embassy

Sky TV blares from a large screen in the waiting area of the new British Embassy in Harare's Mount Pleasant Area. It's prime minister's question time in the British parliament. Gordon Brown sports a permanently-tilted head (downwards, as if he's about to butt), as he insists his chancellor "has done a great job." I watch idly, clutching my son's red passport. There is no shade in the new car park. The girl behind the glass screen has a brown fleece and a bad cold.

"That'll be 128 dollars." I have no change. Neither does the Embassy girl. I'll have to go back through the security checks and drive off to Arundel Park Spar to try to make some. "And make sure the shop doesn't give you rand," she says. "We don't accept that."

The man at the door commiserates. "At least there are no queues here," I say. Stiff upper lip and all that.

"But there were," the man says. "Last week. All the old people. They are flying them out, you know. The first lot went on Saturday."

"The next ones will go soon." The embassy's Repatriation Programme can cater for up to 5,000 penniless nationals (though only 500 have signed up so far). The move has provoked outrage from Zimbabwe's pro-ZANU-PF Herald. The paper insists Zimbabwe's economic mess was caused by British sanctions. White pensioners were "cushioned" from the ravages of inflation by charities, it insists.

The doorman looks envious. Things are expensive here. He knows people who've gone to "UK" and earnt enough to buy a house. He has an afterthought. "I run a peanut-butter making project," he says. "You don't know anyone..?"