Mvhana dzeku Diaspora: women-headed-homes or desperadoes!

Dear Ms. Loveness Saurombe,
Dear Sister,

I watched your video or "you tube" on Nehanda Radio with absolute excitement. The topic exited me because of the experiences I had about a Zimbabwean man who wanted to marry a MVHANA from the Diaspora. My situation could be a little different from the debate but all the same it is somehow connected. It is for this reason that I wish to share my own experience about men from Zimbabwe. The problem we have we women of Zimbabwe is the stereotyping that marriage is everything, but marriage is not everything. Our cultures have shifted with globalisation processes that are determined by cash economies in the home first and foremost.  Remember too that one in three of our own mothers have been single mothers who managed to look after their children single-handedly without fathers due to divorce, exile, death, or many other circumstances that saw most mothers on their own in homes, thereby becoming the women-headed persons in the homes and not the male or fathers.

I get this undercurrent from men I have been in contact with that some are not in a position to be providers any more, either by default or by design. But at the same time will want to be the dominant personalities in the home. They want to control even if they do not win that very bread at homes. This is where the problem comes in; this is where the short-changing comes in. You cannot be the boss at home if you are not a provider. Which normal woman will listen to a man who cannot work hard to bring bread and butter at table? You lose respect if you are not providing because the economy is cash? What respect do you get, if you cannot look after your offspring, if you can't look after yourself? How many times have I seen women screaming about looking after "imikhaza" at home that take the comfort of lying in the couch while the woman is eking out a living for all in the household.

Men generally still think that most women are desperate to be in marriage institutions. It can be true but this is not a blanket assumption at all to all women of Zimbabwe. For some of us who saw our mothers struggling to send their children to school without fathers, we do not understand this desperation be married at all cost. Sure there are some women out there who perpetuate this notion that to be respected in our society you have to be a married woman, dangling those wedding- and engagement rings. This is absolute stupid! Again it the married women who instil that to younger generations, to be married is everything. It is for this reason that women just jump into marriage without any due diligence, what am I plunging myself into, is the man good for me and the offspring to come! Diseases too should make women give a second thought in jumping into any marriage at all cost so as to be part of them and be respected. No wonders we fall victims of not so thought through marriage settlements just be counted among the married ones as the tradition dictates.

It is true that some empowered educated women who are not married are successful women in our societies. They live free lives and make free choices. This puts men in an awkward and challenging situation, some men do not want to have an independent free woman as a partner, and they feel threatened. How many times have I turned down marriage settlements coming from Zimbabwe from men I barely know? How many times have I been told by married women I need a man to settle down with at my advanced age? Did I not manage my household alone, sent my child to school until university level, now all of a sudden I am told I need a man to settle down with? That statement is dishonest; it does not serve any purpose to me personally. Those men who are chasing women in the Diaspora are the most desperate men who have no chance of ever managing their personal economies and daily budgets at home. They will them play around with the fact that women, MVHANA in the Diaspora are economically secure yes but still needed a man in the home. One must be daft to believe that.

We women have long past that level of having a man as decorations at homes, doing nothing, which will cheat you with your own money looking for younger girls out there for sex and pleasure, using our money, your money. Some men in Zimbabwe are not even ashamed of asking for money from women. I find this development shameful indeed; such men have no pride in themselves. The big question is if a man can beg for money, where is his self-esteem, self-pride, man-ness, man as provider not a beggar, how low have they stippled to ever ask for money from women in the Diaspora.

Some men are not ashamed of staying at home and the woman is working. Such men will jump to their own defence; equal right!  This is the only time we shall be told about equal rights to men and women! Equal right come in to in defence of his laziness, equal rights are spoken about because the man does not want to work, its comfortable to stay home, constantly holding a remote control, watching telly 24/7, and when he knows the woman is about to knock off from a tiresome shift, he will phone her; please bring goat meat because he is tired of beef! My foot! There are some stupid women who go with it to please them men. Do they wonder if they don't get the love and respect they hope to achieve, literally spoiling, buying love from them in the hope of being loved?

How many times have we heard of women who are so desperate about marriage, they give their partners money to pay lobola because the man is not working. Some men may be working, but still they will not want to marry the woman he is co-habiting with, then the woman gets desperate, offers money to the man to pay lobola/roora to her parents so that she is seen to be in an institution of marriage, my foot! We women are enemies of ourselves, we really have no self-esteem, we do not believe in ourselves at all, we are not proud of our self development. How do you define you completeness by the presence of a man in the home? When we get ill-treated by some men; in most cases, up to 60% the fault lies with the woman who will have persevered so much, so long, taken in humiliations so much, so long, she will be working full-time as bread winner in a relationship in the hope that the man will appreciate, some do not.

