From my hood, I learnt at age 10 that
the best thing a woman can ever do is to stay away from other people’s men and
husband. I recently, watched a video of a woman who was caught committing
adultery and harsh as the actions may have seemed on that video it seemed to me
like a drop in the ocean compared to what I had witnessed in the hood.
Our neighbor Mavis was fond of
complaining about her promiscuous husband. As soon as people in the hood saw
her coming they would whisper and speculate on the latest with her hubby. The latest
was that he had gone AWOL and word had it that he had a new girlfriend whom he
was living with in Chawama.
Ba Mavy as she was fondly called
in he hood was a resourceful and tenacious woman. She had the most advanced
investigative skills such that no matter who her husband had an affair with she
was able to find out and locate the woman. Ba Mavy came to tell the neighbors
that she now knew exactly where her husband’s concubine lived and that she was
going to bring her that afternoon. She asked all her friends in the hood to
stay in one place and not live so that they could give the husband snatcher a
beating.
It is worth mentioning that this
was in the early 90’s and there were no cellphones at the time. In the hood it
is everyone’s business to know everyone’s business. In no time, news spread
that Ba Mavy was going to bring her husbands concubine. Whilst most people
laughed it off saying there was no way she would be able to do that, they all
lingered around her house.
Around 15 hours the kids in the
hood yelled she is coming and everyone rushed to get a glimpse of Ba Mavy
coming with another woman. The two women were smiling and chatting as they
walked to her house. They looked like two good friends, most of the neighbors
were trying hard to pick their jaws off the floor in shock. True to her word
Mavis had managed to lure her husband’s concubine home. About 15 minutes after
their arrival her friends started trekking to her house.
What followed were sharp pitched agonizing
screams as the women descended on the concubine. Mavis and her friends beat the
woman up while calling for back up by screaming “Hule”. If you live in my hood
and even most parts of Zambia the moment you here even just a lone voice shouting
the word Hule, you know its about to go down. The word is a cue for anyone
around to go and beat a woman for committing adultery, for being found with
another woman’s man, and it all borders on promiscuity all of which in this
case is deemed the woman’s fault regardless of whether she knew the man was
married or had another woman. Many Zambian women have been known to catch their
husband’s with other women in countries like the U.K or even South Africa and
when a fight ensued, they shouted Hule…hoping someone will come and assist them
in a way only the Zambians do.
So back to Mavis’ and her
friends, they beat the woman, stripped her naked pinched her thighs till her
poor dark skin turned maroon. They then forced her legs open and poured chili
into her private parts and set her free.
The woman was totally naked and screaming from not only the beatings but
the chili that was in her person. When some of the elderly women offered to
give the concubine a chitenge to cover up as she walked. Mavis and her friends
threatened to beat them too. Mavis and her crew were feared in the hood for
their unorthodox ways of dealing with anyone who crossed their path.
The concubine walked away naked
in shame, assaulted and stripped of her personhood, dignity and life with the
whole community which had gathered from far and wide including children
watching. A taxi driver who had stopped by the roadside took pity on her and
told her to get into his cab and he drove her away.
Mavis then narrated to her
friends how she found herself in Chawama at the concubine’s house. She said she
introduced herself to the woman as her husband’s sister. She told the woman
that her husband had told her about them and she decided to pay a visit. The concubine
prepared her a meal, bought her drinks and told her everything including how
Mavis’ husband was planning to leave Mavis for good to be with her. Mavis then said
she needed to go home and invited the concubine to come with her so that she
knows where the sister in law lived. Easily
convinced, the concubine came with Mavis clueless that she was infact with the
wife of the man she lived with and not his sister….
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