Zimbabwe July 2008

July 2008

This is a quick recap without much editing for those keen to hear what returning to Zimbabwe has been like…Before getting onto the depressing stuff, some light entertainment anecdotes from my pre-Zim trip:

Zambian taxi driver at the one-room Sesheke border post: Do you speak Norwegian?
Me: Er, no…(Do I look like I speak Norwegian?  Well, maybe). Why, do you?
Zambian taxi driver:  Oh yes.  I have 3 siblings in Norway.

Zambian teacher through a bus window:  Hello, er, I'm wondering if you can help me?
Me through a bus window: Uh, maybe…what is it you need help with?
Zambian teacher:  I need a metal detector.
Me:  Uh, I'm not sure I can help with that.

Me, watching beer being smuggled onto Zambian bus (beyond the gaze of customs officials):  So, did this beer come across the  Zambezi river on a boat?
Zambian passenger:  No no, that would be illegal.

Zimbabwean airport security official, scanning my hand luggage:  Do you have any metal items in this bag?
Me:  Yes, I have a lot of metal items in that bag…(including razor blades, cables, adaptor plugs, camera, etc etc)
Airport official, looking at images:  Oh, ok.  Proceed.

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I crossed the border into Zimbabwe at Victoria Falls very early last Friday morning, having taken a beer-smuggling bus the previous day through Zambia from Namibia.   I paid my Zambian taxi driver in a combination of kwacha, rand and US dollars, and set off across the potholes with all my bags.  Hard to know what to expect, but it was a relief to be home.  I went straight to the Falls for an extraordinary sunrise through the mist.

The sense of disillusionment in the air was palpable, and my taxi driver unusually quiet. He didn't have enough fuel to get to the Vic Falls airport (a journey of 20 mins), and there is no such thing as going to a service station nowadays, so we had to drive around the
backstreets of town, haul some guy out of bed, and then wait for 5 litres of petrol in a plastic bottle to appear.  I had to give the driver an advance in US dollars to pay the fuel dealer.  On the way to the airport he told me that civil servants were now earning 100
billion Z$ a month – and that a loaf of bread that day cost 80 billion.  There was a power cut at the airport, but somehow I managed to get a boarding pass, and passed the time with a golf caddy-turned-teak dealer who was taking a heavy boxful of groceries
from Zambia back to his family in Harare.

The Chinese plane miraculously arrived on time and landed successfully at Harare airport, where we caught a glimpse of Phillip Chiyangwa zooming off in his black Mercedes.  So, I am back in Harare where things have quietened down quite considerably since our leader reinstated himself.  In fact we've even heard reports of police arresting those responsible for some of the horrific recent violence. There are also other reports of retributive violence by communities themselves against youth who terrorised people in their home areas.

We have electricity today at home but it's only the second day we've had power this week.  We usually get a few hours in the evening, but during daylight the northern suburbs of Harare are humming with the sound of generators – for those who can afford them.  Our generator at home is strong enough to power lights and computers, but not the
kettle, stove or the borehole pump.  So we use water in buckets drawn from the 

swimming pool as necessary. (We always knew our swimming pools would come in handy one day).  And during the power cuts we cook using a combination of the solar cooker and a wood fire in the garden.  Gas is difficult to come by.  When the power comes on, then we go wild with the washing machine ;)

 All the lampposts in our area are smothered in Zanu-PF posters, proclaiming 'This is the Final Battle for Total Control'.  My personal favourite, however, is the slogan 'Behind the Fist'.  Unbelievably apt.  I wonder which information ministry guru came up with it – it will make a brilliant book title one day.  Apparently putting up posters was a post-assault duty of those rounded up and beaten by the youth militia in the nearby Lewisham vlei during the second elections.

