Early this year I boarded a combi where one of the passengers was a very sick lady from our neighborhood in Gokwe.
This lady was very beautiful, well built and very attractive during her hey days but now she was a pale shadow of her former self due to poor health. She was coming back home from a spiritual healer’s shrine carrying a bag full of plastic bottles full of water called “muteuro”. The combi had to constantly stop after every few kilometres to allow her to relieve herself as she had a terrible running stomach.
Combi passengers had to endure silently the acrid and dungy smell from this former village beauty now gaunt from her illness. Her daughter who was travelling with her had to constantly apologize to the passengers for the inconveniences her mother was causing them.
The lady’s daughter later told me that her mother had been bewitched and they were coming from a prophetic spiritual healer and the bottles of “muteuro” holy water were meant to heal her mother. She went on to tell me that they had gone to witch doctors and nothing had worked but she was hopeful that “muteuro” would work. I advised her to take her mother to the clinic for HIV testing and she looked at me as if I was the Devil Satan himself but later on both daughter and mother thanked me for the life giving advice
A few weeks ago I met this same former sick lady at our local clinic now very healthy looking and she was proudly holding her 3 month supply of ARVs. This is the sad scenario we are going through a situation where real lives are just worsted leaving orphans, widows, widowers and relatives grieving for people who, had they taken the right decision at the right time would be alive today. My heart grieves for all the people especially artists in the music and other areas who died because they believed they had been bewitched by their rivals forgetting that fame and mischief work hand in hand. I hear some of our most esteemed artists died at traditional and spiritual healer’s shrines under the most deplorable heart rending conditions from AIDS.
In my article last week I talked on how everything in Zimbabwe has been commercialized and religion and traditional healing have not been left out in fact these have been the most commercialized as they touch on real people’s livelihoods and health. People’s health is big business and prophetic and traditional healing has been taken to another level. Never ever imagine all those Tsikamutandas , prophetic spiritual healers love you they don’t all they want is to take your hard earned money causing you a lot of stress , conflict with your relatives and when they’re done with you and see that you’re dying they advise you to try other avenues as they discharge you to your grave. The fear of getting tested for HIV is real and even some seasoned medical professionals fear it. I have heard some men saying they get tested through their wives at pregnancy where testing is mandatory. If wife is negative it means they too are negative and vice versa.
Religion and traditional beliefs and healing have been there since a longtime ago and have saved their purposes very well until recent times where they are now a source of money for the cunning tricksters. I would be correct to say that religion and traditional healing has now been taken over by thieves and other such like minded people to commit day light unarmed robberies on gullible innocent sick people and their relatives. The sprouting of new churches with funny names and traditional healers paints a grim picture of what is really going on in the area of medicine. A new wave of churches some with very few men and lots of women where one on one sessions between the few men and lots of men are the order of the day. It is an open secret that most of these men are HIV positive and sex perverts of the worst kind .
The biggest danger is the power wielded by some of these new prophetic spiritual and traditional healers on both their congregants and government due to the immense wealth they amass while stealing from people usually making them get away with murder. Government should be very proactive each time a new phenomenon pops up .These churches , Tsikamutandas and prophets start off very small with no one paying attention and slowly but surely grow into very powerful and wealthy entities inviting very prominent senior government officials to their functions and suddenly you hear scandalous accusations of rape , murders , fraud and you begin to wonder how all these happened when everything seemed to be going on very well seemingly with government approval. There are many crimes that have been committed by Tsikamutandas and prophetic healers in broad daylight with many of them purportedly claiming that they are doing everything above board.
Health is an individual choice and it is the responsibility of everyone to choose who to treat or harm them. I have séen lots of people giving prophets and other traditional healers lots of money and other such valuable property at their own peril. Many of these prophets of “repute” are serving time in jail with others in remand prisons awaiting trial while many more are still out there committing worse heinous crimes. It’s a vicious circle which needs quick action by all involved especially government authorities. I am very happy to say that a lot of people in our support group most of whom passed through traditional and religious spiritual healers before they later tested positive are still enjoying excellent health many years after testing positive. Many of them had endured humiliating experiences under the bogus healers.
The human tragedy is like the chicken’s fear of the hawk in favour of the human being yet the chick’s worst enemy is the human being because man eats more chickens than the hawk . Similarly most human beings trust their precious health to bogus spiritual and traditional healers over genuine medical health professionals yet more people die in the hands of bogus healers than at the real professional medical people so the choice is yours ladies and gentlemen. I made mine and here I am telling my story of salvation.
Piason Maringwa
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