lean times

We've had another taste of managing on not-a-cent. When you can't get money out of the hole-in-the-wall (or the bank) in Zimbabwe, you have to rely on a complicated network of suppliers and transfers once or twice monthly. This week our regular supplier told us he had had to provide a lot of cash for his lawyers and was flat broke. "Try again next week," he advised cheerfully. In desperation, we contacted a second supplier, only to be told he too couldn't help: he's away until next week. Because of Zimbabwe's horrendous prices (on average two to five times what they are in neighbouring South Africa), few people can afford to have a well-stocked larder to fall back on. So here's how we manage on next-to-nothing:

-- two spoonfuls of peanut butter for breakfast (and nothing else).
-- pancakes five days in a row (thanks Mum and UK supermarket Sainsbury's: she sends us packets)
..stuffed with Soyameat Spaghetti Bolognaise (ditto)
-- baby spinach leaves (not because they're trendy but because they're the only vegetables growing in the garden in winter and I can't wait for the leaves to get any bigger)
-- grapefruits from the orchard next door for fruit/Vitamin C (try getting that down a five-year old's throat..)
-- stale, oversized dog biscuits for the cats (the dog died two weeks ago)
-- Surf washing powder to wash the dishes/floor/toilet/bath (when the shampoo ran out)
-- diced newspaper for the loo (which presents a disposal problem: there's been no rubbish collection for two months despite our 95 US rates bill)
-- ancient body lotion in place of washing soap (that too is finished).
-- black tea/no tea/tea made from the mint leaves that grow round the garden tap

Last time this happened, A, a Shona friend and mother of three grown boys, handed me a tin of tomato paste and some dry spaghetti. "Take it," she said. "We're used to having little. You lot aren't."