Veteran actress falls on hard times

THERE is a saying which goes: “No act of kindness, no matter how small is ever wasted.” This adage is apt as far as veteran actress Catherine Mazodze (65)’s plight is concerned as she faces eviction from her lodgings in Harare’s Cranborne suburb where she has failed to pay rentals for the past three months.

She rents a three-roomed housefor US$220 per month.

With emotion scaring her face, amid groans of helplessness and deep sighs Mazodze told Newsday Life & Style that she used to survive on selling foodstuffs at a small market, but it became unsustainable.

“I have been struggling to secure money for rentals since January this year and now my landlord has given me notice to vacate the premises within a week, I do not have anywhere to go. I do not even have a rural home to go to,” said the actress who was a darling on the small screen featuring in hilarious dramas by the late Safiro Madzikatire, aka Mukadota, when she acted as Machipisa.

As Machipisa she spiced up Madzikatire’s 1980s to early 1990s dramas as Mukadota’s small house making her a favourite among television viewers back then.

Lifting her dress to show a scar on her stomach attained during a Hernia surgery at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals recently, she said the illness caused her problems as things never became the same again.

“Social welfare assisted me with hospital bills and church members donated groceries. However, when I came back, a young woman had taken over the spot where I used to cook and all the customers during the time I was away due to the illness,” she said.

Her husband Emmerson Mandivenga Tafataona succumbed to cancer in 2022. They lived in rented accommodation in Highfield and the structure was demolished during operation Murambatsvina. Afterwards, they moved in with her late husband’s sister in Cranborne who later chased Mazodze away.

“I moved in to a nearby house (which is where she is staying currently) and my husband had left some money for me. I used that for rentals and my upkeep,” Mazodze said.

Although she has two children, son Kingstone and daughter Sharon, Mazodze said she was not getting help of any sort from them.

“My son at times is mentally unstable and violent; he resides in Hopley and my daughter is in South Africa. I do not recall the last time I saw her although she used to send money here and there, she has gone silent. I guess things are not good for her either because she is a vendor, she sells odds and ends,” Mazodze said.

Mazodze, who also suffers from arthritis, yearns to find accommodation where she can be visited by relatives and friends as she fears to die alone with no one visiting. She also wishes to own a small tuckshop to sell groceries and a pushcart to take goods to and from the market.

Those wishing to assist her can send money on her EcoCash number Catherine Mazodze +263771988956. Her address is number 14 Audley Street, Cranborne.