Dear Family and Friends,
Sitting under the shade of a big sausage tree I looked out into the 37 degree heat that characterized many parts of Zimbabwe this Christmas and New Year. A mirage was running across my view and I alternately cursed and smiled at the Vervet monkey which sat in a tree nearby eating the avocado it had just stolen off the table.
Delicately peeling the avocado with its teeth, spitting the skin out bit by bit, the little monkey ate the entire fruit and then licked each of its fingers one by one. I closed my eyes to imprint the memory, hoped one of the giant sausages in the tree above wouldn’t fall on me and thought about how this beautiful place and our desperate people were going to survive another year of Zimbabwe’s crisis situation; BY CATHY BUCKLE////LETTER FROM ZIMBABWE
CRIMSON TAZVINZWA`
So many Zimbabweans who came home for Christmas from the Diaspora saw for themselves the dire state we are in, heard the strange, unrealistic statements from government leaders and listened to the desperate stories told by their families who are trying to survive the collapse of our country for the second time in a decade.
They heard the words of Zimbabwe’s President last week. Speaking to residents in Harare’s high density suburb of Kuwadzana the President created a storm of criticism when people asked him about the unaffordable price of meat. The President told them they should eat vegetables instead of meat, because his doctor had told him that vegetables were good for you. Meanwhile this week a 1.5 kg chicken is priced at Z$104 and a single kg of locally grown carrots, in an unmarked, unlabelled plastic bag in a major supermarket was priced at Z$53.99. For countless Zimbabweans earning less than Z$500 a month, even a single bag of carrots has become a luxury in January 2020. Perhaps the President or his POLAD advisors (who are now asking for ‘all terrain vehicles’) haven’t been into the supermarkets themselves lately or perhaps they’ve forgotten what it’s like to earn the equivalent of US$28 a month, less than a dollar a day.
Zimbabweans home for Christmas heard about the imminent crisis in our education system. In a few days time the new school year starts here but teachers unions are saying their members aren’t going to work unless their salaries are at least equivalent to what they were this time last year. Teachers are currently earning around Z$1,000 a month before deductions leaving them going home with the equivalent of US$40 – 60 a month. This time last year they were earning in US dollars and taking home US$450 – 500. If teachers salaries were pegged to the same US dollar amount they were earning last year, they should be taking home around Z$8,000 a month. To put these figures in perspective, the recently released Poverty Datum Line for a family of five is Z$3,700; teachers are currently earning one quarter of that amount. It’s a dire situation and as diabolical for teachers as it is for parents.
This is what parents are facing as they try to get their children ready for school next week. These are the current costs for a thirteen year old boy starting senior school in Form One at a government school in my home town this January 2020.
Fees Z$950 for one term.
Uniform Z$1341, consisting of one shirt, one pair shorts, one tie, one jersey, one blazer and one pair of shoes .
Sports kit: Z$500 (one T shirt, one pair shorts one pair tennis shoes)
20 Exercise writing books: Z$400
Total so far Z$3,191; no room to buy a single change of clothes, satchel, pens, pencils, lunch box, drink bottle, rain coat, calculator, dictionary or any of the other extras needed.
This boy’s Mum earns Z$400 a month and so all of it is out of reach for her. And the insult on top of this? The teacher tells the parent: “for us to ‘teach nicely’ your child can give us US$10.” As I sat under the sausage tree thinking about the teacher’s words, I understood that the tragic irony here is that desperate teachers soliciting bribes from desperate parents aren’t even earning enough to educate their own children.
Meanwhile a week into 2020 multiple hundreds of people are queuing for travel documents to get out of Zimbabwe and go to neighbouring countries where they hope to get jobs and send money home to keep their families alive. In my home town there were so many people trying to get travel documents that they had to queue in a dusty open space across the road from the passport complex. Waiting in lines four deep; waiting to get out, waiting for a normal life..
From the Beitbridge border we heard that Zimbabweans going back to South Africa, back to their jobs, were stuck in two kilometer long vehicle queues and when they got to the front they waited on foot for 8 – 12 hours to get their passports stamped. Officials said that 35,000 people crossed the border legally in one day last week and we wonder how many thousands more crawled under and over the fences and razor wire to get away from Zimbabwe, our beautiful, broken country.
As troubled as we are in Zimbabwe our hearts go out to all our friends and family in Australia suffering in the devastating fires ravaging the country; you are part of our Disapora and not forgotten. And to all our family and friends from the Diaspora who came home this Christmas, gave moral support and words of comfort, or sent goods and treats home for their families, thank you.
Until next time, thank you for reading this Letter From Zimbabwe, now in its 20th year, and my books about life in Zimbabwe, love cathy, 9 January 2020. Copyright © Cathy Buckle. http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
For information on my books about Zimbabwe go to www.lulu.com/spotlight/CathyBuckle2018 . For archives of Letters From Zimbabwe, to subscribe/unsubscribe or to contact me please visit my website http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
Supporters of President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruling ZANU-PF party celebrate after the Constitutional Court confirmed Mnangagwa’s disputed July 30 election victory in Harare, Zimbabwe August 24, 2018.
