Under the spell of a Mwachusa woman

Sun, 28 Jan 2018 10:28:44 +0000

By Batuke Mwanza

AS we sat in a bar in Garden Compound waiting for a game, a London soccer derby between bitter English Premier League rivals, Chelsea and Arsenal to commence, my friends and I got carried away by the mockery an elderly man was being subjected to in the bar by some youths who were mostly drunk and a few elderly men too.

“Ba Daka ndimwe a zende, chifukwa cha kahule kaku Tanzania ka Mwachusa, mwasiya banja yanu, mwatenga pension, ndalama zasila kamuthabani manje muvhutika” (Mr. Daka you are a fool, just because of a Mwachusa prostitute from Tanzania, you took your pension money and deserted your family, now you are broke and poor and the woman has fled from you) the men in the bar continued with their mockery.

“It’s you who are fools because you are commenting and talking about things you don’t really know,” the elderly man responded.

As the men kept on mocking him, I was seated closer to him. Then maybe because he noticed that I was one of the few who wasn’t laughing at him, he turned to me saying “mwanawanga vizende nibeve ndaba sibaziba chinalengesa, bango bwetuka bwetuka” (my son it’s them who are fools because they don’t know what caused me to do it, they are just yapping). As a writer, I thought this would make a good story and him opening up to me was an opportunity I should explore. “So it’s true then ba Daka? I asked, trying to find out first if I was going to write a true story or maybe it’s just mere comedy show of drunks in a bar.

 “Yes my son, its true” he said without any shame. “But why would you abandon your family for some prostitute? I asked. The elderly man smiled and said “aha …..good question, that’s what these fools should have considered asking before making silly comments and laughing at me.”

“First of all my son, this mwachusa woman (local name given to a Tanzanian or a native of Tanzania) was a very beautiful light skinned woman with a perfect shape you just can’t ignore despite the fact that she had four children.” If she were to come right now and you saw her, you would agree with me my son. “And the second reason was that I was under a spell.  This Tanzanian woman was a witch and she put me under her spell,” he said.

I looked at the elderly man who seemed to be in his early 60’s and sipping a big bottle of EAGLE LAGER, I could tell he wasn’t drunk yet and looking into his eyes, he was dead serious of what he was telling me.

“Sinikana bena analume afela nkope yamwanakazi koma kuli neo, naumfwiti unalipo” (I don’t dispute the fact that some men just lose their senses because of beauty, but in my case, witchcraft was involved) he said to me as he continued to narrate his interesting story.

Pensulo Daka was a bus driver working for the United Bus Company of Zambia (UBZ) in the 1970s during the UNIP era, up to the time the company was closed after the MMD  took over power from the UNIP government in 1991. Married with four children, Mr. Daka was left jobless but within three months after losing his job with UBZ, he was lucky enough to get a job again, this time with the University of Zambia (UNZA) as a driver in early 1992.

Everything was just fine with Mr Daka as he managed to provide for his family without any problem at all. But after working for UNZA for 21 years he decided to retire in 2013.

At 61, and working as a driver for over two decades, he decided it was time to throw in the towel. The problem most men face African countries after retirement is that they seldom get opportunities to handle a lot of money until in old age when they retire, therefore, they become too excited with the retirement money and suddenly think they can do anything without even realising each coin they spend is being counted for.

Another problem is that they don’t plan for the future while they are still young and energetic instead they would enjoy working for years and then start planning to do business or farming after they retire and are aging and as a result they mostly fail leaving their families with a bill instead of a will. Some get so excited and play around like teenagers as THE ALL THAT MONEY gear, takes control. As for Mr Daka, his head became pregnant with many ideas or dreams like buying land and start farming, open a butchery, start importing goods, open a minimart or buy some buses and open a transportation business since he was a driver by profession.

Most of his family members advised him to build a house first, empower his wife with some business capital and go ahead and buy a bus or two. Daka had not decided yet but was already spending like he was in his last days on earth and drinking in fancy lodges he used to admire before he got “loaded.”

 It was in one of those fancy lodges he entered one evening in Lusaka when he spotted a very beautiful shapely woman with big brown eyes, sipping some red wine. Daka was so taken by her beauty and decided to join her. He asked her what she was taking and bought her whatever she asked for. He had the money and she had the beauty. So the game was fair for both. She told him her name Marriam and she was a 40-year-old Tanzanian doing some charcoal business in Zambia. Before Daka realised it, he was madly in love with her and for over a week he wasn’t sleeping at home but instead booked a lodge where he was staying with Mariam.

After a month, he abandoned his family in Chainda Compund and started staying with Mariam in her two-roomed house in Garden compound. She told him she had four children in Tanzania too was divorced and her children were staying with their father.

For more than six months, the two lovers lived together and everything she asked Daka to do, he would do it, if he tried to object she would just go to him hold his hands and look deep into his eyes and ask him to repeat what she ordered him to do.

In bizarre circumstances, he would feel a little dizzy and then do according to her wishes. She asked him to go to the bank and withdraw some money so that they invest it in her charcoal business.

They would import 90kg bags of charcoal in Lundazi and resell in Lusaka. They would even travel to Mbeya in Tanzania to order goods for resell in Zambia. What confused Daka was how she would manage to “hypnotise” him and make him do anything she asked for.

One day when she told him that she was travelling alone to Tanzania for business, he didn’t support the idea and vehemently refused to let her go. But again in strange circumstances she walked up to him, grabbed his chin and looked deep into his eyes saying repeat after me “you are going to Tanzania and I won’t stop you.” Strangely, Daka repeated what she said whist felling dizzy. After she left, again his conscience would normalise and he would ask himself what he had just done. And by coincidence his friends two days later, while she was sill in Tanzania, warned him that they had heard a lot of stories about his Tanzanian girlfriend using charms to “milk” men of their money.

Daka vowed to leave her but as soon as she came back, it was as if nothing happened. One day when she went to take a bath, out of nowhere he decided to open one of the drawers she usually kept locked and to his horror, he found a little live snake among some charms.

He jumped and ran but before he could find his way out he bumped into her on the door and she asked him what was wrong. After he told her what he found she just laughed and asked him to show her. When they went to the drawer, there was nothing, again she looked deep in his eyes and said “you saw nothing, repeat after me and say I saw nothing”. Hypnotised again, he repeated what she said and she asked him to withdraw all the money in the bank and give it to her which he did.

A week later she left for Tanzania, never to be seen again. Daka was left alone, broke and a laughing stock of Garden Compound, earning a living by doing odd jobs.

“Bana banga muchenjele natusikana utu, twina nitu mfwiti” (my children beware some of these girls are witches) Daka said to me in conclusion

Based on a True Story.

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