IN a bizarre incident, a Bulawayo woman has for the past
five months been keeping part of her severed middle finger, which she first
allowed to dry after it was bitten off by a neighbour following a
misunderstanding over a bucket of maize.
Ms Tendai Ncube (59) of Beuna Vista dried the tip of the
left hand finger and has been moving around with it in her handbag since the
incident happened on 20 November last year.
“I will always keep this fingertip as evidence that my
neighbour bit me over a bucket of maize, I am still hurt,” she said, showing
Sunday News the tip of her finger.
According to Ms Ncube, who survives on picking plastic
bottles and selling them to local companies in the city, trouble started when
she borrowed a bucket of maize from Mrs Bekezela (Matsha) Matshazi who lives in
the same suburb.
“Matsha is my good friend, she is 62 years old and is my
neighbour. I have a big stand and I planted my maize there so one of the people
who assisted me in ploughing the land needed to be paid so I asked Matsha for a
bucket of maize which I intended to use as payment. My daughter had said she would
bring me the maize from her home in Cowdray Park the following week but I
needed to pay the worker earlier,” she said.
Ms Ncube said her daughter had promised to bring the maize
on a Friday but she failed.
“The next Wednesday early in the morning Matsha came to my
house and as usual I went to the gate to welcome her but she was not in a
friendly mood. She started shouting saying she didn’t want to see me ever again
as I had not delivered the maize. So I reached out to hold her hand so that we
get into the house to avoid attracting the attention of neighbours but she
started to beat me up and I held her trying to push her away and she grabbed my
hand and bit my finger,” added Ms Ncube.
She said her daughter then came outside after hearing their
noise and found them wrestling on the ground.
“When my daughter came out of the house, that is when
Matshazi spit out my finger which she had bitten off and walked away. I then
composed myself and saw that my finger was now on the ground with threads of
flesh hanging. I then screamed at her saying she had bitten off my finger over
a bucket of maize and she shouted back a statement that I did not hear,” she
said.
Ms Ncube said she rushed to report the matter to the police
and passed through her friend’s home where people had gathered after hearing
about the incident.
Ms Matshazi is said to have arrived at the police station
before Ms Ncube and made a police report saying she was assaulted.
The matter was heard before the courts where Ms Matshazi
was found not guilty as she argued that she was “defending herself from
assault”. Ms Ncube said she will take the matter to the civil courts as she
still feels justice was not served and that she also catered for her own
medical bills which she says her friend should have taken care of.
Doctors have, however, said she suffered permanent
disability after the incident and she now has trouble in that she cannot use
the affected hand as two of the fingers can no longer bend. She also says she
can no longer work in her fields or pick up plastics as she used to before the
incident.
The friendship also has turned sour as Ms Matshazi does not
talk to Ms Ncube anymore.
“She does not respond to my greetings and I am actually
scared of her now. I also feel the courts did not do justice as she never even
apologised to me. I am very bitter,” she said, waving the remains of her finger
in the air.
Asked why she still keeps a part of the finger, she said
she will stop doing that once she feels that justice on the case has been
delivered.
“After I went for treatment at UHB they told me to throw it
away but I didn’t. I will discard the finger once the matter is settled,” she
said.
However, Dr Blessing Zambuko a consultant pathologist said
the normal procedure was to submit the severed part of the finger to
hospital authorities.
“The normal procedure is that one must submit the limb to a
hospital who will then send it to the laboratory for examination or they hand
it over to the police who will send it to forensic pathology for examination.
After all is done, all specimen will not be returned to the patient but shall
be properly disposed of by incineration. Under normal circumstances, the limb
cannot, and must not be kept in the home,” said Dr Zambuko. Sunday Mail
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