poll talk

"My brother Sam called," Mai A says. "He is saying there will be elections next year."

"We are worried about our father."

President Robert Mugabe has decided that a referendum must be held by March and elections by June next year. Election-talk has already begun in state media: the lead piece in the Herald today is: Gearing for Post-GPA Zim. No matter that there's not enough money to hold the elections, that the voters' roll is in a shambles and that most Zimbabweans are appalled by the thought of fresh polls, with the violence that's sure to go with them.

Mai A's elderly father was badly beaten by the militias in the 2008 elections. They said he had two children who worked for whites.

"He goes to Nyanga hospital for a checkup every month still," she says. "It is his back, it is still giving him pain."

Of course I say yes.

But later, I wonder: will the rural areas be empty during the elections as villagers flee the threat of violence? Is that part of the master-plan?

rumblings

It's the hat I see first -- pink flowered, large-brimmed -- as I drive in the gate.

My husband is closing the gate behind me. As I unpack children, school bags, a tin of sausages, a laptop and a bottle of Avon foundation procured after lengthy and complicated negotiations (make-up for white skin in a country where whites make up less than 0.1 percent of the population is not readily available), I realise the hat has stopped to talk to my husband.

It's an angry conversation, though the anger is not directed at him.

"And you ain't seen nothing yet," she says loudly.

Zimbabwe's constitutional outreach programme started -- supposedly -- on June 23rd. Things aren't going well. The official Herald daily says merely that the process has got off to a "slow start", something to do with delegates not getting their supper. Reports from the former opposition MDC tell a different story. The MDC and its supporters want presidential terms restricted to 2 in the new constitution: the party's opponents are (predictably) determined not to let that happen. ZANU-PF has launched Operation Chimumumumu (Operation Shut Up/Dumb), forbidding all but selected and properly primed villagers to air their views to outreach officers. There are reports of MDC huts being burnt down. Today, 3 MDC supporters have been abducted in Marondera.

I watch the woman in the hat - she's a contact of the MDC MP who's frequently in our suburb -- make her angry way down the road and think of snatched conversations on road corners two years ago, when Zimbabwe's rumbling political crisis exploded into real violence.

Will it happen again?

kariba (well, sort of)

"Things are not good," he says.

The white bakkie shot past our gate, then reversed. The passenger window opened. I recognise MDC MP P. M. and his driver (or is he a policeman? He has a fluorescent green vest). The MP is smartly dressed these days: pin-stripe suit (despite the heat), stiff white-collared shirt, tiny brass flags pinned to his lapel.

But he isn't optimistic. The just-started constitutional outreach programme is mired in controversy. Educators from civic groups -- including a sizeable contingent of war vets (leader Joseph Chinotimba was pictured getting his accreditation in the state-owned Herald last week) -- are supposed to be holding meetings with mainly rural folk to tell them about the importance of putting their own input into a new constitution. The rural folk are getting intimidated, a Nyazura farmer told me last week. And the educators are making a pretty penny from their donor-funded allowances ($70 per day when teachers get $150 per month: not surprisingly, civil servants have given a general strike notice). MPs meantime are hiring out their government vehicles for the exercise at up to $250 per day. If the exercise lasts 100 days, that'll be more than $20,000 profit.

"There are more farm invasions, the war vets are telling the people they can only have the Kariba Draft," says the MP as we stand under the fig tree. The Kariba Draft is a draft constitution hastily agreed to by all three parties to the power-sharing deal. The document -- which retains Mugabe's sweeping powers -- wasn't supposed to be set in stone. But ZANU-PF now insists it is.

The MP looks at us and sighs.

waiting

"They can't get their money," the security guard whispers. "It's a big problem."

Crouched on the kerb, lying on the verges, sitting on the steps of the Tel-One building next to the People's Own Savings Bank in the midday sun, people wait. It's civil servants' payday. There are hundreds of them, here and at Agribank one block down. The police are out in force but this time they appear to be waiting for their own payouts, not manning queues. In the few banks that actually have cash, there are whispers of withdrawal limits: 40 US, customers say.

Zimbabweans had hoped the new coalition government would mean the end of cash shortages and bank queues. Apparently not.

rock

"Why do we have to go to the police station?" he says sleepily.

We strap him in the back seat. There are crowds gathering outside a police station. There is no-one to leave him with at this late hour. "Just to count something," I say vaguely.

Main Street is dark. But as we near the station, we can just make out shadows of people.

There's the sudden sound of shots. Teargas? Gunshots? We turn off Main Street quickly, past the police station, round the back of the TelOne office.

Ahead, I can see the shapes of people running. A yellow shirt, someone with red trousers. They've obviously left Main Street, escaping whatever's been fired.

As we near -- our headlights full on, stupidly -- there are shouts. They're clearly angry. Yellow shirt (I think it's yellow shirt) throws something at the car. We accelerate. Against the blackness, I can make out clouds of what looks like smoke.

When we examine the car in safety we find that a rock two-thirds the size of a football has gone through a window in the bakkie part of the truck. The rock is still in the back. It's pointed. It looks like a broken piece of kerbstone.

The window is the one just behind where my son was sitting. A second or two later and it would have been his window.