- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- When I dropped my son at school yesterday morning he
said: "See you at lunch time Mum." "Lunch time, why what
day is it?" I asked. Friday is a half day at school and it took an
eleven year old boy to remind me what day it was. For the last 7 days I
have spent 12 solid hours a day at my computer trying to answer an unstoppable
tidal wave of emails from ordinary people wanting to help the women of
Zimbabwe.
-
- Thank you is such an inadequate phrase to express my
gratitude for the overwhelming response to my letter last week about women's
sanitary needs. Offers of help came from all over the world; from women
and churches, groups and clubs and from scores of men too. There were letters
from fathers and grandfathers, doctors and priests. So many people have
offered to help that it has filled me an overwhelming feeling of hope for
our future here. One man said that my words had ignited a "chivalrous
rage" within him. How I wish that all of you who responded to my letter
could have been here to see the reaction of a woman being given a small
packet of sanitary towels this week. The woman's eyes shone with tears
as I gave her the bag which she clutched to her chest and then she hugged
me and said: "Oh thank you, God Bless you, now I can be clean again."
-
- I must apologise for being so ill-prepared to cope with
both the correspondence and logistics of what continues to grow into a
vast mountain of support for ordinary women in Zimbabwe. A dedicated email
address has been established and will be manned by volunteers to respond
to and channel what has come to be known as the Dignify a Sister campaign.
The address is: dignifyazister@yahoo.com . It may take a couple of days
for volunteers to cope with the backlog of mails that I have been physically
unable to answer and have forwarded to Dignify A Zister but please do not
let this labour of love go because every single packet of cotton wool and
sanitary towels is wanted and desperately needed. The volunteers organising
Dignify A Zister will link offers of support with individual women and
their sisters and daughters in Zimbabwe, provide addresses to send to and
answer all the questions being asked. This is not a political movement
or an international organisation. It is just a way of letting ordinary
people hold out the hand of friendship and give moral support to women
who ask only for the dignity of cleanliness.
-
- For almost four years I have been telling the story of
how Zimbabwe has been turned upside down because of a political party's
determination to stay in power. I have told of rape and torture, arson
and murder. I have recorded how inflation grew from a teenager in 2000
to an insatiable monster which hit 624 % in 2004 and how 4 years of political
mayhem has left 8 out of every 10 people unemployed and almost 70% of our
population dependant on world food aid in order to survive. In these four
years I have had many thousands of emails from people all over the world
and almost always their question has been: What can we do to help? Dignify
A Zister provides just one answer and on behalf of Zimbabwe's women, I
thank the men for their chivalrous rage and the women for their sisterly
love, compassion and empathy.
-
- Until next week, with love, cathy.
-
- Copyright cathy buckle, 21st February 2004. http://africantears.netfirms.com
My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears" and "Beyond
Tears" are now available outside Africa from: orders@africabookcentre.com
; www.africabookcentre.com ; www.amazon.co.uk ; in Australia and New Zealand:
johnmreed@johnreedbooks.com.au ; Africa: www.kalahari.net www.exclusivebooks.com
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