The Sunday Mail
It looks like this week we are burdened — yet again — with another case of parenting gone wrong.
The whole of last week social media, debates and discussions were seized with the return of Makanaka Wakatama to the limelight. Though some were of the opinion that she has since seen the darkness of her past, and thus deserves a new start, the majority were agreed that her mother was to blame for what befell her. That the mother must take the lot of the flak.
Then as the Makanaka storm was weathering, Sharon Macheso entered onto the scene and took the glare away from Makanaka.
It might be too judgmental to conclude that whatever woes that Sharon and husband Kuda Munetsi are facing today could be a result of Alick Macheso’s parenting skills, or lack thereof, but I am sure time will prove that if, probably if, Macheso had been there for his family, it would not be disintegrating before his eyes like this.
For someone who has such rich Shona lyrics, which means his understanding of the language, the culture and customs of the Shona tribe must be equally rich, I somehow find it disproportionate that his daughter, Sharon that is, has a ring in every conceivable part of the body. It could be a nose ring, a tongue ring, a navel ring — any of those rings which are not an ear-ring — but the corresponding message of any of such rings is deviant behaviour.
I know there are some who will rant and call me backward, primitive, full of prejudices — whatever — but the bottom line (even without the help of those so-called studies) is that the majority of such girls are not of upright bringing. Those rings are a statement of being a rebel and a social message.
I pity young Kuda very much, for how could he stand those rings or ring for a whole nine years. Like a decade?
But rings on whatever part of the body is not exactly my beef with the Macheso household. Well, even tattoos are also part of that household. “If my sister has a nose ring, why can’t I have a tattoo, daddy? After all, a tattoo is just harmless.” Harmless, huh?
Alick Macheso must have stuck with his wife Nyadzisai, nose ring or not. Tattoo or not. The moment Macheso wandered off the comforts of his Chitungwiza bedroom to seek greener pastures, that is when the cracks within his family started opening up.
I might be wrong, but there is no way a daughter will have respect for her father, let alone family life, when she reads day-in and day-out, that her father is sleeping with this and that woman. Macheso’s family life disintegrated the moment the media got onto Tafadzwa (Nyarara) and there has not been any turning back.
And you cannot really blame Tafadzwa, after all she was just another woman who was seeking security of tenure, and possibly services. In any case, how many women would turn down a love proposal from the king of sungura?
So, as Macheso was having the time of his life with Tafadzwa, which media reports also suggested coincided with the turbulent times that rocked his Orchestra Mberikwazvo band, his family was rotting in the background.
They were not exactly wrong when they said there is hardly any smoke without a fire. Whilst Macheso was hitting the headlines with Tafadzwa-this or Tafadzwa-that, Sharon was equally engaged in her own publicity over-drive: Sharon-this, Sharon-that. Up to now, no one knows for sure if she, indeed, had a relationship with the slow-motion dancer. Or if she, indeed, had a relationship with either of the Dembo brothers.
But truth is, they were rumours which seized Harare for quite a bit. And such rumours do not come with a prize. The end result of father and daughter being in the limelight is that the family became somehow obsessed with publicity, bad or good.
A casual glance on the accusations and counter-accusations flying between Sharon and Kuda will show the depths to which the Macheso family has sunk. Honestly, who wouldn’t want a snuff-sniffing girl by his side every morning? Isn’t it all the reason why we pack Book Café every other weekend, to possibly link up with one? Could that be grounds for divorce?
Or should such accusations be brought into the public glare in the first instance? If my wife were to be possessed by some spirit of a grandma gone back in the centuries, then I would be laughing all the way to the nearest bank. My wife already a celebrity, then her being possessed by powers (real or imagined) to see things that mortals don’t, then I will be the happiest husband on Planet Earth.
We would quietly set up our “surgery” somewhere in Harare, leafy or dusty suburb, and spread the word. And the way Harare people love things to do with beliefs and the supernatural, before long our “surgery” would be talk of town!
But not with the way the Macheso family has been brought up. Every little nuisance should be in the papers. Not that I am condoning drug abuse, but how many households are still intact, in spite of the husbands being alleged to be severe inhalers? Where is Bounty Lisa? Mind to give Sharon a word or two?
Before Tafadzwa came into Macheso’s life, not that I am blaming her for anything or everything, the public didn’t know the inside of Macheso’s household. I remember trying to do a “At Home With . . .” feature and the trouble that I went through trying to convince Macheso to get me into his house. That was in the early 2000s. He insisted then, that we do the interview by his gate. As the interview progressed, he saw the sense of going inside, and that’s how we got our first images of Nyadzisai.
But the moment he realised whatever faults that Nyadzisai had, the bed-hopping started, so did the battering of his image, hence the propensity for media attention, an affliction which has hitherto rubbed off onto his daughter.
If Mai Chisamba were to be consulted, most of the allegations that the two are accusing the other of, can easily be handled and their marriage sorted out. But the indications are that the couple is already fed up with each other — within two months — and they are headed for divorce.
Next chapter? Enter the tattooed one.
