clock, sometimes 4 sometimes 5 o'clock. We took advantage of these times variations to meets friends and hang around in supermarkets, buy some Fanta, sweets or penny coolers, whatever day-scholars bought with their meager bus change left that day. As luck would have it, my friends were older than me, they were all in form four and I was in form one. We would team up after school and walk to the bus stop at Luveve-Bait Hall as a group of girls.
On the way, we would meet boys or young men who would try their luck and propose love to us. I would refuse this as I was indeed young, but the older girls paired up in no time with these young men. It was these young men who would then give us a treat of buying us Fanta or sweets or whatever students would wish in the hot sun, sometimes even ice-cream. I was confident enough when I was in form two to get myself a boyfriend, a young man who worked at the industrial sites doing some manual work and his name was Ndibani. As usual, he would wait for me along this two kilometer distance to the bus stop. This distance, there were no control measures whatsoever.
It was a distance where students felt free to do a lot of mischief without the knowledge of the parents. I refused invitations to go to see his place where he lived. I knew that kind if invitation was always resulting in sexual intercourse. My friends had warned me about it. One of the girls confessed to us that she went to see where her boyfriend lived and it resulted in sex. I was forewarned and I declined, but I never declined his offer of buying me sweets or a Fanta. His gestures of buying me things had accumulated subconsciously becoming difficult to say no if he said lets pass by my place I would play you this nice latest music for you.
I thought of saying yes and it was once, only once when I went to his place and we started kissing until I found myself without my under pant and it was sex that was painful, painful. I was so ashamed of myself and regretted having said yes that one day. I refused again when he said I should pass by at his home. That one day was one day too much. I was in form three at Luveve Secondary School in 1973 when I got pregnant. I was a day scholar and I would meet my boyfriend on my way to school and back there was some "privacy" from the school to the township, there was busy area until to the school that was far off from the township. I would then take a bus at Bait Hall to Njube. My boyfriend worked as a manual worker in the industrial sites (emanda). He was a lodger, which means he occupied one room from the main home in Luveve where he stayed.
Five months had passed. It was a time bomb when the bomb would just explode. I never told anybody, not even my friends at school. It was my mother who suspected that I was indeed pregnant. I had grown big, the breasts, my round waist the beautiful face showed all signs of a pregnant girl. She went berserk, the noise invited my father to find out what was wrong in the home, the screaming of my mother. When my father was told that I was pregnant he told me to pack at once and leave his home. He did not keep two women in the home, he had one wife and not two, he looks after children, but not women who are already child bearing. I packed and went to my boyfriend's place.
When I arrived, he asked me why. I told him I was pregnant and I had been chased away from home. I was barely seventeen years old when my parents ditched me out of their home to fend for myself, pregnant. My boyfriend was not at all amused by this development. He had to put up with me, he did not know where he could send me further to rid him of the responsibility. I was to him a girl he loved as long as he met me in the streets but when he was told about the pregnancy he was nearer to saying that it was not his responsibility, it was not his pregnancy. I stopped going to school at once and my heart bled. That was the most painful thing for me as I loved school and I had great hopes for myself, I thought I would never recover from the loss of my education through carelessness.
I would see my friends dressed in uniform, Luveve Secondary School uniforms, early in the morning. My heart sank and I wept bitterly. I regretted my carelessness of allowing myself sexual intercourse before I could finish my education. I avoided seeing them when they came from school and I knew which areas to avoid all the time and what times should I be away from the roads. Crying did not help me at all. I collected myself and I resigned to the life of staying with this man who just tolerated me. The love between us got finished or just vanished when I told him I was pregnant. We slept in this room and cooked in it too using a primus stove. I was not used to that life at all. I lived with my parents in a home in Njube and we cooked outside in an open fire most of the time. Our home was a two-bed-roomed home. The two boys occupied the second bedroom and I used the dining room to sleep. My stomach was growing and I was getting the discomfort of daily sexual intercourse I was not used to.
When I told him I did not feel like it, that day he would force himself into me. I was helpless, I was desperate. I knew my parent's place was a no-go area for me. It got worse with time. He would beat me at the slightest irritation. He complained about the food that was not well cooked! I had to wash his clothes and iron them. At my mother's place I never really cooked as my mother, a full time housewife, would do everything. I only washed plates at home and was told to go and read and do my homework. Here I was prematurely subject to duties of a housewife. The homeowners were very kind and sympathetic to me. When the time to deliver came the mother of the house got a car and we went together to Mpilo Maternity Wing. In no time the baby girl was born and I named her Bazondile, meaning "my parents are not happy."
