WHITE WEDDING IN THE MIDST OF ZIMBABWE'S ECONOMIC CRISIS

I know I can’t dance nor can I sing. I didn’t dance during my wedding, this was thanks to the fact that MaNyoni was expecting our first son within a few days after our wedding and she could not dance and by default I also didn’t dance. Our white wedding was on Saturday 14 December 2002. The church ceremony was at one of the Methodist Churches in Chitungwiza and the wedding reception was at Lord Malvern High School in Waterfalls where MaNyoni had also gone to school for her A’ Levels. Personally I did not see the value of a white wedding over and above the African Lobola ceremony and that view has not changed. Also growing up, I was against the lobola practice. With time I began to embrace that tradition. Feminists are of the view that lobola practice has been preserved because it benefits men, I think they have a point there because most of the money and cows goes to the father. In 1996 when my older sister eloped, her boyfriend came home to initiate the Lobola practice and also in 2006 when my youngest sister got married, In both cases as father figure in my family, I pocketed the money and my mother's youngest sister was not happy with that.

My African wedding/Lobola negotiation was on 8 September 2001 (one day I will blog about that experience). As a young man raising lobola money, it shows commitment to your girlfriend. I think it shows that you are becoming a man. Needless to say the lobola charge must be reasonable. I grew up hearing stories that you must never marry from Masvingo Province as they are always expensive. In my defence, I am not the first one in our extended family to marry from Masvingo province, the first person to do so was my cousin, sekuru Gibson. After our lobola ceremony MaNyoni moved in with me in Avondale where I had been renting since 1999. It was her wish to have a white wedding. Our first proposed date was in April 2002 and we had to cancel that date after my mother became seriously ill and she eventually died in February 2002. I started dragging my feet and I was considering a simple civil marriage ceremony at the Magistrates office. My wife was not very happy with that and I saw that it was causing a lot of tension and I compromised. Marriage is like a government of national unity where the ruling party and the opposition comes to form a government. You can’t always get your way. Some days I fee like the ruling party and some days I feel like the opposition party. Compromise is the name of the game.

We settled for the date of 14 December 2002 and we booked the hall. We started making arrangements such as choosing a wedding cake, printing invitation cards. After the Zimbabwean dollar lost value at the end of 1997, life in Zimbabwe had became unbearable. In 2002 Morgan Tsvangirai had lost the presidential election in a dubious election and the farm invasions were in full swing, life became even harder in Zimbabwe. A month before our wedding, I got a job as a junior manager and the job came with the use of the company car. A lot of people offered us help, my father in law slaughter a cow for use during our wedding, my wife’s uncle offered us the disco and the public address system for the wedding, we bought food for the wedding. My friend Cornelius Takawira was still in UK then and when I told him about the wedding he said, “Tsano I will help you”. When the date approached there was a fuel crisis in Harare. I drove to Mutoko and Murewa a day before the wedding. I came back with my sister in law and my grandmother. I passed through Musami to tell my mother’s eldest sister about the wedding. I honestly did not want her to come as I did not need complications. She refused to attend the wedding and I was relieved as I did not want any drama on my wedding day.

I drove to the Hall and I saw it was decorated beautifully in the colours chosen by MaNyoni, the colour I saw was purple but she called it Lilac colour. Anyway I was never good with colours. MaNyoni and I joined the petrol queue at a BP garage in Newlands, Harare that afternoon where my father’s cousin sekuru Adolf worked as they were expecting fuel delivery that day. Whilst in the fuel queue, I got a call that the General Manager- Finance had turned down my request to use the BMW executive pool car as our wedding car. Anyway I never liked a BMW. We left the BP garage late in the night and there was no fuel delivery. Early on Saturday morning on the day of the wedding, I received a call from a money changer to say that I needed to collect money that had been sent to me by Cornelius from UK, around 6am my friend Trevor Midlane brought 20 litres of petrol in a container. We left home to collect the money and then drove straight to Westgate Shopping Centre to buy our wedding rings at an Indian Jewellery Shop. The rings we got were a bit over size and there was no time to resize them. After a few years my ring fits perfectly but I can’t say the same about the member of opposition. Some years ago the member of opposition was washing clothes at our home in Zimre Park and she realised that she had thrown away the dirty water with her wedding ring and started crying. Fortunately my brother in law was around and looked for the ring and found it.

