"I'll need a knife," T. says. "For protection."
Living in Zimbabwe, we've got used to watching our backs. Nothing valuable or sensitive is ever stored on the hard-drive of our main computer. Everything is on the flash-stick. Two flash-sticks in fact. His n' hers, only his has a lot of hers stuff on it. Four days ago, his flash-stick was stolen. Along with some digital equipment, a phone book containing several years worth of contacts and some household bills that nicely display our address. All in a brown leather bag, which might have looked as if it was stuffed with US dollar bills.
After the initial gut-twisting panic, we tried to make a plan. My father-in-law printed posters, offering a reward for the return of the flash-stick. His office help trawled computer dealers in town, begging them not to sell on any secondhand flashsticks that came into their possession. We alerted everyone we could think of. T. too, volunteers to help. "They'll sell it on. Obviously," he says.
T has a neighbour who managed to recover money stolen from his wife last week. T's neighbour wants to team up with T. on the understanding they'll split the reward money. We have to provide transport for T and Co. to get to the place where the stuff was stolen. Co. reckons he should be able to identify which tsotsis operate from there. The pair of them plan to raid the tsotsis' hideout.
"But T," I say (I mean, I do desperately want this flashstick back) - "Won't you get into trouble with the police if they find you with a knife?"
"Only if I'm using it," he says.
In the end we give him a catapult. For protection.
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
budiriro
The Revellers NiteClub is on the left and we are not anywhere near Tadiwa's place.
"Where are you?" Tadiwa's father says on the 'phone. His English is heavily-accented, as mine must sound to him. "Is that in Budiriro 1 or 3?" Budiriro township has several sections and we are not, it seems, in the right one. Meet you by the cholera clinic, that's what she'd said. We have a map. A very ancient map. On the map, Budiriro has one red cross so that's what we're aiming for. Thing is, roads have appeared and disappeared since the map was made. There are potholes and piles of rubbish and vendors and buses and chickens and no street signs. The sight of our car -- with us in it -- causes a major stir.
"I'll give you directions," calls one man. Too sensitive, not wanting to rub the cholera bit in (nor make them think we're aid workers or nosy journalists) we settle for asking for directions to the community centre, which the map says should be just round the corner. Two sullen security guards direct us to a community centre, but it's definitely not the one we want.
On our right, there's the Apostolic Faith Mission. Now there's another landmark we were looking for. We follow the road round. The cholera clinic should be here surely...
A few kilometres on, as we meander through a maze of tiny streets, we have to concede that there must be several Apostolic Faith Missions in Budiriro.
"We'll have to turn round," he says desperately. It's getting dark. We want to be out of the township before night falls.
Past a new borehole, a UNICEF bowser. There are vegetable vendors in the mud, near the rubbish. Suddenly, the clinic looms, mostly hidden from sight behind sheets of plastic. We can see someone moving around inside. It is quiet tonight. Cholera has moved from the city mostly now, into the hard-to-reach rural areas.
Tadiwa appears in the long grass at the side of the car, a plump, shy sister in tow. "Did you get lost?"
"Where are you?" Tadiwa's father says on the 'phone. His English is heavily-accented, as mine must sound to him. "Is that in Budiriro 1 or 3?" Budiriro township has several sections and we are not, it seems, in the right one. Meet you by the cholera clinic, that's what she'd said. We have a map. A very ancient map. On the map, Budiriro has one red cross so that's what we're aiming for. Thing is, roads have appeared and disappeared since the map was made. There are potholes and piles of rubbish and vendors and buses and chickens and no street signs. The sight of our car -- with us in it -- causes a major stir.
"I'll give you directions," calls one man. Too sensitive, not wanting to rub the cholera bit in (nor make them think we're aid workers or nosy journalists) we settle for asking for directions to the community centre, which the map says should be just round the corner. Two sullen security guards direct us to a community centre, but it's definitely not the one we want.
On our right, there's the Apostolic Faith Mission. Now there's another landmark we were looking for. We follow the road round. The cholera clinic should be here surely...
A few kilometres on, as we meander through a maze of tiny streets, we have to concede that there must be several Apostolic Faith Missions in Budiriro.
"We'll have to turn round," he says desperately. It's getting dark. We want to be out of the township before night falls.
Past a new borehole, a UNICEF bowser. There are vegetable vendors in the mud, near the rubbish. Suddenly, the clinic looms, mostly hidden from sight behind sheets of plastic. We can see someone moving around inside. It is quiet tonight. Cholera has moved from the city mostly now, into the hard-to-reach rural areas.
Tadiwa appears in the long grass at the side of the car, a plump, shy sister in tow. "Did you get lost?"
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
abigail
The coffin costs 12 US. A small coffin, for a child.
Abigail was standing by my gate this morning. Her 10 month-old died last night. The body was down at the mortuary at the provincial hospital.
She was sorry to trouble me again, she said. But she had no money. And she needed a sheet to wrap the body in.
I look at Abigail, her tattered boots, the woolly hat she always wears jammed down on her head. This time, she has no tears.
Her 2 year-old son, Tapiwa, died 18 months ago. A couple of months later, Violet, the exuberant 6-year-old who stayed with her, set Abigail's hut on fire, playing with plastic. Violet died too.
There were children before, two or three of them. "They all died," she told me once. "And my husband chased me away."
When Violet died, the villagers out past Zimunya chased Abigail away, tired of her demands (it didn't help that Violet had managed to burn down the neighbour's grain store when she set Abigail's hut on fire). Over the months we helped out when we could, under the disapproving eye of both my housekeeper and the gardener ("we Shonas, we do not help people like that"), handing out secondhand clothes, soap to sell, jamjars of rice, tomatoes, paying for the cart to take Violet's body to the mortuary. I parcelled up these things with a certain sense of anger, as well as guilt. How far can you blame someone when things go so terribly wrong in her life?
When Abigail got chased away from her hut, she slept at the msika market under a couple of royal blue BA blankets (they're in her bag today, along with a school exercise book that has the baby's hospital records in: "I can't wrap the body in them," she says. "Then I will have nothing."). She got raped "by the men who cook sadza there". When she went to the hospital, they wouldn't perform an abortion, even though the local surgeon had warned her never to get pregnant again. The baby was born last year, when -- by my calculations -- Abigail was nearly 10 months gone. The baby weighed more than 5 kilogrammes.
Abigail brought her to my gate when they were discharged. I found a white babygro in amongst my child's old things. "You name her," she said. Her face was weary. We settled on the name Nyasha. It means grace.
I find a sheet trimmed with white broderie anglaise and ribbons and hand it over silently. There is so much and so little to say.
Abigail was standing by my gate this morning. Her 10 month-old died last night. The body was down at the mortuary at the provincial hospital.
She was sorry to trouble me again, she said. But she had no money. And she needed a sheet to wrap the body in.
I look at Abigail, her tattered boots, the woolly hat she always wears jammed down on her head. This time, she has no tears.
Her 2 year-old son, Tapiwa, died 18 months ago. A couple of months later, Violet, the exuberant 6-year-old who stayed with her, set Abigail's hut on fire, playing with plastic. Violet died too.
There were children before, two or three of them. "They all died," she told me once. "And my husband chased me away."
When Violet died, the villagers out past Zimunya chased Abigail away, tired of her demands (it didn't help that Violet had managed to burn down the neighbour's grain store when she set Abigail's hut on fire). Over the months we helped out when we could, under the disapproving eye of both my housekeeper and the gardener ("we Shonas, we do not help people like that"), handing out secondhand clothes, soap to sell, jamjars of rice, tomatoes, paying for the cart to take Violet's body to the mortuary. I parcelled up these things with a certain sense of anger, as well as guilt. How far can you blame someone when things go so terribly wrong in her life?
When Abigail got chased away from her hut, she slept at the msika market under a couple of royal blue BA blankets (they're in her bag today, along with a school exercise book that has the baby's hospital records in: "I can't wrap the body in them," she says. "Then I will have nothing."). She got raped "by the men who cook sadza there". When she went to the hospital, they wouldn't perform an abortion, even though the local surgeon had warned her never to get pregnant again. The baby was born last year, when -- by my calculations -- Abigail was nearly 10 months gone. The baby weighed more than 5 kilogrammes.
Abigail brought her to my gate when they were discharged. I found a white babygro in amongst my child's old things. "You name her," she said. Her face was weary. We settled on the name Nyasha. It means grace.
I find a sheet trimmed with white broderie anglaise and ribbons and hand it over silently. There is so much and so little to say.
Friday, February 27, 2009
neighbours
In a capital city of less than 2 million inhabitants, you're bound to bump into people. The then finance minister Herbert Murerwa used to shop at our local Bon Marche supermarket (gratifyingly, he didn't push trolleys-full of goods: judging from his basket, his tastes were moderate). Our son once played with the son of a top-ranking, very anti-white government official (at four or thereabouts, the child already had a black leather jacket). Before last year's elections, we came face-to-face with discredited Lands Minister Joseph Made plus entourage in Halfway House store, near the dried fruit.
The latest neighbour we've discovered is vitriolic pro-Mugabe geography teacher-turned-writer, C Zvayi. He left the state-run Herald newspaper last year to slip into neighbouring Botswana as a communications lecturer but was thrown out by the authorities. Zvayi was filmed back at his Avondale flat, angrily discussing his predicament (presumably the Zimbabwe government doesn't pay for propaganda in pulas). Which is how we realised we were neighbours.
Zvayi's block is a dank, creme-painted place under the shadow of thick trees, right next to the German Embassy (wonder if they know?). Last night there was washing hanging on the balcony. Looking at it, I was reminded of my grandmother's dreary council flat half a world away in Coalville, England.
Neighbours, but not friends.
The latest neighbour we've discovered is vitriolic pro-Mugabe geography teacher-turned-writer, C Zvayi. He left the state-run Herald newspaper last year to slip into neighbouring Botswana as a communications lecturer but was thrown out by the authorities. Zvayi was filmed back at his Avondale flat, angrily discussing his predicament (presumably the Zimbabwe government doesn't pay for propaganda in pulas). Which is how we realised we were neighbours.
Zvayi's block is a dank, creme-painted place under the shadow of thick trees, right next to the German Embassy (wonder if they know?). Last night there was washing hanging on the balcony. Looking at it, I was reminded of my grandmother's dreary council flat half a world away in Coalville, England.
Neighbours, but not friends.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
it never rains
"I'll take him for a walk," he says. It sounds like a great idea: it's been raining all afternoon, we've been glued to the computer and my son is muttering dire things about the news and "the deafest mummy in the world."
My husband attaches sandals (no Wellingtons: they don't sell those things in Zimbabwe), zips up a raincoat (sent from the UK) and they're off.
They're back in record time.
"You know how boys love marching through puddles," he says. "Well, he spotted a huge one round by B's, went running for it but I stopped him just in time."
"Raw sewage was running straight into it. You could smell it metres away."
My husband attaches sandals (no Wellingtons: they don't sell those things in Zimbabwe), zips up a raincoat (sent from the UK) and they're off.
They're back in record time.
"You know how boys love marching through puddles," he says. "Well, he spotted a huge one round by B's, went running for it but I stopped him just in time."
"Raw sewage was running straight into it. You could smell it metres away."
Sunday, February 22, 2009
some day
...it will not be normal:
- to pack wet towels when you're going anywhere near a demonstration (to put over your mouth if the police fire tear gas).
