Penga udzoke – Zimbabwean men’s carte blanche and the gateway to HIV/AIDS

Penga udzoke is a shona concept that literally translated says go wild and come

Penga udzoke neHIV (go wild and come back with HIV)

back. What it means and how it comes into play is in relationships where the male partner has gone astray and the female patiently waits for him to finish up and renew his interest in her and their relationship.

 

In a society that has the highest literacy rate inAfrica, it absolutely boggles my mind how women that can read and understand information in English, Shona and Ndebele, and are bombarded by campaigns from HIV/AIDS activists can go ahead and be so reckless with their lives, their health. I’m talking about Zimbabwean women who are very much aware that their partners are dipping into other women’s crusty honey pots and bringing that crusty nastiness home. These are women who take pride in that their men will always come home no matter who they’re messing with. These are women who think the emotional abuse that replaces their partner’s love is part of their lot as a woman. They think they’re being virtuous, exercising patience on a man that puts their lives at risk. Some even believe they will not contract any disease the husband comes home with. One woman asked me a question she felt was valid, ‘How do you ask your husband to use a condom? It’s unheard of, God will protect me’. I was floored, really?

 

Did anyone explain what a misogynist is to these women? It is someone that hates females, in my opinion, any man that uses women for his own sexual gratification with no regard for the ‘butterfly effect’ it has, hates women. Did anyone not teach these women to discern and allow actions to speak for themselves? Surely a rapist is demonstrating his hatred for the woman by doing to her what he pleases with no regard to her feelings, dignity or well being, what’s the difference? You’d think they were cursed; penga udzoke my foot. If you’re the type of woman that absolutely thinks she needs a man, there are plenty of good men that are looking for good women. What I find sad though is that some of these women are mothers. Your children need you strong and healthy and they need to be your priority, not a man that has more love for his pipi than he does for his family.

 

This tendency of women relying heavily on men for economic reasons smacks

I'm closing the penga udzoke gateway, I'm protecting my family from HIV/AIDS

of lethargy and is distasteful. It makes you a victim because you’re consistently at the mercy of someone that has no regard for you. As a woman if you empower yourself, then it’s easier for you to say no to HIV. If husband feels he needs STDs and HIV, by all means let him go ahead, in most cases there’s nothing you can do to stop him, but you as a woman, as a nurturer, as a guardian angel for your babies, it’s the time for you to get your guard up, get your sword out and protect the sanctity of your total wellbeing and that of your children.

 

When God cursed the woman in Genesis (Genesis 3v16) and said her desire shall be for her husband, he also made provision through Jesus who redeemed us by taking that curse (Galatians 3v13). The excuse that it is in women’s nature to put up with that sort of abuse does not hold water and is a failure to engage the empowerment Jesus gave us. How do you allow another person to shit on your bed and wipe himself on your crisp white sheets? Worse for him to eat someone else’s shit and come vomit it on your bed and you lap it up with your eyes open and a smile on your face. Sies man ladies, it’s not cute to have a man for show and we see you deteriorate because you refuse to remove the ring that’s laced with disease. Penga udzoke is a gateway for HIV/AIDS, you’re crazy to expect a man not to take advantage when you’ve given him carte blanche. Vuka! Muka! Wake up!

 

The oldest joke in Zimbabwe, but who’s really laughing?

Tribalism, if you’ve lived inZimbabweis the currency of choice. You’ve heard

What's the inevitable end of tribal hatred?

the jokes, the name calling; the Shona are hyenas and the Ndebele misguided loose canons and so forth. The tribal battle lines were drawn the day amaNdebele moved North of theLimpopoand settled with their Shona brothers. Time has cemented the hatred between these two groups. The question of genocide came up on another platform recently and I began to wonder; the Gukurahundi was an attempt by the Shona to wipe out the Ndebele people, of which no apology has been forthcoming, isZimbabweheaded for a tribal war? What is the climax of this hatred?

