- Dear Family and Friends,
-
- Almost every day now I hear the country I live in being
described as a "collapsed state". The way people talk so easily
and casually of our "economic meltdown" puts in mind a square
of chocolate sitting in the sun melting into a soppy pool. I hear South
African leaders talking about economic "challenges" in Zimbabwe
and the UN talking about human rights "challenges" and I wonder
what happened to real words that mean real things. Words like catastrophe,
disaster, chaos and crisis which really describe things in the Zimbabwe
I live in, but it seems these are not diplomatically acceptable words and
so they talk of "challenges". It has certainly been a very bad
week in Zimbabwe and I am not sure if some of the events listed below would
be classified as challenges so leave you to fill in the adjectives for
yourselves.
-
- On Monday, the electricity went off at 6 am and only
came back on six hours later but didn't stay for long. At 3.30 in the afternoon
the power went off again and didn't come back on until 10pm that night.
-
- On Tuesday, a desperate father told me how he'd taken
his daughter to Harare airport for a 6am flight to the UK. There were no
lights in the airport public toilets and so men used the glow from their
mobile phones to light a slippery path to the urinals. No announcements
were made about the 5 hour delayed departure of the international flight
which went to Uganda first to get fuel before finally heading to London.
-
- On Wednesday, the government announced that the public
could now go and buy fuel from a named service station but that we would
have to pay in foreign currency. Aside from the fact that it has been illegal
for ordinary people to posses foreign currency for a number of years, the
electricity blackouts were increasing and spreading and so petrol couldn't
be pumped anyway.
-
- On Thursday, there was no electricity from 8am to 6.30
pm and when I phoned to enquire after having been off for 10 hours I was
told that there was no foreign currency with which to buy power. On the
same day my friend who is an epileptic went to the hospital for his monthly
check up. He waited for three hours in a queue but didn't see a doctor
because they "hadn't come yet". In simple English this actually
meant that junior doctors weren't there as they were on strike for an 800%
pay rise. My friend didn't get any phenobarb for his epilepsy as there
wasn't any at this main provincial government hospital.
-
- On Friday morning, I got up long before dawn to try and
cope with days of backed up emails but that was pointless as the electricity
was gone by 7am. In the town, the supermarkets were also without power,
meat had defrosted and the shelves were bare of basics that we all desperately
search for :- bread, sugar, soap, margarine, cooking oil. Outside another
supermarket a sea of people, standing in lines four deep stretched along
the main road for over four hundred metres. They had heard that they may
be a delivery of sugar. Outside the post office was a sign which read:
"No electricity, phones not working".
-
- On Saturday morning, as I write this hurriedly before
the power goes off, we have no water because the pumps need electricity,
generators need diesel. In a couple of days time it is Heroes Day here,
a time when we remember the people who died to give Zimbabwe independence.
I wonder what they would think if they could see these "challenges"
twenty five years after their sacrifice.
-
- Until next time, love
cathy
-
- Copyright cathy buckle
6th August 2005
http://africantears.netfirms.com
-
- My books on the Zimbabwean crisis, "African Tears"
and "Beyond Tears" are
- available from: orders@africabookcentre.com, www.africabookcentre.com,
- www.amazon.co.uk,
- in Australia and New Zealand: johnmreed@johnreedbooks.com.au,
Africa: www.exclusivebooks.com
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