Zimbabweans; all they wish and hope for this Christmas is unfailing expectations///CRIMSON TAZVINZWA
Zimbabwe’s ruling party ZANU PF slaughered 150 cows during the annual conference held in Goromonzi, Mashonaland East Province District last week. President Mnangagwa’s regime spent over $5 million to feed at least 7 000 delegates.
Commotion at Zanu PF congress: Varaidzo Mupunga Youth League Secretary for Adminstration being dragged away by Zanu PF “Green Bomber” militia youths.
“After all the pledges, we have started collecting 150 cattle that we are assured of getting. Starting from today (yesterday), the truck is already moving around collecting the cattle to be kept at a paddock near the conference venue.”
Zanu PF Mashonaland East provincial secretary for administration Kudzai Majuru told reporters.
And the one wish that the author of Letters From Zimbabwe – Catherine Buckle heard so many times, and which she empathise with;
“This Christmas with a government that simply does not and will not see the desperate anguish of the people, the best thing any of us can do is to not be overwhelmed but just try and help one person at a time.”
This week many Zimbabweans are doing exactly that; and it is humbling.
Copyright © Cathy Buckle. http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
Dear Family and Friends,
As I write this letter from Zimbabwe today deep purple rain clouds hang over my home town, there is neither electricity nor water but there is what the media are calling ‘feasting in a time of famine’ going on not very far away. Seven thousand Zanu PF delegates, VIPs and the country’s top leadership are at their annual conference being held in Goromonzi. Reports of 150 cows to be slaughtered, five tons of chicken and eight tons of maize meal, not to mention bread, rice, fresh produce and more. Ninety buses are providing transport, four boreholes have been drilled for water, a transformer installed for electricity with a standby generator and a car park for thousands of cars has been constructed. Apparently women selling wild fruit on the roadside and little boys watched wide-eyed yesterday as luxury vehicles swung into the venue car park, including a black Lexus sports car.
This frenzy of feasting and opulence is happening at a time when the UN says eight million people in Zimbabwe need international food aid to save them from starvation. This is more than half of our total population. The contrast with the feasting for the few and the reality for the rest of us is this: a standard monthly income of approx Z$400; one single chicken (1kg) in the supermarket today is Z$90; a ten kg bag of maize meal is Z$119; a loaf of bread is Z$18.50; one litre of milk is Z$25; one single mango is Z$20; we have water once a week if we are lucky; we only ever have electricity in the middle of the night between 10pm and 4.30am; the queues for fuel are of many hundreds of cars every day and they are always invaded by men in Zanu PF cars and government vehicles. And in the hospitals, oh God help us is all I can cry out in despair; the few doctors left in government hospitals say they are praying for their patients as they have nothing to help them with: no equipment, no medicine, no supplies. How many people are suffering and dying at home is a number we do not know, a face we cannot bear to see.
For a few days I’ve been asking people if they had one wish for Zimbabwe this Christmas what it would be. It wasn’t a political question but most of the responses were and it caused many eyes to glisten with tears as they spoke, so distraught are we all, at the shameful, desperate state of our country.
Here are some of our Christmas wishes for Zimbabwe in 2019:
Rain, rain and more rain.
An unselfish government.
Corrupt free government.
A government that is honest, has integrity and a conscience.
A government that is clean, efficient and honorable.
A government that thinks of the citizens and not themselves.
A government who realizes they are only caretakers of the country and responsible for the well being of its people.
A neutral transitional authority leading to free and fair elections.
No more indirect genocide.
No more police beating peaceful protestors.
No more soldiers shooting unarmed citizens.
An outbreak of compassion for the people from the political elite.
And the one wish that I heard so many times, and which I echo: A government that has a heart for its people; a heart filled with empathy and unselfishness.
This Christmas with a government that simply does not and will not see the desperate anguish of the people, the best thing any of us can do is to not be overwhelmed but just try and help one person at a time. This week I’ve met many who are doing exactly that and it makes me humbled and tearful, proud to be a Zimbabwean.
This will be my last Letter from Zimbabwe in 2019. Thank you for reading these letters and my books about life in Zimbabwe. Thank you for your messages, emails and contributions which keep hope alive as we strive towards a compassionate, loving, humble Zimbabwe.
Until next time, Happy Christmas and New Year, love cathy 13 December 2019 Copyright © Cathy Buckle. http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
For information on my books about Zimbabwe and my Beautiful Zimbabwe Calendar for 2020 go to www.lulu.com/spotlight/CathyBuckle2018 . For archives of Letters From Zimbabwe, to subscribe/unsubscribe or to contact me please visit my website http://cathybuckle.co.zw/
