By Own Correspondent| An 81-year-old Kadoma granny has caught the attention of Kadoma residents after literally striking gold right at the centre of her homestead, turning her fortunes from a being a beggar to an employer overnight.

Following the death of her husband who was working in Harare, Mbuya Mavis’ world came to crashing halt as she could not cope with the mountainous challenge of taking care of her bloated family without a reliable source of income.

She was forced to retreat back to her hometown in Kadoma.

While in Kadoma, her situation did not improve as she continued to wallow in poverty, without food to eat and feed her dependants including grandchildren who numbered up to fourteen.

She thought the gods had smiled on her when one day she discovered that she was sitting on top of gold deposits right at her homestead.

She began mining the yellow metal but her bubble did not take long to burst as she soon discovered that her new discovery was doing too little to change her fortunes.

Poverty continued to rear its ugly head in her household and without any means to survive, she regularly got food hampers from philanthropic traditional healer, Sekuru Banda.

“I heard from a relative how Sekuru Banda was assisting the vulnerable and I decided to approach him so he could help me with foodstuffs to feed my bloated family.

“I kept on going back to him until he asked me about what he could do to ensure that I can sustain myself and my family without donations, that is when I told him that I had tried gold mining without success,” narrated Mbuya Mavis.

She added that due to economic hardships, she at some point contemplated committing suicide as she could not bear the sight of her dependants suffering while she watched helplessly.

Sekuru Banda helped me by channelling spirits to open up and I started making money from my gold mining.

“I started employing people to work at the mine because we reached a time when it got me overwhelmed,” she added.

Currently, her gold output stands at between 400 to 600 grams a week with each gram being sold for around USD45.

Mbuya Mavis later regularized her operations in the process obtaining a mining license, something that has enabled her continue dreaming big.

Mbuya Mavis has since invested in houses and livestock as she is alive to the realities that the situation may not remain the same forever.

“While I used to struggle to feed my grandchildren alone, I can now boast of being able to take care of my children and my sons in law together with their families, added Mbuya Mavis.

Asked what kind of assistance he has rendered to Mbuya Mavis, Sekuru Banda said he only channelled spirits to help her.

“Gold was there right at her homestead but she was failing to survive from it and what needed to be done was to channel the spirits to open up for her and it worked.

“We help a lot of people so that your God and ancestors can open up to you, its not what people used to call kuromba but just opening up of opportunities,” said Sekuru Banda.

After her successful mining venture, Mbuya Mavis is now also into philanthropic work, assisting other elderly people in her community, something Sekuru Banda hailed as commendable and worthy replicating.