Cathy's letter from Zimbabwe

Dear Family and Friends,
Thanks to the kindness and generosity of friends, I have just returnedfrom a fortnight in Mocambique and it was a long overdue and extremely welcome break from the daily grind of Zimbabwe. I can't say that I missed home while I was away or that two weeks was long enough but oh, how wonderful it was to be able to be normal. After five and half years of Zimbabwe's turmoil, I had forgotten what it felt like to be even marginally in control of the everyday events of normal life in a normal country. I had forgotten how it felt to drive into a gas station and fill up with petrol. I had forgotten what piles of sugar sitting on a supermarket shelf looked like. I had forgotten how marvelous it was to find the price of goods unchanged from one day to the next, and, even better, from one week to the next. Mocambique's prolific markets and roadside vendors reminded me of home, or rather of how home was, before our government did their dire deeds withbulldozers a few months ago. In the Mocambique markets you could negotiate and bargain for almost anything you can think of from a goat to a pineapple, a freshly caught octopus to a carved wooden turtle, or, if you were so inclined a five piece lounge suite, double bed or even a generator could be bought on the side of road. I realised how much this variety, diversity and bargaining had also been the face of Zimbabwe and how much its absence has changed our country into the sanitized and totally government controlled environment that it now is. The bulldozers of our government not only deprived people of the ability to earn a living but they also silenced the market chatter, stifled the laughter,suffocated expression and sterilized our streets, towns and lives.On the journey to and from the border I realised how internally isolated we have become in Zimbabwe. With almost no fuel available for the past five months most Zimbabweans don't or can't afford to travel inside ou rown country anymore. We don't have any way of knowing what's really happening outside of our own towns and have become totally reliant on the propaganda we are force fed by state radio and television. For months we have been told that food shortages are because of crippling drought in Zimbabwe and yet I was very surprised to see from the road how many rivers still had running water in them and how many dams were not dry. This is not the picture of drought that we Africans know so well. This unharvested water is shocking in a hungry country. It should be used to bring production to the miles and miles of deserted, untended farms that you see along the roads. The farms that the government changed the constitution to grab. Less than a month away from the main maize planting season, I was very shocked to see almost no prepared lands, no ploughed fields and no tractors tilling the farms for 250 kilometres along the main road to the border. It is chillingly quiet out there on the farms and yet summer is here and the rains are about to begin.In the two weeks that I have been away almost every single thing in my shopping basket has almost doubled in price and perhaps the most chilling thing that I have seen since I have been home is how few people are buying seed maize - it is simply too expensive. Everyone is saying that this year is going to be the worst and they are right because our pantries and pockets are empty and hunger already has one foot in the door. Zimbabwe may not be much in the world news these days but please don't forget us.Until next week, love cathy.
Copyright cathy buckle1st October 2005. http://africantears.netfirms.comMy books "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com