A 68-year-old Beit Bridge granny who escaped jail last year after telling a local court that she grew mbanje (Shona for dagga), to appease her ancestral spirits, is back in court, this time for growing the dangerous drug in her backyard for smuggling into South Africa.

"My Lord, if I don’t grow this mbanje the spirits will curse me. They are for appeasing my spirit mediums,’’ she told the court during her first appearance, much to fits of laughter from the public gallery. The court last year wholly suspended her three-month jail term.

On Friday, April 25, Martha Mukwena of Mpande Village, outside Beit Bridge town, was convicted on one count of cultivating dangerous drugs, when she appeared before Beit Bridge magistrate, Mr Kudakwashe Mhene.

Mukwena pleaded with the magistrate to set her free, arguing that she had failed to register with the local traditional healers’ association, yet she was a well-established traditional healer.

The court was told that on 9 April this year, police detectives acting on a tip-off, went to Mukwena’s homestead and searched her premises for the drug. They discovered a small garden with four mbanje plants measuring 60cm each that had been concealed behind a stone precast concrete wall.

Mukwena was subsequently arrested. The court also heard that some of the plants were smuggled into South Africa through undesignated entry points along the Limpopo River.