 

There’s a constant comparison within the country’s borders of what is given to whom and to what tribe they belong. We’ve heard the stories of entry into Universities, approval of loans and such being given on the basis of surnames. If you posess a Ndebele surname like Khumalo, you’re likely to get rejected but if you posess a Shona surname you’ve got the winning hand. This climate has gone on so long that the jokes have gone rancid, they don’t cover the inequalities, and they are not funny anymore. The skies are heavy with clouds that promise thunder storms, the hungry are tired of watching their counterparts throwing fat into the fire, they want to eat.

 

What about the children? One writer spoke about the mixed seed ofZimbabwe; children born of parents from both tribes. What happens to them when the bomb explodes? Are they Shona? Are they Ndebele? Do we hand down the hatred handed down to us? Can we quell the hatred? Or has it taken on a life of its own. Is a tribal war the inevitable climax of this decades old joke; that the Shona and the Ndebele hate each other?

 

How do you get a nation of lifelong enemies to put aside their scruples, shake hands and co exist peacefully? The jokes keep on being told, but who’s really laughing?

Where does the Ndebele child call home?

Am I paying for your sins wena Mzilikazi who stole from your cousin Shaka, condemned to keep running to places where I don’t belong because ulecala ekhaya ( you have committed a crime back home). Yilifa bani (what heritage is it) that wherever I call home, I am informed it is not home.

 

I say I am a child ofZimbabwe, a proud product of the House of Stone, the Matopo Hills are in my backyard – and they say no, you do not belong here, you took our land, we want it back. All sorts of oppression making it difficult to squeeze a drop of water from the morning dew. I till the soil till blisters form blisters and my body can produce sweat no more, and still the land yields nothing. You do not belong here it whispers in the dust that it offers me to breath, go home.

 

So I took to the road and retraced your paths Lobengula, to the other side of theLimpopoand I breathed air that promised me fresh rain. I said, yes, I have come home, I feel it in my blood, I have come home. But they did not recognise me in the place where the mountains drink from the cool offerings of valleys, where milk flows and stirs in the honey fallen from the feet of bees that taste succulent buds before they blossom into drops of golden apples, sweet smelling pears and wine bearing grapes that intoxicate. My brother’s blood was spilt so that it could be used to write me an eviction notice that read: you do not belong here, go home.

 

Go home, they all say, but I thought this was home, where is home? Did you give up our home to explore a game that we barely understand? So that we are second rate citizens in other people’s land? We’re trying to follow instincts in languages that don’t quite express the bareness we feel, languages that don’t allow us to ask for directions and receive answers that we understand or maps that we can navigate. Spoken words are always followed by whispers that are hard to decipher because the smiles that prelude the pains in our backs from all the faceless knives twisting make it hard to understand what a smile is? Make it hard to understand what belonging is? When they give they take, exploiting our quest excited by our homelessness. Borders have left us on the border. No one can answer the real question I ask in words that are not undermined by their actions.

 

Where does the Ndebele child call home?

 

 

The man with the smile

It was sublime

Like vapour turns to solid

This man became my eyelid

I was blind

 

He was still a boy, I was still a girl when it all began. I laid eyes on him and from nothing, an intense desire stirred. It was like the sun warmed up just for me when I saw him, when I heard him. It was insanity, madness, chaos, I was possessed. I did not know his name, but none of that mattered, I was enamoured. Poor girl, poor me, naïve, how was I to tell him? How was I to get his attention? How was I to orchestrate the grandest love affair? Oh my, like a soldier to the battle, I strapped my heart under my sleeve, hidden enough away from strangers but uncovered enough for him to see, for him to feel, for him to take – if he wanted it.

 

It was juvenile

My style

How would I beguile

The boy with the smile

 

Did I mention his smile? Goodness me, it still gives me the shivers. He was

Art by Ronald Muchatuta, more of his work and contact details on his facebook page

sweet when the first spear tore through my sleeve; he kept it hidden from prying eyes. ‘I’m sorry’, he said, ‘I think you’re cool but not for me’. Argh, poor girl, but did that stop me? No, I was in love, it was relentless, tentacles stopping the blood from completely spilling out of my poor heart, long enough for me to try again, to get hurt again. Oh I tried, I’d stop speaking to him but I’d think about him, all the time, it didn’t work. I hooked up with other guys but my heart stayed with the boy with the smile, who would become the man with the smile. I watched him fall in love, and my heart’s wounds bled. Why not me? I’m sure he thought about it, I’m sure he tried, but he just could not reciprocate, he just could not love me. He just can not love me.

