The Sunday Mail
Ronald was mortified when his wife paid him an unusual visit at his workplace while donning dirty and tattered apparel.
She made a scene by demanding money for provisions and the children’s upkeep.
That Sarudzai has a wardrobe bursting at the seams with swanky apparel and is chauffeur-driven at her husband’s expense is a story for another day.
When she visited her husband’s workplace she resembled a neglected and unweeded garden.
“What kind of father are you? The landlord wants us out because you are not paying rent on time and the children are not going to school because of your love for booze and women. I am going to kill myself here,” the woman shouted, drawing the attention of her husband’s subordinates and superiors.
The mere sight of this supposedly miserable woman was tear-jerking and prompted Ronald’s workmates to contribute cash and offer the couple counselling.
The more Ronald sought to explain matters, the more his peers reasoned that he was in the wrong and was trying to cover-up.
It was a well-choreographed act that left everyone convinced that the newly promoted manager was not playing his fatherly role as expected.
Welcome to the world of blackmail, where people go to unimaginable lengths just to embarrass someone.
Called “kuwachisa”, “kumakisa”, “kuzora” or just embarrassment, this is becoming popular in most communities and various other social settings.
People are increasingly blackmailing each other either because of jealousy or for fun.
When some guys see you with a beautiful woman at the pub, they ask you in her presence whether you want to break her heart in the same way you disappointed the previous lover.
“She looks good, but I hope you won’t ditch her the way you dumped Lucy. You should respect women,” the guys will tell you straight in the face.
It is the same in football.
Whenever players are fed up with their coach, they throw away matches and start blaming their losses on his tactics.
The tabloids inevitably go after the coach.
Children do the same. At times they cry endlessly to ensure a strict maid is given the boot.
“She is cruel and beats us up at every opportunity. She even gives all the food to her boyfriends,” rogue children will tell their mother to ensure the unwanted maid goes.
In the communities in which we live, there are some people who are feeding their families through blackmail.
These are the kind of people who start shouting that you are married when they see you making romantic advances to a girl.
Others will tell your flame: “We are surprised you love that bugger. He wets the blankets and is tormented by ancestral spirits.”
Sadly, married women have joined the bandwagon.
They are doing all sorts of things to mark their territory, even violently.
It is not uncommon for men who would have picked an argument with their wives to hear their spouses say: “Ndiri kutevera kubasa ikoko. Ndoda kukuwachisa (I am coming to your workplace to embarrass you).”
Even when other avenues to settle disputes exist, they do not even think twice about laundering their dirty linen at their partner’s workplace.
Over the weekend, one of the two lasses that were fighting over a man in Mazowe hired a coterie of naughty elderly women to tell their rival’s parents to warn their daughter to stop fooling around with married men.
“Sorry, tati tikuzivisei kuti mwana wenyu arikudanana nemukuwasha wedu, saka musazochema kana akakuvadzwa,” the elderly women reportedly said before they left.
But issues of blackmail are not limited to matters of the heart.
At workplaces, men and women are engaging in all sorts of blackmail.
When guys discover that a colleague is about to be promoted, they plant beer bottles in his drawer and pour smelly beverages on his workstation.
“Hi Sir, this guy you are investing trust in is not as good as he wants the world to believe.
“He drinks beer right at the workplace and there are beer bottles to show for this,” you hear some guys telling the powers that be just to spite someone and reduce their chances of earning a promotion.
Some will even pay women of easy virtue to visit the workplace demanding cash for sex services allegedly rendered.
Others will steal the boss’s laptop and plant it in the targeted fellow’s desk.
At churches, the same is happening.
It’s a mess!
Inotambika mughetto.