I have been phoning various family friends to catch up.  The phone networks are completely overloaded, so sometimes it can take 20-30 attempts to get through. Nowadays when I ask how people are, they tend to pause and say, 'well, we're…ok'.   Amidst the fear and the trauma that most people are trying to shield themselves from, daily life here is incredibly time-consuming.  Our dollar devalues every hour (about 60% per week) and paying for things is always complicated.   Last
weekend I had lunch with 4 friends and it cost us about 1.4 trillion Zim dollars.  Yes, people here are adept at doing calculations in billions and trillions. I don't even bother to try and keep up with them.  We settled the bill in rands – by far the easiest method.  US
dollars and rands are common currency now in shops and restaurants – but still officially illegal.

My family can only draw the Z$ equivalent of USD 1.50 each per day from the bank.  Cash is in extremely short supply and hence expensive to obtain, even in exchange for foreign currency on the parallel/black market.  Quite a lot of grocery shops only take cash or cheques – but our bank, for example, will only allow the use of 1-2 cheques per dayvalued at USD 5-10 each.  Keeping track of exchange rates is a full time job, given the dynamism of devaluation, and subsequently most people are happy to round off numbers or approximate their dealings in ways which you'd never see in other parts of the world.

The city is full of harrowing stories, but most people try to avoid talking too much about politics – it's simply too depressing.   My parents' domestic worker has been badly affected over the past few months.  After the February elections, a gang visited his elderly mother's rural homestead in Murehwa.  They assaulted her and other elderly women, demanding to know why Mugabe had lost in that area, and what their children were doing in the cities. The family's homestead was set on fire – even their grain store was destroyed.  Their radio and television – supposed sources of opposition propaganda – were hacked to pieces with axes.  Their oxen cart was also hacked to pieces.  These items were pretty much their sum possessions.  His mother has been staying with a relative since the incident and has not yet returned home.  Meanwhile, in one of the townships in Harare, he had to move his 18 year old daughter to yet another relative during the second elections to safeguard her from rape.

Food staples are in very short supply and very expensive.  Most in the townshipws are living on potatoes and cabbage.  Meat is now an incredible luxury that very few can afford.  On the other end of the spectrum, there are quite a few popular restaurants in the city which charge USD20-30 per person, and they are certainly not short of
clientele.  (For an ordinary person, in London terms this would equate to something like spending several hundred, if not thousand, pounds on a meal).  The discrepancies and inequalities here are massive and growing.  There is an increased police presence everywhere (and friends report frequent extortion for petty or made-up offences), but
I have been driving around and even walking around the neighbourhood virtually as normal, albeit having to see Bob on every lamppost.

The shops are bare, though, and usually ensconced in darkness.  Our local pharmacy spreads its products out along the shelves at a distance of about 30 cm in between each shampoo bottle.  The informal economy has flourished – we buy vegetables regularly from the back of a truck which parks at the end of our road; and if I want to have a
hair cut, a massage (that's right, available even here) or attend a yoga class, I go to people's homes for the service and pay them in foreign currency.

Amidst all this, last weekend I went to a craft fair.  The sun shone, music blared from loudspeakers, meat was barbequed, and lots of white people wandered around stalls as if everything was completely normal. t was surreal.  In the fields next door, Apostolic church services continued, perhaps even more fervently.  Meanwhile, Ben Freeth still
could not see, one week after his brutal attack in the Chegutu area which left him with a skull so badly fractured that surgeons had to drill into it to release the pressure around his brain.  Such are the juxtapositions of life here.  At least among those with any economic
security, people seem to take the view that life has to go on, and are determined to live the best that they can under the circumstances.

School sports fixtures run as normal, and I've watched hockey and rugby matches this past week, as well as attended a (rather dire) karaoke night in Borrowdale Village.   As my brother says, staying at home and reading/watching the news everyday is a one-way road to depression.  And so people block stuff out as part of their coping strategies.

Those are a few of my observations from the past week – admittedly among a sub-section of the population with better buffer capacity than most, but at the same time, nor are these people among the super-elite who mark their status with incredibly expensive cars and the like.

Many of my friends think I'm crazy to be here, but it comes to me almost as a relief.  Watching the news from a distance is far more distressing .