Daily Sun (July 16 2013) - THE bones told inyanga Zodwa it was okay to buy the second-hand car, but the bones were wrong! The inyanga has lost her money and learnt an expensive lesson. "THE BONES HAVE FAILED ME!" SHE COMPLAINED. "They did not tell me that I was being played for a fool by a con artist!" said the traditional healer who was cheated out of R7 700.
Zodwa Vengwa (43) now believes in the saying that an inyanga can't heal herself. "I should have known this from the beginning but I didn't listen," she said. Zodwa was in Durban on 3 July to buy herbs and ingredients for muthi from other traditional healers when she saw an advert for the car in the paper.
Zodwa, who comes from Embongweni, KZN, is based in the Eastern Cape. She travels by taxi to KZN every month. "I don't have a driver's licence but I was going to hire somebody to be my driver," said Zodwa. "I loved this car in the paper and sent a call-back to the number in the advert.
"A man called me immediately. He said I had to pay a R7 700 deposit." She had R5 000 to buy muthi, but she gave it to the fake car-dealer instead. "He took me to an office in the CBD and I gave him the money as a deposit," she said.
"Then he kept calling me, asking for the balance." On her next trip to Durban she gave the man the outstanding R2 700. "He didn't give me any proof of payment," she said.
Then the man, a foreigner, started hiding from her. He only answered his phone when Zodwa got her daughter to phone, using a different number. "We told him we no longer wanted the car and he must return the money. He agreed immediately and asked for my account number, promising to deposit the money the same day - but he didn't," she said.
"On Saturday I was in Durban and asked him to bring the cash but he said he was in Joburg." That's when the inyanga went to the cops at Durban Central Police Station. "A police woman phoned the man and told him she needed muthi for a cheating husband. He said he was in Durban even though he had just told me that he was in Joburg," said Zodwa.
Lieutenant Khephu Ndlovu told Daily Sun the cops arrested the man in Berea. "Three suspects were arrested after a trap was set," said Ndlovu. "They were found with a small coffin. It is not clear what the coffin was for."
Inyanga Zodwa said her bones let her down but the ancestors helped get the suspects arrested. "The damage is done. I have lost my money and I won't get the car but my ancestors helped me get those crooks arrested. The elders always said an inyanga can't heal herself and now I believe them."
The three suspects face a charge of theft and will appear in the Durban Magistrates Court today.
See the Daily Sun mobi site for more on this and other stories....
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