power to the people

We stand in a roped-off queue inside the state power utility ZESA banking hall. Patiently, or sort of. A man considers pushing in in front of me, decides not to. "I was going to," he says. "But I see you have the kid, madam. It is hard for kids to queue."

They joke that Zimbabweans have the highest IQ in the world. I queue, therefore I am in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans queue for sugar, for bread, for milk, in queues that snake round the back of supermarkets and in sanitary lanes, queues patrolled by police and Alsatians. They queue for passports (my mother-in-law's just got hers after 10 months of waiting), they queue for milk round the blue Dairibord milk cart. Come March 29, they'll be queueing again.

My son spies the ZESA security guard, with what looks like a pistol in his holster.

"Kids always want to be policemen," the would-be queue jumper says. "But here" -- he checks to see who's listening -- "you only become a policeman if you're desperate."

There are rumours of growing discontent in the police service and the army, despite threats never to salute an opposition victory from two top defence chiefs, Paradzayi Zimondi of the prison service and army commander General Constantine Chiwenga. A report in the UK-based Zimbabwean newspaper quoted pamphlets allegedly circulating within army headquarters urging members to "vote with your consciences" and "remember your kids and your parents are dying of hunger."

"Is he at school?" the queue-jumper-who-didn't asks. He's a burly guy in a suit. A businessman of some kind, I'd guess.

"Nursery," I say.

"How much was the top-up?"

Where I come from, top-ups used to be something pleasant, something you got in a cafe when your coffee cup was empty. Here they're a demand you get handed when you go to pick up your child. You pay your school fee for the term and then you have to top it up regularly because of inflation (100,580.2 percent at the last count in January). "We reserve the right to turn your child away from school if the top-up is not paid by March 10," the letter I got last week says.

"500 million," I tell him.

"Not too bad," he offers. "I've just written out a cheque for 6.6 billion for my kids' top-up."

"How much?" the woman behind him nudges him in horror. She shakes her head. "Zvakaoma," she mutters. Things are bad. I heard the assistant at the zhing-zhong clothes shop say the same thing earlier as she leaned on a pile of gaudy flip-flops. Flip-flops, by the way, that cost more than a quarter of a billion dollars.

"I saw this South African film," the man tells us. "The guy in it was saying: I feel like a million bucks. Zimbabwean bucks."

I read the vision statement on the wall next to me. ZESA (or its parent ZEDC Holdings) vision is, apparently, "to be the best and the most dynamic electricity and energy services provider" in the country. Today we have no power at home. Down the road at the bakery, there's no power either. "No power, no bread," the woman behind the till sings out when I poke my head through the door. There are bills to pay and top-ups to find, a phone line that keeps going down, a radio signal that keeps disappearing and cellphone networks that keep dissolving. Zvakaoma, yes.