The Sunday Mail
YEMURAI wore a white staccato dress with matching feather detail which swayed from side to side, making men who were gathered in her father’s compound drool.
Women, too, could not help but also nod in acknowledgement that one of their own looked angelic in the dress, which partly defined her body contours.
Similarly, one would be pardoned for assuming heaven was missing an angel.
Inside the compound, there was a group of women that was singing and dancing in one corner, while on the other side their counterparts were preparing meals by the fire.
Men, including yours truly, were huddled in the lounge moderating prices on the list that was to inform Yemurai’s traditional marriage proceedings.
In these days of harsh economic challenges, it is vulgar to let a relative marry off his daughter at unreasonably high prices because this will haunt the child in her marriage.
We occasionally quaffed chilled quarts to gather Dutch courage and also made sure our shoes were not dusty.
We constantly adjusted our neckties and jackets to look presentable.
The would-be son-in-law’s negotiating team was expected to have arrived by 10am, but two hours later, we were still waiting for them.
“Zvinoitika, pamwe pane chavabata asi ndinovimba vave munzira (Such delays are not unusual. They may be delayed somewhere, but I am confident they are on their way now,” Yemura’s mother calmed us, while telling whoever cared to listen that her daughter’s would-be husband came from a well-heeled family that was well-grounded in the African tradition.
We were to learn that she had on various occasions been plied with birthday cakes and other niceties by Samuel, who appeared more than ready to be part of the family.
Gentle reader, we drank lots of beer on this day to kill the anxiety until one elderly aunt suggested that a follow-up be done.
A team was hastily assembled and it drove to the would-be son-in-law’s residence in Chitungwiza.
On arrival there, the team found the bloke dog drunk with no sign that he had a mission to go somewhere.
It was established that he was already married with two children.
So we had been told a lie and on the basis of that lie, we had fuelled our vehicles, sent our suits to the dry cleaners and invested handsomely in food for an occasion that was not to be.
Lies are costly and sometimes result in death.
The news was horrible for Yemurai and her mother, who quickly buried their heads in their hands in shame and wished Mother Earth could swallow them.
We are living in a terrible world in which lies have become a way of life.
People lie a lot these days.
Called “nhema”, “manyepo”, “vharom”, “kujuta”, “dust”, “guhwa”, “closers” and “fibs”, the world now seems to revolve around lies.
Long queues at the maintenance courts countrywide bear testimony to the fact that women are being lied to, with the promise of marriage being used as bait.
Men are not spared.
DNA test results often show they can be made to live a lie as long as someone calls them “father”.
