"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.
Showing posts with label inflation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label inflation. Show all posts
Friday, February 20, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
propaganda works
Under the doctor's desk, an old radio blares the headlines from the BBC World Service.
He switches it off as I come in. The surgery is shabby. Peeling magazines lie in a pile by the secretary's desk. From a back room, there's the unmistakeable smell of sadza cooking. But this doctor is patient and thorough. He has his own worries: a son who's at private school who should be taking his A-levels but there are no teachers, another younger child who needs to find a secondary school place. Once he worked in private practice for Kenneth Kaunda. He came back to Zimbabwe when the Zambian kwacha was the currency everyone laughed at.
"We used to get all the medical papers here in Zimbabwe. I could keep up with the latest research," he laments.
"Now, because of sanctions you know -- " he looks up at me keenly, a lone white representing the West -- "they're not getting here."
He switches it off as I come in. The surgery is shabby. Peeling magazines lie in a pile by the secretary's desk. From a back room, there's the unmistakeable smell of sadza cooking. But this doctor is patient and thorough. He has his own worries: a son who's at private school who should be taking his A-levels but there are no teachers, another younger child who needs to find a secondary school place. Once he worked in private practice for Kenneth Kaunda. He came back to Zimbabwe when the Zambian kwacha was the currency everyone laughed at.
"We used to get all the medical papers here in Zimbabwe. I could keep up with the latest research," he laments.
"Now, because of sanctions you know -- " he looks up at me keenly, a lone white representing the West -- "they're not getting here."
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
surviving
The house is dark by the time we arrive.
"No power, can you believe it?" says J, hobbling up to greet us. She is in her eighties, still going strong. "We thought they'd fixed it, but it cut out just before you came."
"Here, take a glow-worm."
A glow-worm turns out to be a small round battery-less light, a bit bigger than a Bovril top. It lets out an eerie blue glow, enough for you to see to wash your hands by (as long as you place it next to the soap-dish). The glow-worms come from J's adopted son in the UK.
In the dining room, you'd think nothing had changed. J's white-robed domestic (a Malawian, been there for ever) has set the table with a crisp white cloth and creamy napkins edged with tatting. There are tall silver candlesticks and place-mats with Paris scenes on. (I get the Moulin Rouge.) The food is concealed in delicate casserole dishes, silver serving spoons waiting beside them. It's only when J takes the lids off that I see they're smudged with soot. The cooking's been done outside, on an open fire.
The boerewors sausage comes from neighbours who emptied their freezer in her direction when they took their Christmas holidays, says J triumphantly. The carrots and beans are from the garden. The butter for the potatoes also comes from the neighbours' freezer. The precious grenadilla jelly has been carefully saved from Christmas two weeks ago, as has the ice-cream (which bears the taste of having defrosted and refrosted several times).
A long time ago (or maybe only ten years) J and her (now late) husband and stay-at-home son lived a relatively easy life. This is one of Harare's best suburbs. J's plot is a big one with worn-smooth tennis courts (so far she hasn't been able to bring herself to subdivide). The subtle signs of struggle though are hard to hide. The pool is brown, with bream in (for two much-loved cats). The gate is broken. J's plimsolls have holes in. So do her son's clothes.
She can't ever go on holiday (she says) because she fears her domestic would eat the one tiny tin of pilchards she divides into five and mixes with breadcrumbs to do her cats' weeknight suppers.
Even before J's husband died, his Zimbabwe pension was worthless because of hyperinflation. J's son eeks out a living making brightly-coloured children's puzzles -- but these days the toy market has shrunk. Besides, he can't get the wood to make them. The pair survive on parcels, parcels from the church, parcels from J's adopted son, parcels from an ex-lodger's sister with the enviable London address of Cavendish Square. The parcels come from startups with names like mukuru.com, shopzim.com, zimseller.com: all people who're exploiting a big gaping hole in Zimbabwe's foodchain to make their own small fortunes.
J opens the wardrobe in the guest room where we're staying (no bulbs in the bedside lamps but a beautiful pink rose on the dressing table) and shows us rows of cooking oil and bags of flour. "We've got enough Sunlight soap to run a shop," she says grimly. "And candles," chimes her son.
What J needs really is forex. Sometimes she takes some of her parcel goodies ("tinned fruit, body lotion, things we don't really need", and tries to sell them cut-price to the staff at the local Spar). She and her son had just managed to amass the princely sum of 120 US to fix the car, but then she got a bladder infection.
The scan and the antibiotics gobbled up the car repairs.
"I don't know how it's going to end," she says. I've always loved J for her energy, her resilience. I see suddenly that she is getting old.
"No power, can you believe it?" says J, hobbling up to greet us. She is in her eighties, still going strong. "We thought they'd fixed it, but it cut out just before you came."
"Here, take a glow-worm."
A glow-worm turns out to be a small round battery-less light, a bit bigger than a Bovril top. It lets out an eerie blue glow, enough for you to see to wash your hands by (as long as you place it next to the soap-dish). The glow-worms come from J's adopted son in the UK.
In the dining room, you'd think nothing had changed. J's white-robed domestic (a Malawian, been there for ever) has set the table with a crisp white cloth and creamy napkins edged with tatting. There are tall silver candlesticks and place-mats with Paris scenes on. (I get the Moulin Rouge.) The food is concealed in delicate casserole dishes, silver serving spoons waiting beside them. It's only when J takes the lids off that I see they're smudged with soot. The cooking's been done outside, on an open fire.
