interviewing in a bikini

"You've been to Hot Springs?" queries the policeman at the roadblock just by the Chimanimani turnoff. "For leisure purposes?" He looks suspicious.

Yes, we assure him, for leisure purposes. My wet plait and the child in the back convince him. He waves us on.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if I was wrong. Honestly and truly, we did go to Hot Springs -- a rustic resort (if you can call it that -- Doris Lessing in "African Laughter" says it's ruined and that book was published back in 1993) on the edge of the Chiadzwa diamond fields -- for leisure purposes. It was a Saturday afternoon, mid-winter, and the idea of swimming in a naturally hot pool was tempting. So that's what we did: took a picnic, bundled up the child, filled a couple of thermoses, and stayed an hour-and-a half. Hot Springs has just been controversially "sold" by the Chimanimani Rural District Council for 60,000 US to a company to house mainly South African workers on the diamond fields, but it is still open for day-trippers. It was a dreamy afternoon, mostly spent lolling in the hot water under a mopani tree.

Maybe though I think now, I should have been a bit more diligent, more of a newshound. There was a group of four (fairly loutish, half-drunk) Afrikaans males also in the pool. I should have probed, asked them what was going on.

The thing is, I was wearing a bikini. Can one interview in a bikini? Especially when you're interviewing undercover, which necessarily entails a bit of banter. My husband was a couple of metres away. He understands the work drive -- he does it himself -- but this was a wee bit delicate. "Thanks for bringing your wife," they'd shouted to him. "Don't you want to come to watch the rugby with her?" After that, could I really have swam over to them, smiled innocently and started chatting?

Maybe. I just couldn't. So that's my defence. No interviews in a bikini. You have to draw the (bikini) line somewhere. Next time I'll wear a one-piece and shorts.

BBC vs CNN

Zimbabweans are good at acronyms. They have a high IQ, they say (I - queue, get it?).

News-related acronyms are popular. Not long ago, Zimbabweans admitted ruefully that many of their absent relatives were BBC workers (British Backside Cleaners). The latest acronym I've just seen is a CNN relationship - Condom Not Needed.*

(*of course, generally it is, says the Manica Post's Blabbermouth columnist)

turning the tables

By the way," I ask. "Was it you who wrote that article in The Zimbabwean on Sunday?"

I've 'phoned a well-known political analyst for his comments on this week's party congress. A lecturer at the main University of Zimbabwe, he's the commentator EVERYONE calls since Professor Masipula Sithole died. I've spoken to him often, but am almost certain he doesn't have a clue who I am.

He gives me the soundbites -- he's good at them, he knows what's required -- and then we chat for a few moments.

"Yes it was," he says, surprised.

"I enjoyed it," I say. It was a small piece, on disciplining kids. "I have my own child and it made me think."

"Precisely," he says. (I guess he means that's what it was meant to do). He chuckles with pleasure. "That's great. Thankyou for saying that. Thankyou. Darling."

no questions asked

"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.

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.

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.

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.

things to do

...when you're crouching on a kerbstone waiting for a court ruling:

- scan passing traffic for creative/unusual names: Go-Whack Transport was a good one.
- try to avoid photographer D, who totally blew your cover yesterday by greeting you expansively in front of lots of people
- surreptitiously adjust the back of your jeans to make sure no offending skin (or worse) is showing
- remember that you probably shouldn't have worn jeans without a zambia (wraparound skirt) if you didn't want to offend past-middle-aged Shona
- sneak round the corner to peak in the secondhand furniture shop (OK, so this is a dodgy one but you might be getting quotes)
- think that the courthouse, with its sandy-yellow facade, clock (stopped) and fluttering palm trees would make a great postcard if it wasn't for the motorbike helmeted riot police pacing up and down in front of it.
- text the mayor. Maybe he knows what's going on

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."

nothing changes

Ian Mills, a veteran correspondent who once (he said) rode horseback over the hills of Manica Province, had strings with just about every conceivable outlet at some point - Reuters, AFP, BBC, you name it, he'd worked for them. He died a couple of years ago. When I got to know him in 2004, he was a talented musician, edited a church magazine, was bringing up two vivacious teenage daughters with grace and gentleness -- and still managing to file a bit.

Visiting foreign correspondents (these days local papers call them parachute journalists -- they jet in for the drama and jet out again just as fast) swarmed his office in Robinson House on Angwa Street to use his filing machine. "You've got a filmmaker's lifestyle," an editor out from Britain told him once, wistfully comparing the lawn, the patio and the swimming pool to his own basement flat in London.

Once, after a press conference with the Rhodesian government, Mills went outside to find his tyres had been slashed.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

(Our tyres were slashed once outside Bon Marche supermarket in Chisipite suburb. But that was -- less excitingly -- the work of would-be muggers, who'd seen the baby chair and the wide-brimmed hat on the back seat in the middle of a weekday morning and presumed I was a woman driver on her own. I wasn't.)