Strange but true: Woman who spent 40 years leaving with mermaids has long hair and reeds. Rowai Chihwakwa, of Matande village under Chief Negari, disappeared in 1982 as an eight-year-old girl, only to reappear last month following a series of rituals spanning two weeks at the site of her disappearance.The woman who recently hogged the limelight after reappearing from the world of mermaids made her first public appearance on Sunday, December 06, following several weeks under the restrictive care of Zaka female traditional healerswho helped secure her reappearance.
After her reappearance, the n’angas took her to Zaka where they cared for her while helping her to adapt back into the real world.
At a ceremony held at the Chihwakwa village homestead in Mwenezi East, Rowai, who donned a crown of feathers that are common with n’angas, did not say much as she seemed to be disinterested or at least indifferent to the many curious faces around her.
Chief Negari, Mwenezi District Development Coordinator (DDC) Rosemary Chingwe, Mwenezi RDC Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Albert Chivanga, District Public Service Inspector Last Gondo were among the prominent people who were part of the gathering.
Flanked by the n’angas, Rowai’s body was wrapped in a colourful cloth commonly referred to as Zambia. Her head was veiled, with her face hardly visible in the hut where she sat on a mat, with a neatly-woven reed basket containing an assortment of sangoma paraphernalia right in front of her.
It is believed that if a person is snatched by mermaids and he/she spends several years with them, the person – if the necessary rites are performed and members of the family do not sound ‘unnecessary’ alarm or cry – would come back a connoisseur in traditional medicine with knowledge of remedies to virtually all ailments and abnormalities like cancer and infertility.
At the rain-soaked ceremony, Rowai looked strikingly light in complexion perhaps as a result of her prolonged stay in a paranormal world where sunlight and its scorching effects are said to be non-existent.