After buying the wedding rings, MaNyoni went into Harare CBD where her cousin mainini Anna was going to do her hair. Anna came in late. Reverend Balangile started phoning us as we were late for our wedding. MaNyoni said to me, let not worry about anything we did our best if anything is going to go wrong today let it be. I was worried that MaNyoni should not have so much stress considering that she was about to give birth. Trevor was going to drive to South Africa that day with his family and had offered to carry MaNyoni from home to church. Trevor picked up MaNyoni in town and he drove her home and waited for her to change and then drove her to church. I picked up the wedding cake in Avondale and drove to the church with one of the messengers from work. When I got to Chitungwiza, the messenger went back to collect my grandmother. The wedding ceremony started and went on for hours. When I go to church, I prefer spending around an hour or so as I do not have a huge concentration span. For years, I would attend the early morning English service at Trinity Methodist Church and the service would last roughly an hour. That long service did a good thing because shortly after my father in law became a born again Christian and is now a regular church member of The Dutch Reformed Church of Zimbabwe.

The messenger who went with my car never came back and we now had one car short. There were only two or three vehicles available. I remember the two Peugeot 306 sedans belonging to my work colleagues Agrippah Marangwanda and Austin Samakande. With the way I hate French cars, I can’t still it that believe our main transport during our wedding was made done by French cars. We then drove to Waterfalls and because everyone was short of fuel, we were not able to drive to Harare for the flowers. The wedding reception went on very well. Unlike the Lobola ceremony a number of MaNyoni’s relatives did not attend our wedding. What had happened was that around August 2002, MaNyoni’s cousin had a wedding in Mabelreign which we attended and about 6 weeks before our wedding, that cousin was driving from Bulawayo to Victoria Falls for work purposes and he was involved in an accident and his wife died in that accident. Some of the relatives wanted our wedding to be postponed and we decided to go ahead with our wedding.

During the wedding my uncle who is my father’s only sibling gave a beautiful speech, so did his wife who stood as my mother. My aunt my father's cousion also gave a beautiful speech. My aunt Mrs Maposa looks like my mother in law so I was chuckling when relatives from MaNyoni’s side was confusing my aunt with my Mother in Law. We went outside Lord Malvern and the photographers took hundreds of wedding photos. After the wedding reception we counted the money that we had been given by friends and relatives. We paid the decoration guys, caterers, photographers etc. We then went to my in-laws house in Chitungwiza and left around 8pm to go to Harare CBD. A friend of my sister had given us a complimentary voucher for 2 nights at Cresta Lodge. Because MaNyoni was expecting soon after the wedding, we had decided to go for our honeymoon holiday around September 2002, we had spent 10 days in Bulawayo, Hwange National Park and Victoria Falls.

Due to the economic situation in Zimbabwe at that time we did not manage to have the wedding we had planned, however we did really enjoy our wedding. A lot of friends chipped in to make our wedding possible and we did not pay for cars for the wedding as my work friends chipped in, Onias my brother in law taught the bride and groom party wedding steps free of charge. My father in law provided a whole cow for the beef used during our wedding. A lot of people who provided services were work friends whom we only paid after the wedding. I really took to heart what Reverend Balangile said to us that day. From a personal finance point of view, white weddings for young couples, I do not encourage them especially if they are the ones footing the bill. As a young couple you are busy buying furniture, saving deposit for your first home etc. You then are forced to part with huge amount of money for an event that lasts less than 12 hours and can leave you with a serious debt. One of the main reason why people divorce is money problems. My view is that when you pay for your Lobola, the marriage officers should come and let you sign your marriage certificate.

