Zinhle Ngwenya, an actress, tells how she fought to accept her calling and how she’s been living as a sangoma.
According to the South African star, she rejected having a calling and suffered terribly from blindness and other tragedies until she accepted.
“Like any other young person, at first I was in denial and ashamed. Then when I started getting sick out of the blue, I knew it was something serious, but we had no clue what was happening to me,” says Ngwenya.
“I was still in denial until weird things started happening to me… I’ll prepare for a holiday trip, book my flight, and then out of nowhere, I’d be blind. After canceling the trip, my eyesight would be restored,” she says.
Zinhle says she ended up embracing and her calling and went to the initiation school (ukuthwasa) in Mozambique at a place called Mamboni where she went through the spiritual and herbal training.
She claims to be a decent Sangoma who doesn’t misuse her power.
Ngwenya who has embraced being a traditional healer and actress says she’s helped people to heal from sickness, and people who unable to have their child.
Ngwenya has rubbed certain people the wrong way because of her spiritual gift. She recalls being kicked out of the church because she started prophesying in the house of the Lord.
“I remember one time I was chased away from church because I prophesied that the church leader had multiple partners in church. That became a big issue, “ she says.
She says being a sangoma and beautiful can sometimes cause problems, because in people’s point of view a sangoma should look dirty, scruffy and unkempt. “We are beautiful and we bathe. We slay, but at the end of the day, we have a special gift to carry out and respect the work of the ancestors. I’m a low key person and very private about my personal life.”
Ngwenya says her work speaks volume. She adds that she helps heal those who can’t have kids, strengthening people’s homes (ukubethela to cast away bad spells), restoring couples’ broken relationships and helping women who are struggling with fertility issues.
Ngwenya says: “Look, I am not complaining that the festive season has been busy.
I have started putting together Imbiza for men who have erectile dysfunction, as well as bringing back stolen goods. I have good testimonies of people I have helped, and I am not bluffing.” Ngwenya brags that her products are sold as far as the UK. She now does consultations both on the phone and in person.
Ngwenya says she has no plans of quitting acting, adding that so far she has been lucky that most of her roles co-exist with her spiritual work. “I am not sure I will call it luck, but so far my roles relate to what I do. I either play a medical doctor or a sangoma and that’s what I do in real life. It comes natural and my fans are going to see more of me on the small screens, ” she adds.
