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.)
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
eaten by a lion
Reporting from Zimbabwe has been dangerous for some time.
In Robert Cary's The Pioneer Corps (the story of the 57 whites who crossed the Shashi River and erected the British flag in what's now Harare's Africa Unity Square in September 1890) there's a mention of a certain Baumann, J in the "civilian" column.
Newspaper correspondent, the entry says. Eaten by a lion. November 1890.
In Robert Cary's The Pioneer Corps (the story of the 57 whites who crossed the Shashi River and erected the British flag in what's now Harare's Africa Unity Square in September 1890) there's a mention of a certain Baumann, J in the "civilian" column.
Newspaper correspondent, the entry says. Eaten by a lion. November 1890.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
100 US
"It's just too much," H says.
Her husband's 19-year-old sister got into a scrape. A married-boyfriend-got-me-pregnant-and-then-I-tried-to-abort sort of a scrape. When the tetes (Shona word for aunties) refused to help, H and her husband were summoned.
Nyasha looked OK when they saw her first. Truculent even. H and her husband stayed for five days, noting how the other women in the township refused to greet the family. Nyasha had a certain sort of a reputation, it appeared.
Just as they were about to go, Nyasha got ill.
"Please, take me to hospital," she pleaded. Her stomach was swollen.
"Who did this to you?" H said. "A woman, six streets away," the girl said. 700 US later, H and her husband got Nyasha admitted to hospital (government hospitals have reopened their doors but patients now have to find 70 US per night, excluding medical procedures). When the doctors operated, they found a sharp object still inside her. And a rotting foetus.
H is furious. They'd been saving - H and her husband -- for a church blessing on their marriage, a childhood dream H has refused to let go of. "If we'd left her, she'd have died and then we'd have had to pay for the funeral, which would have been more," she says grimly.
But now that Nyasha is back on her feet and claiming she "did it" to herself, H and her husband are going back to the township to confront her and the maternal relative they suspect may have put her in touch with the woman six streets away. Who, by the way, charges 100 US per girl and apparently sees five a day.
"It's a police matter," H says. "They'll make them talk. I want my money back."
Her husband's 19-year-old sister got into a scrape. A married-boyfriend-got-me-pregnant-and-then-I-tried-to-abort sort of a scrape. When the tetes (Shona word for aunties) refused to help, H and her husband were summoned.
Nyasha looked OK when they saw her first. Truculent even. H and her husband stayed for five days, noting how the other women in the township refused to greet the family. Nyasha had a certain sort of a reputation, it appeared.
Just as they were about to go, Nyasha got ill.
"Please, take me to hospital," she pleaded. Her stomach was swollen.
"Who did this to you?" H said. "A woman, six streets away," the girl said. 700 US later, H and her husband got Nyasha admitted to hospital (government hospitals have reopened their doors but patients now have to find 70 US per night, excluding medical procedures). When the doctors operated, they found a sharp object still inside her. And a rotting foetus.
H is furious. They'd been saving - H and her husband -- for a church blessing on their marriage, a childhood dream H has refused to let go of. "If we'd left her, she'd have died and then we'd have had to pay for the funeral, which would have been more," she says grimly.
But now that Nyasha is back on her feet and claiming she "did it" to herself, H and her husband are going back to the township to confront her and the maternal relative they suspect may have put her in touch with the woman six streets away. Who, by the way, charges 100 US per girl and apparently sees five a day.
"It's a police matter," H says. "They'll make them talk. I want my money back."
Thursday, January 15, 2009
clever by name, clever by nature
When you name a child in Zimbabwe, meaning is all.
Lovemore, Trymore, Blessing, Beauty: it's not hard to see the thinking behind those names. Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono (who got pelted at a funeral in Chitekwe Village last weekend) has children called Passion, Praise and Pride. A man we employed once as a painter was named Last, presumably by an exhausted mother as a warning to her husband. A softly-spoken female activist at a local AIDS project goes by the name Silence.
Often, parents give a child a name they hope they'll grow into. Sometimes it works: the president of the Zimbabwe National Students' Union is called Clever. His deputy (ZINASU VP) goes by the first name Brilliant. (Clever -- who's been arrested several times -- and Brilliant are currently lobbying the authorities to stop Zimbabwean universities charging in forex.)
