not the marrying kind

"Talking about not being married --" he says. "I've got a story to tell you."

We're sitting on our oil-lamp lit verandah, crickets chirping in the blackness. He is a Zimbabwean academic, now living in the diaspora. He's come back for the Christmas holidays to visit his frail mother, 83, who -- all credit to her -- is just finishing her third book.

"I've got this colleague" -- he says. The colleague's interested in things military. When our friend sees a pair of rusted small cannon sitting in the long grass outside an apparently deserted storeroom he pulls out his camera.

A few minutes later a soldier taps him on the shoulder. "My boss would like to see you."

A six-hour ordeal begins. He's taken to the police station, then to the back offices. Why did he take a picture? How did he know that building he photographed was a disused barracks? (He didn't. My husband did. He can remember being taken there in the back of the family station wagon during the war days when his parents dined in the officers' mess. There was a waiter -- Goodson, was it? or Warrior? -- who brought cold drinks out to the boys in the night) How do the CIO (because it's CIO interviewing him now) know he wasn't trying to make a map? A map to be used for espionage purposes?

They confiscate the camera, want a print-out of the photos. Just one problem: the police (of course) have no printer. So officers accompany our friend to the market square where the outdoor photographers roam, cameras in hand. Yes, one of them can print out what the police need. The photographer disappears with the precious memory card. He returns later with the photos. It's only when the police examine the prints that they realise these are not the right ones . A Shona couple beam, resplendent in wedding attire, at the officers from Kodak paper.

We sip our coffee.

"You forget there are eyes everywhere," I murmur. I wonder again about that white car that I've seen parked outside our drive the last few nights, lights off. Roadside lovers? Probably. But in Zimbabwe, the fear is never far. The car is there tonight.

"But what I wanted to say -- " He's remarkably calm about this. That's even though the military police called at his mother's cottage earlier in the day "for fellowship purposes. To check you are alright" (ie where you said you'd be and not reporting to your colonial masters) -- "The reason why it took so long with those eight people questioning me, is that they couldn't believe I wasn't married."

He's in his 50s, our friend, a steady girlfriend (plus cat) waiting for him back home.
.
"What, not married? But why?" they kept saying. "No children?" It's unthinkable, a disgrace, for a Shona male to die childless. In the past, you could be buried with a rat on your back if you had no kids.

"What about children outside?" the CIO persisted. "Ok, so not inside marriage, but outside then?"

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?

manna from heaven

"It's you again -" I've already bumped into the man once, waiting at the till. I'm rushing round OK supermarket before heading to the cafe to do my surfing (GPRS isn't working again).

"Where are you from?" I steel myself. "England. But I've lived here for nearly 10 years," I say defensively.

"Whereabouts?" "Eastern England."

"I live in London. Have done for 17 years," he says. I stop.

"So are you coming back to Zimbabwe?" I say.

"Well -- " and he proceeds to launch into a long account of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai going to London to try to persuade Zimbabweans to go home again. "They found out he talked to the Home Affairs Minister first. When he said: 'I know your problems' they booed him. How could he know their problems when he hadn't talked to them first?"

"You know, the British government offered failed asylum seekers £3,000 to go home. £3,000 and they said they'd pay for their flights and a container to bring their things home in."

(Note to self: check these figures. Were the Brits really this generous?)

"And when they turned it down, they offered them £6,000. And said the British High Commissioner would personally check up on them when they got back. You know, some of them were scared of being attacked."

He looks at the bananas behind us. No-one eavesdropping there.

"They still didn't want to come home. They are mad," he sniffs. "Here at least, they have an extended family. Anyone can get land. This place, why: it's got manna from heaven."

Monday morning

"Do you read the Herald?" the man shouts at me as I unlock my car door.

I've staggered back in the heat -- it's only 9.30 but it's already unbearable -- with a shopping basket from OK supermarket (OK is the best performing counter on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, says the Herald when I read it later), plus the newspapers tucked under my arm.

The Herald is the only paper visible.

"Yes," I shoot back. "Well - sometimes." Slight lie (white lie) but if I admitted I had to buy the Herald everyday for work reasons, there'd be more raised eyebrows. As it is, it's just the why-on-earth-would-a-white-housewife-read-the-government-paper-that-costs-a-whole-dollar question.

