BIKITA – A man who was angry that his sister’s bride price had not been paid was brought to court where he pleaded guilty to charges of assaulting and seriously injuring the elderly go-between (munyai).
Magistrate Caroline Tafira slapped Makuzha Takasiiwa (24), of Village 6 under Chief Budzi, with five months in prison with an option to pay a fine of US$250.
The State, led by Japhet Mapakame, convinced the court that on February 17, Takasiiwa assaulted Enock Makaya (70), who resides in Makondo village, for failing to go and demand bride price from the in-laws of Takasiiwa’s sister.
The accused had approached the complainant at his homestead and demanded to know why he had not gone to demand lobola from the in-laws.
A misunderstanding arose between the two, with Takasiiwa striking the complainant with booted feet three times on the ribs and once on the left cheek, once on the mouth and once on the forehead.
He also picked a stool which he used to strike the complainant several times on the head.local

GWERU – The Shamrock Park Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) church in Mambo suburb last week went on a clean-up campaign and cleared some thick bushes and tall grass that residents said had become a hideout for criminals.
The church also sought to promote a healthier environment by donating four rubbish bins. 
Khumbulani Mlambo, an elder at the congregation said the SDA was responding to the need to contribute in the fight against litter and the rise in crime levels in the community.
 “We are doing this programme to help the community prevent crime. It is pointless for us as members of the community to repeatedly report issues of violence and robbery to the police when we have not done our part to prevent the crime,” said Mlambo. 
Ward 7 councilor Stanford Mukotami, who gathered protective clothing used during the programme, said he was pleased by the initiative which he said should be replicated in many other areas by all church denominations.
“I am happy to see the SDA church making the initiative to take a leading role in safeguarding our communities and promoting a healthier environment. We also wish to partner the church so that we can clear illegal dumpsites and other areas with large heaps of garbage,” said Mlambo.local

Brighton Chiseva

RENCO MINE – Varaidzo Changa (23) from Changa village in Chief Nyajena will live to rue the day she snatched another woman’s husband as she is now lying at Morgenster Hospital nursing a gruesome injury inflicted on her by her love rival.
Changa was hacked by a hoe on her right leg by Memory Maribha who had discovered the illicit love affair between Changa and her husband Eddy Makwinya.
The incident happened at Matongo Farm in Mushawasha where Changa worked as a house maid at a certain village homestead.
Masvingo acting police spokesperson Assistant Inspector Kudakwashe Dhewa confirmed the incident and warned people not use violence to solve disputes.
“We urge people not to use violence when there is a misunderstanding. People should engage leaders to help them solve disputes,” said Ass Insp Dhewa.
Sources said Maribha (25) from Muzenda village saw some racy messages and pictures in her husband’s phone and she armed herself with a hoe before heading to the victim’s place.
She found Changa busy at work and she savagely attacked her while accusing her of seeing her husband.
Changa was rushed to Jena Rural Hospital (Muchibwa) with an almost hacked-off leg but she was later transferred to Morgenster. A police report was then made at Renco Mine Police Station leading to Maribha’s arrest.local
   

The Chipinge community last Thursday received a major boost after the local chapter of Rotary Club International donated a building and books meant for a community library.
The community library will be located at St Albertina’s Primary School in the town.
The move is expected to help hundreds of people in Chipinge as the district has had no functional library ever since the closure of the council library many years ago.
Speaking during the handover of the doantion, Chipinge Rotary Club’s Mekias Gwamanda said the new community library will cater mostly for primary and secondary school students.
“I’m excited that we have finally set up a community library in Chipinge. The Rotary Club has also donated furniture and books which will be used in the beginning of the project.
“Now we have the community library we are appealing the business community, former students and parents to come on board and donate books for the benefit of our children. We will ensure that the library will have new books which will match the needs of today,” said Gwananda.
Tinashe Kuzuwazuwa, a librarian based in the town, thanked Rotary Club for the donation, saying libraries played an important role in the impartation of knowledge.
“The situation in marginalised communities such as Chipinge is worrisome as there is no functional library. Many students here lack access to the digital technology so we are calling for the establishments of community libraries which will help the community in accessing books.
“In Chipinge urban, there is no library and many people rely on a high school library. We have been engaging the local authority but to no avail hence we appealing to all stakeholders to come on board to revive the culture of reading books. If there is no urgent intervention, community libraries will face extinction,” said Kuzuwazuwa.
The government established community libraries in both urban and rural areas countrywide soon after independence as a way of addressing colonial imbalances.local