Then there are the names you can only guess at the tortured thinking behind. A few years back, there was a state journalist called Jealousy. (Did he have an unfaithful parent?) Another writer was called Killer. (Did his mother die when he was born?)
I see on one of the Western embassy mailing lists that they're sending press releases to someone called Murder
Lovemore, Trymore, Blessing, Beauty: it's not hard to see the thinking behind those names. Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono (who got pelted at a funeral in Chitekwe Village last weekend) has children called Passion, Praise and Pride. A man we employed once as a painter was named Last, presumably by an exhausted mother as a warning to her husband. A softly-spoken female activist at a local AIDS project goes by the name Silence.
Often, parents give a child a name they hope they'll grow into. Sometimes it works: the president of the Zimbabwe National Students' Union is called Clever. His deputy (ZINASU VP) goes by the first name Brilliant. (Clever -- who's been arrested several times -- and Brilliant are currently lobbying the authorities to stop Zimbabwean universities charging in forex.)
Then there are the names you can only guess at the tortured thinking behind. A few years back, there was a state journalist called Jealousy. (Did he have an unfaithful parent?) Another writer was called Killer. (Did his mother die when he was born?)
I see on one of the Western embassy mailing lists that they're sending press releases to someone called Murder
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
after the attack
Two days after the snake attack, I develop heart pains.
I pore through an ancient Snakes in Rhodesia book (no-one appears to have brought out a Snakes in Zimbabwe edition). The map for black mamba distribution is shaded for the whole of the country, bar a tiny corridor along the southeastern border.
There are mambas everywhere.
"What happens if my child gets bitten?" I ask our GP. "It's a problem," he says (as a young premed, he used to do post-mortems on villagers who'd been killed by mambas). Anti-venom isn't used these days to treat snake-bite: the modern way is to use drips and blood transfusions immediately.
But immediate hospital treatment is well-nigh impossible in Zimbabwe, where doctors are on strike and private clinics won't let you through the door unless you can produce wads of US dollars (3,000 for our local one) in cash, straight away. And -- as a friend who recently went for a C-section found -- you have to provide your own drip.
Our dog was Labrador-sized, chunky. She probably weighed more than my son. It took her just 20 minutes to die.
I remember that terrible scene in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, where missionary daughter Ruth-May gets bitten by a green mamba that someone's deliberately enticed into the chicken house. She dies in a matter of minutes: her mother weaves her a shroud out of mosquito nets.
White friends offer tales of horror ("I have a neighbour who lost two Staffies that way" or "There was that kid in Chirundu recently. His parents found him playing with what he said were worms. They were puff-adders. Not a thing they could do for him.") Black friends offer suggestions. Clear out the fallen leaves between your banana trees. Keep the bottom part of the kitchen door shut at all times (so that's why there are stable doors here). Don't go out at night.
I fantasise about setting fire to the next-door neighbour's bamboo (apparently a favourite snake haunt). I decide that DVDs are a great idea: they keep your kids indoors, away from snakes. Mostly I grieve for the dog and for what her death makes me think of now in Zimbabwe: hope gone sour, the sense of hidden evil waiting in the wings.
I pore through an ancient Snakes in Rhodesia book (no-one appears to have brought out a Snakes in Zimbabwe edition). The map for black mamba distribution is shaded for the whole of the country, bar a tiny corridor along the southeastern border.
There are mambas everywhere.
"What happens if my child gets bitten?" I ask our GP. "It's a problem," he says (as a young premed, he used to do post-mortems on villagers who'd been killed by mambas). Anti-venom isn't used these days to treat snake-bite: the modern way is to use drips and blood transfusions immediately.
But immediate hospital treatment is well-nigh impossible in Zimbabwe, where doctors are on strike and private clinics won't let you through the door unless you can produce wads of US dollars (3,000 for our local one) in cash, straight away. And -- as a friend who recently went for a C-section found -- you have to provide your own drip.
Our dog was Labrador-sized, chunky. She probably weighed more than my son. It took her just 20 minutes to die.