Under normal circumstances, I was supposed to go to my parents and deliver my first baby with the care of my parents. It was not the case, I learnt everything on my own with some assistance of the mother in the home where we were lodgers. She is the one who gave me some medication for the mother-mouth opening to heal, I was supposed to sit on the bath for long time to let the medication go inside the womb, to give it some healing. She showed me how to change nappies, bath the baby, dress it. She became my surrogate mother in every sense of the word. She was kind to me and I opened up to her, she had an ear for me.
The relationship with my hubby did not get better when I started cooking better and looking after the room well and the girl was growing up, a baby he never appreciated for once. It was my baby. I learnt to sleep with her on the floor to avoid daily conjugal responsibilities of the night. I had hardly finished the "six weeks" of grace period that all women are entitled to after giving birth. My husband demanded it at once. I could not and I had not healed to engage in sexual intercourse. The fight started. I was a whore, (okuli hule lokhu) he scolded me, humiliating me at the same time. I did not know where all that came from because I was not a whore, that accusation piqued me and reduced a lot in me so much. When we started sleeping together, I was a virgin and he knew that.
I was beaten often when my poor baby slept in the bed. I worried about her safety in this room. The mother came in to quell the fights and they stopped for once. It was sex again almost every day! I was not used to this life as I was a girl, still growing up. The periods just stopped and I did not know what to do. My God, did that mean I was pregnant again? I asked the mother and she confirmed this, that it is possible. Pregnant again with this man who is openly hostile to me, how is it possible? The sexual intercourse I have with him since I came to live with him was forced and not consensual. The sexual intercourse I hardly consented, he wanted it and he got it sometimes he just jumped on me and it was sex, he jumped on me because he did not want me to be part of the sexual union anyhow.
As luck would have it, we were told to leave the lodging because they could not allow four people staying in one room, it was getting crowded. We looked for a place to stay at Mzilikazi and found it in time. Although we rented the home it was big enough even to let one room to assist with the rentals and it worked well. We occupied the three rooms and the second bedroom was let to the lodger. I had space for myself and the children. I was now a full time housewife. But I realized I had nothing to offer in my marriage apart from looking after the children who were then going to be two. I thought perhaps my relationship with my husband would get better since our social status had elevated.
He was getting better paid and indeed a family man in the sense of the word. It did not help at all, but instead it got worse. My hubby stopped working at the industries and was now a salesman at Nyore-Nyore Zimbabwe Furnishers, 34 3rd Avenue Bulawayo. I was always in contact with the mother whom we lived with at her home in Luveve. I would tell her about my marriage that was getting worse by the day and she understood that very well as she was aware of the difficulties of my "marriage." I told her that it appeared as if he had girlfriends in town where he worked. He would come home late and drunk. I would be beaten although my stomach was big, heavily pregnant.
The surrogate mother was nice, she listened and she was aware of my predicament. She told me to send the message when the time to deliver was near. I went to visit her and told her I expected the baby to come. She came again to stay at our home, a duty that was supposed to be done by my mother, here was a woman I was not related to who was just there for me realizing how desperate the situation was. My estranged husband was not comfortable with the surrogate mother at all but he could not say anything as she assisted in many issues regarding our relationship and he regarded her as a mother too. She knew that she was supposed to know. The fights, the sheer lack of resources, we had very little money all these facts, our surrogate mother knew them and she was the one who came in and comforted, and told us never to fight. My husband was not prepared for marriage or staying with a woman and becoming a father. It was too much for him, he was also young, 23 years old, it strained the relationship adversely.
I gave birth at the Mpilo hospital with the assistance of the surrogate mum from Luveve, who went with me to the hospital at the same time taking care of my daughter. She was there again to make sure I adjust to the new life of two babies, a home and a "cold" husband. My first baby girl was 11 months old and I had a new baby on my lap, this time the baby boy called Xolisani, which means, please forgive me, a direct reference to my parents again. After two weeks she left me to manage alone. I was grateful. I remember giving her the present of a maternity dress, she was very grateful and she felt honored by this gift. I was grateful too for the assistance I got from her. Because there was more money now to spend at home, my hubby was getting more money than before, I did my nursery shopping and I felt a lot better than the first time I had a baby. The idea of visiting my parents came into my mind. I asked my estranged hubby if I could go and see my parents. He agreed. I had a beautiful dress on, my kids were all well looked after, they really looked pretty in my eyes. I had intended to go there and spend the whole day at Njube, my father's home where I was brought up since birth.