Sleep is an essential requirement for the normal functioning of the human body. Sleep plays an important role in ensuring the wellness of the human body both physically as well as mentally. Though scientists still do not understand how exactly it works, there is a unanimous understanding that we cannot do without it. Newborn infants sleep approximately 70 percent of the day, but that usually declines with age to about six hours per day in adults. It is not just sitting idle in bed for a third of our lives. While we sleep, the body is working; working very hard to prepare us for the next day. Certain hormones essential for growth are released mostly during sleep.
Most of us might say night time is when we do most of our best work and being awake at 8 am is not really their favourite part of the day. A small part of you might wish they did not have to sleep at all but when you do sleep, you definitely do enjoy it.  But the body doesn’t really rest when you are sleeping. Have you ever suffered from a headache and then you sleep for some time to wake up with the pain having vanished? This is the effect that a good night’s rest has on your body. The need to sleep is one of the strongest biological urges we have and one of the few that we really cannot control. And the fact is mammalian species will actually die from a lack of sleep before they die from thirst or starvation.
It does not take long for the brain and body to feel the effects of sleep deprivation and the problems increase with time.  Just go one night without sleep and your brain quickly starts to crumble, beginning with the amygdale; that part of the brain that prepares the brain for danger. Short term sleep deprivation throws the amygdale into overdrive which, in turn, shuts down the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that controls logical reasoning among other things. So a single all nighter will put you in a state of panic. When signals bypass the prefrontal cortex, the sleep-deprived brain connects instead to another part that evolutionarily is very old and primitive, the locus cerulos which makes you respond instinctively to stress and panic. Only problem is it can interpret anything as a threat, a swerving car, a bad joke, bright light. This leaves you very anxious and suspicious. The longer you go without sleep the worse things get, memory and speech control are the next to suffer but after several days it gets really weird. General paranoia gives way to increasingly vivid hallucinations (Some theories that this is your brain actually forcing you into a waking sleep).
The big question now is can a lack of sleep actually kill you. The answer to this is YES!!! Sleep is closely tied to immune health. Studies have shown a 50 percent decrease in antibodies in test subjects who were only moderately sleep-deprived for one week exposing them to a host of illnesses. A famous study from the 1980s conducted by Alan Rechtschaffen in which a group of rats deprived of sleep all died within two weeks. The cause as far as the researchers could tell was simply exhaustion. Nothing physically was wrong with the rats.
You probably now want to know how long can you go without sleep. I do not have an exact answer but the longest documented case of a person voluntarily staying awake is of 17-year-old Randy Gardner who in 1965 spent 264 hours which is about 11 days sleep.
Gardner emerged relatively unscathed physically but was described as being cognitively dysfunctional at the end. While awake, he experienced blurred vision and involuntary eye movements.
Rutsate is a second year medical student at UZ. He is a member of the Zimbabwe Medical  Students Association (ZiMSA) and  the current National SCOPH director.local

GWERU – Talk of excellence and hard work, Lower Gwelo Adventist High School (LOGAHS) has done just that; recording an impressive 84 percent pass rate in the November 2017 ‘O’ level examinations, beating their 2016 mark by three percentage points.
Their most outstanding pupil emerged with a whopping 16 straight As.
When contacted by TellZim News, deputy school head Jabula Sibanda said he was satisfied with the pace by which the school was progressing in terms of improving the quality of passes.
“We did well and our parents are happy especially those with children who are on top the list of our best performers. Our best pupil has 16 As and the runner ups have 15, 14 and 13 As respectively. We have managed to beat our previous pass rate of 81 percent and that is a sign of hard work on the part of our staff and pupils,” said Sibanda.
The SDA Central Zimbabwe Conference, who are the school’s responsible authority, said the perfor-mance was reflective of the excellence that all SDA institutions espouse.
The conference’s education director, Pastor Lambat Ncube said he was proud of the pace that has been set by the school.
“We are pleased by the hard work that is being done at Lower Gwelo. Those results speak for them-selves but there is still a lot of more hard work to be done in order to make sure that the excellent pace is maintained. 
“The other schools that we run as the SDA church have also done well at both ‘O’ and ‘A’ levels so this is a sign that both teachers and pupils are working hard. Most importantly, it shows that God is guiding all our efforts,” said Pastor Ncube.local