There are dangers out there to be wholly careful about us women of Zimbabwe. A divorced man has his own garbage. Ask yourself one question, why did he divorce his woman, a mother of his children. What tricks are going to do to make the marriage work with a failed man and husband? How do you tell him about the diseases out there, is he coming with HIV/AIDS in the union with you, some men will never admit they are sick! HIV/AIDS and many other sexually transmitted diseases, according to some men are diseases passed on by women.

I watched the video on Nehanda Radio by the man who actually started this debate. I am sure that man feels threatened by the independence of his wife. Some men are indeed threatened by the independence of women and it is for this reason, he is appealing to Zimbabwe women to be traditional again, he is appealing to women be obedient to men once more, to offer themselves less than men because this is how we were brought up, to be subservient to men, be silhouetted personalities that were taught to say yes and amen to men, maintain dysfunctional marriage institutions at all cost to prove you are indeed a good woman. The times, they are changing, and women liberation came with women empowerment and it simple means that men will have to define their positions in a fast developing world. Women are not settling for less, respect in not enough, past glories of man dominance at homes are gone days, its old fashioned and stupid. Educated women and empowerment of women means managing your household even if it is single household. We do actually get respect if we show the world we can look after ourselves economically, because we are economically empowered by our societies back home.

Again please women let's not put our lives in danger by this matchmaking business. This tradition is wholly outdated and dangerous. It is like eating game meat with the hope that there is no hepatitis virus in it. We either look for man of our choice and not someone else's choice. Matchmaking is where we women get short-changed seriously. These men that are no longer able to look for a woman on their own, but with the assistance of a relative, are desperadoes or dangerous too. There are rapists and paedophiles out there that can harm your children at home because he is not the father of your children mind you, no emotional connections to him.

Some men are money-oriented than the love they claim to have towards you, so let's be careful women. I was proposed by a man I barely knew well, he stays at home in Zimbabwe, and I am living here in Germany. (Diaspora, Mvhana, women are hot chocolates at home, as they have money!) I later found out that he was co-habiting, there was a woman at his home, but was trying to find out if he can get still woman from the Diaspora who has the resources to put it decently. (Who has money!) How crude can life be. For argument sake if I said yes, what was going to happen to that poor woman who was actually staying with him in his home, washing for him, cooking for him and all those bedroom obligations at night she had to fulfil weather she wanted it that day or not, you get what I mean? (Let that story be for another day) Was he going to tell her to pack and go because he has found a goldmine, some woman, some MVHANA from the Diaspora who has money to spend on this man?

I wonder to this day if the relationship was not meant to be a 3some without the knowledge of the woman he was staying with, and me in the Diaspora. When I protested the whole dishonesty, he turned to me, almost appealing to me to side with him: and in the presence of the woman, "the woman he is staying with is a lunatic," he said. What! The poor woman has become a lunatic because he has been caught red- handed, cheating on both: the poor woman and me. He showed all scruple, in his language and meaning, he could tell this woman to pack and go because she was not well resourced, it's me and the money from the Diaspora he was interested in. Love was zero on both women; the poor woman and me.

The man had poor communication skills despite his wide academic background. I realised he did not want to say much for fear of exposing himself too soon, is telephone conversations lasted 30 seconds. I needed to be caught-up, get entangled in this to-be marriage without having noticed his dark side of him, as man and husband. Again it is those men who do not change a pound note! (Eyami impondo kayitshintshwa) He expected me to phone him instead. "How much money do you get there in Germany as a school teacher, was his question most of the time? Can you send me money! (He did not even ask for it politely because he was going to lower himself to this woman)

When I think about all these lacerations I feel, short of screaming loud. How stupid can one still be, to cultivate such a relationship that was short of respect at human level for good half a year! It was money per se that he was chasing and the good life he was going to enjoy on those free holidays in Germany that he was mostly interested in. How do you nurse such a relationship for so long, a man who has no respect for women, be it me or his partner who is co-habiting with him at home. I do feel that perhaps inherent in me there is some acceptance of my role as less than a man, that I am a woman who has a second rating in regard to a man. I realised later that so many issues did not add up to full total with me, I was indeed domesticated long back in my formidable years, to be loyal and respect and be humble to the man. Consciously I am a feminist but subconsciously I am still that timid, silhouetted long traditionally cultivated woman who should adhere to local culture and traditions.

I will send you al piece of my book I wrote questioning those values and traditions we grew up with and the damage they have done to our lives as liberated women. I hope you will enjoy the piece from the book "No evil shall she fear." Please let me hear from you and thank you for opening up such a wonderful debate. I enjoyed it very much.

Nomazulu Thata
Nomazulu.thata(at)web.de