The Sunday Mail
I WOKE up early one Saturday morning to find people singing traditional songs, accompanied by the mbira instrument, close to my house that is near a dam.
Led by a dreadlocked woman, who was adorned with expensive jewellery, the group consisted largely of young women with complexions altered by skin-lightening creams.
They were holding pouches of snuff, bottles of wine, milk and sweets.
The women had alighted from trendy vehicles and were donning swanky apparel.
Welcome to the world of manjuzu, where young women claim to be possessed with the spirit of mermaids. The world in which these people live is full of luxury, pretence and chicanery, if truth be told.
Poverty seems not to exist in this world as everyone appears to be rich, wherein my gripe begins.
Friends of mine who have dated manjuzu have tall tales to tell.
“Being in love with a manjuzu is akin to having committed a crime. You pay everything, from rent to fuel for their expensive cars and the designer outfits they wear. To me, a manjuzu woman is a cup of tea I cannot take,” a colleague told this writer.
Mike Rupondo, a florist, quipped: “The moment I discover the girl is a manjuzu, then it is over.”
He is not the only one who holds this view.
Another guy reckons manjuzu were mostly involved in crime, especially fraud, to meet the demands of their expensive armchair lifestyles.
It is a “veduwee-veduwee” situation. If there is a funny world I have witnessed and try hard to understand, then it is that of manjuzu.
Inotambika mughetto.
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