"What about NewsDay?" NewsDay is South Africa-based media mogul Trevor Ncube's baby (welcomed, I see today also in the Herald, by info minister Webster Shamu).

"That - " I laugh. I know what the required answer is. "Yes, I read it everyday."

who wears the trousers?

"You mean, it's not really acceptable to wear trousers?" asks my friend, who's white and from Malawi (and wearing fitted jeans).

"No." The two Shona women choose their words carefully. "It wasn't. You know, there are some churches you can't go to if you're wearing trousers."

"One time, I went to that UBC (United Baptist Church)," says Mai D. "It was cold, and I was wearing tracksuit bottoms under my skirt. They came to me after the service: "Amai, we do not like you to wear trousers."

I remember -- it's years since I thought about this -- a meeting I went to in Harare. Women of the Noughties, or something like that. It must have been 2004 or 5. I was the only white invited. The glamourous guest speaker was well-known, highly successful and married to a top tourism official. She kindly took time to explain zambias to me. Zambias are the wraparound skirts you see women wearing traditionally, often over trousers or a short skirt.

"I might be a businesswoman but when my inlaws come, I must put on my zambia," she said.

My white friend remembers growing up in Malawi under Kamuzu Banda, who banned trousers and short skirts. She recalls having to change quickly after tennis: the short wrapround tennis skirts weren't acceptable in public.

"Things are changing now," says Mai D. "You know, that young son of mine, he told his father and I: 'I will not marry a girl who wears dresses.' "

hallucinating

It's some kind of outdoor function. I think I can see a marquee. I know I have heels on: I feel unsteady as I walk. He -- the Father of the Nation, His Excellency -- is guest of honour.

We're in a crowd. Somehow my child gets pushed to the front and, too far away for me to do anything about it, he's being introduced. "What's your name?" I manage to lipread. I see my boy answering in his clear voice. H.E is smiling paternally. G is in florals next to him. She bends down to catch my son's words.

I manage to push my way -- politely -- through the crowd. H. E and The First Lady are chatting happily. Then I realise G. is talking in Italian.

I ask her (since I'm right next to her and it would be impolite not to): "Dov'e ha (slight hesitation: do I use the formal Lei rather than tu and if I do, what's the verb ending? ) imparato l'italiano?" Where did you learn Italian?

"You speak it too?" G is delighted. She turns her back on the rest of the crowd. We walk off together chatting, our heels sinking into the grass in time with each other. She's cool, I think. I was so wrong about her. Why, I could actually be friends with this woman.

"Oh," she says nonchalantly. "I learnt it when I was cleaning toilets in --" I don't catch the name of the Italian city but I'm too embarrassed to ask, especially as I have to confess I learnt my Italian at university. Poor G, I think. I'm being sincere. She only got a chance to go to secretarial college. Parents didn't send her to university. So typical of Zimbabwean parents' attitudes to girls a few years back, whether they were black or white.

"What does your husband do?" G asks. In a friendly manner. I gulp. "Just...you know, bits of NGO work," I say. One shouldn't lie to a New Best Friend. G doesn't seem 'phased. I can't really ask her what her husband does. We chat a bit more. Croissants are handed round.

And then I wake up. It's Saturday morning. A cold cup of Tanganda tea sits by the bed. The power's on. Nothing has changed.

It was a good dream, while it lasted.

greenshirts

"There are nine roadblocks on the way to Harare," my mother-in-law warns. "Drive slowly."

The police are on a fund-raising spree, it seems. Spot fines for speeding (and a host of other infractions). That would be good if it curbed Zimbabwe's road chaos. Road accidents are -- state media says -- the second main cause of death here.

We drive carefully, marvelling at the number of flashy, non-number plated cars happily steaming past us. If we're going at just under 120 km per hour -- the legal limit -- what speed must they be going at? There are suspicions (who knows whether they're justified?) that the drivers being targeted are mainly from one racial group.

We watch for police round every bend, every kopje, our hearts leaping every time we see a flash of green. The police wear luminous lime green tank-tops. And then we realise that that particular shade of green is obviously this year's hot colour. Women are wearing it: stretchy T-shirts, lime-green jumpers. Men sport tailored lime-green shirts (possibly Van Heusen, but probably Mbare flea market).

The thing is, you don't know for sure the lime green-wearers are not police until you get near them.

The journey takes us half an hour longer than normal.