"Things are not good," he says.
The white bakkie shot past our gate, then reversed. The passenger window opened. I recognise MDC MP P. M. and his driver (or is he a policeman? He has a fluorescent green vest). The MP is smartly dressed these days: pin-stripe suit (despite the heat), stiff white-collared shirt, tiny brass flags pinned to his lapel.
But he isn't optimistic. The just-started constitutional outreach programme is mired in controversy. Educators from civic groups -- including a sizeable contingent of war vets (leader Joseph Chinotimba was pictured getting his accreditation in the state-owned Herald last week) -- are supposed to be holding meetings with mainly rural folk to tell them about the importance of putting their own input into a new constitution. The rural folk are getting intimidated, a Nyazura farmer told me last week. And the educators are making a pretty penny from their donor-funded allowances ($70 per day when teachers get $150 per month: not surprisingly, civil servants have given a general strike notice). MPs meantime are hiring out their government vehicles for the exercise at up to $250 per day. If the exercise lasts 100 days, that'll be more than $20,000 profit.
"There are more farm invasions, the war vets are telling the people they can only have the Kariba Draft," says the MP as we stand under the fig tree. The Kariba Draft is a draft constitution hastily agreed to by all three parties to the power-sharing deal. The document -- which retains Mugabe's sweeping powers -- wasn't supposed to be set in stone. But ZANU-PF now insists it is.
The MP looks at us and sighs.
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
ongoing
"The war veterans tried to smoke them out," she says.
Eleven more white farmers are under siege in southern Matabeleland provinces, officials from the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) say. In the eastern Rusape area, the purge continues. This isn't about land reform, an MDC spokesman says: it's about ZANU-PF "looting and stealing," 11 months after a power-sharing deal that was supposed to bring stability -- and desperately-needed foreign investors -- back to Zimbabwe.
My son's new teacher tells me of the trauma one white family lived through last weekend.
"They were neighbours. We used to play with the Smit boys when we were little."
"They've got this a huge Italian-style mansion, three storeys high. It's stunning. The slaves (she means Italian POWs) built it during the war. It's got this system of underground passages.
"We used to tie rope round us and fix one end to the entrance so we could find our way back. Then we'd spend hours exploring. It was like Famous Five. That's until the day the floor caved in in one room."
The war veterans found the entrance to the underground passageways under the Nyazura farmhouse last Sunday. They got inside and tried to set the wooden floors alight to smoke out the family.
"The boys were roughed up," the teacher says. "Slapped around a bit."
Eleven more white farmers are under siege in southern Matabeleland provinces, officials from the Commercial Farmers' Union (CFU) say. In the eastern Rusape area, the purge continues. This isn't about land reform, an MDC spokesman says: it's about ZANU-PF "looting and stealing," 11 months after a power-sharing deal that was supposed to bring stability -- and desperately-needed foreign investors -- back to Zimbabwe.
My son's new teacher tells me of the trauma one white family lived through last weekend.
"They were neighbours. We used to play with the Smit boys when we were little."
"They've got this a huge Italian-style mansion, three storeys high. It's stunning. The slaves (she means Italian POWs) built it during the war. It's got this system of underground passages.
"We used to tie rope round us and fix one end to the entrance so we could find our way back. Then we'd spend hours exploring. It was like Famous Five. That's until the day the floor caved in in one room."
The war veterans found the entrance to the underground passageways under the Nyazura farmhouse last Sunday. They got inside and tried to set the wooden floors alight to smoke out the family.
"The boys were roughed up," the teacher says. "Slapped around a bit."
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
itchy fingers
"I knew I was going to get a gift today," Mai D. says, clapping her hands. "I was doing my sweeping and my fingers were itching and I said: 'Someone's going to give me something.'"
It's not much: a pot of jam, a bar of chocolate saved from Christmas. But in Zimbabwe, I learnt early on, anything makes a present.
When I was married here, about 10 days after I arrived, I was solemnly presented with a single bar of bath soap.
It's not much: a pot of jam, a bar of chocolate saved from Christmas. But in Zimbabwe, I learnt early on, anything makes a present.
When I was married here, about 10 days after I arrived, I was solemnly presented with a single bar of bath soap.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
struggles
There are bush monitor lizards for sale in the pet shop at Golden Stairs' Nursery in Harare.
"600 US each," says the woman behind the counter. "You have to buy the tank too. It's got underfloor heating."
The monitors -- from Australia, I learn -- are like giant white chameleons with ruffled white collars. They're nosy things, sniffing at the glass walls.
"It's the latest craze in (plush Jo'burg suburb) Sandton," says the petshop owner. "The women walk round with these things round their necks."
....
"Auntie, I need to talk to you," Mai Brendan says. I look up from my laptop. I'm struggling to meet a deadline. I push out a chair for her.
"Please, if your maid doesn't come back, I need her job." She's stammering now. "Where I stay, I get paid 20 US for the month."
She works six days a week, 6.30 am till 6 at night, plus two hours on Sunday mornings.
"Yesterday I was ill and the owner said I could lie down. But then she came to find me after a few hours. And I am breathless, like this" -- she mimics a struggle for breath.
Her husband works as a gardener for the same people. Salary: 30 US. "And we have to send money to my young sister in Dangamvura. She has to eat too."
"600 US each," says the woman behind the counter. "You have to buy the tank too. It's got underfloor heating."
