truth (or as near to it as you can get)

"But," he asks earnestly. "What happens when you can't say what you want to say? Take sanctions, for example."

"We have to say that we cannot get these things (car parts, electrical components, books) because of the sanctions."

I gulp. This wasn't the question I was expecting to get asked here. I'm leading a media training workshop at an NGO in a Mutare township. The group's leaders have been told the local paper would be willing to take articles they've written on their projects (saves the paper sending out a reporter). They want to know how to write better.

I've come with a few hastily-crafted flip-sheets, emphasising things like clarity, short sentences, how important it is to know the point of your article before you sit down and write it, and how to use colour. Political niceties, though: that wasn't part of my brief.

"Well," I say. "Maybe in countries like Zimbabwe, there are things you can't say. But you can still stick to your truth." Truth, after all, is what we're all striving for: unless you write for the state, of course -- and that's who these poor guys will be selling to.

Another participant jumps in: "We can say there is no foreign currency to buy these things."

"Exactly. And you leave it at that." You hope you get intelligent readers (which, in a country with the second highest literacy rate in Africa, should be possible) who fill in the gaps themselves.