BY MAURICE DUNDU THE adage that misfortunes never come singly has proved correct for the people of Chipinge and Chimanimani, who now suffer the double blow of fighting COVID-19, while at the same time they are also licking the wounds caused by Cyclone Idai, which severely damaged their infrastructure last year. Sadly, most of the victims of this double tragedy are married women whose husbands work in South Africa, while they are left to bear the painful burden of taking care of their children alone. To add to their problems, in most cases, their husbands have second wives or concubines in the neighbouring country where they work. Chipinge has always experienced problems of young men, especially those who fail to make it educationally, who then opt to travel to South Africa to look for work while leaving behind their families in Zimbabwe. Most of the families that are left behind suffer in times of natural disasters such as Cyclone Idai and during pandemics such as COVID-19. Their situation is further worsened by the fact that most Ndau men from Chipinge take long to return from South Africa as they want to first accumulate money and goods before coming back. Coming home empty-handed is considered an insult to the women and children who would have endured the pain of missing them for a long time, only for them to return without anything. The COVID-19 lockdown bailout package for workers in foreign countries also does not consider the plight of the poor women and children in Zimbabwe. The workers have been struggling to survive during the lockdown period in that country, which means that after the relaxation of the lockdown measures, they have to work first to get more money before thinking of coming back. A Ndau man who works in South Africa, known as Baba aKali, said coming back home after the relaxation of the COVID-19 lockdown measures would take long as he needed to work to make up for the time and money lost during lockdown. “Coming home will take long for many workers here as they need to recover the money lost during the lockdown period. Life here is not that rosy. It is difficult with this COVID-19,” aKali said. Audience Zondwayo from Chipinge West said the COVID-19 pandemic had worsened the situation back home, where people are still struggling to recover from the effects of Cyclone Idai. Zondwayo said some women whose husbands work in South Africa had started small businesses like vending and market gardening as they tried to recover from the effects of last year’s devastating cyclone. “After Cyclone Idai, people resorted to vending to stave off hunger, but during the COVID-19 lockdown period, their wares like vegetables got rotten as they could not go out to sell them,” he said. Zondwayo said that deprived the women of income to support their children, given that their husbands were either also struggling or supporting other women in foreign land. The women whose husbands work in foreign lands end up suffering materially, emotionally and they are also sex starved. Unfortunately for them, while their husband