 

It was sublime

Like solid turns to vapour

Like clouds condensing for the sun

I opened my eyes

 

Wow, was that me? I would have done anything for the man with the smile. Nothing surrounding him mattered, only he mattered. For so long? I loved him for so long? I mean I love him still, I still catch flashbacks when he calls, I catch whispers of amour when I think about him, but something’s changed. I’ve accepted that he will never love me; I’ve accepted that my love was never enough, in its intensity, in its concentration, maybe it was too much? But I’ve stopped asking those questions, I’ve finally let go of the man with the smile. How it happened I don’t know, all I know is it disappeared as suddenly as it appeared. The greatest love song is being sung, just not for me and the man with the smile.

Love…after all

I just read an article from the new web portal Her Zimbabwe, a story told by

Big up Carl!

Carl Joshua Ncube, a Zimbabwean comedian, about his life and experiences. What struck me most was his passion, passion for life and mostly passion for his fiancée. I started taking stock of all the people I know in my life, and one thing was clear, those that had, like our protagonist Carl, been through hard times, knew how to love in a way that would take anyone’s breath away.

The kind of love that covers a multitude of sins, that understands that life sometimes offers us the between a rock and a hard place type of choices. The kind of love that truly bares all and embraces all, that understands that the combined dynamic of the two together is enough to overcome the coldest night spent on a morsel of bread and water. The kind of love that judges not but seeks to understand and repair, which understands that life can take a shot at you and leave you in tatters and it’s not your fault. The kind of love that believes it can because we are, that will love deeply truly and purely. The kind of love that understands that life is about love and not the material things that are supposed to help us love.

This dude bares his soul in a tell all that is so sexy you could fall in love with him. The reason you’d want to fall in love with him is because you know his story, the real story. That’s what most of us lack in our relationships, that honest to goodness conversation about who we are. We’ve grown frightened about being judged, about being rejected that we choose to forget an important part about who we are. Deep cries out to deep and I believe that for every tear there’s a thread, for every wound there’s a balm and for every past there’s a future. Carl says of his fiancée Nelsy, ‘We were in the ‘friends’ zone’ because I thought that Nelsy was too switched on to be my girlfriend!’, how many ladies can relate to that, it would be interesting to hear Madame Nelsy’s version of how their love affair began.

As Jennifer Hudson sings; I, I, I, I been through some things please don’t hold that against me, can’t nobody love you like I’m gonna love you.

 

Well done Carl, for all you’ve been through, being true and having the courage to play on in this game called life. I’m truly inspired by your story.

Rape – society’s lack of accountability

when you're done raping, look yourself in the mirror - you're ugly

A father rapes his own children in the supposed comfort of their home and no one says anything. A husband rapes his wife and no one says anything. Then there’s the uncle that takes advantage of anything in a skirt, and shockingly yesterday I read an article about primary school boys raping their fellow classmate. This isn’t even the tip of the iceberg where rape is concerned, it no longer shocks, infact rape has become a fetish ‘innocently’ played out in the bedroom and destructively on the street on unsuspecting participants. Are men refusing to be accountable for their sexual desires or has society relinquished its role of holding them accountable? Do we only remember that rape is violent abuse during the 16 days of activism against violence and abuse to women and children and then go back to blissfully ignoring the cries of our sisters when they say, ‘your husband has raped me’, ‘our father has raped me’, ‘the pastor has taken advantage of me’, because listening would disturb the peace? Women are not animals, men aren’t any different; animals don’t know how to control their impulses but we can.