MARY CHIWENGA’S SAGA- WHY I DON’T SUPPORT THE PERSECUTION OF ANY WOMAN

Last night before Rangarirai our 7 year old son went to bed, he came to our bedroom and hugged his mother and kissed her goodnight. He did not even talk to me and went out of the room. I said to MaNyoni, I feel like I am invisible and she answered me back, “Do you expect him to kiss another man good night? It made sense. After work, I normally get home a minute or so ahead of her mother as I always use the stairs. When I open the door, Ranga always ask me where is mama and at times he does not even greet me and then wait by the door for his mother. To be fair I am not really invisible to him, when he fights with his older brothers he comes to me to report . Ranga also thinks I am an ATM because anything he wants to be bought for him he asks me to buy. For the past weeks he had been asking me to buy him a Nintendo Switch and I eventually goggled the price, a whooping R6 000.00, I can’t afford that.

Yesterday I read on social media that Mary Chiwenga the estranged young wife to Rtd General Chiwenga the Vice President of Zimbabwe had been arrested. The story did not make sense as it involved the Zimbabwe Anti Corruption Commission. For a start any serious anti-corruption drive will start with investigating and arresting heavy weights such as Obert Mpofu who is rumored to own over 50% of properties in Victoria Falls town centre and the rest of Zanu-Pf leadership. To make the story even bizarre it involved the Judge President George Chiweshe himself a retired senior military officer. George Chiweshe is regarded as a coup judge in some circles after he passed a ruling to say the military coup that forced Robert Mugabe from office was legal. George Chiweshe is also known for the dark period of 2008. After Morgan Tsvangirai trounced Robert Mugabe in the first round of Presidential elections at the end of March 2008, George Chiweshe then as the Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission sat on the results for over a month whilst the military was strategizing. He then later on announced that Morgan Tsvangirai had only got 47% of the vote and Robert Mugabe had secured about 43% and there was going to be a runoff between Tsvangirai and Mugabe in June 2008.

The military took over the Zanu-PF campaign and senior military officers were seconded to supervise the violent campaign that saw over 200 MDC supporters murdered, thousands injured and more than ten thousand were forced to flee their homes. Morgan Tsvangirai had no choice but to withdraw from the runoff election. A lot of us are convinced that Morgan Tsvangirai had won the first round convincingly but the military tempered with the figures to force a run off. I also don’t like Mary Chiwenga but even for my enemies, I want them to get a fair trial and that is what one expects from a civilized society. I also expect Grace Mugabe to be taken through the legal process for all her transgressions and for pay back on how she humiliated the ruling elite during the funeral of Robert Mugabe. I also dislike Grace Mugabe and even for her, she should face a fair legal process. I doubt that Mary Chiwenga will face an impartial judicial process.

The way the general is treating his estranged wife rings alarm bells for me. If he treats the mother of her children that way what more for an opposition supporter or any ordinary citizen. When his children ask him where their mother is what will he say? If he can’t have empathy for the anguish that his children are going to face, we are in trouble as a country as he is one of those effectively running the country and is in line to become the next president of Zimbabwe. Children should only be taken away from their mother in exceptional circumstances especially after a fair court process has deemed it fit that the mother is a danger to her children. Most of us turned out okay because our mothers were there to care for us after the death of our fathers. Persecution of any woman is a no for me. Women are the most marginalized people in our society; I saw what my mother went through after my father’s death. The face of poverty in Africa is black and female. Even in the corporate world, women have a glass ceiling as most top positions are occupied by male. Many people including women seem to believe that any woman rising in the workplace do not do so on merit. I also saw firsthand the disadvantage for women when I saw my wife struggling to find employment for almost 11 years in South Africa despite the fact that she was also qualified and had the suitable experience.

To anyone especially women celebrating the persecution that Mary Chiwenga is going through due to political differences, they should pose and see the bigger picture. This is about abuse of power by the general and the ruling party.