closing

"I just need a break from Zimbabwe," she says with a sigh.

She opened a restaurant in this eastern city nearly two years ago. It was in a beautiful old house: pine floors, teak furniture, a shaded verandah. She specialised in high-quality cuisine: exquisitely-served pancakes with maple syrup imported from Canada (she's Canadian), butternut soup with a hint of spice.

Her food was so good that the US ambassador reportedly dined there on a rare visit to the town. (Wonder what he made of the ZANU-PF headquarters just opposite: were they delivering truckloads of sugar the day of his stopover?)

"I'm closing at the end of the month," she says, casting a glance into my half-empty shopping basket. "I just couldn't break into the market."

Maybe there wasn't enough money in town, I suggest.

There are already two coffee-shops catering for the chattering classes. There's also the violently-red painted concrete Burger Bar and at least two Wimpies for customers wanting to watch the world go by over a Coke. ("Don't order any food here," Shingie whispered when we sat at the BB on a sunny Friday lunch-hour recently. "I got food-poisoning last time.")

"I couldn't break into the cliques," she sighs. "It's Small Town Syndrome. In Harare, there's a buzz. People are out all the time, spending money. Here - "

She shrugs, casts a glance at the wilted carrots and beetroot behind us.

"I learnt my lesson. I guess they'll detain me at Heathrow though, if I arrive on a one-way ticket?"