It was the delivery truck from Nyore-Nyore that assisted in getting me home with two babies when everyone was still having breakfast on a Saturday morning. My mother was happy to see the grandchildren and she cried when she saw me. It was not the case with my father, I needed to search for him on his face and find him. I did not need to ask for more than the gesture I had already done. There was no mystery in me. My father was visibly still very angry with me. I gave up inwardly, I had seen the limit of what life was like at tender age without them on my side. Could it have been the names I gave my kids that provoked thoughts? My hubby came to collect me in the evening. There was no mention or questions on, how are you at your new dispensation? I felt I was got rid of and they forgot and they continued with life as if I was not their child, the only girl in the family. When I left them I knew I was on my own with all my problems I had in my "marriage" if at all it was a marriage.
I had my own social network in Mzilikazi where I lived. We were a group of seven young women who had found themselves early in marriage for whatever reason. That network sustained me as we would meet, all young mothers, without our hubbies, who where a problem to us, we relieved our ennui by gossiping them. I learnt a lot about herbs that one used to improve libido in men, "salt" or "itshwayi" we called it. We would make porridge and put herbs and eat to improve our health generally after birth. We shared all secrets of married lives. We also knew which husband was demanding too much, (de a de) who were exceptionally good and what is exceptionally good. Which one was incapable of it all, men that just "urinated" (baphongu cema nje) and nothing beyond that?
I was told how family planning works, get some contraceptive tablets at the clinic to avoid another imminent pregnancy. I was also taught that if a man is unfaithful you needed to give him some herbs, herbs that would make him "stay soft" and come home instead of going to other women outside there. I was told which n'anga (or some aunt who had full knowledge of good bedroom herbal practices) I was tickled and exited, I was happy at last I had a solution to my problems in the home. Ever since I stayed with this man, he had never shown interest in me. His love for me died the day I told him I was pregnant the first time. I and my children were a burden and a liability to him.
He never intended that life we were forced into, that life that we both had to live together by my pregnancy. This was the time for me to cure this. The heavy handedness of parents' punishment made me drift in the abyss. I had money to pay the "aunt" whatever she charged. It was Friday a weekday. Funny, I did not tell my friends in the social network. When my hubby was at work, I left my kids with my neighbor and I went to Makhokhoba and squatted for my turn to come just like all other clients. My time came and I went in very confidently. I told her about my hubby who has never loved me since we stayed together, that he has other women outside, that he just jumps into me and after that he complains that my "grandmother" is big and watery, I am not nice in bed and that is reason why he has another woman who satisfies him better than me sexually. "That is easy for me to cure my dear, in no time your hubby would be clinging on you and he won't see any other woman, he will come home straight after work.
He will never beat you again. He will bring all the money from his pay home for you, he will actually surrender his pay slip to you! We can bet now if you want. If I do not manage this, you get $100 from me, cash, my dear. Do not tell your friends you came to me. I do not like that. I want us to work together in this and it must be discreet. I have done it several times and with good success." She said this with great confidence. I could not believe it, I could not believe my luck. She told me to bring her the following items, a white chicken still alive, a new blanket and some special water. The day after my hubby has sexual intercourse, early in the morning I should go and bath my "grandmother" and that water, that water with his semen from the previous intercourse, I should collect that water and put it into the bottle and bring it to her.
She would prepare the concoction for me to give it to my hubby to eat. I told her that she should give me three days, I was going to come again the following Monday and never at weekends. I had sex with my husband, as usual, a forced sexual intercourse. It was the second shift, sex at 4 in the morning that was going to keep the semen in me, the juice I wanted to collect to give my "herb aunt" that I managed to keep in my body never to wake up unnecessarily otherwise it would flow off and I have nothing to give. Immediately after the second shift, I decided to go to the toilet to bath just my bottom part, I sat on the toilet chamber and I recognized the flow of semen that I captured with a jar and then I washed my grandmother completely and I put all the water I needed into the bottle.
I was there on a Monday with all the ingredients she requested. I did not stay much longer that day, I just presented the ingredients and left to come the next day. When I arrived, I was breathing heavily. I had this premonition that it was not right what I was doing but I went on with it. I was told all the instructions. Firstly she gave me the "salts", different kinds of salts some of which I needed to eat, make porridge and eat. It assists in the wellbeing of a woman, especially young women of our age with active sexual lives. Then came the inevitable, she gave me the concoction that I was to give to my husband to eat so that he "stays soft." I was to administer it the whole month until I noticed some improvements in his behavior.
I should then come again and tell her or have some more of it, if there are any improvements. There was some medication to put under the bed at the pillow where he sleeps and when I clean the home, I was to clean it by putting some other herbs again so that the whole home is just complete with the herbs. I was excited, and I went home unable to comprehend my happiness. I did not even think twice if at all it could have health aspect. I have never been told that such medications had health problems, serious aspects, on the contrary all was saying and suggesting that it was the right thing to do and I did it without scruple. I needed a "stay soft" husband at home.
Source - Nomazulu Thata
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