… Queen Aquata
MARY Mutinhima (not real name) got married after securing a job with one of the top corporates in Harare.
It was a dream come true for her; securing a good job after graduating from college was one of those things that every woman would envy. Everything went well for Mutinhima and her husband until fissures began to emerge during their marriage with time.
The differences grew, followed by ongoing fights until they broke up. Mary was left with scars, and so did her husband. Like many marriages, theirs suffered from a lot of societal ills. Immaturity and lack of advice exacerbated their divorce, which could have been salvaged had they received good counselling.
With the social fibre and the extended family broken, a Harare-based traditional and faith healer Sicecisiwe Nkala known as Queen Aquata has stepped in to fill in the void and offer counselling, healing and advice from a traditional perspective. Queen Aquata is an immaculate dresser among a rare breed of traditional healers who exude beauty and intelligence, demystifying the perceived image of old, impoverished and dirty traditional healers.
“Mine is more of a calling to save marriages. There is nothing as disheartening to see children grow in broken families due to some things that we can address,” Aquata told EnterSportNews.
“I know that some people despise the traditional ways as a remedy to save marriages, but if the truth is to be told, marriages are collapsing because our kids no longer have an identity. And offering traditional treatments to save marriages doesn’t mean that one has to do archaic things or look backwards.
“We still follow our tradition in the modern era without our clients suffering the stigma. Even when I go out there, one cannot tell I am a traditional healer. I am elegant and smart, and that’s how we also offer our services.”
Hailing from the high-density suburb of Glen View, Aquata said many factors are causing marital problems, some of which are spiritual, lack of guidance and societal. She was given the name by mermaids as the queen of the waters and specialises in several ailments that seem to be on the rise in recent years, mainly owing to the general lifestyles people are now living in and the discard of the traditional way of life.
“People talk of spiritual husbands and spiritual wives and don’t know how to get rid of them. I wouldn’t want to appear like castigating others. Still, not every one of these spiritual problems goes because of prayer,” she added.
“Yes, some go while some not entirely because not everyone is as strong as the other in casting away these demons on their own. So that’s where we step in to cast out these demons.
“Secondly, we have a problem of the collapse of the family system, and before its collapse, we have tetes and uncles who are also clueless on their roles. Or even their marriages collapsed because of a lack of knowledge. Make no mistake; sex forms an integral part of a marriage, and the high cases of infidelity result from that.”
“We have weak men who can’t satisfy women, forcing some women into infidelity. We have women who are so cold and can’t bathe, leading to men going out. So we offer both men and women education on sex and how to satisfy your partner. We also have herbs to enhance those that were born with deficiencies. Because of diet, most people have their hormones affected and perform poorly in bed. Because of lack of knowledge, you find most men rushing to get pills from the streets, which further compound the problem as they treat a symptom, not the disease. Women rush in the other direction like a headless chicken but again fail to find a solution.
“So that’s why I said mine is a calling to come and save marriages. I work with some healers because we have been mandated to save marriages. Some of the ills we are seeing on the streets right now result from broken families. Children now indulge in drugs to escape the effects of the failed marriages or fights at home among parents.”
Aquata said she welcomed the move by the first lady Auxillia Mnangagwa when she had a meeting with herbalists on their input to find the cure for Covid-19.
“I was delighted when I saw the First Lady meeting with herbalists and local researchers. I liked that our leaders have realised that we have local solutions to some of the problems we face in the country,” she said.
“If we return to identifying who we are and the things that made us a people for the past generations, we will manage to tame some of these problems. We have the solutions to some of these problems. We just need to accept that we have our way of life that our forefathers used for centuries to keep families intact.
“And we can still use these same methods in a modern era without looking backwards. As traditional healers, we are also moving with time, using social media and other new media technologies to save marriages.”
