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Mkhululi Ncube, [email protected]

GOGO Ntombana Ncube, a centenarian from Entumbane suburb, has passed away at the age of 106. 

Born on April 10, 1918, Gogo Ncube outlived six of her children and her husband who passed away in 1995. 

She had five sons and four daughters, and only two girls and one boy survive her. She was also blessed with 165 grand and great-grandchildren.

Her daughter, Ms Elizabeth Ncube, said her mother died on Sunday due to complications that arose after falling from her bed while sleeping.

Gogo Ncube was a hardworking woman who loved farming before moving to Bulawayo to live with her daughter. 

“My mother raised us well, but she was a cheeky woman in her heyday. We were afraid of her more than our father because she did not tolerate any nonsense. She was a hard-working woman who loved farming before we took her from Lower Gweru to come and live with us in Bulawayo,” said Ms Ncube.

“Field days used to be held at her homestead even after our father’s death because she was hard working.”

Ms Ncube recalls her mother’s love for traditional food and how she started detesting most of the food she ate in the village when she moved to Bulawayo and fell in love with meat. 

Her mother was so fond of meat that she would hide it in a plastic bag to conceal it, but Ms Ncube would eventually find the meat and distribute it to relatives with dogs.

Despite losing most of her teeth, Gogo Ncube refused to give up her love for meat. 

“She had lost most of her teeth, so wayethatha inyama ayimumuze,” said Ms Ncube.

She said that Gogo Ncube spent most of her time watching television and enjoyed singing. While she could no longer attend church, Gogo Ncube remained a staunch member of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and she loved receiving the Lord’s Supper.

“During the Lord’s Supper service, she did not want me to wash her feet and preferred one of the church members to do it, saying I was rough with her,” she recalled.

Ms Ncube said her mother had recently lost her sense of hearing, although she had a strong sense of smell.

“One day after she had turned 100, I forgot to switch off the stove and she woke me up at night after picking up the scent of a burning plate while I was fast asleep. She loved money and would demand it from her lodgers who stayed in her house in Makokoba. She would keep the money and ask me to buy her whatever she wanted and her favourite relish,” she said. 

Ms Ncube said she stayed with her mother for 17 years, and despite her advanced age, Gogo Ncube remained healthy and was seldom hospitalised. She did most of her chores and was able to bathe herself. She did not want any assistance and made sure to lock the bathroom door to avoid anyone seeing her naked. 

She also did not take kindly to the death of a relative and would ask why God kept her alive and would ask, “Am I being punished by Satan?” 

Gogo Ncube will be laid to rest in Maboleni Village in Lower Gweru this morning. — @themkhust