I remember that terrible scene in Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, where missionary daughter Ruth-May gets bitten by a green mamba that someone's deliberately enticed into the chicken house. She dies in a matter of minutes: her mother weaves her a shroud out of mosquito nets.
White friends offer tales of horror ("I have a neighbour who lost two Staffies that way" or "There was that kid in Chirundu recently. His parents found him playing with what he said were worms. They were puff-adders. Not a thing they could do for him.") Black friends offer suggestions. Clear out the fallen leaves between your banana trees. Keep the bottom part of the kitchen door shut at all times (so that's why there are stable doors here). Don't go out at night.
I fantasise about setting fire to the next-door neighbour's bamboo (apparently a favourite snake haunt). I decide that DVDs are a great idea: they keep your kids indoors, away from snakes. Mostly I grieve for the dog and for what her death makes me think of now in Zimbabwe: hope gone sour, the sense of hidden evil waiting in the wings.
Monday, January 12, 2009
tale of two teachers
"You're phoning about the opening of term?" My son's headmistress is nervous. "No, we can't go ahead."
"We take our lead from the the private schools, and they've been told there'll be arrests if they open."
Teachers get arrested regularly in Zimbabwe. In the last 18 months, my son has attended two (private but far from exclusive) preschools. Both of his headmistresses have been arrested. The first one (who was heavily pregnant) was arrested for hiking fees without permission. The second spent a couple of nights in cells after she was (wrongfully) accused of stealing fuel coupons. She says her time inside wasn't too bad ("but I was worried about my children"). Understandably, she's keen not to see a repeat of the experience.
Schools were supposed to open on January 13th. State radio announced last week that lessons would now be delayed until January 27th, to give the authorities time to find (and perhaps pay) markers for last year's Grade 7 exams. Private schools mark their own examinations, so headteachers presumed the edict applied only to government schools and decided to go ahead with the January 13th start-date.
That was until they were notified by letter this weekend that they'd be arrested if they did.
'Phone me again on Friday," she says. In the backgrounds, I can hear 'phones ringing. More frustrated parents.
"We take our lead from the the private schools, and they've been told there'll be arrests if they open."
Teachers get arrested regularly in Zimbabwe. In the last 18 months, my son has attended two (private but far from exclusive) preschools. Both of his headmistresses have been arrested. The first one (who was heavily pregnant) was arrested for hiking fees without permission. The second spent a couple of nights in cells after she was (wrongfully) accused of stealing fuel coupons. She says her time inside wasn't too bad ("but I was worried about my children"). Understandably, she's keen not to see a repeat of the experience.
Schools were supposed to open on January 13th. State radio announced last week that lessons would now be delayed until January 27th, to give the authorities time to find (and perhaps pay) markers for last year's Grade 7 exams. Private schools mark their own examinations, so headteachers presumed the edict applied only to government schools and decided to go ahead with the January 13th start-date.
That was until they were notified by letter this weekend that they'd be arrested if they did.
'Phone me again on Friday," she says. In the backgrounds, I can hear 'phones ringing. More frustrated parents.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
second cup
Hanging on the living room wall in A's house, there's a framed cross-stitch picture in white and pink. "Home is where the heart is." The house is scrupulously clean, but there's no sign of the sideboard filled with trinkets - glasses, ornaments -- that used to have pride of place as you walked in. Sold?
There's tea, served in the thick Willsgrove pottery you'll find in every Zimbabwean home, every hotel, every cafe. It's then that I make my faux pas, when A offers a second cup and I nod quickly, without thinking.
She's used up the last of her powdered milk to fill the tiny jug that splashed the bottom of our four cups, first time round. There is no more milk, no sugar and there will not be when we leave the house. Embarrassed, A pours out black tea.
These days in Zimbabwe, it's bad manners to ask for a second cup.
There's tea, served in the thick Willsgrove pottery you'll find in every Zimbabwean home, every hotel, every cafe. It's then that I make my faux pas, when A offers a second cup and I nod quickly, without thinking.
She's used up the last of her powdered milk to fill the tiny jug that splashed the bottom of our four cups, first time round. There is no more milk, no sugar and there will not be when we leave the house. Embarrassed, A pours out black tea.
These days in Zimbabwe, it's bad manners to ask for a second cup.
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