 

 

Tears evaporate in the thick heat of today’s moral and ethical relativism, and go unseen and therefore uncried and the pain of rape is rationalised in the victim’s mind, so that instead of crying foul, a woman silently teaches herself to be a survivor. Ever noticed the thick shell survivors adapt? Take a look at the women around you and take notice. Men forever condemn the independent woman, the unapproachable woman, but they forget that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, they created her, a woman who is able to self sustain and protect herself from the abuse that isn’t taken seriously and is suffered only by her. The worst part is some women have even started raping men, as revenge, guess who created them? Abuse begets abuse.

 

Let’s revisit accountability. I personally wouldn’t judge a man that paid a prostitute to gratify his sexual desires instead of forcing himself on an unwilling woman or child. At least the only person he’ll be hurting is himself and he’ll have to find ways to self control if he so desires and if he then finds his habit distasteful and destructive to his life. As long as the prostitute has not been forced into prostitution by another human being but makes herself available by herself for whatever reason. Society needs to take decisive action against rape, let’s not keep it private. If your husband rapes your sister, he must be accountable and face the consequences. Eventually (hopefully), the realisation of exposure for his crime will stop it before it happens, and no one can arrest him if he instead gratifies himself, to the fantasies he has no right acting out, in the privacy of a locked toilet door.

 

If you don’t want your mother raped, don’t rape anyone, including your wife. No means no, it’s not a prelude to sexual deviances. Tears are not meant to arouse you to anything but compassion. Be accountable for everything that you do to everyone that you do it with and whoever else is concerned about them, it will save you a lot of embarrassing secrets and confessions.

 

SAY NO TO RAPE AND STOP THE ABUSE!

God bless all the men that have never sexually abused a woman.

On Relationships

So I’ve found my voice after it got lost in the conflict between loving and

Loving relationships are beautiful

relating to another human being. Crazy stuff happens in this life but being in a relationship has to be the craziest of all. Especially if you’re constantly redefining boundaries, redefining your own existence outside the box while trying to maintain the illusion of security that being in the box gives.

 

The one thing that constantly astounds me is the deep denial most of us seem to have about our very human nature and fallible characters when it comes to extending or receiving love from another. Our expectations lend themselves to deluded like obsessions when they’re not met. Take for example the girlfriend that can’t seem to stop herself from snooping around her man’s stuff just so she can catch him cheating on her, and then what? My theory is this, if you’re not accepting of the eventuality that either of you aren’t perfect or your suspicions are making you miserable; give yourself license to walk away. You’re no longer relating, you’re waging a war. Suspicion comes when you’re nervous about the character of the person you’ve chosen to engage with, and nervousness as in an exam, comes about because of failure to do enough studying, researching or testing this person before you took them on. So now you’re sitting with the expectation of fidelity but you have no idea if your partner’s capable of fidelity, or if his definition of fidelity is compatible to yours. Its one thing when you converse to both agree that you don’t cheat whilst in your mind cheating includes flirtatious behaviour and in his cheating involves only the actual act of coitus.

 

The worst is when one partner, usually the male, chooses to assert his

Simply put, this is ugly

expectations by violating the other person into submission. For me a scenario that involves violence completely negates the premise of love. I mean seriously if our expectations are that incompatible that you have to force me to do what you want by physically pushing me around or beating me silly, then clearly we’ve nothing to talk about. Literally, if fists have to do the communicating, we’ve failed to come to a compromise, we’ve failed to relate to one another on the level expected for a healthy relationship to be possible; you’ll watch me walk away, with my own permission. Relationships fail; let it go instead of living a lie. It doesn’t mean you don’t love that person, it just means you’ve failed to relate to each other’s worlds, it happens, to some more often than not. Rather you give yourself that license to walk away than to be taken away in a coffin because you misunderstood relationship.

 

I have the greatest respect for Christians that follow the letter to the T and are blessed to find a partner with exactly the same values, expectations etc because they’re living and learning from the same book.

