tawandamusarurwa
I HAD a long chat, drank beer and roasted meat with a dead man in Glen Norah last weekend.
The “ghost” danced to music, whistled and even proposed love to passers-by while quaffing ice-cold beer.
Unbeknown to the chap, his younger brother had declared him dead many moons ago and collected his “chema” from acquaintances.
We later learnt that the so-called dead man had actually travelled to the Democratic Republic of Congo on business.
This world we live in is full of wicked characters who can do anything, including telling lies to unsuspecting people, to wring cash out of them.
Called “kuvhara”, “kunyudza”, “kuwachisa”, “nyepaz”, “vharom”, “fibs” or “bottled smoke”, the lies are actually their stock-in-trade.
The gullible ones — especially those who just swallow everything hook, line and sinker — are often at the receiving end of these people’s lies.
Did you know that almost 90 percent of excuses given to managers by their subordinates at workplaces are false?
“Boss, I cannot make it to work today because I need to take my younger brother to hospital. He was beaten up by robbers. There is really no one to assist him except myself,” you hear people telling their bosses.
Others will say: “Our rural home was extensively damaged by Cyclone Freddy in Chipinge last Friday and since then, my widowed mother and siblings have been sleeping outside. I need to rush there and figure out how we can recover from the loss.”
Unlucky bosses have been made to authorise loan applications for people who will be lying through their teeth to raise money for booze.
“I am between a rock and a hard place, mukuru. I need cash to repair the roof of my parents’ house because I just cannot leave them sleeping in the open. I know the company is not performing well, but I really need money to ensure the repairs are done promptly,” others would claim.
Women desperately seeking life partners often easily become victims of such men, as they are made to wait on someone who is already married.
“If things go well, I need to come and pay lobola on Heroes’ Day. I am having sleepless nights trying to raise cash so that I can officially stay with you, the love of my life,” I heard a married friend telling his girlfriend.
Some of these women have also had the misfortune of being introduced to naughty elderly women who are bribed to pass off as aunties and close relatives of their not-so-well-meaning boyfriends.
Married women, too, have become accustomed to being lied to.
When men want a visa to spend time away from home, they lie that they will be at work or on night shift, even in circumstances where they will be off-duty.
Some married women are also made to believe that their husbands will be leading a delegation of mourners to the funeral of a workmate’s mother, even when no such thing would have happened.
Job-seekers have not been spared.
Some of them have been made to part with cash in anticipation of employment opportunities that never materialise.
Girls have also sometimes fallen victim to predators who defile them and at times leave them pregnant with the promised job remaining a pie in the sky.
People lie a lot, and the lies sometimes get exposed in an embarrassing fashion.
If there was a way, the world would rather stop lying and commit time people take crafting lies to something productive.
Inotambika mughetto.
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Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter