CATHY BUCKLE'S LETTTER FROM ZIMBABWE!

Dear Family and Friends,

The first week of November 2006 has been the hottest that many people can remember. As I make notes for this letter it is 35 degrees Celsius atmidday in Marondera - normally a cooler part of the country. The forecastis for temperatures to top 38*C in Kwekwe today and 43*C in Kariba. When it is hot like this it is hard to pay attention to anything but some things domanage to cause a slight stir of interest. Headline business news in the South African media one day this week was: "Zimbabwe is holding back the whole continent and is an island of decline." A sentence like that is cause for great embarrassment to us but it also brings slight relief. It means that our fanatically diplomatic neighbours are finally starting to be publicly outspoken about us - it really is about time.

Also causing a stir of air in the scorching heat this week has been the launch of a vision document by a group of Church leaders. Called "The Zimbabwe We Want", the Church leaders say that the nation is "sliding intoa sense of national despair and loss of hope." They say that principles ofpeace, justice, forgiveness and honesty have degenerated and that even some Church leaders have "become accomplices in some of the evils that have brought our nation to this." The document apparently calls for a new constitution, for the repeal of repressive media and security laws (POSAand AIPPA) and for an independent land commission to bring sense and productivity back to agriculture in Zimbabwe.

The voices of local church leaders, along with the voices of our neighbours, raised the temperature a little more although I don't think either said anything about last weekend's rural council elections. At the beginning of the week I met a man with a bright purple stain on his little finger. "I've been to vote" he said, his voice filled with pride but his face creased with despair. I asked him how it had been out there at the rural polling stations in the dusty villages. The man shook his headslowly, exhaled loudly. "At least now we will get the seed," he said. He told me that two weeks before the elections donors had come with seed maize to the village. The seed had not been given out though, the village headswere waiting till 'after the elections.' Similar findings were made by theZESN, an electoral monitoring body, who said : "residents were told that if the election outcome was not favourable to ZANU-PF the price [of thestate-subsidised maize] would be increased." Official figures of voter turnout had not been released by the end of the week but in the Kadoma mayoral elections, held concurrently with rural district elections, the voter turnout was diabolical - just 9% (NINE PERCENT!) of registered voters had bothered.

Also, completely un-noticed by the state media in the sweltering heat this week was a protest held by members of the National Constitutional Assembly in Harare. 250 people were rounded up and arrested by baton wieldingpolice. There were many reports of people being beaten up. Chairman Lovemore Madhuku and two others were still being held days later.

It is hard to see light in such dark news from Zimbabwe but small things give relief - the voices of a million crickets that fill the night air; the calling of the cicadas clinging to Msasa trees during the hot days and the glimpses of a gorgeous plum coloured starling in the new canopies shading our gardens. Such beauty in such harshness. Because of this, and for this,we still have hope. Until next week, love cathy.

Copyright cathy buckle4th November 2006. http:/africantears.netfirms.comMy books: "African Tears" and "Beyond Tears" are available from:orders@africabookcentre.com