Zimbabweans turning to herbs for survival

By Tanya Manyere

Solomon Gari’s (56) (not his real name) left his survival with no hope after battling a heart attack for three years, but miraculously herbs brought back hope for his health. 

Gari from Beatrice, 40 km out of Harare on the Masvingo highway, suffered a heart attack, which left him bed ridden in July 2008.

On July 16 2008, Gari had his first heart attack, and was rushed to Beatrice hospital. The doctors claimed that his condition was a result of being over-weight and stress. Attempts to cure the infection took him onto a searching expedition in a bid to find a cure for the unexpected ailment.

The journey brought more questions than answers as Gari went on to be diagnosed with a silent killer, High Blood pressure. The hope of finding a cure started fading away.

“I spent two years drinking a lot of pills that never changed my health, which even weakened my body and I had lost hope of watching the sun rising the next morning,” he said.

With the hope of finding cure slowly fading away a timely Damascan intervention came to his rescue as a friend introduced him to a herbalist. This marked the beginning of a new era for the 56 year old. Gari narrated his story of how the various herbs he used worked wonders as his condition improved in no time.

“For someone who had lost hope for life, I could not believe herbs will actually turn around my dire condition,” he said.

He recounts the thousands of dollars he lost moving from one doctor to the other trying to cure his ailments without success. He added that before he fell ill, he thought the story of traditional medicines curing so called incurable diseases like BP, diabetes and many others were fairy tales.

Gari was prescribed to a certain set of herbs that have led to a normalization of his Blood Pressure.

“Ever since I started taking herbs my condition (high Blood Pressure) has now normalized,” added an ecstatic Gari. His diet now consists of herbs like neem, bitter leaf, rosemary and lavender. He also described the miraculous tree (neem) and its wonders.

“Neem is a miraculous tree that works like magic and gives an instant healing after only taking one leaf, in no time the pain is gone,” added Gari.

Gari’s story is typical of the many patients who have succumbed to different ailments that have been termed incurable in the modern day medical practice and has led to many of them turning to herbs as a last resort. This was confirmed by the ballooning of herb gardens across the country.

Gari’s friend in Beatrice area, Samuel Manyere urged people to resort to the use of herbs because they seem to be the answer to many ailments people are suffering from. He added that herbs have been used since time immemorial.

“People forget where our great-grandfathers got their medicine before the coming of the white men. Those people lived longer than us yet they did not go to hospitals or doctors,” he said.

Manyere urged people to resort to herbs as they could be used in the cure of many ailments not to mention its affordability for everyone. Modernization promotes the use of drugs and people have been made to believe that herbs are associated with evil but that should now be demystified.

“I m against those who associate herbs with pagans, in the bible Israelites also used herbs,” he said.

Quoting from the bible, Manyere said Exodus 12:18 talks about eating herbs.

“If you read that verse it says, that same night they are to eat the meat roasted over the fire, along with bitter herbs and bread made without yeast,” he said.

These herbs helped the Israelites during their long journey to the Promised Land.

Daphne Masaka (20) of Glen-Norah also supports the idea that herbs are effective and are still doing wonders.

“From the beginning herbs have been effective but people today do not know that. They are natural and they do not contain those artificial substances that can be harmful,” she said

One of the leading herbal medicine companies, Tiens International Group encouraged people to try their products. “Herbs have no side effects, it is just like natural food and they have been tried and tested and so far we have not encountered any problems,” said Elvis Mutasa from Tiens.

Mutasa further explained that people should trust herbs because of the glaring results people see after taking Tiens products.

“We do not prescribe but we recommend, we trust our products, our history have gone for more than 5000 years in operation and so far so good, and we have more than 20 million people using our products,

“We are 100% sure of our products, they are natural and so is your body and it requires a natural medication for good health,” added Mutasa. Many people in Zimbabwe are now turning to herbs as witnessed by the mushrooming of herbal medicine companies including Tiens, Forever Living and Green World.