The boerewors sausage comes from neighbours who emptied their freezer in her direction when they took their Christmas holidays, says J triumphantly. The carrots and beans are from the garden. The butter for the potatoes also comes from the neighbours' freezer. The precious grenadilla jelly has been carefully saved from Christmas two weeks ago, as has the ice-cream (which bears the taste of having defrosted and refrosted several times).
A long time ago (or maybe only ten years) J and her (now late) husband and stay-at-home son lived a relatively easy life. This is one of Harare's best suburbs. J's plot is a big one with worn-smooth tennis courts (so far she hasn't been able to bring herself to subdivide). The subtle signs of struggle though are hard to hide. The pool is brown, with bream in (for two much-loved cats). The gate is broken. J's plimsolls have holes in. So do her son's clothes.
She can't ever go on holiday (she says) because she fears her domestic would eat the one tiny tin of pilchards she divides into five and mixes with breadcrumbs to do her cats' weeknight suppers.
Even before J's husband died, his Zimbabwe pension was worthless because of hyperinflation. J's son eeks out a living making brightly-coloured children's puzzles -- but these days the toy market has shrunk. Besides, he can't get the wood to make them. The pair survive on parcels, parcels from the church, parcels from J's adopted son, parcels from an ex-lodger's sister with the enviable London address of Cavendish Square. The parcels come from startups with names like mukuru.com, shopzim.com, zimseller.com: all people who're exploiting a big gaping hole in Zimbabwe's foodchain to make their own small fortunes.
J opens the wardrobe in the guest room where we're staying (no bulbs in the bedside lamps but a beautiful pink rose on the dressing table) and shows us rows of cooking oil and bags of flour. "We've got enough Sunlight soap to run a shop," she says grimly. "And candles," chimes her son.
What J needs really is forex. Sometimes she takes some of her parcel goodies ("tinned fruit, body lotion, things we don't really need", and tries to sell them cut-price to the staff at the local Spar). She and her son had just managed to amass the princely sum of 120 US to fix the car, but then she got a bladder infection.
The scan and the antibiotics gobbled up the car repairs.
"I don't know how it's going to end," she says. I've always loved J for her energy, her resilience. I see suddenly that she is getting old.
Monday, February 18, 2008
be my valentine
The assistant bends over the bread counter conspiratorially.
"So I heard you are going to Victoria Falls on Valentine's Day?" he asks with a sly grin. Last month he told me his wife was "causing me trouble". She's pregnant, a first-time mother and she's grumbling, he says. He wants to send her back to her rural-based parents, as husbands can here. "Vic Falls I wish," I say in the most matronly manner I can manage. Oops, forgot the wedding ring this morning.
This week it's Valentine's Day and not the Makoni factor (the unexpected electoral challenge to RGM from his former finance minister whose first name Simbarashe means -- scarily for his opponents -- power from God) that's on everyone's lips I meet, though some foreign press reports say otherwise. Zimbabweans are obsessed with Valentine's Day. Bare shops are suddenly stocked with red things: there are zhing-zhong red knickers in Husseins clothing store and red diaphanous nighties that wouldn't last a nail-rip on sale in the new boutique. In the newsagents opposite, plastic heart boxes lie next to the furry mini-Santas left over from the last holiday. "Are you ready for Valentine's Day?" the shop assistant giggles in Biggie Best furnishings (I'm not: she is). The pavements are dotted with people wearing red. Elections might be next month but Valentines' Day is one of the main items on today's morning news bulletins, with the reporter praising the "lovely" Valentine's Day outfits he's seen (Zimbabwe state media breaks most journalism school rules). One of the presenters reads out a selection of love poems and there's even a list of videos we should be watching today.
The bad news is that the annual inflation rate's reached a staggering 66,000+ percent, but today no-one's taking any notice. Hang economic crises and elections, just watch Casablanca
"So I heard you are going to Victoria Falls on Valentine's Day?" he asks with a sly grin. Last month he told me his wife was "causing me trouble". She's pregnant, a first-time mother and she's grumbling, he says. He wants to send her back to her rural-based parents, as husbands can here. "Vic Falls I wish," I say in the most matronly manner I can manage. Oops, forgot the wedding ring this morning.
This week it's Valentine's Day and not the Makoni factor (the unexpected electoral challenge to RGM from his former finance minister whose first name Simbarashe means -- scarily for his opponents -- power from God) that's on everyone's lips I meet, though some foreign press reports say otherwise. Zimbabweans are obsessed with Valentine's Day. Bare shops are suddenly stocked with red things: there are zhing-zhong red knickers in Husseins clothing store and red diaphanous nighties that wouldn't last a nail-rip on sale in the new boutique. In the newsagents opposite, plastic heart boxes lie next to the furry mini-Santas left over from the last holiday. "Are you ready for Valentine's Day?" the shop assistant giggles in Biggie Best furnishings (I'm not: she is). The pavements are dotted with people wearing red. Elections might be next month but Valentines' Day is one of the main items on today's morning news bulletins, with the reporter praising the "lovely" Valentine's Day outfits he's seen (Zimbabwe state media breaks most journalism school rules). One of the presenters reads out a selection of love poems and there's even a list of videos we should be watching today.
The bad news is that the annual inflation rate's reached a staggering 66,000+ percent, but today no-one's taking any notice. Hang economic crises and elections, just watch Casablanca
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