admin
headache and the nurse decided to bandage his toe! Feeling untreated, cheated and intoxicated with anger, the villager returned in the stealth of night and set both the clinic and the nurse’s house ablaze.
He became the infamous village idiot, whose activities were akin to fouling the communal well from where everyone drinks. The story is told again and again in churches, at social gatherings and beer drinking binges but the full import of this statement is that, we often annoy people by prescribing wrong solutions to their problems and in their anger they commit more serious crimes.
In the village, especially in the land of milk honey and dust and indeed elsewhere in Zimbabwe, trollops or courtesans are never revered. Their presence invites condemnation and derision, for in the eyes of the judgmental society, their activities are evil and fetid, albeit having been sired as the world’s oldest profession.
At independence in 1980, on the western end of the Guruve centre, a swathe of land overlooking the Dande River, behind the Grain Marketing Board Depot, was an epicentre of evil. Villagers befittingly called it “Musakanene” a Nyanja word this villager understood to mean don’t say what you have seen.
The bizarre and unthinkable happened in those tiny huts, that from a distance one would think no human being would fit inside. The foul-looking settlement of grass thatched mud-and-pole huts, was host to numerous prostitutes, so numerous that this villager being no good mathematician, could count his fingers repeatedly until he lost count.
Short, tall, slim and plump, union-shaped: light, dark and chocolate cream: blonde, even, they were all there and guess what? – this is the place where this villager first saw at full view of a Merc, for it was a spectacle to see such a car in the village.
Like a sleek cobra, the black car slithered through the dirty roads to Kachuta communal lands, before turning into Musakanene and parked almost leaning on the mud-and-pole wall. What a spectacle! That was the attraction of a senior pimp called Mai Penjeni.
But again, you see, in the village they say an owl does not fly during the day for nothing, when you see it flying something is after its life. So powerful was Mai Penjeni’s brand that a client parked a Mercedes Benz in the shanty settlement for a few minutes, for her services.
As this villager entered the apprenticeship as a wordsmith, his early stories forced policy change and through then district administrator and the now late Michael Mukuchura, the settlement was demolished.
The clients cried foul. Some of the harlots were taken to Arda estates in Dande and Muzarabani for farming but they were soon to run back and find accommodation among others. One by one they came back and the night drinking post were awash with them. “Chawagona hapana!” was the comment.
But the full import of this installment is that unlike in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve if you like, the land of gold and prostitution Shurugwi, has its own story. Different in context, different in stature and different in texture – different!
Several years ago, in the land of prostitution, gold, rugged terrain, snaking roads and mole-like mining activities, previously corrupted to Selukwe by colonial Rhodesia, tramps had become a menace.
With the bowels of the mountain excreting precious gold and illegal miners feasting on the excreta of the mountain like stalking green bombers, life was sleek, fast and astounding. After working like moles in dangerous pits, the young men, call them makorokoza if you like, needed therapy for their overworked spines and indeed found night nurses in the bars and night clubs. The night nurses, even paraded in streets and cashing on the thriving gold black market and the boys paid good cash too, for the services rendered.
The call girls swarmed the town from Chivi, Mapanzure, Lower Gweru, Maranda and Chirimuhanzu and so on. However, as fate would have it, the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources Management and apparently the legislator of the area Francis Nhema, decided enough was enough for the moles. Police, the army and environmental management organisations descended on Shurugwi and fought running battles with the illegal panners until they surrendered, but not without putting up a fight.
That spelled disaster for the harlots as, the cash cow had been murdered. Sleep was murdered too. Hunger stalked the harlots, they drastically reduced their prices to almost nothing, competing for the few clients left.
Twelve moons ago a harlot was taken to a mountainside by a prospective customer whom she had charged a dollar. Yes, a dollar, dear reader! After the services, the client decided otherwise and refused to pay. She was murdered for demanding the dollar and the incident shook the small town.
At about the same time, this villager was invited by Minister Nhema to attend a community outreach programme, which he gracefully accepted for, in the village, they say travelling is a harbinger of new things.
In one of the meetings, Nhema, himself of the lion totem was briefed about the death of the prostitute and the plight of several others in the town who faced starvation. This villager trusts very few politicians, for he has seen many things in his long career as a wordsmith.
This villager remembers one politician telling his folk that he would build a bridge where there is no river. When reminded that there was no river, the politician quickly said he would dig the river because the bridge still had to be built.
But back to the land of gold and prostitution, Nhema, held a meeting with all the harlots in the town in the presence of this villager and asked each of them of their educational and vocational qualifications and needs. It sounded quite a movie yet it was reality. This villager must admit that some of the women were beautiful and attractive, defying the logic of their prostitution. Nearly all of them were smiling, clean and sober.
They wanted a fresh start of their lives instead of selling their bodies for cash. What came out clear is that they were tired of this dangerous business and wanted to change their lives and wished Nhema could do something. It was discovered that at least 45 of them had good educational qualifications and were employable or at least could advance their studies. The Minister like his counterpart promised to build a bridge where there is no river, promised each of them a place at college or funding for projects or funding for ordinary and advanced level for those who had the potential to proceed with their studies.
This villager said he would make a follow up and shame the Minister. Last week, this villager travelled back to the land of gold and prostitution and hey, Francis Nhema is quite something else. Fifteen of those ladies are now in university, at least 14 others are now fish vendors, 10 are in training colleges and there are several others who have abandoned the oldest profession and are writing their A and O levels, courtesy of Minister Nhema.
The Minister showed his predatory instincts for development and unlike those from the party of Sexcellence, who call prostitutes pleasure managers, Nhema not only condemned prostitution, but prescribed solutions. This villager was and is still thinks if many Ministers in our government were smooth operators, visionaries and committed to development of the people in their constituencies and portfolios as what has been shown by Nhema, this country would be a heaven.
It is not easy to identify a problem and prescribe the right medication for problem, because like what happened in the land of milk, honey and dust, someone bandaged a toe when someone had a terrible headache.
The women in Shurugwi told this villager that they highly regard Nhema, for his honesty, dedication and commitment to developing people in his constituency.
The village soothsayer, that ageless fountain of wisdom and knowledge, says every person must promise what he can do and do what he can.
“A man who swallows a mango seed, surely knows that he has a big opening, for, within hours the seed would demand its exit.”
It is not easy to promise someone who is so desperate to change lifestyle and then fail to deliver but is very sweet to promise and deliver. This villager insists that what Minister Nhema did on single-handedly should be emulated by many Government ministers, for who would go back to prostitution after going through university and still blame her circumstances.
We should pay tribute to Francis Nhema, for setting the ball rolling. Let us envy him. Those who shunned the meeting will leave to rue the day they absconded.
Online Reporter