Mr Nditsheni Gavhi from Khubvi Ethiopia gets very worried when he sees how many people, especially from around the Vhembe region, kill their spouses over infidelity. Gavhi, who is a bricklayer by profession, knows from his own experience how hard just walking away is when a marriage turns sour. He explained that he had caught his wife and his best friend redhandedly in bed together once, many years ago, but he knew that lashing out in anger at either of them was worth nothing.
Although this incident happened a long time ago, Gavhi felt he needed to share his experience with others to show that getting violent in these situations was not necessary. "I met my friend back when I was still learning bricklaying at TVET College's Makwarela campus. He was the bricklaying lecturer at the college. We became very close friends and were always together. When we both got married, our wives also became friends. He was the only person in this world I trusted, apart from my wife," Gavhi said.
According to Gavhi, the problem started when he had to go to Johannesburg for a few weeks. "I had registered for a two-week training course in Johannesburg and, as a close and trusted friend, he knew exactly how long I would be away. However, instead of being away for two weeks, I returned home after just one week. Remember, there were no cellphones in those days, so neither my wife nor my friend knew that I was coming home a week earlier," he said.
When he arrived home, some clothes were hanging on the washing line, and he thought his wife would be relaxing inside the house after doing the washing. "I went straight to the bedroom but didn't knock on the door as I wanted to surprise my wife. What I saw nearly made my heart stop beating. My friend was busy making love to my wife - in my bedroom and on my bed. I thought of beating the hell out of him, but I realised that it was my wife who brought him in there. I walked out of the bedroom and closed the door behind me," he said.
That night, he said, his wife slept on the floor, and when he asked her to get into the bed, she only started to cry. Gavhi never told her to leave, but the following morning she packed her belongings and left for good. "That was how our marriage ended. I raised my son as a single parent, and he is now an adult," he said.
"What I want to say to both men and women is that, when love flies out of the window, the best thing to do is to accept that it is over and move on. People get killed just for being suspected that they are cheating, with no evidence against them at all. I caught my wife red-handed and did not raise a hand to her. I just moved on. What do you gain by beating and killing someone? It is not worth it."