- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- A Canadian friend and passionate believer in democracy
recently gave me a subscription to the Guardian Weekly and what a delight
it is to be able to read "real news" from the "real world"
every week. Recently there was a report on how the lives of subsistence
farmers in Kenya are being dramatically improved thanks to research into
how chemical signals from different grasses attract parasitic wasps.The
wasps then eat maize borer moths and the result is a dramatic increase
in crop yields. The added bonus comes from the grasses which started the
process as they then provide lush grazing for dairy cows which produce
more and better milk. Reports such as this one shouldn't bring tears to
my eyes but they do because with every passing day Zimbabwe is not only
being left behind but is also racing back to the dark ages.
-
- Just three years and ten months ago, before our political
madness began, Zimbabwe was also involved in amazing research which was
going to change the face of agriculture and dramatically improve lives.
Companion growing and intercropping was becoming a widespread practice.
Massive field trials were being conducted into minimum or zero tillage
to improve yields and boost soil quality. Farmers were growing huge fields
of flowers for their essential, healing and aromatic oils. Others were
growing crops like castor beans whose oil is used in the chemical and plastics
industries and others a bushy shrub whose oil was set to replace diesel
as a fuel source for motor vehicles. All of this has now gone. The farmers
are forbidden from the lands on which the crops were grown and the specialists,
scientists, engineers and technicians have left or are leaving the country
as the entire economic structure of Zimbabwe falls apart. Decades of painstaking
research and huge advances in agricultural diversity have now been completely
destroyed and largely replaced by primitive scratch farming which is now
almost the only thing to see on Zimbabwe's looted and seized farms.
-
- Agriculture is not the only thing going backwards in
Zimbabwe and lately the march into the past seems to have accelerated into
almost every aspect of day to day living. We now have a huge crisis with
water in some of our towns and cities. This morning our one and only propaganda
radio station read out a list of suburbs in the capital city which are
going to be subjected to regular 24 hour periods without water because
there isn't enough clean water to meet the demands. In Marondera our water
in the last fortnight has alternated between clear, milky and dark brown
and there is no one in authority able to offer an explanation or solution.
Night after night our town is being hit by men who go street by street
disconnecting and stealing water meters. On the night mine was stolen,
12 others in surrounding streets also went. The roads were awash from broken
pipes and over a month later our town council have still done nothing whatsoever
to even effect temporary repairs. Our mains water pipes are still joined
together by desperate householders with bits of garden hosepipe and rubber
strapping.
-
- The veneer of normalcy hanging over Zimbabwe is rapidly
disintegrating. We now have money which has an expiry date! Ours must be
the only country in the world which runs a jingle every thirty minutes
advertising its own money! You cannot get an ambulance or hearse unless
you provide the petrol! There are no public telephone boxes any more because
none of our coins are of a high enough value to make a phone call ! One
day a loaf of bread is 1400 dollars, the next it is 2200 dollars and the
next it is 2400 dollars. The only medicine you can usually get at a government
clinic is Paracetemeol which is used to treat everything from diarrhoea
to malaria. This week doctors were on strike demanding 30 million dollars
a month, university lectures were still on strike and nurses were again
threatening to strike. The telephone company is on a go slow and it takes
20 attempts to send one single email and 40 minutes to download that most
infuriating of things - an unwanted email with an unasked for attachment.
-
- And throughout this daily mayhem our President this week
announced that all schools should have computers because we are being left
behind in the IT world. How schools which are having to raise their fees
every 6 weeks just to cope with inflation are going to afford computers
is a complete mystery. President Mugabe also announced this week that one
million houses are to be built to address the massive housing backlog in
the country. Cement is usually only available on the black market, trucks
only move with black market fuel and building is now the preserve of multi
millionaires. Meanwhile the Minister of Information lashed out at the UK,
Australia, America and New Zealand accusing them of being the ones that
are stealing our foreign and local currency and trying to "unseat"
the government ! Oh dear, another scapegoat !
-
- Until next week,
-
- with love, cathy.
-
- Copyright cathy buckle 8th November 2003.
- <http://africantears.netfirms.comhttp://africantears.netfirms.com
- My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears"
and "Beyond
- Tears" are available in the UK via:
- <mailto:handzup_02@hotmail.comhandzup_02@hotmail.com
; Australia
- and New Zealand:
- <mailto:johnmreed@johnreedbooks.comjohnmreed@johnreedbooks.com
;
- Africa: <http://www.kalahari.netwww.kalahari.net
- <http://www.exclusivebooks.comwww.exclusivebooks.com
|