 

\’My mama said baby be careful, if anybody come to say I love you\’ – Asa

 

Love is beautiful, it constantly expands itself and challenges those that have found it. Perfect love casts out fear, perfect love is God exemplified. Love means different things to different people, so before you get into a relationship with someone, be sure that your relating will keep the loving insatiable and flowing.‘

Follow him

Grace

He needs you right now

Follow him

Into the depths that he has laid his bed

The enemy has closed in

Fly on the wings of mercy

Lead him safely back

Wisdom from the grave

I see you, I watch you and I cry. You think your story’s different, you

'I didn't mean to end up here'

think you know what you’re doing, but it’s not and you don’t. There’s nothing new under the sun and I want you to listen carefully my sister, to the millions of lives that all began just like yours and ended prematurely in the graveyard, where we all gather and pray for you. Pray that you’re braver than us, pray that you’re stronger than us, pray that the shame does not dogmatise you and lead you to us. One by one I pray that you’ll hear our voices, it’s a million songs telling the same story.

He was so kind and gentle

Loved me to submission

Yes I became his own

To have and to hold and to cherish

His love was real

His love was mine

Oh woman ofAfrica, salt that seasons the continent, test all things child, in this even the Lord believes. Do you not know that the devil is patient, whatever you want he can give you, however long it will take him he will wait for you. Test this love that holds you captive because once it has you, you may never be free.

He wont do it again I confided

He was just really angry

I shouldn’t have done that I reasoned

He was really quite drunk

His love is real

His love is mine

O rock that is supposed to be woman, the chink he’s left on you is only the beginning. He won’t stop until you’re dust, he wont stop until you’re not yourself.

Last night he didn’t come home

When I asked him his fist landed on my jaw

Much worse than before

Should I tell him I’ve got HIV?

My love was real

My love was his only

So now dead you await the angel of mercy to take you home. Miserable

'rise beautiful woman, be strength, be love, fight to remain soft and sweet, guard your heart, guard your life'

because you should have known better, no because you knew better, all those nights spent away from home, where did you think he was? Wakusulela ingculaza (he’s given you AIDS), where to from here then?

For hours he kicked my stomach

In an attempt to abort the child in my belly

You see he had found someone else

It’d have been to kind to let me go

This was his love for me

This love was all mine

You want to be careful with whom you locked yourself in for the night with. Read the paper and you’ll know all the different variations of abuse that leads to the grave. A cut face, a boiled head, a burnt body, a belly cut out. Out of the heart flow matters of life, if he has sucked the life out of your heart through verbal abuse, emotional abuse and isolation, when the physical abuse comes into play, you’re no wiser or braver and you embrace it as you embrace your own grave.

I see you, I watch you and I cry. You think your story’s different, its not.

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs239/en/

http://www.now.org/issues/violence/

http://www.wadv.org/wadv1.htm

http://www.powa.co.za/

As I saw it

I heard the betrayal in your voice and my heart cried with you. I felt the rejection that you experienced and I embraced you to

let's find the missing link to your wholeness

myself. Yes, life can be cruel and people even more so. Yes, people will take from you if you let them, and as I saw it, you let them.

When a fish falls in water, it is not lost, and you my dear are not lost. Learn to swim towards fresher water, the longer you linger here, the more you’ll marinate in the stagnant water and become stagnant, come away with me. I can show you a better place.

You told me you can’t move, the pain runs too deep. People are watching you, they are pointing at you. I saw the confusion in your eyes as you sought for answers in mine and I understood. The world is full of spectators, if they’re already watching your show, please don’t let this be your ending, let it be your beginning. Let them watch you rise more glorious than you fell.

As I saw it, you were focused on where you fell instead of where you slipped. I purposed in my heart to pray for you. Nothing is new under the sun, if you tripped, so have many before you. Rise and ride on your tomorrow, the past can not hear us, but the future is listening. Walk into it with confidence and see how easily everything falls away.

As I saw it, it was not really about what had happened to you, but about the confidence you lacked in yourself. Goodnight, it’s time to rest, tomorrow we will begin to build you up.

-excerpt from a continuation of my series; woman thou art loosed/ crossroads