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Sekai Nzenza on Wednesday
“My husband left me for the maid on 2 June 2006, between 8am and 10 am,” the woman having blonde tips added to her hair weave said. She was sitting right next to me and we both faced the same mirror because Maria was doing my hair. Maria is my hair dresser. “Mai Takudzwa, you even know the exact time that Baba Takudzwa left!” Maria laughed and others joined in too, like it was funny.

“Of course I do. How can any wife forget such a day? We had four children together.”
“Iii, and then what happened?” Maria asked, pausing from laughing.

“I tell you one thing. When a man is sad or depressed, he can do strange things,” said Mai Takudzwa.
“Oh yes,” said Maria. “A man? He can do miracles.” By this, she did not really mean miracles. We all knew that what Maria meant by mashiripiti, minana nezviratidzo. Maria meant that a man can behave in strange ways and perform the unexpected.

Mai Takudzwa then said, “This husband of mine, Baba Takudzwa, had a good job as a salesman. He travelled and even went to South Africa, Zambia, Malawi and Botswana for meetings.

“He was a big man. I was a teacher but my salary was nothing compared to what my husband brought home. We were comfortable. Money was not an issue. Then, one day, he lost his job because the company decided to close down and move offices to South Africa.”

We were all listening now. Maria had given my hair a little break.
There were five of us in a small hair and nails shop in the Avenues of Harare, just outside the city. If you come into this shop mid-month, you will find Maria and the other girls who do nails and hair basking outside in the sun waiting for customers.

Sometimes you meet the same people here and other times you meet people you have never met before, like the day I met Mai Takudzwa and two others.

Occasionally, you meet one woman who keeps to herself. Her manner and body language and quite often her expensive dressing clearly tell you that “I am here to have my hair done and I do not engage in conversation with people I do not know.” There are women like that, but they are not many.

In fact, Maria can tell you who they are, where they live, what kind of car they drive, where they work or do not work, whether they belong to the big house or to the small house in the marriage.

Such a woman who does not speak or pour her troubles out is rare. You hardly ever find anyone who does not want to talk at the hair and nail salon.

Mai Takudzwa continued, “And so I discovered that the maid was pregnant. ‘From who?’ I asked, thinking she was going to tell me that it was the gardener, or maybe the security guard or the boy who sells airtime around the corner.

“I had seen her talking to that air time seller so many times to the extent that if she ran out of airtime, he would just text her some on credit,” Mai Takudzwa said.

This time we were all ears, not smiling or laughing.
“And then you asked the maid about her pregnancy?” Maria asked.

“Wait, so I told Baba Takudzwa first. I said, ‘Daddy, have you noticed that Sis has put on weight?’ He said he did not measure the body weight of maids.” Then we all laughed and someone said, “Eeka, he does not have time to do that because he is busy with other business to do with the maid.”
“Now, you all wait, as I told you before. When men have nothing to do and they are spending all day at home, they behave strangely. My husband started to speak so roughly to Sis, the maid, like he did not like her at all.

“Since she was not willing to tell me the man responsible for the pregnancy, I said she could leave and elope to her husband’s village when her pregnancy reached seven months. She simply said yes. Then one day, Tete Naomi, my husband’s sister arrived from the village.

“I welcomed her well, as I often did over the years. After sitting on my sofa and eating a good broiler chicken and rice, after drinking a whole packet of good juice and eaten scones, Tete says, ‘Mai Takudzwa, let’s sit down in Baba Takudzwa’s office’.

Baba Takudzwa kept on changing the television channels and said nothing.
Then I knew, something serious was coming my way, but thought nothing of the maid. We closed the door and Tete said to me, “Muroora, Mai Takudzwa, you are the mother of our family. I came to tell you that you are going to have a junior co-wife.”

“Yuwii! This tete of yours has courage,” said Maria.
“If it was me, I would have told her to leave my house immediately.”
“Maria, keep quite. We want to hear the end of the story,” said the girl who does manicure and pedicure.

“I took a deep breath and I could see the roof falling down on me. I felt stomach pains. But I did nothing. I could see Baba Takudzwa stopping at a flat in town to meet his young lover during the days he was working.

“I imagined the lover to be a secretary or one of these young professional women with not respect for marriages.
“Then Tete dropped the bombshell on me. She said, ‘From today, your maid is now your co-wife. You call her Mainini. She has been given to us by the ancestors. We cannot say no to what the ancestors have given us. As you can see, she is expecting our child.’”

We remained quiet for a while, digesting the news. “And men! They can behave in unusual ways,” said Maria. Mai Takudzwa continued: “I told Tete that I was not going to call a young girl who came into my house as a maid when she was only 15, Mainini.

“I knitted a cardigan for that girl when she was cold. She was orphaned very young and I looked after her like my own child. Six years later, she is supposed to be my husband’s wife and we should share the same man.

“Aiwa, we do not that. Hatidaro. I am not a village wife. I have a certificate in teaching. The maid left. But from that time onwards, our lives were not the same. Then on one day, on the 2nd of June between 8 am and 10 am, something came over my husband and he left me for the maid.”
“And I bet you never thought it was Daddy in person who did those miracles in your house,” said Maria, pulling my hair a little harder again.

“Not just in my house. Vasikana. On my bed,” Mai Takudzwa said. This time she was laughing.
“Why do men behave like that?” asked a younger girl who was having hair plaited in thin fine plaits with extensions.

“Because, sometimes men are sad and lonely. They want to be recognised as men, the way our grandmothers used to do to them,” said an older woman who had been quiet all along.

She was having her natural hair twisted, same style as mine.
“Aiwa, Mai Simba, do not give excuses for men,” said Maria and the others said Maria was right.
“In the old days, men spoke about their issues to uncles or others. If a man wanted a second wife he would seek permission from his wife. He said to his senior, ‘my wife, I have found someone to help you around the house and in the fields’.

“He would only take that second wife if the first one said yes. These days, men often choose a second wife or lover because they are lonely.
“You see, some of you young women are spending too much time praying and not looking after your husband’s needs. I have been married 34 years to the same man. I can tell when he is unhappy or sad,” she said.

In the middle of laughter and jokes, we talked about why some men are sad at times. Mai said men find it hard to find someone to talk to when they have problems.
Back in the village, there was always an uncle or an elder to offer an ear.

What does a man do when he finds out that his wife is having an affair and there is no uncle or elder to talk to?
If he seriously gets depressed, nobody might notice and he will eat himself away with sad thoughts. That is when he either drinks too much or finds another lover.

“Maybe your husband was very depressed because he was out of job,” Maria said, tapping Mai Takudzwa on the shoulder.
“Yes, it was a strange way to behave. But, let’s face it, your husband found comfort in the maid.
“Since they still live together after all these years, maybe it was not strange at all. It must have been love.”

Dr Sekai Nzenza is CEO of Rio Zim Foundation. She writes in her personal capacity.