The monitors -- from Australia, I learn -- are like giant white chameleons with ruffled white collars. They're nosy things, sniffing at the glass walls.
"It's the latest craze in (plush Jo'burg suburb) Sandton," says the petshop owner. "The women walk round with these things round their necks."
....
"Auntie, I need to talk to you," Mai Brendan says. I look up from my laptop. I'm struggling to meet a deadline. I push out a chair for her.
"Please, if your maid doesn't come back, I need her job." She's stammering now. "Where I stay, I get paid 20 US for the month."
She works six days a week, 6.30 am till 6 at night, plus two hours on Sunday mornings.
"Yesterday I was ill and the owner said I could lie down. But then she came to find me after a few hours. And I am breathless, like this" -- she mimics a struggle for breath.
Her husband works as a gardener for the same people. Salary: 30 US. "And we have to send money to my young sister in Dangamvura. She has to eat too."
Thursday, January 7, 2010
desperate housewives
Come to church...and get your ironing done?
Ironing's a problem when the power cuts are long. You can't just not iron things: in Zimbabwe there are putze flies. They land on wet clothes on the line in the rainy season, lay egg and the eggs then burrow themselves into soft warm flesh. A few days later, you see a pimple. If you squeeze it, out comes a yellow maggot.
So, ironing oblige. Which is why some desperate housewives follow the power. Literally: they cart their ironing (and their housekeepers) to an office, a friend's house, anywhere with power to get those clothes and sheets putzed- out. One local church had a huge advantage attracting members, it seems: it allowed them to take advantage of nearly-uninterrupted power to get their ironing done.
Ironing's a problem when the power cuts are long. You can't just not iron things: in Zimbabwe there are putze flies. They land on wet clothes on the line in the rainy season, lay egg and the eggs then burrow themselves into soft warm flesh. A few days later, you see a pimple. If you squeeze it, out comes a yellow maggot.
So, ironing oblige. Which is why some desperate housewives follow the power. Literally: they cart their ironing (and their housekeepers) to an office, a friend's house, anywhere with power to get those clothes and sheets putzed- out. One local church had a huge advantage attracting members, it seems: it allowed them to take advantage of nearly-uninterrupted power to get their ironing done.
Ticha
"Christmas box?" he says, with a leer.
Ticha -- that's the name he's given me though I have some doubts it is on his birth certificate-- is smartly dressed in a white shirt, spanking gold tie and fresh-pressed black trousers. He's talking to an equally-elegant lady by the bread stand in OK stores.
I look down at my scuffed flip-flops.
"What about MY Christmas box?" I suggest, with a half-laugh. I am suspicious of Ticha. He seems to be everywhere I go.
The first time I met him was in the Tel-One banking hall. He appeared to be a minor clerk, simply receiving payments and logging them, not working in the Fat Cats' offices upstairs.
But somehow Ticha was living in one of the town's best suburbs. I bumped into him several times on my evening walks.
He left and went to work for ZIMRA, the state tax authority, he told me.
I bumped into him again outside the Mutare Magistrate's Court, when Roy Bennett appeared there last year. He was standing just inside the gate, talking to the police officers.
"Aha, so you follow what is happening in our country?" he said. I mumbled something about a family friend, a son of Bennett. "I did not know Bennett had a son," Ticha said (was it my imagination or was he watching me closely?). "What is his name?" He told me I should call him with news of the court ruling. I didn't.
Years ago, the now-disgraced Roman Catholic archbishop Pius Ncube said 1 in 4 Zimbabweans worked for the CIO. They needed to, to supplement meagre salaries, to get hold of hard-to-get food.
I met Ticha again yesterday as I stumbled out of Spar, laden with plastic bags. "You are doing your shopping?" he said. Was he calculating the value of my groceries, I wondered.
The paranoia that ruled our lives for nearly a decade here still isn't gone.
Ticha -- that's the name he's given me though I have some doubts it is on his birth certificate-- is smartly dressed in a white shirt, spanking gold tie and fresh-pressed black trousers. He's talking to an equally-elegant lady by the bread stand in OK stores.
I look down at my scuffed flip-flops.
"What about MY Christmas box?" I suggest, with a half-laugh. I am suspicious of Ticha. He seems to be everywhere I go.
The first time I met him was in the Tel-One banking hall. He appeared to be a minor clerk, simply receiving payments and logging them, not working in the Fat Cats' offices upstairs.
But somehow Ticha was living in one of the town's best suburbs. I bumped into him several times on my evening walks.
He left and went to work for ZIMRA, the state tax authority, he told me.
I bumped into him again outside the Mutare Magistrate's Court, when Roy Bennett appeared there last year. He was standing just inside the gate, talking to the police officers.
"Aha, so you follow what is happening in our country?" he said. I mumbled something about a family friend, a son of Bennett. "I did not know Bennett had a son," Ticha said (was it my imagination or was he watching me closely?). "What is his name?" He told me I should call him with news of the court ruling. I didn't.
Years ago, the now-disgraced Roman Catholic archbishop Pius Ncube said 1 in 4 Zimbabweans worked for the CIO. They needed to, to supplement meagre salaries, to get hold of hard-to-get food.
I met Ticha again yesterday as I stumbled out of Spar, laden with plastic bags. "You are doing your shopping?" he said. Was he calculating the value of my groceries, I wondered.
The paranoia that ruled our lives for nearly a decade here still isn't gone.
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