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Zimbabwe: The magic of love
Annastazia Ndlovu, Women’s feature Service
March 17, 2006

http://www.surinenglish.com/noticias.php?Noticia=8052

Are you looking to ensure that the love of your life stays by your side forever? That is exactly what the umuthi - magical herbs believed to be "love potions" - promise. Needless to say, the fabled umuthi is not easy to come by. Not only are there doubts as to whether these herbs really exist, they have also hastened the end of some relationships.

Take the case of Barbara Rusere. Married to a Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority manager, she reportedly wrapped his underwear in umuthi and placed it in the glove compartment of her car. The two had been married for 12 years and were going through a rough patch, no longer sharing the same bedroom. Her husband, Raphael Rusere, explained to the magistrate, before whom he was brought on charges of violent attack on his wife, that he found his underwear in his wife’s car when he was looking for his own car keys.

He confronted her and she denied that they belonged to him. Raphael turned violent and struck Barbara with a stone, hurting her left ankle. The magistrate would hear none of it, however, and sentenced him to 15 months in jail, nine of which were suspended conditionally and six of which he had to make up for by doing 210 hours of community service at Pararenyatwa Hospital in Harare.

Debate
While Raphael has appealed against the conviction and sentence, Zimbabweans in general are debating the value of love potions. Ukudlisa (Zulu for secretly administering a love potion to a spouse) is a highly controversial subject. Debate usually centres on whether or not these potions even exist. Some say it is a myth and an invention of jealous people bent on destroying other people’s relationships. The relatives of a man, on the other hand, are usually quick to accuse his wife of using love potions to ensure that their son listens to her and no other person in the family.

Says President of the Harare-based Zimbabwe National Traditional Healers Association, Gordon Chavunduka, "It is not true that only women are involved in ukudlisa. Men also use love potions to get women to fall in love with them."

Love potions come in various forms, including tree roots, and concoctions. Some potions are believed to help a man successfully propose to women. "The men put the herbs under their tongues so that they can talk their partner or girlfriend into doing whatever they want", says Chavunduka. Some men dissolve a mixture of herbs in water and gurgle with it. As they spit out the mixture, they say aloud all their wishes and plans for the object of their love. Others have talismans that they keep in their pockets so that any woman they meet and fancy falls in love with them. "With others, it is inborn, and women dream about such men and just fall in love even when the man makes no effort", Chavunduka added.

But for those who must work hard to get noticed, Chavunduka and company have a variety of ingredients for zany concoctions that can be secretly slipped into food and offered to lovers. Scraps of flesh from a blind puppy will make a woman blindly do whatever a man wants. A lizard’s tail will tie a woman to the house when she has finished her duties at home instead of going out to look for boyfriends and gossip. The heart of a pigeon ensures that the wife is always in the company of her husband.

Love potions are particularly common among men and women who are anxious about marital fidelity in light of HIV/AIDS. A snap survey in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, revealed a booming trade in love potions. The elderly women in this trade usually conduct business in public toilets to avoid detection. A visit to the public toilets at the Bulawayo Communal bus terminus is an eye opener. Women display their potions on the toilet floors, touting for customers. Seemingly oblivious to the smell in the filthy toilets, the women advertise their wares to every person who comes in. Those who cannot stand the smell can always visit traditional healers.

Door-to-door
And a new breed of love potion peddlers moves from door-to-door, selling the love potions to housewives in the comfort of their homes while their husbands are away at work. "These women sell a variety of products, ranging from aphrodisiacs to love potions that ensure that the husband sticks around and does not run around with other women", says a woman who was once confronted by a trader selling "women’s things". There is a widespread belief locally that love potions and aphrodisiacs from Malawi and Zambia are the most potent. Some of the herbalists travel overseas, and one even has agents in the United Kingdom. She asserts (on condition of anonymity): "These herbs have been in use before you were born and no harm has come to society because of them. Those who overdose give us a bad name, but it is possible to do so even with Western medicine. If someone takes a chloroquine overdose, do you then say that chloroquine is not good?"

Meanwhile, the debate continues, especially in circumstances that are not easily explained - how else to account for situations where a woman is abused physically and emotionally, such as when her man brings another woman into the house in her presence, and yet stays put?

Chavunduka and his team have the answer: it is the power of the love potion. As far as we can see, however, the jury is still out on that one.

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