DIVORCED TWINS JET INTO FITNESS…

 “Once married to one man”

HOW can one who has never been divorced understand the pain of divorce? How can one pretend to be ok in marriage when things are not ok? And how can one who has never had to tackle a problem head on understand what dazed means?  

Pierre Corneille said; “When there is no peril in the fight there is no glory”. Those who have overcome in most marriages seemingly insoluble obstacles are never forgotten. Even though, life holds so many challenges, but our main purpose is to be happy, which means we are responsible for our own happiness.  

Back then in 2011, South Africans were engulfed with news of nice-looking identical twin sisters, ‘Owami Siko and Olwethu Siko’ who married a television director, Mzukiseni Mzazi in a traditional ceremony then 21-years-old.

The question comes; How did Mzazi convince them to change their surname? 'What is mine, is yours, what is yours is mine, including your man sis.' One of the twin was quoted in W24, online magazine but both believe they are “two bodies with one soul”. They say from birth they have been sharing everything.

In 2019, the sisters divorced their husband. The divorce was a joint decision and they both wanted to get out of the marriage. They are on record saying that they regretted entering into marriage for the wrong reasons.

 “The mistake we made was not allowing the process to know the kind of person he was. We rushed to get married as virgins because of the church. We knew him for two weeks, and in the third week, he sent a letter to our family to request our hand in marriage. The process took a month,” says the twins.

In pursuit of their dream, they met their ‘divorced’ husband Mzukiseni, who was then working as a director on television drama ‘Muvhango’. Instead of giving them a break based on their skill and talent, Owami claims Mzukiseni made moves on them.

Its believed that the man took advantage of their poverty, and from the beginning of the marriage, the twins claim it was never easy.

 “We were in a marriage whereby we didn’t enter because we were in love with our husband. We got married because we were escaping the poverty that we were in,” says Owami. Hence, the girls married the man within a few weeks of meeting him. At that time, they were only 21, and their husband was in his late 40's.

“There are no shortcuts in life. Sometimes you do shortcuts, and life will take you back. Sometimes you try to run away from poverty, meanwhile, you are running to pain. Sometimes appreciate what you have and hold on there, because you don’t know what will happen the next day. Pray. There is nothing that beats prayer,” says Owami.

Reaching new heights, they are now single and living life under different conditions There have been mixed reactions to the divorce, with the community who were against the idea from the beginning, still being unsupportive.

Owami and Olwethu made the decision to get divorced after realizing they had remained in the marriage because of their children – both one from each sister, with their ex-husband.

For now, the ladies are hosting motivational events, empowering women across the country and hosting fitness events since it was the one thing that got them through the toxic marriage.

#OneBodyOneSoul

#FittinessTwins

#TwiceAsNice

#BornATwin

Walusungu Silweya

Twins-Activist/Author/Advocate