IN this world we live in, the struggle for survival is real. For some, one income stream is simply not enough.
This is the case for 38-year-old Madzimai Cathrine Bvumbe,
a sex worker-cum-prophetess operating in Macheke.
For the past eight years, she has been juggling between
satisfying her ‘clients’ between the sheets and those at her shrine.
A plump, strong-minded woman, Madzimai Cathrine appears
more concerned with putting food on the table for her three children and
sending them to school than with the serious problems associated with sex work.
But while she puts up this façade, deep down she knows
about the risks of her profession. “I am not proud of it, but I have been in
prostitution for years due to desperation.
“In fact, I only rely on regular clients who contact me on
my phone for meeting arrangements,” she recently confided in The Weekender
during a media tour organised by the National Aids Council.
“Prostitution is risky business. You can’t wish this on
anyone, even your worst enemy. Sex workers are at risk of contracting sexually
transmitted infections.
“In addition to that, interaction with strangers put them
in harm’s way. Some are maimed while others are killed during the course of
duty,” she said before revealing how she almost lost her left ear during a
scuffle with a client over non-payment of her services.
When conversing with Madzimai Cathrine, one gets the
impression that years of struggling in adversity to make ends meet, together
with an inability to find other means of survival, seem to have hardened this
woman into apparent indifference towards those around her.
She tries to paint the image of a woman with the world at
her feet, although it is clear that she is struggling to stay afloat the turbulences
of life. Cathrine’s story begins in a little village in Mozambique when she was
born in 1983.
Her parents were to later trek to Zimbabwe in search of
greener pastures with young Cathrine strapped on her mother’s back.
After several stop overs, the family finally settled in
Macheke, where Cathrine grew up. She got married in 1999 but unfortunately
parted ways with her husband in 2011.
However, with life increasingly becoming difficult,
Cathrine found herself drawn into the web of sex work as she struggled to make
ends meet. And when the going got tough, she decided to explore her spiritual
talent.
As a white garment prophetess under the Nyenyedzi Nomweye
Nguwo Tsvuku, Madzimai Cathrine wakes up early to rush to her shrine to attend
to her clients.
She then comes back later in the day to change her church
robs into sexually appealing clothes in preparation for her other clients.
“I am convinced that ndakatumwa naMwari (God sent me). It
is God’s plan for me to be interacting with these ladies and imparting His Word
unto them.
“It is not by mistake than I am into sex work,” she said,
before quickly adding that she would be grateful if she could find alternative
means for survival. Manica Post
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