admindoing to survive the prevailing harsh economic tide. They are bearing children for Jimmy, Jairos, Michael, Moses, Leonard and Hardson as if they were machines!
That children’s totems must not exceed one in a normal household no longer matters in today’s world, I am told. Soko, Moyo, Shava, Gumbo and Sinyoro can share a mother and conduct rituals collectively without any harm.
Ingoma varume. Unototamba yaridzwa!
In this era of HIV/Aids the move is just unthinkable, but people are doing it. Hunger at times forces people to think with their tummies.
Ko kutyei kugara beya serinorwadza?
A visit to the Civil Court in Harare will show you just how evil some people have become in their quest to wring cash from equally struggling souls across the country. There are women who are sustaining themselves through maintenance payouts. And they do not go for the pombiyadonha type of gentlemen.
They go for sellers of purple goods in the Biblical sense with deeper pockets. A typical case is that of a certain woman, whom Ghetto Blast will not name here for fear of reprisals, who is getting cash for the upkeep of four children she bore with five different men.
Yes, five men because the other child is being maintained by two fathers who thought they had done well by reaching an out-of-court settlement with the mother.
“That’s life my brother. Why should I suffer when my children have their own fathers? Men should pay for their crimes and there is nothing wrong with that. Anongonditamba isingaite anongopedzerana nemapurisa,” the woman told this writer straight in the face.
And she was not lying.
Usambonyara kusekwa,
Iwe uchishandira mhuri yako, ichidya ichiguta,
Usambonyara basa raunoita,
Iro richikupa chekubata kuti udye uchiguta, sang Patrick Mukwamba and the Mighty Four Brothers in a song that implored people to be proud of whatever they do
for a living.
But if people are now bearing children as a moneymaking enterprise, it becomes something else.
The moment a man defaults on maintenance, he is arrested and will only taste his freedom on payment of the sum owed in full. While this is done to ensure the child
is not deprived of the right to food, shelter and education, the law is now being abused by those with ulterior motives.
Is there surely no way the courts can set a limit on the number of men a single woman can claim maintenance from? Gentle reader, as long as that is not done men will forever stay in the veduwee-veduwee mode.
Men need to be protected because this abuse should not go on unabated. So given to having cash in their pockets have some people become that they have converted their homes into lodges.
People craving for a quickie just pay a certain amount and they can have the house to themselves.
Whatever impact this will have on the children is considered business for another chapter.
And not all people who book into lodges come with partners. Only God knows whether the mother or father of the house and their unemployed children will not end
up entertaining the guests.
It’s hard to believe, but this is happening in the Ghetto. Mbare, Highfield, Mufakose, Glen Norah, DZ, Kuwadzana and Kambuzuma have such houses that have been converted into lodges.
Some people, desperate to make money, are also conscripting unmarried girls to work as guest entertainers at their shebeens. And this is happening close to a police station in the capital. Mahwani ega-ega. And the case is not confined to women who are now making themselves regular customers in maternity wards. There is also a group of men on the prowl.
These men are targeting well-to-do women or children born to parents who straddle on the fertile crescent and wedding them to glean whatever they can during the marriage’s subsistence.
This sort of business might pay for a while, but marrying for the wrong reasons has never led to successful and emotionally rewarding marital unions under the sun. Jobless men are also behaving like headless chickens to survive the prevailing harsh economic tide.
These guys are allowing their spouses to date affluent men whom they then blackmail to put food for their families on the table.
“The way people are living these days is bad. How can a man worth his salt allow his wife to bed another men to mask poverty? What if the wife truly falls for the target and expose the husband?
“What if the guy has Aids? Being prepared to share a woman with someone else is a sign that there is something wrong with your medula oblangata,” James Tarwisa of Highfield, Harare told this writer.
He said poverty and hunger would rather kill him than doing the unthinkable.
“Ukateta nzara worasa unhu unosara wavedhende remunhu. Chakaipa chakaipa chete ngachigare chakarambwa kwemazuva ose.”
Some parents are also reportedly harassing young and promising male adults in their churches.
They reportedly invite these young professionals for lunch and leave them with their ugly daughters of dubious characteristics just to force love between the two parties.
At times they leave the children until late into the night and start accusing men of playing adult games with their daughters and force them to stay together.
“Inga hamunyare nhai mukoma. Tiri vanhu vanonamata tese saka mongoroora zvenyu mwana wangu kuti nyaya yacho ipere,” the say.
Some parents also ask good-looking guys in their neighbourhood to assist their children with their homework and force love to grow between the two parties. If you refuse to marry, they might claim damages.
A good number of parents in poor economic circumstances sometimes allow their daughters to bring their boyfriends for sleepovers at home in exchange for food and rent payments. Tenants are also not spared.
Ukarojera vanhu vakafumuka unorooreswa chana chavo. The life we are living in communities gentle reader has just become laughable.
Some single mothers bring all sorts of boyfriends home and sometimes their children end up covering for the parent after the lovers clash.
Grown up children sometimes allow a man who is not their biological father into the bedroom in exchange for booze or just the promise that he will find you a job one day.
Agreed, the times are hard but let’s live responsibly.
Inotambika mughetto
Online Reporter