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This picture collage shows (clockwise from above) “hubby” Clemence George Chibaya Chiwenga, the pestle used as the proxy manhood, and “wife” Memory Danzi holding Chiwenga’s blood-stained undergarments

Abel Zhakata Mutare Bureau—

An idiom goes, love is blind.

Some say when in love, the glare can be too bright it can blind a person. For others love is blind to reason and common sense.

True that if you love someone you cannot see any faults in that person.In Zimbabwe’s Manicaland Province, a bizarre case that left Mutare’s Dangamvura residents with their mouths ajar, a woman from Founders location unknowingly married another woman — thinking she was a man — slept with “him” on numerous occasions, while he used a small pestle (mutswi) as “his” manhood.

The cunning tomboy allegedly covered the black pestle with two condoms, switched off the lights each time they became intimate and always refused to be caressed by “his” partner.

Memory Danzi (34) of House No. 8647, Founders, only discovered that her partner was a woman recently — three years into the marriage — after she noticed blood stains on Clemence George Chibaya Chiwenga’s underwear. The stains were said to be from her menstruation.

She quickly set a trap in the bathroom, budged in as “he” was busy scrubbing “his” body and behold, the person she had been calling hubby was just a woman like her.

All the skeletons that were hidden in the closet for the past three years came tumbling to come out. Last Saturday night Danzi filed a report against Chiwenga at Dangamvura Police Station.

Police have since opened an aggravated indecent assault docket in view of the “pestle” that was used by the suspect in making love to the complainant without her knowledge.

The “pestle” was recovered and will be used in court as an exhibit.

When Chiwenga realised that her lover had gone to make a police report, she vanished from the scene and was arrested on Monday night after an ambush at a garage where she was hiding.

Following her arrest, police officers were in a quandary on whether to lock her up in female holding cells or to send him to male cells.

Placing “him” in men’s cells proved tricky because although she behaves and wants to be a man, she is a woman. On the other hand, locking her up with fellow female inmates might result in more sexual abuse.

Chiwenga left police with no other option but to lock her up alone in a secure office for the night.

The news crew caught up with Danzi who tearfully chronicled the hard-to-believe events surrounding the three-year affair with the suspect whom she thought and believed was a man. She felt grossly cheated and abused.

“I fell in love with this ‘man’ in 2013, but I later went and stayed in Macheke. I came back to Mutare in 2015 and we reignited our romance. Before ‘he’ dated me, I only knew ‘him’ as a carpenter and ‘he’ used to repair my furniture.

Then, ‘he’ had a wife and ‘he’ used to come to my house in the afternoon and went back to his wife in the evening. In August this year ‘he’ separated from his wife and came to stay with me at my house. ‘He’ told me that ‘he’ chased his wife away because she wanted to poison ‘him’,” she said adding:

“I was surprised one of the days when I told one of my children, Masset, to go and do our laundry. She went and did the laundry at a nearby stream. I did not know that Chiwenga’s undergarments were among the dirty clothes. As Masset did the laundry she noticed that the undergarments were stained with menstrual blood.”

Masset came running and broke the news to her mother. She could not believe what she saw.

“She told me that my husband’s undergarments were stained with blood and asked me if ‘he’ also menstruates. I was shocked. I requested to view the undergarments and for sure they were stained with blood. I took the undergarments and hid them. When he came back at night I asked ‘him’ if ‘he’ suffers from a sexually transmitted disease for I suspected that the blood stains could have been so because of a disease.

“‘He’ played hide-and-seek and refused to tell me what was going on. For the next five days I noticed the blood stains on ‘his’ pants and my suspicion grew.

“In our relationship ‘he’ didn’t want me to caress ‘him’. He didn’t want me to remove ‘his’ clothes.

“‘His’ breasts are bigger than mine and when I asked ‘him’ to explain the abnormality, ‘he’ said they were big because ‘he’ was a weightlifter. One day I gave ‘him’ hot water to bath and I followed ‘him’ in the bathroom. When I got in I got the shock of my life.

I asked ‘him’ why ‘he’ lied all these years and ‘he’ asked for forgiveness. I told ‘him’ to leave my house, but ‘he’ refused. I later discovered that ‘he’ was using a pestle to make love to me. I confronted ‘him’ over the issue and ‘he’ confessed that ‘he’ would put two condoms on the pestle each time we were intimate.

“I located the pestle and hid it. We quarrelled over the pestle as I wanted to take it to the police and ‘he’ wanted to destroy it. I managed to hide it under the mattress. Every time we slept together I felt deep pain and I had difficulties in walking because of the pestle ‘he’ used. I later opened up to my relatives and told them everything. Right now I am having endless menstrual periods because of that pestle ‘he’ used,” she said.

At the police station, Chiwenga denied ever using the pestle on the complainant. She said she used her fingers to make love and that the pestle allegations were being cooked up by Danzi in a bid to fix her for not giving her money.

The case goes to court soon.

The story was first published in our sister paper The Manica Post.