HARARE – Ex-footballer Shingayi Kaondera met his ailing ex-wife Marry Mubaiwa bedside in hospital for the first time in 10 years on Wednesday.
Mubaiwa left Kaondera, with whom she has a child, and married then Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander General Constantino Chiwenga in 2001. Chiwenga became Vice President in December 2017.
Her marriage to Chiwenga collapsed in 2019 after he accused her of trying to kill him in a South African hospital where he was on life support battling an undisclosed ailment.
Mubaiwa was thrown out of the matrimonial home, arrested and denied access to her three children with Chiwenga.
After collapsing in court on Monday, she was admitted to a Harare hospital in a “critical condition,” her doctors said. Doctors have recommended that her right arm be amputated after failed surgery to save it. The forearm was ravaged by acute lymphoedema.
“After 10 years, I finally met Mai Dee at the hospital, thank you Jesus,” Kaondera wrote on Facebook on Thursday.
The former Zimbabwe international added: “We spent two glorious hours together. She is still wonderful, some souls can’t be tampered with, trust me. l left her in very high spirits and very jovial mood, and determined as ever to beat her discomforting disease. She said l know Shingi you are a prayer warrior, you will pray for me, and l was like you know l always.”
Kaondera said he thanked his ex-wife for “taking very good care of our daughter together, Destiny.”
“She has grown up to be just like my mum,” Kaondera wrote as he urged his friends to “keep on praying for her.”
Mubaiwa is facing a string of criminal charges brought by Chiwenga. They include allegations that she tried to upgrade their customary union to a civil marriage, fraud, attempted murder, assault and money laundering. Her assault trial is on hold on medical grounds.