- to push your memory stick down your underwear when you're going through a police roadblock (obvious place I know, but maybe less so than in a shoe)
- to discuss who's just been arrested or shot over Sunday lunch (today it was Mike R, shot three times at his plot on Christmas Pass when he disturbed burglars/invaders on Saturday morning. He's "stable" in the local provincial hospital, friends say. His wife's already in Australia: he'd come back to Zimbabwe to wrap up their affairs.)
- to carefully shred each page of a notebook as soon as you no longer need the quotes (worryingly, our child has started tearing up pages as soon as he's carefully filled them with letters. "It's so that no-one can see what I've written," he says.)
- to let your child play with million, billion and trillion dollar notes. They're totally worthless.
- to pack wet towels when you're going anywhere near a demonstration (to put over your mouth if the police fire tear gas).
- to push your memory stick down your underwear when you're going through a police roadblock (obvious place I know, but maybe less so than in a shoe)
- to discuss who's just been arrested or shot over Sunday lunch (today it was Mike R, shot three times at his plot on Christmas Pass when he disturbed burglars/invaders on Saturday morning. He's "stable" in the local provincial hospital, friends say. His wife's already in Australia: he'd come back to Zimbabwe to wrap up their affairs.)
- to carefully shred each page of a notebook as soon as you no longer need the quotes (worryingly, our child has started tearing up pages as soon as he's carefully filled them with letters. "It's so that no-one can see what I've written," he says.)
- to let your child play with million, billion and trillion dollar notes. They're totally worthless.
Friday, February 20, 2009
mercy
"No, I'm not at school," Mercy says with a bitter laugh. She teaches Shona at a local college. "At Chancellor (a primary school) the parents agreed to pay (in forex, she means). The teachers are getting their 300 US each now. At least they've got that."
"But our students wouldn't pay so we're not going."
"Anyway," Mercy says. "The prime minister (she says this delicately) is meeting the education minister today."
Zimbabwe's teachers want 2,300 US each per month, which is just about equivalent to Mugabe's salary (27,000 US per year). They've been getting the equivalent of around 3 US per month up till now. There is some offer of aid (from UNICEF and USAID, so the rumour goes). But can it stretch to 2,300 US for every government teacher in the country for the next few what will it be -- months? years? And what about the other civil servants: nurses, doctors, soldiers who are also clamouring for hard cash and lots of it?
Mercy - who bears more than a passing resemblance to deputy president Joyce Mujuru -- has great faith in 'Coltart', (lawyer David Coltart, the new education minister, also referred to by my mother-in-law as the 'racing driver one'). "The NGOs offered the Other Government money to pay the salaries and they said no," she says with disgust.
"But this Coltart, he says "We have so many friends who are willing to help us." I think he will sort something out."
Update: Coltart on Wednesday admitted government was "broke" and offered teachers 100 US cash each per month. Most refused to accept.
"But our students wouldn't pay so we're not going."
"Anyway," Mercy says. "The prime minister (she says this delicately) is meeting the education minister today."
Zimbabwe's teachers want 2,300 US each per month, which is just about equivalent to Mugabe's salary (27,000 US per year). They've been getting the equivalent of around 3 US per month up till now. There is some offer of aid (from UNICEF and USAID, so the rumour goes). But can it stretch to 2,300 US for every government teacher in the country for the next few what will it be -- months? years? And what about the other civil servants: nurses, doctors, soldiers who are also clamouring for hard cash and lots of it?
Mercy - who bears more than a passing resemblance to deputy president Joyce Mujuru -- has great faith in 'Coltart', (lawyer David Coltart, the new education minister, also referred to by my mother-in-law as the 'racing driver one'). "The NGOs offered the Other Government money to pay the salaries and they said no," she says with disgust.
"But this Coltart, he says "We have so many friends who are willing to help us." I think he will sort something out."
Update: Coltart on Wednesday admitted government was "broke" and offered teachers 100 US cash each per month. Most refused to accept.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)